Twitter Opening First R&D Centre Outside US In Bangalore

India seems to have caught the eye of Twitter. After acquiring Bangalore based ZipDial, its first Indian startup, last month, the tech giant is all geared up to open a research in design centre in Bangalore. The Bangalore centre will be Twitter's first such office outside of United States of America.

According to a report published in the Financial Times, the California based tech giant has plans of making use of ZipDial's team as the basis for its new research and design facility.

This new R&D facility will help Twitter accelerate its growth in emerging markets such as Indonesia and India. According to a report published by eMarketer, a research firm, India is all set to become the largest market for Twitter after the United States with 40 million users in the period of next three years.

What exactly Twitter has in store for Its new R&D centre hasn't been disclosed by the social media giant yet but according to Valerie Wagoner's statement to Hindustan times, the centre will be used to manufacture new products for emerging markets like India and Indonesia and not simply be a typical silicon valley back office. Valerie Wagoner is ZipDial's founder who is currently an employee with Twitter.

Twitter Opening First R&D Centre Outside US In Bangalore

India seems to have caught the eye of Twitter. After acquiring Bangalore based ZipDial, its first Indian startup, last month, the tech giant is all geared up to open a research in design centre in Bangalore. The Bangalore centre will be Twitter's first such office outside of United States of America.

According to a report published in the Financial Times, the California based tech giant has plans of making use of ZipDial's team as the basis for its new research and design facility.

This new R&D facility will help Twitter accelerate its growth in emerging markets such as Indonesia and India. According to a report published by eMarketer, a research firm, India is all set to become the largest market for Twitter after the United States with 40 million users in the period of next three years.

What exactly Twitter has in store for Its new R&D centre hasn't been disclosed by the social media giant yet but according to Valerie Wagoner's statement to Hindustan times, the centre will be used to manufacture new products for emerging markets like India and Indonesia and not simply be a typical silicon valley back office. Valerie Wagoner is ZipDial's founder who is currently an employee with Twitter.

It's Official, ZipDial Acquired By Twitter In A Deal At $30-$40 Million

Last week IndianWeb2 reported that Twitter was in advanced talks to acquire Bangalore-based ZipDial for between $30 million and $40 million, and today Twitter announced the deal has closed as Twitter looks to expand in the world's second-biggest mobile market, India.

Twitter in its official blog's post announced - "We're very pleased to announce we've reached an agreement to acquire ZipDial, a product partner based in Bangalore, India, to make Twitter even more accessible to people around the world."

ZipDial in its official blog confirms the acquisition, "This is a huge achievement for the entire ZipDial team, and an opportunity to reflect on everything we’ve accomplished since our start in 2010. The company was founded on the insight that consumers and brands in emerging markets behave differently and have different needs. We build for them and their unique behaviors.", said Valerie Wagoner, CEO & Co-Founder, ZipDial.

Twitter did not disclose terms of the purchase however as per unidentified sources, the deal is at $30 million to $40 million. This Twitter's first ever Indian startup acquisition.

ZipDial has built a mobile platform that lets people follow and engage with content across all interfaces. The user experience combines SMS, voice, mobile web, and access to mobile apps to bridge users from offline to online. For example, through ZipDial, it’s easy to engage with a publisher or brand by making a toll-free “missed call” to a designated phone number. The caller will then begin receiving inbound content and further engagement on their phone in real time through voice, SMS or an app notification. These interactions are especially appealing in areas where people aren’t always connected to data or only access data through intermittent wifi networks.

Over the past two years Twitter collaborated with ZipDial on a variety of campaigns, including the Indian elections, Bollywood film promotions and @MTVIndia's #RockTheVote "Dial the Hashtag" campaign.

With this acquisition, Twitter might use ZipDial's platform to deliver itself to feature phones and others with irregular Internet connections.

Twitter In Talks To Acquire India's ZipDial

A report has been circulating across the web that Twitter is in advance talks to acquire India's ZipDial, a Bangalore-based mobile startup that has honed in on a mobile use practice that is unique to the Indian market.

Sources said that the deal is likely to be priced between 30 million and 40 million dollars and may be announced as soon as this week.

Another source said that two companies have been looking to acquire ZipDial, including Twitter.

