Vodafone, a prominent telecom player in India has taken bold steps to 'Democratize' Internet.

In an promotional effort to appease customers during the holiday season, Vodafone has allowed all its customers across India to enjoy reduced Internet tariffs. A while ago, the company had ceremoniously slashed internet tariffs by as much as 80%. However, the company chose a few states where this offer was applicable. Subscribers in Karnataka, UP West, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh circles got to access Internet on On-The-Go basis, at 2 Paisa per 10 KB, which was 10 Paisa Per 10 KB earlier.

These same rates are now being extended to all its circles across India. Applicable from November 1, the rates are sure to bring joy especially to customers who do not buy special Data Tariff Packs. Additionally, the reduced tariff is not just applicable to both Prepaid as well as Postpaid customers, but the rates won't change even if the customer is roaming across India!

Multiple companies had raised Data Tariffs, especially for 2G internet recently. In an apparent effort to wane customers away from this ancient standard of communication, which cannot offer speed, telecom companies substantially jacked up rates and even halved the validity period.

But Vodafone has a justifiable reason to stick to 2G and 3G. The company deliberately did not participate in the 4G Auctions and has opted to stay in this bands/spectrum that offers moderately high speed with decent coverage using pre-existent network.

Mobile Internet has proven to be the next driver of education, content and entertainment. Interestingly, the company is also building content partnerships, educating retailers and offering choice to customer on the basis of their interests and consumption patterns. Essentially, Vodafone appears to be simplifying pricing to ensure higher adoption.

Though the glass-ceiling on speed will soon break, the high prices for data is now the only true limiting factor. Will Vodafone's strategic contribution assist in spreading internet access across India?

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Google's upcoming update to the Android OS may bring along many improvements and new capabilities, according to former Wall Street Journal reporter Amir Efrati. He claims to have had access to KitKat's feature list and believes that good things are coming for the Android ecosystem.

Optimized For Low End Devices:

Firstly, KitKat will be optimized to run on low end Android phones. Android due to its open nature can be installed on any suitable hardware provided device specifications and driver requirements are met. This has given rise to the manufacturing and sales of low end Android devices, effectively bringing the smartphone in reach of the common man across countries. However, the performance on Android on low-end phones has been sub-par and many users have complained of the lag that they suffer while using these phones. Efrati claims that KitKat will be optimized to run with phones having 512 GB of RAM. This, if true, will make the performance on lower end Androids better compared to previous versions.

Android's performance issues on lower end phones have given rise to new phone projects like Firefox OS which aim to run much better on low end hardware. This upgrade will also be a boon to developers and users who have to struggle with Android's fragmentation issues. With performance not an issue, more users will be able to upgrade to the latest version of Android than before, thus possible closing the gap between versions.

Better Sensor Support:

KitKat also seems to be equipped for the wearable computing revolution that might be coming soon. The OS is expected to support new sensors like geomagnetic rotation vector, step detector and step counter. These sensors are likely to be important for smart watches, both official Android ones (Google Glass and Smartwatch)  and third party devices. Android will now be able to calculate distance and movement (walking) much more accurately if this is true. This will mean better fitness apps features and also more accurate Google Maps.

NFC:

Kitkat is also looking at creating NFC services which will emulate physical cards (both payment and security ). These could be used for many different everyday scenarios like shopping, public travel and data sharing. Google's NFC implementation has not really taken over the world because of the complications involved in security and technological challenges. Maybe this time, it will be better.

Infrared and Advanced Bluetooth Support:

As you may have heard before, Google TV is now being rebranded Android TV and the new KitKat may have something up its sleeve. While it is possible that the new Android OS could sync and integrate better with Android TVs, it also will have the ability to become a remote control for normal TVs, tuner cards, switches, etc. Your Android device will now be able to act like a universal infrared remote control. This could simplify a lot of things when it comes to entertainment and household electronics. Besides infrared, KitKat will also have advanced Bluetooth support through which you could connect to many more types of devices than previously possible, such as game controllers, keyboards and in-car entertainment systems.

All these new disclosures about Android KitKat seem to be very promising. Google hasn't commented on this yet but the company might announce the new OS very soon.

What are your thoughts on these supposed new features? Share them with us.

