Indian company launches Live Documents

From Read/WriteWeb by Richard MacManus

Indian company InstaColl today formally launched Live Documents, a mini-office suite of products similar to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Live Documents has already received plenty of press coverage, mainly because it was co-founded by Sabeer Bhatia - the man who famously sold web mail service Hotmail to Microsoft for $400 million in 1998.

It's clear that Live Documents is leveraging the Microsoft brand - from the "Live" brand name, to the claim that it has a "Services plus Software" approach (Microsoft's calls this "software plus services").

CTO Adarsh Kini claims that Live Documents "break's Microsoft's proprietary format lock-in and builds a bridge with other document standards such as Open Office". He also says their service "matches features found only in the latest version of Office (Office 2007)", so giving users a reason to avoid upgrading their MS Office software.

Nick Carr pointed out, India alone is a potentially huge market for Live Documents to take on Microsoft Office. But the problem is that nobody has yet seen the software in action, so it's difficult to say how Live Documents compares with the likes of Google D&S, Zoho, and ThinkFree.

Live Documents first surfaced in Sept 2006, and its current incarnation seems high on hyperbole and low on beta product action. So all we can do, like everyone else, is sign up to the invite beta and wait and see if the PR bluster will be backed up by the actual product.

Open ID vs. Facebook

I wrote on my blog ...

I think he [Josh Catone] is asking for apples from an orange tree ;-). Isn't he asking for a single sign on to all his online tools, rather than ask for making the social network (facebook / orkut etc) as his virtual operating system for the web?

Well Josh - there are things like the OpenID or Windows Live ID to embrace rather than ask for everything to be embedded into facebook or orkut. Just because teenagers use social networks whole day, we shouldn't misplace our faith in them!!

YouMonitor.Us: Peer-to-Peer Site Monitoring Service

From Read/WriteWeb by Josh Catone

YouMonitor.Us is a distributed peer-to-peer monitoring service that puts your web site to work monitoring other sites for downtime, while other sites keep an eye on yours. The service is free, provided that you volunteer some CPU cycles and bandwidth from your server to monitor other sites, and YMU provides detailed downtime reports and instant notification of outages via SMS or email.

The way it works is fairly simple. Once you've signed up, you're prompted to install a script on your web server (they offer it in PHP, JSP, ASP and Perl). The script receives monitoring tasks from the YMU Control Center, and pings other web sites about 10 times per minute. Other web sites in the network will ping your site up to 5 times per minute. If anything is amiss on your site, a text message or email will be dispatched, and you'll also get regular reports about your site's activity over time.

 

Ziva & Zook!

http://www.businessworld.in/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1919&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1982

Google's attempt to pan out to e-mail, chat, blogs, classifieds and mobile content in India faces stiff competition.

Local players like Rediff and indiatimes offer several services on the mobile and there is competition from upstarts like Bangalore's Ziva and mature players like OnMobile and Mauj. But most of them do not have ways to monetise mobile services through advertising. Instead, they rely on subscription.

Ziva has an innovative Mobile Search Agent Zook - Demo Zook here
http://www.zivasoftware.com/demo.html

About Ziva (from their website):

Ziva's platforms can be used by  all the players in the Mobile ecosystem. This includes Mobile Operators, Platform Providers, Content Providers , Aggregators, Enablers & Creators, Media Companies, Mobile Advertising & Marketing Companies and Yellow & White page providers . 

Apart from the mobile Search engine, Ziva's array of products comprises of a Recommendation Module , Merchandising Module , Personalization Module and a Social Networking System

Manas Platform™

• Ziva's Manas Platform™ is a Next-generation mobile search based on a key insight: precise and relevant answers can be provided by modeling the search process on human interactions.Along with this, Ziva's Lateral Search ™ technique allows users to find the desired content in the least number clicks.

