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Tag: MVAS

  • Times Internet launches Gaana Awards 2014

    Times Internet launches Gaana Awards 2014

    MUMBAI: The much-awaited  awards in the digital music platform is here. Times Internet presents the inaugural Gaana Awards which celebrates music, both Indian and international.

     

    Gaana.com, the largest online music broadcaster in the country which has a catalogue of 3 million songs across various languages, has announced the launch of the Gaana Music Awards 2014. The awards will be determined on the  basis of actual playouts & user consumption across  the digital platforms on Gaana. With over 2 billion minutes of music consumption & over  half a billion song playouts, Gaana is poised to declare the “actual music tastes and preferences of Indians globally.”

     

    The Gaana Music awards will have innovative and interesting award categories like Fastest-to-First Song and the Fastest Growing Music Label in the country. The other categories for which the awards would be presented are Most popular International song, Most popular Hindi song, Most popular Hindi album, Most popular regional song (Tamil and Kannada) and Most popular playback singer (Male and Female). It will honour both Indian and international music, another first in the industry.

     

    On this delightful occasion, Pawan Agarwal, Business Head, Gaana, said, “We are excited, as we launch these much anticipated awards. As a pioneering award in the digital music space, we hope, it will become much bigger in the coming years as the online consumption of music grows. We are extremely delighted to honour the best of the best in the Indian music fraternity.”

     

    On this delightful occasion, Pawan Agarwal, Business Head, Gaana, said, “We are excited to launch these much anticipated award in the digital music space. We hope it will become much bigger in the coming years as the online consumption of music grows. Also, we are extremely  delighted to honour the best of the best in the Indian music fraternity.”

     

     Awards will be promoted across TIL networks with a unique visitor base of more than 45 Million visitors per month.

     

     Gaana.com is India’s No. 1 music broadcasting service with 7.5 million active monthly users. Around 4.2 million apps are downloaded in less than a year. It has 3 million registered users and is growing with a content catalogue of over 3 million songs in more than 21 languages.

     

    TIL is the digital venture of  the Times of India Group which spans news, MVAS, E-Commerce, Music, Video and Location Based Services.

  • Idea, CricBuzz & OnMobile see ‘Stars’

    Idea, CricBuzz & OnMobile see ‘Stars’

    MUMBAI: Looks like Star India is having the last laugh in an ongoing legal battle with mobile service operators and MVAS providers – Idea Cellular, Akuate Internet (Cricbuzz) and OnMobile Global.

     

    In a significant ruling yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld Star India’s claim to mobile and digital rights for cricket matches and asked the defendants to maintain status quo as on 13 March. The apex court directed Idea Cellular, Cricbuzz and OnMobile Global to deposit Rs 10 lakh per cricket match in the court, before disseminating live scores, while clarifying that a match would include a test match, a one-day match as well as a T-20 match. This money won’t flow to Star India but will go to the court until the matter is decided.

     

    The Supreme Court also directed the firms disseminating live alerts to maintain true and lawful accounts of the receipts in respect of the SMS alerts they provide to their subscribers, with the same to be made available to the court on a monthly basis.

     

    The Supreme Court didn’t take into consideration an earlier order of a divisional bench of the Delhi High Court that ruled against Star India’s stand. The apex court on 30 September saw merit in Star India’s argument and asked the parties to maintain status quo as on 13 March, when a single bench of the Delhi High Court had ruled in favour of Star India.

     

    It all began last year when Star India filed a case against CricBuzz and OnMobile Global over the reporting of cricket scores. Initially, the Delhi High Court ordered CricBuzz and OnMobile Global to deposit Rs 15 lakh per match, apart from maintaining statements of accounts and filing them in court. Earlier this month though, a division bench of the High Court ruled that mobile operators, content aggregators and other entities were free to provide SMS alerts and ball-by-ball commentary.

     

    The HC bench arrived at this decision after taking into consideration the right to freedom of speech as also the concept of ‘hot news’ which means that Star’s rights to report information (read: scores) via mobile – licensed from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) – are ‘exclusive’ only till such time as the news (read: scores) is ‘hot’ or in other words ‘fresh’.

