Not to say that I wasnt happy with the iPad, but even Rakhi Sawant would realize that its not technically the most optimal product! In this size (and coming from Apple), one could have expected -
a full-size keyboard, USB ports, Flash support, in-built drive, mouse support, webcam etc etc
Am so glad the iPad Pro has been launched!
I am tempted to say this is good news for SecondShaadi, but honestly, if the divorce was caused due to FB, there was a case for it right from the start…! FB would only be an excuse…not the cause…!
move beyond image panorama….video panorama is here..!!
Yellowbird has created a technology that captures video in a 360 degree format. Its awesome..because this is the closest one can get to being there and yet not being there…
Watch the video to experience what they have made.
The future excites me like anything…!
And this is the battle of the new age, Ladies and Gentlemen! Google vs. Newspaper (and not yet Rupert dude!)
So it all started with Rupert suggesting that he will (or can, or whatever) block Newscorp Sites from being part of Google. Basically, stop Google from indexing them and thus not showing them in search result. Because Google friggin hasnt made all that content, which has supported the lives of random journalists (only half of whom are actually needed to write that shit!) and so doesnt have any reason why it should show all that content when being searched for.
So Eric, comes back with a stellar response! If not for the battle, the sheer honesty and clarity in his thoughts makes it for a fantastic read
With dwindling revenue and diminished resources, frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame. Much of their anger is currently directed at Google, whom many executives view as getting all the benefit from the business relationship without giving much in return. The facts, I believe, suggest otherwise.
Google is a great source of promotion. We send online news publishers a billion clicks a month from Google News and more than three billion extra visits from our other services, such as Web Search and iGoogle. That is 100,000 opportunities a minute to win loyal readers and generate revenue—for free. In terms of copyright, another bone of contention, we only show a headline and a couple of lines from each story. If readers want to read on they have to click through to the newspaper’s Web site. (The exception are stories we host through a licensing agreement with news services.) And if they wish, publishers can remove their content from our search index, or from Google News.
t’s understandable to look to find someone else to blame. But as Rupert Murdoch has said, it is complacency caused by past monopolies, not technology, that has been the real threat to the news industry.
Brilliant!!
Not that we didn’t know it…but its fascinating…and equally scary…to see how much of data has google stored through that one single username password of yours..! Gmail, Orkut, Reader, Search, Youtube, Alerts, GTalk…we dont realize how much of time we spend on Google products everyday and how all of those actions are being stored
Google released its DashBoard feature this week, which helps users with Google accounts to shit in their pants looking at the amount of information that lies with the company.
For starters, I have:
saved in my GMail account!!! Holy friggin shit…!
And oh…in the month of October, i executed more than 10,700 google search queries…ALL of which are stored…!
It is scary…and also jaw-dropping…to realize that a single entity knows so much about possibly every young individual in this world!! EVERYTHING!
Phew!
Am not surprised at this statistic…! Released by Comscore this Wednesday, the “Natural Born Clickers” research has some rather interesting revelations about the Internet and especially the clicks happening all across!
While the statistics are only regarding image ads (and not search ads, which will surely throw up numbers different, maybe drastically different), it still is fascinating to think how the industry today is so centered around clicks and you friggin find out that only 8% of the audience you are catering to, is doing most of the talking! As rightly questioned in the report too…what about the remaining audience, who rarely click, but are still surfing the net and spending a whole lot of time on it.
I realize that there will always be this section which somehow adjusts to the ads around them. They ‘zone off’ the ads! I belong to that category…as long as the ad is advertising for something else but ’showing’ something else (if you know what I mean!). But there will be a section of the population, and I reckon a good share, that will see the ad but never click…for whatever reason. But the ad has surely had some effect on them…however minuscule in nature! How do you quantify that!
Google ofcourse has a remedy, as is does for a whole lot of things in this world except for premature ejaculation! They recently released the “View Through” conversions on the Google Banner network (not yet for text ads). Basically works through a cookie for a period of 30 days…so if I have seen an ad and then ultimately do make a conversion sometime later within 30 days…its counted as happening because of the ad!
Not 100% perfect….one can guess multiple flaws in this metric…but a start nonetheless.
