Jilted in United States, a site will find love in India

During the first year of the company, the three founders — Kevin Owocki, now 26, Daniel Stev, 29 and Adam Sachs, 28 — hustled to get the word out, hosting parties, blitzing college campuses with flyers and doing a big push on Facebook.

By the end of 2008, Ignighter.com had 50,000 users registered in the United States — a decent number, but not big enough to put on the digital map dating, which is crowded with competitors.

"People just don't get what the site was when we told them about it. They thought it was a site for Orgies, "says Mr. Sachs, who is responsible for business development and media relations for the site.

Then, in April 2009, while the control statistics on visitors to the site, Mr. Stev, who is responsible for marketing, noticed that there was a lot of traffic from Singapore, Malaysia, India and South Korea.

Mr. Sachs recalls: "we don't pay any attention to it at first".We thought, ' that's interesting — now let's plan our next event in New York. " ”

But by June, they couldn't ignore traffic from Asia — and in particular India, who then had more visitors than any other Asian country. Ignighter was earning hundreds of users per day, mainly from New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai.

"In January 2010, we made the decision that we are an Indian dating site," Mr. Sachs says. And now, with nearly two million users — and signature more than 7,000 daily — Ignighter is considered the fastest-growing dating site of India.

To put it another way, gets as many users in a week in India as it did in a year in the United States. Next month, Ignighter will open an Office in India and take a dozen local employees. The company has continued to develop its American site, even if it remains online.

As funding heats up for Web start-ups in General, some investors have taken note of Ignighter and its potential in India. This month, the company has closed a $ 3 million round of financing. Forty percent of its investors are based in India, including Rajan Anandan Thursday, Google top executive in India. In the United States, Ignighter is supported by point Judith capital, founder collective and GSA Venture Partners, among others.

"We are here, a few guys Jews sitting in Union Square, and we might accidentally have revolutionized the dating scene in India," Mr. Sachs says of himself and Mr. Stev. They and Mr. Owocki, which is the cost of Web development and programming to Ignighter, have never been in India — although they now plan to make frequent trips there.

Isn't all that unusual for start-ups find that their market is not what they intended, said Sean Marsh, co-founder of point Judith capital in Providence, R.I. and an investor in Ignighter. But not all business owners choose to listen to what the market is telling them, says.

Although an Indian dating site was not their original concept, Ignighter founders decided to move in a crucial moment, he says: "you must be flexible as an entrepreneur and bend the feedback of the market and consumers".

As was the case this happy accident?

Mr. Stev suspects who read the blog service like Mashable and TechCrunch technology in India. From there, has grown in part because the dating in India is still in a somewhat embryonic stage. Happens in big cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad, but in many less cosmopolitan parts of India is still considered taboo for unmarried men and women to be seen in public collection. Many couples, as they have for centuries, through arranged marriages that meet their relatives they orchestrate.

But for some in this generation — those raised on a diet of MTV and social networks — there is a desire to find new dating script, or just to hang out with a group of Coed.

The dynamics of Group makes even come out easier sell to parents who are concerned about the security and accuracy. Here's what led Rohan Bhardwaj, 23, to set up a profile on Ignighter last month. Working in New Delhi to Exclusively In, an online store that sells Indian luxury goods, and, as the majority of his peers, he lives with his parents. Ignighter has heard from her boss in the United States — the CEO of Exclusively., who shares office space with Ignighter in Manhattan — and his cousin in Canada.

HP regains the top position in the PC market of India

Hewlett-Packard has regained the top spot in PC market of India in the fourth quarter of last year, after falling behind Dell in the two preceding quarters, according to figures released by research firms Gartner and IDC India.

HP has held the top position in the country since 2005, according to IDC's in India.

The company had a share of 17.3% of the market in the fourth quarter compared to the share to 14.2% and 11.5% share Acer India, IDC said on Wednesday.

Gartner has also put HP ahead of Dell in the fourth quarter. HP has regained market share due to a new deployment strategy and a new sales team for enterprise and small and medium-sized businesses, said Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst at Gartner.

Dell gets even more of its activities by the HP corporate market, which is also strong in consumer, said Mukherjee, Sumanta lead PC IDC India analyst. Growth in the business enterprise sector in the fourth quarter was slower in the consumer market and other segments such as the public sector, he added.

HP also seems to have stabilised its channel strategy, after they moved from a national distribution model of a network of regional distributors, said Mukherjee. The new channel strategy is structured in a way much more now and has helped HP gain multiple partners that has translated into improved sales, said Tripathi.

