Makkad G's 10101
1nformation 0n 1ndian 0nline 1ndustry
(Beta…, Beti, Bhai, Behen. Every1's invited!)
Version 02.12
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Hello,
Here's your issue of Makkad G's 10101 for June 16–30, 2008.
Happy Reading!
Makkad G
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Talk of the Town
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Virtual Marketing (Hungama.com) in talks to sell minority stake
Virtual Marketing India Ltd is in talks with Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Kishore Biyani's Indivision and Standard Chartered Private Equity to sell a minority stake for $40 million (around Rs 170 crore). The company's valuation has been pegged at Rs 800 crore.
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RBI issues guidelines for mobile payments
Reserve Bank of India has issued draft operating guidelines that aim to facilitate fund transfer through mobile phones across networks and service providers. The central bank has permitted the use of SMS-based mobile payments for small transactions up to Rs 1,500 in its draft.
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ThatsCricket.com to offer live cricket scores in 5 Indian languages
ThatsCricket.com, the cricket portal of OneIndia.in users would be able to see live cricket scores coverage in five Indian languages -- Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu, besides English whenever there is a cricket match in progress.
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FutureBazaar to partner with logistics service company Aramex
FutureBazaar.com is all set to partner with Aramex, a Dubai-based logistics service company, which will help the e-commerce company deliver goods to over 12,000 destinations in India.
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Jivox raises $10.7 million from Opus Capital, Helion Venture
US-based online video ad company Jivox, which helps small businesses to create, target and deliver online video ads, has closed a $10.7 million Series A round of funding led by Opus Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm. Helion Venture Partners, an India-focused venture fund, also participated in the round, along with Jivox's existing investors.
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MagicBricks property show in Hyderabad nets Rs 10 crore
Real estate portal MagicBricks.com has said its two-day property fair organised on 14th and 15th June 2008 in Hyderabad witnessed the participation of over 5,000 home seekers who conducted business of over Rs 10 crore.
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LinkedIn raises $53 million in funding led by Bain Capital
Professional networking site LinkedIn has raised $53 million in the fourth round of funding led by Bain Capital Ventures with participation from LinkedIn's existing investors Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Bessemer Ventures. LinkedIn had previously raised $27 million. The investment of $53 million by its partners values the company at over $1 billion.
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Tencent to acquire 50% stake in MIH India (Ibibo) for $7.5 million
MIH India (Ibibo.com) has entered into an agreement to divest about 50 per cent stake to China-based Tencent Holdings. Tencent, in turn, will invest at least $7.5 million in MIH India over a period of three years.
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PayMate plans to partner with IRCTC for railway tickets booking
Mobile payment company PayMate India, which recently raised $9 million in a second round of funding which took the total funding received by the company till date to $14 million, is planning to partner with IRCTC (which runs Indian Railways' online passenger reservation site IRCTC.co.in) for railway tickets booking. It also plans to increase its visibility in Sri Lanka and Nepal and is looking to enter the Middle-East
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MagicBricks to organise property fair in Kuwait on 20-21 Jun 2008
Real estate portal MagicBricks.com will host a property fair in Kuwait on 20th and 21st June 2008. India Property Show, Kuwait is aimed at NRIs (non-resident Indians) and PIOs (person of Indian origin) who are planning to return to their homeland or invest in real estate in India.
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Firefox 3 available in Gujarati and Punjabi, but not in Hindi
Open source web browser Firefox 3, which was recently launched by Mozilla, is available in more than 45 languages including Gujarati and Punjabi. However, the absence of Hindi as one of the languages is most surprising considering that Gujarati and Punjabi have made the cut, reports DNA.
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TimesJobs job fair in Pune witnessed 27,540 walk-ins
TimesJobs.com has said its two-day job fair organised on 14th and 15th June 2008 in Pune witnessed the participation of over 27,540 jobseekers of whom 1,240 received spot offers and 2,650 candidates were shortlisted by companies for interviews.
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Firefox 3 sets record with 8 million downloads in 24 hours
Firefox, the second most popular web browser in the world after Microsoft's Internet Explorer, claims to have set a world record after the latest version of the web browser was downloaded more than eight million times in first 24 hours of its launch.
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Rediff invests in SMS content sharing site Vakow.com
Rediff.com has invested an undisclosed amount in Vakow.com that allows users to post their SMSes on its website and share them with their friends through phone, email or various social networking sites. Vakow was launched by IIT Bombay alumni Rahul Gupta and Amit Upadhyay in October 2007.
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Classifieds website Kijiji India renamed as Quikr.com
Kijiji India which runs a classifieds website Kijiji.in has been re-named as Quikr.com. The new name Quikr captures the simplicity of use and features the website is built on.
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Nokia plans to offer internet based services for rural India
Mobile phone maker Nokia plans to offer internet based services in micro-finance, distribution and agricultural information for the people living in rural India. The company is already in talks with mobile operators and content providers in India to take its internet services brand Ovi to more number of cities in the country.
