Chennai based Eduraft wants to be the Zomato for schools and tuitions

If you are looking to get a school admission for your child, or find a tuition teacher, Eduraft might be just the site you are looking for. The angel backed startup,  launched by three people from different backgrounds, wants to be the Zomato for schools and tuitions.

Eduraft lets you use filters like “co-educational” or “CBSE” to narrow down your search based on localities. It also has review section and a place where you can compare different schools, like you would compare gadgets on e-commerce sites.

The feature to compare schools is particularly useful as it covers crucial aspects of a school such as the student teacher ratio and the infrastructure provided by the school.

EduRaft’s school information portal presently covers schools in Chennai and Mumbai and will have information from Bangalore and Delhi. All the information on the site is free and it also offers assistance to parents who want to zero in on a school on a paid basis.

Assisted school search helps parents find the right school for their children taking the burden of short listing based on their requirements and tracking admission processes. “We also help them through the application process,” said Thirukumaran Nagarajan, one of the three co-founders of the startup. Eduraft recently raised Rs 33 lakh from Angel investors.

It also has a paid listing where service providers like tuition centers can list their offerings on the site. “We will have Bangalore by mid of February and by March- April, we plan to launch in Delhi for schools,” said Nagarajan, an Electrical engineer who studied management at Indian Institute of Management- Kozhikode and worked at places such as Axis bank and Aavishkar.

“At Axis bank, I used to hear people talking of schools all the time. And later, we saw companies like Zomato
doing the same with Food. People said why isn’t there something like this for schools,” said Nagarajan who then teamed up with Aarthi Ramasubramanian and Sharath Loganathan to launch the service.

“For tutions, we are in Chennai right now. We are opening an office in Mumbai by April. We are also launching a forum for parents where their questions will be answered by experts,” said Nagarajan who learned PHP, JQuery and programming to create the first version of Eduraft.

Other co-founders, Aarthi and Sharat handle the Schools and tuitions verticals respectively.

Related posts:

1. SchoolMate secures funding from Chennai Fund
2. Delhi based startup launches SAAS based CCE compliance software, CCESoft for CBSE schools
3. Top Business Schools (Worldwide)

Link to full article

Read More

iPhone no longer cool in key Asian cities, Android on the rise

The iPhone may have lost its luster in Asia, at least in key “trend-setting” cities, according to a Reuters report. Consumers in these cities are experiencing a so-called iPhone fatigue, and are driven to switch to other brands and platforms.

This effect is due, in part, to consumers’ “desire to be different” and because of the wide selection of smartphone alternatives. Chief among these is the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 — which is actually a “phablet” or superphone — which offers a mix in convenience and portability between a smartphone and tablet.

For some, it’s a matter of standing out from the crowd, but some cite benefits of Android devices, like bigger screens, as a big draw for Android devices. And with cross-platform apps making it easy to switch between platforms without losing data, users have an easier choice, and are not constrained from switching.

According to traffic measurements from StatCounter, iOS use in Singapore — which includes the iPhone and iPad — fell from a peak of 72% in January 2012 to 50% this month. Meanwhile, Android rose from 20% to 43% in the same period. In Hong Kong, the iPhone used to have a 45% market share, but this has dwindled to 30%.

Apple remains to be a top brand, though. “Apple is still viewed as a prestigious brand, but there are just so many other cool smartphones out there now that the competition is just much stiffer,” said Tom Clayton, CEO of Singapore-based Bubble Motion, which has developed a social media app and voice blogging service called Bubbly.

This trend has encouraged bill-splitting app BillPin to diversifying into Android. While co-founder Aileen Sim says the startup initially planned to launch only on iOS, the rising popularity of Android compelled the team to build for this platform, too.

As for Singapore’s and Hong Kong’s relevance, the region looks to these two city-states for upcoming trends. “Singapore and Hong Kong tend to be, from an electronics perspective, leading indicators on what is going to be hot in Western Europe and North America, as well as what is going to take off in the region,” says Jim Wagstaff, who runs enterprise app development firm Jam Factory.

But with Android on the rise, how soon will the region’s love affair for Google’s ecosystem last, until we experience a similar “fatigue” and rally back to competing platforms like iOS, or even Windows Phone and the upcoming BlackBerry 10?

Featured image credits: Tech Wire Asia

The post iPhone no longer cool in key Asian cities, Android on the rise appeared first on e27.