Dell has the number one slot for the first time in Indian PC market by HP in the second quarter, doing well in all market segments. But Dell may have gained an edge on HP also due to business interruption of HP as the company changed its distribution model, analysts said.

Dell appeared undisturbed for the loss of HP's market share in the fourth quarter. The company does not sacrifice profits for market share and not going after each deal, said a spokesman for Dell on Thursday. The company is also focused on deals that involve selling Dell hardware with software and services, to increase profitability, he added.

Some variations in market share from quarter to quarter also occur because of changes in the inventory in the channel, particularly in the consumer business, the spokesperson added.

Dell reported on Wednesday that the revenue from India in its fiscal fourth quarter were increased by 37% over the same quarter last year. Revenue from its consumer activity rose 47%, while revenue from its public sector activity grew 41 percent, and small and medium-sized enterprises increased by 52%.

PC shipments from suppliers in India reached 2.5 million units during the fourth quarter, an increase of 26% over the same quarter last year, despite the high inflation and lower growth rates of industrial, IDC said.

Shipments in the fourth quarter decreased 11 percent compared to the previous quarter due to the seasonality of consumer demand and a winding down of demand pent-up industry company, said Mukherjee.

Gartner has a more conservative estimate of growth in the PC market of India. Nearly 2.7 million PCs were shipped in the fourth quarter of 2010, an increase of 6.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009, he said.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and General technology breaking news from India to the IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @ Johnribeiro. E-mail address of John john_ribeiro@idg.com

India Cancel Deal satellite spectrum after a dispute

India has decided to cancel the agreement at issue to lease satellite spectrum of a private company, claiming that needs s-band spectrum for national purposes, including the defence.

A Committee of Cabinet Security decided to cancel the 2005 agreement between Antrix, the commercial arm of space research organization (ISRO) Indian and Devas Multimedia, Minister of India Veerappa Moily, told reporters at a briefing TV in Delhi on Thursday.

The cancellation is done pursuant to the provisions of the agreement, said Moily. He has not explained why ISRO, an agency of the country under the space, which includes the Office of the Prime Minister, had concluded the agreement in the first place.

Deva, Deutsche Telekom as an investor, was not immediately available for comment.

In a statement on Wednesday, the company said that it expects the Government to fulfil all the obligations of the agreement and will take "strong, including legal action," to protect the rights and interests of the company.

Moily has said that if they should go to Court Devas, it would fail.

After media reports and opposition politicians, earlier this month has questioned the proposed leasing spectrum satellite Devas without an auction, the GOI claimed that the agreement with Devas was already under consideration by December 2009. The controller and Auditor General of India (CAG) is reviewing the deal and has asked the Government because the agreement was finalized without competitive bid, according to reports.

Similar issues were raised in November by the GAC on the decision of the Department of telecommunications to allocate spectrum of 2 G mobile operators on a first come first served basis. The Telecommunications Department allegedly favoured some private operators, not following proper procedures, said the GAC. Central Bureau of Investigation of India has arrested a number of people including telecom ex-Minister of the country, r. Raja, in connection with this controversy.

Devas, a startup at Bangalore, was founded in 2004 to establish a national satellite system for delivering applications for rural development, e-Government, emergency communications, remote connectivity and strategic services, according to the website of the company.

The Department of space in 2000 was authorized to enter into commercial agreements with non-governmental users for spare capacity on its satellites, after meeting the requirement of government agencies. Private companies with foreign participation Indian less than 74% were authorized to establish satellite systems, and the Department may contract to build capacity on its satellites that could be used to provide private companies with commercially to spectrum.

Government officials said earlier this month that the space Department had begun a review of the agreement between Antrix and Devas in December 2009 and recommended that it was canceled in July 2010.

The contract had not been resolved yet because it was a complex process, k. Radhakrishnan, Secretary, Department of space, he told reporters at a briefing earlier this month.

Deva said earlier this month that it had proceeded with the project after having obtained the necessary permissions and approvals from government agencies, including the Commission and the Office space of the Union, and the same it has been confirmed by Antrix in February 2006.

Deva also received approvals to foreign direct investment by Foreign Investment Promotion Board of India and is in full compliance with government regulations, the company said.

Having fulfilled all its obligations towards the 2005 agreement, Devas said it now expects delivery of contracted space segment capacity, which was delayed by more than two years.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and General technology breaking news from India to the IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @ Johnribeiro. E-mail address of John john_ribeiro@idg.com