A place to share my thoughts...

Google OS is on its way!

2009-07-10T22:35:00.005+05:30

Last year, I had spoken about how Google Chrome is not just-another-browser and its a strategic move by Google. I thought it was a logical conclusion that Chrome grows into an OS, given the kind of functionalities and independence that they have brought into it. Google has finally broken the news its Chrome OS to be launched in 2010. An open source OS, it is supposed to be focussing on speed, simplicity and security with 'most of the user experience over the web'. Let's wait and watch!

A 'Clear'er name

2009-06-09T18:54:00.007+05:30

A short one this time. Harish from Marketing practice had commented long back on how HUL had changed the typology on its Clinic All clear shampoo packs making the word 'Clear' as the most visible element. This, he rightly pointed out was keeping in mind a future rebranding with only the word Clear, as the shampoo is known internationally from the Unilever family. And now we see teasers on TV showing Bipasha, Shilpa Shetty, Asin for a new anti-dandruff shampoo called - Clear (what else). I checked out the new website www.clear.co.in (the earlier one was called www.clinicallclear.com) and Harish's prediction is bang on! The new packs have only one change - removal of 'Clinic All' from the logo. Everything else looks the same. So anyone who looks at the pack would not be confused about the new brand. A smart move by HUL for a smooth makeover. Here are the pack shots for ready reference :)

OOH, what an ad !

2009-06-07T00:46:00.022+05:30

Out Of Home (OOH) advertising caught my attention always, and with companies using it innovatively these days its even more fun to watch ! A description to start off - OOH is marketing in forms that you see can out-of-your-home (!), e.g. hoardings in the simplest form. But then, the best part lies in either capturing attention with a clutter-breaking hoarding (like the red Economist's Interpret the world hoardings that you see these days) or by the use of the media beyond the billboards. I have uploaded some of those from the latter category that I really feel deserve an applause for their creativity. (Click on images to enlarge)

Starting with some international ones. AXE, as usual, starts the pack. Here you see the ad being placed over a women's dorm in the form of a calendar, with each window being a day of the month. The concept being obvious - a girl for each day. I am sure it would have caught attention of every guy who had walked past this one in Seoul.

Scotch Brite had another brilliant concept to go with their USP of 'absorbs everything'. They had simply replaced the basins below taps in public places (I think in Australia) with a sponge. And just the brand name and tagline on the sides. Caught the attention & conveyed the message - clear and concise !

Coming to some Indian examples of conveying the USP- recently read about this Pantene's OOH campaign. Had a sticker on doors of common places like salons, etc with hair being stuck to it. They actually replaced the door handles, and whenever anyone pulls them to open the door, he/she was actually experiencing the brand message. And the text - Pantene:Strong Hair. It needn't say anything more, does it?

Closer home, before the elections, UTV Bindass had these hand signs over public places with the inked index finger pointing out (Ungli utha bindass campaign). The messages differed, urging them to vote if they needed development to happen. Have a look at this one - 'Desh khadde mein hain? Vote kar' with the finger pointing to a dug road. Other messages included 'Desh ki batti jala' on a lamp post; 'Batvara nahi, divider chahiye' pointing to a divider on the road.

Though I said that companies should look beyond hoardings, Orient Fans proved that even hoardings can be used innovatively. This ad simply had a large image of the fan and the brand message 'More air everywhere'. Just beside the hoarding on both sides were two hoardings which were almost torn down and looks as if it is due to the fan(I believe they had bought these spaces :) ) depicting exactly what the tagline says.

Pidilite industries - known for their TV ads for Fevicol - also had some excellent concepts for their starch Ranipal. Human-like figures at high footfall areas, but with no heads, legs, hands. There's no message written, but isn't it clear enough that the clothes are standing on their own? And their pose is also natural so that they won't mistaken for mannequins (the one here is climbing the stairs, others include a woman shopping at a store and a guy on a bike in the parking lot). Excellent, though the brand name would be visible when seen closely, which I doubt how many people would have done.

(Thanks afaqs for the pics!)

Talking of OOH, one thumb rule I read somewhere that people have an average 3-4 seconds to interpret the message on a hoarding. Still I saw these four hoardings stacked side-by-side at Bandra (wanted to get the sealink in the background, which I couldn't unfortunately). Why would anyone buy space here, if the audience can spare 4 seconds for the entire spot i.e. 1 second per hoarding. Surely atleast 2 of the hoardings would always be missed out by the viewer. (Unless everything is for the same brand, e.g. Sony TV has recently bought 2 of them and have a big ad for Dus Ka Dum)

Big brands, bigger mistakes

2009-05-22T20:33:00.004+05:30

As I type this post from somewhere in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, I wonder - "Can I call these measures by companies as mistakes?" Nevertheless, I continue my rantings..

