RouteGuru.com – landmark based textual driving directions
I have a phobia – driving to a meeting to an unknown place, alone! The very thought of it freaks me out and the thought could have similar effects on anyone who is to drive in a city like New Delhi and transiting between Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and rest of Delhi/NCR. One wrong turn and you’re astrayed to a point of complete moral distortion because the next corrective turn on the route would either be hard to spot or 5 km away and then you’re already late for the meeting.
But, you know what, people like me could use some help from RouteGuru.com, a website that offers driving directions in text format with instructions based on landmarks on the route. Yet better, they also show an approximate auto rickshaw (taxi) fare for the route.
What I like about the website
- The concept itself because being able to get route hints in text format alongwith landmark indications is unique.
- Getting routes and directions is easy. Just enter the starting and end point of your journey in the Delhi/NCR region and poof! You get directions with instructions to take right/left turns from landmarks such as roads, lanes, fly-overs, famous buildings etc.
- Even when there are no labels or names available for streets or lanes, the service will give landmark based route hints in order to guide you through your journey.
The website has an easy to use interface and easy to understand usability instructions.
But what excites more is that as a Delhiite you won’t have to argue with autowalaa’s for the fare or when they take spurious routes to get a higher fare. Before entering the auto you would know the landmarks on the route and you would know if the driver takes you from a dubious route.
Plus you also get the route on the map. These guys have done a splendid job by mashing up their text info with Google Maps via the map API provided by Google.
The map view of the route gives a further clarity on the route. You can also take a print out of the directions.
Even better, this service is available on WAP as well as SMS. For the WAP version of RouteGuru you need to access http://www.routeguru.com/m
To avail this service on SMS you have to send “rg starting point to destination“ to 56767 and you’ll get the directions in text alongwith the auto fare for that route.
But the service is available in India only and that too for the National Capital Region of Delhi. Hope they’ll expand to more cities and eventually on a global scale.
What I miss in the product
- I wish this could be a national and an international service soon.
- The text directions are based on the GIS data provided by an external source (Eicher Good Earth) and hence the directions contain the formal names of roads, structures and buildings. It could be better if the native or local names of roads and buildings could be provided.
- There are certain routes I or anyone else would take for some destinations that an algorithm might not be able to analyse. There should have been an option for user generated content (UGC) so that people could add their favourite routes and help other people know the alternate short-cut routes. With UGC enabled people would also add the native names of roads and places. For instance Ring Road in New Delhi is formally known as Mahatma Gandhi Marg, did you know that?
- Just one small thing that the WAP site address should have been m.routeguru.com since a dot (.) is easier to type than slashes (/) on a mobile phone.
I would still recommend this site to all Delhiites and people in other cities when this service launches in their city. FYI, RouteGuru is a Delhi-based startup and they intend to launch in different cities very soon. Their innovation in the GIS space, no doubt, is competent with map based navigation systems and all in all its an easy to access service for anyone who is not-so-good with finding routes.
This curry is hot but still being cooked.
Exit Rate vs Bounce Rate – Web Analytics Metric Mystery
The terminology used in Web Analytics tools has always been haunting because every tool has it’s own meaning and context for a term. Two of such terms are Exit Rate and Bounce Rate which are mixed with each other often. Let’s see why.
Google Analytics’s blunder with Exit Rate
Out of all the metrics Exit Rate and Bounce Rate are often confused with each other whereas the two are discrete and therefore, should never be mixed. Although, both of them are used to gauge efficiency of a web page, yet they are different.
Google Analytics too, has messed up with Exit Rate and reports it in a similar way as the Bounce Rate and that is where the confusion grows from. Google Analytics actually shows a “site wide average” of Exit Rate if you go to Top Content report, which is a blunder. How can a site have an average exit rate? more on this after the following explanation…
What is Exit Rate?
It is the percentage of visitors exiting or leaving your site from a particular page on your site. Exit rate is calculated for every page separately because it is the property of an individual page independent of any other page on the site.
Now the most haunting question with Exit Rate is, Percentage of which type of visitors? Because ‘visitors’ in the above definition can have two meanings and it leads to two different interpretation of Exit Rate.
1. When ‘visitors’ means the number of visitors on a page then the exit rate indicates the efficiency of that page. If a page has a high exit rate then you should cross check whether it should have an Exit Rate that high. For instance, your home page should have a minimal exit rate and all your “thankyou” pages or internal pages should have a higher exit rate. So, if a page has a high exit rate then there could be a problem with the content, usability, navigation etc.
2. When ‘visitors’ means the total number of visitors on the site then the exit rate indicates the percentage of your site’s total visitors who left your from a particular page. This will help you recognize exit points or leakage of your website. In such a scenario exit rate of all the pages combined should add up to 100%, because it has to be as 100% of your visitors will leave/exit your site. Some pages will have a higher exit rate than others. In an ideal scenario, a “thank you for buying from us” page will have a higher exit rate than the “welcome to our site” page (home page in other words).
