Source: Economic Times

Almost a year after upending the mobile-phone world with its first wireless handset, the iPhone, Apple unveiled a souped-up second version of the device, the iPhone 3G. ( Watch )

Introduced by Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs in a June 9 keynote address in San Francisco, the iPhone 3G will sell for $199 for an 8GB version and $299 for a 16GB version. The new prices represent a departure from a year ago when the first devices sold for $599 on the upper end. The iPhone 3G will be available in 22 countries beginning July 11, and will eventually be sold in 70 countries in all.

The new phone derives its name from the faster Internet downloads available on advanced, or third-generation (3G), wireless networks. Jobs told the audience the new iPhone downloads Web pages as much as 36% faster than comparable phones from Nokia (NOK) and Palm (PALM). The new phone also sports a feature that lets users know their location using GPS satellites. Phones that run GPS technology are able to access an array of location-aware applications, including mapping within address books. Other improvements over the original device include improved audio quality on phone calls.
Improvements to the first version of the iPhone—the lower price in particular—will likely generate greater demand for one of Apple’s most successful products to date. “If anyone needed proof that Apple was ready, willing, and able to go after lots of mobile-phone users, they got it today,” says Gartner (IT) analyst Mike McGuire. “Apple is showing itself to be really serious about the phone market.” Apple has sold 6 million units since the iPhone was introduced at the end of June, 2007. “More people desired to buy it, but they couldn’t afford it,” Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook says.

Demand for the iPhone also stands to benefit the wireless carriers on whose networks the device runs—although Cook says the lower price reflects a subsidy that will be absorbed by the service providers. The official iPhone provider in the U.S. is AT&T (T). “The launch of 3G iPhone will be another opportunity for [Apple's] exclusive providers to boost [revenue per user] and market share gains, continuing what 2G iPhone started,” UBS (UBS) analyst John Hodulik wrote in a research report.

Source: Economic Times

 NEW YORK: Billionare financier Carl Icahn, who launched a proxy battle in May to replace the board of Yahoo Inc in the wake of its failed deal to be acquired by Microsoft Corp, said on Sunday the subsequent deal Yahoo forged with Google “might have some merit.” “While the Google deal is not the same as an offer of $34.375 per share for Yahoo, I am continuing to study it, and it might have some merit,”

Icahn said in his first public comments since Yahoo disclosed the Google ad-sharing deal on Thursday. Icahn declined to comment on whether he would continue to press his proxy battle to replace the board of Yahoo in light of the fact that the company has done a deal with Google. The pact comes with extensive “change of control” provisions that allow Google or Yahoo to terminate the deal in the event that Yahoo is acquired or if a majority of its board is replaced at its upcoming annual shareholders meeting in August.

Thus, if Icahn wins his proxy battle and changes the board of Yahoo, Google has the right to walk away from a deal that Icahn favors as an alternative to an all-out acquisition. Ichan hinted that the change of control provision might be sufficient reason to pull back on his campaign to replace the Yahoo board. Alternatively, Icahn could accept minority board representation which may not prompt Google to walk away.

The investor, who holds about 59 million shares, or more than 4 percent of Yahoo, said that a Google deal was preferable to having Microsoft take control of Yahoo’s search operations as the software company proposed after Yahoo rejected its $47.5 billion bid to acquire the whole company. “I continue to be extremely disappointed with the Yahoo management, but the Google deal might have some merit and seems to be better then the alternative deal proposed by Microsoft,” said Icahn in a telephone interview.  

MarketingSherpa has come out with a Handbook and Benchmarks report on Online Marketing based on a survey of 577 advertisers and marketers. Pilgrim does a review and shares some of the insights from the report here are the key takeaways

Industry statistics

• 47% of companies said their search marketing agency was “absolutely worth every penny,” compared to just 15% who said the same of their “media agency.”
• 56% of companies plan to include A/B testing in 2008.
• A huge 28.6% of advertisers spending $100k to $1 million are not doing any kind of ad testing!

Ad strategies

• According to MarketingSherpa’s eye-tracking studies, ads below the fold can actually out-perform those above the fold, if they have better horizontal positioning–that is, placed to the left.
• Want to increase brand awareness? Non-standard ads–such as the “peel back” ad you see in the top right corner of this web site–lead the way with 41% effectiveness of all ads.
• Want to generate direct sales? Paid search ads are still the best bet, with 29% effectiveness.
• Want an ad format that achieves direct sales, product education, lead generation, AND branding? Small display ads–such as small banners or tiles–offer the best advertising mix.

JuxtConsult an Online research firm is the latest to release a report about Internet in india. The report is titled “India Online 2008” and is based on an on-ground survey conducted in March in 12,500 households in 40 cities of all population sizes, and 4,000 households in 160 villages across all socioeconomic classes. The Internet usage, online behavior and site preferences were collated from 15,000 Internet users through an online survey conducted in April.
Some of the things that caught my eye was that only 28% people prefer to read in English when online and 65% users use Google for local language searches which show that there is a scope for regional languages on the web. Another out of the way info was that Rediff was used by 19% users for renting a movie cd which surprised me that there was such a market in India. Just a disclaimer that with a sample size of 15000 it is very brave to make predictions about millions and so take the report with a pinch of salt but it can still help you to make some decisions.
Excerpts (via afaqs)
No of Internet users in India:

It claims that there are 49 million Internet users in India, of which 40 million are in urban cities. Of these, 35 million are regular Internet users who log on at least once a month. Around 25 million Internet users are online daily.