Source | Jessica Lessin

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Facebook has given few tweaks to its Messenger app for Android. The social network is testing new features on the Android app which boasts a revamped look and a new messenger icon. The testing which is currently carried on few selected users also integrates phone numbers to enhance user experience on mobile devices.

“Starting today, we are testing an update to Messenger on Android that makes it a faster and more reliable mobile-to-mobile messaging experience”, wrote Facebook on a blog post. The new version of the app will enable users to send Facebook messages to other people even if they are not on Facebook. The users only need to have the phone number of the receiving user in order to start a Messenger chat.

Once a mobile number is added, it appears on that user’s Facebook timeline. Users will automatically be searchable on Messenger by their mobile numbers, a setting that they can opt to turn off. Facebook Messenger will now display their new Messenger icon next to a user's name who also happens to be using the Messenger app. This indicates that the contact is also using the Messenger for Android app, and will be notified of your message immediately.

Facebook’s latest Messenger App will now feature a sleek new Holo UI where swiping left and right takes you between conversation lists, contacts, and settings. The update comes as Facebook faces increased competition in the mobile messaging space. BlackBerry last week finally released its long-awaited BBM for iOS and Android app. Also, yesterday Google added SMS integration to Hangouts. The latest update might open up Messenger to a substantially wider audience.

Facebook said the the update will roll out to masses on Android in coming weeks.

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Due to the way it is designed and built, Facebook needs an ever increasing amount of data to keep its services relevant. This data can be used for internal feature reviews, new features and advertising. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook might increase the collection of their data by tracking your cursor movements when you are on the site. This will give them precise behavioral analytics capability.

Facebook's data collection is divided into two parts – demographic and behavioral data collection. Demographic data is the data that you provide the social network, such as your Name, nationality, age, sex, likes, interests, travel etc. Behavioral data deals with how you interact with Facebook and other people. While you may realize that demographic data is easy for Facebook to collect and analyse, because most users themselves give this data to Facebook, behavioral data is little harder to collect and access. Tracking your cursor movements may help the social network get a lot of relevant data on individual users and the mass, so that they can see what works and what does not. Behavioral data is very important for advertising, so that users can be shown the most relevant ads. Demographic data may help you pin-point your user base, but behavioral data might actually lead to action being taken by the user on seeing an ad.

Facebook usually tracks behavioral data beyond its website. It adds cookies to a user's browser which record the user's travels through the web beyond Facebook. This helps Facebook understand more about their users. However, privacy advocates are not enthused about this and many tools have cropped up which allow users to disconnect from such tracking, prominent among them being Disconnect.Me.

Facebook's Analytics head, Ken Rudin has said that they are testing cursor based tracking on Facebook currently but they are not sure when it will roll out to all users. Once this is deployed, Facebook will see a surge in new data and this will require an upgrade in the company's infrastructure, something Rudin is helping prepare. This maybe very valuable for the company in the years to come.

What are your thoughts on Facebook tracking your cursor while you are surfing the site? Let us know in the comments.

Source | The Wall Street Journal

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Customer support in the days of the Internet has now expanded to include social media, online support and other platforms. However, phone support is not going away yet inspite of the surge of customer support on these new media platforms. FreshDesk, a cloud based customer support company which offers a platform for businesses and startups to get up and running with their customer support operations, has now announced the launch of its cloud phone feature which will support customer calls.

The feature called Freshfone, will now allow your customer support team to handle phone calls which will be routed through their cloud platform. This unification is important from a streamlining perspective as traditional telephone calls do not really integrate well with other customer support software. All businesses have to do is get a local phone number and Freshfone will route all your customer calls to that number. The feature allows you to transfer the call to another member of the support team, thus letting customers get support from the right person for the job. The feature also lets users attend calls when you are out on the road. Users can receive their calls on their mobile and this can truly mean 24/7 customer support. This will definitely appeal to a lot of startups and small businesses, who have not yet reached the scale of staffing a complete support department yet. The service has IVR support and by defining the right questions, you can get the customer to reach the right person.

Freshdesk's integrated platform seems to be a simple solution to all the customer support operation problems that may arise. Integration of phone calls with the online support platform makes it easier for support teams to track and analyse problems and recommend solutions faster. This makes customer conversations simpler, something that should be the priority of every customer support team in a company.