Start with ICICI Bank, with its signature tune being one of those with a good recall & association with the brand - changed its tagline from 'Hum hain na' to 'Vishwas hain to sab kuch hain'. Why on earth?? We all know that brand elements do not necessarily have an expiry date, as long as people don't get bored of it. And the first thing that this new tagline reminded me of is the advertisements of TMT Sariya or XYZ Cement frequently seen on Aaj Tak. The words are so generic/cliched/old-fashioned that it depicts nothing specific to the bank. The other big change that I saw in the TV adverts, the fast-paced music. Again, a shift from its earlier ads. More importantly, any company from the services industry - banks, insurance, hotels, etc- has a typical soft touch to it, be it in the music or the way it delivers its message. But having a remixed signature tune, the bank is making the message devoid of the 'warmth' that such companies are always known for.

Talking of TV ads and soft music, another campaign run by Godrej Aerospace lab during the IPL telecasts is really intriguing. Why would anyone advertise its rocket building capabilities? We understand from the subsequent revealers that it wants to show how it puts its aerospace learnings to use in consumer durables and other Godrej products. e.g. It applies its high-precision learnings from rockets to make high-precision super-secure Godrej locks. eh!! While buying a RS.100-200 lock, why would I care whether the company manufactures a rocket worth crores of rupees with the same technology. Couldn't they boast of their technology even without the rocket association? Wouldn't gizmos and steel machines have done the job? The company doesn't believe so. It plans to come up with follow-up ads of how its consumer durables too utilise the space technology. Doubt how many would buy such an argument!

Coming to FMCG, I visited a grocery shop today to get a pack of biscuits for lunch, as I do everyday (yeah, the pains of field work!). Generally Good-Day is a good bet for lunch. But the shopkeeper says "Good Day nahi hain. Parle 20-20 lijiye". I thought, I don't want a snack-time (50-50, Monaco types) biscuit- but something that would be filling for the stomach. Shopkeeper says, "Ye bhi waisa hi hain" and hands over the pack. And lo! I realise that this is also a cashew cookie of the same category as Good Day. BIG mistakes! Naming it 20-20, it has confused consumers (like me) who would liken it to Britannia's 50-50 (More still, WHAT has 20-20 got to do with the biscuit, I still wonder!). So, the entire efforts of entering the category with a new product are wasted. Secondly, with such a name and tagline "Short mein niptao", I feel it has degraded the category as a whole and likened it to cheaper biscuits. Cashew cookies always had that premium (if not indulgence) in the consumer's mind, but Parle doesn't wish to project it that way.

The opinions maybe too strong for a newbie like me to speak of, but still, I can't believe that these companies can leave consumers (& marketing enthusiasts) like me, confused. I will return with interesting observations of the OOH media (by far, my favourite media these days) and tibits (jargon:"consumer insights") about the Bihari consumer shortly.

The latest Warchips

2009-04-28T16:25:00.006+05:30

While I munch Lays and sip Pepsi (brand loyalty not intended), I wonder how a week of market visit and working on a marketing summer project changes your perspective in life (literally!). As you walk on the roads of Patna, you look at the sachets & brands stocked in front rather than the name of the shop. You look at hoardings (thinking - what a visibility!) instead of the car waiting to dash you. While watching an IPL match, you wonder about the visibility of the stickers all over the batsman's shirt (and the umpire's!). An instance - was watching the Kurkure's new Desi beats ad during a commercial break. And thought of how the snacks (specifically chips) industry has changed in recent years. Originally a near-monopoly, the market changed with the aggressive entry of ITC - intentionally advertising the non-conventional variants, thus avoiding a head-on. With its distribution and muscle power, it placed Bingo racks in every other shop. Now we see Pepsico coming up with the triangular chips (against Bingo's Mad Angles) under Kurkure. There are 2 things to learn from this. First, Bingo has created a category of its own, causing the market leader to react. Its not far that we'll see Pepsico replicating all its variants. Secondly, look at Pepsico's strategy. Intentionally, it has launched it under Kurkure and not Lays - to ward off direct competition with a newbie like Bingo. This ensures that Bingo now fights 2 brands - both Lays and Kurkure - and Lays would like to retain its position as the most preferred chips. Even if people prefer Bingo, it can afford to forego Kurkure's market share, not the Lays brand. A masterstroke, I would say. To continue with the wars, Bingo now introduces 'International cream & onion' against the 'American cream & onion' (incidentally the variant that I am munching while writing this!). It has gained the strength to do that now. Take on Lays in its own forte, with people knowing the Bingo brand by now. It would be interesting how this war progresses over time.

