Facebook is trying to lure sceptical advertisers in India with features such as free email support for questions about advertising and advice on increasing sales in a bid to boost revenue from its second biggest market. Facebook has 132 million users in India, trailing only the 193 million in the United States, according to the company, and the country is critical for the Menlo Park, California, social network's global expansion. But so far, the payoff has been small: Facebook earns 15 cents per user in India every quarter, compared to the $7 to $8 it makes on each US user, according to analysts. Facebook does not break out its revenues in India, but Neil Shah, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, a Hong Kong-based technology consulting firm, estimates it brings in $15 million a quarter, far behind the $350 million he estimates Google earns there per quarter. Google, which set up in India in 2004, has been in the Indian market six years longer than Facebook, and its search ads are more familiar to advertisers there than the display ads Facebook offers. The business-boosting features, described to Reuters by company executives and Indian business people, are aimed at advertisers such as Mohit Khattar, managing director at online grocery company Godrej Nature's Basket, one of the roughly 60 to 65 million small- and medium-sized businesses in the country. He said he began advertising on Facebook about two months ago as the company ramped up its online presence. He found that advertising in-store events and sales helped attract customers, but would not provide specific figures. "Since our customers are on Facebook, we are on Facebook. It's that simple," Khattar said. Facebook declined to say how many staff members it has in India or how much it has invested since it launched operations there in 2010. But the world's largest social network says it has seen early signs its efforts are working. The company unveiled a new type of ad designed specifically for India last year, called "click to missed call." Users click a button on an ad, which automatically calls an advertiser. The user hangs up — to save them the charge for the call — and the advertiser calls back with a pre-recorded message. Garnier Men, a leading men's hair care company in India and a unit of beauty products giant L'Oreal SA, saw online sales more than double by using click to missed call, according to Facebook and the company. TV ADSBut Indian advertisers still overwhelmingly flock to television ads and remain skeptical of the value of advertising on social media, analysts and business executives said. "Advertisers in India are not warmed enough to social media as a concept of marketing," said Shah, the Counterpoint analyst. "We really need to help them see how Facebook pages and advertising will help grow their businesses," said Andy Hwang, Facebook director of small- and medium-sized businesses for Asia Pacific. For instance, the company advises businesses to create interactive Facebook pages and use Facebook Messenger to interact with customers as a way of increasing sales. Technology companies have turned to India and other markets in Asia for growth because the region contains two-thirds of the world's population. Asia is Facebook's fastest-growing region, with 57 percent year-over-year growth in monthly active users. India alone has 1.3 billion people, second only to China, and Facebook increased the number of users there by 22 per cent last year. On the other hand, only 252 million people in India have Internet access. Expansion in India is also important because of the "China factor." Facebook, like Google Inc and Twitter Inc, is shut out of the biggest market of all due to the Communist government's concerns over control of information. Other tech companies, such as eBay and Yahoo, have struggled to crack the Chinese market. Getting more Indian users "drives success, or at least the perception of success," said Jaideep Mehta, vice president and general manager for International Data Corporation Southeast Asia. Facebook said it plans to use its strategy in India for other emerging markets such as Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico, which are Facebook's third-, fourth- and fifth-largest markets by users. That makes success in India even more important for its global expansion. For the second quarter of this year, 51.3 per cent of Facebook's $4 billion in revenue came from outside the US and Canada. In addition to efforts to attract more Indian advertisers, Facebook is working to make it easier for users to get on the service. More than 90 per cent of Facebook's Indian users access it through mobile phones, but the Facebook app uses more data than most are able to pay for and Internet connections can be patchy. So the social giant developed Facebook Lite, which uses less data, for India and other emerging markets. It has also rolled out its Internet.org initiative in India, a program started in August 2013 that aims to connect the two-thirds of the world without Internet access. Many of India's advertising dollars are in rural and semi-urban cities, analysts said, where users do not have a reliable Internet connection. Facebook is also getting help from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which uses Facebook to provide updates on the government's workings. "It is undeniable that a pro-social media government is good for the industry," Mehta said.(Reuters)
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A sound technology company, Fenda Audio India (F&D Audio), has launched its latest product F550X 2.1 Bluetooth speaker (priced Rs 4,290). The F550X comes with 6.5 inch bass driver for subwoofer which provides superior audio quality and reduces noise.Rajesh Bansal, Director, Fenda Audio said, "The devices can play everything on anything, the speakers come with all the latest technologies like NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, Aux, Plays USB/SD cards, FM, and can play any format."F&D since its inception in 2006 has been setting up benchmarks with its products in sound technology including mini/portable speakers, multimedia speaker system, soundbars, docking station and portable speakers. F&D currently holds 32 per cent of the current markets shareThe speakers are available at all leading retail stores and e-commerce portals.(BW Online Bureau)
