Category: Software

MUMBAI: Hungama Digital Media Entertainment has partnered with global mobile media buying platform Adsmobi Inc for mobile advertising to monetise all India inventory.

As a part of the partnership, Hungama India will monetise Adsmobi’s premium advertising traffic in India, bringing more brand advertisers to the mobile arena in India.

Adsmobi Co-Founder and MD Ramy Yared commented: “Adsmobi Inc generated increasing revenues and ties to advertisers in the Mobile Advertising industry of India, it is one of our core emerging markets. Therefore, we are pleased to be able to partner with Hungama Digital Media Entertainment on mobile advertising and we are certain this partnership will add value to India’s mobile ecosystem with Hungama’s strong foothold in the local media industry together with our strong strategic capabilities in mobile advertising.’

Hungama Digital Media Entertainment COO Consumer Business & Allied Services Siddhartha Roy said, “With 900 million mobile phone users and 108 million active mobile internet users, India has emerged as one of the largest mobile advertising destinations in the region. Mobile advertising has enticed brands and grown significantly in the last year. The boom in App economy has set the stage for driving next level of growth for mobile advertising in India along with economical smart phones and increased video consumption trends. Brands realize the potential of the medium and soon mobile marketing will be an essential part of the marketing mix plan.With our partnership with Adsmobi Inc, we will be able to provide the platform to enable agencies and brands to develop mobile rich campaigns.”
 
According to a recent research from Adsmobi Inc and mobile Squared, the rise in smart phones is encouraging a faster-than-expected adoption of mobile internet and app usage, and this is further cementing the mobile advertising opportunity. By the end of 2012, it is predicted that smartphones will account for 33 per cent of all active mobile devices throughout the Asia10 (Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam) countries.

NEW DELHI: The tablet market, pioneered by the launch of the iPad in 2010, is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 40 per cent over the next five years.

MAIT, the apex body representing India’s IT hardware, training and R&D services sectors, has conducted a Tablet Study in the Indian market to coincide with its completing 30 years since its inception in 1982.

The Tablets are expected to touch 1.6 million units in the current financial year and grow to touch 7.3 million units by 2015-16.

Commenting on this new opportunity, MAIT president Dr. Alok Bhardwaj said: “The tablet market is the new blue-eyed growth opportunity in India. It is fast becoming one of the drivers of rapid growth in the IT content consumption and hardware sector in India. With the introduction of several national and international brands of tablet in India, the market is witnessing a revolution of sorts with these devices changing the way services are delivered in various other sectors such as education, healthcare and governance. Tablets will soon enable and empower even our rural areas with services bridging the last mile connectivity gap through these devices.”
 
“A key factor in the growth of tablets has been the encouragement from the government in adopting and developing low-cost options for use in our villages and other rural areas. Education and healthcare services are now being accessed by many more people with the help of low-cost tablet. He further said, Tablets being one of the cheapest devices available in the Indian market, it is a potential device that can transform the entire country, as any content in any language can effectively work on this device”.

MAIT Vice President J V Ramamurthy said: “The tablet market is expected to grow at around 40% CAGR annually over the next 5 years. It is an evolving market and we expect to see the emergence of value based tablet devices as an important segment. Also the developing ecosystem for this device will ensure that tablets as a computing device will become an integral part of human lives. Apart from being a consumer lifestyle product I see a huge uptake of the tablet in the education segment and it is a device which has all the potential to revolutionize the education system.”

MUMBAI: Pay-TV provider Dish Network, a subsidiary of Dish Network Corporation, has said that it has settled all of its pending litigation with Voom HD Holdings, which had in 2008 sued Dish Network for $2.4 billion in damages for violation of contract.

Voom HD Holdings, then a unit of Cablevision, had sued Dish Network for violating a 15-year contract that required the pay TV service provider to carry a suite of HD channels, including those devoted to Kung Fu and video games.

Voom is now a part of AMC Networks, which Cablevision spun off last year.

As part of the settlement, Dish Network pays a cash settlement of $700 million to Cablevision and AMC Networks, $80 million of which is in consideration for the purchase of Cablevision’s multichannel video and data distribution service (MVDDS) licenses in 45 metropolitan areas in the US.

As part of the agreement, Dish will receive 500 MHz of wireless multichannel video distribution and data service spectrum licenses that cover a population of 150 million in 45 DMAs including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

Dish will also enter into a long-term distribution agreement with AMC Networks to carry AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel and WE tv, and with The Madison Square Garden Company to carry Fuse on its satellite service; and also convey its 20-percent membership interest in Voom HD to Rainbow Programming Holdings LLC, such that all of the cash settlement remains with Cablevision and AMC Networks.