From Inbox to inbox

2009-04-01T03:50:00.009+05:30

I know its a wrong time to post on the blog, given that I have 2 end term tests today. But a small thing that I noted yesterday morning is running through my mind for a long time. If you have checked your Gmail Inbox carefully, the label is now inbox (with a small 'i'). And they have changed it everywhere today, starting from label, to page title, to all references in the interface, and even the references in the description of the Labs settings. (though they couldn't change pictorial references :) ). Scoured the blogs to find no official/unofficial explanation to it. Do you see it as an April Fool's hoax released a day earlier, so that people start talking about it? If it was something so carefully changed, Google has always broken the news on its official blogs, including changes in its favicon colours. Do let me know if you are aware of the reason.
Update: It seems the change isn't visible on all accounts. Some of my friends still see the capital I. I have tried changing location, theme, switching over to the old version of email, but found a small i welcoming me everywhere :(. Finally, I checked the Gmail gadget on my iGoogle page, and it still shows a capital I (inspite of similar settings)

Update 2: This April Fool's Day is a big letdown from Google. It has posted an obviously hoax feature called CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity), an Artificial Intelligence research and blah blah, with images of a Panda cartoon shown its mascot. As if the name wasn't a giveaway by itself, the press release is date 31/3/09 11:59:59pm,it generally doesn't 'time' its releases, though it gives the date), its technical description uses too many scientific/psychology/physics/computer/jargonology jargons, the official post (dated 1/4/09 12:01am) doesn't mention clearly what the 'CADIE' does, and its CADIE's blog is designed like a 5th grader's 'My first Web page - Hello World!'. They couldn't even use the Youtube channel effectively. Google had been improving on its hoaxes in the past, with atleast some amount of beleivable stuff and simple English (with typical Google terms). I am disappointed that this year's prank is not at all planned and seems to have been executed by a 5th grader! I still wish the "inbox" change is a prank so that they can live up to their fans' expectations :)

Update 3: Finally, Andrew Girdwood came to the rescue! The small i is visible only if the language settings are English(UK). I changed it to English(US) and voila!, I see my Inbox intact! And people thought I was playing an April Fool's prank on them :)

B-ing in the train

2008-09-22T21:30:00.004+05:30

I am back on campus! Sitting on the same old bed, and with my noise-cancellation earphones bombarding me with 'Socha hain', I say to myself "Write On!" (and also mumble, 'Socha hain..XL mumbai se itna door kyun, grading relative hain kyun, competitions hain itne kyun, zindagi mein aaram kyun nahi, Socha hain ...). Just minutes ago, my friend - a mallu chetta (brother) - asked me to minimise the use of Hindi, for the benefit of my mathrubhoomi TN and states around, but how could I sing a Hindi song with translation?

Cut to the scene on 20 Sep 9pm, when I wait for Howrah mail scheduled to arrive at 9.35pm at Kalyan station. A train called LTT-Howrah Dnyaneshwari express arrives at 9.15 and I start cribbing about Indian railways which schedules 2 trains to the same destination spaced 15 mins apart to my dad. The IR bashing continues with discussions about new trains to Amravati, open air platforms, mismanaged routes, and so on. The standard female voice (Mumbai suburban ki Ms.Ameen Sayani) announces on the speaker - "2809 down Howrah mail, platform kramaank 4 par thodi der mein aa rahi hain". i.e...arriving shortly on platform no 4.. (translating to save those few I-yam-southie-I-don't-know-Hindi-jee readers from running away). I enter the train, keep my bags with a BIG group of friends, (smiling to welcome me, as if I bought them goodies from California), wave goodbye to my parents and to aamchi (our) Mumbai and now the journey begins.

XLRI, 22 Sep : [for all those wondering why am I switching scenes, it is just to give it that Mani Ratnam's filmi-ishtyle & also to justify the randomness in the posts :)]. I see so many contest posters, PDFs and timelines being bombarded into my inbox - b-plan, papers, quizzes, case studies, and all other contests on earth (except for the likes of Indian Idle - where I would have undisputedly won). I drop my jaws looking at the prizes and the process for the final rounds - the chance to present in front of all the big names, that you have only read in pink papers (Hum rahe comic strips ke charrekters aur woh bijness page ke stars - Kaise ho payega inka milan?).