In the Internet space, unlike offline media, there is so much of stuff happening, fighting for the user attention. And the switching costs for the user are zero, almost always, unless playing Farmville on FB! So I always thought that clicks is a good way of measuring intent! Definitely better than impressions! But then if clicks are also not working (in the sense, you are eliminating a huge chunk of the audience), what would be a good way to measure ad effectiveness? And thereby cost it?
What would it be?
Unfortunately, it isn’t straightforward if you wish to upgrade to Windows 7, and are currently running on Windows XP (which almost the entire world is!). The biggest difference (from a Windows Vista user currently) being that all your programs will have to be re-installed! Yup…all…! Thats your Office, iTunes, Picasa, GTalk, Skype…everything…!!
Thats quite a pain…and unfortunately no way to get out of it.
However, Windows has been kind enough to come up a step-by-step tutorial to help current XP users migrate to Windows 7. It basically uses the Windows Easy Transfer, which creates a backup of all your files and settings (kind of the File and Settings Transfer Wizard, but this time compatible with Windows 7).
Here is the step-by-step tutorial (Right Click and Save-Link-As)
Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7
The web-version of the tutorial can be found here
IF this is true…this has got to be the sexiest thing ever!
PhotoSketch: Internet Image Montage from tao chen on Vimeo.
We present a system that composes a realistic picture from a simple
freehand sketch annotated with text labels. The composed picture
is generated by seamlessly stitching several photographs in agreement
with the sketch and text labels; these are found by searching
the Internet. Although online image search generates many inappropriate
results, our system is able to automatically select suitable
photographs to generate a high quality composition, using a filtering
scheme to exclude undesirable images. We also provide a novel
image blending algorithm to allow seamless image composition.
Each blending result is given a numeric score, allowing us to find
an optimal combination of discovered images. Experimental results
show the method is very successful; we also evaluate our system using
the results from two user studies.
Flashback 2003! A concept named Gmail had launched and I was a strong Hotmail follower back then. But then, remember that those were days when there was no facebook, orkut, twitter and Mark Zuckerberg was still under-age (almost)!
So moving email addresses was no big deal. It just meant an auto forward and it wasnt that I had some 1,000 friends that I had to update on my email change!
So I moved…to GMail (thank god for that!). And within some 3-4 months of use…I noticed something. There were some 4 free invites in my accounts, for the service (it was, for the longest time ever, an invitation-only service!)
As a kind gesture, I sent one to a friend of mine at MSU, only to be told later that he has auctioned that invite for a crazy USD 80!! on ebay!! holy friggin shit…!
Well…I am still friends with that guy (infact I gave him another invite…after what he did…what was I thinking!) and auctioned one more for 45 dollars myself! :)
And today…I smile and see the same happening to Google Wave – its up for sale on ebay! :)
for those clueless about Google Wave, here is what you need to see
its human tendency to consider things that are free, as fishy!
Consider yourself..in normal life. While almost all of us would jump in joy if someone offered their services free…would we also not have that edgy feeling “why would they do it for free…whats the fine print”. Cynicism is fundamental to the human nature
Yet…its fascinating how the same individual doesn’t blink an eyelid when services are offered for free on the Internet. Its the done thing…everything on the Internet is FREE. Google is…facebook is…twitter is (well almost!)…! People would much rather go for free services on the Internet than pay for stuff…! As if suddenly, FREE on the Internet is not fishy anymore.
They are not entirely wrong. There are several ‘brands’ that offer themselves free on the Internet. Brands that people would trust and have trusted. So if an NYTimes or a ToI offers its news for free…people dont consider it fishy. Its not as if ToI would give stale (or worse still, untrue) news for free members and the ‘real’ news for paid members. It cant.
But personally…I treat ‘Paid’ as a form of commitment. Think about it…SecondShaadi can also be a free service. But would it be a better one at that, if free? Leave aside the revenue problem…the bigger problem will be the nuisance that will get created because of this “free” service. Across fake profiles, spam profiles, spam forums and worse troubled genuine members.
So payments is a form of self selection. The system is selecting the genuine ones from the non-genuine ones. Not that all free members are not genuine…maybe some never really feel the need to pay because of several reasons (too expensive, no matching profiles etc). But the fact that you have paid…has to reflect genuineness.
Even that is not an easy step. Pricing the service too low can also mean the same problems as that of free services. But second guessing what’s the users threshold of “just perfectly priced that I can actually pay and yet not be genuine” is very tricky!
