Thought Garage

What makes a cell phone off the shelf truly Your Phone? The Ringtones, faceplates, holders and your headset together can make it the faceless box off the shelf truly your OWN and speak your style . Washington Post  displays pictures of 4 different phones that are customized for Girls with rhinestones, colorful keys, tattoos and designer cases. Technology for Girls Companies are trying to get technology in touch with its inner fashionista, marketing to women and girls by tickling them with pink phones and rhinestones. Click through some of these new designer tech toys now available. Source: Technology for Girls (washingtonpost.com) Browse through some of the cool products at Amazon to make your cellphone truly yours. Bluetooth Headsets Designer Accessories Personalize with Face Plates Cellphones and Jewelry Funky Cellphone holders Cars & Cell Phones You can visit The Cellular Life Style Boutique for cool collection of Phones and accessories available at...

Web2.0 or Mobile2.0? Which is more relevant to Indian domestic market? Which will succeed and Which companies will attract VCs? You may be trying to pick up a paper and start scribbling a checklist for a successful startup. But take a moment to read some insights from TiECON, Delhi by Basab Pradhan Founder &CEO of Gridstone Research : - Unlike in the Valley, Web 2.0 has no relevance to the Indian domestic market. Internet penetration is low (5.4%), broadband is lower (<0.5%). Even if you include use at work, account sharing and internet cafes, the consumer internet is a tiny market. It may be interesting for some compelling ideas or if someone wants to bet on growth. But in my opinion, it is not going to attract much investment unless there is a broader "global Indian" or a "click and mortar" play. - Mobile however is hugely interesting. Mobile penetration in India is twice that of the internet and is growing at rates close to 50%. There are opportunities...

Read some statistics on SkypeJournal  about Skyp's growth and comparisions with Telco's traditional revenues. The author says that the dent made by Skype is so low that Telco's won't even notice Skype. Numbers may be low. But, Telcos are infact scared of Skype and its clones all around. Go to any conference. Open any report. View any presentation or listen to any conference. Nothing starts and ends without mentioning the threat from Skype and its clones.  Why, Skype is eating out 25% of VOIP growth. Read on. Interestingly, though, Skype's growth has not yet had a quantifiable impact on switched volumes. Skypelights: Skype traffic grew by 6.2 billion minutes in the last year. From 7.6 billion minutes in 2005 to 13.8 billion projected in 2006. 80% year over year. Just in case that's sounds like a lot... Other VoIP traffic grew by 16.8 billion minutes to 42 billion minutes . These are the Vonages, cable and telco voip offerings. Thei...

Read some statistics on SkypeJournal  about Skyp's growth and comparisions with Telco's traditional revenues. The author says that the dent made by Skype is so low that Telco's won't even notice Skype. Numbers may be low. But, Telcos are infact scared of Skype and its clones all around. Go to any conference. Open any report. View any presentation or listen to any conference. Nothing starts and ends without mentioning the threat from Skype and its clones.  Why, Skype is eating out 25% of VOIP growth. Read on. Interestingly, though, Skype's growth has not yet had a quantifiable impact on switched volumes. Skypelights: Skype traffic grew by 6.2 billion minutes in the last year. From 7.6 billion minutes in 2005 to 13.8 billion projected in 2006. 80% year over year. Just in case that's sounds like a lot... Other VoIP traffic grew by 16.8 billion minutes to 42 billion minutes . These are the Vonages, cable and telco voip offerings. Thei...

The Mercury News is running a notable series about the return to India by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs as venture capitalists. It gives you a taste of the “India rising” excitement, but also of the country’s daunting cultural, social and infrastructure challenges. >> Link to Audio Presentation : " INDIA 2.0 : The Elephant Starts to Dance "     It features Vani Kola, who returned this summer to begin investing a new fund into Indian start-ups, NEA IndoUS Ventures (size targeted initially at $105 million), which we mentioned earlier here . It also features Rahul Khanna, pictured below, director of Clearstone Venture Advisors, who returned last year to invest a $205 million India fund, and Bob Kondamoori, pictured bottom, who is reportedly launching a $100 million India fund, Sandalwood Partners. The key stat: VCs have invested $355 million during the first nine months of 2006, nearly twice as much as the two previous years combined. Source: Venture Beat ...

Most of the Internet companies survive on Advertisements. Its not an exaggeration if we say for lots of Web2.0 startups, there is no other revenue stream. And these Ads need millions of page impressions, if there has to be any considerable income. So, it will not come as a surprise if content networks and internet companies shy away from RSS. Its in direct conflict of interest between user experience and revenue streams. RSS provides a much better content distribution channel. But that means, fewer people visiting the web page directly, and that is hurting the number of page impressions and the revenue.  Read about Yahoo new sites - Yahoo! Food , Yahoo! Advertising and Yahoo! TV  do not have RSS feeds at all. "In the past few weeks Yahoo has rolled out three major new web sites - Yahoo! Food , Yahoo! Advertising and Yahoo! TV . They're great sites, but none of them has feeds. There's a reason why - eyeballs." Of course, those three sites that Steve mentions ar...

Bangalore is set to beat Silicon Valley in providing Wi-Max based Wireless Internet access any where in the city and surroundings. "The Wireless Silicon Valley" project aims to provide similar service in the Silicon Valley seems to be lagging behind "The Unwired Bangalore" project. Bangalore is going to be the second city in the world to be fully Wi-Max enabled, something even the Silicon Valley can't boast of. According to news magazine Outlook, "In early 2007, when Wi-Max is introduced to Bangalore city - in the final plan it'll cover 696 Km of the city and 470 Km in the surrounding town and municipal regions - it will be only the second city in the world to be fully Wi-Max enabled, after Taipei." Nomadic access to the Internet. Imagine sitting on the beach, in a café, or stuck in traffic. In the office, the drawing room, the balcony, the park. Just about everywhere. And being connected to the web, to your emails and to the rest of the world. ...