Press: Mobile Matters- Brand Equity, Economic Times

Check out the full article

The Economic Times: From Bluetooth to mobile networking

20 Jan, 2011, 03.55AM IST, Debjoy Sengupta,ET Bureau

Rajiv Kumar , who has kicked off India’s first mobile-only social network RockeTalk, has always been associated with path-breaking technologies — right from the beginning of his career. Way back in 1999, when bluetooth was still a word understood only by the geeks at Nokia and Ericsson, IIT Mumbai graduate Kumar was busy creating new uniform standards for this technology, which is a proprietary open wireless technology for exchanging data over short distances. Technology stacks developed by Kumar’s firm, Widcomm — which got $35 million in venture capital funding — are now being used in cell phones , laptops, hands-free car kits and wireless headsets. Kumar incidentally has also written text books on wireless data area. Excerpts from an interview:

How many patents on Bluetooth did you hold at that time?

There were three patents in my name and there were 22 more in the company’s name. Widcomm was funded by California-based venture capitalists. We were working with Nokia and Ericsson to develop the standards and the ones that were finally accepted are used by all manufacturers today. Widcomm was also the first Bluetooth stack for the Windows operating system .

What happened to Widcomm?

We sold off Widcomm to wireless chip manufacturer Broadcom in 2004. I joined Broadcom and stayed there for a year for handholding and integration purposes. Broadcom continues to license the stack for inclusion with many Bluetooth-powered end-user devices. I left Broadcom in 2006 and floated RockeTalk in 2007.

How’s RockeTalk doing?

RockeTalk — in operation for 19 months — is India’s leading mobile social network and has over 400 million page views a month. It has a user base of 4 million, according to . As per mobile analytics firm Informate, RockeTalk is ahead of Facebook and Twitter on mobile in India. We believe that mobile phone communication should be fun, easy, and expressive…just like being there in person.

Full feature available at:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/from-bluetooth-to-mobile-networking-rajiv-kumar/articleshow/7323413.cms

Lohri, Sankranti, Pongal on RockeTalk

This week on RockeTalk.

With greetings, traditional songs, discussions and more, we hope you enjoyed celebrating one or more of these colorful and fun traditions and got to learn about each other’s culture and traditions.

In additions to a huge number of cards exchanged on RockeTalk, you shared over 78,000 (in two days!) outside RockeTalk- with friends’ and family’s mobile phones using WAP share links. We look forward to having all your friends join us on RockeTalk!

Hmmm let us see what happens with Valentine’s Day coming up. You game for a prolonged celebration of LOVE, eh?

2011 A-Post-a-Day Challenge

This year, let us do something different- let us start this year with a new challenge every month for all our RockeTalkers. We will have different things for you to do and, in turn, we will take on a challenge to match it. Your challenge will be related to activities that you do on RockeTalk anyway and ours will be to give you interesting ways to engage with others based on your challenge of the month.

One gallery post a day for the rest of the year 2011.

For the month of January, let us start with a yearlong commitment of one gallery post a day. You got that right- just one gallery post a day – to your public gallery.

Rise up to the challenge

Go on- capture the world around you in photos, videos or audio. What the heck, even if there is no video, photo or commentary- you can do it even in words – yes, use text if that is what you really need to and if the situation arises – you in hidden in behind the tree while something shady goes down….. no, no – not the tree lolz. Though to think of it, in a situation like that, a picture would be worth a 1,000 words… Seriously- would hate for that to happen while you were standing under it… unless your friend was on the other side shooting a video to post at that time

So take a video of you, your friends, the city – and post it. Or maybe of you singing or dancing. Or telling a funny joke. Or capturing the life, things around you. Things that bother you- the potholes in the roads, the stray dogs, the heaps of trash along the roads, those street kids having wholehearted-no-worries-kinda fun, talented gypsy sharpening the knives, the elephant and the mahout, that crazy train journey, the daily commuters in Bihar … lolz I think I got a bit carried away – but you get the picture.

What we promise in return: we will feature the best posts on a daily basis – more and more people will be able to see your posts – and if it is interesting enough, they might click on your profile and, if not already a friend, might even send you a friend request!

