Makkad G's 10101: Makkad G's 10101 | 01.04

Makkad G's 10101
1nformation 0n 1ndian 0nline 1ndustry
(Beta…, Beti, Bhai, Behen. Every1's invited!)
Version 01.04

Hello!

To start with, an interesting section covering the conference on Digital Marketing: Life after RoI (organized by Internet and Mobile Association of India on 14 September in New Delhi) waits your eyeballs! Talk Of The Town, LaunchPad!, and Nexus-Link.Un.Link stay put as usual covering most of the key events in the Indian online industry.

Choco Time! (Kellogg's) and Morph Yourself! bring the fun part in this issue!

And finally, do visit the blog at http://makkadgs10101.blogspot.com/ for previous issues, and post comments and suggestions.

Happy Weekend!

Makkad G

1. Talk of the Town

AskLaila.com gets $10 million from Lightspeed Venture, SVB, Matrix Partners
Bangalore-based Four Interactive, which owns a local information search site AskLaila.com, has received $10 million (Rs 40 crore) in its second round of funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, SVB India Capital Partners and Matrix Partners India. Read More

Microsoft allows netizens to get customised domains for their email IDs
Microsoft India has launched CoolHotmail.com, a new service that allows users to choose customised domains for their email IDs, like rahul@underpaid.co.in or rekha@itsmychoice.in. Read More

Travelguru to provide customers tips on best place to stay in a city
Online travel portal Travelguru.com has launched a new service that allows travellers to call a specialist Travelguru employee, called Hotel Ka Guru, and seek information about hotel options available in a specific city. According to the company, the Hotel Ka Guru can also provide information about local activities, entertainment spots, eateries, must-see places, and the like. Read More

Zapak beats Google, Naukri to win award at Asia Brand Congress
Zapak Digital Entertainment Limited, which owns online gaming portal Zapak.com , has received an award, for its "excellent" work in brand building, under the Brand Leadership in internet business category at the Asia Brand Congress 2007, being held in Mumbai. Read More

Reffster.com to reward upto Rs 2,50,000 for successful job referral
Reffster.com, an online referral, reward-based recruitment service, is offering cash rewards of Rs 10,000 to Rs 2,50,000 to people if they use the site to successfully recommend a friend or colleague for a job. Reffster claims to list only premium mid and senior management openings. Read More

BigAdda.com claims to get 500,000 users
Reliance Entertainment, a part of the Reliance ADA group, has said its social networking site BigAdda.com has touched the user base of half a million users. Launched on August 13, 2007, BigAdda is targeting a user base of 10 million users by 2010. Read More

Video search engine SneakCast.com seeks VC funding
SneakCast Entertainment has launched a video search engine SneakCast.com. According to Utkarsh Sinha, founder and CTO, SneakCast, the search engine company is poised to take advantage of the booming streaming media market and the increasing broadband connections. Read More

Sabeer Bhatia thinks his new venture InstaColl has potential to be a Google
Sabeer Bhatia, the creator of Hotmail and president and CEO of the online travel company Arzoo.com, thinks his new venture InstaColl, which allows transfer of files of unlimited size from one computer to another, has the potential to be a Google. Read More

Indyarocks offers cash reward to its members for uploading videos
Social network Indyarocks.com has launched Social Money, a programme that offers cash rewards to the members whenever they send or receive an SMS through the social networking site and upload or view a video posted on the site. Read More

Google introduces Gadget Ads, AdSense for Mobile
Google has introduced two new ways — Google Gadget Ads and AdSense for Mobile — for advertisers to communicate with users. Google Gadget Ads provides non-traditional ad units with interactive, rich media capabilities that not only enable advertisers to target audiences in a flexible and timely manner via regular updates within the ad unit, but also allow users to engage with ad content in a way static ads haven't facilitated in the past. Read More

Yahoo India R&D brings Open Hack Day to Bangalore
Following the success of Open Hack Day in US and UK, Yahoo plans to hold another Open Hack Day in Bangalore on 5th and 6th October, 2007. Read More

dgm India hopes to break even before Mar 2008
Online advertising and marketing company dgm India, which launched its operations in June 2007, is looking at breaking even in the first quarter of 2008. Adrian Moss, founder and CEO of UK-based dgm Holdings, on a short visit to India, has said, "I went on a limb last time I was here, committing that we would break-even in India sometime early next year, and I am glad to report that before March 2008 we will indeed achieve that objective." Read More

2. IAMAI's Conference on Digital Marketing: Life after RoI

If internet has to grow rapidly, it should be marketed as a brand building medium
Internet and Mobile Association of India organised a conference on Digital Marketing: Life after RoI on 14 September in New Delhi. The first session of the conference, which discussed how to make decision makers take the internet more seriously as a medium of advertising, was moderated by R Sundar, president, Times Business Solution. Read More

Internet advertising is often at No. 10 priority for brand managers?
The second session of the IAMAI conference on Digital Marketing: Life after RoI, which discussed if there is room for creativity in the internet medium, was moderated by Adrian Moss, Group CEO, Deal Group Media. Read More