Peepal Network™

• Ziva supports an integrated "social networking" platform that provides the ability to create vertical-specific groups/communities. Users can tap into the vast pool of human intelligence (which includes user's friends, subject-matter experts, etc.) to get answers as well as to seek inputs/comments to their questions

Re: http://www.guruji.com

Anurag Dod and Gaurav Mishra, CEOs and Co-Founders, guruji.com, both IIT Engineers, while working with a US based firm, realised the potential of India as a career hub and came back to build the Indian counterpart of Google. Stunned? Well, they made it!
 

"We knew that a search engine built using scalable and robust technology would be a great product for the Indian consumer and we have been talking to a few venture capitalists who would fund our venture. Once Sequoia Capital India agreed to fund us, we immediately decided to move back to India to build this company. We quit our jobs, sold off most our belongings and were ready to build our dream here in India," they say. "The idea came to us in June 2005. We witnessed the success of search engines in the US and also noted that its success rates did not complement its growth in the market. We noticed that the local players were doing far better than them!" recollects Mishra.

http://www.routeguru.com

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2554757,prtpage-1.cms
 

Routeguru.com is a comprehensive website developed by Avinash Garg, Rajesh Bhatia and Piyush Gupta and it gives a detailed description of the route one must take to reach a destination in the shortest possible time.
... the USP of the website is its landmark based search process, i.e. when one keys in the destination and the point of origin of the travel, the website will throw up a comprehensive landmark-based map, together with the distance to be travelled in kilometres.

All three of them came from different backgrounds but they believed in this project, hence left their jobs to go ahead with this project.

The website was launched in June this year and is in its alpha stage. "At present, we are looking for funding to expand the search to other metro cities in India. Once we get adequate finance, it will take us six months to cover all the metros," he enthuses. Garg concludes, "The purpose of the website, at this point of time, is to get some feedback on the service."

Polldaddy Gets Serious

from Read/WriteWeb by Richard MacManus

Co-founder David Lenehan [disclosure: David is an occasional writer for RWW] told me that "the main thing about this launch is what it allows us to do in the future". The original PollDaddy, according to David, was an experiment - so the code for the original site was not built to scale. With the new version, they've re-written the entire application from the ground up. So PollDaddy version 2 is, said David, "a starting point to launch PollDaddy as a full blown professional application."

So what can we expect in the future from Polldaddy? Surveys are the first new feature, and in the coming months Polldaddy will build a platform for "collecting data from the web" - which means services such as forms, quizzes, and other user-requested services. David told me that Polldaddy hopes "to build a system eventually that will ask our users what kind of data they want to collect and provide them with a selection of ways to do it."

Polldaddy has 2 full time developers, including David. Their polls are registering 70 million impression per month and they seem to be the biggest online poll provider (but please let us know in the comments if you know of bigger poll services). Polldaddy has around 70,000 registered users at present.

In terms of Polldaddy's integration within social networks, David said they are working on integrating with Google's OpenSocial "before Christmas." Apparently 20% of their polls are used on social network profiles. The other 80% are made up of blogs and websites, such as RWW.

Gmail Java app for mobile phone

From: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/5_essential_mobile_web_apps.php

... this was noted by 18 people in the comments of our original post. This app is a Java-based version of Gmail for mobile, which features IMAP sync, attachment viewing. Phrases that were associated with Gmail for mobile by our readers included: "just works", "simplicity", "functional", "useful", "a joy to use".

Commenter "mr white" said of the Gmail java app: "This *is* clearly the path of the future. All your e-mails, all the time, everywhere. No more tedious synching with this outlook / that outlook and the webmailer. Now bring on calendar and contacts."

Nathan commented: "A very nice frontend onto a very nice service, and it does a rather nice job of reformatting files for the tiny screen. That's the sort of feature you don't actually appreciate until you're out in the countryside with nary a hardline in sight and need an address that was wrapped up in a .doc in your inbox that you forgot to print."

Not just the JAVA App - if you were to browse to Gmail onto the internet from your mobile phone - Gmail usually detects that the device on the other end is a mobile phone and reformats the page for you ....