     

    A critical statement in the Delhi HC judgment read: “Neither Star nor BCCI can be permitted to say that mentioning ‘mobile’ rights and auctioning them, would ipso facto legitimise the parceling away of right to disseminate information, without first establishing that the right or exclusive domain over such rights existed in the first instance.”

     

    In the wake of the HC decision, Star was left with little option but to appeal to the Supreme Court.

     

    And now that the apex body has upheld Star’s position on mobile and digital rights, Star India president – sports Nitin Kukreja says: “The interim order is a testament to the fact that the honourable Supreme Court sees merit in Star India’s argument on mobile and digital rights. We have always maintained that lack of clarity on digital rights has been severely compromising the ability of rights/event owners to invest in creating great experiences for sports fans. This clarity is essential for event owners, who put in all the effort and investment in creating/setting up these exclusive properties to monetise untapped/new revenue streams, which but for the lack of clarity/legislation, would have accrued to them in the natural course of matters.”

     

    As things stand, Star is the clear winner but only time will tell if all the back and forth was worth it.

  • ‘The mobile VAS game is about to change and only the agile will survive’

    ‘The mobile VAS game is about to change and only the agile will survive’

    The year 2008 holds great promise for the MVAS industry in India. Two key focus areas of this year will be the launch of 3G and the Advent of Mobile Advertising in the country.

    The much anticipated 3G will bring with it the stage, set for the entry of Mobile Advertising, creating a flawless marketing medium that allows you to reach consumers in a way that genuinely interests them.

    Upcoming in 2008

    The Industry is awaiting its share of changes that will come its way in the year ahead. 2008 will witness trends that are bound to change the entire MVAS game, offering opportunities that will need to be capitalized on. In times like these, only players with the ability to scale, who have established and consolidated their stronghold in the industry will be able to survive and thrive in this highly competitive and burgeoning MVAS space.

    The introduction of 3G technology will see services like Video Streaming, Video Caller Ringback Tones (CRBTs) and Wireless Teleconferencing gaining popularity.

    Increased data connectivity will increase the consumption of content on mobile, expanding the market enough for the content companies to reach out to the customers on their own, if the risk of disintermediation can be worked out.

    Increased data connectivity will increase the consumption of content on mobile
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    The beginning of this transformation is already evident in the deals being made by companies like People Infocom (Mauj Mobile). The company is counted amongst India’s leading MVAS providers and has inked deals that substantiate its expertise as an end-to-end Mobile Solutions Company. Their recent undertakings include, associations with Eros studios to repurpose film content for the mobile, and managing ESPN’s direct-to-consumer wireless portal on a managed services model.

    Mobile Advertising is another area that will see a promising year ahead. While the current scenario for Mobile Advertising in the country lacks a much needed push, interesting concepts like AdverGaming are fast gaining significance. People Infocom has worked on games for MTV UK and Sony Ericsson on the same lines.

    The Future for Mobile Music

    Mobile Music is a part of the Mobile Entertainment Industry. Entertainment and Telecommunications are the two important industries that converge to form this burgeoning sector. Each of these worlds in India are at present faced with immense opportunity, and that translates into an even bigger prospect for the Mobile Music space in particular.

    The mobile music market in India is at present valued at approximately Rs 1650 crore and is growing at an estimated CAGR of 40-50%.

    Fuelling this growth rate, are the opportunities presented by the sheer size of the Indian market and the colossal Indian music and film industry itself. The introduction of 3G technology later this year will only facilitate a better way to reach a mass-market audience in a country of more than one billion inhabitants.

    Better accessibility and a penetration rate of around 18% has helped Mobile Music surpass Online Music sales in India. Online Music makes up less than 5% of the digital market in India, while Mobile music covers the rest.

