Wednesday, July 26, 2023

eBay releases finding from Census of India 2011 | Hungry N Foolish

eBay releases finding from Census of India 2011 | Hungry N Foolish

eBay India had unveiled the eBay Census Guide 2011 sometime back. It confirmed that India is on the second position in terms of e-commerce. Mr. Kashyap Vadapalli, Director-Category Management, eBay India released the fourth edition of the Annual eBay Census Guide in Mumbai. This guide shows all the latest trends in selling, importing and online buying across the country. They’ve revealed the export trends to all the 189 Countries and also the import trend from 120 countries. Here’s a screenshot trying to depict the same:

The following are the important points from the eBay Census Guide 2011:

  • India have more than 3300 e-commerce hubs from all the 28 states and 7 union territories.
  • Top 5 states with maximum online transactions everyday are Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu,
    Karnataka & Andhra Pradesh respectively.
  • 1 out of every 10 online transactions is done in a rural area. This is quite a significant number, which shows that e-commerce and internet have really taken off in India.
  • The metro cities of the country contributed nearly 51 percent in all kinds of e-commerce transactions whereas Tier 2 and 3 cities (of India) contributed a little less around 40 percent. Rural India might be lagging behind with 9 percent, yet it is a positive sign showing the bright side of things to come.
  • Top 5 brands purchased online are Sony, Nokia, Samsung, Apple and Reebok with Sony leading the race.
  • Women lead in online purchases with 55 percent of the total.
  • Electronic gadgets continue to be on the top with 50 percent of the online buying Share.

I found out an infograph-like image on the report. It’s worth giving a look as it tries portraying an average day for eBay India:

The eBay Census Guide 2011 is worth giving a look. You can access it here.

 Ankit is Co-founder of HungryNfoolish. A student of Software Engineering. He is a passionate writer who loves writing about anything and everything related to Technology. Ankit aims to be at the top in every field he is involved in.Catch him on Twitter @techpil

Monday, July 24, 2023

ZipDial, Helping Marketers to Reach Customers on Mobile inspite of TRAIRegulations |

ZipDial, Helping Marketers to Reach Customers on Mobile inspite of TRAIRegulations |

With TRAI’s SMS spam regulations in effect from today, the telemarketers have started devising innovative ways to sustain their business. The strict measures against telemarketing and SMS spam are taken to ensure that people don’t get frequent messages from companies promoting their brands. Also, all the marketing Calls between 9PM – 9AM will be banned.

I know many services which totally rely on SMS systems. Some of them are: 160by2, Way2SMS, SMSGupShup, etc. They all have to start thinking innovative ways of making the customer know of a product without making it look spammy. I think the era of SMS marketing is bound to almost end with this new regulation and the companies will have to come up with something unique, which is perhaps a little not too intrusive as SMSes are.

A perfect example of proper telemarketing and lead generation for companies is a Bangalore-based startup named ZipDial.

ZipDial’s model is based on missed calls. If you are a company and sign up for Zipdial, your customers can leave a feedback or register a vote by giving a missed call on ZipDial’s assigned number.  When someone calls on the number, the call gets disconnected automatically and the user gets an SMS depending on the campaign to which the customer can again respond through a “missed call’.

The whole process means that users get the service without requiring to make a call and it is also ensured that only those customers are called who show an interest – thereby it also does not violate TRAI’s norms of spam. I like their model where the customer won’t be charged a penny and it will totally depend on him whether he wants to be involved in the process of interacting with a brand, thus making the system the least intrusive, unlike the SMS campaigns which used to fill my phone’s inbox earlier.

The company has already recieved clients like LG, Videocon, KFC, and Procter & Gamble, to name a few. Colleges are employing the ZipDial method to gain feedback on college fests. TV shows are using it to poll votes for a contestant and so on.

I am sure that with the passage of time, this service is going to be  a huge success!

