Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

Nokia’s Ovi Store, the place where the owners of a Nokia smartphone can find a wide range of content available for download on their devices, is seeing increased popularity among users, the latest stats show. The software solutions portal is enjoying a number of around 1.6 million downloads every day, it offers support for over 100 devices (more than 60 of them being powered by the Symbian operating system), and users can access content from publishers from more than 80 countries.

The latest statistics on Ovi Store showing that the storefront offers support for 30 language variations, and that users can enjoy mobile billing with Ovi Store from 66 operators in 19 countries. Two thirds of the customers in these countries choose this payment method, it seems. 90 percent of Ovi Store visitors are able to use their local language, while 80 percent of them can make purchases from the portal using their local currency.

Among the other stats on Nokia’s Ovi Store, we can count the fact that Digital Chocolate has managed to reached over 4.5 million downloads, or that prominent devices in top downloading countries include touch-enabled handsets like N97, N97 Mini, 5800 XpressMusic, 5530 XpressMusic and X6, as well as non-touch ones like E66, E71 and E72. Nokia N900 is another phone that made it in the top 10 performing devices in the past weeks (in 3 of the top 10 most active countries).

China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK and Vietnam were nominated as the most active countries (in an alphabetical order).

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

VISA and  CyberSource Corporation  today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for Visa to purchase CyberSource, a leading provider of electronic payment, risk management and payment security solutions to online merchants at a price of $26.00 per share, or total consideration of approximately $2.0 billion to be paid with cash on hand.

CyberSource is an established industry leader that plays a role in processing approximately 25 percent of all eCommerce dollars transacted in the United States.  The company serves more than 295,000 merchants through its CyberSource and Authorize.Net branded solutions. I have implemented Authorize.net in a new B2B marketplace called Ketera Network. CyberSource clients include British Airways, Home Depot, Facebook, Google and many small businesses.

The acquisition of CyberSource will result in a compelling combination whose assets and expertise are expected to drive long-term growth by:

• Accelerating the growth of the eCommerce category thereby also increasing the usage of Visa debit, prepaid and credit products for online purchases.
• Drawing on Visa’s financial institution relationships and global presence to more rapidly drive international expansion of CyberSource’s products and services.  Today the majority of CyberSource’s revenues are generated in the United States, leaving tremendous opportunity for global growth.
• Building on CyberSource’s relationships with merchants to expand the adoption and enhance the functionality of other Visa eCommerce solutions such as Rightcliq.
• Delivering best-in-class fraud management services to accelerate adoption of CyberSource solutions.
• Increasing adoption of CyberSource’s secure payment data hosting solutions to address a growing merchant need.

These benefits will be realized by merchants and financial institutions alike.  Together, Visa and CyberSource will help merchants increase revenue through global growth while minimizing monetary loss from fraud and provide them with fast and efficient connectivity to multiple payment networks, including Visa. For financial institutions acquirers, Visa will deliver added value by providing new business referrals from eCommerce merchants.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

In a bid to facilitate import export and trading through a online b2b platform esuppliersindia has been launched  where global buyers and importers can find Indian suppliers for various products and services.

The portal aim is to give maximum exposure to Indian companies and suppliers at the global level. esuppliersindia.com is clearly targetting Indian SMEs to do business at the global level and also to help foreign buyers and importers find genuine suppliers.

The user can browse or search for different products from amongst 2000 odd categories and also find their suppliers. The site gives an option to send inquiries to selected companies by simply filling out the Inquiry form.

In order to garner high number of suppliers, registration is made free.

The portal has a separate ‘Resource Zone’ section through which the user can learn about import-export procedures, exim policy, custom exchange rates, shipping ports in India and abroad, Indian trade organization and Indian embassies and consulates. It also offers export-import related news and gives an insight into the forthcoming trade fairs/ exhibitions across the country for companies to participate and market their products effectively. Users can find trade fairs through industry and by month too.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Cynapse, inventor of popular Enterprise 2.0 collaboration software Cyn.in, announced the public availability of a new offering: Sync.in – a real time document conferencing tool. With Sync.in, when multiple people edit the same document or note simultaneously, any changes are instantly reflected on everyone’s screen. The result is a new and productive way to communicate using text documents, useful for meeting notes, brainstorming, project planning, drafting sessions, training and more.

Have you realized what store behind the Like button in facebook, when u click on Like button in your friend status or a pic. There is a strong buzz that Facebook’s new Like Button is going to power a behavioral Ad Network.

The new Facebook like button that was rumored to be launched at this year’s f8 will power a new enhanced behavioral ad network. Data from these interactions would be used to target them with related adverts once they return to Facebook.com.

While this form of advertising targeting is used by a number of large ad networks, for Facebook to use this advanced form of targeting will start putting the company in a interesting privacy position. It also sounds as though this could be tied to the new privacy policy that was rolled out recently.