Demographics & Choice of Language of Indian Internet users

The report shows that 77 per cent of the Internet users are in the age group of 19-35 years, 51 per cent are salaried employees in corporate houses and 30 per cent live in metros. Surprisingly, only 28 per cent of the respondents said they prefer to read in English when online.

Most Popular Internet Activities of Indian internet user

According to report most popular activities online are emailing (91 per cent), job search (72 per cent) and instant messaging (70 per cent). Other popular activities are checking news and sports, downloading music and movies, and checking cricket scores.

Internet Brands & Top of Mind Recall

Among the brands surveyed by JuxtConsult, Google predictably has the highest top of mind recall, at 36.6 per cent, followed by Yahoo! at 31.5 per cent and Rediff at a distant 7 per cent. In terms of usage, Google is used by 28 per cent of the respondents, and Yahoo is used by 27.6 per cent of them. Rediff and Gmail follow with 8.6 per cent usage each.

Online Activities on Indian Websites
JuxtConsult also surveyed the most used websites for specific online activities.

• According to the report, Yahoo! is most used for email (51 per cent users), instant messaging (53 per cent), online news (16 per cent), net telephony (25 per cent), astrology (25 per cent), cinema (14 per cent) and mobile content (12 per cent).
• Google is the most used website for information search in English (81 per cent), search in local languages (65 per cent), real estate (23 per cent) and online learning or education (32 per cent).
• Orkut is the most used website for friendship and dating (54 per cent), sharing pictures (38 per cent), social networking (66 per cent) and professional networking (44 per cent).
• Among the other activities, Naukri is used by 42 per cent of the respondents for job search. Yatra is most used for travel (18 per cent), Zapak is most used for games (32 per cent) and eBay is most used for online shopping (33 per cent).
• In the financial vertical, Moneycontrol is accessed by 18 per cent of the users for financial news and information, while ICICI Direct is used by 31 per cent users for online share trading.
• Bharatmatrimony is most used (36 per cent) in online matrimony, YouTube is most used for video sharing (43 per cent) and Cricinfo is used by 19 per cent of the users for sports. Raaga is the website most used for music (17 per cent), while Rediff is used by 19 per cent of the users for buying or renting a movie CD.

Web18 Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd, the Internet arm of Network18 Media and Investments Ltd is set to launch a horizontal portal, said two people familiar with the development (according to Livemint).

A horizontal portal refers to an Internet portal site that offers a broad range of content and services. Exampels could be Rediff, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL etc. 

 Web18 had launched Josh18 sometime back – that portal comes close to being a horizontal player but it lacks things like travel booking and email; 2 essentials I would say when it comes to classifying a portal as horizontal.

 Web18 has 15 stand alone sites in various field of interest such as cricket, finance, shopping, travel, news, jobs, technology etc. and thus it makes perfect sense to integrate all these sites into one complete portal. Incidentally, Web 18’s top portal MoneyControl has seen traffic falling drastically over the last few days. The result is a confluence of their 3 top portals – CricketNext, IBNLive, and MoneyControl. By the way – is Alexa biased against regional sites or does Josh18 really linger below English content sites? Anyone with information on that?
Incidentally when a group is launching an array of services, I think its better if they have one mother brand which can then be used to nurture all the other brands. It becomes a logistical and marketing nightmare to harness 16 different brands with different identities. There are no spill over effect, no positive externalities, all of them need separate budgets etc. We saw in automotive how GM succumbed to Toyota because of issues related to managing multiple brands – all of which were not successful. In the Internet Space too, Google offers tons of products and applications and the ‘G’ before the brand adds that force. They follow a more or less generic branding strategy. Web18 would have benefited if it did more of that. It would be interesting to see what the portal is called.

T.R. Madan Mohan, a managing partner at Browne and Mohan had another interesting point to make – “Rediff is valued at $200 million (Rs846 crore), while a vertical like Naukri (job portal) is valued at four times that. Sify has one-tenth the value of travel portal Makemytrip.”

We had broken the story of UTV acquiring ITNation sometime back and now news is abuzz with the completion of the acquisition and the numbers are out. UTV paid 15 crores to acquire 76% of ITNation which owns digital news properties like Techtree.com , CXOToday.com, Channeltimes.com & Enterpriser.in. Earlier to ITNation UTV had acquired a controlling stake in indiagames.

Now it seems UTV like its contemporary Network18 is willing to bet its money on online portals and hence has announced that it would be investing 120 crores in total on 10 portals. Giving an indication on what to expect from UTV Mr.Prabhu said in this article that the portals wont be ecommerce centric. “We will not force the consumers to transact on our site,” said Mr Prabhu, CEO , UTV NewMedia. The key areas that they would focus on as pointed out by Mr.Prabhu is as follow:

- Digital music space
- Personal finance
- IT Nation’s portals

Network18 hived off a separate company web18 which has portals into cricket (cricketnext.com), finance (moneycontrol.com), jobs (jobstreet.com), ecommerce (storeguru.com), hindi portal (josh18.com), horizontal portal (In.com). Web18 has also raised 10 million in funding in 2006. I guess UTV will also follow suit and thats why the new business unit in UTV new media has been formed. Also given that UTV’s business news channel has just launched and the fact that they have launched utvi.com is proof that they have they weapons out for battle with Network18 as far as the digital space is concerned.