Data mining helps telcos create new revenue stream

Telecom service providers are apparently in a search of new revenue streams, considering flat revenues from voice services and ongoing challenges from the over-the-top players. 

While data allows them to monetize their networks and services, data mining and analytics is also enabling them explore more revenue channels and monetize their existing assets. 

Hyderabad-based start-up 3Loq is helping the mobile service providers to monetize their SMS assets through its data mining and analytics solution. In addition to that, it helps brands and retailers to reach out potential customers in a cost effective way. 

The company tries to bring telecom operators and advertisers on the same platform. 

Anirudh Shah, Founder of 3Loq says that telcos possess a lot of data about their customers, which can be analysed to make it relevant for brands and retailers. 

According to Shah, telecom operators can monetize this data by sharing with the company, while brands and retailers can reach out to most relevant customers with targeted approach through analysed data. 

"We get anonymous transaction data from telcos. The company's ARJUNA targeting engine works by analyzing valuable telecom data, to find hidden patterns in consumer behavior. Then, the engine figures out who is interested in what, when and where. With relevant information, we rope in advertisers to reach out target customers," Shah explains. 

Telcos provide data to the company on revenue sharing model. "Our solution maintains privacy of subscribers. In the whole process, we offer various incentives for telcos. Money from retailers is shared by telcos and 3Loq," the founder says. 

SMS: Best tool for mobile marketing

Shah believes that SMS is the biggest channel for mobile marketing and offers good revenue potential. However, he says, that DND has been a barrier in the growth of mobile marketing. 

Shah, however, feels that bulk SMS has impacted the mobile marketing services. 

He says that intelligent advertising adoptions by brands and retailers will help the mobile marketing space in India. 

"If we send out intelligent SMS with the help of data mining and analytics done, potential customers can be reached out. Through intelligent advertising through SMS, one on one interaction is possible as well," he adds. 

"India is in nascent stages and is set to grow. In the Indian market, the industry hasn't been aware of such analytics-based solution for mobile marketing, hence the traction is very less," Shah says. 

According to him, smaller regions can also be tapped through such solutions for mobile marketing. "Cost to enter for retailers and brands is much lesser. We have been providing, the platform free for six months to brands," Shah adds. 

The company charges brands and retailers a fee to reach out their customer base as well as find new customers. 

Shah informs that bulk SMS and banner ads are the two prevalent modes for mobile marketing in the country. "We see SMS as an important part of our story right now but over time would like to present multiple channels to brands and retailers but still powered by the same powerful insights that we use for targeting SMS now," he says. 

Operator deals in Southeast Asia

The company is expected to close deals with a couple of mobile operators and some retailers by the next quarter. The company is primarily targeting Southeast Asia market for its solutions. 

The company is in talks with telcos in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and India. The company has pilots running in Thailand and Malaysia. 

The executive said that 3loq is in talks with the Indian telcos and one pilot is in the process of being set up. "We are expected to have 1 operator in each country by coming two quarters. Also, we plan to have a presence with at least 2 operators in each South East Asian country in the next five years," Shah says. 

He also says that 3Loq is well set financially for a couple of years and should be able to generate revenues in the second quarter. 

3Loq directly competes with Flytxt in the India market and Singtel's Amobee. Google's AdMod also competes with the company directly.

Source: Times of India

6 awesome things you can do with your gmail ID

Turn Google Drive into your jukebox 

Google Drive is a great cloud service to store all your documents, presentations and spreadsheets. But I bet you didn't know that you can also use it - in conjunction with a few third-party tools - to create your own virtual jukebox that lets you stream your songs to wherever you are as long as you have an internet connection.

For PCs...

To listen to the music you've uploaded to Drive, visit www.drivetunes.org (preferably using the Chrome browser) and sign in with your Google account.

Allow Drivetunes to access your Google Drive by clicking Accept. The website automatically detects and lists all MP3 and M4A files, letting you play your tunes from any web-enabled computer.

For Smartphones...

You can install apps like CloudBeats Lite or GDrive (for iOS) or CloudAround (for Android devices).

Make your own maps 

So you've moved to a new home, or you're probably hosting your birthday party at this new pub. One of the problems you're faced with is giving detailed directions to get to the venue. Guess what? You can use Google Maps. The service lets you create custom maps, add waypoint symbols and colours; you can also annotate it with text; add snapshots for visual aids, and more...