Link to full article

Read More

App Quipio beautifies your memes, nicely mixes Twitter and Instagram

Launched by a 5 member team (out of which 3 are Indians), Quipio is a very interesting app that makes sharing thoughts and moments with people fun.

Actually, Quipio (available only on iOS) nicely marries Twitter and Instagram – 4 days on the app store and Quipio has seen over 10K+ downloads, 3.1K Quips created and 9.3K shares to social media, sms, email and photo-libs.

The key difference between Quipio and other “Text-on-Picture” apps is that it does most of the work for you. You type in whatever you want to say (like a tweet) and then Quipio goes to work figuring out the best fonts, textures, layouts and style options that would work with it.

Also, the app lets you take a picture in advance and then write in the actual Quip. And you can associate photo lib pictures and pictures discovered via Image Search (offensive results are filtered).

What’s interesting about the app is that it works effortlessly and importantly, you don’t realize what it is unless you start using it! That is, it starts to understand what kind of designs you like once you start sharing your taste and almost gets you a ‘serendipity moment’.

Cofounders of the company include Zubin Wadia (attended Singularity University) and Harshit Surana, who is an expert in NLP and Linguistic Analysis.

Do give the app a quip and share your comements.

Related posts:

1. Imsy : A Cross platform messaging app that nicely mixes messaging and content
2. Startup CrawlFish nicely mixes price comparison and offline buying behavior, launches in Chennai
3. Lifeblob’s New Release Lets You Explore Connections Using Pictures

Link to full article

Read More

[Event] Tech in Asia Meetup: 10 Mobile Marketing Tips

Last Thursday evening marked the very beginning of our series of Tech in Asia Meetups. Held at the Microsoft auditorium in Singapore, we were extremely pleased to have Rico Wyder from Fiksu to share with our participants ten useful mobile application marketing tips that could help mobile app companies or developers to achieve more quality app downloads and outstanding marketing returns on investment.

Rico kicked off the evening by providing an overview (see the video below) of the various opportunities and barriers in the existing mobile app market. In 2012 alone, there was tremendous growth as mobile apps and advertising hit US$19 billion in revenue. It is expected to reach $46 billion in about three to four years. There are approximately 1.4 million apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play platforms, with an average iOS device user having more than 100 apps. However, most of the revenue is going to big companies, with more than 50 percent of the app store revenues controlled by the top 25 developers.

In this scenario, app marketers have to ask themselves: What can we do to stand out from our competitors and gain loyal users while ensuring cost effectiveness with full accountability and insight?

Here are the 10 tips for global user acquisition that Rico shared with the attendees at our event:

1. Maximize organic lift through optimal rank
2. Balance incentivized and non-incentivized sources
3. Incorporate vast global media inventory
4. Centralize your media buying
5. Optimize on post-download events based on your loyal users
6. Integrate attribution with optimization
7. Learn from the past
8. Unite all metrics in one place
9. Take advantage of real-time bidding
10. Take advantage of holidays and the launches of new devices

For readers who missed our first meetup, or attendees who would like to watch Rico’s insightful presentation once more, check out the video here:

We would also like to thank our participants for attending our first meetup and contributing to its success, and especially friends who have travelled from as far afield as Malaysia and Vietnam!

We look forward to meeting our Jakarta friends on the 21st of February for the next meetup, which was delayed somewhat by the Jakarta floods back in mid-January. See you next time!

The post [Event] Tech in Asia Meetup: 10 Mobile Marketing Tips appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More

Top LINE social games reach 30 million downloads

LINE is on a roll. After the Japan-based cross-platform messaging application reached the 100 million user mark, the startup is now reporting that its top games have reached a cumulative 30 million download count.

Casual games are popular among mobile phone users, and the added social dimension helps in popularizing mobile game apps. Line’s two top games, for instance — Line Pop and Line Bubble — have reportedly reached 30 million downloads. Line Pop reached 20 million in 58 days, while Line Bubble — which plays like Bust-a-Move — reached 10 million in 28 days.

The Next Web notes that Line’s business model is very appropriate for its regional audience, in which the concept of “stickers” is very popular. As such, Line rewards users who download apps with freebies like stickers, which can be used to exchange with fellow Line users in chat messages.

Going beyond stickers, though, Line has reportedly sold $1 million in virtual goods just 12 days within the launch of Line Pop (and yes, stickers included). As with other LINE games, these two applications are separate downloads from the main LINE application itself, although users connect with each other through LINE’s Channel feature. This is in contrast to other cross-platform apps like Kakao Talk, which have dedicated gaming centers.

