Social Media has been governed by many aspects across the globe and more than 213 countries have substantial contribution towards the enormous success of Facebook. With more than 630 million users worldwide, Facebook has been evaluated worth $81 billion recently and India has been ranked at No 6 position in the list of top contributors towards Facebook users.
Just to evaluate the real scenario of Facebook in India and the impact, dazeinfo has tried to draw a brief demography on socialization of Facebook in India. Some of the major highlights and statistics of Facebook India are:
Total Asia population on Facebook is aprox 146 million (16 Feb 2011)
Indian population on Facebook is aprox 22.24 Million (9 March 2011)
In 2010, there were 16 new users from India who joined Facebook every minute.
Every forth Internet user in India has got an account on Facebook
Nokia has triggered the sales process for much anticipated Nokia E7 – well known as business extension of Nokia N8 – for business users in India with a pre-booking price tag of Rs 35,019/-. First introduced in august last year, E7 is loaded with 4inch super AMOLED touch screen and additional slider QWERTY keypad which provide a smooth and superb control over text messaging and rich Internet experience.
Loaded with latest (or probably the last version) of Symbian 3 platform, E7 holds 16 GB of internal memory with USB port which allows users to connect any external USB device and play the content directly on the phone. We had reviewed the E7 way back in August last year when Nokia introduced revolutionary N8 smartphone for great media experience.
Though it took some time for E7 to reach to India, still it holds all features which can charm any business users unless he is very much influenced with the technology scalability and particular about the sustainability of Symbian 7.
However, algorithms have been completely changed for Nokia, so the priority now. Therefore We can’t say what will be the future of E7 or whether we should opt for any smartphone Nokia during the time when company is going through major transition. Here is a hands-on video review of Nokia E7 which will showcase most of the features in action.
People who are interesting to go for E7, can pre-book the phone by login onto www.nokia.co.in/E7 and filling out a small form with the preference of the nearby Nokia Priority dealer. In Post 24 hours of filling that form, you will receive a call from selected priority dealer with current offers. People can pay Rs 3000/- in order to preserve their booking.
Battle between two Titans from social media and search industry Facebook and Google – is showing no sign of recession. After multiple clashes at various front of dominance, Facebook is again gearing up to challenge Google for a promising next generation service – Video calling. After squaring its users in a cubical of “instant messaging” service, the new feature will further distance Facebook users from Google’s Gmail service.
As per the latest report from Bloomberg, Facebook has re-initiated the discussion with Skype to roll out web video calling facility to all 650+ million users across all its platform. The discussion was first initiated last year when both the companies were in-sync with the thought of rolling out video calling and chatting facility among Facebook friends. However, this feature was not discussed in last update of Skype, back in September last year, which did include voice calling between Facebook friends.
As the market of Video calling is witnessing substantial growth, companies are becoming bullish with such roll outs. In June last year Apple has added the similar feature to its flagship product iPhone 4 followed by Google which added the Video calling facility for all Gmail users in August. If ongoing talk between Facebook and Skype comes into existence, surely it will hurt Apple and Google in a big way.
“Last year, we announced the integration of Facebook inSkype, so people can keep up to date with their Facebook friendsthrough News Feed in Skype and even call and SMS their Facebookfriends on any phone from Skype,” Facebook said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “With regards to any further integration, wedon’t comment on rumor and speculation and have nothing toannounce at this time.”
The new possible roll-out will help Skype to add thousands of new users and millions of video call minutes which will strengthen the position of much anticipated $1 billion worth IPO. Skype has registered its shares with SEC in August last year.
Alright ! So you have thousands of prominent followers, an impressive retweet ratio and influenced status among your friends due to your commendable activeness on Twitter. But have you ever tried to check how much valuation your Twitter account can fetch with all such imperative aspects? Trust, it will only wink your eyes if you really holds a Twitter account which means by anything among the online community. Try out this cute little and simple app which showcases the value worth of your Twitter account and the rating as well.
