Here are some highlights in the last few weeks:

• Closing in on 1000 downloads
• Rated around 4 in the app store
• Over 20+ comments

We couldn’t have done this without the support of our users who have been patient with the issues & have been enthusiastic in their feedback. So a heartful thank you and a team salute to you all!

We are truly grateful to all our partners who have have supported us,  this is a testament to the relationship.

We have a long way before we go, a new release is just around the corner! Hang in there & help us spread the word!

Like us on Facebook, tweet your friends, get them to download the app – onward bound!

Team Taazza

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCTn4FljUQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Thanks for Techcrunch for the hat tip.

Here are some questions we asked you (our users) when we started this journey:

So, what’s happening with ‘Bird Flu’?
I am from Tirupati, I want local news!
So many news channels & Papers, I’m tired… Give me popular stories!
Are you out of your mind checking news every 10 minutes?? I check news once in 2 days… Gimme the gist!

Unfortunately (fortunately for us) these questions are still looking for answers. This is what drives us.

Someone of you must be asking how will it be different this time around? Well for one we will be more engaged and be a whole LOT more transparent! Feel free to leave your thoughts here or interact with us on twitter or our support page.

Hope to engage and hear from you all soon!

“Localisation, Indianisation: A slew of start-ups are targeting the local market, rather than catch-all US markets. They serve an established niche, and 2007 will see the likes of Picsquare (delivery of printed photos anywhere in India), HungryBangalore (restaurant booking/delivery across the city), Taazza (local news aggregator) and CarPool.in start making a difference in our lives, and hopefully sustain themselves while they’re at it!”

The article is here. Read on…

Technorati Tags:
media taazza

The entrepreneurs were from different fields – right from consumer hardware and Web 2.0 to Telecom and Mobile – and offered some pioneering and novel ideas. For instance, the Smart Headlamp Controller created by Smart Pundits, a firm based out of Bangalore, which intelligently adjusted itself according to oncoming traffic and external lighting. Or the website named taazza.com, an innovation in the online news space. Arjun Ram, one of the founders of the site explained to us, “Our site has features such as integrations with google maps, blogs and the wikipedia, which enables the user to enjoy an in-depth, content rich experience.” As was demonstrated to us, one of the features of the site enables the user to zoom into any local address from across the world and keep abreast of a story developing from it.

The article is here. Read on…

Technorati Tags: media, press

Technorati Teams With The Associated Press to Connect Bloggers To More Than 440 Newspapers Nationwide:

Technorati and the Associated Press this morning initiated a service to connect bloggers to more than 440 AP member newspapers nationwide.

When readers visit an AP member Web site that uses AP Hosted Custom News, they will see a module featuring the “Top Five Most Blogged About” AP articles right next to the article text, dynamically powered by Technorati. Additionally, when readers click on an AP article, Technorati will deliver “Who’s Blogging About” that article. Now, if you have commentary about an AP story, you can get mentioned in that module simply by linking to that AP news URL, akin to what you can do with Washington Post articles, Newsweek articles, Der Spiegel articles, and a host of other media partners that currently work with Technorati.

More people read blog than many newspapers:
“Barely four years after Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, a former American soldier who grew up in El Salvador and Chicago, started Daily Kos from his home in Berkeley, Calif., the site…

1/3 of referrals to washingtonpost.com from blogs:
In a signing of the growing power of blogs to drive traffic online, WashingtonPost.com Executive Editor Jim Brady says that one-third of the referrals washingtonpost.com gets now comes through blogs….

All these point to one phenomenon! Blogs! Not hosting them but integration with them. Another distinguishing factor of Taazza!
Lots of people have blogged about Taazza in the last few weeks, some of them very encouraging and some without merit. A detailed post with link love coming up!

Technorati Tags: Technorati, blogs

Newspaper circulation fell 2.6 percent in the six-month period ending in March, according to data released Monday, as more people turned to the Internet and other media outlets for news and information.

CNN, May 8th

People are moving online, its only a matter of time before they would want choice. Exciting times ahead, get ready for action!

A thought provoking article about online news papers by Andy Rutledge. He nails it here

Newspapers are in business to make money. Period. Sure, they’re in business to keep the world informed, but only as long as they’re profitable. Period. Paragraph.

If your business is concerned with providing text content to readers and attracting eyes to your advertisers’ ads, it makes sense to do it well – in whatever medium you’re operating. With very few exceptions, top-tier newspaper publishers are failing to present quality on the web. In fact, their newspapers are among the least readable publications available on the Web

Here are some of the problems that he points out

1. The number one problem with online newspapers is the presence of garish and stylistically inconsistent ads on the main page. Readers don’t visit these sites to be dazzled by frenetic colors and dizzying arrays of ads. Rather, they come to read news and be informed.
2. n almost ever case the layout and design of online newspapers sucks. Very few online newspapers employ intelligent use of grid, color and content hierarchy. Most have a flat aspect with no visual clues as to how the page and its information is supposed to be consumed.
3. With most online newspapers, the site navigation is horribly confusing and inconsistent. Furthermore, the link text on the page is often disguised, easily confused with non-link text, and provides little or no visual feedback when used.
4. Online newspapers often have questionable typography and paragraph configuration. Some (like The Wall Street Journal) have quite a horrible mishmash of font styles, coupled with poor font selection. Proper typography is more important in the low-resolution online environment than it is in the high-resolution environment of print.

Precisely, what we are talking about! Look out dinosours! Your free ride is coming to an end pretty soon!

So what is wrong with the existing sites you ask?

Are ya seriously asking this question. Well, lets entertain it nonetheless. Most of these sites have been having a free ride for a while, case in point Samachar

India made easy it claims! One can close a zillion popups and go on a easter egg hunt before one discovers news items. Same is true for other sites like Times Of India, Rediff, etc. They are all good content providers but extremely bad content enablers.

Innovation is non existent! They do a bad job adopting technologies, case in point RSS. Its taken more than a few years for these sites to adopt it. Its time for a fresh breeze!

Fair enough, what about the google’s and microsoft’s of the world, for instance google.news?

Good point. If you are comfortable just subscribing to RSS feeds from google news you should stick to them. Indians like us are opinionated, love to critic and enjoying voice their opinion.

So how are ya different?

We at Taazza believe that we can push the boundries of innovation with new technologies like tagging, mapping, memetracking and digg. There is significant gap between technology enablers and content providers within this space and we are working on exploiting the same to enable you the user.

Sounds like fun, When will I bet able to get my hands on this stuff?

We are working extremely hard to get the technology out to you. At the moment we are targeting Spring 2006.

Is there any way I get can previews of whats to come?

Please subscribe to this blog and sign up for updates. We hope to send out invites to a select few and solicit feedback.

We are very excited to launch soon! Stay tuned. Meanwhile please feel free to leave your comments!

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