Two Indian students develop Apple's top paid app !!!!!

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malhotraraul

malhotraraul

Galvanizer
Thursday, 03 June 2010, 08:33 IST

Bangalore: Two Indian born Stanford graduate students have created a $3.99 application in the iPad. It is the top paid app in the entire iPad section of the App Store.The Pulse Reader app in the iPad was developed by Akshay Kothari (23) and Ankit Gupta (22) at the Institute of Design of Stanford University.

Kothari said the project was inspired by 'a personal frustration at the whole news reading experience' on mobile devices. The stylish and easy to use news aggregator service was developed in the Launch Pad class, where the budding entrepreneurs are given an opportunity to develop and introduce a product in just ten weeks.

Pulse is a clean and visual news aggregator and the reader takes up to 20 news sources that can be followed and a visual mosaic of the news can be created. The article can be tapped and a clean rendered view of the news story can be presented. The app allows users to see text-only versions of articles, which are basically cleaned-up versions of a news site's RSS feeds, or to see the full articles as they are presented on the Web. It also lets sharing articles through Twitter and Facebook by passing the individual sharing tools presented by each news site.

News organizations are yet to get accustomed to iPad strategies but are quite hopeful about the success of pulse. "You absolutely do not have to give away something great for free," said Michael Dearing, a former eBay executive who is a teacher of the Launch Pad class. "If you build something great, people will pay you for it," added Dearing.

Nearly 15,000 people have downloaded this app and it has generated more than $40,000 in revenue, taking into account Apple's 30 percent cut. Akshay and Ankit have created a company, Alphonso Labs, and are now working on versions of the app for other devices, as well as talking to potential investors.

SOURCE
 
1/6th of all in the world are indians, so this like a small needle is a large hay-rack... should be more of like this, rather than one news six months
 
The Pulse Reader app in the iPad was developed by Akshay Kothari (23) and Ankit Gupta (22) at the Institute of Design of Stanford University.
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Would have preferred to read....

The Pulse Reader app in the iPad was developed by Akshay Kothari (23) and Ankit Gupta (22) at "x or y Indian" University.
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So Indians can get the job done, why are they not doing it more here than abroad ???
 
blr_p said:
Would have preferred to read....

So Indians can get the job done, why are they not doing it more here than abroad ???
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Totally agree! People here take but never give back
 
I did not mean to say that, i meant when will they start doing this here instead of having to go abroad to do it.
 
Good luck to the new entrepreneurs.Softwares churning out of the Indian shores as a product of their own is rare indeed.Good that atleast some are moving away from the Outsourcing world to the product development.
 
thetoxicmind said:
Because they have *comparatively* better *resources* there? :ashamed:
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That's the thing, what these guys have done is written a program, lots of ppl here that can do that. These guys did not need any venture capital to do it.

What's unique here is the idea behind the game. That's the bit we don't have just yet. An understanding of other cultures that would allow games such as these to work internationally instead of only domestically. To make products that could sell better (or as well) abroad than at home.

We always love to say 'of-indian-orgin' but these kids are US citizens and its Stanford that gets the credit for their work.
 
blr_p said:
We always love to say 'of-indian-orgin' but these kids are US citizens and its Stanford that gets the credit for their work.
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Well they may not exactly be US citizens but just students at Stanford, but I do hate how our media projects news as if India has achieved greatness when ever someone who has the remotest ties to India does something great in a foreign country. Even if the person in question is the great grandson of an Indian who permanently migrated to another country and married a foreigner, Indians feel that any great accomplishment of his brings credit to our country and we should feel proud about it. Funnily enough when someone of Indian origin gets famous for the wrong reasons, we won't even hear about it or at the best there would be least mention of anything that ties him to India.

Personally I feel this is a very major problem with our country. We always blame others for our deficiencies and we like to take credit for great things accomplished by people who have anything remote to do with our country.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
Well they may not exactly be US citizens but just students at Stanford, but I do hate how our media projects news as if India has achieved greatness when ever someone who has the remotest ties to India does something great in a foreign country. Even if the person in question is the great grandson of an Indian who permanently migrated to another country and married a foreigner, Indians feel that any great accomplishment of his brings credit to our country and we should feel proud about it. Funnily enough when someone of Indian origin gets famous for the wrong reasons, we won't even hear about it or at the best there would be least mention of anything that ties him to India.

Personally I feel this is a very major problem with our country. We always blame others for our deficiencies and we like to take credit for great things accomplished by people who have anything remote to do with our country.
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+1....Agree :).
 
blueren said:
Totally agree! People here take but never give back
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I disagree. The intellect in India does give back to the country provided the country gives them a chance to do so. They just need the right atmosphere and opportunity to do so. A number of great research/projects takes place at IIT's and IIIT's just as in foreign universities. Unfortunately bureaucracy is a great hurdle to utilization of intellect in our country. So, you don't see the cream of the country in organizations like ISRO or DRDO where you are tied down heavily by bureaucracy even if you are ready to compromise on compensation.
 
blr_p said:
We always love to say 'of-indian-orgin' but these kids are US citizens and its Stanford that gets the credit for their work.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. The way India tries to share the limelight of PIO is pathetic.Most of the "Indians" getting accolades in the Indian media had to leave India to realise their potential. Most Indians doing good in India do it either in spite of India or are a very principled/ patriotic lot, giving up on fat pay packages/ perks and a whole lot more. A thousand cheers to them.
 
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