Howrah Mail, 21 Sep 10AM: I try my level best to wake up (or to be honest -not to wake up), and the pantry guy comes in with 'Khaana, order?'. After giving him the order, I wake up to find that there's no one selling coffee from the pantry. Everyone's going chai-chaiyye. We stop one guy to ask 'Coffee kab aayega?'. He replies 'System bandh ho gaya'. We look at each other wondering "Is he a laid-off IT engineer talking about systems getting de-commissioned?". We get some coffee finally, with water and some drops of milk added to coffee powder, which satisfies me as much as the movie Ashoka would have satisfied a SRK fan. Some long discussions among us, over the newspaper headlines and coverage (and including those channels which broadcast 'Breaking-news: Great Khali ke baalon mein 167 dandruff mili') follow. After lunch, we watch 3 great movies from completely different genres - 21, Golmaal, and Duck Tales (we had occasional visitors forgetting their garma-garam-samose jobs and catching up with some entertainment - we were expecting some refund for this 'service' that we provided)

XLRI, 22 Sep 11PM: We have serious looks on our faces and discuss our likes, dislikes and don't cares for the summer internship process that is due soon on campus. 7 of us then get together to have a long discussion on a group assignment-cum-plan that we need to submit by tomorrow night, and disperse with not much progress, but atleast some headway. (Poora India bhi toh aisi hi chalta hain, thoda hi sahi, progress toh kar raha hain na?). We get back to our rooms and think of working on another b-plan too. 3 of us get together in my room, and announce 'we will finish off some part of some contest now' (Wow, how planned our meeting was). One of them dozes off in the middle, with an occasional 'Hmm..' to ensure that he is not physically assaulted by the two of us. We jala-ofy our dimaag-ki-batti and come up with a few ideas, none of them 'exciting'. Then we think of ..

Howrah Mail, 22 Sep 1AM: "Plz get down. Berths 25 and 26 are ours", an old-aged guy shouts at me, waking me up from my tight sleep (happens to me everytime Rourkela arrives in the train that I am travelling). We somehow send him back to the other coach, that he had mistaken this for and then wonder why haven't we yet neared Jamshedpur (scheduled at 1.40). After a little 'research', we find out that we are 1 hour behind schedule. We sleep for some more time, wake up at 2.30, just to find that we are still running 2 hours late. Sleeping for some more time, we find out at 3.30 that it is still 20 minutes away. We keep ourselves awake for some time and realise that it is actually 1 more hour away. We give up, and get back to what we have mastered for 23 yrs of our life - sleep ! After an hour, seemingly, we were closer to Jamshedpur and get ready to reach the place that we all wanted to get into, 3 months back, but probably not that eager as of now :)

Disclaimer : The following idea is entirely fictional (actually, too stupid to be true) and bears no resemblance to the ideas that we discussed :)
XLRI, 23 Sep 2AM: "Imagine such a situation. Why can't we have an electronic chip implanted in your brain, with which you can control the time that you want to wake up. Think of all the pains that we have taken just to ensure that we do not miss the station. We could even diversify into selling the chips to all those b-school grads who crib for not being able to wake up for an 8.30AM class", I quip. An obvious reaction follows and all of us laugh at the extent of damage lack of sleep can do to you. We move from B-plan to the plan-B - close for the day . I plan to narrate the entire experience as today's post on my blog and start typing...

As an afterthought, I realise that I have to search a lot of things on the net for the assignments, but I am still writing this, and I put a screeching halt to the post.

Google's strategy - connecting the dots - II

2008-09-20T13:00:00.000+05:30

Continuing from my previous post, here I would delve upon, how these products/features impact Google and provide it an upper hand.
Given that, it would improve its search quality, an obvious result would be increased number of advertisers. But more importantly, it gives them more media to explore. They can now provide context-sensitive ads over video and audio. Think of it, if some of the channels on youtube have advertisements, related to any product which may be spoken about in the video, users may not be that bugged at all. Anyways a similar experiment of providing video ads, on text web search is running currently. Video ads surely mean, much higher revenues as compared to the text ads that it currently features. It has also started extending its Ad platform to TV, by partnering with NBC among others, extending the media that it can earn revenues from.

One of the highly awaited developments is in the desktop space, about Google's answer to Microsoft Office. It started off with an online version, and with Google Gears, it had made it available offline too. Now, there is a thin difference between keeping a document on my desktop and making it available over any other desktop. That too, without using any space over my disk. It will continuously be looking at exploiting the cloud computing space, with other products too. What does Chrome bring in? I believe, that it is more of a desktop environment or the first step towards an office suite or even an OS rather than a browser. Bold statement?Yes, I too feel so. But, then what it is trying to do, is letting the users get used to the environment where there is nothing called online or offline. When it asks you to make an application shortcut, it makes you feel that Google Docs is an application. With Google Gears visible in the settings, the next obvious feature is to allow you, to edit it on your local machine, if you are offline. If online, publish it onto the cloud (though this feature is still available with Gears, I believe, it would extend it across products and applications over the web, in some form). The absense of all the toolbars and menubars from those windows, is exactly to make you feel so. You should never feel that you are in a browser. And with its own V8 scripting, it is giving itself that flexibility to use this prototype for future moves. There was a time when analysts were speculating a network OS from Google. With its focus on cloud computing, and all its products inching towards that, I don't feel it is an impossibility. (And, do not believe when Google says, we don't want to do it. They said the same for a browser)

