This is the latest launch by the partners: they previously launched MSN in five languages: MSN Hindi, MSN Tamil, MSN Telugu, MSN Kannada and MSN Malayalam. So why is Yuva only in Hindi? Trehan says, “We will watch the game for the next 3-6 months and then launch the next one, which will be in Tamil.”

Features

MSN Yuva is a cut down and slightly modded version of MSN.co.in. Only the most popular categories appear to have made it: sports, entertainment, lifestyle, news, romance, astrology and shopping. Matrimony was also a popular category on MSN.co.in but, since the target market is youth here, does not make it to Yuva. Travel and technology are also missing but a new one – Career – is included. There is also social networking being offered with Dosti.

Taking Hinglish Too Far?

If the intention was to create a website that will be easier to understand for those who are not fluent with English, then more effort needed to have been put into MSN Yuva. Strangely enough, though, the Jokes section, rather than being called “Chutkule” remains Jokes but in Hindi font. News & Business has turned into a Punjabi style rhyme “News-Views”; there was an attempt at creativity – Entertainment category is “Fun Tadka”; but “Hot Hollywood”, “Do’s and Dont’s” and “Young Guns” ? Or was it the double-whammy of “Movie Preview” and “Movie Review” (written in Hindi) that nettled us?

We understand that the Indian youth online are comfortable with Hinglish, but shouldnt there be a limit? It is useful when one understands both languages equally well, but maybe there could have been a more sincere effort at offering completely regional content that many more would understand without difficulty.

The site has two redeeming features – the “Confession/ Dil Se” category and the poll called Youth Meter.

Content Providers

MSN India has a total of 60 content providers as partners – of this, currently only 5-10% are regional content providers, Trehan said. Right now, MSN has outsourced this to Webdunia alone but is speaking to other providers to increase the amount of regional content online.

Related

- MWC 2010: Android & Microsoft Windows 7 Series
- Microsoft’s Indic Language Tool Goes Public; Netbooks? Search

The i-Browser++ is not the first attempt at a Hindi browser as the developer might claim but may be the first truly successful one. CDAC had attempted two such browsers – Darpan and Pragati – but information on both is not available any more. Other browsers such Firefox (available in Telugu, Punjabi, Kannada, Hindi, Gujarati, Assamese, Bengali and Arabic) do not commit entirely to being localised: their interfaces remain in English, they only translate (or in some cases, perform transliteration) of the websites being browsed.

Features

The i-Browser++ has all the functions of regular internet browser like pop-up blocking, auto history viewers, etc and most of its features are similar to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

New features of the browser include English to Hindi translators and dictionary. Users can click on any English word and the browser will change. Other interesting features are text highlights and Unicode based Hindi writing with which a user can search Hindi content from the web and even write e-mails in Hindi and send it using any mail client.

A demo version with limited features of the browser is available here.

According to Dangi, the software has two types of translators, a local and a global word translator with a built in dictionary of more than 38,500 words to which a user can keep on adding. He also added that the software was primarily for Hindi speaking people but can be developed for other regional languages also.

Language Conversion: Prakhar

Dangi has also developed ‘Prakhar’, a bundle of two software packages called Prakhar Devanagari Font Parivartak and Prakhar Devanagari Lipik for converting languages.

Font Privartak will allow users to convert any text in the Devnagri script like Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit in the various ASCII/ISCII (8 bit) fonts into Unicode (16 bit) text: Dangi claims the accuracy is 100 percent.

Prakhar Devanagari Lipik is a word processor that will allow users to type in Hindi and English in a single page without having to change fonts or keyboards.

The Need For An Indic Language Browser

An internet browser in Hindi will help in internet penetration to the rural areas of India, coupled with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) announcement in October to allow domain names in non-Latin script. What would be more interesting, is if a mobile version of the browser is developed as there are more mobile phones than PCs in India, and mobile phones have penetrated large rural areas in India.

Google also has been developing its transliteration tool and had launched Google Transliteration IME with support for 14 languages, including many Indian languages.