As part of a separate, multi-year agreement, Dish will resume broadcast of the AMC channel beginning 21 October. The AMC channel will be carried on Dish channel 131. Other AMC Networks programming, including Sundance Channel, WE tv and IFC, will return to Dish November 1. The Madison Square Garden Company‘s music-oriented Fuse channel will begin broadcast 1 November.

Promptly after payment of the cash settlement is received, the parties will file a joint stipulation to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. The allocation of the settlement proceeds between Cablevision and AMC Networks will be determined pursuant to the existing agreement relating to this litigation between the two companies.

AMC Networks President and CEO Josh Sapan said, “We are glad to partner again with DISH Network and are delighted to bring back our popular channels and programming to their customers.”

“We are glad to have settled the case and reestablished our long-term relationships with AMC Networks and Cablevision. This multi-year deal delivers a fair value for both parties and includes digital expansion opportunities for AMC Networks‘ programming,” said Dish SVP of Programming Dave Shull. “

MUMBAI: Mogae Digital has launched Star TV‘s popular comedy show ‘Laughter Challenge‘ on mobile in an animated “tony” version.

The new version of ‘Laughter Challenge‘ will be available to Indian mobile users in “easily accessible” form of two minutes fun-filled videos, created with original voice tracks of various artists. It is going live on various mobile networks this week.

Mogae Group executive director Tanya Goyal said, “Animated Laughter Challenge jokes refresh the magic created by the original show. The animated caricatures add a new comic dimension to the existing jokes and users would love watching them again and again, that too right on their mobile screens. Mogae has invested more than 12 months into creating the animated Laughter content, specifically for mobile devices.”

Mogae is in talks with various DTH operators to take the animated Laughter Challenge live to their audiences.

It had recently launched its Talking Comics on various DTH platforms. “Our momics were created for the mobile. Hence user interface and downloads are designed for good consumer experience. We will start a second round of creative development in Q1 2013 with another 2000 new stories to be created”, Goyal added.

Mogae Digital is part of the Mogae Group, co-owned by Sandeep and Tanya Goyal, erstwhile JV partners of Dentsu in India.

NEW DELHI: Digital signals are being received in the Kapashera and Samalka areas of Delhi and several houses have already installed digital set top boxes.

A team of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had visited the areas on 20 October following complaints that no digital signals were received there.

The team interacted with the cable operators, local people and also visited headends run by Digicable Network. The team also went to some homes to do a spot verification.

The headend located in Samalka belonging to the Digicable Network is already providing digital feed to both the areas.
 
The team also found that one particular local cable operator (LCO) who is providing only FTA channels has not entered into any agreement with the multi-system operators and is thus not able to get the digital feed. However, several other LCOs are already providing digital feed.

MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Company has re-designed its website Disney.com for the third time in five years as it looks to turnaround its digital business.

The re-designed Disney.com comprises games, children’s books, TV, movies, music, Broadway and online worlds like Club Penguin in order to cater to a broad audience.

The new site comes at a time when TWDC CEO Robert A. Iger is hoping that the gaming, mobile and Internet division will turn profitable after 15 consecutive quarters of $977 million losses.

Iger has told Disney shareholders that Disney Interactive will turn into profits sometime next year. The company is also planning an ambitious gaming initiative code-named Toy Box.

Figuring out the Internet as being critical for all media companies, Disney’s future in particular depends on a winning strategy, says a New York Times report.

“The children it hopes to turn into lifelong consumers of its products are increasingly living online. Disney Channel used to be the company’s most important welcome mat. Now executives refer to Disney.com as the “front door.”,” the report added.

Guiding Disney on its digital business was none other than tech czar and former Apple CEO Steve Jobs who was on its board from 2006 until his death last year.

Disney Interactive is run by former Yahoo executive James Pitaro and John Pleasants, Playdom’s former chief executive. Its current board members include John S. Chen, chief executive of the software developer Sybase, and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer.

MUMBAI: Television has come a long way since the grainy black and white sets of old. While there have been constant advances-from the introduction of colour to the remote control to connected TVs (IPTV)-the advent of High Definition TV (HDTV) could be considered one of the high water marks.

In fact, as HD continues to revolutionise the quality of the TV watching experience, more than three quarters of US households have an HDTV set-that‘s up 14 per cent from last year, according to a recent study by Nielsen.

What‘s more is that nearly 40 per cent of those homes have multiple HD sets. The figure is likely to continue to trend upwards as bulky standard definition sets are swapped out for sleeker and more technologically-sophisticated models.

Not all HD is equal: In May 2012, 61 per cent of all prime viewing was done on an HD set, but that does not necessarily denote actual HD viewing was happening. “True” HD, using an HD set top box or tuner in a home that receives HD channels and actually tuned to an HD signal, is the only way to experience legitimate HDTV bliss.

During that same month, 29 percent of English-language broadcast prime viewing and 25 percent of cable prime viewing was “True HD.”