I too have used it in situations when I 'need(ed) an address that was wrapped up in a .doc in your inbox that you forgot to print.'.

Ways to Make Moola

From: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/moola_launch.php

In addition to games, Moola enables users to make money by searching on their Moola Search page. Powered by Google Custom Search, Moola employs an algorithm that measures how much people search, weeds out illegitimate searches and clicks, and then shares ad revenue with searchers. You might only make a few pennies per day, but that money can be used to play Moola games and bump you into a higher playing bracket.

Moola also lets people make cash via what they call "Boosters" -- or, a cash back program based on affiliate marketing. Shopping at any of Booster's affiliated online stores results in cash deposited in your account. Moola supports a lot of major online retailers including Hotels.com, Buy.com, Travelocity, Skype, Old Navy, and NewEgg.

The final way Moola enables users to make money, is via a 4-level referral program. Refer friends, and take a cut of anything they do on the site, whether that's search payouts, Booster Zone payouts, or game winnings.

Remove the Blogger NavBar

Did you ever want to remove the blogger bar from the blog ??? ... here's how to do it

http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/2005/01/remove-navbar.html

Remove the NavBar

To hide the Blogger NavBar:

- Log in to blogger

- On your Dashboard, select Layout. This will take you to the Template tab. Click Edit HTML. Under the Edit Template section you will see you blog's HTML.

- paste the CSS definition in the top of the template code:

 <b:skin><![CDATA[/*
-----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Rounders
Designer: Douglas Bowman
URL:       www.stopdesign.com 
Date:     27 Feb 2004
Updated by: Blogger Team
----------------------------------------------- */

 #navbar-iframe {
   display: none !important;
}

 /* Variable definitions
  ====================
   <Variable name="mainBgColor" description="Main Background Color"
             type="color" default="#fff" value="#ffffff"> 
   <Variable name="mainTextColor" description="Text Color" type="color"
             default="#333" value="#333333">
   ...

Remove the code to show it again.

Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2007/02/transform_gmail.html

I have started using Gmail as much more than an email host. With its gobs of storage, speed and tremendous search/tagging capabilities, you can transform it into a personal nerve center that's available from any computer or mobile device. When you tap into this power and combine Gmail with some other tools, it is perhaps the most essential site ever developed. Most of the following life hacks have not been documented.

This series has several parts...

• How to turn Gmail into a massive personal database (Gmail + the Google Toolbar)
• How to get real-time news updates in Gmail (Gmail+ Google Talk + Twitter)
• How to automatically store your bookmarks in Gmail (Gmail + del.icio.us + Yahoo Alerts)
• How to manage Calendar and To-Dos in Gmail (Gmail + Backpack + GCal +  GTalk + iMified)
• How to blog from Gmail (Gmail + Wordpress/TypePad/Blogger + IMified)

What's wrong with local search engines

http://www.watblog.com/2007/07/13/guruji-search-win-innovative-but-retain-users/

There's this eating joint Barbeque Nation (Somewhere around Bandra). I wanted their telephone no.

So I did a search for Barbeque Nation on Burrp. Well I put in Bandra (W). No results!

Then I used JustDial, no results. OnYoMO, no results.

Finally, I did a google search and got the no. off Explocity.

And then I realized the mistake – Barbeque Nation was in Khar (W). Makes me wonder, if someone knew the exact details of a place - why would he even search for it? Or is there no room for human error?

Perhaps the algorithm needs a bit of tweaking to understand normal human behaviour a little more. The potential in Local Search though is immense. There's a lot to build on.