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Over the last couple of months a few strange things have happened. My unassuming primary teacher Tweets her radical views. My grandma joins Facebook (sends me a "Friend Request") and uses Messenger to reach out to me. My granddad posts some very interesting statuses and sometimes fascinating short stories online. My dad sends me a LinkedIn Invite to join his "Professional Network". And my mum… what can I say? My mum is redefining the social order by being a generation younger. She's always up to speed with the latest innovations and has Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the likes on her finger tips (yes, quite literally). Way cooler than me. These developments largely got me thinking.Technology has reshaped and redefined the way we live, we think or we look at things. Who would have imagined that an aged biblical reference of a civilisational and theological distinction in human era, defined by the birth of Jesus (the messiah of God), the AD and BC, would be over powered with the birth of a modern messiah (read Messenger), that's created a global system (G-Sys), that divides time into two distinct periods. Online and offline.And like these extraordinary times, our lives have also been split into two and we are often faced with this stark duality. Real Vs. virtual.We have all been caught in between this duality in some form, by choice or by construct, and are still coping, as a species, to fully comprehend its repercussions. We have all been in a situation where our closest friends or family members obsess over online social networking semantics and we instantly realise its ludicrousness.How often have you spent time craftily word-smithing a Facebook status, where the choicest words, use of punctuations or lack off and tonality determine the number of "Likes" or "Comments" you'd get? How many times have you typed and re-typed the same comment before actually hitting 'Post'? How many times have you logged back on to a social media platform to see the number of "Likes"? How many times have we all done the same?The answer, either way, is irrelevant. The question is what does this mean?In an age where the populace spends significant amount of time getting their virtual and online etiquette right, where people spend hours ensuring their Instagram pictures look artsy, where Tweets need to be offbeat, disruptive and provocative to create a stir; where the entire premise of the number of "Likes" determines a strong correlation with one's popularity, likeability and how many "Friends" they have; where friends are made through a digital footprint; where realism is disappearing into the virtual world, we need to be cautious. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting for a second to curb the use of technology or police it; not at all. But why can't we add an element of realism into our virtual lives.In a need to satisfy the virtual quest, are we missing out on the real? Have we started spending more time on our holidays through the lenses of our smart phones and tablets and less through our real eyes (the ones we were born with)? Have we spent way too much time applying filters to make the good look better and in that process lost out on seeing the real? And are we doing all this for our social currency? Well, there's a reason why the virtual world is called a "Second Life". Let's live the first one first.We don't always need an Occulus to show us the real- virtual blur. We have examples all around us. How often do we hear parents, teachers complain and read about children spending more time playing sporting games on a digital interface rather than in real? Playing games digitally is essential and I'm a strong propounder of gamification. In fact, my most recent venture is a start-up that explores the applications of technology and gamification in education (use of game design and game mechanics in non-game contexts). But no one denies the benefits of playing a sport in its most real sense, physically.The irony stares at me pretty vividly. The physical- digital divide (and the real-virtual divide) has experienced a unique evolution in our lives. The same technology that has let people bridge across geographies, connect with friends and family oceans away, reduced the physical gap and make communication seamless, in many cases, is now the cause of having a contrarian effect on people. As families sit on dinner tables and hardly have any conversations, or watch television together and are engrossed in their smart phones, technology is driving people around us, far away. The virtual social networks is effectively replacing the real network. That is the strangest irony.The technology that helped bring people closer is now creating the divide between people near by. As fire drives out fire, so does technology. Online platforms and applications today are trying to fix this issue; they're trying to implement the use of technology to make people reconnect in the real world, physically, again. The technology that lead online market places give way for the offline, is now making the online re-connect back to the offline network.I don't question the benefits of these powerful apps. social networks, and the virtual world, and am myself an avid consumer of these. But we shouldn't go amiss in also recognising that we're on a moving ground. As long as a balance is maintained, we're on a great path. If not, we have a real virtual problem. Or rather, a virtually real problem?The author, Arjun Madhavan is strategist and leads new business development at Assemblage Entertainment Pvt Ltd