Sign in to Google Maps, click My Places > Create Map.

Something called Maps Engine Lite will open in a new tab.

You can now use this interface to plot your route. There are four tools - to select items, add markers, draw lines, and add directions. The elements you add are represented as layers (just like in photo-editing software). This makes it easier to mask out certain annotations or routes. The map editor also includes a handy undo-redo option.

Once you are done, click the Share button to send it via e-mail, Google+, Facebook or Twitter.

Print from anywhere 

The wonders of technology. Do you know you can now use the Chrome browser and your Google account to send a printout to your home printer from anywhere in the world?

To set up on your home computer... 

First, make sure your printer is ON.

In the Chrome browser, click the menu button and select Settings.

Click the Show advanced settings... link.

Scroll down to the Google Cloud Print section and sign in to enable the service.

Select your printer in the list, click Add Printers, and you're ready to go.

To print from a remote computer... 

Ensure that your printer and the PC that it is connected to are switched ON.

Sign in with your Google account in Chrome.

Click on the menu button, and select the Print... option.

In the Print panel that appears, under Destination, click on Change... to select your remote printer. Hit Print.

It should be noted that you can only print the contents of your browser window using this method. If you want to print a.doc file, for instance, you will need to open it in a cloud service like Google Drive.

Android and iOS apps like Google Print and PrintCentral Pro can also be used to send prints using Google's cloud print service.

Source: Times of India

What will drive 4G service in India

With government's recent policy initiatives and telcos' data thrust, the India chapter of the global GSM lobby GSMA feels that mobile networks would increasingly be able to deliver rich internet access, and mobile data traffic would continue on its growth trajectory. 

"Spectrum availability and sustainable pricing are key to enabling the next wave of investments in 4G and data. Mobile is a vibrant and evolving industry at the heart of everyday life for a growing number of the India's citizens," said GSMA India director Sandeep Karanwal. 

The industry body believes that the further growth would be driven by the increased penetration of affordable smartphones. "With improved spectrum pricing and management, growth in mobile broadband service is expected to continue, with 3G and 4G adoption projected to increase by 31 per cent between 2013 and 2017. 

In India, mobile data traffic will grow 60-fold from 2012 to 2017, a compound annual growth rate of 127%, while according to Cisco; mobile data traffic is expected to reach 900,043 terabytes (0.90 exabytes) per month in 2017. 

Karanwal feels that the extent of the socio-economic benefits of mobile broadband would depend on the availability of sufficient and appropriate harmonized spectrum. Operators can only invest more in mobile data if they have the spectrum to support those investments. 

"Operators in India would need larger blocks of contiguous spectrum to cope with demand and avoid congestion, particularly in urban areas. Policy makers would also need to ensure that spectrum is made available at reasonable prices and in a timely, fair and transparent manner," he said.

Source: Times of India

BSNL, Champion Computers team up to launch two smartphones

NEW DELHI: State-run BSNL in partnership with Champion Computers launched two smartphones for Rs 3,225 and Rs 4,499, targetted at tier 2 and 3 cities. 

"The market in tier 2 and 3 cities is ripe for such a product offering as the consumers are becoming increasingly tech-savvy and the demand for user-friendly products is very high," Champion Computers MD Kapil Wadhwa said in a statement. 

The devices come with dual-core processor and run on Android Jelly Bean operating system and have a dual SIM slot. 

"Needless to say, technology is wide-spread today and to reach to the grass-root level, we must have quality hardware, interactive content and robust and affordable carrier service," BSNL Director (Consumer Mobility) Anupam Srivastava said. 

Srivastava added BSNL also has an agreement for sale of bundled devices with Champion Computers and have launched a special 3G data plan for tablets which include 500MB free data, 50 minutes on-network voice calls per month for six months.

Website to help you find your missing things

We all have lost stuff, and not always to theft. Some things like keys and pens just drop off from the pocket. Bigger articles like+ purses, phones and even laptops get misplaced or forgotten somewhere. Someone invariably finds the lost article. But often, the finder is unable to return it because there is no way to contact the person who lost it. 

