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Vidpk.com has become a very popular videos sharing site and has attracted massive traffic. The portal can be easily termed as the Pakistani version of Youtube. One can view and upload videos, comment on them, join discussion groups and catch up with the latest Pakistani dramas and music videos. You can watch an intro that was aired on SAMAA TV here.

This writeup, however, is not an intro post on Vidpk.com. I would rather focus my energies on two important aspects, usability and copyrights infringement. Starting with usability of the site, one wonders why is there a need of another one when we already have Youtube. Does a Pakistan-centric video sharing platform really works? The answer is, yes it is actually working quite well. The reason for this success is the Pakistani touch. People wanted to see local content, both classic and contemporary, on a Pakistani platform. The users of the portal are quite proactive and one can find the latest episodes of Pakistani TV shows, dramas, music videos and even all the famous cooking shows (no wonder many Web savvy housewives are active members) within days after the actual airing. Many of these are not available on Youtube or are added quite late after the actual broadcast.

This brings me to the second topic; copyright infringement. Just like Youtube, the site faces copyright issues. Although we don’t have any active copyright laws implementation here but one has to be ethical about it. It’s not right to upload exclusive content without even asking for permissions. Pakistan Broadcasting Association also has some rules and regulations in place where they take actions against such cases but we have yet to see any development in this regard.

We have a copyright ordinance that was promulgated in 1962 under which the copy rights duration is fifty years.

The period of copyright of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work (other than a photograph) is the life of the author and 50 years thereafter. In the case of a cinematographic work and a photograph, copyright subsists until 50 years from the beginning of the calendar year from publication of the work.

But we are not even respecting that law for five day.

After doing a little research, I found that some production houses/TV channels are actually encouraging this trend. TRP rating has to be taken care of, after all. These entities usually upload the content 3-5 days after the actual airing and kick off the discussions, in some instances. However, what about those artists/production houses whose content is shared freely sans any permission? The ideal way of dealing with this situation is to impose restrictions on uploading and an in-house verification procedure. It’s about time we follow the ethical business procedures and protect the intellectual property rights.

Some of you must have read the tales of Umro Ayaar; Arabian folklore about a dynamic person who had got almost everything under the sun in his sack or ‘zumbeel’. Same is the case with Zumbeel, a portal where plenty of resources about telecom industry are available. The portal is not-so-new but deserves a review.

The basic theme of the portal, according to site owners, is that it’s a telecom career e-tool where job seekers are not just provided with job listings but are also trained and molded into better telecom professionals. To prove this, they are offering career management services, forums and discussion boards, blogs, polls and interviews. Telecom news are another feature available on this portal. They have also recently added chat widgets and e-learning database on the portal.

The site offers limited features for free subscribers and they can’t even view the complete job listings. They are offering a 6-month student package for Rs. 1260 and professional one for Rs. 2100. The price factor and the limited scope (just telecom jobs are posted) diminish the chances of a massive growth but a small but niche following is a great possibility.

Mobilink has finally announced the commercial launch of its Wi-Max service, Mobilink Infinity. The service, still limited to Karachi, was originally launched in July in a rather hush-hush manner with no advertisements. The telecom giant was apparently weighing its options before embarking on a full-scale launch.

The service is a hit with Karachiites and up to 2,000 people switched to this service in the pre-launch stage. There are technical as well as customer service related issues and the service needs a lot of improvement. The tarrifs are quite reasonable - they are offering 1 Mbps/15GB monthly package for Rs. 1500 with additional data rate of Rs. 30 per 100 MB. The price of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) is Rs. 6,000 while the installation charges are Rs. 2,000 (it was free initially).

The tariffs are applicable from Nov. 1.

UPDATE: The company has finally decided to expand the network and rounds of testing are going on in Islamabad, Lahore and Faisalabad, G&W has learned. The product will be launched in Islamabad and then Lahore, according to our source. I guess they’ll follow the same strategy as applied in Karachi, a quiet soft launch to be followed by the official one.

I recently stumbled upon an excellent portal, Ilm Ki Duniya, and am really awestruck by the sheer volume of information present on this portal. As the name suggest, the Web site caters to all things related to education in Pakistan.

Starting off with information about colleges/universities, academic programs, admissions, results and extending all the way to jobs and internships, hostels/rooms listings and discussion groups, this site is a complete package. They also regularly post the latest education related news and have a section where students can contribute articles/thesis and also pictures of their college events.

Now coming to the loopholes, there are some big ones on this portal. They have advertised themselves as a pure and complete education portal of Pakistan but have also included job listings, buy/sell ads and even a ’students match-making’ service. They might want to boost their traffic and outreach but the above mentioned ‘additions’ look really weird on an educational site. The best way is to create a separate portal for such activities instead of turning a superb educational portal into a ‘masala’ site.