Disclaimer : Though many of you may be aware of these features and its consequences, it was meant to give a small insight into the bigger picture - "connecting the dots" as I call it. Also, many of these are personal inferences, and may not be an 'expert' view of the days to come :). Do let me know of any other products/service that you feel perfectly fits into its strategy and I missed it here.

PS: As an aside, check out how Google is desperately trying to increase usage of its App platform, through this contest :)

PPS: Why did this no-nonsense post seriosly pop up? 2 reasons - a)To commemorate 10 years of Google b)To remain in-line with my description in 'about me' (look rightwards), which has been reminded by some of my readers (and who, I assume, would appreciate the same in the comments section ;) )

Google's strategy - connecting the dots - I

2008-09-20T12:01:00.000+05:30

Many of us have started using Google's new browser Chrome, being impressed by some of its features (which I still believe have been lifted from its rival browsers). But, what exactly is the story behind its investments into this already (seemingly) stable segment of browsers. I have been thinking of Google's strategic motives for long, and with the launch of new products and talks of few more, things are getting clearer. Let me explain.

Start with its mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Most of us wrote it off as simply a way to say 'better search'. But they have been restating with every product launch of getting closer to this mission. With Marissa Mayer ans Susan Wojcicki posting constantly on their blog, about the next 10 years for Google, its obvious that they are not sitting quiet. In her post, Marissa speaks about how she would want the search engines to work upon the modes of search, media covered under them, personalization and language features to give a better user experience. When Google started with its GOOG-411, it was seen as a voice enabled search. But later they accepted that its a way to train its audio engines to recognize text withing audio. That learning may even have been incorporated in its GAudi, audio indexing feature. Now, it has added features for you to overlap captions on Youtube videos. I'm sure this is again a way to train its video engines, to 'learn'. One of the features that I was expecting Google to launch was face recognition. And here it is. This provides Google the power to train its algorithm to perfection (Anyone working on face recognition would agree that the larger the face base and the manual confirmation, the better would be the accuracy). Basically, it is employing YOU to check whether the algorithm is working fine or not. Not that their employees aren't trying. One of its patents talks about recognizing text directly in images, be it computer-generated or photographs (captured by its cameras for Street View) or a series of photographs (videos). Which means - given either an image, video or audio - and it has a way to find out information from it. Picture all of this put together. You give a search term,e.g.MacDonalds Mumbai. The search engine, of course can give you results from conventional text web(not only English language. Google is improving its translation tool to expand the number of languages that it can search, so pages of most of the languages are still available to you). It can also do it for any piece of audio (probably a jingle), or video (any MacD ad) which mentions the phrase. Any image on a website or photograph from someone's public album or an photo present in Google Maps(an image of the outlet) which contains that text is returned to you. For that matter, why should you even give a term. You could even give it some random image of a person whom you would wan't to find out (like the ones that we generally need in quizzes & puzzles) or some piece of audio, that you would want to know more about. I even believe that Google would have been working on the other facets of an audio, like distinguishing voices or finding out genres. May be useful, when you would want to find out who was the speaker in some speech that you have been hearing (or in the Indian context, which raaga does a particular Carnatic song belongs to) - it's nothing but identifying patterns. Isn't all this 'organizing world's information'? (Of course, analysts also spoke about extending it to barcodes, RFIDs and ISBNs and letting you know which product is available in which shops)

With its development in the mobile space, and providing access to all the features on the modern-phones, it is making sure that you need not wait till you reach your computer or internet to get the information. With its Android powered phone, Dream, launching just few days from now, it would want a better control of this all-important medium. Talking of personalization, there has already been a big hue and cry over the information that Google stores about its users. Using your past searches to find out whether you are wildlife enthusiast or a golf follower, would help its search engine to present appropriate results when you search for 'tiger US'. Similarly, given the location, especially, relevant for your mobile phone, it can provide you the local info accurately; when you say MacD, it would make sure that nearby outlets are presented to you. Isn't this "making info universally accessible and useful"?

This is about some of the obvious steps that it has taken in its homeground-search. For restraining the length of this post, I would be going ahead with its other revenue-centres in the next post.