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Giving people free basic services will help overcome some of the fundamental challenges with internet access in India, Kevin Martin writes While the net neutrality debate rages, we are at risk of losing sight of the real reason we should all be concerned. More than 1 billion people in India remain offline and over 70 million rural households face some form of exclusion, either from assets or socio-economic benefits. The debate should be about how we can work together and try different ideas to connect one billion Indians and close the exclusion gap. That’s been our intention with Internet.org from the very start. Our goal is to introduce people to the value of being online for the first time, overcoming the technical, cost and content challenges that exist, to offer free basics services and give them an easy path to start paying for and using the internet. It is not THE internet, but rather an application that is helping to bring people online and show them the value of being online to help accelerate Internet adoption. And it is achieving just that. Internet.org brings new users onto mobile networks on average over 50% faster after launching free basic services. In addition, more than half of the people who come online through Internet.org are paying for data and exploring the internet within the first 30 days. This week marks our one-year anniversary of Internet.org free basic services. Since then we’ve heard many incredible stories of how the internet is changing lives and communities. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, one man used Social Blood, a free service available on Internet.org, to post a request for nine units of A+ blood for his wife's labour. Within a couple of hours, 12 strangers had offered blood for his wife's operation. Over the last year and since our first launch in Zambia, we’ve incorporated everything we’ve heard thus far in making free basic services a sustainable program for developers, operators and the people of India. In April we opened up the Internet.org Platform to allow developers to easily create services for the billions who are not connected to the internet and to also give people more choice over the free basic services they use. We want to work with as many developers and entrepreneurs as possible to extend the benefits of connectivity to diverse, local communities. To provide valuable basic services that the already connected take for granted: tools for education, healthcare, jobs and local news. The results speak for themselves. In the past month, health services were accessed over a million times within Internet.org. Consider this potential within the context of India, where only around 25% have access to healthcare services. We also want to work with as many mobile operators as possible to bring access to relevant basic services to the unconnected. Over the past 12 months we’ve worked closely with more than a dozen mobile operators across 17 countries to give people access to relevant basic internet services without data charges, and today Internet.org is available to more than a billion people. Starting this week, any operator can turn on Internet.org free basic services using our technical tools and best practices, available to operators through our portal. This investment is allowing us to scale the program globally so that any mobile operator can sign up through our portal to launch Internet.org free basic services and grow the number of people coming online. Here in India we have seen first-hand how the internet can transform a nation. We have seen farmers and fishermen become more productive by tracking weather conditions and comparing wholesale prices through their mobile phone. Or how mobile technology can be used to deliver primary health and dental care. At a macro level, it is estimated that increased connectivity in India could create 65 million new jobs, double GDP growth, lower extreme poverty by 16% and child mortality by 14%. While the government’s Digital India plan is transforming the country into a digitally empowered society, with a growth curve that mirrors that of the US a few years ago, and China more recently. We believe that giving people free basic services will help overcome some of the fundamental challenges with internet access in India today. Yes cost is a barrier – many people who have access to the internet can’t afford it. Infrastructure also poses a major challenge in India, where 69% of the population lives in rural areas and many still don’t have a cell tower near them. But potentially the greatest hurdle is education. People who haven’t experienced the internet before have no idea what it is or how to use it. We need to help people understand the possibilities available to them online. Now surely this is what we should all be focused on? Let’s not deny people that opportunity but rather work together to unleash the social and economic opportunities the Internet can deliver. Kevin Martin is vice president of mobile and global access policy at Facebook