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Should Colleges Restrict Web Access to Students Because They Sleep inClass? |

Should Colleges Restrict Web Access to Students Because They Sleep inClass? |

If you study in an engineering college or for that matter have any friend in one of the IITs, you for sure would know what they mean when they tell you that they had a night-out. Night-outs could be any fun activity undertaken at night, and can happen both inside the college campus and outside. A night when the whole wing sat together to watch a whole season of Friends, or an epic movie the umpteenth time or a gaming extravaganza of clan mathces in Counter Strike?

For day boarders in colleges, a night-out is actually restricted as they live in their homes. But, for IITians and IIITians, it’s the night-time when they have all the fun. All this fun has also has after-effects, most of them on the study-habits, paticularly in classes in the day.

The After-effects of Night-outs

Here I list out some common after-effects due to waking up at night or the night-outs:

  • Students tend to wake up late or for that matter wake up around lunch time. They miss classes, and get involved in attendance issues. Most of the colleges have a minimum requirement of attendance and missing out on it leads to either scrapping of grades or in worst cases – prohibition in giving exams.
  • If students reach the class, they tend to sleep there. Some even sleep on the front bench when the professor is busy teaching algorithms.
  • Academic scores go down and as said in this article, some even commit suicide. (Done by IITians mostly and I don’t think they do it just because of a poor academic showing).
  • Many of them start taking drugs, drinking and smoking weed, because of frustration piled up due to the academic pressure.
  • So many students play sports in school, and when they enter college only a handful can be seen sweating on the grounds.

List of Institutes – Enemies of the Internet

The following is a list of institutes who are either thinking of shutting down internet during the night hours or have banned social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter:

  • IIIT Allahabad: Has been banning Twitter and Facebook at regular intervals but student protests get things to normal everytime. Inside sources in the college told us that 2 proxy servers each with bandwidths of 150 MB and 50 MB respectively are functional and so the net is slow. The students are not left with much options and they have to shut their systems after sometime. Such poor net speed in an IT college!! :O
  • IIIT Hyderabad: Internal sources say that discussions have been going on how keep the students woken up in classes. Potetial solutions which have been discussed by the panel are shutting down the internet at night, banning social networking sites.
  • IIT Kanpur: They want to shut the internet from 12 am to 6 am. Here’s what the registrar Mr. Sanjeev Kashalkar was quoted saying:

    The campus is wi-fi enabled and it has been found that students use Internet throughout the night on their laptops due to which they are sleepy during classes and it adversely affects their academic performance.

  • IIT Bombay: These guys have a restriction in place already. Students were surprised when the net stopped functioning at night according to this Times of India report.

Do they need to cut the internet though?

I am a student and understand that in today’s world all of us are more connected through the internet than anything else. All my friends and professional contacts are on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. The internet has given me the power to be connected with them on a regular basis, some of them live in far-flung places like New Zealand, where I can’t even call them. I Skype with them. Now, if the authority will shut down internet or restrict on the bandwidth just because they think that it is a potential reason for sleeping in classes then I’d not be able to keep in touch with my friends and family.

Nowadays, the study patterns have also changed. Google has become an intrinsic part of any class assignment – be it an engineering project submission or studying for the exams. The internet helps students if they really know how to utilise its power. Shutting it down is not the right solution. Rather, authorities should think of more ways of engaging students in class than dreary lectures. People will go and buy data-cards if the authorities cut the internet connection, and then what will they do – cut that as well? Lol. Also, I feel sports activities should be made compulsory if people are not playing enough sports. Regarding suicides, which has always marred the IITs image, I think a proper communication channel which is not too formal will help students in coping with pressures of life. But, shutting down internet is not a possible solution. We shouldn’t be thinking of doing that if we plan to really be one of the super-achievers in the world economy.

We need to groom our talent, and the internet as always will play a major role in it. Yes, even Facebook!

If you happen to read this article, share it, and comment on what you think of the whole notion of shutting down the internet at night. What methods do we need to keep our students awake and aware?