Tata group and NEN (National Entreprenuerial Network) have announced the TATA NEN hottest startup awards to promote Indian startups in various sectors like agribusiness, consulting, education, IT, manufacturing etc. The awards are based on nominations made by people at hotteststartups.in. The awards will be announced after December 22nd. So far around 588 nominations have been recieved across various categories. Bangalore tops the list with maximum number of startups followed by Mumbai and Delhi. Nearly, 70% of the startups have been started by individuals with their personal savings. To review the list of nominated startups visit hotteststartups.in !

Indian corporates all set to cut jobs to remain afloat !!

If recent views from Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) d to believed, many Indian corporate houses are planning to cut 25% of jobs in next 10 days. The companies wanted to initiate this process prior to Diwali but for humane reasons it was deferred. The key industries which will be impacted include real estate, steel, cement, IT enabled services and financial services sector. This would ideally mark the beginning of real economy slow down with average people facing the real brunt. There are currently no measures taken up by any of the trade organizations to avoid this since the problem is spreading like a plague across the corporate world.

Word of caution "Stick to your current jobs and prove your worth to the organization where you are working"

Satguide - GPS navigation tool available in your nearest stores!

I have been thinking about covering the increasing penetration of GPS products in India but was not sure if it had made in-roads to consumer market till I read about SatNav technologies recent foray. It is first Indian company which brought GPS navigation to India. Finally, it has announced that the GPS navigation tools will be available at major Indian retail chains. This would include Staples, Reliance, E-Zone and Croma to begin with but will soon make way to your nearest super markets!

Interestingly, the company offers satguide based GPS navigation tools for a number of mobile and PDA softwares. The company claims to have detailed maps of 200 + cities. The software offers turn-by-turn navigation with voice prompts in English and different Indian languages which makes it all the more interesting. As of now it is available in all major I cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahemdabad and Gurgaon.
For more details visit : http://www.satguide.in/

Face recognition - Google's Picassa rocks !

It's all about Google this week! First its latest browser chrome and now the announcement about its face tag capability on its online photo album web site Picassa. Google has added the face recognition web site which was so far being largely utilized for security solutions. Google has extended this feature to an average home consumer. If you have an account with picassa, you can try this feature. Look for adding the "Name Tag" feature and click on it. This will start the face recognition exercise in the background. You can come back at a later time to see the processed images. The system will tell you the number of faces that it has identified. You will be required to label those faces. Amazingly, I had my daughter's images right from 6 month old to 2.5 years old and it can group them together as images belonging to one person !!!! Once you label individual photos, the picassa can identify the labeled photos in group photos. Try it out it's truly mind blowing !

Google launches Map Maker in India

If you have been wanting to know details about your neighborhood, locality or district using a detailed map, you do not have to wait for Geographical Survey of India to update and publish them which I do not even know will ever happen. This is because Google has launched its Google Map Maker utility in India. Google Map Maker is a service which allows you to add or edit features, such as roads, offices, buildings, shops etc., at anyplace on the published map. For example, you can add the name of shop, building, college, school in your neighborhood within the map and publish it to the larger audience. The map allows you to add all the details like address, draw a road, river, mark a playground, park etc. something which can definitely benefit the masses. However, the biggest challenge that I can think of is the accuracy of the details. Nevertheless, I think it is still a novel idea coming out of its idea repository!

Do try google map maker at http://mapmaker.google.com

Momail - World's smallest mobile e-mail now in India

Momail, a Stockholm based company has launched its popular mobile product in India today. It provides a complete email solution to consumer on his mobile phone but with a difference. It offers a unified email inbox for all your different email accounts from Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc. You can send or receive emails from your mobile using momail. Currently, Momail has opened its Indian site http://www.momail.in/ for around 100,000 beta users. You can be a part by signing it online with a password momailrox on its web site. The company claims to support over 1100 different mobile models. The service is free during the beta period but will eventually be launched as a paid service. I tried the service today. Though the registration was straigthforward - register on website, provide your Mobile number, the site sends all the settings as a message to your mobile. You need to open the message and save it which results in default configuration of Momail on your mobile phone. That's really a cool feature especially for consumer market ! However, I was unable to access the emails using my phone due to connectivity issues which I reported to its customer support which was gracious enough to respond within 2 hours :) ! Do give it a try and let me know what you feel about the product.

Meridhun.com launches Meridhun Musical Widget

Last month I had reported about meridhun.com, an online hindi songs gift shoppee! While the concept is definitely unique but I had some doubts on their marketing strategy and expansion plans. Recently, it has launched its partnership/affiliate program by establishing a Partner Club program. As part of this program you can sign up to become a partner of meridhun.com and generate a cool widget which you can place on your blog or web site. For each successful registration you can earn 10 Meridhun points which is equivalent to Rs 1 INR. However, the reward points can only be reedemed against the products sold on meridhun and cannot be encashed. This sounds like a good strategy but I think using widgets as part of partnership program is bit cumbersome process. I would rather allow people to generate widgets directly from the web site rather than following a tedious partner registration process and confirmation from support team. Further for some reason I do not find this option advertised on meridhun home page. I guess the company should closely evaluate the strategy adopted by dhingana.com !!
BTW here is the widget in case you want to play around and help me earn some reward points :)(The widget still needs some usability enhancements)