What is Bounce Rate?
It is the percentage of visitors who exit your site from the landing page itself without navigating any further. High bounce rate on a page means that it is highly inefficient in appealing visitors to use your site.
Bounce Rate of all your web pages combined gives a “site-wide average bounce rate” which indicates the overall efficiency of your website (all webpages collectively).
… Google’s blunder continued
Exit Rate cannot be averaged on a site-wide scale; it can only be summed up to 100% because all your visitors will exit your site.
Google Analytics compares the number of exits from a page with the number of visits on that page to determine the Exit Rate of that page, which is fine but they don’t need to give a site avg. for this metric.
Top Exit Pages
Top Content
Now, is it not a major blunder on Google Analytics? If your view for the above differs, do let me know!
The curry is still Hot!
Banking Sector Dwindles; Internet Industry for the Rescue
The economic slash down in the US has serpented into India as well. Banks in India have been going through a lot ever since the government declared an inflation of 11%. With high inflation rates and a trough in Indian economy the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to release financial grants to various banks. Earlier, a few days ago, RBI promised a grant of Rs.1500 crores of relief for the inflation-hit agricultural sector.
Similar steps might as well be followed in US and across the globe. Bank guarantees and down-sizing is also expected to appear in the near future.
PPTized curry:
How can Internet and IT industry help the Banking sector?
With IT and ITES sector feeling the blow of the crisis in US there is little that IT companies in India can do to sustain revenues if they do not resort to domestic opportunities and those in the growing economies. Indian banking sector for instance is one such opportunity – how?
In a time of crisis, cutting down overheads and costs is on the “to do list” of every bank. Internet industry can definitely help, it is only that banks will have to realise the true power of Internet.
How have Indian banks employed the Internet
- Net Banking / e-Banking / Online Banking
- Statements / Transactions Summary
- Inter Branch Funds Transfer (all branches not e-banking enabled)
- Inter Bank Funds Transfer (all banks not enabled with this service)
- Bills Payment – Phone & Electricity
- Lead Generation for Deposits, Investment Plans, Credit Cards
- Marketing, Advertising, Brand Building and Lead Generation
That is pretty much of it and I would say that’s not the best monetisation on a bank’s website. I’ll tell you why, because in India net banking is one of the most popular activities on the Internet. According to Alexa, the list of 100 most popular websites in India has 4 websites that are of top most banks in India.
- www.icicibank.com – Rank 27, ICICI Bank
- www.hdfcbank.com – Rank 34, HDFC Bank
- www.onlinesbi.com – Rank 98, State Bank of India
- www.citibank.co.in – Rank 100, Citi Bank
And these portals are only paying costs to maintain their portals, servers, IT staff to support net banking for their customers. However, online banking still saves a lot of costs and I wonder that could have been the main reason why Indian banks considered moving online.
Now, that these banks have so much of traffic and what do visitors do? They transact, transfer funds, pay e-checks, fill a lead form for a loans, insurance or an investment plan. Why let go such visitors who are thinking nothing but money and not just money; flowing money!
How to monetise such a high-quality traffic? What can Banks do?
1. Let them shop: Isn’t this like a “no brainer”? When a customer is on a bank’s website he is either thinking of multiplying his money or to safeguard his money. He also transacts by making online payments, trading forex, stocks and receiving funds.
Well thats it! This customer is more than comfortable playing with his money on his bank’s website.
Now if the bank could provide a great deals on daily need products like grocery, books, gadgets etc. why would I even bother going to eBay or any online store and spending hours on bidding and comparing prices?
A grocery deal with a retail chain, books from a nation wide supplier, same thing for gadgets and reward points on every purchase. No consumer can resist a Discount + Reward Points deal. Good deals will attract more customers as well.
There is huge amount of money that can be made out of this idea for any bank since there is no product display cost involved; only order delivery costs and that can be bared by the supplier and the bank could earn a commission.
2. Payment gateway give-away: I don’t know why services like Paypal or Google Checkout exist when banks handle all the transactions. Why can’t an online merchant just have a free payment plugin for his website powered by his bank? The bank could charge a small %age on every transaction.
3. Customer support on the Internet: Every bank can offer customer support over the Internet. Millions of people use voice-chat enabled Instant Messengers. Does that ring a bell?
For banks – Go have your bank’s plugin hard coded into Yahoo Messenger for instance. Yahoo might even pay you for that because that will lead to more people using their service. They’ll be able to make more money from ads and its a great brand building exercise for them anyway.
Your customers will now have a free mode to reach you. No expensive telecom equipment, end to [your call is valuable to us, please stay on the line] bull shit for customers (everyone hates to wait), cost per seat = salary of support executive + electricity. There is a lot more to it.