In an otherwise well-connected world, this is a missing link that stoked the imagination of Param Ram, a finance professional turned entrepreneur. He recalls an incident: "My wife and her friend were flying from Delhi to Bangalore. 

Just after passengers had boarded, there was an announcement. One passenger had someone else's laptop. Obviously there was a mix-up at the X-ray scanner. Passengers were asked to check their laptops. My wife's friend found that it wasn't her laptop in the bag. Luckily both were in the same flight." 

The incident set off an ideation process that led to the creation of lostclikfound.com (LCF), which Ram believes will be the Google of everything that people have lost. He says that the lost and found departments of airports, railway stations, malls, police stations etc are not only unorganized but they also don't talk to one another. "Our attempt is to bring them all together so that people can easily find whatever they have lost." 

The service also allows you to buy a tamper-proof tag for Rs 49, and stick it to a valuable. If it's lost, the finder can go to lostclikfound.com and key in the unique number in the tag to contact you. The website will be expanded soon by linking lost and found departments in the city. "Our aim is to rope in as many lost-and-found departments as possible," says Ram. "We are also planning to go to schools, where we want to inculcate the discipline of returning things. This is not just a product, but also a service." 

Ram is a post-grad in management from the Asian Institute of Management, Manila , and has 12 years of experience in the financial/insurance sectors. 

LCF was accelerated at Kyron. Lalit Ahuja, CEO, Kyron, says, "The product is a unique, compelling and much-needed proposition that will bring hope, predictability and structure to the ecosystem related to lost and misplaced valuables. 

By uniquely identifying a plethora of physical valuable products, LCF, through its user friendly online portal will help the owners track (and potentially recover) their valuables in an unfortunate situation of misplacing them."

Source: Times of India

Apple wakes up to India's potential

BANGALORE: India - After deliberating for months, Abhilash Sathyendra, a 25-year-old equity adviser in Mysore, India, bought his first Apple phone. He paid Rs 9,000, or $150, upfront for a black iPhone 4S and swiped his credit card for the remainder, six no-interest monthly payments of $62.50.

"I've used Android phones forever, but the iPhone is hardier and makes a social statement," said Sathyendra, whose new phone has become a conversation opener with clients. "I think I look, not wow, but cool and corporate," he said.

Indians use the monthly payments, called equated monthly installments, to buy a variety of products and services, like branded jeans and cosmetic dental treatments. That Apple used this method too clinched it for him. "EMIs make the iPhone affordable to Indians like me," said Sathyendra, who takes home a salary of $400 a month.

In 2013, Apple wakened to the potential of the world's fastest-growing smartphone market. India also happens to be the second-largest mobile market, with 800 million active users. "Apple sees that the market is at a takeoff point. Sales numbers could get serious within a year or two," said Anshul Gupta, a Mumbai-based principal analyst for mobile devices at the research firm Gartner. Apple's shipments have doubled from 2012 and will surpass 1 million phones in 2013, Gupta said.

In a price-sensitive country where multinational corporations sell bottles of soda for 16 cents, pizzas for 75 cents and burger meals for $1.40, basic cellphones have dominated the landscape. Smartphone penetration is less than 20% of the phone-using public. But a combination of falling prices, fast 3G speeds and a thriving app ecosystem is fueling the adoption at ripping speeds.

Shipments more than doubled, to 41.4 million, last year, according to IDC, a market research firm. The smartphone market grew 229% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2013, and IDC projects shipments will exceed 129 million by 2015.

With that kind of energy, this is a market where Apple can no longer afford to be a fringe player, selling to an elite few and losing out to pushy rivals. It is also a market where 80% of smartphones sell in the range of $70 to $200, said Gupta, the Gartner analyst. High prices have kept Apple at the tail of the top 10 brands by sales, way behind No. 1 Samsung, which sells more than three-quarters of its phones for less than $400, and No. 2 Micromax of India, whose most expensive phone is $350. The cheapest iPhone costs about $525 in India.

To draw young buyers and increase its volume and market share, Apple, based in Cupertino, California, offered a number of enticements besides the payment plan. Full front-page newspaper ads and TV commercials in recent months offered bonuses for trading in certain old phones and multiple deals, but with a single carrier so far. Wary of the inevitable branding-versus-pricing dilemma, Apple carefully couched these offers to not look like discounts.