Related:
–ICANN To Approve Non-Latin Domain Names; Issues & Implications
–Panini Tries Predictive Indic Language Keypad For Mobile
–Rediff Incorporates 9 Indic Languages Into Upgraded RediffBlogs
–Microsoft’s Indic Language Tools: Why Bother?
–Quillpad Launches Mobile Transliteration Tool: A Review

Abhijit Bhattacharjee, CEO and Founder, Luna Ergonomics told MediaNama that they don’t to have on-board linguists. We only need to get a corpus of the language and mine it: something that has happened in the corpus 20,000 times can not be wrong. Errors are ironed out automatically by the system. Anything with errors will become part of a statistical correlation,” says Bhattacharjee.

Usage Stats, Language Support, Other Models

According to the company, Panini has around 500 downloads per day and 400 downloads for its global family of products. Clevertexting Arabic is the most popular, the company  claims. Within 2 months on the midlet site GetJar.com, the apps have seen downloads of: 15,000 for Arabic,  4,500 for Hindi, 45,000 for English and 400-500 for Finnish.

Panini currently supports: Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Assamese, English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, French, Swahili, Hebrew and Finnish. Luna will add support for Chinese, Japanese and Korean in 3 months’ time. Panini also offers transliteration support, but only for Indic languages: you can write it in Malayalam and send it in Hindi, or read a Kannada message in Telugu.

How long does it take to add support for one language? “That depends on how much content we can collect: blogs, writings. We use the text for mining. Online content is very relevant and represents current flavour of the language. On an average, it takes around 3 months,” he said, adding that it would be faster to develop for smaller languages. How is this different from T9? T-9 and other writing methods depend on dictionaries, which are susceptible to mistakes. Other models of input currently available are:

• Nuance Communication’s T9, EziText & EziType
• Motorola’s iTap
• Prevalent Devices’ Phraze-it
• Adaptxt
• Eatoni Ergonomic’s WordWise, EQx and LetterWise

Nikhil adds: I’m not convinced that this would work from a usability perspective. Being used to a particular keypad structure, out of habit, I type without looking at the keys. I would certainly not be comfortable with a virtual keypad that keeps changing with every press of a button.

Issues

When we tried the usability demo for the web, there was a Java error. (screenshot below) In response, Bhattacharjee had this to say, “It was an old demo, we have now built an AJAX version, which is a server side app.”

We also found it did not work perfectly on a Nokia 5800 touchscreen mobile: the screen for the keypad is miniscule and English and Hindi keypads did not display, though Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi and others did. We will update this post with more on our experience with the app, but if you have tried it, please leave a comment.

The sites FAQ revealed that Luna is investigating causes behind the garbling of text when delivered on certain CDMA phones: “It was a problem of handsets not supporting Unicode, which is the worldwide standard we use.”

The demo versions of Panini and Clevertexting are available on the company’s websites as well as on other free download sites. The demo versions last for 7 days or ten messages.

Luna also has two more patent-pending technologies: a DRM app for Java software, and their early version of Clevertexting for Indic languages which did not use the statistical model.

Lessons Learnt

The company launched Clevertexting English in December 2008, and after a year attempting various versions of the apps and even a B2C model, changed its strategy and developed Panini for Business in January 2009.

In April 2009, Luna approached handset retail chain HotSpot to sell the application, sensing that the time had not arrived for handset manufacturers to bundle the app. Luna offered four retail models: Panini Basic, Clever, Premium and Touch. “It was a challenge: we sold scratch cards and Hotspot received 30% of the proceeds. The one month pilot at Delhi went well until feedback from the salesmen came through that they were spending a lot of time and bandwidth explaining the different versions of the product.”

“There are different revenue models for us now: from handset manufacturers, telecom operators and B2C,” It is also considering using advertising on its trial ware. Hong Kong based Exicon is attempting to co-ordinate this for Luna.

Panini On Other Devices & Increasing Indic Language Content

Panini keypad can also be ported onto other digital devices: a TV remote, IPTV, set top box, ATM, touch screen kiosks, a PC or a tablet PC. And this is intended to spark off the production of more UGC content in regional languages online and offline. “This is an opportunity for an Indian innovation to define how people all over the world will write in their own languages in all varieties of digital devices. In the decades ahead, we will see hundreds of implementations in varieties of devices inspired by this dynamic prediction model,” says Bhattacharjee.