ZipDial enables global brands to engage with 100% of their consumers. Its patent-pending consumer intelligence platform drives solutions such as couponing, friend referrals, missed-call marketing, on-pack activations and more.

Must Read: Top-10 Startup Acquisitions Of 2014 In India

Founded by Valerie Wagoner along with Sanjay Swamy and Amiya Pathak in 2010, ZipDial is a platform built on top of a unique phenomenon in India and other developing countries. Since prepaid mobile plans are the norm in these places, the missed call has become an essentially free method of communication.

ZipDial would be Twitter’s first acquisition in India if the deal gets completed. Also, if the deal is sealed, it would be the latest in a series of acquisitions of Indian startups by US companies, keen on capitalising on the opportunity to pick up talent, knowledge and traction in the world's biggest and one of the fastest-growing markets.

Facebook to introduce missed call ads in India

Facebook, the internet social networking site has chalked out yet another interesting strategy to bring its advertisers closer to its users. After target and personalized advertising, Facebook has now come up with the concept of “missed calls” advertisements.

This new type of ads lets the mobile phone users to click a button on the ad that calls the brand advertiser, who immediately disconnects the call and then calls the user back. In this process, the user isn’t charged much since the advertiser disconnects the call immediately.

The return call from the advertiser is basically a pre-recorded audio message which will have information about everything ranging from shopping discounts, cricket updates and celebrity news etc. All this minimizes the data usage charges for the user. This missed call ad service is being powered by a startup called Zipdial.

If rumors are to be believed, this missed call advertising was specially designed by Facebook keeping the Indian Market in mind. India has only 150 million Smartphone users out of its 1.2 billion people which mean that the rest of the people are either using feature phones or have no phones at all. The feature phones lack touch screen capability which means its user can’t interact much with the content on the screen of the phone.

These advertisements can be seen as the social networking site’s efforts to push its business in countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil, which in return would help the company in boosting its overall revenue.

Approximately 84% of the site’s 1.28 billion monthly users are stationed outside the US and Canada, but surprisingly the average revenue per user that the company makes in international markets is very less than what it does in the US and Canada.

The company has done several of these experiments in the past few years. It has used the target and personalized ads features which shows the user only the type of advertisements that they are likely to purchase or would be interested in, to super cookies which allowed the social networking site to track your online activities even after you have signed out.

According to Facebook, in its early tests of the missed call advertisements by Garnier Men, these ads resulted in a 2.5 times year on year increase in online sales. Facebook will make the missed call ads more widely available in the coming months.

Facebook to introduce missed call ads in India

Facebook, the internet social networking site has chalked out yet another interesting strategy to bring its advertisers closer to its users. After target and personalized advertising, Facebook has now come up with the concept of “missed calls” advertisements.

This new type of ads lets the mobile phone users to click a button on the ad that calls the brand advertiser, who immediately disconnects the call and then calls the user back. In this process, the user isn’t charged much since the advertiser disconnects the call immediately.

The return call from the advertiser is basically a pre-recorded audio message which will have information about everything ranging from shopping discounts, cricket updates and celebrity news etc. All this minimizes the data usage charges for the user. This missed call ad service is being powered by a startup called Zipdial.

If rumors are to be believed, this missed call advertising was specially designed by Facebook keeping the Indian Market in mind. India has only 150 million Smartphone users out of its 1.2 billion people which mean that the rest of the people are either using feature phones or have no phones at all. The feature phones lack touch screen capability which means its user can’t interact much with the content on the screen of the phone.

These advertisements can be seen as the social networking site’s efforts to push its business in countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil, which in return would help the company in boosting its overall revenue.

Approximately 84% of the site’s 1.28 billion monthly users are stationed outside the US and Canada, but surprisingly the average revenue per user that the company makes in international markets is very less than what it does in the US and Canada.

The company has done several of these experiments in the past few years. It has used the target and personalized ads features which shows the user only the type of advertisements that they are likely to purchase or would be interested in, to super cookies which allowed the social networking site to track your online activities even after you have signed out.

According to Facebook, in its early tests of the missed call advertisements by Garnier Men, these ads resulted in a 2.5 times year on year increase in online sales. Facebook will make the missed call ads more widely available in the coming months.