4. Go Green: That’s the cost saving mantra for today world wide. Use energy efficient web servers, promote paperless banking because we don’t need to sign any papers by hand these days; we have digital signatures available. They can cost around Rs.2000 but the bank can provide that to their customers for FREE. I am sure you’ll save more than that by resorting to paperless banking.
5. Mobile / Phone Banking for rural areas: Give away mobile phones for FREE to rural customers. The present day Mobile banking solutions mean just a few button clicks. Mobile users in India are 5 times more than the number of Internet users – 300 million mobile subscribers in 2008.
Other than just banking, the customers will also use those phones for communication and you could easily have a share in that revenue to cover for costs and overheads.
6. Let Debit Cards go online: Most of the Indian online stores don’t accept debit cards. I wonder why?
The number of debit card holders is 10 times more than that of credit card holders in India. Let us use debit cards for online shopping atleast where we can pay in the Indian currency. No one would mind paying a small convenience fee as low as Rs.10 per transaction. Lets say, the number of daily online purchases in India is 1,00,000 and that means Rs.10,00,000 can be made everyday and that is Rs.36 crores to be made every year. Actual figures are a lot more than that!
Loads of good opportunities for IT companies in India to help banks in India and globally.
Phew! I am done cooking this curry and served it hot. Let’s see how many takers are there.
Google Analytics launch a new look
Now Google Analytics will be seen with a new look of the interface. The dashboard and rest of the sections now look more neater and softer with rounded corners and soothing shades of colors. Now there is a lesser probability of you being lost with the new interface.
Navigation and Accessibility is easier
The left navigation panel is now highlighted better for ease of use of the tools.
Grouping the tools, settings and resources in separate blocks has made it easier to locate analytics tools in the block with whote background.
Also, notice the rounded corner of the blocks and demarcation between different type of data (visitors, traffic sources, content and goals).
The icons and labels for data types are also bigger for better visibility and spotability.
Similar blocks can be seen in the right data panel. The headings have are now on a grey background with concise information and less text.
e.g. earlier the heading in Visitors Overview reads something like 469 visited this site and other details like visits, unique visitors, page views etc. can be seen below with bigger fonts to enhance usability and readability. Official post from Google Analytics on this new touch up can be found here.
All in all, good exercise conducted by Google to make there analytics tool more usable and less confusing. Now, only if they could fix various discrepancies that show-up in data and enhance the accuracy of Google Analytics.
the curry is hot!
ApnaBill.com – recharge vouchers for your Mobile Phone and DTH [INDIA]
I always wondered why do I have to leave office or even the comfort of my bed at home to get a recharge voucher for my mobile? Because I just had to in order to be contactable on my mobile phone. And then repeating it every 15-20 days to either get a top up or a monthly recharge coupon. It was only until I discovered ApnaBill.com – I fell in love the very first time I used the service.
On ApnaBill you can buy recharge coupons of various type and denominations online without having to pay any extra fee. Before this I have only used the top up recharge service that is integrated with my ICICI Netbanking account. It is equally easy to purchase a top up from there and it automatically gets topped up. But the ICICI prepaid top up is available for select mobile operators and in select cities.
What I liked about this website:
- The product itself – I was so sold on the idea of being able buy a mobile recharge coupon online.
- The website is easy to use.
- Login / Signup is optional
- Select your service provider whether Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Tata Indicom or any other listed.
- Select the type of coupon you want to purchase
- Click the purchase button, proceed to payment via NetBanking or Credit Card
- You receive the RECHARGE CODE on your phone via SMS, on your email and you can also note it down.
- Use the code you received and wooop you’re done recharging your phone / DTH.
- Payment process is easy, seamless and has a lot of payment options including Net Banking Gateways, ITZ Cash and Credit Cards powered by Paysignet.
- The effort these guys have put in consolidating mobile and telecom operators in India across almost all major cities. They’re also providing recharge coupons for DTH operators online.
What I miss on the website:
- Coupons do not have description more than whether it is a monthly validity voucher, a top up voucher, special tariff voucher and the price. There should be a description about the special call rates and other features.
- Post paid bill payment. This is something they’ve promised and would be there soon.
- The customer support response time is long. When online purchase is concerned the customer support should be prompt. However, they’re still a startup and in early stages of operation but even an email response should not take more than an hour.
- If my phone could get recharged on validity or topped up by itself upon payment.i.e without me having to dial my service provider to enter the RECHARGE CODE, just like it happens with ICICI netbanking.
Despite a few deficiencies on ApnaBill.com, I would still reccommend it to everyone who wants a prepaid recharge coupon for their mobile phones. After all, it is far better better than running to the market everytime you need a recharge.
This curry is hot but still being cooked!