We have no much idea what goes behind the scene as algorithm when you try to test your Twitter account valuation but we can only guess that it may all depend on your Twitter habits like number of tweets per day, number of retweets by you or by your friends, number of followers you add every day or vice versa. This new Twitter valuation app tells you how much money you can pocket if you sold your twitter account.
You just need to enter your Twitter ID in the middle of the box of “What’s My Twitter Account Worth?” app and it will display how much money can you expect if you put your Twitter account on auction table at that point. It will also allows you to share this information on Twitter and Facebook instantly. I’m sure many people would not like to do that unless result is not in 4 or 5 digits. But all exercise is worth for fun.
Moving a step ahead, this new app also charts out the list of top Twitter accounts with highest valuation and comparison analysis among multiple Twitter accounts on the grounds of financial valuation.
Indeed, there may be few other similar Twitter account valuation apps in the market and we would like to hear about them. Please use the comment section to mention all such app you ever come across.
The battle between two IT giants seems to have entered into the cloud computing space as well. Last week, Google launched Cloud Connect and hit Microsoft right where it hurts – its Office portfolio. With the Cloud Connect plug-in, users can now go on the cloud with their Office files, without having to fire up SharePoint, another Microsoft product. With this single product, Office users get access to simultaneous collaboration, revision history, cloud sync, unique URLs and simple sharing of Office files ( Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office automatically syncs your Office documents between your desktop and Google Docs’ cloud storage, allowing you to seamlessly collaborate with other Google users and back up all your Office files.
A user who wishes to share the files using Cloud Connect plug-in just needs to upload these files into the cloud. And the people, with whom he shares, don’t require Office to view or edit the documents – they can open them in Google docs.
It seems to be a long term strategy from Google. Though, it may not excite Google in terms of revenue but it definitely gives a chance to the users to have a closer look at the Google Apps. And eventually move them away from Office.
Microsoft hasn’t taken kindly to this move by Google to hit its biggest revenue stream. In a statement, it said that this move merely highlighted Office’s popularity, but Google’s products fall far short in functionality. Microsoft hit back hard saying that users of Google Connect stood to lose out on security, functionality, and possibly, data integrity.
“Although it’s flattering that Google is acknowledging customer demand for Office, we’re not sure Google’s heart is in the productivity business,” Microsoft said. “Their revenue and market share have been minuscule after four years of trying, and services like Cloud Connect appear to be more targeted at getting your data onto their servers, than helping you get things done.”
This is not the first time Google and Microsoft have crossed swords in the cloud computing arena. In January earlier this year Google had won an injunction against Microsoft in a case involving a coveted government contract for cloud computing services.
Popularity of any web property can’t be visualized better than this way. With 133.2 million combined active users, Facebook and Twitter has surpassed the milestone of reaching more than 60% of U.S. Internet users together in 2010. Interestingly, Facebook alone has contributed 52.2% out of 60% with 116.8 million US users. Twitter has maintained the rest of share with 16.4 million US active users.
As per the latest report published by eMarketer, Facebook will have significant reach of almost 50% of US population by end of 2013. Though Twitter growth may not spike to similar figures but with 11.4% expected reach of U.S. population by same time frame will surely be an impressive achievement for micro blogging service provider.
Report also forecasts the usage trend of 2011 in U.S. This year compare to 20.6 million U.S. users, 132.5 million US internet users are expected to login to Facebook.
“eMarketer’s estimate of the US Facebook and Twitter populations presents a realistic assessment of actual usage, in contrast with widely publicized data that track numbers of user accounts, site traffic or other metrics that don’t fully reflect usage,” said eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna, author of upcoming reports on Facebook and Twitter users.
Sitting on huge pile of valuation worth $70 Billion and $10 Billion respectively, Facebook and Twitter both have introduced a new era of digital communication and connects though social networking. However, as great achievements also bring great challenges and responsibilities, Facebook and Twitter both have admitted the challenge of service availability across all the platforms as their top priority.