No matter

2008-09-19T02:31:00.000+05:30

My mom always used to tell me, that if you feed a roadside cat with milk 7 days a week; it would end up outside our house on the 8th day, asking for more. Thinking about relevance of this story here? Arre, roz roz hum hi tumhara yendertainmentu (trying a lola-kutty accent this time) karenge kya? Ab toh post-less day ki aadat daal lo, hum XL bhi jaane wale wapis 4 dino mein. Fir toh, my posts would be inversely proportional to the frequency of quizzes in the class. [reader: kal hi toh AB se compare kar raha tha, aaj aa gaya aukaad pe?]. I justify my stand - visit his blog today, fir kehna aake; bade aaye muh uthaake, taana marne.

Phew! So much justification for not having any masala to write today. Countdown has started for my return to the college (ok, 'institute'), just like the countdown for Chandrayaan; the only difference being, I am not that eager for the countdown to end (and upar se, mere 'take-off' se poore Hindustan ko koi farak nahi padta). For those readers still wondering, "kaam ki baat toh kuch likhi nahi, pata nahi hum kyun aaye aaj" - kyun bhai, David Dhawan ki movie dekhte waqt to apna dimaag fridge mein thanda-thanda-cool-cool karne chhod jaate ho, isey bhi aisa hi 'light-weight' post samjho. Ok, for all those still unconvinced by so much of gyaan-bachan, here are some lines(to add some 'matter' to this post) that I penned sometime back. (Rapidex saath leke baitha hoon - bahut dino baad ingreji mein likha hain. More Hindi poetry may follow in the coming days)

Strolling along the shore,
We watch the sun hide away from the golden sky
As I match your steps,
And the waves kissing your feet, recede by,
Holding your hands,
Those precious moments that we were together,
Lost into your gleamy eyes,
With a promise to make it, A Walk to Remember

Aur ye tum log sirf visit count kyun badhate ho, kabhi comment bhi kar diya karo. (Ramesh Powar ho kya? Field pe aake wickets badhata hain, runs nahi)

PS: Shhh.. No questions about the 'you' in the lines above. You will get the same old reply - imaginary' ;).

The X-Life

2008-09-18T00:54:00.001+05:30

I haven't put a title to this post as I start writing this. I don't even know, what would I be writing after this sentence. (I have started this post just like an under-prepared engineering student would attempt a 'Write short note on India's economic growth post-liberalisation' type questions, thinking "fatte hi toh maarne hain"). Agar Big B roz raat ko 1 baje apne adde pe posht kar sakte hain, then mein bhi apne ilaake ka big S hoon (sans the french beard). Btw, I have realised (through my gaajar chabaane-wale jasoos) that my posts have been providing some solace to the mara-hua sense of humour of many of my friends (with my own butter-naan-sense) who were being content till date with the campus jokes on few (un)popular guys/girls and others who thought knock-knock jokes were the biggest blessings to mankind. These are those few occasions which provide exercise to those brushed-twice-a-day, still hatte-khatte (note the rhyme) teeth of my beloved readers. Ok, sorry for so much dindora-peetna, but aajkal adverrtijement ka zamaana hain. As a sincere student of a marketing subject, I couldn't resist myself. [reader : huh, isse achha marketing aur publicity to Rakhi Sawant kar leti hain. Bada aaya !]

Let me share some of my experiences in the past 86 days @XL (for those who are counting from 13 Jun 2008 and finding it out to be 96 - abey, 10 days toh Mumbai mein hoon na!)

[To lengthen the answer, an engineering student intentionally uses a figure/diagram/chart in his short-note :)]. Here it goes...Hostel - One of the most happening places on campus. Be it football, cricket, birthday bumps, night-outs, parties, 'dressing up' for photoshoots, those 'left-outsides' after an adventure camp (XLers know :P), aap-katar-mein-hain duologues for the washing machine (I sometimes feel - ration se chaawal lene bhi itni fight nahi maarni padti hogi, jitna is machine ke peeche daudte hain) and many more - our hostel corridors have seen it all. Talking of rooms, ultra-comfortable [;)]. Humein toh itni neend aati hain, that we feel we are enjoying an air-conditioned suite out there. Waise toh, ek hectic din ke baad, hum toh 8:16 ki mumbai fast local ke darwaaze pe khade khade bhi so jayenge (only mumbaikars can understand the big deal in this joke). And yes, we end up spending more than half the time in some one else's room (you gande dimaag! I meant spent "studying, working on an assignment, solving a case, discussing a concept, preparing for the exams" in our friend's room). Ok, I accept, some of them are (in)famous for being spotted in Girls' hostel, but that is also because, their project groups are allotted such (hehe..As if you are going to believe the previous sentence)