Related

- Microsoft’s Indic Language Tools: Why Bother?
- Microsoft’s Indic Language Tool Goes Public; Netbooks? Search
- Quillpad Launches Mobile Transliteration Tool: A Review

Eterno will also be signing an agreement with a Sinhalese firm soon. Inforev is talking to local Bangladeshi papers to launch Newshunt while Mobile Plus has tied up with 2 papers - Vn Express and Dantri. The launches will happen in a month, Chandrashekhar Sohoni, Founder and Director, Eterno Infotech told MediaNama. He said that the company may have to rebrand NewsHunt before going live globally as readers associate the mobile application with India and not an international product.

Classifieds Next

Chandrashekhar Sohoni, Founder/Director, Eterno Infotech at Mobile India 2010. (c) Medianama

The company is also planning to enter the regional mobile classifieds space in hand with all its newspaper clients. It will take 2 months to go live but we can expect an early launch next month. “It is a huge task primarily because of computerisation of classified ads,” Sohoni said. Eterno won the Entrepreneur’s Product Demo Showcase organised by Mobile India 2010 in Bengaluru recently.

iPhone App Soon, Pricing
In two weeks’ time, Eterno will offer NewsHunt for iPhone users at a subscription charge of $2 per newspaper. Rates for newspapers and magazines on digital media are rising: when India Today, Indian Express and Financial Express were launched for the Kindle, the newspapers were priced at $9.99 per month and India Today at $1.99. The company reveals that it sees the market as not India, but Indians, the world over.

Citizen Journalism

A by-product that emerged from Eterno’s regional news mobile application NewsHunt is being harnessed by the company as citizen journalism. In the first phase, users will be allowed to comment or post their opinions about stories from their mobiles using SMS. These comments will be filtered for profanity by Eterno and sent to newspaper clients which can choose to publish them. Users will also be able to send news tips in text which will be forwarded to the newspaper’s “web team” whose role it is to watch for incoming news. In the second phase, Eterno will allow users to upload photos.

Sohoni tells us the company made the decision not to offer location-awareness to mobile users sending such inputs as “there is not much interest in the feature”. Also, most users do not have GPS enabled phones.

Nokia Life Tools, Hungama, Idea Cellular

Eterno previously powered Indic languages for Nokia Life Tools, a rural crop information service that was piloted in January 2008.  The pilot is now winding up and it is not known if Eterno will be involved with the product’s commercial launch.

It is also planning to partner with Hungama for its product Music Companion which streams music on mobile phones and also offers lyrics in regional languages.

Idea Cellular has been using Eterno’s IndiSMS to send bulk messages in Marathi for over a year now. From 80 SMSs per second and 3 million sent per day, the operator now sees up to 120 SMSs per second and 5 million messages sent daily, Sohoni said.

Monetisation
Currently the company monetises NewsHunt with advertisements and operator subscriptions (with Idea Cellular, news is offered at Re.1 per day). However, it appears that mobile advertising suffices as click through rates are as high as 3-5%, according to the company. Eterno has to split revenues 50:50 with its newspaper clients.

Handset Makers Dont Support Indic?

Eterno’s Indian language rendition engine has bridged a technology gap when it comes to displaying fonts on handsets. For those that do not support regional fonts, the engine intelligently displays content as images so users are still able to view and read. Sohoni claimed there is a reluctance amongst handset manufacturers to offer Indian languages. “Finland has a smaller population than Bangalore, and yet manufacturers offer Finnish compatible handsets but are not doing the same for Indian languages. Today only 10-15% handsets show Tamil.”

Related

- Rediff.com To Invest In Mobile Apps Co Eterno Infotech

The tools can be called a Windows update rather than an application or product per se, since it works with most applications installed and is part of the OS’s features. The company has taken notice of our advice and put up a Getting Started page which offers clear instructions on what settings to fix before setting up.

Installation Issues Continue: Netbooks?

Installing regional supplemental language support is necessary to set up the application, and it takes up 10MB or more of available disk space. Its installation was painful on my S10 netbook – it requires various DLL files to be installed from the original Windows CD – the netbook does not have a CD drive.

