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Being a cricket fan and an Indian, I could not resist sharing this video with my readers. This also proves the power on internet video. How fast the news can travel and its video. I hope you will excuse me for this off topic video news article here, but you gotta love the video. With style Yuvraj Singh played against England in this match, amazing. Mazaa aa gayaa…

Please watch the video below, if you face any problem, please let me know.

- Indian Wizard

After many days of silence (as there was nothing major to write about), here I am. Just read a news article about a company in India launching a service which pays you to open and read an email - RupeeMail. Basically, I would say this service is just like any MLM or sales company services are, it shares the revenue received from advertiser with you, the user and thus promotes spam and ripsoff advertisers.

We all know how much spam we get these days, and it doesnt seem to have an end, it keeps increasing daily, despite our best efforts to install antispam softwares etc. Now this company has taken one step ahead, and has asked you to register yourself to receive spam, yes ad supported spam, or revenue based spam, whichever way you want to put it.

The system as they say works like this. You register at the site, then they start spamming you with messages from their advertisers. Now you have to just open each mail, the more mails you open, the more money you make, and more money the company makes. Now I think this system is super flawed. Do you know how many programmers and unemployed people in India can abuse this system? Doesnt matter what they say that they have this technology, that technology, doesnt matter, this system can be easily broken apart and misused by anyone.

You know, advertiser may think that his email was opened by a Young college going female in delhi, whereas it could be a maidperson in any house in delhi, given a job just to logon and open the mails daily. Wah re India !!

Oh yes, one more thing, they say that their emails comes as a separate appearance, which means it stands out. Basically they have just now shortened the time it would take you to find which mail is the one amongst all the spam you received, which pays to be opened. Meaning, you would know right away, aha, that this email is the one thats is from Rupeemail. Wah wah, maan gayee bhai !!

-Indian Wizard

One more Indian company has jumped into me too Indian mentality. ZEE networks digital media convergence limited has launched another site on similar name as Reliance BigFlicks by the name Page3Flicks.com.

Satyabrata Das who is the head of this projects quotes : “Currently we are testing the waters for a niche offering like this. Depending on the response received, we plan to upload premium content for subscribers, which will then provide an alternate revenue stream. The site has been in the beta phase for over four months. Our in-house team is promoting the site through viral marketing. From internal reports, we have observed that users are spending an average of 12-15 minutes on the site, browsing through various sections.”

Speaking about the content on the site, DAs said, “Page3flicks will have photographs from the most happening parties in town. Our focus will be on uploading pictures from parties as early as 20 minutes from the time that they get over.”

I seriously do not get this. What’s happening with INDIA and INDIANS? This is sheep/herd mentality, one jumps in well, everyone does behind the one, without thinking. I mean, what sense does this make? Reliance takes a domain with flicks in it, ZEE follows. NDTV names their unit convergence, ZEE follows. SmasHits covers Bollywood Parties, ZEE follows. I mean is their no originality left in India anymore? Everyone has to just jump, doesn’t matter what comes after that.

There is nothing unique about the site they have launched, you can find better and more coverage (not bribed too) all over the internet on many other Indian sites. This is simply a gimmick of me too me too that ZEE is doing. They have also been quoted as saying that they will launch social networking site and also entertainments and sports. Yup, remember in one of my previous posts I had mentioned that some other Indian conglomerate will jump in this domain soon and I think this time it’s ZEE, haanji…..

-Indian Wizard

This is called return of the dotcom bubble (atleast for India). I remember the old days when Netflix had just started and I became an early member. But sadly there were no Hindi movies on the store. Then came sites like Indofilms based in San Diego, I went to meet with them in year 2000, nice guys, had put in a lot of money, had taken rights for 3 years from Indian producers at approx $10k per movie. I was shocked to learn this and had told them they were early in game and it would fail. Indians in US and Canada do not spend money online, but they would not listen.

Simultaneously, launched IndianMovies.com based in Los Angeles. I met with them also, in my same trip. Again nice guys and had good amount of staff too, but again were early in this game. As time went by, many other players entered the market, Nehaflix, Indiaweekly, Indiahuthouse, Meridvd, Indiaplaza, Namaste and many many others. They all came and slept or went under, even IndoFilms went ahead and acquired IndianMovies, then what? flat on back went down. The problem? they were ahead of their time.

Now in India, Madhouse.in and Seventymm started in last few years, these guys were way nuts then guys before, they even raised money from VC(they must be smart asses), even a second round, and started renting within India, great, then merged and now claim that they are the largest Indian Movie rental website in India, with almost 25k subscribers. wah wah, should we say good job? I mean come on, from such a huge population, a mere 25k in renters. (There are other sites in India too like moviemart.in)

Look at their good luck, Reliance came looking and now wants to buy them out, I can’t believe this. Reliance which always believes in building their own, having their own BigFlicks wants to buy Seventymm. I don’t trust my eyes that I read this today in news all around. Hello, Anil, isn’t your mantra to not buy and just build, atleast in Internet domain. They did not buy IndiaGames, instead built their own Zapak, they did not buy any Bollywood Site, built their own BigFlicks, they did not buy IndiaTimes Mail and built their own Zapakmail, they did not buy any Social networking site, built own BigAdda, then why buy Seventymm, what is it that these guys have that Reliance wants ? Do you know ? if yes, please share.

I mean, if the older guys are reading this blog or any other news I wish they could recharge their sites and come online, may be Network18 will buy them out. I mean Indian market looks hot these days, everyone wants to get in, and the players who are in are having all the fun, while pioneers are lying flat on their back having spent all their money, it would take only a few grand to bring the sites back to life and start competing head on with these guys in India, what do you say ?

-Indian Wizard

How many news sites do our country India needs? I can easily count atleast 20 which are out there, and probably 100s other which I cannot name, but know exist. Today’s headline is that Reuters is jumping into advertising supported internet domain website portal business inIndia with their new site Reuters.co.in specifically designed for Indian audience. The English-language sites will carry text-based news, video and blogs with news from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. I do understand that Reuters is probably the biggest news reporting agency in the world, what I cannot understand is why they would target Indian audience and have an advertising based model. Is it that news agencies are also feeling the pinch of lower revenues, or that they think that there are TOP $$ to be made online and are now jumping to compete with their syndicates and other websites in this domain?

“We have built Reuters India to be the premier online and mobile news destination for the rapidly growing audience of South Asian business professionals,” said Reuters India general manager SN Bhaduri. Just few months back AOL entered

India market and also did Nokia with their news based websites and portals. We all also know that Viacom entered via Network 18 (previously TV 18) and now Reuters. Whose next, may be CNN, ABC, MSN, FOX, I guess everyone wants to enterIndia and think there is a huge amount of money to be made from online ad spend. I guess, they need a reality check.What I learnt from Business Standard article and this is to quote Business Standard: “London-based Reuters, the world’s biggest publicly traded provider of financial news and information, is two years into a three-year programme designed to spur sales by investing in content, services and new markets such as India andChina. The plan, called Core Plus, follows three years of cost cuts that included selling or closing more than 80 units. “Hmmm, so this is a plan to cut costs and increase profits, but how? Does this mean,India has a better ROI for investors and businessmen? There are better sales and revenues from India? One thing I have been thinking about, which may or may not hold true, does anyone think that these International companies are draining money out of India slowly, its just like pre-independence days, when foreigners would come and rob our kings of money and take back to their countries, I mean, these companies have stockholders and investors who are mostly non-Indians, right? So any profits these companies make from India, are landing in foreigners pockets, am I correct in my assumption?
 -Indian Wizard