  • Huge market in rural areas through Mobile Value Added Services

    Huge market in rural areas through Mobile Value Added Services

    MUMBAI: Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) industry is fast growing in India. “VAS is taking a wider view to content providers and expanding the demographic segments”, said Mr. Pankaj Thaker – CEO, Cellcast at The India Digital Summit 2007 hosted by Internet & Mobile Association of India in New Delhi. Advocating the use of VAS in India, he added that 80% of the participation in China is via VAS.

    Chief Guest Shri Dayanidhi Maran, Hon’ble Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, said that today telecom companies in India are receiving global attention. He added “It is only a matter of time that Digital offerings will be across products and services. The content and services will become the unique selling point. His vision for digital India comprises of the country being connected with a network of communication technologies spanning optic fiber and wireless, interacting in all the 22 languages and cross lingual information access facilities.”

    Mobile VAS is slowly becoming a critical source of information and interactivity. MVAS market is pegged at 2200- 3000 crores. Commenting on VAS, Mr. Rajiv Hiranandani said that India is lagging behind China as the latter has been using VAS for the past 4 years while India is still an infant. The role of VAS is very critical to the growth of the industry in India.

    Eminent speakers / leading industry experts like Neville Taraporewalla, MD & CEO – Connecturf, Arvind Chawla, Advisor TDSAT, RK Arnold, Secretary – TRAI, Pankaj Thaker, CEO- Cellcast,

    Rajiv Hiranandani, Mariam Mathew – CEO, Malayalam Manorama among others presented an insight on convergence, communication, content and commerce.

    Speaking at the summit, the distinguished panelists highlighted that rural Indian market plays a pivotal role in the growth of internet and mobile sector. Rajiv Hiranandani added that 50% of the internet subscribers are from rural India. Mobile phones have permeated to smaller towns, cities and villages expanding the opportunity for adoption and use of value added services. Expansion of mobile subscriber’s base beyond cities presents a great opportunity to the MVAS industry to grow. However, the challenge is the role of entertainment in adoption, pricing, packaging and local content.

    The India Digital Summit 2007, IAMAI’s flagship annual event, had set a tough agenda for itself this year and though there were some tricky questions, each panelist provided a “view” of the future. The Summit this year focused on two distinct areas: internet and related issues of current and future policies, communications tools and commerce; and mobile devices and connected issues of mobile value added services over two days.
     

  • IAMAI to kick off India Digital Summit on 18 January

    IAMAI to kick off India Digital Summit on 18 January

    MUMBAI: The Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), flagship event, the India Digital Summit is slated to kick off on 18 January in New Delhi. The summit will consist of a two day event.

    According to an official release, the first day will focus on Internet and will address issues such as “What will drive the growth of Internet in India?, How to leverage Internet to E-nable businesses?, Is youth the driving force behind Internet?”

    Meanwhile, day two will throw light on topics related to “Mobile Value Added Services (VAS) such as What makes a successful mobile marketing company in India?, How can mobile VAS be source of critical Information and Interactivity?, Will mobile payments change the rules of transaction?, Is the policy environment right for MVAS Industry?”

    Commenting on the need for a Digital Summit president Dr.Subho Ray said, “The Summit this year will focus on two distinct areas: internet and related issues of current and future policies, communications tools and commerce; and mobile devices and connected issues of mobile value added services over two days”.

    Much like last year, the Summit in 2007 would also have an array of speakers including:

    – People Group chairman Anupam Mittal
    – eBay India chairman Avnish Bajaj
    – Info Edge Ltd founder and CEO Sanjeev Bikhchandani
    – Makemytrip.com founder and CEO Deep Kalra
    – Google India head sales & operations Sundarraman Kalyanraman
    – Ministry of Communications and IT Joint Secretary Pankaj Agrawala
    – Connecturf managing director & CEO Neville Taraporewala,
    – Mouthshut.com founder Faisal Farooqui,
    – MSN and Windows Media Live CEO Jaspreet Bindra,
    – Zapak Digital Entertainment COO Rohit Sharma
    – Pinstorm Technologies founder and CEO Mahesh Murthy
    – Malayala Manorama COO Mariam Mathew