The Great Tech Sale

Entrepreneurship in technology is all about two things – big ideas and big money, says a technology fan.

AD: Hi, have you been following the news on Instagram?

BC: What’s that?

AD: A free mobile app for photo sharing… They were bought by Facebook for a billion dollars.

BC: An app that makes you a billionaire – how cool is that? But all that money for a free download?

AD: That’s the power of a big idea…

BC: It’s a pity that I’m an old-timer, otherwise…

AD: Tim Zagat, the co-founder of Zagat, a hotel rating company, was over 70 when Google bought it for around $ 150 million.

BC: That hurts…

AD: The under-30 brigade has made it too. Haroon Mirza, along with two other partners, formed CognoVision, a company that produced software for tracking ads through facial recognition. He became a millionaire at 29.

BC: Don’t know about facial recognition, but Intel can be credited for talent recognition. Guess you need to have the mental make-up for such greatness…  

AD: Even make-up sells - Mariam Naficy and Varsha Rao made $110 million by selling their online make-up company, Eve, to Idealab.

BC: Good to know that Indians have also benefited from technology…

AD: Facebook’s next acquisition, Tagtile, is a mobile royalty rewards company started by Abheek Anand and Soham Mazumdar, both of Indian origin.

BC: And who can forget Sabeer Bhatia and the sale of Hotmail to Microsoft for $400 million?

AD: India has its own story too – in 1999, Satyam Infoway bought over IndiaWorld websites, owned by Rajesh Jain, for Rs 499 crore.

BC: Couldn’t you have done something useful in your teens? You could have become a millionaire...

AD: Guess my parents weren’t as understanding as Jason Citron’s folks were. When I should have been busy playing video games, they tried to get me to study…

BC: I don’t understand.

AD: Apparently, Jason was mad about Nintendo games from his childhood – he turned his childhood passion into a career by creating OpenFeint, a mobile platform for gaming.

BC: And it got bought over…

AD: …by GREE, a Japanese company, for $104 million… He became a millionaire at 26!

BC: I still can’t get over the big numbers…

AD: In that case, what would you say to YouTube’s $1.65 billion acquisition by Google? Or Skype’s sale to Microsoft for $8.5 billion?

BC: Whew! With a good idea, a billion dollars is just a click away!

AD: If a click’s worth a billion, imagine what a double click would be worth…

BC: Double that?

AD: DoubleClick, an online advertising company was bought over by Google for $3.1 billion – that’s double of what Google had paid for YouTube.

BC: Wow, these guys seem to mint money!

AD: You could too, if you had a venture like mint.com. Aaron Patzer started this money management site and sold it to Intuit for $170 million.

BC: Wonder how long it would take to make a million…

AD: Adam Cahan had started IntoNow, an app that gives you information about TV shows. In just three months, he sold the company to Yahoo! for close to $30 million.

BC: So technology does speed things up…

AD: Technology doesn’t need fancy degrees either - Jack Abraham, a school dropout, co-founded Milo – an online shopping site – and sold it to eBay for $75 million…

BC: From school dropout to $75 million in two years… I just don’t get it!

AD: Get what?

BC: I always thought great tech buys were about gadgets - who would have thought it would be about companies?

A dose of (augmented) reality

Technology makes ads more creative, more captivating – and more complicated, says an old timer.

AD: What’s that you’re checking out in the papers?

BC: Have you seen the weird designs in these ads? The little squares...

AD: They’re QR codes...

BC: Queer, yes, but QR?

AD: QR stands for Quick Response – QR codes are images with little squares... When you scan the code, you are led to more information about the product…

BC: There was a time when print ads in newspapers and magazines tried to drive customers to the stores.

AD: How has that changed?

BC: Today, they're driving them to the nearest computer...

AD: …or a smartphone, which is right in their hands.

BC: So what's the future of this QR code?

AD: It remains to be seen if it has one. The buzz is that it’s fast being replaced by AR...

BC: What's that?

AD: Augmented Reality. This technology exposes you to a whole lot of interactive content when you scan an object that is coded or tagged, with your smartphone.

BC: How is AR different from QR?

AD: For starters, QR Code is a clearly visible graphic that you saw in the ad. With AR, you can make the image or the object a tag by itself. AR opens up the third dimension and you can see digital images and information that have been layered on the object that has been scanned.

BC: So print ads have moved on to AR…

AD: Not just print ads…  Today even newspapers are being created using augmented reality.

BC: The reality around us is already looking scary... I can't imagine what augmented reality will make a scam or a price hike look like...

AD: Oh c’mon... Just imagine pointing your smartphone at the newspaper - all the static text and images become dynamic and play themselves out.

BC: Holding a newspaper and a cup of coffee simultaneously is a challenge by itself... And now, one has to hold a smartphone too...

AD: No wonder technology’s evolution was so slow during your times...

BC: Perhaps we never envisioned a future with a newspaper, a mobile, a cup of coffee - and human beings with three hands.

AD: Think of a future instead with AR glasses, so you can keep your mobile in your pocket.

BC: AR glasses, interactive newspapers – sounds a lot like fantasy...

AD: It’s not just the print media. Augmented reality has taken over everything from coffee cups to cafes, outdoor displays, bus shelters...

BC: Do you think people actually walk around holding their mobiles in front of them, like they show in the ads? It's a busy world... Everyone's rushing somewhere...

AD: Perhaps this technology can help streamline their lives...

BC: But how will people even know what QR or AR is?

AD: This is more for the generation that’s attached to smartphones, breathes apps and cannot think of life without Facebook and Twitter...

BC: Technology is meant to make things simple - think of the effort required here....  Imagine reading an ad, grabbing your mobile, choosing the right app, switching to camera mode, scanning the graphic, wait for the info to download...

AD: Those who are interested will definitely check it out...

BC: But most people don't even know about QR and you say it's already on its way out?

AD: These are early days, though… You can’t write off technology…

BC: At least augmented reality will keep us busy enough not to worry about something more serious...

AD: What is that?

BC: The harsh reality.