After downloading a few files off the net, having to abort the set up 5-6 times and then calling the company for tech support, I was finally able to install them but some font files were still missing

A usability tip: why not offer a choice of updating automatically online with some form of authentication? Finally, Bengali and Malayalam were loaded on the language bar and I tested them out on Word and notepad.

ToolBar Support With Search:

After installing the Hindi language transliteration support for Firefox, which was simple enough drag and drop procedure, we attempted to try it out with a few search engines:

The visual keyboard “to assist with editing words that do not transliterate properly” was not visible.

On Google search, the typed keywords are slightly hidden.

The option to type in Hindi only appears in the search engine’s main page and not for future searches – for example, after a search, if you want to perform another search in Hindi, then you would have to hit the Hindi button on your browser again.

Some words are still not recognised by the tools accurately and it avoids converting it into Hindi.

Note: The tool’s terms and conditions mentions that it “may use services from other companies that enable us to derive a general geographic area based on your IP address in order to customize certain services to your geographic area.”

Related

- Microsoft’s Indic Language Tools: Why Bother?
- ICANN To Approve Non-Latin Domain Names; Issues & Implications
- Quillpad Launches Mobile Transliteration Tool: A Review

The Web version is supposed to work only with Internet Explorer, which, though the most popular browser in the world, isn’t the only one, and isn’t my browser-of-choice. It didn’t work with Chrone. Even with Internet Explorer, it didn’t work properly, as can be seen in the screencap on the right.

The product is supposed to offer free-form transliteration for Microsoft products and, according to the claim claim, other products as well. However, the transliteration, didn’t work for (Microsoft) Notepad, NoteTab or the Pidgin messenger.

All in all, a launch from Microsoft that is dead on arrival, based on the experience during installation, the difficulty in setting it up, and figuring out how to use the software, and actually using it. The only advantage that Microsoft could offer is that the software works offline, unlike the transliteration tools from Quillpad and Google, which we’ve covered before. Do read our extensive coverage of the Indic language space.

Makes me wonder if Microsoft expected anyone to actually try and install the product, instead of copy-pasting the press release.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is expected to approve this week international domain names – or addresses- that can be written in non-Latin script. The proposed IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process (pdf) enable the introduction of a limited number of internationalized country-code top level domain names (IDN ccTLDs). Once implemented, this will be  the first time that users can obtain a domain name with the entire string in characters based on their native language. The process will be available to all countries and territories where the official language is based on scripts other than the Latin (extended) script.

Language and Script Criteria

Languages and scripts can be used for the requested TLD string if the language is an official language in the corresponding country or territory, and have legal status in the country or territory, or serve as a language of administration. The language requirement is considered verified if:
–If the language is listed for the relevant country or territory as an ISO 639 language in Part Three of the Technical Reference Manual for the standardization of Geographical Names, United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (“UNGEGN Manual“); or
–If the language is listed as an administrative language for the relevant country or territory in the ISO 3166-1 standard under column 9 or 10; or
–If the relevant public authority in the country or territory confirms that the language is used or served as follows, (either by letter or link to the relevant government constitution or other online documentation from an official government website): used in official communications of the relevant public authority; and serves as a language of administration.

Languages based on the Latin script are not eligible for the Fast Track Process. That is, the requested string must not contain the characters (a to z), either in their basic forms or with diacritics.

Implications

The first thing you’re likely to see, is something of a bonanza for domain registrars as companies rush to register domains related to their trademarks, and prevent domain squatting: not just in English, but in 22 Indian languages as well. The other great opportunity is a gold-rush for registering generic domains that cannot be trademarked, but given the nature of the names, have significant potential for business value in the future.

Issues

We’re not really enthused by the availability of domains in non-latin languages: there are far too many barriers to entry in India from an Indic language perspective, and this is just a very small step (albeit an important one) in helping increase Internet adoption in India among those not conversant with English. There’s other work to be done, like popularizing Indic language keyboards, operating systems, word processing software, among others. Transliteration tools from Quillpad and Google help, but we really don’t foresee transliteration as a final solution, though it is an important component. Perhaps multilingual operating systems, keyboards and word processing software are a solution, which allow consumers to switch between English and a particular Indic language.