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Facebook is trying to lure skeptical advertisers in India with features such as free email support for questions about advertising and advice on increasing sales in a bid to boost revenue from its second biggest market.Facebook has 132 million users in India, trailing only the 193 million in the United States, according to the company, and the country is critical for the Menlo Park, California, social network's global expansion.But so far, the payoff has been small: Facebook earns 15 cents per user in India every quarter, compared to the $7 to $8 it makes on each US user, according to analysts.Facebook does not break out its revenues in India, but Neil Shah, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, a Hong Kong-based technology consulting firm, estimates it brings in $15 million a quarter, far behind the $350 million he estimates Google earns there per quarter.Google, which set up in India in 2004, has been in the Indian market six years longer than Facebook, and its search ads are more familiar to advertisers there than the display ads Facebook offers.The business-boosting features, described to Reuters by company executives and Indian business people, are aimed at advertisers such as Mohit Khattar, managing director at online grocery company Godrej Nature's Basket, one of the roughly 60 to 65 million small- and medium-sized businesses in the country.He said he began advertising on Facebook about two months ago as the company ramped up its online presence. He found that advertising in-store events and sales helped attract customers, but would not provide specific figures."Since our customers are on Facebook, we are on Facebook. It's that simple," Khattar said.Facebook declined to say how many staff members it has in India or how much it has invested since it launched operations there in 2010.But the world's largest social network says it has seen early signs its efforts are working. The company unveiled a new type of ad designed specifically for India last year, called "click to missed call."Users click a button on an ad, which automatically calls an advertiser. The user hangs up - to save them the charge for the call - and the advertiser calls back with a pre-recorded message.Garnier Men, a leading men's hair care company in India and a unit of beauty products giant L'Oreal SA, saw online sales more than double by using click to missed call, according to Facebook and the company.But Indian advertisers still overwhelmingly flock to television ads and remain skeptical of the value of advertising on social media, analysts and business executives said."Advertisers in India are not warmed enough to social media as a concept of marketing," said Shah, the Counterpoint analyst."We really need to help them see how Facebook pages and advertising will help grow their businesses," saidAndy Hwang, Facebook director of small- and medium-sized businesses for Asia Pacific.For instance, the company advises businesses to create interactive Facebook pages and use Facebook Messenger to interact with customers as a way of increasing sales.Technology companies have turned to India and other markets in Asia for growth because the region contains two-thirds of the world's population. Asia is Facebook's fastest-growing region, with 57 per cent year-over-year growth in monthly active users.India alone has 1.3 billion people, second only to China, and Facebook increased the number of users there by 22 per cent last year. On the other hand, only 252 million people in India have Internet access.Expansion in India is also important because of the "China factor." Facebook, like Google Inc and Twitter Inc, is shut out of the biggest market of all due to the Communist government's concerns over control of information. Other tech companies, such as eBay and Yahoo, have struggled to crack the Chinese market.Getting more Indian users "drives success, or at least the perception of success," said Jaideep Mehta, vice president and general manager for International Data Corporation Southeast Asia.Facebook said it plans to use its strategy in India for other emerging markets such as Brazil, Indonesia andMexico, which are Facebook's third-, fourth- and fifth-largest markets by users.That makes success in India even more important for its global expansion. For the second quarter of this year, 51.3 per cent of Facebook's $4 billion in revenue came from outside the US and Canada.In addition to efforts to attract more Indian advertisers, Facebook is working to make it easier for users to get on the service.More than 90 per cent of Facebook's Indian users access it through mobile phones, but the Facebook app uses more data than most are able to pay for and Internet connections can be patchy. So the social giant developedFacebook Lite, which uses less data, for India and other emerging markets.It has also rolled out its Internet.org initiative in India, a program started in August 2013 that aims to connect the two-thirds of the world without Internet access. Many of India's advertising dollars are in rural and semi-urban cities, analysts said, where users do not have a reliable Internet connection.Facebook is also getting help from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which uses Facebook to provide updates on the government's workings."It is undeniable that a pro-social media government is good for the industry," Mehta said.(Reuters)
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By separating moonshots from moneymakers, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are now free to pursue more quixotic business ideas such as glucose-monitoring contact lenses, Internet-connected, high-altitude balloons and even immortality.Investors cheered the corporate restructuring announced Monday (10 August) for giving greater visibility into Google's central business and seemed less anxious about zany ventures that may pose as distractions.But of all the businesses in Alphabet – the new holding company that isolates the core search and advertising business from riskier bets – popular smart home accessory maker Nest Labs is likely the only unit that will give investors the returns they crave anytime soon, analysts told Reuters.They added that Google's self-driving cars and health ventures, such as storing data on human DNA in the cloud, are potentially profitable, but not for at least several years. "In the near term, investors are going to focus on the core business and give them some leeway," said Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter.The company's shares rose 4 per cent Tuesday in the wake of the announcement and climbed as much as 7 per cent the previous day in after-hours trading.Under the structure - search, advertising, maps, YouTube