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This is from back in June but I just stumbled on it… the employees at Super Technologies made this video for their boss. I dont know if that’s Rehan or someone else but its a nice gesture.

Ok this dog refuses to die (Texan term I think) … so the recent controversy is pivoted around this "blog post" - titled "SeeNReport.com Applies for Knights News Challenge Award" written at CIO Pakistan, which is an official publication within the IDG Network.

I called out on this earlier that "under no definition of News is this news", and that this shows a bit of bias towards that particular company…. especially considering that I know of 7 other companies locally who applied to the grant too but no one really wanted such coverage. I also commented there to ask them about this story.

But forget for a second who wrote this, or why (frankly all I know is "admin" wrote it).

I want to debate a comment reply made by the admin, copied below:

admin on November 12th, 2008 1:16 pm

@Osama - Thanks for stopping by. Ummm… it actually isn’t “news”, especially since it has been posted under the “blog” category. - Secondly, …..

If you like, we can re-publish this in the “news” category and we can have this discussion all over again.

I dont really even care about that story in particular (hence I’ve removed some of the text from the comment)… I just want you guys (yes, ALL OF YOU) to explain to me why being in the "blog" category is different from being in the "news" category.

I’m more than certainly missing something about how "blogs" are defined in this country… because it looks like just like every other thing, our definition doesnt match the definition of… I dunno the REST of the world!

Is a  "blog" another synonym for "I can say whatever I want without any professional credence? Or are they just supposed to be someone’s opinion and hence not supposed to be taken seriously?

Thats funny because at INJO5 at Stanford I dont remember anyone - including the chief editor of GigaOm, VentureBeat, Vint Cerf, and about 300 other professionals from media and tech industries - say that blogs are just something to ignore or discard because its just someones personal opinion?

My view is that you *could* have a blog that is solely for someone’s personal opinion, but (1) it has to be clear on the website WHO that person is (2) none of those personal opinions should be aggregated into the front page of the website along with all the other news items, which CIOPakistan.com IS doing, and hence IS expecting its audience to treat that blog post seriously.

Also, I personally really dont think blogs are just something to consider lightly… they’re not "opinions" but "perspectives" written from a first-person type informal prose. There is a big, big, difference between the two.

But, heck… seems like I dont know much about New Media…right?

So why dont you all tell me what blogs are supposed to be in Pakistan so that we can all on the same page here.

This presentation was made at the Harvard Business School by Adeo Ressi, who runs the popular site theFunded. TheFunded rates and reviews different VCs by letting startups leave anonymous comments about them.

Our cell phones are not just phones anymore. We have experienced a mobile revolution in true sense. We take pictures, listen to music, make videos, and check our emails on the go. Just then when we wonder what mobile phones cannot do; we were introduced to the concept of ‘mobile TV’ though right now it’s not the rage in Pakistan. I have reasons to believe that mobile TV on our cell phones can be very popular here as well though right now it is not.

According to the statistical compilation of PTA, total number of mobile subscribers in September crossed 90 million. It is estimated that in 2011, number of mobile users will reach 105-110 million, a pretty hefty number by anyone’s standard. With this huge number of growing stats, one thing is sure, anything related to mobile has a huge market here. Put in the entertainment factor and it’s a hit among the masses!

We have a couple of telcos offering Mobile TV but an average user has yet to adopt to this phenomenon. Major reasons are cost and quality, with economy down and basic necessities going out of reach, paying for mobile TV especially when you don’t get a quality service is understandable. But like I said, Mobile TV is not an entirely lost cause and can be a massive success if friendly tarrifs are introduced.

If we speak of our neighbor, India is lagging behind Pakistan in this area with only one broadcaster, Doordarshan, offering the service on a limited scale. On the contrary, all popular local channels are readily available here and we have a much deeper cellular penetration.

Three telcos; Ufone, Mobilink and Telenor are already offering this service in Pakistan and their rates are almost at par with each other - and uneconomical. Mobilink mobile TV give access to various local channels 24 hours and charges PKR 6/MB+ Tax. Telenor claims to provide more than 23 channels to the service subscribers and charges PKR 15/MB+Tax. Ufone also provide this service to its users as well though not much information is given regarding the package on their site.

Mobile TV is only available on EDGE-enable sets, which are unaffordable for a common Pakistani and even if they buy it; EDGE tarrif is way higher.

Telcos are also missing another big opportunity; video on demand TV. I would cite the example of cricket euphoria. Any of these giants can come up with a solution like offering the whole series for let’s say PKR 500 or so. Similary other events like Oscars, Olympics or Football world cup can also be offered. There are many likely customers who don’t want to subscribe to a complete 24-hour package; they want selected material.

Generally speaking, the opportunities provided by a mobile TV are endless. It can be used as a tool for dissipating knowledge and awareness. A Peshawar University report even went to the extent of saying that this service can alter the mindsets of tribesmen. Well I don’t know whether this statement holds ground or not but it can be used as an engine for social change.

