Being the largest mobile operator in India, Airtel has offered free access to the world’s largest social networking website. Yes, as per the announcement today, Airtel customers can access the mobile version of the Facebook site without any data charges. If you have a limited GPRS Internet plan, then all fun that you gonna have on FaceBook from your Airtel mobile will not be counted in. Even any new mobile internet user can access the FaceBook site alone without any charges. Currently the Facebook site will be available in English and Hindi language. They have planned to launch Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam version of Facebook site from July 15.  But all these free access is only till August 31st of 2010. So what? full two months are ahead. Go..Make use of it.

Here are some information that you would need to activate and access this free Facebook service on your Airtel mobile.

• SMS ‘FACEBOOK’ to 54321
• Visit m.facebook.com from your mobile browser
• Enter your facebook login email and password
• Update your status as “Accessing Facebook for free from Airtel” (lol not necessarily – Update anything you like)

After some  pathetic situation, here is a good news for all the paypal Indian users. Now RBI has allowed Paypal to process all the remittance to India. Going back, a month ago, RBI has blocked Paypal to transfer funds to Indian bank accounts to the paypal users since they have not got approval to process cross border payments. Also “personal payment” option was not available since RBI has asked many questions about it to paypal. But now paypal has announced that issues on withdrawing paypal funds to Indian bank account has been sorted out and still they are working with RBI for the regulations. Being a paypal user I’ve also received an email from paypal today which is given below.

Below is the status of paypal india as per this changes.

1. Paypal will make a formal announcement on the “Bank Withdrawals” on march 3rd until then withdrawal request will not be processed.
2. Due to the RBI regulations everybody who wants to withdraw their paypal funds to Indian bank account or credit card should posses the “Export Code”. Please visit http://dgftcom.nic.in/ to more details about how to obtain the IEC code (Import Export Code). This code should be entered on paypal website to initiate the bank withdrawals from now.(Changes yet to happen)
3. Still the “Personal Payment” option to India will not be available as RBI has some questions about it and paypal is working on it.

Dear Praveen Kumar C,

We have been diligently working with the RBI and our business
partners to resume Indian bank withdrawals for the thousands
of Indian businesses who depend on PayPal to sell their goods
or services in the global marketplace.

Today, we are happy to announce that the RBI has allowed us
to continue local bank withdrawals for settlements for exports
of goods and services.  We are currently making changes to
comply with Indian regulations for settlements for exports of
goods and services, and we anticipate that, as of Wednesday,
March 3rd, customers will be able to use our
bank withdrawal service.  

As part of the changes, you will be required to fill out a
new field entitled 'Export Code' when you request a withdrawal.
This information is required under the current laws of India in
order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions.  

On Monday, March 1st, we will be back in touch with specific
instructions on how you can move your money into your bank account. 

Moving forward, the RBI has told us that PayPal needs specific
approvals to allow personal remittances to India, which we
currently do not have.  Until we get these approvals, personal
payments into India will remain suspended.  However, if you are
an exporter, you will continue to be able to use the PayPal
service for payments of goods and services.  In fact, with the
changes we are making to our system, PayPal is now set to be a
more powerful engine for exporters in India.  With purpose codes
for export transactions and FIRCs (Foreign Inward Remittance
Certificates), you should now be able to get the export
related benefits you seek. 

You can check the PayPal blog for additional updates.

www.thepaypalblog.com

We thank you for your business and for your patience during
the past few weeks.

Sincerely,

PayPal

Airtel launches India’s first mobile application store through Airtel App Central.

• Now, Airtel mobile customers can transform their basic phone into a Smart Phone by accessing over 1250 Apps across 25 categories for business, games, books, social networking and other needs.
• Easy single click purchase – with no credit card required – cost added to customer’s mobile bill or deducted from available talk-time
• Starting as low as Rs. 5, local and regional Apps for customers across length and breadth of country

How to access the Airtel App Store?

1. Visit Airtel Live portal from your browser and browse to the Airtel App Central section. OR
2. SMS “app” to 54321 (toll free) to receive the URL from your Airtel mobile.

There was a pleasant surprise waiting for me yesterday from Google. I’ve received a book post from Google  with the text “Special Offers For Adsense Publishers Inside!” on envelope cover. I was wondering what could be inside because just recently I’ve withdrawn my Google  Adsense earning and received a cheque from Google. So what could be inside now?

Wow! Google has sent me a Rs 2500 worth of adwords advertising credit. That is I can use the voucher code on a Google adwords account and advertise for upto Rs 2500 on Google. I’ve already received free adwords voucher from Google for being Adwords Qualified Individual and also sometimes for running Google Analytics account on emails. But this is the first time I am seeing Google is sending free adwords credit voucher through postal. I cannot say I am lucky coz I guess Google has sent this to all adsense publisher but I can say it is a new year gift from Google to me, is not it?

Last year twitter has stopped the SMS tweeting service in India and no mobile users from India could receive updates and tweet from their mobile via SMS. Now Airtel & Twitter have come back again with a tie up for SMS  tweeting. This service is exclusively for Airtel subscribers only. If you are new to twitter, it is a popular social networking and micro blogging service.

If you are an existing twitter user and have your airtel mobile number updated  on your twitter account then no changes required  for you. You will start receiving tweets via SMS to which you are already subscribed and you can tweet via SMS.  If you already have twitter account and want to update your Airtel mobile number, just  send “Start” to 5300. If you new to twitter and want to get started, send “signup” to 5300 from your airtel number.

Although this encourages the tweeting habit by making the things easier, this service is bit expensive. Airtel charges Rs 1 for this Value Added Service. Alternatively you can just go to the twitter.com directly and update your mobile device details after logging in to your account. Anyway receiving SMS updates should be free of cost and you can make use of it.