100 million broadband connections will make Internet the lead medium for brand building
The third session of the IAMAI conference on Digital Marketing: Life after RoI, which discussed the ways of building a brand through internet, was moderated by Jaspreet Bindra, country manager, online service business, Microsoft India. Read More

Digital media will always be small and inside?
The fourth session of the IAMAI conference on Digital Marketing: Life after RoI, which discussed what would it take to bring the digital medium to the forefront of media planning instead of relegating it to the "also ran" status, was moderated by Shashi Sinha, chief executive officer, Lodestar. Read More

SMBs should spend time on internet to understand the medium
The fifth and final session of the IAMAI conference on Digital Marketing: Life after RoI, which discussed how internet could help the marketing, brand building and promotional activities of SMBs, was moderated by Shailesh Rao, managing director, Google India. Read More

3. WebSight!-Spin the Web. Explore!

Stolen.in
J&K-based Say Technologies' stolen.in enables users in recovering their stolen vehicles. By registering the vehicle theft with them, the Website claims that they will put all the data pertaining to the stolen vehicle on the Internet which may help you find your lost love!

4. LaunchPad-Just Born Online (I just love the Betas!)

Government launches website to educate investors
Investor Education and Protection Fund (IFPF) has launched a website iepf.gov.in to promote awareness amongst investors and thus better prepare them to protect their interests.

OneIndia launches mobile version of its Indian language portals
OneIndia.in has launched .mobi sites in English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam to support mobile phone internet users. According to OneIndia, these WAP sites would offer news, classifieds, TV listing and theatre show timings in the four Indian languages, besides English.

Rediff launches online book shop Rediff Books
Rediff.com has launched an online book shop Rediff Books that allows users to search for books through its name, author's name and publications and buy them online. According to the company, Rediff Books would also carry reviews to help readers make their choice.

Dynamic Ads launched to enable marketers deliver customised messages
Technology-enabled media services company Exponential has launched Dynamic Ads, an advanced targeting service, through its Tribal Fusion ad network. According to the company, Dynamic Ads enables marketers to deliver customised, one-to-one marketing messages to consumers on a large scale.

Extramarks.com launched to help students score extra marks in exams
Noida-based start-up company Extramarks.com Education Pvt Ltd has launched Extramarks.com, an online educational support system that offers academic support to Indian students of classes VI to XII based on the NCERT syllabus.

Ericsson launches rural broadband project in Tamil Nadu
Ericsson has launched Gramjyoti Rural Broadband Project, an initiative to provide communities in rural India with high-speed internet services. The trial project, launched across 18 villages and 15 towns close to Chennai, will showcase the benefits of mobile broadband applications.

Zipazap.com launched to help users keep track of TV programmes
Mumbai-based Media E2E has launched Zipazap.com, a television and radio programming guide that allows users to keep track of programmes across TV and radio channels.

Google launches competition for computer science students in India
Google has launched Product Prodigy, a competition that allows teams of computer science students in India to build products that can be deployed for internet users globally.

Komli launches "innovative" advertising solution Search RePlay
Online ad network Komli has launched Search RePlay, an "innovative" solution that retargets users with the advertisers' ads on Komli's display network once the user has already clicked on the advertiser's search ad.

Rediff.com introduces web-messenger in Rediffmail
Rediff.com has integrated web messenger into Rediffmail. The integration will allow Rediffmail users to chat in real-time with not only their Rediff Bol (instant messenger) friends but with all their Rediffmail contacts stored in the web mail.

Zee Network's DMCL launches Page3flicks.com
Zee Network's Digital Media Convergence Limited has launched a page 3 format website Page3flicks.com that will have gossips and photographs from the most happening parties in town. "Our focus will be on uploading pictures from parties as early as 20 minutes from the time that they get over," Satyabrata Das of DMCL has said.

5. Nexus-Link.Un.Link

99acres.com announces strategic partnership with Properazzi.com
Real estate portal 99acres.com has announced a traffic partnership with Properazzi.com, a property search engine and a leading property portal in Europe that hosts 4 million properties, of 49 countries, in 32 languages.

AOL portal, toolbar and search to come preloaded on HP PCs
AOL has signed an agreement with HP to offer co-branded, localized versions of its portal, toolbar and search on HP desktop and notebook PCs sold worldwide. Under the agreement, the co-branded portal will be set as the default homepage, and the co-branded toolbar and search will be default settings in various countries worldwide.

Cleartrip to make its travel products available on EMIs
Online travel company Cleartrip.com has joined hands with the Kishore Biyani promoted Future Money, a non-banking finance company, to provide finance on an equated monthly installment (EMIs) basis to people wanting to buy its travel products, including air tickets, hotel bookings and tour packages.

HT Media's mobile head Manav Khosla joins Reuters India
Manav Khosla has joined Reuters India as the mobile lead for consumer media. Prior to joining Reuters India, Khosla was business head, HT Mobile at HT Media Ltd.

6. WOW-Worth 'O' Watch!

Choco Time!