Crazy Guide to the Internet

Let me start with some great news. Netcore has won the Runner-Up position in the GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards. I will be in Barcelona next week (along with Netcore CEO, Abhijit Saxena) to make the presentation. Will have more details about MyToday soon.

PRESS RELEASE:

Netcore Solutions declared as Runner Up in ‘True Mobile Start-Up’ category at GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards ’08

While the telecom world is abuzz with the upcoming GSMA Mobile World Congress, India’s Netcore Solutions has already quietly scored at the GSMA 2008 Mobile Innovation Global Awards, sponsored by Ericsson with Netcore’s path breaking MyToday service. Netcore was selected, last week as Runner-up in the ’True Mobile Startup’ category.

Netcore Solutions was selected from hundreds of entries as a Top Innovator in the first round. GSMA then selected 10 finalists over 5 categories who will compete in front of a judging panel at the Mobile Innovation Marketplace that is due to be held in Barcelona between February 11-12 2008.

Netcore Solutions has acquired a place in the runners-up list of 15 nominees over 5 categories. Netcore is the first Indian company to be recognized at the GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards. Netcore’s MD Rajesh Jain will present MyToday to a global audience in Barcelona on 12^th February 2008.

The GSMA Mobile World Congress ’08 convenes in February this year at Barcelona. Founded in 1987, GSMA is a global trade association representing over 700 GSM mobile phone operators. GSMA Mobile World Congress which convenes every February is the world’s largest and the most prestigious mobile industry event.

The Mobile Innovation Global Awards were launched by GSMA in year 2006 to recognize excellence and showcase innovation in the global mobile industry by presenting emerging companies on a global stage.

The Mobile Innovation Global Awards 2008, sponsored by Ericsson, are judged in multiple stages with participations from across the world. The 2008 shortlist has been chosen by a panel of expert judges. The judging process evaluates the innovators on crucial factors that can make, or break, the success of a truly innovative idea.

Service Supreme

Netcore’s MyToday is a bold and visionary effort to reach out to all of the 250 million or more Indians who possess a cell phone with innovative data services on SMS and GPRS, - with ‘something for everyone’. Through MyToday Dailies, Netcore offers unique content services on SMS. A comprehensive mobile portal, MyToday.mobi offers relevant content to Indian mobile users on the go. While through the community group and chat services – called MyToday MOBS and Mytoday Chat, it reaches out to the fast growing mobile youth segment of Indian market. Netcore has been able to establish mobile as a medium that caters to need of consumers and also offers path-breaking modes of mobile advertising and marketing.

MyToday Dailies is the largest non-telco, direct-to-consumer Mobile Service, with over 2.5 million subscribers spread across the country. With 25 successful channels that have succeeded without mass media campaigns, MYTODAY DAILIES has grown virally through pure word-of-mouth.

Abhijit Saxena, CEO Netcore says, “Mobiles are emerging as one of the strongest and largest medium in India to directly address the fast growing market of over 225 million mobile users. With strong technology platform, we are able to reach to every Indian mobile user who is hungry for information but has no access to internet on the go. We have the capability and the proof of concept to showcase the strength of the fourth screen that every Indian views, which is mobile.”

The Second Life of SMS

MYTODAY DAILIES is a free, direct-to-consumer, opt-in SMS subscription service that is making SMS into a habit with its timed delivery. Since most users subscribe to multiple channels, the cumulative reach of MYTODAY DAILIES is 8 million every day.

“At Netcore, we pro-actively put the user in control, to eliminate any chance of spam and unsolicited communication which is highly detrimental to the brand and the medium. In the DNC environment, where the consumer, advertising fraternity and regulatory systems are grappling to fight the monster of tele-marketing and SMS spam, here is a company that has designed its services to the subscribers’ conveniences, needs and driven purely by his choice.” - quipped Abhijit Saxena.

What is more important is that besides being a strong feasible concept, it is their unique channels that give them the edge no media has in India today. They are as strong in the semi and sub urban zones of India as they are in the Metros and Tier 1 cities

About Netcore

Netcore has been founded by Rajesh Jain, who had earlier created IndiaWorld, India’s first and largest family of internet portals, which was acquired by Sify in 1999.