The power of Group-buying is cherishing the people across the globe which has shaped up as Billion dollars business model stand alone. This has winked the eyes of thousands of Investors who are (have) ready to burn their hard-earned “green-papers” on the rage. Indeed, it’s paying off heavily and made “Groupon” – leader in online group buying and daily discount deals business – as one of the fastest growing company worth $6 Billion in just 2 years.
Assured with the success of proven business model, many clones of “Groupon” have been cropped up in almost every country which has significant internet penetration. In India alone, as I know, there are more than 20 such clones which are active online at national or regional level. Besides many Indian startups like dealsandyou, sosasta, koovs, buzzintown, mydala, snapdeal and taggle, technology giant Google – made a failed attempt to buy Groupon- and social networking titan Facebook have also joined the rat race with “GoogleOffers” and “FacebookDeals”.
However, with tons of resources to choose from, it has become virtually impossible to track the best deal in desired town by monitoring all “daily deal sites” every day or at regular intervals. Consequently, people started realizing the need of another ‘sub-set of group buying business model’ which, possibly, can throw only the best deals after scanning all “daily-deal-sites” from all sources.
Interestingly, after hours of research and struggle online I bumped up with a site which augments your group buying power through deal aggregation – Dealies.in. I am not here to claim if there are few more such deal aggregators in Indian market but Dealies India is the one which somehow satisfies my (and many other people’s) thought process and needs. With a quick glance, visitors can see every deal being offered in a particular city, all at once.
A just born startup baby, Dealies India aims to provide a one-stop shop for everyone looking for deals in their region. The site was launched at the mid of December last year and expanding quickly just through word of mouth in short span of 2 months. Company is, apparently, customer centric and committed to expose best deals in your city through its deal aggregation mechanism.
The website goes one step further by featuring all the discounts and deals gathered within a city and the possibility of filtering these deals according to a certain category (Health & Beauty, Entertainment, Shopping, etc.). Dealies.in offers a simple, clean interface, where you can also see the number of “Likes” on Facebook as well as reviews by customers, for each merchant. In addition to group buying offers, website also provides an overview of all the group buying merchants currently operating on the national scene and provides the possibility to users and customers to share their own experiences buying from them. Weighing the reliability of the different merchants is further possible through the Alexa Ranking index.
Despite of improvised buying power, people in India still value their money in best form and always scrutinise before they burnout. With many more deal aggregators in future, potential consumers are finding great sources to enhance their group buying power and strengthen their bargain skills.
We would like to ask our readers about their experience with such “daily-deal-websites. Please don’t hesitate to use the comment section to introduce more such deal aggregators you come across.
Time and again Facebook is achieving many milestones in social media or Internet arena. This time, it’s turn for visual clicks which are available on Facebook. An Online Facebook Photo tracking tool called Pixable, which lets you wade through your friend list and get straight to the photos everyone is talking about, makes a great case for its product by pointing out that the social network will have 100 billion photos by this summer, based on current growth patterns.
Pixable analyzed patterns among its 100,000 users to create the following infographic reproduced below. Among other highlights, it says that women upload twice as many images as men, get tagged in pictures twice as often and those pictures get double the looks.
Let us know what you think about these and other findings presented in the infographic after you’ve scrolled through it all — yeah, it’s large, just like Facebook’s photo archies.
It was certain that Honeycomb is not going to be available for mobiles and Google has made this pretty clear in MWC. However, it has spilled some beans on upcoming version of Android mobile platform (expected in third quarter of this year) which will be a mix of latest version of Android mobile platform – Gingerbread and Honeycomb – Android platform meant only for tablets.
