Mykarma.in

eBay announced its acquisition of StumbleUpon, a young company that enables people to discover serendipitously “discover” websites of interest to them.

The $75 million acquisition earns eBay exposure to a community of 2.3 million users, drawn mainly to the site-stumbling service by word-of-mouth.

StumbleUpon has grown 150 percent year over year since its inception in 2001, providing about five million new site recommendations, based on individual preferences and community feedback, per day. It also allows its user base to rate content, thereby improving suggestions over time.

Senior Director Michael Buhr of eBay was selected to become StumbleUpon’s general manager. The site’s management team is not otherwise expected to change.

Source:- Marketingvox

Yes, Its here…

I got a sneak preview or you can say a requested invitation to spock…..

So what is spock.

First I thought its a simple search engine but then when you cant be always 100% right… Its a people search engine……

this is what the about us page says…. and i believe in it
“Spock is the online leader in personal search, helping users find and discover people. With over one hundred million people already indexed and millions added every day, Spock is building the broadest and deepest people specific search engine.”

You can search for people by their name or enter some keywords that is most likely and relevant to show up people with those popular tags. Check out their homepage

So you search for my name and you will find websites, tags and information about me. Its that simple I think it will make people searching easier but still think about lakhs of people with the same name what about them how to search and find information about them.Just searching for the name John turned up 2000000 pages and is sorted by popularity so the first 2 people that topped was Donald Trump (Donald John Trump Sr.) then came John F. Kennedy And it carried relevant information about those two people

Sp youve got to be really famous to get to the top ten…. It would be easy for me i hope…. Cos Ive got less competition for the name Rochit… .

It does take time to search.. still not that fast as google……. (Yea google is a benchmark)

So i searched for aishwarya… no… only 46 results so to make it a little intersting i searched for shahrukh still no shahrukh khan here at top slot only 95 results.

Searching for rahul gave me numbers of 5046, aha ! So how do you zero in on the person you want to search for….. Advanced search… It has option of age group, Gender, Tags, location and picture… So it cn help you to search for a person to a particular extent…….

but still waiting for a major innovation is the most likely i am going to do………….
Yea so how do you get popular on this website… No SEO here its PEO (People engine optimization. as a registered member you can add relevant and interesting tags to people’s profiles, vote tags up to make them rank higher, or vote them down to make them rank lower, or disappear.

You can keep track of the people you are interested in by adding them to your favorites… And if you profile is already there you claim of the profile tht its yours…..

So how to monetize ?? Something similar to googles sponsored results is in the pipeline uit seems bcos tht can be a very good option… So if a person searches for Angelina Jolie The sponsored results could be About movies, Movie review website, Latest movies etc etc……

All of us know a major chunk of top searches on google is for people or for events linked to people.. So search engine specifically for people can work….

So how do you get included to spock. Request an invitation or get a invitation from me.. If you need invitation do comment and i can send you a invitation…..

So how to start the inclusion process

It will ask for the relevant login information of the service you use so that it can find related people for your account then

Then you can edit your profile accordingly…….. adding tags relevant websites , related people etc.. Something of little bit social networking + search engine…

Just see how far things can go….. Check out spock….

bye…

News just keeps coming in… The internet industry is getting really hot with acquisitons… Most of the acquisitions are seen as desperate atempts to shift balance of power. Here is list of major ad network acquisition

1. Google acquired doubleclick for a whopping $3.1 billion . 13th april 2007

Microsoft was reportedly in a bidding war with Google for the company. Google gets access to DoubleClick’s advertising software and, perhaps more importantly, their customers and network.

DoubleClick was founded in 1996. DoubleClick was taken private in 2005 by Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity for $1.1 billion. The New York Times is reporting that DoubleClicks revenues are about $300 million/year.

10x revenue for a mature company is a…healthy…valuation. At least part of the acquisition price appears to be due to a desire by Google to keep this asset out of Microsoft’s hands. (source itvibe.com).

2.Yahoo acquires ad firm Right media for $680 million .April 30, 2007

This $680 million purchase of the remaining assets points to Yahoo’s desire to compete directly with the DoubleClick-powered Google. In some ways, this new deal is to calm the feeling of losing out on the DoubleClick deal to google.

3. WPP Acquires 24/7 Real Media for 649 Million Dollars. 17th May 2007

24/7 Real Media, which sells search marketing services and delivers ads to a network of Web sites was acquired by WPP which also owns JWT, O&M and Contract in India.

4.Microsoft buying online ad firm AQuantive for $6 billion 19th May 2007

Microsoft said it was buying online ad firm AQuantive for $6 billion, an 85 percent premium to Thursday’s closing price at nasdaq. The deal is expected to finalize in Q1 of 2008.

Now it seems attention will turn to ValueClick Inc. — which runs an online advertising network along the lines of 24/7 Real Media — is now one of the last publicly traded companies of scale in the sector., although it’s not clear that there’s anyone left to buy it out I hope rediff or some indian company does, or perhaps, a traditional advertising firm looking to expand its internet business. These acquisitons signal an all out war for getting hold of the lucrative online ad market which is a $60 billion opportunity with a 20% annual growth rate according to Yahoo! India MD George Zacharias.

Aquantive profit last financial year was $54 million. But considering the last traded price on nasdaq microsoft paid 85% more. To get a larger pie of the ad market. Internet giants went overboard to aqcuire the major players in the ad industry. Now lets wait for a few days more for the acquistion of valueclick by some indian company.

Sms marketing.

It works by sending you advertisements in the form of SMS to your mobile phone. The adverts will consist of offers from various adertisers. You can select what type of adverts you want to receive by selecting your preferences. According to your interest it sends you offers. You can select the time when you want to receive the sms and also the number of sms you want to receive. You can also refer friends to this service and get paid, For every advert that your friend receives, you get 10p and for every advert that your friend’s friend receives you get 5p. So thats money in the making. You can make enough money so to free up the mobile bill every month… and other plus point here is you get cool offers which have been opted for…. Check it out Mginger.com

On a more analyst type note..

What is the future of mobile marketing in India….. Huge if you askme.. but still it has to be exploited judiciously or it will then be considered as boring as spam.

The main reason Why mobile marketing will work…. it is considered as more personal… You are bound to check an SMS as you are going to receive it directly on your mobile phone. Already you see companies like mobile2win, Hutch, BPL, Airtel sending you sms to download ringtones, logos etc you will soon see promotional sms for opening a bank account, Credit cards…

Since the government has started to fine Telecalling companies for unsolicited calls Mobile marketing can work wonders as a viable option….. as an advertising vehicle….

With over 160 Million mobile subscribers in the country A huge opportunity awaits to be tapped.

These mobile marketing companies namely mginger is a real good concept but basically it may be digging its own grave….. As phone technolgy improves it gets real easy to delete a message without reading it….. Users may join it just to get their mobile bill free up…. but if it uses user interactivity to keep the service alive it may well kick too because sending good offers gets users to check messages….. something in the lines of signature lines…….. Sending free sms containing jokes and news with a sponsorers signature text below it is something tht will work for sure…. as i said the content will be of interest to the user as he has opted for the news and jokes etc…. and the company will also make money by having the signature lines…. ( if you use signature line idea.. do intimate me first lets work on a partnership deal..)
Lets see what other sites come up… I will keep updating about new sites related to mobile technology)