Category: Technology

MUMBAI: Times Internet Limited (TIL) has launched a shopping application for Android phones.

The app allows users to view the product range that Indiatimes shopping has for mobiles. One can compare prices and make purchase with “easy” payment options.

Additionally, users can also compare prices with other websites. They just have to use their mobile‘s camera to scan the QR code or ISBN code.

The codes, which are mapped to a product, are then compared with prices on other e-commerce sites.

Interestingly, users can also scan the bar codes of the books and shop for them on IndiatimesShopping. There are easy payment options, by way of cash on delivery (COD), net banking and using credit cards.

TIL director technology and e-commerce Gautam Sinha said, “Our shopping price comparison feature empowers our customers to choose the best deal from the entire shopping landscape, which is yet another manifestation of Indiatimes’ market-leading approach. We are planning a slew of such user-friendly technology solutions, which will make shopping reach an even wider audience. It is my sincere belief that technology will be a key differentiator in what Indiatimes Shopping is going to do in the coming future against its competitors.”

NEW DELHI: With the clock closing fast on the deadline for the first phase of digitisation, the highly-awaited meeting of the Task Force ended with a whimper today as Information and Broadcasting Ministry said it would take a decision on the demand of deferment of the first phase of digitisation early next week.

The hour-long meeting, presided over by I&B Secretary Uday Kumar Varma, is understood to have been fairly stormy with the cable operators and multi-system operators on the one hand and broadcasters on the other sticking to their respective stands.

The meeting was also attended from the side of the Ministry by Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) Supriya Sahu.

Emerging from the meeting, Varma told newspersons that there was a free and frank discussion of all the issues. He also said the Ministry had heard the viewpoints of all stakeholders, and was in touch with state governments.

It is understood that while the cable operators wanted an extension until December this year, some of the MSOs were agreeable to an extension up to September, citing the shortage of digital set top boxes and the late issuance of the tariff regulations by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Some cable operators said that failure to switch to digitisation by 1 July may lead to law and order problems.

Varma said Mumbai was better placed than the other metros to launch digitisation. He said the Government now had a clearer position of the readiness of various stakeholders.

Today‘s meeting was a follow-up of a meeting between stakeholders from different parts of India and I&B Minister Ambika Soni ended with the Government not agreeing to defer the first phase of digitisation in the metros.

The Government had distributed a questionnaire to the stakeholders wanting to know the status of progress in terms of number of set top boxes distributed, agreements signed and so on.

The Minister had made it clear that the onus of implementing digital addressable system was on the stakeholders and not on the government which had facilitated the process in every way. However, she did take note of the fact that some chief ministers and stakeholders had written to her, and the matter was pending in some High Courts.

Sources close to the Ministry told indiantelevision.com that with the Bombay High Court taking up the matter on 18 June, Delhi High Court on 20 June and Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal on 25 June, the Government may prefer to wait to get legal directives before
deciding its own option on extending the date.

It is also known that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology has recommended an extension of six months, and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have written letters seeking extension of the date.

It is also learnt that only around 20 per cent of the set-top boxes needed for the four metros have so far been installed.

Also read:

Govt sticks to digitisation deadline

IndusInd Media moves Tdsat against Trai’s tariff order

Subhash Chandra urges Govt to stick to 30 June deadline

Digitisation deadline: Ambika Soni to meet stakeholders on 8 June

MUMBAI: FujiFilm India is boosting its presence on social media networks Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest.

Starting with an online contest, ‘Summer Break Toh Bantaa Hai‘ on Facebook, FujiFilm India gained the much waited breakthrough on the social media platform. The contest, held recently, was designed to recognise the best summer holiday pictures, taken by the fans on the Facebook page of Fujifilm India.

The participants shared more than 1000 pictures on the page. They uploaded their personal Summer Holidays pictures under five categories – Wow Location, Cute Couple, Awesome Friends, Best Family and Naughty Kid.

The criteria to select the photograph, was on the basis of relevance of the picture, emotions captured, picture quality and its effects. 30 pictures had been selected as winning entries and fans were given travel bags from Benetton, Cross Pens and T Shirts.

FujiFilm India claims that there are 21,000 fans on the page. Fujifilm India national marketing manager Sriwant Wariz said, “We plan to take the digital medium and connect with our audience in a more aggressive way with different channels like Facebook, Blogs, YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter. Photography and cameras can be of huge interest for people on these platforms. We were already present on YouTube but now we are engaging the audience by uploading videos, explaining the features and usability of each of the camera series”.

MUMBAI: For years, media brands were TV-centric. All that is changing now with consumers engaging across a variety of digital touchpoints.

TV, however, continues to be the leading media channel. A study of 10 broadcast network and cable brands in the US, covering a five-week period, shows that an average of 90 per cent of consumers engaging

with a given brand did so on TV, while 25 per cent did so online and 12 per cent via online video.

This enhances the quality of brand engagement and also increases the complexity of media planning and analysis by orders of magnitude.

