Ads That Target You Using Your Skin

It's all very well to talk about wired and wireless networks, but scientists have also been working on a network that uses your skin to transmit signals. These networks will be far more efficient than current technologies like Bluetooth, but won't sacrifice the wire-free nature of these technologies. Now, scientists at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Korea are working on a way to use these "body-area networks" to connect you to the advertisements that are relevant only to you. Instead of being bombarded by posters and billboards that don't mean anything to you, you walk up to an electronic poster and touch it. The poster uses information about you (collected from your cell phone) to decide which ads to show you. While this is a little reminiscent of the Minority Report=like system that looks at your eyes to find out who you are, this system lets you walk up to the ads when you want to. Which is why marketing companies are going to hate it.

Lets see if thing really works out.

iPhone Netbook Concept in the Making

For mobile users a company called OLO has come out with a revolutionary way of using your handset and converting it into a mobile netbook. Let me not get ahead of myself though. The company has designed a product (yet to be official) that will enable just iPhone users to enhance the device's output.

The company has come up with a concept of integrating the iPhone with an accessory-like device that’s designed to be something like today’s average netbook. The handset can be placed into this device that comes equipped with a keyboard and LCD screen and voila, instant iPhone netbook. According to the reports and the company’s website that features just an image of this device, the handset would be placed face up in the slot where the trackpad would normally be. Could the iPhone then become a trackpad? Who knows.

Right now it just seems like a work in progress and the message on the website is simply – Coming Soon. So let’s just wait and watch.

History behind Navratri

Navratri means Nine (Nav) Nights (Ratri). Navratri or the Festival of
Nine Nights from Ashvin Sud 1 to 9 is devoted to the propitiation of
Shakti or Divine Mother. She represents prakriti, counterpart of purusha jointly making possible the creation of the world according to the religious ideology of Goddess worship. Such worships were prevalent in India even before the advent of the Aryans, who adopted it as a religious practice. References in vedas and puranas confirm this opinion. The main temples of mother goddess that are visited by multitude of devotees during Navratri are the shaktipithas, of which there are three in Gujarat. It is believed that Lord Vishnu had to cut the body of Sati into pieces to stop the destruction by Shiva who was perturbed by her death. At fifty-two places these pieces fell, the three in Gujarat being; Ambaji in Banaskantha, Bahucharaji in Chunaval and Kalika on Pavagadh hill in Panchmahals.

This festival is essentially religious in nature. It is celebrated with true devotion in the various temples dedicated to the Mother, or Mataji, as she is familiarly called. In some homes, images of the Mother are worshipped in accordance with accepted practice. This is also true of the temples, which usually have a constant stream of visitors from morning to night.

Google Brings Books Closer to You

Google launches free tool which will let you add books to its search index called Google Book.

Book lovers will be happy to know that they will have more books across more websites, thanks to Google's efforts.

Google is launching a set of free tools that allow retailers, publishers, and anyone with a website to embed books from the Google Book Search index. The company will also enable people using these to display full-text search results from Book Search, and even integrate with social features such as ratings, reviews, and readers' book collections.

The search giant has partnered with several booksellers to enable preview functionality for their sites So, when you're shopping online for books, you may see this feature at work.

Also, users will be able to search within a book, zoom in and out on the page, and browse up to 20% of the book, just as it is possible on the Book Search site.

Online video advertising market in India estimated at Rs 60 crore

Potential online video advertising market in India is estimated at Rs 600 million, according to M K Anand, business head, Zoom. “Video streams originating from India is doubling year-on-year,” Anand has said.

Viewers are increasingly shifting from TV to internet for their favourite shows and videos. This change has happened in the last three years, especially after the advent of web 2.0. The web is no more driven by text but has become interactive, reports IndianTelevision .

Citing a Com Score data (March-July 2008) Zoom digital head Sameer Pitalwalla has said, “Per month, an average of 5.03 billion online videos are viewed in UK, US, Germany and France. This clearly states the significance of consumption of online videos globally as well.”

HTC to launch Google Android-powered phone in India by Dec 2008

Taiwan-based cellphone major HTC (High Tech Computer) is planning to launch Google Android-powered phone in India by the end of December 2008. HTC’s G1 (the Google phone model) is a 3G phone and is specially designed to offer high-speed internet surfing. It has a touch-screen, computer-like keyboard, GPS, WiFi and a 3 megapixel camera.

Labelled as competition to Apple’s iPhone, which is priced at Rs 31,000 for the 8GB model, the HTC G1 could be priced cheaper to maintain an edge in India. The price, however, will be higher than the US debut tag of around Rs 8,200 ($179), reports Business Standard .

Android is a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices that was announced in November 2007 and developed by the Open Handset Alliance — a group comprising players like Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola and Samsung.

Video ads generate 20-40 times higher CTRs than other forms of display ads

Online video is a powerful medium which can capture the attention of internet users better than comparable text or static images, according to Naren Nachiappan, managing director, Jivox India. “This is best reflected in the increased click through rates, with video advertisements generating click through rates that are between 20 and 40 times higher than the click through rates of other forms of display advertisements,” Nachiappan has said.

“In addition, the information content of video is substantially higher than the information content of other forms of display advertisements; this is a metric which is particularly valuable and appreciated by internet users who are typically looking for deeper engagement with a brand on the internet. Video satisfies this need and allows for an experience which has a higher recall rate and a much higher probability of generating user action,” Naren Nachiappan added.

Nachiappan was speaking at the 4th Conference on Digital Marketing organized by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) in Mumbai today. Jivox, the self-service online video advertising platform for local businesses, gives advertisers access to online video advertising by making it easy to create, target and deliver online video ads.

Naren Nachiappan concluded by saying that a major constraint that prevented the wide-spread adoption of online video advertisements has been the bandwidth issue. However with the huge anticipated increase in broad-band users in India, there is bound to be an increase in the demand for online video ads. According to Nachiappan, online video advertising has finally arrived and is set for rapid growth in India.