Post to gallery=More followers=New friends

See, it is a win-win thing- you give people something they find interesting …. Who knows where that could lead!

And we promise that we will give lots more opportunities to make new friends, carry on conversations- right from your gallery posts. Yep, that’s right! We are working hard behind the scenes to give you something to talk about

And, if this is still not enough, we are talking on the challenge of posting one blog a week, bringing you RockeTalk news, tips and tricks, inside scoop and much more!

So let us get started! Your challenge – to post to gallery. Ours – to give you more things to create conversations around it and (the most difficult part) to pick the best posts to feature every day! So photo, audio, video or text – go for it! ‘Just do it’

Oh – yes, and my personal commitment to you, a new blog post every week. Hmmm.. ideas anyone? What would you like us to write about?

One blog down, 51 more to go. It is beginning to look like a great year already

Happy New Year!

“Another fresh new year is here…

Another year to live!

To banish worry, doubt, and fear,

To love and laugh and give!”

-      William Arthur Ward

The new year is here giving us all, one more time, a chance to right some wrongs, dream new dreams, set new goals.

Have a great celebration for the year gone by and the new one to come.

Spend time with friends and family. And if you can’t be with your loved ones, remember- RockeTalk brings you together – as close as you can be when you are apart. As we say, use technology to your advantage – use voice, photos, videos- close the distance as much as possible.  

If you are feeling alone and a bit blue – just login….. you might find your friends online and make new ones.

You can send New Year greetings to other mobile phones using RockeTalk. Go on… why send the boring text message? Make it fun with greeting in your voice. Have you tried making your very own video greeting yet?

And please remember – friends are more fun without the drinking. However, if you do, PLEASE DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE. And - remember NOT to use your phone while driving.  

We love having you on RockeTalk and hope you continue to make new friends and stay connected with your near and dears ones using RockeTalk. As always, your suggestions and feedback are welcome and help us improve RockeTalk. We hope to bring lots more exciting features to you in this coming year.

Wish you all a very happy new year!

The RockeTalk Team

RockeTalk opens APIs for third party applications

A few weeks ago, RockeTalk opened its APIs to a third party, Utthan, enabling them to quickly build their broadcast application and take it live –within days. For this first time, we, at RockeTalk, had to guide, watch over and actually to a lot of handholding for the organization explaining what APIs would be best suited for their need and walked with them through the various stages, predicting, what their challenges and needs could be along the way opening existing APIs and even coding on the fly, to make things happen.

The first set of APIs used are some of the core communications ones – that enable broadcast of a single piece of content to the WAP, Web, IVR with no operator dependency for connection and reach global user base.  The next set of APIs will use the social APIs and even may connect into our existing user base to get an instant audience.

It was a great learning experience for us, as a company, as we watched and participated actively in making this happen. We got to understand, as we watched, what a third party’s unique needs might be and how we could highlight some not so obvious uses of APIs to those not familiar with the various layers of the platform.

One of the reasons we are excited about this announcement is that it means RockeTalk clients will now have the opportunity for greater exposure and reach when they want to get to their target audience and the freedom to try what works best for them without having to spend time and money developing and making expensive mistakes.

Over the last couple years, we had several requests from brands, political and religious leaders, gaming companies, NGOs to use the RockeTalk platform to reach their audiences. We have worked with some of them to understand what their need would be if they were to develop their own applications on top of the RockeTalk APIs that they want as integral part of their growth, as well as execution plan.

With a vast array of APIs, RockeTalk platform is the perfect match for helping third party applications and organizations go social or just communicate much more effectively.  RockeTalk APIs offer the perfect solution for reaching everyone – from the very sophisticated web savvy, smartphone users – to others who still use the traditional landline for communicating.

For most people, companies and organizations, there are, of course, several options to choose from if their audience fits a certain type – can read and text or fire up the phone browser to say the least.  Predictably, most people are aware of who their target audience is- in metros, on smartphones or computers, or people who are not that tech savvy or others who are tech savvy but have occasional or limited access to high tech tools. For most though, the audience cannot be compartmentalized into neat silos. The audiences’ increased mobility, the patchy networks, make it harder to predict where, when  and by what means they might be able to the access the content, the message or announcement.

