Build by a Hyderabad based company, Httpfuse is conceptualisd as a knowledge resource like Wikipedia but with a twist- people can discover quality links/bookmarks instead of writeups/articles . Check out this blogpost about how Fuse is different from search engines, Delcious, Digg, Mohalo, StumbleUpon etc.

The fuses are embeddable which makes the idea even more powerful… check out the one below about the iPhone.

I think this is a super idea- it is simple, clearly serves a purpose, and adds a new dimension hitherto not available. I do not recall seeing this functionality in any of the hundreds of social bookmarking sites that exist on the web. The company believes that their utility is useful in a variety of situations. A Fuse can be plugged into any community- a social networking community or a blogging community. It can be used in enterprise wikis and on company websites (in the product FAQs & help sections). This makes so much sense since you can create different sections within the fuse and bunch like urls together.

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For details, check out the reports here & here.

Seen against the backdrop of the impending launch of the IPhone in India (due in a few week), this is a very significant development and could be a game changer as far as the mobile platform goes. Notwithstanding the buzz around Web2.0, Mobile 2.0 has been a virtual non starter in India (as it has been in other parts of the worlds), partly because of lack of high speed networks like 3G. This could change now, making possible a plethora of mobile based services that have long been promised, but never got delivered.

One likely bottleneck is the adoption of 3G-capable mobile devices (currently at app 1% penetration), and the creation of content/applications that can be delivered over the networks to these devices.

Question to the readers of this blog: Can the introduction of 3G help change the lop-sided relationship between telcos & the mobile aggregators, application developers etc?. Telcos command a lion’s share of revenues (60-70%) for mobile products & services offered over their networks as they control the gateway, making commercial viability for app developers a tall order. Can 3G be a catalyst in the profusion of high end services on such a scale that the sheer economies of scale justifies sharing the revenue pie more equitably. What do you say?

Update: Just remembered this awesome slide deck on 3G hype. It was delivered by Benjamin Joffe, who heads a Beijing based mobile & internet consulting company Plus8Star. Plus8Star operates in China, Japan, Korea - arguably the most competitive and evolved mobile phone markets in the world; they have published detailed reports on best practises from Cyworld (Korea) & QQ (China), so they probably know a thing or two about this space. The slide deck paints a rather dismal picture of the promise of 3G… its worth a definitive walkthrough.

So what are the lessons here for others to take away? Here’s what’s top of my mind:

- Imitation V/s Innovation: Immitation has always been a legitimate part of innovation. Much of what the world regards as innovation has its origin in trying to copy what others are doing. But the catch is that you should not just copy; you also need to improve, to improvise, to add maybe a new dimension or a new use-case. If that happens, the imitation gets legitimacy as a stepping stone in the creation of something that the world would not have otherwise. Scrabulous probably fails on that count… it is simply a web based version of Scrabble; they probably innovated in terms of a new distribution channel for the game (which is not insignificant), but not in terms of the core concept.

- Tactics can undo your Strategy: I think the Scrabulous founders made a mistake by naming their application “Scrabulous”, which is clearly a derivative of Scrabble. From a legal standpoint, this establishes intent. People who are making strategic decisions about building products & services that are “me too” or closely resemble other popular concepts are advised not to repeat this tactical mistake - pl avoid name extensions or derivatives.

- The Social Graph Application Platform: This is a good example of how fickle social graph applications can be to its developers. The end-users don’t belong to the application developers.. they belong to the platform. Having a steady base of users that you acquired on your own puts you in a commanding position, and there is no substitute for it.

- Mass User Exodus Case Study: Scrabulous could be a defining case study in whether mass exodus of users can happen from one product to another, if one suddenly becomes inoperational due to some reasons. In this case, Scrabulous and its equivalent app from Hasbro are almost identical, except their ownership.

From a personal standpoint, this is an acid test for the Kolkata based creators of Scrabulous. They have been smart enough to create an additive “pass-time” for millions of people (albeit on a borrowed concept); lets keep our fingers crossed that they bounce back from this setback.

Update: Scrabulous is now available in a new avatar on Facebook. Its called Wordscraper and it has cosmetic changes from the previous design. Techcrunch reports - “….When Scrabulous was taken down, it had half a million daily active users and Hasbro’s/Electronic Arts’ official Facebook Scrabble game had only about 15,000. Two days later, the official Scrabble beta is up to 63,000 daily active users. Wordscraper has 3,600 daily active users. Now the race is on. Where will the bulk of Scrabulous fans go…. “

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Seedcamp is specially interested in getting startups from outside US (specially from Europe, Middle East, Asia or Africa).

The event is orgainsed by a team of investors & entrepreneurs that is headed by Saul Klein, ex VP Mkt of Skype and a venture partner at Europe based Index Ventures.

These are the six finals elected startups from SeedCamp2007 (selected from 268 applicants from 17 countries).

Check out this video…

What SeedCamp2007 looked like…

Hasbro incidentally now has its own version of Scrabble on Facebook and that has 8K users compared to over two million for Scrabulous.

Its not going to be easy for the Indian team to fight the lawsuit since it is filed in New York, while they are based in India. Apparently some talks had happened between the two parties over a possible partnership (or acquisition) but that did not materialise. Facebook’s position is precarious as well. Under the Safe harbour provisions the DMCA, they are bound to take down the application failing which they could be dragged into a bigger litigation.

While I’m not an expert on this topic, I do have a working knowledge of DMCA. I think the use of the title “Scrabulous’ might have been a mistake by the Indian team and it might prove crucial in this case. The standard procedure adopted by internet companies in DMCA infringements is to either take down the disputed content straightaway if they think it violates IPR, or suspend it temporarily till a decision has been reached.

Question to Indian readers- without being jingoistic, whats your opinion on this issue?

This amateur video was forwarded to me some time back via an agitated email from a student of XLRI Jamshedpur asking me to publish it on my blog to ‘expose’ the indiscretions of their IIM-C counterparts. I have been debating whether or not to publish it, for it is clearly provocative and also because I was unsure of its veracity. I am choosing to do so now after reading this post on Pagalguy. Without getting into the moralistic debate behind such behavior, I think this video is a good example of how the internet is going to force people to behave responsibly in the public domain. These women are going to regret this for a lifetime!

The video shows women students from IIM Calcutta ‘welcoming’ the XLRI Jamshedpur team for an inter institute competition. Apparently this is not spontaneous but part of a well rehearsed script. Whats surprising about the video is not that it happened, but the fact that it did as publicly as it did.

Needless to say this seems to have sparked off a furore in the MBA blogs & forums. Wonder what the IIMC management has to say about this?

Its a very well crafted and gets the message across straight and clear. Off course this does not serve the purpose of the detailed deck that investors would like, but putting this on a social website can serve as a smart hook for interested folks to look further.

Call it Venture Capital Funding Deck 2.0... ??