Foodcourt.pk is a new service which can be easily termed as a one stop shop for food lovers. The portal not just offers a complete database of major eateries in Karachi but also gives you the option to order online. Yeah, they are taking online orders for delivery and takeaway. There is no need to search for the contact numbers of restaurants and then look for the specialities - everything is available online. You just have to search for your favorite restaurant/cuisine/price range, make an online order and then wait for the delivery.

The takeaway services are aligned on the similar lines. They are also planning to arrange online dine-in reservations in near future. Some other services on offer include free SMS and SMS Wall posts (You have to register for that). The restaurants listings are currently limited to Karachi but the man behind the project, Mr. Ayaz Shah, told me that he is planning to start listings for Lahore in 3-4 weeks.

It was proverbial “Mother of Inventions”, It was Saturday evening, I had terrible flu/fever, I wanted that soup from China Town, I was aware that they have delivery service, I didn’t have the number, been a while that I have used PTCL directory service, I called and got the number; either they gave me the wrong number or I noted it wrong, anyway, it was very frustrating, I finally googled China Town got the number and got through after 4-5 attempt (busy Saturday nights) and got my soup.

Next day (Sunday) being MCS, I designed data flow chat for online ordering system interface and sent to Eyes to Fingers (a Developers Consortium) for endorsement. It is completely self funded project, Concept and Brand awareness needed fairly big budget for advertisements, I compensated it by SEO, adding video, Free SMS and SMS Wall, Polls etc.

He also told me that he is planning to enable Menu update in “Merchant Interface” XL Like sheet (AJAX). The main interface is ready and needs little time to implement “Menu Sections” updates to it.

The site is good overall but the GUI is little jarring to my eyes. A neat and user friendly interface is a must for these type of portals. The KSE stock ticker looks really funny. Secondly, they have currently listed those restaurants which have their own delivery systems in place, though he told me that they might come up with an in-house delivery system if they get the finances.  The site can be a success if they improve its GUI and content and expand the scope of listings (both city wise and area wise).

We covered Nilaam on Green & White a few months back which generated a lot of readers’ response. We were wary of the venture’s over-the-top advertising campaign which was bordering on spamming. Now as the venture has completed its first six months, it’s time to dissect its pros and cons.

Since the venture’s launch in April, it has garnered much interest among the users. I just talked to their operations manager, Mr. Ahmed Ali, and he told me that the auctioning platform has got more than 6,000 registered users and 20 to 35 new users are getting registered every day. He also confirmed that the company is in the process of developing a PayPal type payment system which will be launched in the first quarter of next year (Nilaam currently accepts payment through Moneybookers.com).

While browsing through the portal, I found that the company’s claims of success are almost true. The registration is free and the procedures are not very hectic. There are hundreds of active bids in each category but the number of bidders was not satisfactory. Looks like there are more buyers than sellers but still there is lot more activity as compared to Bolee which is almost dead now.The ratio of sellers to buyers can be rounded off at 10:1 which is not healthy by any standards. I tried my hand at bidding and found that majority of the people have given their phone numbers and mail IDs thus increasing the possibility of offline bidding. That’s the reason there are very few buyers/bidders as compared to sellers.

The site owners have to embark on a more viable advertising campaign targeting sellers. After all, the site is for online bidding and not a bidders directory. One can find loads of buy/sell ads in newspapers. An online auction site offers you much more than that. I guess Pakistanis also have to get to used to this trend of online auctions, which will take some time.

We have thoroughly discussed PTCL on G&W including its notorious Pakistan Package, among other things. The same package has become a source of steady income for the telecom old daddy, G&W has learnt. The reason for this apparent profitability was the huge response from the housewives segment who were craving for almost free calls to their near and dear ones.

This segment, which obviously represents a sizable chunk of Pakistani populace, is benefiting from this package and so is the company. After doing a little survey of this trend, I came to know that at least one out of three middle and upper middle class Pakistani households is using this facility and mind you that number runs into millions. The ladies’ natural urge for gossiping has led to the success of this seemingly weird/failed scheme. During my research, many housewives even complained of the reduced minutes in the package (There are 2,500 minutes/month now instead of the initial 5,000 minutes). They think that their monthly bills have seen a surge as they cross that limit quite often. One of my aunts now literally keep a track of the daily minutes (around 83.33 minutes/per day) and religiously follow this quota.