What makes RockeTalk more appealing to most, over the traditional means of delivery, ranging from SMS (text message) to emailers, is the multimedia capability of the RockeTalk platform has to offer and the way the APIs can be used to select how to deliver the content in a format best suited for the end user. For most communication, where SMS and MMS fail, RockeTalk provides a solution – an effective means of delivery in – easy to understand, audio. Depending on how the information is being accessed, audio may be accompanied by photos, videos and even text.

Utthan took their application, their new broadcast service, built using RockeTalk APIs live, taking their application from a demo tool for marketing to get their first customers, to taking their application live. There is significant excitement in the applications community about the RockeTalk APIs being made available.

Our mission is to create a feature-packed and yet easy to understand and navigate set of APIs. We are dedicated to simplifying what we offer our end users, for both easy access and features. In the coming weeks, we are looking forward to enabling, with much less handholding, a Bollywood application and a gaming application among the several other showcase applications before we fully open our APIs to both the techie developers, as well as for regular people with imagination, entrepreneurship and a generous sprinkling of spunk. Of course, the APIs will be available to organizations and brands looking for social, community building and communications solutions to engage with and grow their audiences.

As we say at RockeTalk- if they have a phone we can get you to reach them.

Meanwhile, let me get back to preparing documentation for the APIs for third party use.

Which do you think will be a better success, the Bollywood application using our APIs or the gaming one?

Spread the love: Send free Valentine’s cards from your phone

RockeTalk offers free Valentine eCards that you can use to create a truly personalized and unique Valentine greeting for that special person(s) from your mobile phone. Yep, you got it right! From your phone. Check out http://wap.rockeTalk.com

Instead of those ‘cut and paste’ text (SMS) messages, why not do something different- something that is truly you? What if we do half the work- provide the card and you add your own message in voice or text right from cell phone? Karo kuchh hut kar. Andaaz apna apna ya phir hum hain naye andaaz kyon ho purana?

If you can use the web browser from your phone, you can send a RockeTalk card. As simple as that. Go on try it out. It is absolutely free. What’s more, you can attach your voice (if your phone allows recording- first record your voice and then attach to the card of your choice and send to your special person. What the heck- go on send it everyone on your email list or phone book.

How it works:.

1. Go to http://wap.rockeTalk.com

2. Click on the Valentine’s Day link (banner).

3. Select a card.

4. Add your special message.

5. Send it to a phone number (cell phone) or an email address.

6. Repeat. (To as many people as you like. If you’re not telling, so aren’t we.)

May we suggest, for a better RockeTalk experience, if you have a compatible phone and a data connection, why not download the RockeTalk application for yourself and for your friends and get lots of free things like- free voice messaging, free picture messaging, free video share, free chatrooms,free Yahoo, Gmail, MSN etc,  free entertainment, free new friends … you get the idea. Plus- the freedom of expression. Now shouldn’t that be your Valentine’s day treat for yourself? After all, love is the highest form of self expression. Come on, you can do it J. Record a song in your voice on your phone and attach it to the card. (Pssst …. Love songs work. Even if you can’t sing. It is the thought that matters. And that special someone will think you are so cute )

We’ll even do better- send these cards through the month of February. We’ll keep them there. Have fun.

So what are you waiting for? Send a beautiful Valentine eCard today! Pick up your phone and start recording the most beautiful Valentine’s greeting ever.

RadioRockeTalk and the 3 Idiots

The New Year started off with a B-A-N-G on Radio RockeTalk with our programming resuming after a short break with the best the New Year had to offer: The undisputed king of Indian cinema- the guy who knows the pulse of his audience sooooo well;  is easy on the eyes; never goes wrong with the choice of music; picks his scripts selectively and still makes half of India feel ‘a flush comes to to my face and my pulse begins to race… it goes boompty, boompty, boompty, boompty, boom, boom, boom…’  Yes, you are right- Aamir Khan.  Well he did it again with his new Bollywood release, 3 Idiots!

