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Another step in viral marketing

Last week Facebook launched a new distribution platform for new applications. Developers can add their applications to facebook and facebook will show these applications in the order of popularity. And this popularity ranking is pretty dynamic. Flixster was at the top in the morning, at 4 two hours before and no where in top 10 […]

24X7 Study Portal for Management Entrance Studies

I have been thinking on this idea for quite a some time now. It would be good to have this idea discussed over here. The plan is to have the study material for management entrance exams (like CAT/GMAT) made available through some software, both online and offline. If we look at the candidates who take […]

Investment Play

This is my last post on VW till I return from my US trip in July . We are approaching tax season in India. For a number of years in the US I have used the Quicken family of products including Turbo Tax. There are other interesting personal finance sites like Bank Rate, Lending Tree, […]

VC boom in Russia?

BW piece on how the VC scene is hotting up in Russia: To encourage such investments, the Russian government has set up a trust that matches investments from private venture capitalists. Already, it has agreed to dispense nearly $100 million to three groups of investors. Among them: Asset Management, run by legendary Silicon Valley venture […]

Customer Fulfillment

I am going to spend a few weeks in the US in June and decided to see if I could rent a cell phone in India which would work in the US. Matrix provides such a service. The rental is $30 for the handset. This includes 400 minutes of talk time ( 150 Peak) and […]

Tinker Level Ideas

The world is madly chasing the convergence dream. I believe however the future lies in breaking some of that convergence into basic products – tinker level. The market possibilities are endless in the emerging world. Think of a GPS device that just gives you location and not mp3 and other bells and whistles. Think of […]

Perils of Forecasting

The genesis of this post is the forecasts on online media spend. I tend to agree that this may be slow to grow in India but I would want to know when it took off in USA and/or China and what triggered takeoff. I remain optimistic on advertising by persons and SME to get business. […]

Designations and mapping a startup

A few of us were discussing startups, and the point/purpose of a designation arose, and what it actually meant in a startup. So far in life I have been a Founder, Co-founder, CEO, CTO, Vice president, Chief product Officer, Chief of Business Strategy,Executive Vice president, Director, Founding member, Advisor, Board Advisor, and a few other […]

Internet bootcamp for consumer marketing professionals

Canaan and TiE are organizing an event for consumer marketing professionals in packaged goods, media, financial services, telecom and other such consumer industries – people who might be interested in entrepreneurship but don’t know where to start. Specific focus is on internet related opportunities. If you can think of people you know who might be […]

Online Media spend India

Motley fool did a write up on Rediff. The interesting items to me were Users – 53.6 million Revenues: $30MM annually ARPU annual : 0.56 cents. 10 advertisers accounted for 55% of revenues. Maybe all revenues were not advertising related. If say Rediff has 10% ( wild guess) of all online ad media spend then […]

Delighting Customers/ Time

This post builds on the Dhando Investor post which with 20 comments was getting a bit cumbersome. Deepak Nadiger made an interesting comment and I wanted to respond and decided to do it with a fresh post. The hurdle rate discussion is an opportunity to be innovative and delight customers. In the businesses I have […]