Food - You won't believe, the mess food is so good that I miss that now, and instead am keeping myself happy with the poor old ghar-ka-khana. (Ok, I told you beforehand - 'you wont believe'). But the food is not that bad either. On 2-3 days a week, we long for the dinners and have enough to keep us content for the next 2 days :). The rest of the days, we still have an edible variety of food. I can't tell you the entire menu, but there's one ingredient as critical in the food as the tear drop, TBZ jewellery, or a king-size bungalow in an Ekta Kapoor serial - Potato!! Still wonder why, but the people in this part of the world love potatoes. (I later realized why XL's very own band Bodhi Tree had recorded a song called 'Too many potatoes' ) [Update (Thanks, Mandar!): Paneer is another such precious ingredient that makes its presence felt on most of the days, though it comes second to potato in attendance]. Some of us are loyalty-club wale customers of the canteens (we have 3 other 'paid' joints on campus) and dosa-wala, and end up skipping the mess now and then. God knows why? Talking of canteens, the snacks are available till 3AM, and you will find students from all hostels arriving at all times to catch a bite of the-eternal-maggi (generic product-name for maggi/top-ramen - ek aur marketing jargon de maara!) aloo-sandwich, paratha, mixture, bread-poha, and the like, to be gulped with hot chai or thanda nimbu-paani.(I am still analysing the arrival pattern to find the off-peak hours so that I can get my maggi quicker, and will conclude my research this term)

That's a glimpse of the Life @ XL. Have much more to say about the course, faculty, students, extracurrics, outbound programmes, alumni, library, and loads of activities on campus. Of course, to avoid censorship from the 'stakeholders' and our media cell, (and due to my wish to keep those andar-ki-baat-hain memories to ourselves) I would not be 'revealing' any insider information or XL traditions to you all :) [you can't even buy the info black mein, unless, of course, you are a media hot-shot [shot na bhi ho toh chalegi ;)] and the money that you offer contains more than 6 zeroes succeeding the 1st digit]. Coming soon, to a screen (laptop/desktop wala) near you...

(The bell rings and the invigilator snatches the keyboard away from me. Yaad nahi woh story, jisse start kiya tha - that example of an engineering short note? [Applause] Kya weave kiya hain story ko... [reader] Tu ek din Director zaroor banega - company ka nahi, film ka bhi nahi - roadside tamaashe ka.)

Dissecting the reader (base)

2008-09-17T00:25:00.000+05:30

Don't run away! I am not going to try a guinea-pig wala experiment on you, my dear reader (Kya mauka hain, apni female readers ko 'dear' bulane ka, What an idea sir-jee. [Slap]. Ok 4.75 readers have closed this window after this sentence. (Yes, you are the aakhri 0.75-wale reader ! Jao, maze se band kar lo window ko). Coming to the point, the author as usual, played around with a Google tool, to find out who were those merciful souls who visited this very blog, even when it was not being updated for so long (1 year+, to be precise. Vishy called this page, as a Moto Ad for 1 year! Hello Moto, you haven't paid me even then!! )

Surprised! Haan, tumhare is nacheez-nakameez-battameez ke blog ko tumhare siva bhi koi padhta hain. Firstly, these are those curious readers, who visit many of my friends popular blogs, and because of lack of work (typical high-paying indian IT labourer) clicks on the right pane, which has a chottu-sa link and then, voila ! They land up here. Of course, they leave the page within 47 seconds, par aaye toh sahi. In the same group lie, all those bechare readers, who see the link on my mails, orkut profile or pagalguy posts, and galti-se commit the crime of clicking it, thinking that link daala hain toh kuch achha likha hoga. Of course, they would have been as disappointed as those bookies who put their money on Bangalore Royal Challengers before IPL started. (dikhaawe pe na jao, apni akal lagao).