Only last week, we had a member pay up to upgrade her membership on SS. It became obvious in a day that she meant trouble. Spamming! So clearly even out highest priced product was worth it for her to upgrade and spam. She saw value even in that amount! Could we have guessed that..! No..!
Seth Godin has this excellent piece on the same issue. He suggests that money creates a sort of friction that is important for some services. Because it reflects commitment! Recommended read
This sums it up – Commitment slows things down in the short run, but ultimately aligns interests.
or maybe…there is someone who wants them to…get married!
Matrimonial sites comprised the highest share of online advertising between June-August 2009! Followed by Travel and Education
SecondShaadi has a big(!) role to play in this :)
I am a sucker for high quality customer service. And I am an Internet guy…! This combination makes me realize (not necessarily before anyone else) that in the world of Internet, customer service acquires a whole new meaning.
Recall the days when companies had a customer service number (not even toll-free) that was rarely attended to, or even if it was, would sound as if it was a favor? Remember how in those days one didn’t really have any outlet to crib about companies that were indifferent to their customers? Recall the times when you were put on an “your call is important to us. Please wait for the next 39 minutes because..really..do you have a choice?” hold!
Not anymore. The Internet has allowed people to come together, share their crib…and make companies respond to their customers in a never before manner. Yah…forget the fact that some companies still dont…and I honestly dont know what they are upto. But most discerning companies today are responding to customer grievances, which mostly get solved by a simple apology and the display of an effort not to repeat the situation again, with any other customer.
Which scares me…because I am now handling both sides of the coin. At one hand I continue to be a customer…and I cant even begin to recount how often I have written to the CEOs of corporates (and big ones huh…Jet, Maruti, Toshiba, Jumeirah, Starwood at last count!) and actually got them to move their ass…and on the other side…I am today a service provider too. Through Accentium, we are serving a large section of the Indian Internet population and there are bound to be mistakes we make. And there are bound to be grievances that customers raise.
I shudder to think of times when our customers get together and complain about our products. I hate to think of such a possibility…but I am guessing it happens. Which always keeps us on our toes. We, on a normal day, recieve anywhere between 5-10 customer emails about our services. Some are happy news (we received 2 success stories for SecondShaadi yesterday!!)…some are general emails (I need to change my listing. How do I do that)…and some are feedback mails…good rarely..bad mostly…(why is this not working…why are you sending me random profiles when I asked for only this this this)
All of this gives us immense insight into how our customers operate. And we make it a point to respond to all…without fail…such emails. Because we want them to know that we care…and while we have done what we thought was best for you all…but to really make us the best…we need your feedback. We need to know what are we doing wrong..more than the right.
I personally treasure these emails. Because I know that most customers are not even bothered about sending in an email. They will simply move on…most probably…to our competitor…and its scary to think how many would have. So such emails are a fantastic find..because they take the pains to give me feedback. And we try to hold on to them as much as we can.
And angry customers are really really bad people…! go to this site Consumer Complaints. It is nothing but thousands of customer complaining…! Nothing else..! There are no resolutions to these complaints in an official manner (the only way is if the companies are actually tracking the posts there…but are they)…! But look at its power. You search for “HDFC netbanking” and complaints from the site are there on Page1. Search for “Airtel Prepaid” and same result…search for “online sbi” and same result.
Thats the power of the site. Some..atleast some…potential customers when searching for these queries will catch the complaints too. Imagine…the corporate website is the first result and the complaints is right there on the same page! The company has friggin spent their life building that brand and a single customer’s complaint has now come at the same level. Thats the power of the Internet!
I love the openness of the Internet. I love the fact that it dissolves boundaries and it creates communities…where people can share! Ironically…these are the same things that makes me scared now.