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LaunchPad-Just Born Online (I just love the Betas!)
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Nautanki.tv to rate online videos, ads shown on its network
Online video channel Nautanki.tv has introduced a video rating system called Online Video Rating Points to judge the popularity of the video content and pre-roll or post-roll ads that run on its network.
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LootStreet.com allows users to bargain before they buy or sell products
Hyderabad-based startup AKVenture Info has launched LootStreet.com that allows users to bargain before they actually buy or sell products on the site. The website accepts payments in the form of demand drafts, debit cards, bank transfers and PayPal.
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KheloStocks.com seeks to help investors learn stocks trading skills at zero risk
Three IIT Delhi graduates Akhil Bansal, Sameer Gandhi and Vivek Goel have launched KheloStocks.com that aims to help budding investors experience the dynamics of real time stocks trading at 'zero risk and zero cost basis'.
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Tyroo Media launches cricket channel
Online ad network Tyroo Media has launched a cricket channel whose inventory includes CricketNirvana.com (Neo Sports), KrishCricket.com (online initiative of ex-cricketer Krish Shreekant), vCricket.com, CricBuzz.com, ZeeCric.com along with cricket channels of Sify, OneIndia and ExpressIndia.
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123Greetings.com launches e-card application for Orkut users
123Greetings.com has launched an e-card application that allows users of Google-owned social networking site Orkut to send e-greetings to their friends and see what cards other people in their network have sent. The e-card application is already live on Bebo, Facebook, MySpace and Friendster.
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Yahoo launches localized version of Yahoo Go 3.0 for India
Yahoo has introduced localized versions of Yahoo Go 3.0 for India, Australia and Southeast Asia, including a local language version for Indonesia, and an English version of Yahoo oneSearch with voice that recognizes regional accents.
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Zee News launches 'masala' gossip site SpiceZee.com
Zee News has launched SpiceZee.com, which will feature news and views pertaining to glamour, entertainment and lifestyle.
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MySpace unveils new design to enhance user engagement
Social networking site MySpace has introduced a series of user interface changes that include the site's home page, navigation, profile editing, search and MySpaceTV player. The redesign is aimed at empowering the website's global community to more intuitively navigate throughout the site and better communicate with their family and friends around the world.
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Microsoft launches its 'Are You Ready for the Big Game?' campaign on mobile
Microsoft has partnered with mobile VAS (value added services) company Mobile2win to take its original software promotion campaign, 'Are You Ready for the Big Game?' on the mobile platform.
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Dailymotion launches video sharing site for Indian users
France-based video sharing site Dailymotion has entered India with the launch of Dailymotion.com/in that will offer localised as well as international content. The website allows users to upload videos of upto 20 minutes duration. But for select creative users, called MotionMakers, the file size is unlimited.
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Yahoo launches email domains ymail.com, rocketmail.com
Yahoo has launched two new email domains ymail.com and rocketmail.com which will offer the same Yahoo Mail experience, like unlimited storage, integrated instant messaging, free text messaging and localized versions around the world.
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Technorati launches ad network for blogs
US-based blog search engine Technorati has launched Technorati Media, a blog advertising network that will be open to large as well as small blogs and sell ads on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis.
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BigAdda launches mobile blogging service for Amitabh Bachchan
Reliance Entertainment's social networking site BigAdda.com, which counts Amitabh Bachchan as one of its bloggers, has introduced a mobile blogging service called MoBlog exclusively for Big B. The company also plans to make this service available for other users of BigAdda.
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Google Trends for Websites allows users to know how popular a website is
Google has launched Google Trends for Websites that allows users to know how popular a particular websites is, the countries where the website is most popular, the top related sites and search terms. The new service also compares and ranks website visitation across geographies, and related websites and searches.
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Cleartrip launches International Flight Search
Online travel company Cleartrip.com has launched International Flight Search, which would allow users "to search for flights from India to any of the world's destinations". Currently, users can only search for flights and not book them. The online booking facility is expected to be made available in the next few days.
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Youtopia.in launched to help companies create their own social networks
Online video channel Nautanki.tv has launched Youtopia.in that will enable companies to create their own social networking site. Youtopia is currently in alpha stage and access to the site is available through invitation only.
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SlideShare launches online contest to select 'best' PowerPoint presentation
SlideShare, which enables users to share PowerPoint presentations, has launched an online contest called World's Best Presentation Contest 2008. The contest is aimed at uncovering the Global Presentation Superheroes for 2008.
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Yatra.com enables customers to cancel domestic air tickets online
Travel portal Yatra.com has introduced Online Ticket Cancellation facility that will enable customers to cancel their domestic air tickets online. The new service also offers partial cancellation facility under which customers can cancel air ticket of a single passenger from a group ticket.