The application needs to be downloaded onto the phone from Quillpad’s site. A trial version is available here (size: 358 Kb). It creates an alias of the text message inbox on your mobile with the addition of a text input mechanism, which works with a mobile’s keypad. First, it is being launched only in Hindi but support for transliteration in ten Indic languages – Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi and Nepali will soon be available.

Features, Issues

The word can be typed out phonetically, the user has to pick the correct option amongst the words suggested by scrolling down or pressing * depending upon the handset. Similar to, but simpler than, Quillpad’s online widget which offers different words of the combination of letters when you press the tab key on a keyboard. But on the mobile, it might be a tad painful with a small screen and if in a hurry. If you skip selecting the right word, you’d have to keep pressing * till it wound through the entire gamut of permutations and returned to that word.

Still, we’d say this is a side-effect of flexibility offered by the application – it gets rid of shifting between halants ( also known as virama or a diacritic), matras and other typing rules that new users may find difficult. Users can also switch to English by using the hash key (#) on the keypad. You can try a demo of the mobile transliteration editor here.

The application encodes messages in Unicode and can accommodate up to 70 Unicode characters per message.

The application does not work with touchscreen phones and requires a physical keypad to support it, which is a pity considering the flurry of touchscreen phones being launched off late.

Is There A Need?

The target user is the English literate but bi or trilingual user who prefers her informal communication in native languages. Here we see a problem in uptake – what is stopping such a user from continuing to type out SMSs in English which read as Hindi? As we have seen on online social networks and chat clients, users are comfortable with using a freestyle, Hinglish vocabulary and have adapted. Does having the right font matter anymore?

An acute problem with the application is that the recipient of the text message will not be able to view the SMS unless he also has the Quillpad application or his mobile can support language fonts. There are some mobiles which do support Hindi, but other language fonts are not yet enabled. This lack of support in recipient phones could potentially be a fatal setback.

Pricing

Quillpad is offering a trial version for free, which will last for ten text messages. Thereafter, the user will have to buy an activation key for Rs. 149 online. This is substantially lower than that of Quillpad’s online transliteration tool, which is priced at Rs. 5000 for one language that lasts 3 months and Rs. 10,000 for three languages and the same validity period. Primarily because there is a difference in the target userbase – the online tool is for B2C firms, e-commerce sites while the mobile application is for the lay user. But will the lay user wish to pay at all? Currently, developers are offering various other mobile applications for free and the fact that the application requires GPRS for downloading is also a setback.

The company has conducted market research and believes there is a “willingness to pay among individual consumers for a product like this”. Unless pushed by the telcos for a subsidised price or embedded within handsets, the application might find the going tough.

Related

– Quillpad Launches Commercial Widget For Transliteration; Comparison With Google; Clients
– New Standard For Indic Language SMS To Reduce Cost By 1/3d; Implementation Challenges

The launch of stand-alone language sites is expected to attract rural users who are catching up to the online phenomenon, the company said. While we are skeptical about how many are really there, considering that there are barely 13.54 million Internet (dial up, not broadband) users in India as of March 2009, it will benefit those in cities read comics in their native languages online. If Digital Chandamama does want to tap new readers in rural markets, it may have to launch more mobile-focused services – growth of wireless connections in C-class cities grew 71.3% year on year in July 2009 compared to July 2008.

While the language interface is not nearly a blanket, with words such as “shopping” and “contests”, “free SMS”, “archive” etc standing out in English, it suffices.

User’s Area, Fun Zone, Explore, Contests

Though poorly named, this section allows users to send their contributions to Chandamama via an SMS to 54646. These are called posts and the ten latest contributors are displayed on the homepage. The posts themselves are not directly accessible.

Fun Zone has craft projects and an online contest section allows users to write in posts or submit their drawings online. There is no provision for transliteration, which should be introduced to make the website a more complete Indic language portal. An infotainment section called Explore has slideshows to teach users about the animal kingdom and other subjects. Games are to be introduced soon.

Free SMS

Chandamama’s new site also offers a free SMS service through Mundu, its suite of chat software. The free SMS is simpler than others offered by Indyarocks etc, in that it does not require a login, you can send your message to multiple numbers (ten mobile numbers) and can write up to 300 characters.