Ben writes a very comprehensive piece on strategies for determining the price of your product. Here’s the full article, and an excerpt is below:

Pricing Strategies to Consider

So what else needs to be considered when pricing software?

1. Don’t make it a moving target. Pick your pricing and stick with it. Not forever, and not if you’re horribly wrong (but you won’t be!), but try and stick to your guns. There are ways of testing various pricing options without publicly changing it on a regular basis.
2. Target specific markets differently. Different markets have different appetites for different pricing and different buying habits. Startups rarely pay for anything (for example), but you might still want to leverage startups for buzz, initial traction, etc. So segment your market, consider even verticalizing your product slightly, and sell at different price points. But don’t do it all in one confusing mess from your main corporate site. Think about implementing micro-sites and other marketing strategies.
3. Limited time offers. There’s no reason you can’t offer lower pricing for a limited time offer. Or a special introductory offer. But don’t rush to lower your pricing at the first sign that things aren’t going well. It’s an obvious, knee-jerk reaction but it doesn’t guarantee success and can be perceived quite negatively.
4. Don’t sell yourself short. It’s easy to worry about your pricing. It’s easy to worry about a lot of things…But don’t sell yourself short and cut away at the value you’ve built. In some markets, they’ll equate price with value, so coming in too cheap will send the wrong signal. It’s easy to convince yourself to sell too inexpensively (or give things away for free), but don’t do it without really understanding all the data and collecting as much information as possible.

I’ve retracted a post I made a few hours ago regarding CIO Pakistan and their coverage of See N Report.

As a clarification, Rabia Garib was made the advisor in See n Report only recently - at the PASHA ICT Awards in fact. Considering that most of the See N Report stories were made before that technically there wasnt a conflict of interest.

This still doesnt explain the over-effusive reviews of the service and the news-that-isnt-news, but I guess thats technically their business.

Anyway, apologies to everyone mentioned and for the wide leaps of logic on my part.

I still do strongly recommend that they add the appropriate disclaimers to all their past articles, or make the date of joining the BOA clear on their site somewhere.

Thanks to Usman Sheikh for pointing to this article… the situation Stuart describes is both shocking and also described in an engaging way. Here’s a short excerpt:

To navigate through this climate, every CEO needs to perform a simple analysis: First, how much money is in the bank (not including debt)? How much runway does this give you at your current operational posture? And what are you going to do about it?

• First choice, get to cash flow positive on that money.
• Second choice, get the cash to last for two years..
• Third choice, see how much money you can gather from existing investors to get to cash flow positive.
• Last choice, go to outside investors to get the additional money. Yes, there may be exceptions to the rule, but it is not a pretty market for companies with a high burn right now, period.

TATA-NEN Hottest Startup Awards has created a map of cities based on the number of nominations they got. This has given way to a virtual ranking of cities with the best infrastructure and business environment that can boost the growth of new companies.

While we don’t have such awards in Pakistan nor any reliable data to base our premise but we can take some liberty to come up with not-so-naive ideas. Startups or IT startups to be more precise are extensively covered on our portal. While the startup culture is not very strong here (given our size and economic and political conditions) but we do have a vibrant scene.

We can determine the startup friendliness of a city by the number of such ventures based in that location coupled with the output of these entities. Other important factors include costs of doing business, property prices and most importantly the quality and quantity of professionals available there.

This post is solely based on my personal opinion and some questions I asked around plus some historical facts. I would like our readers to give their insight on the issue.

Karachi:

Let’s start with Karachi. Property prices in Karachi have seen a rapid skyward growth. Commercial office space at a prime location like Shahrah-e-Faisal runs into thousands of Rupees per square feet. Taking into consideration the fact that most startups are housed in residential areas; speaking of which, a 1000 sq. yards house at a central location like PECHS or Gulshan will cost you around 30k -80k PKR a month. The uninterrupted power supply (or the lack of it?) is a major issue in Karachi (though Lahore and Islamabad are now competing for the slot) hence the cost of generators and fuel increases the cost of business manifolds. Last but not the least, political instability and rioting is the biggest factor which mars the investments in Karachi and startups are a direct ‘beneficiary’ of this factor.

Read the rest …

Google has added the voice and video chat interface on Gmail. The move was long due and the company was working on it for more than a year.

Google’s Sweden-based engineering group has developed the feature which allows the users to check their mails and chat and interact with their friends at the same time. The feature is designed using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264. The process is quite simple as a user just has to download a plug in but a Webcam has to be attached to the computer (Google is offering some on discounted rates)

Here is a video of the new app

Here are my two cents on this feature; Although the company has finally introduced the audio/video chat options but it will only work if both the parties are online. If Google can introduce an option of recording short video or audio offline messages (Just like offline messages in MSN and Yahoo messengers) then the application will sell like hot cakes. Incorporating email, video and audio sharing is a great innovation but we expect more from the innovation giant.

Startups in PK are working harder and harder on their video pitches it seems… I can see atleast a common animation and editing style in two of them.

Amaana

BumpIn

Jaadu

Scrybe