Apart from Line Pop and Line Bubble, LINE says more than 70 million Channel apps have been downloaded. Of course, one of LINE’s bigger competitors today would be Facebook, whose standalone Messenger app recently got a VoIP upgrade. LINE also competes with Tencent’s WeChat, which has over 300 million users. Regional IM startups are competing on functionality, though, and LINE’s gaming channel can be one means of keeping its users more engaged and interested.

LINE is available on multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Windows and OS X.

The post Top LINE social games reach 30 million downloads appeared first on e27.

Link to full article

Read More

Report: China’s Regulators Contemplating End to Gaming Consoles Ban

My gaming fanatic colleague Charlie just sent me an email at midnight in his timezone (he’s in the US), so either it’s a drunken missive or it’s big news. Turns out it’s the latter. That’s because Chinese government sources have told the China Daily that “authorities are reviewing a decade-long ban on game consoles and considering the possibility of opening up the country’s video game hardware market.”

Banned since 2000 on the grounds of “the potential harm” to children, gaming consoles like the PS3, PSP, Wii, and XBox have nonetheless long been available in China via the so-called gray import market (along with a huge range of pirated games). But they cannot be sold in major electronics stores, and are instead sold by random vendors in large gadget malls all over the country.

An end to the gaming console ban would be a boost, in theory, to manufacturers such as Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. But that’s presuming Chinese consumers would be willing to pay around US$40 for games, which is a hefty amount equivalent to more than a day’s wages even for some of China’s urban middle classes. Plus, the pirated console games generally cost just 10 RMB ($1.60). Without a viable market for genuine games, the console industry might not even be sustainable in China, especially not at a time when iPads and Android tablets bring access to quality games on a fairly big screen for prices ranging from $1 to $10.

Recent estimates suggest that about 1.7 million grey-market consoles are sold in China each year.

An anonymous source within China’s Ministry of Culture told the paper:

We are reviewing the policy and have conducted some surveys and held discussions with other ministries on the possibility of opening up the game console market. However, since the ban was issued by seven ministries more than a decade ago, we will need approval from all parties to lift it.

China has a homegrown contender in this market in the shape of the don’t-call-it-a-games-console Eedoo CT-510, which has had a muted reception due to its $600 price tag.

Earlier signs of the ban ending emerged a few months ago when Sony’s Playstation 3 received its China safety certificate.

(Source: China Daily)

The post Report: China’s Regulators Contemplating End to Gaming Consoles Ban appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More

Still Not Killed Off by Apple, China’s Jailbreak-Free App Piracy Service is Going Global

KuaiYong’s English-language PC app, a sort of Pirate Bay version of iTunes, is coming soon.

Earlier this month we looked at KuaiYong, a rogue app store that allows iPhone and iPad users to install pirated apps without needing a jailbreak. Far from being shut down by Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), the KuaiYong team has announced that it’s going global and will soon launch its knock-off iTunes replacement app in English.

We contacted KuaiYong both via email and their Sina Weibo page last week, and have yet to receive a response.

KuaiYong’s announcement also spells out its raison d’etre, saying that with its PC app it’s trying to solve the issue of many people, especially in China, being “not very familiar with the iTunes system and how to effectively manage it.” Without saying the word “piracy” at any point, the team adds:

In order for Chinese Apple fans to download applications securely, KuaiYong developed its own method of giving users access to thousands of free apps without having to jailbreak their devices. KuaiYong offers detailed descriptions of apps, free app download trial, iOS device management, and visual and audio file backup system. iOS system backup and recovery features will also be released in the very near future.

Our goal has always been about bringing Chinese Apple users with quick, convenient and pleasant iOS experience. Since the introduce of KuaiYong, the proportion of jailbreak in China has declined dramatically from 60 percent to around 30 percent. KuaiYong will hold on to this goal in the future and we would like to see more support for Apple as well as KuaiYong.

Of course, that decline in jailbreaking is not entirely down to KuaiYong. Perhaps more consumers in China are purchasing apps legitimately, and the increasing difficulty in finding iOS 6.0 jailbreaks is pushing people away from a jailbreak as an option. Maybe some of those are sick of not being able to customize their phones and have switched to Android. It’s hard to tell.

Whatever the reason, KuaiYong is intent on taking its piracy-oriented app worldwide, setting itself up for an inevitable clash, at some point, with Apple.