Tuesday nights are our very own RJ Ajayr’s night and this time he chose to do a feature or rather a discussion on the 3 Idiots. I must stop right here to tell you that I have not watched the movie yet. Yes, it was screen in San Diego for a couple days and I COULD NOT MAKE IT. Sorry Goldspirt Films. Sorry Vijay and Shalni. Sorry Aamir. But most of all I am sorry for myself  

For all you newbies- every evening and sometimes at other times between 9:30pm and till whenever it ends (usually 3 hrs or so) we have fun ‘events’ like a radio talkshow – but different. There are hosts or RJs who introduce the topics and then everyone participates in the discussion. So very unlike Radio or television where things are pretty one sided, this is a live, all inclusive show where everyone can, well, speak up. As RockeTalk is all about the mobile phones, our audiences and participants are on the mobile phones and are from all over the world. From the well connected US to the remote places in India- anyone can participte or just listen in.

The highlights of this week Tuesday night’s program:

Ragging scene

 

3_idiots_introduction_ragging

►

Kareena Kapoor: The only idiot? Or is it plain jealousy? LOL

Piracy movie – free movie download controvercy

Amir Khan’s excessive bathing

Hello! Is that a problem? Well thats what the guys said any way.. as for us girls… Aamir in see-thru wear… all wet.. any girls saying ‘no’ to that?

Chetan Bhagat controversy

Chotu_Tapori’s birthday

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Today’s pick: Mohobbat ki Baatien on Mehfil @ 2:30 and 9:30 pm IST with Shafeeq

Friday night: Bollywood night on Radio RockeTalk @ 10:00pm IST with Pooji

Also recommended: Monday night, Jan 11, 2010- CarTalk: AutoExpo on  Radio RockeTalk with Karan and Sin

Inside RockeTalk: A sneak-peek

Hey RockeTalkers!

As we wrap up 2009 and step into 2010, we take this opportunity to give you a glimpse of what goes on, on RockeTalk. Meet new people? Keeping up with friends? Hangout place? Instant Messenger usage? Picture messages? Videos? Games? Discussions? Flirting? What is it that keeps so many people engaged and coming back again and again? What is it that compels them to log in as soon as they open their eyes and sleep with their RockeTalk phones still in hands or next to their ears? Waiting for that Buzz in someone special’s voice? Is the voice factor so addictive? What is it that keeps RockeTalk buzzing? What makes these online connections as strong as, or at times, stronger than family ties.

As we get to the 1 million users mark, there are some interesting patterns that seem to be emerging. New data, user behaviour- from communication to entertainment, from serious debates on social issues to participating in contests, it is a pleasure to interact with all of you and get to know you.

So here is what ‘the-guy-who-is-always-on’ has to say about what goes on:

Happy New Year from the RockeTalk family!

I wanted to take this opportunity of the arrival of 2010 to highlight a few highlights of “what happens inside RockeTalk?”

A lot of activity occurs and it is hard to categorize what goes on…..so much goes on in the form of personal messages, exchanging ideas, flirting, singing songs, shaayari, jokes, playing contests, listening to talk shows, creating photos and videos, intense debates on various topics, connecting into Yahoo/Gtalk/MSN IM, family members connecting with other family members, following news and weather reports sent out by our users from cities across the world…….the list is long!

Here are some of the statistics that will give you a quantitative idea:

75M messages viewed (or played back) in the last month!

(over 2.4 Million messages in a 24 hour day)

Of these, 22% are voice (or audio messages – that means you guys talked a lot, sang songs, debated a lot……).

Over 11 Million photo/images and videos were viewed in the last month;

Over 3.4 Million profiles were viewed in the last month;

Over 3 Million Buzzes sent last month;

Over 2.6 Million searches for users within RockeTalk were made in the last month;

Over 2.5 Million comments were viewed;

Approx. 1 Million Friend Requests were sent out;

2511 new communities were created within this last month;

Thanks for being a part of RockeTalk

Happy Diwali from the RockeTalk team

A collage of greetings RockeTalkers are personalizing in their voice and with text to send to their friends and family.

Wish you and your loved ones a very Happy Diwali from the RockeTalk team!

May the soft glow of the Diwali Diya keep you warm, feel loved, and happy for the years to come.

Remember to be good to yourself.

Learn to take a chance.

And… do not drink and drive!!!

P.S.

If you win in teen patti this Diwali… remember sharing is good.. you know my ID, be generous