"Apple has shown great agility in their India strategy all through 2013," said Manasi Yadav, a Bangalore-based senior mobile industry analyst with IDC India.

Making the phones cheaper, without appearing to be cheap, is enticing a new category of young, brand-conscious Indians, like Chaithra Nayak, to switch to the more expensive iPhones. Nayak, 24, who studies in the bustling coastal city of Mangalore, took six months to persuade her parents to get her an iPhone. Her father, a businessman, eventually buckled when she told him she could trade in her old Sony smartphone for a discount of Rs 13,000, or $216, on the iPhone 5C, which costs Rs 41,900, or $698.

"When I use my blue-colored iPhone, I draw attention," Nayak said.

Alongside the promotional offers, Apple has widened distribution channels, especially in second-tier Indian cities.

Anith Prakash, 26, a sales executive at a premium Apple reseller, iPlanet, in a popular Mysore mall, can vouch for the results. In the city, which neighbors the technology hub of Bangalore, the store jostles with outlets of Puma and Levi's in the mall.

"A lot of younger, first-time customers are attracted to the offers," said Prakash, who added that the store had a 40% increase in sales in the past few months.

"The trade-in and EMI offers are getting an excellent response," he said. "Many are combining both, then the price does not pinch very hard."

Buyers, long accustomed to paying a phone's full price, got the first taste of carrier bundling, a sweetener that has been wildly popular in Western markets, when Reliance Communications of Mumbai began the promotion in Mumbai and Delhi. "It is a zero-bill, peace-of-mind plan that makes every Indian's affordable iPhone dream come true," the company's chief executive, Gurdeep Singh, said.

Mapping a pricing-versus-branding strategy for India has been tricky for Apple's executives. (Apple declined to comment for this article.) The initial reaction to the iPhone 5 was tepid. Contrary to the prerelease buzz that some phones would be priced for "emerging markets," Apple breached yet another Indian smartphone pricing barrier of Rs 70,000: The top-end iPhone 5Scosts Rs 71,000, or $1,180.

Mobile Unlocked's iPhone 5S price index, which compares affordability of the phone relative to a country's per capita income, finds that it is least affordable in India. The $759 price of the iPhone 5S is 22% of India's per capita gross domestic product, compared with 1.37% of per capita GDP in the United States and 10% in China.

Not unexpectedly, buyers in India were put off. Prakash, who sold Nokia devices for two years before joining the iPlanet store 18 months ago, said: "Nokia's entry-level phones cost Rs 2,000. For that amount, you can only buy iPhone screen protectors and protective cases in our store."

In Mysore, Sathyendra coveted the iPhone 5S but had to pay more than a month's earnings even for the cheaper 4S he eventually settled for. But others balk at the high price. Shashidhar Sathyanarayan, a 46-year-old software entrepreneur based in Bangalore, said he was happy with his Samsung smartphone. "It is criminal to spend 45,000 rupees for a brand name; only those who want to project a 'happening' image will pay," he said.

Source: Times of India

Google: Not Optimistic on Future of Bitcoin

New Delhi: Bitcoin may be gaining popularity but a senior official of internet giant Google said he was not "particularly optimistic" about the digital currency's future since it suffers from being the first in that space.

"It (bitcoin) is partly a medium of transaction, a medium of exchange," Google's chief economist Hal Varian said.

A concept that came into existence in 2009, bitcoin has become very popular of late with its exchange rate surging past $1,000 per unit in November from a little more than $200.

"I think something like this technology will take hold in the future but I am not particularly optimistic about bitcoin because it suffers from being the first in the area.

"We have a saying in the US that you can always tell pioneers that they are the ones with errors in their bags," Varian said here.

He was interacting with the audience after giving a talk on 'The Information Economy in an Internet Age: New Paradigms for Competitiveness and Economic Growth'. The event was organised by economic policy think tank ICRIER.

Meanwhile, in a set back to the emergence of bitcoins, China has directed its banks and other financial institutions not to deal in it.

Besides, the United States has said that all prevailing money laundering laws would apply to bitcoins.

The Indian authorities might issue an advisory to warn against the potential risks associated with this new digital currency.

Source: Silicon India