The age of Digital/Paperless ticketing

Tickets .....aren't we always worried of they getting misplaced... Don't we all face such a situation : Every single time we fly, we find ourselves checking the location where we put our tickets once every 3-4 minutes. Are they still there? Did we remember to zip up after we last checked? When we pulled our hand out of the ticket pouch, did the ticket sneak out? We may have never lost a ticket, yet we consistently fear that we will.

American Airlines recently launched digital boarding pases with 2d barcodes.Fortunately, the times are changing. As handset displays grow to higher and higher resolutions, functionality generally limited to ink and paper becomes possible. Scannable barcodes can easily be printed onto just about any device made within the last few years, opening the door to ticketless boarding via your cell phone’s display.

Thinking on the same lines we at Partech invested in the leader of primary ticket sales in France called Digitick

Digitick is able to provide you with tickets on your cellphones in the form of a barcode(with in-house technology developed to successfully read these barcodes irespective of mobile screen) or a print@home option. The company also allows for event organizers to monitor in real time the ticket sales as well as help in targeting customers by their buying behavior(type of concerts they attend to..rock, pop etc.) leading to better sales leading to win-win situation for both the concert organizer as he gets an excellent turnout as well as customers as they dont have to wait in lines to buy tickets and rather buy them in the comfort of their home. Moreover, customers are alerted when concerts of their tastes are coming up soon so they dont miss the next Madonna or Amy Winehouse concert when they come to their city next....

Clearly,digital ticketing is the next revolution which would allow better organization of ticket sales, correct client targeting as well eco-friendly as we dont print on paper anymore....!

When buying tickets in France next time do try www.digitick.com...

Qype gets a mention in Les Echos, Financial Times

One of our Portfolio companies Qype (from Quality or Hype) has been mentioned in the leading press magazines in Europe.

Qype is a UGC based Yellow page destination site with rich reviews on restraunts, cinemas, places to visit and more...with the added touch of social networking and active community it give a user the opportunity to discover all those hidden corner shops/jewels in a city ! Moreover, Qype organizes regular meetups/parties for fellow Qypers, a perfect occasion to make new friends and discover differnet tastes.

Visit Qype at www.qype.com

Financial Times : Qype’s online Yellow Pages get more green

Les Echos (in French): Sur Qype, les internautes mettent leurs bonnes adresses en commun

Google really needs to rework on its Search Algorithm

I was interested to learn more on the Lehman Brothers crisis this morning and as usual I typed it on Google and something struck me on the results page....Check it out...



Click on the Image to see the Original size...

Jupidi launches mobile flirting site

· New German mobile flirting startup Jupidi has announced a successful fundraising (days after its launch).

· Portal jupidi.de the company offers single teenagers a new flirting service per SMS.

o The service targets users between the ages of 12 and 19 (calls its offering a ‘social enabling service’)

o Users can anonymously contact their crush by sending an SMS to figure out whether he or she feels the same.

o If so, they can continue one-to-one communication - still anonymously - guided by Jupidi’s matching and flirting program.

Jupidi’s matching process

· The user needs to indicate his or her own name, the name of the person they wish to contact, his or her mobile number and a hint about where they know each other from.

· SMS is then sent to Jupidi via the code number 60777.

· User pays 99 cents for the first SMS contact and 49 cents for each further one. Recipients pay their normal SMS fees only.

Company has now received an investment from German venture capitalist Neuhaus Partners (Amount undisclosed).

(via Tornado Insider)

Social network world popularity index

Some interesting observations before we get started

• Facebook is most popular in Turkey and Canada.
• Friendster and Imeem are most popular in the Philippines.
• LinkedIn is most popular in India.
• Twitter is most popular in Japan.
• LiveJournal is more popular in Russia than it is in the United States.
• Orkut is more popular in Iran (10th country popularity-wise) than it is in the United States.
• MySpace is the only social network which is most popular in the United States.
• MySpace, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Xanga, and Twitter are the only social networks in this survey which have the United States in their top five countries, popularity-wise. That is just five out of twelve.

(via Pingdom)

Mixi.jp still Rules....MySpace and Facebook follow on...Orkut most engaging amongst users

comScore released a new report (report on PC based Social Networking and exclusive of mobile ones) today with stats on the Japanese Web social networking market.

In terms of growth Facebook saw the largest growth percentage at 213%(but then isn't that normal whenever any new viral sites launch but impressive nevertheless).

On the other hand the Japanese leader Mixi.jp clocks over 12M montly uniques vis-à-vis FB which is a little over 500k users.Mobile based networking though omitted in this report is a crucial point as Japan is one of the leading countries in terms of mobile based web access.

One of the startling points is the fact that "Orkut is the most engaging of social networking sites" with stats

• Average Usage days per visitor : 11.5
• Average minutes per visitor : 454
• Average pages per visitor : 1,557

(via comScore)

Gaming is BIG Business and gets BIGGER

Entertainment Software Association has released a new report about video game usage in the U.S.

The report discusses a variety of items including purchase intent, demographic data, online gaming activity, and which games are most popular.

Some of the highlights from the report include:

• The average game player is 35 years old
• 40% of game players are women, 60% are men
• 26% of gamers are over 50
• Halo 3 is the most popular video game over the past year; World of Warcraft is the most popular computer game
• 47% of online gaming is in one of these categories: Puzzle/Board/Game Show/Trivia/Card
• 41% of Americans have purchased or plan to purchase one or more games in 2008.

(via ESA)