The iTunes App store supports payments in the local currency in China, and makes it easy to do so by supporting an array of local bank cards. If someone doesn’t fancy using the iTunes app on their PC, they could still use a replacement syncing app – such as Tencent’s ‘App Assistant for iPhone’ – and continue to purchase paid iOS apps on their phone. So KuaiYong is trying to legitimize itself by appearing to be solving a major problem, when there are already a number of adequate solutions out there already.

The post Still Not Killed Off by Apple, China’s Jailbreak-Free App Piracy Service is Going Global appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More

After Being Unblocked in China, Github Suffers Attack on Site’s HTTPS Certificate

Chrome browser detects that something is wrong with Github’s security certificate.

After the social coding site Github got blocked and then unblocked in China last week, there was a new scare for its users over the weekend. For a few hours, Github visitors based in China, according to the GreatFire blog, “suffered a man in the middle attack” whereby the site’s proper HTTPS security certificate was replaced by a dubious, self-signed one. It’s not clear who perpetrated it. Visitors were greeted by the warning pictured above.

The blog warns that this kind of presumed attack “signifies HTTPS might no longer be safe in China.”

See the full technical details and discussion on Ycombinator.

(Image via @GreatFireChina on Twitter)

The post After Being Unblocked in China, Github Suffers Attack on Site’s HTTPS Certificate appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More

LoveByte launches Android app, staying out of Korea and Japan for now

Shortly after Korea-based couple app Between announced their KRW3 billion funding, Singapore based LoveByte launches their long-awaited Android app.

Launched back in July last year, LoveByte has been downloaded more than 40,000 times. The couple focused app also recently secured their seed funding from Crystal Horse Investment Ventures along with Ruvento Ventures. Together with investors’ support,  the funding round has helped LoveByte accelerate its development of the Android version.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day and the launch of the Android version with their fans, LoveByte also took this opportunity to partner AsiaFashionInc.com for their upcoming Valentine’s Day Campaign. Prizes include a S$200 voucher sponsored by AsiaFashionInc.com so do keep a lookout for the Instagram photo campaign which will be launched on February 1st.

Read also: 4 startups hook up to spice up love in Singapore

What makes users hang around LoveByte? Co-founder Steve Sng thinks that its the cute design of LoveByte. Steve told us that many LoveByte users took screenshots of their profile page and share them on popular photo sharing app Instagram. Other than that, the scratchcard feature which suggest activities for couples are often mentioned as well as one of the most liked feature of LoveByte.

Founder Steve worries about engineering talent in Singapore

“There is a worrying lack of engineering talent in Singapore who want to work in startups. Despite our modest early succes, we found it hard to find good Android and iOS developers in Singapore. Also, there aren’t many senior engineers who have the experience in scaling system. While we can still find good Android and iOS developers from nearby countries, it’s almost mission impossible to lure those rare scalability experts who only work in big MNCs. Still, we are able to manage the scalability challenge so far with the help of the Amazon Web Services team in Singapore.”

Read also: Singapore, where has all your talent gone?

Between funding means no Korea and Japan for the moment

Of course, we also spoke to Steve on his thoughts behind Between’s recent funding round.

“Between’s funding is important for us; US$3m is not big enough for them to compete in so many countries but it is big enough to prove that couple apps are not just angel investors’ fantasy. I expect more second round funding for couple apps to follow soon.

Competition with Between is inevitable now but we will try to avoid competing with them head-on. So that means no Korea and Japan for the moment. But we will compete with them in other countries where they are not deeply established yet. Also, innovation will continue to play a huge part in our competitive strategy. I think Between has an amazing marketing and engineering achievement. It’s not easy to scale to 900,000 monthly active users without bogging down the system. But product-wise, I think Pair and Avocado from US are more innovative and specialized for couples. Similarly, LoveByte has features such as scratchcards and gender-based stickers that make it more like a couple app and less like any other chat or photo-sharing app. We will continue to make LoveByte more special for couples.”

 

The post LoveByte launches Android app, staying out of Korea and Japan for now appeared first on e27.

Link to full article

Read More

RIM: Blackberry 10 Hits Singapore on February 21

RIM’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) long-awaited and much-needed OS revamp, Blackberry 10, will be unveiled in new hardware in just two days’ time. The company has just revealed that the new Blackberry 10 phones will hit Singapore on February 21st. That’s all that’s being said for now.

The post RIM: Blackberry 10 Hits Singapore on February 21 appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Link to full article

Read More