 

Buzz Ideas

http://www.pluggd.in/2007/01/does-india-need-national-search-enginehtml

India-specific search engine for the following purposes:

• Local Language/Vernacular search: Search engine that indexes and returns regional content [Hindi/Kannada/Marathi etc…] is the one that will be most relevant.
• Local Interface - Give me a local interface, i.e. ability to type in the regional language. Typically Indians think in their local language and convert that to the foreign language (i.e. English). Remove that barrier. Allow users to type the query (e.g. quilpad) in their local language (and of course index the local content too)
• Verticalized Search - To stay relevant and be needed, one of the most effective ways for Indian search engine would be to focus on specific verticals - e.g. Health related, Food/Recipes, Literature, Indie Blogs, Bollywood, etc..
• How about something on the lines of Goog's Book scan/digitization effort? One of the most significant value add that Indian search engine can do is to make rich literary work searchable and save it from extinction. Most of the great literary works are lying in the shelf ('waiting for the worms') and any desi effort to digitize them (and make them searchable) will be the most relevant piece that a search engine can ever do.

Tiinker - Recommendation Without Organization

Useful feedback for Tiinker

Let's leave that bit aside for a second, and focus on the other stuff Tiinker offers. Immediately upon logging in, I feel crippled by the lack of options. I can't rearrange feeds in the way I like; I cannot make individual items bigger or smaller; I can't read only the titles; I can't choose to fit more or less feeds on a page, etc. In short, I can't do 90% of the things I can do with Google Reader, Netvibes or Bloglines, and this is an immediate deal breaker for me.

What can I do? Well, I can add stories to my scrapbook, I can add my own feeds or an OPML file…and that's about it. I know Tiinker is in private beta stage, but this simply isn't enough. People who are serious about their feeds want more options, period.

Kalpesh - thanks for the feed ...

Source: http://mashable.com/2007/11/12/tiinker-recommendation-organization/

--
Nikhil Kulkarni
|http://the-complete-man.blogspot.com|
www.bloozler.com | www.arbitmba.com

How can I tell if a message was sent to just me or to a mailing list?

Gmail displays arrows, or 'personal level indicators,' next to messages in your inbox so you can tell if a message was addressed to you, a group, or a mailing list. A single arrow (>) appears next to a message when it is sent to you, and a group of others. Double arrows (>>) indicate that a message is addressed only to you. Arrows won't appear next to messages sent to a mailing list.

Here's how to enable personal level indicators:

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click 'Settings' at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Select 'Show indicators' in the 'Personal level indicators:' section, and click 'Save Changes.' (If you'd like to disable personal level indicators, just select 'No indicators' and click 'Save Changes.')

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=%67mail&hl=en&answer=8156

Social Networking Turmoil: Google's OpenSocial vs Facebook

Google's OpenSocial

Google on Thursday, unveiled OpenSocial suppose to be the biggest Trump Card Google could produce for a while now.

OpenSocial's open APIs will allow third party developers to create applications that will work on any social network that joins Google's open party. The set of APIs will allow third-party programmers to build widgets that take advantage of personal data and profile connections on a social networking site.

MySpace and Bebo have joined this Google Network: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/technology/02google.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Besides Orkut, MySpace and Bebo a number of other popular social networking platforms such as LinkedIn, hi5, XING, Plaxo, Friendster and Ning have already come on board OpenSocial. Salesforce.com and Oracle too are supporting OpenSocial.

What it means for Facebook?

OpenSocial comes close on the heels of Facebook's blazing growth based on opening its social graph to developers and Microsoft's $240 million investment in the company. Microsoft trumped Google in the bidding for a piece of Facebook. Google's bigger social networking ambition is believed to be one of the reasons Facebook decided to deepen its partnership with Microsoft instead.

Facebook's problem is that for developers to build applications it requires use of FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for security reasons, thus it also makes code unusable outside Facebook. Hence, OpenSocial which allows developers to write in normal java script and html with only minor adjustments needed for the code to work on its platform will gain much more popularity than Facebook hence forcing Facebook to change its approach in the near future or loose its rapidly growing market share.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/technology/31google.html

Icing on the Cake (for Google)

The list of developers feeding applications to Google includes three of Facebook's most popular widget suppliers - Flixster, Slide, RockYou and iLike.