The crux of the matter is that if you can appeal to this segment of our society then you can get good revenues. Cellular companies did try to come up with packages targeting the ladies and housewives segment but they failed to deliver. Mobilink launched Jazz Ladies First package with Rs. 5/hour call rates (after 11 pm, while the day charges were at par with the normal rates). They also had on offer ‘value added services’ like recipes and diet tips etc. Warid recently launched ‘Baaton ki Committee” with Bushra Ansari as its brand ambassador which also failed to get any positive response.

The reason behind their failure is the cost factor. Housewives can’t afford to gossip late at night and want minimal call rates throughout the day hours. They also don’t need costly SMS about recipes and beauty/health tips as ample stuff is readily available on the idiot box. They just need hours and hours of free talking. If these companies can come up with competitive rates then they can get some revenues but is it that easy? Frankly, that’s not as the cellular operators can’t afford offering Rs 0.06/minute call rates. Landline rules supreme in this case.

Bolee is a popular online auction portal of Pakistan (or it was?). The portal advertised itself as the first online auction site of Pakistan and did get much hullabaloo. The site was abuzz with activity in its initial days and managed to get significant registered users.

Unfortunately, same is not the case right now. A friend joking told me that “Bolee ki bolti band ho gaye” and when I visited their portal I came to know what he meant. The Web site looks like a dead horse. Items are lying in the bidding list for more than a year but have got no bids. Even the recent items for sale have failed to get any bidders.

Another issue - the major one - is that one can’t open the details of items for sale as the site is suffering from database engine error. Add to this the overall dull and unfriendly GUI of the portal and the equation is balanced. Bolee has got thousands of items on sale/bidding but I guess the buyers/sellers have moved to other sites like Lootmaar, Nilaam or b4bid due to ‘excellent’ performance of this portal.

I have failed to understand why the management is running this dead horse and from where are they getting their revenues.? Some users are also adding their bids oblivious of the fact that those will not be materialized on that site.

P.S. Next in line in our auction sites reviews is Nilaam. We’re planning to extract some information about their performance and will post it as soon as possible. By the way, the site came under heavy discussion a few months back.

Mozilla will form a new group that will focus on the research and development of developer tools for the open Web.

“We believe that there’s tremendous opportunity for innovation in tools that increase developer productivity, enable compelling user experiences, and promote the use of open standards”, the company said in a news release.

The browser giant has hired Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, co-founders of Ajaxian, the Ajax Experience to lead its Developer Tools Lab.

The company refrained from divulging any further details.

According to a recent news report published in The News, Pakistani telecom companies have made billions during the Eid holidays. The faulty network and a possible ‘tempering’ might be the reason for that.

KARACHI: Telecommunication companies in Pakistan made billions during the three days of Eid-ul-Fitr while choked service lines caused trouble to people with their calls and SMS, leading to deduction in balances without satisfactory communications.As Muslims in the country wished each other through phone calls and SMS for the arrival of the month of Shawwal, many around the nation complained that they faced troubles such as repeated disconnection of phone calls, disruption in line or failure to send messages successfully.The subscribers of various local cellular service providers and landline packages said that they had their balances deducted from their phones despite failing to make a connection with the required destination. The worst hit ones were those who tried to make international calls and had their balances subtracted without succeeding and those who had sent bulk messages and failed to receive the delivered report to even one sent message.Shahzad Anwer, a subscriber of Warid, said that he does not subscribe to any free SMS package and had loaded a Rs200 card just to send messages. However, he was shocked to find out that none of his friends had received a message from him and he had lost all his balance.Aliya Matloob, another subscriber of Mobilink said that she had tried calling her parents who live in Dubai to wish them but faced repeated disconnections which made her lose several hundred rupees.Similarly, Nadeem Akhtar, who arrived in Karachi from the UK, faced trouble in contacting his brothers on the first day of Eid when he waited at the airport for them to receive him and could not get through. He also had his balance deducted from his account.On the other hand, Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) made millions of rupees by fleecing subscribers off their money during the three-day Eid-ul-Fitr holiday as they stopped their facility of free phone calls from September 30, and failed to inform their subscribers.This resulted in subscribers making several calls during the stipulated ‘free call’ time between 11pm to 6am, unaware that the facility had been withdrawn, which is likely to lead towards higher telephone bills for the current month.Upon contacting PTCL, the company spokesman Ali Kader Gilani informed The News that PTCL had informed the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority of their reversal of the facility through a written notification and also sent out advertisements to various leading newspapers of the country.He added that a release had also been issued in this regard which clearly stated that the free local call promotion was being discontinued to be replaced with another alternative package. He stressed that PTCL had not cheated its subscribers and had in fact introduced a new weekend package which would come into effect on October 5, and would be offering them further improved and reduced rates.