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.
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#1 by Adam on January 21, 2011 - 5:32 pm
OMG I was searching for bluetooth and came across this. Was wondering if I could get more information something interesting or funny that happened while working with bluetooth. I am going to download Rocketalk to my phone. Does it work on the Droid?
#2 by lowtechgal on January 21, 2011 - 5:49 pm
Hi Adam,
RockeTalk is currently not available on the Droid, but we will be making it available soon. We are always on the lookout for beta testers, do let us know if you would like to be considered.
As for the anecdotes on Bluetooth- sure there are a few. Will try to rope in Rajiv to respond.
#3 by amit4040 on February 6, 2011 - 2:37 pm
bluetooth a wireless technology made easy communication. Mr. Rajiv kumar ,developer has done a great job .thanks to him and i am also using rocketalk on my ID amit4040
its really nice social networking where quick voice n text chat awailable .in addition so many communities also make a fantastic mood