The service’s terms and conditions states the user must be atleast 18 years of age. This is opposite what the registration process of the website permits – users have to choose a birth year after 1992. So is the user above or below 18 years?

Ad Archives Now Online

Our favourite part of Chandamama’s digital avatar is the archives section, a veritable gold mine where you can choose and read Chandamama editions printed over 2 decades (1950s to 1970s) in seven languages online with a pain-free, minimalistic interface.

For old readers, advertisements in Chandamamas and other comic books of that generation were enjoyable as they continued the same style as the comics – some had stories in them, others were attractive, inviting readers to respond by sending wrappers to receive gifts. The new website now has all these ads online, in their original languages. Ads as old as Telugu edition, July 1947  (when Chandamama was established) are online. What a treat!

Challenges

Choosing The Right Format: While Chandamama has avoided the problem of which format to offer the comics in (the popular one is .CBZ, which requires a comic book reader software, PDFs are also available) by using a browser-based interface, it does not offer a download option, which is a big let down. At the shop, it allows users to purchase a copy that is shipped home.

Limited Online Strategy: A comprehensive online strategy is in order and publishers should attempt to harness the digital medium for all its worth, offer more digital delivery options and subscriptions, engage users of all ages and create a buzz with apps and games. To draw interest in the new publications, publishers will need to focus on marketing and advertising on other portals, especially gaming and social networking websites.

Devices: Chandamama faces a bigger challenge in adapting comics to devices other than computers. A mobile-friendly format would be the way to go with the burgeoning number of rural mobile subscribers, but digital comics are yet to break into this market. Virgin attempted mobile comics but they were not popular. More recently, ACK Media tied up with Vodafone Essar to launch audio books, illustrated comics, ringtones and wallpapers  for mobiles. Others are attempting to offer digital comics on iTunes Store for iPhones and smartphones. However, worldwide, this has not yet taken off and neither has it in India. Laptops and netbooks are rising in popularity in the country so digital comics will probably be read on such devices.

Lack Of Awareness: Publishers are still facing slow traction in this market,and are looking to animation and TV to utilise their content. Digital comics are not yet popular in India, though old, pirated copies are shared using file hosting services. But this is mostly amongst the older generation – anime, cartoons and TV series have overtaken comics online – are they too outdated for the digital lifestyle?

Related

- Geodesic Eyes Social Networking & Communications Acquisition
- CEO Moves: Chandra – NDTV Convergence; Mulekar – Chandamama
- Big Animation To Produce Chandamama Animated Series
- Updated: Q409 Results: Geodesic Reports Rs. 662.7M Profit; Mundu IM For Android; ESOPS
- Diamond Comics Ties Up With License India; ACK-Vodafone

Details of the tools have not been mentioned, though, earlier in July, C-DACs Graphics and Intelligence based Script Technology (GIST) Group had released the ISM V6 software, which it claims is UNICODE compliant and offers support for Open Type fonts, supporting 19 Indian languages, with a spellchecker for Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam and Bengali. The product also features transliteration facility, and a transluscent floating keyboard to help typing in Hindi using an English language keyboard. Sounds tough to me.

While we’re not sure if the new fonts and tools announced yesterday are free to use, we did find it strange that the government has claimed that this will help bridge the digital divide, while on the other hand, made content creations tools developed using public funds by CDAC, paid. View their price list here. If people who are not familiar with the English alphabet dont have sufficient Indic language content to consume, why will they sign up for Internet access? Pricing Indic languages products doesn’t really help Indic language content creation – on the Internet, everyone is a content creator, and CDAC should encourage citizens to create content in Indic languages. Private organizations like Quillpad and Google are doing a lot more with their free transliteration tools to help increase the quantity of Indic language content available in this country.

Besides this, it is sad that an organization that CDAC itself has content on its website that is not browser independent, and renders only in Internet Explorer, and not Firefox (screenshot) or Chrome (screenshot).

Related:

– CDAC Launches Multilingual Mobile Navigation Product Saarathy; API or Open Source?
– New Standard For Indic Language SMS To Reduce Cost By 1/3d; Implementation Challenges
– Google Docs Offers Translation To Hindi, 41 Others; Transliteration?
– Quillpad Launches Commercial Widget For Transliteration; Comparison With Google; Clients