April 16, 2006

Content Middle Men

In Delhi's Karol Bagh Market 100+ Rupees (2+ Euro) will buy you as much content as you can fit on a 512 MB memory card. Widely available digital contents includes the usual suspects: ring tones in various formats; wallpapers; themes; applications; games - including Series 60 ports of many popular Nintendo ES games; Hindi pop videos; and a couple of full length Hindi movies. Given that most of this content is available somewhere online, its interesting to note the presence of someone who takes the time to find and package the material for less networked (or less network-motivated) consumers.

Posted by Jan at 08:34 PM | Comments (0)

July 03, 2005

Repair Culture, India

On the last night of my most recent trip to India spent an evening trying to understand India's informal mobile phone repair culture by visiting Karol Bagh Market. Throw in the noise, heat and smells of Delhi and you already have a rich consumer experience.

As in China many of the mobile phone shops and street kiosks offer mobile phone repair service. Many of these guys can strip and rebuild a mobile phone in minutes. How do these kind of services affect the mobile phone user experience? What happens when everyone has affordable access to these kind of services?

Side-note: a lot of the hyperbole surrounding western hacker culture makes me smile compared to what these guys are doing day in day out.

Posted by Jan at 09:28 AM | Comments (6)

June 01, 2005

Mobility Touch / Magic Touch

Not just the NFC guys pushing Magic Touch. Photo from Karol Bagh market in Delhi.

Posted by Jan at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)