His new venture, Netcore, has been getting recognition in the global mobile fraternity for its innovation in giving SMS a second life and pioneering new business models in mobile advertising and marketing.

Rajesh Jain, Founder and MD said, “Mobiles are the true convergence device of the future, and they will be the ultimate marketing platform of tomorrow. In Consumer Marketing, you can’t get more direct.” Known for the success of his futuristic vision and ventures, he added, “Recognition from the 2008 GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards is a timely endorsement of our vision for the future in new-world media and markets.”

Netcore’s Mobility division has been creating benchmark mobile products and services. Created under the umbrella brand of MyToday - MyToday.mobi, MyToday Dailies and MyToday MOBS provide an array of services to millions of users across the length and breadth of the country. Their huge success is an acknowledgement of Rajesh Jain’s vision to bring about an information and communication revolution using the mobile as a medium.

CEO Speak

Abhijit Saxena says, ““All we had to do was to find a method to marry the largest proliferated device with a service which is sincere to the user’s sensibilities, needs and conveniences. When we put it all together, we knew we already had a winner with long-term potential.”

“The medium and the market are very large and lucrative, and being hurt by ad-hoc tele-marketing and SMS spam. We decided to conserve and cultivate this market by example.”

He added, “We respect the DNC environment, because true consumer-based marketing deserves weaving our services into their lifestyle while adding intrinsic value. And we hope we start a trend that will encourage companies to market strategically, not forcefully.”

It has been an extraordinarily long break from blogging. After six years of daily updates, I took a break last June-end, necessitated by a bout of influenza which left me bed-ridden for a couple weeks. Around the same time, work became very busy. Also, my son, Abhishek, (growing from 2 to 3 years) made sure that mornings and evenings were his time with me. And, I had just gotten bored of the format of one weekly Tech Talk series (which was becoming repetitive) and giving links to interesting articles. So, I stopped – hoping for a magical makeover and some inspiration! That never happened – until now.

This time around, I will blog more on what I think – rather than giving only the links. So, the posts will be less frequent, but hopefully more meaningful. I have also migrated the blog from MovableType to Wordpress. All in all, time for a new beginning.

There’s lots to talk about, so let’s get started!

Posted by Scott Petry, Director of Product Management

For those of us who joined Google from Postini, one of the most exciting possibilities was to learn how to operate at Google scale. As a young company, we were accustomed to moving quickly. But now that we’re here, we’re seeing speed in a whole new dimension: how to quickly make complex technology products accessible and useful to all kinds of businesses. We didn’t understand all the implications of Google’s resources. (Frankly, we still don’t!) But over last couple months the picture has started to come into focus, and now our customers get the benefit of our innovation and scale.

Today we announced three new security products that deliver anti-spam, outbound message filtering, transport encryption and archiving and discovery for any email system, from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange to Novell Groupwise. The new services are part of the Google Apps platform, which makes it easy for you to use all the messaging, collaboration and security products at once, or to adopt what you need and grow over time.

Read more on the Enterprise Blog or just get started.

Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google Elections Team

They don’t call it Super Tuesday for nothing! Today marks an exciting day in the race to the U.S. Presidency: voters in 24 states will choose their party candidates. This will be the largest number of primaries taking place at one time in the history of the U.S. electoral system.

We’ve joined forces with Twitter to give you instant updates on Super Tuesday. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, you can send a simple text message about your voting experience. Huge turnout? Taking too long in line? Did you just vote for the first time? We want it all, if you can keep to 140 characters or less. (And if candidates can keep their posts to 140 characters, anyone can.)

Throughout the day, you can watch Twitter updates from across the country:

Twitter posts are only one piece of the Google Super Tuesday Map, a one-stop shop to follow the action today. You can find the latest YouChoose ‘08 videos, Google News election headlines and primary state results down to the county level. The Google News team is also in on the action. In addition to all the latest stories from thousands of sources in our new election section, they’ve also put together a gadget that tracks the progress of the candidates in each of the 24 states (of course, the numbers here are not real; they’re meant to show you how it may look after the polls close).

Super Tuesday gives us a chance to try out new features and to see how people are using technology to participate in elections. This coming Thursday, we’ll post a roundup of highlights. Send suggestions our way to elections at google dotcom.

Update: Gadget results in example are not real numbers or projections.