Reliance Communications launches Games on USSD

Reliance Communications has announced the launch of Games on USSD. This is a significant innovation which now enables games for the first time on the USSD platform. Users can now play games on USSD on any GSM handset with a Reliance Mobile connection.

SBI mini savings goes mobile with Eko

Taking the no-frills mini savings account the mobile way, the State Bank of India and Eko Aspire Foundation plan to roll out the project across Mumbai and Punjab within two months.

Eko has launched the project on pilot basis with SBI at Uttam Nagar in Delhi in February and thereafter it was taken to four districts of Bihar where it has evoked enthusiastic response.

Also see:Social Entrepreneurship – Interview with Eko Founder [Entrepreneurial Journey, Challenges]

Tribute to Bajaj Scooters

Now that Bajaj has decided to move out of Scooter business (and focus on motorcycles), watch this all-time fav video

Reliance Big Entertainment entered into a strategic alliance with music company T-Series and Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (Hungama Mobile) wherein all three companies will co-own the current and future music catalogue of Big Entertainment and the same shall be exclusively distributed by T-Series on all platforms in all formats including the current titles in the Big Music catalogue and all future titles in Reliance Big Entertainment including all physical formats, Radio & Television, Mobile and digital formats, across the globe.

Apart from steering sales on physical formats, T-Series will also enable the reach of Reliance Big Music’s catalogue through its network of licensees, publishers and aggregators and all formats of revenues that arise from radio, television & public performances. On the mobile & digital distribution front, T-Series exclusively through Hungama Digital Media (Hungama Mobile) will provide the digital footprint for Reliance Big Music’s catalogue across Telcos, internet, IPTV and mobile networks.

This distribution will also cover internet portals which include Hungama.com, India’s premium digital entertainment store and numerous other online and mobile networks globally. Through its international partnerships with iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon MP3, among others, Hungama will power Reliance Big Music’s collections to South Asian consumer’s outside the country.

Here is a great perspective shared by Arjun of Taazza.com

The fundamental problem of the media is as follows: They are looking at someone else to innovate & lead them out of this attention hell. A messiah or a white knight outside their industry. They forget that they need to be leading the way & innovating.

- Shovelware – I think you hit the nail on the head by branding it as such. Even in terms of shovelware they are doing a bad job.

Shouldnt readers consume more of their information given how easy it is get to it? I am willing to bet that the reader consumption on media sites has gone down, this is different from the traffic to their sites. Back in the day (aka my grandpa’s time) people used to read the paper cover to cover or atleast a good chunk of it starting with the obituary (Sad, I know but thats what the hindu newspaper reader who was about 60 did). The focus of the media is sadly on the breaking news or the top news & keep highlighting the same content again & again till the view tunes out.

Reporting has become a commodity, pay 25K a month to PTI and you get to start your own news site. Journalism is still buried behind walls of fear of plagiarism. Here are some questions to the average reader -

Can one name 5 journalists that they read? (Columnists perhaps) Is it not in the interest of the media house to publish that information with the article? A good number of the articles dont even make it online.

Indian Media houses have been thinking that print is not going to be impacted for a while. Yet they are concerned about being over dependent on ads on the offline medium. That might be true for vernacular languages given that tier-II & III cities are starting to be more educated but English newspapers are in for trouble soon. Some of them have realized that online cant be a second fiddle in the long run, which is why 6-8 of the top news sites have invested money and redesigned their websites. Some such as the hindu have even started the web first policy. This is a step in the right direction.
Fundamentally if they realized that they have to stop treating their audience like school kids and start to engage with them, they are going to benefit from it. There are encouraging signs that they are open to it.

But getting back to Twitter & microblogging – they need to lead rather than follow. You will find that most Indian sites end up posting agency news feeds through the day to get google news juice and then save the content for the evenings. GOOG has been slowly pull the rug under them by taking one function after another from them (First it was the front page, next picture thumbnails, next the search box & now authors) It is only a matter of time before Indian media houses complain about google.
By the time they get on twitter and start to engage cracks will appear in that model as well. There are about 50+ media sites on twitter all having less than 10K followers. This is especially pathetic when you consider that the audience is about 600K users (loads of NRI’s are on twitter). If you compare this to the likes of CNN which has about 3M followers, you wonder if these guys are even on the same planet.
Yet there is hope, if you look at the twitter handles such as bangalorenews there is a niche audience. Question is how do you engage them? DNA was out front when they had 2 people out of Bangalore running their twitter handle. It created an engaging medium but for some odd reason they stopped.
Media houses need to think of this as investment for the tough times that lie ahead. They are too busy investing in the epaper sites. I seriously doubt the depth of that audience for English papers. Mobile sites have to go beyond a simple html page with 5 topics. If a pepsi distributor can enable his employees who take stock (at various stores to replish them) with smart phones, why arent journalist being enables with smart phones & twitter? Microblog allows you to know who your audience is, yet these guys dont use them. Someone needs to be wake them up.
Readership surveys point a rosy picture for vernacular language newspapers while for English papers the picture is good for TOI, others have a problem. Either ways 2010 promises to be an interesting year ahead