Latest, Google’s CEO has exposed some of the information on upcoming Android mobile version – which he has addressed as version “I” – as per pocketnow. We assume that here “I” stands for “Ice Cream Sandwich” which is the name of Android’s next version. Interestingly, he preferred not to discuss a key question whether or not Ice Cream Sandwich will be just for smartphones or if it will be for tablets as well wasn’t addressed.
After the latest release of Android 2.3 ( Gingerbread) and Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), there were many fair comparison analysis were done. Though, both the platforms are meant for different segment, there are few useful features in each other which complement cross segments very well. And that many be the main reason Google has decided to post some of the features of Android Tablet version to mobile platform to provide a superior experience to enormously growing mobile market.
That certainly makes sense. Doing so allowed Google to get a head start on an OS for tablet devices, but still they can still go forward with a unified operating system for “devices that typically don’t have a keyboard”.
Besides, the latest marriage of Microsoft and Nokia also triggered “red” button for Android Team. Though its too early to claims the market grounds of new wedded entities, but Google don’t enjoy the comfort cushion especially when Apple, RIM, MeeGo and Windows Phone 7 are ready to challenge the Android dominance intelligently.
After Samsung, LG, Apple, HP and few more, it was the day for HTC to introduce its first tablet to market and that’s also with a big bang. The company has just taken the wraps off its brand new 7-inch “HTC Flyer” Android tablet, which touts a 1.5GHz single-core CPU, 1GB of RAM plus 32GB of flash storage, an aluminum construction, 1024 x 600 resolution, a tablet-optimized version of Sense, and a pressure-sensitive capacitive stylus!
The HTC Scribe trademark we saw floating around in legal waters turned out not to be the branding for a tablet, it’s actually the name HTC gives to the technology enabling what it calls a “groundbreaking pen experience.” Other details include a 5 megapixel camera on the back paired with a 1.3 megapixel imager up front, a 4000mAh battery rated to last for four hours of continuous video playback, and memory expandability via a microSD card.
Surprisingly, HTC has decided to ditch the platform route unlike other tablet manufacturers. Instead of loading the Flyer with Android 3.0 OS – made only for tablet – HTC will ship it in Q2 this year with Android Gingerbread 2.4 on board. As far as HTC is concerned, Sense matters more than the underlying platform, and the reason Honeycomb isn’t the shipping OS here was explicitly stated as HTC not having enough time with the latest Google code to customize it to the full requirements of Sense. Guess that settles that.
We know that you may be little surprise by discovering our most of analysis in last 3 days on mobile & tablet but thanks to Mobile World Congress which is currently swinging with full strength. Anyhow, to have some more interactive experience with HTC Flyer, here is a video which will help you to set your expectations in right directions – atleats till certain extent. Thanks to Engadget for this video.
Indiatimes 58888, the mobile division of Times Internet Limited (TIL), has bagged the mobile content rights of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. The tournament commences on February 19.
Ajay Vaishnavi, director, telecom, Times Internet, says, “TIL has tied up with Reliance Communications to get the mobile content rights, including text, audio and video content, of the matches. Reliance Communications is the global mobile content partner of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.
As per the deal, TIL will re-package and re-distribute the content to earn revenue. The ICC World Cup mobile content will be available through SMS, audio (live commentary and ring back tones), video clips and pictures.
The mobile content rights bagged by TIL do not include the rights of live video streaming of the matches. Mobile service provider Vodafone Essar has the live streaming rights of ESPN-STAR Sports’ coverage of the matches.
Apart from distribution of content through the SMS medium, the firm has also established a mobile site (Worldcup.Indiatimes.com), where it will post videos and audio clips, along with news related to the cricket matches. TIL will also tie up with other mobile operators and provide them the mobile content of the ICC World Cup.
To monetise the mobile content, TIL will use advertisements and paid subscription models, says Vaishnavi. The company plans to roll out various SMS packages such as cricket score/news updates as part of the paid subscription model.