Says comScore VP of TV, cross-media solutions Joan FitzGerald said, “By leveraging comScore’s unique single-source multi-screen measurement panel, we are radically reducing this complexity of media planning by providing media companies with actionable insights that can be used to determine how to effectively reach their target audiences and optimize cross-media planning.”

comScore, which measures the digital world, and the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) have released a research white paper entitled How Multi-Screen Consumers Are Changing Media Dynamics, revealing several new findings about the viewing habits of consumers who engage with media brands across multiple touchpoints.

The key insights from the study include:

– Online Video and Multi-Screen Consumers are the most engaged and loyal brand consumers. Online video consumption proves to closely associate with consumer engagement with media brands overall. For most of the media brands, the multi-screen consumers who use the media brands via TV and online video spend more time with the content on any platform, and spend more time consuming the content on TV.

– Multi-Screen Consumer are demographically ‘On Target‘ – The study found that the segments of multi-screen consumers showing the highest propensity to engage tended to correlate strongly with those brands’ key demographic targets, suggesting that engagement on other platforms
represents an important extension of the key demographic audiences’ use and enjoyment of the media brands.

– Consumers are using digital platforms concurrently with TV to enrich experience – During the five-week period of analysis, 60 per cent of a media brand’s consumers accessed TV and Online during concurrent 30-minute increments. 29 per cent of the media brand’s consumers accessed Facebook concurrently with their TV viewing, suggesting digital platforms may be used to supplement the viewing experience and drive multi-platform engagement.

CIMM MD Jane Clarke said, “The media landscape is fragmenting at an ever-increasing rate, so having a measurement solution that traverses multiple screens is critical for everyone in the media ecosystem including brands, networks and advertisers. This new research conducted by CIMM and comScore offered a significant breakthrough in the use of new methodologies to help tackle the challenges of cross-platform measurement, revealing important findings about the cumulative reach, exposure and engagement of media brands and advertisers in a multi-screen environment.”

NEW DELHI: The six private direct-to-home (DTH) operators paid Rs 2.22 billion as licence fee to the government for the year 2011-12, compared to Rs 1.78 billion in 2010-11 and Rs 1.26 billion in 2009-10.

Interestingly, Tata Sky paid licence fee of Rs 793 million in 2011-12 as against Airtel Digital TV Rs 618.7 million and Dish TV’s Rs 300 million. Sun Direct paid Rs 360 million, Reliance Big TV paid Rs 95 million, and Videocon d2h paid Rs 50 million.

The revenue in 2008-09 was Rs 893 million from four operators, since both Airtel Digital TV (Bharti Telemedia Ltd.) as well as Videocon d2h (Bharat Business Channel Ltd.) had not commenced services.

The other DTH players are Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct TV, and Reliance Big TV.

DTH services are governed by the DTH Guidelines and terms and conditions issued by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on 15 March 2001 and amended from time to time.

The seven DTH players in the country including Doordarshan’s free-to-air DD Direct Plus cover around 35 million TV homes.

MUMBAI: Digital media company Yahoo! and CNBC have formed a strategic alliance that will expand the business news channel‘s online reach and presence and provide a broadcast platform for Yahoo! Finance’s original content and contributors.

The two companies will also co-create a new slate of co-branded, original videos which will appear on Yahoo! Finance and CNBC.com. Yahoo! Finance’s journalists will contribute to CNBC’s Business Day programming and CNBC clips, news and analysis will be prominently integrated into Yahoo! Finance and featured across the Yahoo! network.

The two partners will maintain editorial control and host their respective sites while also having joint sponsorship sales opportunities with CNBC serving as the go-to-market sales lead.

Yahoo! Finance will continue to feature content and perspectives from Yahoo!’s editorial staff as well as reports from other industry-leading providers and experts. CNBC will distribute its content to other leading online publishers in the category.

“Our mission is to create the richest and most powerful experiences for users each and every day. Partnering with CNBC will allow Yahoo! Finance to expand its offerings instantly and enhance its position as the most viewed and utilized finance site in the world, ” said Yahoo! Interim CEO Ross Levinsohn. “Together, we will deliver the most engaging, insightful and relevant premium and personalized real time experiences for viewers across screens.”

“This collaboration is about two leaders in their respective spaces coming together,” said CNBC President and CEO Mark Hoffman. “With CNBC taking a central role on the biggest business news site in the world, we now have the ability to provide real-time news, analysis and information to a larger audience and offer unmatched advertising solutions for marketers looking for access across multiple platforms.”

NEW DELHI: Understanding that viewers today are immensely affected by what they see on television, Airtel digital TV has come up with a new campaign that has the message ‘sirf cable nahi,. Life badlo’.

The new campaign has also been made keeping in view the competitive perspective, since DTH players in the country are looking at maximising the opportunity created by the government’s implementation of cable digitisation to create top of the mind recall for their brands.

For Airtel digital TV, the marketing and communication opportunity defined was to reinforce the brand’s leadership through a big and completely differentiated take on the category and by appropriating the emotional benefit.