The gap between HD potential and true HD viewing leaves a wide berth for consumers to bridge. The study also noted that among cable networks, as expected, sports and entertainment genres are more likely to be viewed in HD as compared to news and kids programming.

MUMBAI: As US household TV screens continue to increase in size, so do the sales and rentals of digital movies. Subscription streaming, and video-on-demand (VoD) sales of movies are expected to increase tenfold in the 10-year period 2007-17.

Sales more than quadrupled from $1.3 billion to $5.5 billion during 2007-12, according to Mintel‘s latest research digital downloads.

Mintel senior technology analyst Billy Hulkower said, “We live in a time of instant gratification and the idea of waiting for a movie to arrive in the mail or actually driving to a store to get one is an idea of the past. Increased acceptance of all intangible media, including music, photos, books and games is a driver with consumers increasingly acclimated to the immediacy of all digital formats.”

Traditional DVD rentals are still the most popular way to rent movies, with 32 per cent of online consumers renting individual discs via this method in the past 30 days. However, online streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon Instant Video and pay TV (ie. pay-per-view or video-on-demand) are gaining on physical disc rental in popularity. A quarter of respondents say they have used online streaming in the past 30 days and 22 per cent have used a pay TV method.

Streaming movies is more popular than using physical discs among 18-24 year olds showing that Millennials are the key demographic in the digital movie marketplace. Just more than half (51 per cent) of 18-24 age group have rented a movie or TV show in the past 30 days via a monthly subscription method versus only 31 per cent of all age groups. In addition, 55 per cent of 18-24 age group rented via a streaming service compared to only 38 per cent of all age groups.

According to Mintel, those who buy any type of digital movie are also more likely to purchase any type of physical movie and vice versa. Considering this, the most common basis for selecting one or the other is based on price-approximately one-third of respondents say they will buy either format depending on which is cheaper.

In spite of aggressive expansion on the part of Amazon into digital media, and digital video in particular, Apple‘s iTunes is the clear leader in digital movie sales. Six in 10 respondents who purchased a digital-store movie in the past 30 days, did so through iTunes, more than twice the share that did so at Amazon (25 per cent) and three times as many as any other competitor.

MUMBAI: Digital media company Yahoo! has said it will close its South Korean operations at the end of this year to concentrate on its global business where it is pitted against powerful rivals like Google and Facebook.

South Korea is the first Asian country where Yahoo! is exiting as part of its global restructuring exercise.

“Yahoo has faced several challenges in the past couple of years and decided to pull out of the (Korean) business to put more resources on global business and become more powerful and successful,” Yahoo said in a statement.

Yahoo! Korea, a Yahoo! subsidiary, has not been able to beat local rivals such as NHN, Daum Communications Corp and SK Communications. Local companies have a strong brand loyalty which makes South Korea a difficult market for foreign cos to operate in.

Headquartered in Gangnam district of Seoul, Yahoo! Korea started business in 1997 with 200-250 employees on its roster currently. The company will terminate Korean online portal services in December. Its Korean website will be automatically linked to an English website from early next year.

“Since 1997, the Yahoo! Korean team has provided high-quality editorial content and services, and has built a successful search advertising network. But despite this, the operation has faced growing challenges over the past few years that now make scaling Yahoo‘s business very difficult,” the statement added.

On Monday, Yahoo had announced that Google executive Henrique de Castro was joining the company as its chief operating officer beginning next year. Last month, Yahoo had appointed Ken Goldman as its chief financial officer, effective 22 October. Goldman replaces Tim Morse, who will be leaving Yahoo during the fall.

NEW DELHI: The scepticism surrounding digitisation figures notwithstanding, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Friday claimed that the digital cable penetration has increased to 81 per cent up from 77 per cent that it had announced earlier this month.

The MIB said that the digitisation penetration will be 87 per cent if the progress made by DTH is also taken into account. The DTH operators have informed MIB that 2.7 million set-top boxes (STBs) have been installed in the four metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

As per the data provided by MSOs, currently about 45,000 STBs are being installed per day to meet the deadline for first phase of digitisation.

The MIB said that Mumbai has been completely digitised with the digital cable penetration standing at 100 per cent. Kolkata has achieved 78 per cent digitisation in cable alone. With DTH, the percentage of digitisation in Kolkata has gone up to 81 per cent.

In Delhi the digitisation percentage of digital cable penetration is 74 per cent and with DTH it has gone up to 81 per cent while Chennai has refused to show any major improvement with only 60 per cent cable digitisation which goes up to 85 per cent with DTH.

The MIB had launched an aggressive campaign in the Electronic and Print Media to take awareness to the door steps of people. The promotional steps include print advertisements in local newspapers, SMS messages, spots on all TV and radio channels started by the Ministry to inform people about the urgency to get STBs.