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Google launches Ad Planner tool for online media buyers
Google has launched Google Ad Planner that provides general traffic and demographic information for websites, including gender, age, education and household income. The new service is aimed at helping online media planners in selecting websites where they could place their ads to get maximum impact.
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Nexus-Link.Un.Link
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Aegis Media acquires strategic stake in search marketing firm Communicate 2
Aegis Media, $20-billion global communications group, has acquired a strategic stake in Mumbai-based search marketing and contextual advertising firm, Communicate 2. The partnership will enable Aegis Media to include search into the communication solutions from its media planning arm Carat in India and launch Isobar as the digital marketing solution for the Indian market.
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BCCL (The Times group) acquires stake in TravelChaCha.com
Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (The Times of India group) has acquired stake in New Delhi-based Culture Holiday, which owns a travel portal TravelChaCha.com. BCCL had earlier acquired 17 per cent stake in Bangalore-based Leisure & Lifestyle Information Services, which owns travel community portal HolidayIQ.com.
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Yahoo, Google to enable interoperability between Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk
Yahoo and Google have agreed to enable interoperability between Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk, their respective instant messaging services, bringing easier and broader communication to users. The agreement is part of a broader deal under which Yahoo will have an option to display Google ads alongside its own natural search results in US and Canada.
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One97 Communications appoints Sandeep Mirakhur as COO
Mobile value added services company One97 Communications has appointed Sandeep Mirakhur as chief operating officer. Prior to joining One97, Sandeep Mirakhur was chief marketing officer of Bharti Airtel's West Hub. In his new role, Mirakhur will lead the sales and business unit operations at One97.
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Yahoo ties-up with Idea Cellular to carry graphical ads on Idea network
Yahoo has partnered with Idea Cellular, a mobile phone operator in India, to carry a variety of graphical advertisements, sold and served by Yahoo. The new partnership with Idea Cellular is the result of continued collaborations to develop and enhance the mobile internet experience for consumers.
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Vdopia to serve video ads on ZoomTV.in
Video ad network Vdopia has entered into an advertising deal with ZoomTV.in, the website of Zoom TV channel, to procure and serve advertisements for ZoomTV.in's video partner network.
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Sify iWays to distribute GiftMate mobile gift vouchers
Mobile payment company PayMate India has partnered with broadband service provider Sify Technologies to make its GiftMate mobile gift vouchers available through 3,000 Sify iWay cyber cafes spread across 180 cities in the country.
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Sachin Vashishta joins ABP Digital as head of internet properties
ABP Digital, which own brands like BusinessWorld.in, TelegraphIndia.com, AnandaBazar.com and iLoveKolkata.in, has appointed Sachin Vashishta as head of internet properties.
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CrazyPricing Online Services acquires majority stake in CafeGadgets.in
Delhi-based consumer electronics retail chain CrazyPricing Online Services has acquired majority stake in CafeGadgets.in, a leading online retailer of gadgets and gizmos, for an undisclosed amount.
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MTV ties-up with MSN India to take its reality show MTV Splitsvilla online
MTV has partnered with MSN India to take its romance-drama reality show MTV Splitsvilla, in which 20 female contestants vie for the attention of two male contestants, online. Under the deal, MSN has created a site MSNIndia.com/Splitsvilla that features video clips, a contest and a blog.
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DailyMotion appoints Hungama Mobile as its strategic partner in India
France-based video sharing site DailyMotion.com, which recently launched its Indian operations, has appointed Hungama Mobile as its strategic partner in India. Under the deal, Hungama Mobile will advise DailyMotion on the companies with which it can forge an alliance with.
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Sulekha.com ties-up with CareerBuilder India to launch Premium jobs section
Social networking and classifieds site Sulekha.com has partnered with CareerBuilderIndia.com, an online job portal owned by US-based CareerBuilder.com, to launch its Premium Jobs section. Under the agreement, CareerBuilder India will provide job posting, resume posting and job search services for all the premium job prospects on Sulekha.com.
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Facebook signs $2 million ad campaign deal with credit card company Visa
Social networking site Facebook has signed an ad campaign deal worth $2 million with credit card company Visa. Under the deal, the credit card company will give $100 in advertising credit to each of the first 20,000 US businesses that download Visa Business Network.
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NDTV Imagine's TV serial Ramayan launched on BIGFlix.com
NDTV Imagine has partnered with Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group's movie rental service BIGFlix to make its TV serial Ramayan available on BIGFlix.com. NDTV now plans to launch some of its other popular TV shows on BIGFlix.
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CricInfo partners with Myntra to offer cricket merchandise
Cricket news and information site CricInfo.com has tied up with Myntra.com, an online platform for personalized merchandise, to allow its users buy cricket merchandise like T-shirt, coffee mug, mouse pad and poster.
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That's all for now folks!
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Makkad-G