and Android will remain part of Google under the leadership of new Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai, currently the company's product chief. Search remains the company's financial engine, driving more than 90 per cent of revenue, according to analysts.Nest, anti-aging company Calico, smart cities company Sidewalk, secretive lab Google X, as well as Google Capital and Google Ventures - two investing units - will all be run separately with their own leaders, Google said. Through those ventures, Google has tried to accomplish everything from improving public transportation to prolonging the human lifespan.Page and Brin will be Alphabet's CEO and president, respectively.The company plans to combine the financial results of all ventures outside the core Google business, but investors hope that other firms' results will be broken out as they mature.The prime candidate for such scrutiny is Nest, the maker of smart thermostats, smoke detectors and other security systems that Google bought last year for $3.2 billion.Although Google has not detailed the company's financial performance, investors have reason to be optimistic, said analyst Avi Greengart of Current Analysis."There's a tremendous amount of design and engineering," that go into its products, he said. "They are selling (them) at a profit."Nest may benefit from more independence, said analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research. The acquisition sparked concerns among consumers that Google would suck up data from Nest's home accessories or put advertising on the gadgets.Now the relationship is "at arm's length again," said Dawson.Analysts are optimistic that some of the other research projects will become profitable businesses. Google has already begun testing its self-driving cars near its Mountain View, California headquarters as it figures out how to crack a potentially huge market, even as traditional auto makers also pursue the technology.It has also recruited top researchers for its health ventures and will have the flexibility to spend years researching and testing products.But the fledgling ventures will also be looked at more closely. When investors see just how much money the projects are haemorrhaging, they may call for greater discipline, perhaps hampering development, said analystPatrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy."Heck, Google itself lost money for years before it went public," he said.Whether ventures thrive or flop, Dawson said, the new structure leaves Google poised for either course of action."If one of the new businesses starts doing really well, they can spin it off more easily," he said. "If they don't want to do something any more, it makes it easier to sell it off."(Reuters)
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According to OnePlus, the registration for the OnePlus 2 has already reached 3.5 million people, which clearly means that getting an invite for the smartphone is not that easy. But if you are one of the lucky ones who’s got an invite, then you can buy the OnePlus 2 today from Amazon.in as the first sale has already begun. The smartphone has been making a lot of buzz for some time now has been anticipated by OnePlus fans and geeks. It comes with high-end features, the most attractive being the fingerprint scanner and the all new reversible USB type-C at a price lower than most flagship smartphones. However early reviews have not been very satisfying as the new processor from Snapdragon has been having heating issues. The specifications of the OnePlus 2 include a Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor with 4GB of RAM for the 64GB storage model and 3GB for the 16GB storage model. There is 5.5-inch full HD display, a 13MP rear and a 5MP front camera, dual-SIM card slot, 4G LTE and of course the above mentioned USB type-C port and a fingerprint scanner. The 64GB version is priced at Rs. 24,999 and the 16GB version for Rs. 22,999, making the former an obvious choice. In addition to today’s first sale OnePlus has partnered with Ola, the on-demand taxi service platform, to provide a first-hand experience of the OnePlus 2. The smartphone will be available for an on-demand experience on the Ola app for a month in six cities including Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. Ola customers can request a free OnePlus 2 experience at their doorstep, by clicking on the OnePlus 2 icon, a select few customers who request an experience on the Ola app also stand a chance to win OnePlus 2 invites
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Mobile commerce platform Paytm has achieved has crossed 100 million Paytm Wallet users who carry out over 75 million transactions every month.By reaching at this stage, Paytm has moved an inched closer towards its larger vision of transforming India into a “cash-free” economy. Accepted by over 80,000 merchants, Paytm plans to reach 10 million merchants by end of next year. Users can load money to Paytm wallet using debit card, credit card, net banking and over 20,000 cash deposit points. It is partnering with various banks to enable users to add money through bank branch and ATM machines, company said in a press statement.Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm founder and CEO, said “Today with over 100 million Paytm wallets, India has committed towards a less-cash society.”Paytm started by offering mobile recharge and utility bill payments and currently it offers a full marketplace to consumers on its mobile application. It authorises inter-wallet or person-to-person money transfers and wallet-to-bank transfers. Such services have helped Paytm offer great advantage to those who are often left out of the fold of financial inclusion in the country. The Paytm Wallet has also eliminated the safety and convenience-related concerns that accompany carrying huge amounts of cash.(BW Online Bureau)
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