ET had an interesting article a couple of days ago on declining SMS usage in India –http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Indians_dont_just_talk_less_… While the absolute number of SMS’s sent continue to grow (simply because Indian operators continue to add subs at a mind-boggling rate), the average SMS message per user fell significantly in the Sep. quarter relative to the June […]
OM Careers to Host World’s First Online Marketing Careers Conference
OM Careers is a non-profit, online marketing careers community, dedicated to addressing the challenge of lack of skilled resources in the Online/Search marketing industry. OM Careers is playing host to OMCAR 2008, world’s first online marketing careers conference in Delhi on Jan 12, 2008. The event will be coupled with a unique Job clinic opportunity […]
Evolving Online Video …
As the founder of ventunotech.com , I might have been biased on my thoughts when I wrote the article below. Hence posting it here for a reality check. Every media distribution technology was built upon its predecessor. Television did not simply appear – it evolved from the radio. TV’s evolution is marked by a series […]
P2P Lending – further thoughts
Couple of days back; I posted about P2P lending and its India Feasibility – got mixed reponse from readers. I thought to bounce some more facts/findings from Deutsche Bank Research Report. Interesting to note: 1.) Less default rate for borrowers who are member of some group (remember SHG of Indian MFI industry) 2.) At present; […]
The Gap in the Indian Innovation Ecosystem.
“There is a definite lack in the number of fundable ideas in the ecosystem. What we need is more incubation funds.” I am not sure if that’s so. Fundable ideas, in most cases denotes a team that is mature enough and has the market valuation and the credibility to be looked seriously by a VC […]
Al Gore joins Kleiner Perkins as Partner
Very interesting. Another lever for Gore to try and influence the climate change issue. The alliance provides Mr. Gore an additional pulpit for his advocacy of environmental causes, but also gives the Nobel laureate an opportunity to nurture green businesses. Venture capitalists said the move could help companies financed by Kleiner establish ties with big […]
Review of Payment Systems by RBI
Reserve Bank of India has published Annual Review (FY 2007) of Payment and Settlement Systems. It’s encouraging to read that RBI is taking some concrete steps to increase the penetration of electronic payments. I specially found Chapter 2 and 4 of this report interesting. Some interesting observations: Electronic Bill Payment ( for utilities ) has […]
Peer to Peer Lending – India feasibility?
At Canaan US, we have invested in a peer to peer lending company – Lending Club. The company launched itself on Facebook and in last three months, it has facilitated $1 million in loans. The value proposition is for people taking unsecured personal loans of smaller amounts (~ $5000) and also for lenders getting higher […]
Great read: SaaSy security suits small businesses
Absolutely credible and intuitive assessment of the consolidated and de-productized information security market by David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners. David has hit the bullseye here, beautifully explaining the current and underlying bottlenecks ailing the business of information security. Personally, I feel this is a brilliant take on the future of the IT security industry. […]
Facebook = Comcast (Lean Forward Entertainment)
This is along the lines of Alok’s post but different enough that I thought I would do a new post. When I look back in history for a model that may predict how the broad social networks will evolve, the Television industry comes to mind. Facebook would be Comcast and there will emerge channels like […]
Virtual worlds versus Social networks
CNet reports an estimate of $1b being invested in virtual worlds. While comparing with social networks, it says One of the reasons the genre still feels like a niche is that there is no single virtual world that everyone is using, like there is with social networks like MySpace or Facebook. World of Warcraft is […]
Facebook End Game
I am a Big FAN of Facebook and like thousands of internet enthusiast I see Mark Zukerberg as a HERO . He has created a Giant distribution Platform called Social Graph . He did it on his vision of Internet and social media . Some of his moves like News feed, Opening up the platform […]