13 October, 2005

New Media Brands -Forbes

Forbes lists the fastest growing brands. This is a FAR more interesting list than the usual Coke and Mc Donalds. It's also indicative of the power of new media .. 7 out of 10 are new media brands!

1. Apple Over 400 million songs have been purchased at the iTunes store.

2. BlackBerry Users average a 53-minute-a-day productivity gain, says Research in Motion.

3. Google World's largest search engine sorts through 8 billion Web pages.

4. Amazon.com New service lets users pay $79 annually for unlimited shipping.

5. Yahoo New online music subscription service gives access to 1 million songs.

6. Ebay 150 million users are registered at the online auction site.

7. Red Bull Sponsors extreme-sports athletes and parties on college campuses.

8. Starbucks Opened four stores a day on average in 2004.

9. Pixar The Incredibles is the bestselling DVD of 2005 to date.

10. Coach Business in Japan now accounts for 22% of company sales.

via Emergic
Microformats -Emergic

Information is often the most useful in bite-sized pieces. Storing information in convenient, tidy bundles sometimes called microcontent is still uncommon but this is changing quickly. Indeed, Web 2.0 trends will only increase the popularity of microformats that support discrete bits of lightly formatted information. This is one reason why Web 2.0 concepts strongly encourage small pieces, loosely joined: Monolithic specifications generally make for information that's trapped inert behind large, hard to consume, and brittle walls of formatting. Microformats seek to add just enough structure to make the information easy to create and use as well as eminently repurposable.

One example of microformat is the REL attribute in anchor tags, so that your relationships with those you link to on the Web can be provided.
MS, Yahoo to link message services -Economic Times

Microsoft and Yahoo are preparing to link together their free instant messaging services as they take on entrenched messaging leader AOL and market newcomer Google. The deal, the first major alliance between two of the Web's main providers of instant messaging, will allow users of Microsoft's MSN Messenger service and Yahoo Messenger to swap instantaneous text messages with each other.

09 October, 2005

Google Playing Mind Games -Emergic

Google wants to provide the means of getting to the information and create its own kind of lock-in over time, just as IBM and Microsoft did in their day. As Google releases more technologies for creating, storing and accessing information, the company's products and services grow stickier. How sticky they will eventually become will depend on a number of factors, including Google's execution and the response of companies like Microsoft.

Google is engaging in some misdirection, clearly aimed at Microsoft. I believe the Google folks are smart enough to recognize that when Microsoft fixates on a competitor the corporate personality becomes obsession. Google can lead Microsoft all over the place, with the software giant chasing the search/information company like a dog being led after a bone. Google can't be everywhere, even if information might seem to be everywhere. But the company can appear to be interested in everything and cause Microsoft to waste resources, be distracted chasing Google, while the rival executes brilliantly where the Redmond folks aren't looking.

04 October, 2005

Coming soon: Mobiles for the masses (Rs.1000 only) -Times of India

The mobile industry today is excited not just by the fact that over 2 million new mobile users are being added to the network, but more so because the entire network today covers only 20% of India. The 63 million plus mobile subscribers are a minuscule group when compared to what will happen when networks span out. Out of 6000 towns, only 3000 are covered today; out of 6 lakh villages, only 50,000 have mobile phone access. In a country of a billion plus, such coverage gaps mean immense opportunity.

So, apart from asking what else you will do with your phone today use it as a computer, a jukebox, a television—the industry has realised that there are millions of new users who may want to put a mobile to use quite differently. To start with, the new population may be largely technophobic. Just like us, who were unsure of sinking money into a gadget we didn’t know would be useful beyond voice calls when we first stumbled upon them. The challenge the industry is facing is to bring this population into the network in order to achieve its goal of bringing 200 million (roughly one fourth of the population) under mobile telephony by 2007.

All of a sudden, there is a spurt of announcements from the likes of Motorola and Philips that they are making low-cost handsets for emerging markets including India. Technology has shown that a feature rich mobile phone can be produced and sold for as low as Rs 1,000 in the Indian market.

03 October, 2005

Beware of fake Google, MSN & Yahoo websites and toolbars ! -Economic Times

People with infected machines who try to visit those popular search sites are redirected to spoof versions. The spoof sites serve up bogus search results intended to generate traffic and revenue for other sites that are presumed to be in on the scheme. This is a business, this is organized crime. People are making money on it.

Machines can become infected with the programme, called PremiumSearch, when visiting Web sites that distribute pirated software and pornography. The programme also installs a fake Google toolbar that similarly interferes with results.