Freshdesk has an office in Chennai and is registered in California. Other Indian startups in the cloud telephony space include Exotel and Knowlarity.

Link | Freshfone

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Facebook has just announced its Q3 2013 results that has exceeded expectations. The company revealed that the revenue in the latest quarter surged 60 percent to $2.02 billion. Facebook’s advertising revenue was $1.8 billion, up 66 per cent from a year ago. Mobile ads accounted for 49 per cent of the company’s total ad revenue during the quarter.

Along with the revenue, Facebook also announced new milestones. The big blue social network just got even bigger with over 1.19 billion monthly active users up 18 per cent from last year. Of these, an average of 728 million users logged in every day during the month of September, up 25 per cent from a year ago. Also, Facebook now has 874 million mobile monthly active users up from 819 million in last quarter registering a 45% increase. Furthermore, the social network has 507 million daily users compared to 469 million during Q2. It must be noted that 73.44 percent of Facebook's total user base now accesses the service from a mobile device.

These numbers show that the gap between mobile and total active users continues to draw closer with each quarter as Facebook continues the mobile push. Facebook hit the 1.1 billion mark in May soon after which Facebook for every phone crossed 10o million monthly active users. India had 82 million monthly active Facebook users in August this year.

The social network has been focusing a lot on mobile and has hence registered a strong quarter. Also, the company has further increased its global reach with cheaper Facebook access.

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Indian telecom company Bharti Airtel is presently enjoying a very healthy growth as well as adoption rates in a completely different Value Added Service.

Airtel Money, a Mobile Wallet launched by the company last year, has surged in adoption rates. The semi-closed mobile wallet service in India has grown to Rs. 654 Crores (US$ 106 Million) worth of Transactions per Quarter! This is a phenomenal growth if one considers the fact that last in the same quarter; the transactions valued just Rs. 69 Crores (US$ 11 Million)!

Not just the transaction amount, but the number of users too, has surged. The subscriber base increased 168.5% on a Year on Year basis. The service presently claims usage from 1.4 Million subscribers as of 2^nd Quarter. These subscribers executed a total of 23.7 Million Transactions, each transaction having an average value of Rs. 276. This is surprisingly way higher than Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) derived from Voice and SMS based services. Presently Airtel is able to generate ARPU of just about Rs. 160.35 from Voice Service.

Airtel's success in the Mobile Wallet Segment highlights the viability of the platform to serve as a reliable revenue generation stream other than the declining Voice and SMS based segments. Telecom companies had recently realized the importance of Mobile Data and had started to augment their networks and speeds. But these companies simply cannot rely on a single segment to bail them out in such trying times.

The applicability of Mobile Wallets is felt acutely in areas which have been unbanked, revealed Manoj Kohli, CEO and Joint MD at Airtel,

"The mobile payments business in important for the company [Airtel]. In terms of convenience, stickiness, especially for the 99% unbanked customer base in Africa. Customers are using it for money transfer, for utility payments and Airtel top-ups, which help us save sales and distribution commission"

Realizing the potential quite early on, companies like Vodafone and others (including banks like SBI, HDFC and others) are already setting up operations. Ideal Cellular, another telecom company too is trying to secure a License for operating Mobile Wallet. Do you think competition in this sub-segment will benefit the end-user?

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Worldwide tablet shipment grew 36.7 percent year-over-year in Q3 2013, according to the latest report from IDC. A total of 47.6 million units ship worldwide, up from 34.8 million the same quarter last year. The research firm notes that the market as a whole continues to grow thanks to strong growth from Android tablets. Apple’s iPad took no.1 spot with 14.1 million units sold in the Q3. However, the company's tablet market share fell lowest till date to 29.6 percent during the third quarter, down from 40.2 percent a year ago.

Samsung was the biggest beneficiary of the growth in Android tablets, holding 20.4 percent market share during the third quarter, up from 12.4 percent a year ago. The Korean company more than doubled its tablet shipments from 4.3 million in Q3 last year to 9.7 million in Q3 this year. But, that wasn’t even the biggest manufacturer growth year-on-year. Lenovo made a huge jump from just 400,000 shipments in Q3 2012 to 2.3 million this past quarter and Acer jumped from 300,000 to 1.2 million shipments year-on-year.