The big communication idea is therefore “great content has the power to transform lives”. The territory of transformation in this category is a powerful one for the brand to own, given that it today offers the best content on Indian television, be it through the numerous interactive services or other significant benefits.

The campaign theme is ‘sirf cable nahi, life badlo‘ where each feature or product is dramatised through its impact on life. The campaign sends out a clear crisp communication i.e. television content can shape a perspective, define a point of view and when it’s really powerful, it can change your life.

For the advertising campaign, the team also changed the visual language and tone of voice to make the communication fresh, young and modern: use of a secondary colour, blue, to make digital TV creative distinctive from the rest of Airtel creatives; a modern digital TV logo, presented alongside Airtel; youthful imagery shot from an exuberant perspective to showcase energy and movement; and use of cut-outs and graphics for creative cut-through for print ads.

The brand has rolled out a complete 360 campaign from 9 June – Print, Outdoor, TV, Cinema, Radio and Digital with a special focus on key digitisation centres (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai). TV and digital campaigns have been rolled out nationally.

The creative agency is JWT while the creative directors are Nishit Shankar and Sumonto Ghosh. The film director is Sainath Choudhury, the producer Purple Vishnu, and the media agency Madison.

MUMBAI: Eros has leveraged its wide reach and the subscriber base of its YouTube presence to launch a new channel, Eros Now Music, for established and emerging artists.

The platform, youtube.com/erosnowmusic, will showcase original music content and leverage from the global reputation of Eros as a leading premium content provider.

Eros Now Music will feature established as well as emerging talent including Shaan, DJ Sheizwood, UK based pop artist Kimeli, Shweta Yogendra, Farhan Saeed, Gajendra, Simmy and Tippy, Rahul / Shah Rule among others. The content on the newly launched channel will include music videos and special behind the scenes footage.

Eros Digital CEO Ricky Ghaisaid, “As a part of our digital transformation, the launch of Eros Now Music is a step forward in providing rich and original music exclusively on the digital platform. The idea is to promote existing talent and discover new voices and build universal appeal for Asian music.”

MUMBAI: Infotainment channel History TV18 is using social media media platforms Facebook and Twitter to push its local property, ‘The Greatest Indian‘. This allows viewers to vote for who they think is the greatest Indian since 1948 after Mahatma Gandhi.

History TV 18 GM marketing Sangeeta Aiyer notes that the plan was to go viral. “There are debates and discussions happening in the social media space. Our show will also stimulate discussions and debates. We launched TGI and TheGreatest Indian on the morning of 4 June before the show started airing in the night. This has helped us get three million votes so far in 10 days. By the time voting for the first phase closes on 25 June we expect to have gotten eight million votes”.

Twitter is important as that is where the influencers are. The fan club for Dr. Ambhedkar, for instance, has participated in a big manner.

“Marketers are nervous about using Twitter. But Twitter can be a powerful tool for marketers, if used wisely. We recently did a quiz on Twitter and we got 50,000 votes as a result. On Facebook we did an innovation on Facebook Timeline. We went back to 1947 and put in achievements of Indians,” Aiyer says.

The second phase will kick off in July. There will be a curtain raiser show where names will be revealed from where viewers can choose. The Greatest Indian winner will be revealed mid August to coincide with Independence Day.

Earlier, the channel kicked off a social media initiative on ‘History Har Din‘. People can upload photos and videos where they feel that they have made history on the site. So far 150 people have uploaded their photos.

MUMBAI: Over 38 million handheld gaming devices from Sony and Nintendo are expected to ship in 2013 –a maximum that is significantly lower than the previous peak of 47 million units in 2008.

Unit shipments following 2013 are expected to decline slightly, but dedicated handheld gaming devices are a sustainable niche, with forecasts relatively flat through 2017. Smartphone and tablet use for gaming continues to expand, making the mobile gaming market an increasingly
important companion to dedicated handheld gaming.

ABI Research senior analyst Michael Inouye said, “Mobile devices will compete with dedicated handheld gaming devices, but select consumer segments like core gamers and those individuals who do not want or have a smartphone or tablet will still provide some demand. The addition of mobile gaming is not necessarily a zero sum situation; in fact, many feel there is plenty of room in the gaming market for both portable and mobile gaming.”

Following an initially strong first quarter 2011 launch, Nintendo’s 3DS experienced a far weaker second quarter, prompting the company to dramatically lower the price of the handheld (from $249 to $170).

The lower price, with additional titles, spurred sales to over 15 million through the 2011 calendar year.

In late 2011, Sony launched the Vita in Japan with a wider launch in February 2012 to decent sales, although the price might prove an issue for Sony as well, despite significantly more robust hardware.

“The mobile and tablet markets have increased consumers’ price sensitivity. First party developers and key game franchises will be vital cogs for the industry in the future, since hardware alone is not going to cut it given the shorter upgrade cycles for mobile devices.Recent announcements at E3 from Nintendo and Microsoft, coupled with past mobile-centric initiatives by Sony, make clear that mobile experiences will be integrated into “dedicated” gaming experiences (both console and portable),” Inouye adds.