Do you still hang out with your old traditional non-Android, non-Apple and non-blackberry phone but somehow got fascinated towards social networking giant Facebook and want to carry your Facebook world wherever you go ? Then here is a good news for you. A new revolutionary Sim Card, developed by Gemalto, can transform any handset, even the dumbest one, into a Facebook Phone. The new Sim Card is compatible with all GSM network standards and includes all major functionality related to social network.
Though, the SIM-based client isn’t as pretty as its smartphone contemporaries – don’t expect picture streams or sliding interfaces – but it was developed with the help of Facebook, and provides text-menu-based interaction with Facebook – including status updates, pokes and friend requests – to any GSM-compatible handset through the magic of the GSM SIM Toolkit and Class 2 SMS messages.
The SIM card will enable even the most bare-boned handset to have Facebook functionality, albeit text based for the leaner devices known as feature phones. This will help the social network approach its goal of becoming the standard social service for all mobile phones.
Surely, this is a great development, especially when INQ’s new Facebook Phone, especially designed for Facebook lovers, just got unveiled few days back ( See Video). Even news are afloat that few other handset manufacturers like HTC and Sony are also working on the similar direction to become niche in mobile Industry stepping up through social networking functionality.
We would like to ask from our readers what’s their take on both the scenarios – Facebook Phone or Facebook Sim Cards – Which one will beat the heat ?
Facebook is growing enormously. With $50 Billion valuation Facebook has already achieved many milestones and showcased some amazing facts & figures. Besides, Facebook also has many superb achievements in Gaming section to talk about. But it that was not enough for you to surprise much, here is a new Infography which demonstrates the continued vast enlargement with many more stunning facts. As per this new infography, every second 8 new people register on Facebook every second.
Teenagers across the globe rules over Facebook with maximum population and Coca-Cola is the most popular brand on Facebook with 21.6 Million Fans and growing further by adding 4 Fans every second.
Here are some important Facebook figures for anyone who isn’t convinced that brands should be in this space:
Average user connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
30 billion pieces of content shared each month
2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook
Apple is in the process of developing smaller and lower-priced models of the iPhone in an effort to garner a larger share of the smart-phone market. Along with making a phone that could be marketed on the lower-price end of the smart-phone market, Apple is working on technology that would make it easier for such a phone to run on multiple networks, according to a report from Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources.
Splitting the iPhone into a product line of multiple phones, with different features and prices could be a move on Apple’s part to further compete with smart phones running Google’s Android operating system, which have such diversity, Bloomberg said.
A similar move was made Thursday when Hewlett-Packard introduced new low-end and high-end models to its Palm line of smart phones with the HP Veer and HP Pre3.
The Veer is the size of a credit card and is likely to be the cheapest phone HP offers while the Pre3 will have the largest screen, largest price and features not available on other models in the line, such as a front-facing camera for video chat and the ability to record high-definition video with a rear camera.
Android, which debuted in 2008, has a nearly 33% share of the worldwide smart-phone market — nearly double Apple’s 16% take, according to the research firm Canalys.
Aside from HP’s smart phones running the HP WebOS operating system, Nokia is looking to take on Android and Apple too, and on Friday announced that it will do so with new higher-end smart phones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 software.
Nokia accounted for about 28% of the global smart-phone market last quarter, largely on sales of phones running its Symbian OS.
Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo denied rumors that Google might buy his company for as much as $10 billion in a comment that was far shorter than 140 characters.
“I don’t know where these things come from. It’s just a rumor,” Costolo said after a keynote presentation Monday afternoon at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. His remarks were in response to questions surrounding a report last week that Facebook and Google were both in low-level talks to buy the San Francisco company.
Costolo, however, declined to comment on a similar question about Facebook, which will undoubtedly keep tongues wagging and may even lead to some creative hashtags.
More good news for Facebook and its sky-high valuation. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is taking a small stake in the world’s most popular social-networking site by snapping up as much as $38 million of stock from other shareholders at a valuation of $52 billion.