ASUS, which makes the Nexus 7 for Google, shipped about 3.5 million total units during the quarter for a third place finish and 7.4% market share. PC powerhouse Lenovo moved into the number four tablet spot with shipments of 2.3 million units and a 4.8% share. Finally, Acer rounded out the top five with 1.2 million units shipped and a 2.5% share.

Speaking about the Android tablets, Tom Mainelli, Research Director said in a release. “White box tablet shipments continue to constitute a fairly large percentage of the Android devices shipped into the market,” “These low cost Android-based products make tablets available to a wider market of consumers, which is good. However, many use cheap parts and non Google-approved versions of Android that can result in an unsatisfactory customer experience, limited usage, and very little engagement with the ecosystem. Android’s growth in tablets has been stunning to watch, but shipments alone won’t guarantee long-term success. For that you need a sustainable hardware business model, a healthy ecosystem for developers, and happy end users.”

Microsoft Corp. meanwhile, again failed to crack the top five tablet makers, according to IDC. It must be noted that Apple didn’t have any new product reveals until last week. With the launch of iPad Air and iPad mini with retina display, Apple definitely has the potential to change the game in next quarter.

Image Credits: idc

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English Daily Economic Times has launched another news portal ETTelecom.com. The website will feature news primarily pertaining to the telecom sector.

Owned and operated by BCCL, Economic Times (ET), an English daily with presence on the web, mobile as well as physical distribution, has chosen to accord a separate portal altogether that will publish news, articles and other insight based coverage only for the Telecom Sector. Though National as well as International Telecom News will be covered, this appears to be a first instance of a National Newspaper adopting such a diversification and niche deployment for individual sectors.

What will ETTelecom feature?
ETTelecom.com will provide content across news, information, factual and statistical data, tools and services to professionals mainly in the telecom industry. The exclusive coverage by the portal will be complimented by a daily mobile-friendly newsletter to its subscribers. ETTelecom.com will also provide an interactive platform for the telecom professionals via forums and live discussions with the decision makers in the telecom industry.

Interestingly, to ensure the new portal gains traction across multiple segments, ETTelecom will also feature content regarding Networks, Broadband, DTH, IPTV, Handsets and all other related information. Essentially, it appears, Economic Times has launched a platform for all things pertaining to communication, be it Mass Communication or Telecommunication.

Why begin with the telecom sector?
Traditionally, science and technology have always been the busiest and liveliest segments, apart from Politics. So much so that Times of India, ET’s sister English daily, even offered a direct access to its Tech Section via ToiTech.com.  But lately, the telecom segment has been garnering a lot of interest from all quarters of the society and ET wants to capitalize on the same, reasoned Satyan Gajwani, CEO, Times Internet,

"The Indian Telecom Industry is at a perfect stage of development now and with 3G and smartphones gradually taking the centre stage, it will have a lot of stories to tell in the coming time. As internet access is poised for a dramatic turn, we see Times Internet diversifying into B2B news and adopting an aggressive strategy to redefine content delivery with a sector-wise approach,"

Do you think news portals should segregate and bifurcate segments into niche portals?

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Pinterest is rolling out ‘Related Pins’ to home feed based on users recommendations. The social sharing platform will analyze the contents of your pins and insert related pins thereby improving discovery on the site. “Related Pins are picked specially for you based on the unique things you're into, such as other Pins you've saved or liked”, the company said in a company blog post.

Pinterest says that these pins will be similar or linked to posts that you have already saved or liked. So for example if you have created pin board for hair styles, Pinterest will show you related pins similar to different hairstyle that you haven’t accessed yet. The pins also will come with a thumbs up/thumbs down feature so users can give feedback and improve the relevance of the pins over time. A thumbs down will remove the recommendation from the feed and the site will learn more about what you do and don’t like. Pinterest plans to start "slowly" with the program to ensure that users’ Pinterest home feed is not overpopulated with a product they may not be interested in.

In order to access this feature, click on the “i” icon on a pin. It should be noted that ‘Related Pins’ are completely different from ‘Promoted Pins’ which Pinterest introduced last month as a move into advertising. The social scrap-booking site recently secured $225 million in funds and is now worth $3 billion.

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