Addition
Matt Cutts recently blogged about his bad experience with US Airways. Imagine how powerful that is. He could have simply written to the CEO of US Airways…am sure he can figure that much out. But he close to blog instead! Turning the entire world into a community…of people complaining about similar experience. You have to read the comments on the post…! Whats worse is that not even a single comment seems to be from someone at US Airways, trying to offer an apology…or atleast an explanation! Sad!
who would have thought…but this is true
this is an ad, from google…in a Nagpur Daily!
just goes to show how much MNCs have to change themselves…when they move to markets so very different from their own parent markets! reminds me of how India was the first country where McDonald’s started home delivery, and started a pure vegetarian outlet!
there is no…and i mean NO better use of one’s time then to read the comments below every rediff article…! they not only stamp my blindfolded belief that we Indians have the most time in this world to simply do nothing….it also helps one to capture the utter stupidity of a certain section of the society…
In a recent article on “College girls in Kanpur react against jeans ban” (which btw was another reflection of the f***ed up mental state of some of us…i meant the ban..not the reaction), here is a sample of a comment by a dude who calls himself saneindian!
| Following Bans should be enforced 1) Ban women from wearing Jewelry as it might attract theives. 2) Ban women from wearing saree as it can reveal some parts of the body which are not visible through salwar kameez 3)Ban women from wearing make up. Unwanted attention again. 4) Ban women from driving bikes. 5) Ban women from going out with strangers 6) Ban women from venturing out after 9PM. This will ensure that women will be safe and secure. *PS – Implement above and Taliban will be proud of India and their backward baboon mentaility. |
I love points 2 and 3 above..! I wonder what his mum and wife have to say to this…but imagine a scene in the evening, right before saneindian and his wife are to leave for his best friend’s wedding party…
saneindian: babes…did i tell you i got this really cool tatoo this morning, after bunking work…! have a look
saneindian wife: oh wow…show show…ummm…what is it…i cant figure out…
saneindian: u bloody dumbass woman…you are looking at it the other way round…here…let me show you the right way…huh…huh…huh??? like it no…??
saneindian wife: omg…what are these?
saneindian: samantha fox’s tits! but you wont even know who samantha fox is…forget it…!
saneindian wife: chee chee chee…yeh sab aapko shobha thodi deta hain…
saneindian: yah whatever…! ok..lets leave, we are getting late. have you ironed my shirt?
saneindian wife: yah…given it for ironing..and guess what…i am wearing that sexy white saree…
saneindia: WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT????? F***ING HELLL…YOU BLOODY WEARING A SAREE…who do you think you are…samantha fox…????????
whats even better than this fantabulous comment is the one right after…this time by Nikhil Arora who is clearly not best friends with saneindian…
| Little is better I fully suggest that the dress code for girls should be minis and tank tops. Smaller is better… As we are aping West in every frontier… why not in dress codes? So just like the music videos it would be like Riverdale… girls coming in the miniest skirts and shortest shorts and the smallest tops… Girls would really appreciate my idea… Hopefully most modern Indian guys would just swallow my idea.. for the beautiful eye-concotion… Wont it be fun?? |
you bet it will be fun…even more fun when saneindian comes around to your place and beats the shit out of you while 213 onlookers gather and enjoy the show…
rediff rocks…!
TechCrunch had an interesting article today on the most common facebook names.
Now, its a given fact that facebook is not the most promiment social networks in India…because unlike orkut…stricking a conversation with random people is much harder than simply going to orkut and suggesting…”hi sweetie…i want to make friendships with you…do you me???”! And india is all about randomness…its unbelievable how much time people have here…! I can bet my iphone on the fact that the best business in this country is to supply popcorn and pepsi to onlookers after an accident has taken place…or better still…if some equally random people are having a fight on the streets…
anyways…so back to the most common facebook names. FB is big in the US…so naturally you would expect the johns and johhnys and michaels to rule this list. So I couldnt see any Indian name in the 100 most common first names on facebook
the last name list though was interesting…! My fellow indians…hold your breath…cause this list did have Indian last names..! not one…but several…! HOWEVER, the one topping list is….tara rum pum…lalalala….SINGH. Ranked 21. All these bloody gadhe log that have survived on sardar jokes through their childhood…(and khushwant singh…who still continues to at the age of 153)…go take a leak. Cause if the singhs can friggin understand facebook…spread the word around…and get other singhs to join…and not just that but become the top ranked indian last name on facebook…then dude…they are not the same sardars on which the jokes were made…!!
i would have expected the sharmas/kumars/patels/jains…but they are ranked much lower…!
the most common full names list was dissapointing though…! will the real rohit sharma please stand up…! or amit gupta? or ashok kumar? make your presence felt…dont waste time making friendships…orkut is over…!!
i will be really interested to see corresponding results for orkut…especially for females. well…neha is definitely up there…but rani might be stiff competition…and hey…pooja…?