Facebook has demonstrated a willingness to push the boundaries of user privacy in the past, especially with the launch of Beacon, and it sounds like they may be pushing the boundaries once again. Whatever is being announced, we won’t have to wait long to find out the full details. It’s also important to understand that this information will be based on users clicking on Facebook “Like” buttons, so it requires user action.

Do you care what type of information Facebook collects about you? Do you want more targeted advertisements?

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Aditi Technologies, a leading software product and application development services provider, today announced it has signed an agreement with Infospace, Inc to acquire its Indian subsidiary, Infospace India Software Development, developer of metasearch and online consumer products.

The terms of the transaction have been approved by both Aditi’s and Infospace’s Board of Directors, a company press release said.

Established in 2007, Infospace India is engaged in online product development, software engineering and product testing for INSP’s global product portfolio. Infospace (India) has its development center in Bangalore.

“The acquisition of Infospace aligns well with our focus of establishing an account base of stable and long-term engagements and further highlights the trust that leading software vendors have in our ability to deliver quality products faster”,said Pradeep Rathinam,CEO,Aditi Technologies.

“Infospace is a global technology leader in metasearch products and this acquisition makes them a major strategic client for Aditi Technologies. With this relationship, India has become one of the key markets for us and we will look ahead for more similar opportunities in the market”, he said.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Groupon is now valued at more than one billion dollars. It joins social networks Facebook and Twitter and online gaming company Zynga in a very small club of web 2.0 startups. Groupon, the social buying site that has become one of the hotter start-ups of late, has gotten a giant round of funding from the same Russian investors who backed social networking powerhouse Facebook and game phenom Zynga.

Digital Sky Technologies is the main funder of the round, but Battery Ventures is also participating.

The money, the company said would be used to grow the business–and to speed far ahead of numerous rivals–as well as cash out employees and early investors. Groupon is profitable and has about 270 employees.

In December, Groupon nabbed $30 million in its second round of funding, led by Accel Partners.

The innovative Chicago-based service, which launched only a year ago, had previously received $4.8 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, as well as $1 million from an angel investor.

Groupon features a daily deal with a huge discount on a wide range of things–from spas to skydiving–in 26 U.S. cities, including Chicago, Boston, New York and San Francisco, for large groups of potential buyers on the Web, through email or via social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Can Indian clones of Groupon will achieve valuation of $1M, check out related post here.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Twitter which has now signed up more than 100 million users, outlined on Wednesday several revenue-generating initiatives, declaring that making money was now a primary goal. The popular Internet service hopes to snag hundreds of millions more users in coming years by making the service easier, integrating Twitter directly into Web sites and focusing more on customizing the service for mobile devices.

At the company’s first conference for Twitter developers on Wednesday, CEO Evan Williams said generating revenue was among the key priorities going forward — a change of tone for a firm that had previously said it focused mainly on improving the user experience.

The comments come a day after Twitter rolled out a new advertising program dubbed “Promoted Tweets,” its first attempt to make money from its service and a milestone on the path toward an initial public offering.

“Money is important,” Williams said during a special talk at the event devoted to monetization. “It takes a hell of a lot of money to run Twitter. There has to be a very solid revenue stream underneath this to fuel it.”

While the fledgling advertising program unveiled this week now has just five advertisers in a trial run, Stone said in an interview that the company believed the new ad service represented one of the primary businesses that would finance the company’s operations going forward.

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Scribesnook is a community for creative writers to post their original writings and share it with a passionate group of writers and readers. Using the Scribesnook platform writers can present their work on the web and can share it with experienced writers and readers and can get feedback.

Writers can categorize their posts on categories like Action & Adventure, Fantasy, Humor, Philosophy,  Poetry, Romance. Community users can rate an posts and comment. Some features like Top rated, Most viewed, Most Commented are implemented after data mining the usage pattern in the site.

As per me its like a sandbox environment(testing place) where writer can get feedback on their work and take corrective action before getting their work is published in the form of book.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

iProf is India’s first personal education tablet, which is set to revolutionize the way student study. It brings study material in multiple formats such as audio-video lectures, animations, structured tests, solutions, performance analysis and much more. Being a touch tablet, it digitizes learning and makes if faster and more efficient.

It is a slim and handy device, which is 7” long, and weighs just 350 gms, with an ideal screen size. Equipped with 8GB memory, iProf stores reading material worth loads of books along with hundreds of hours of video and audio lectures.

iProf lets you watch and listen video and audio lectures by faculty, student can pause, rewind & play and absorb the content and their own pace. One of the best adaptation of iProf is Mock Tests, It allows student to take mock tests anytime and any number of time. iProf lets you customize your own tests and create exercises to get practice and make sure that master your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses.

iProf is priced at 14.5K which i feel is tad high, i am eagerly waiting to try my hands on iProf.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com