But the most surprising part is the second lot. (Ok, if you consider the faithful direct visitors as the second lot, let's talk about the third lot). The search engines have been sending visitors to the blog, when some of these innocently punch in the keywords of their needs. Try digesting this - The keyword great thoughts in hindi has sent in a total of around 25 visitors onto this blog. And the reason is simple - A relevant (??) post is the FIRST result on google for this keyword.[reader's reaction : What? @%#&# Ye sunne se pehle mere kaan fat kyun nahi gaye ] [author's dedication speech :- I would like to thank Google, my family, my laptop, paperwala, doodhwala, the 'imaginary' girl, train's motormen, chunnu, munnu, pappu....]. There are many such keywords which have featured on Google's page 1 results and helped the cause. (To be featured soon on 'World's worst shocking moments - not captured on camera'). Not just that, even the visitors are spending a good amount of time on the blog (which, I hope is spent reading) [actual reader experience on that day : Opens the blog. Goes away talking to his GF/BF/both/none/can't say on the phone for a looong time. Comes back to the desk. Utters "Ohho, ye @&#%^ site kisne khol diya" and closes the window]. Some of the keywords puzzle me too, and would have puzzled even the visitors (chalo, kahin toh hum dono ke vichaar mile) like 'unfair means vesit' [my college] (does it really mean?), 'my thoughts and beliefs' and 'my thoughts about me in hindi' (how the user would have thought I could help him with HIS thoughts. They spent an average of 13 minutes wondering how the post related to their search), 'hindi twisted shayaries' (hindi translation - shayari ka gala marodna), 'why blog poem' (indirect way of asking me "Why do you blog your poems?" - he knows I will check the keywords sometime), 'some hindi shars' [sic] (second result here too, below a site on Indian share market), 'anandh seshadri microsoft' (thank you anand, whoever you are, I am stealing your friends! ), 'belief, noun' (Am I so reliable? OED would hire me soon !!), 'banaya wall tiles' (!?!), 'the disappearance +seshadri' (so anxious, after a post-less year?) and many more.

Of course, there were some really cool keywords, that reinforced my motivation to continue blogging, which include - 'abdul kalam inspirational stories', 'superb shayaries' (sorry reader, for letting you down), 'motorola sharper than ever', 'are beliefs facts?', 'narayana murthy's speech at nyu', and similar 421 more keywords. Of course, if you search many of these now, you may not even see this blog on the first 2 pages, but, they would have been higher at SOME point of time, and that's why the visits (Disclaimer to clarify that I'm not lying :P). Anyways, bahut analysis done (I feel like the Aaj Tak vishesh reporter analysing why mantri-ji ka kutta is scratching his back at a 16 degree angle), let me catch some fifty winks now (25% extra sone wala hoon na, isliye the extra 10 winks). Hope to come up with some good posts (added as my new year resolution #21597), now that some people are actually wanting to read these posts. Till then, Happy reading, dear! [Slap-kick-Slap]

Beta returns

2008-09-16T02:47:00.000+05:30

(Kyun bhaai, hamesha Mummy Returns hi hona chahiye kya?)
Couldn't think of a worse title than this. Of course, the other cliched "I'm back" could have been there, but then our dear reader would have thought it was inspired by our 'Monty is back' tagline for Karzzz(lots of snores follow). Isse badi gaali kya ho sakti hain - being inspired by HR (arre, not the XLRI-asia's-best-wala HR), this is apna topiwala HR). Ok, before the your mouse pointer moves closer to the Close button on this window, let me get to the post.

Your friend (that's me!) is now pursuing his Yem-Bee-Yay (MBA, in a Rajini accent) in Bijness Management(BM) from XLRI, Jamshedpur. (for those who know tamil, avan yembi-yembi padikkiraan). And has completed one term of academics (results not yet out, so there's still time for being 1/6th of an MBA). Being in one of the most prestigious institutes is an experience by itself, and very difficult to put it in words (But I would still apni-jaan-pe-khel-ke post my experiences in the next few days). For now, I'm back to Mumbai, enjoying my term-break with lots of sleep and lots of khaana intermittently, like my unforgettable berozgaari-wale din.[writer is humming 'jaane kahan... gaye woh din...']. And, finally, I find some time to catch up with my friends (from a pre-historic era of dd-mm-yy <= 12-Jun-08), who were happy to find me alive, after all those 3-second ping-u-later responses from me for these 3 months. (Some even mailed google to find out, whether they have any auto-respond features added to gtalk). Ok, before the reader concludes that I was on Big Boss 2 for half the duration, let me post answers to some of the FAQs.

Q: How was Life@XL?
A: Awesome. You don't get to have a respectable time to sleep. Food is not your priority. You are constantly demeaned by your 'relative' performance as compared to those top-wale-toppers (How I wish sometimes that I had many relatives in XL, so that my relative grading would improve). You regret that you said 'call-you-later' even to your mom calling you after 2 days. You start doubting whether not being an engineer would have helped (this is just a joke, added to make the size of the list>3). And most of all, you are tired of all those you-are-2-years-IT-workex-guy? looks, as if I were one amongst those robots in I-robot, who just would have the barcode differing from others. But to sum it up in one word, (like Barney of How I Met your Mother would put it), it was LegeND-Ary (capitalized words to be stressed on). For those, who feel that this is some kind of cognitive dissonance (yes, I am doing somewhat good in the Organizational Behavior course!), you would have to wait for my next few posts that would describe THE experience. (So much to keep the audience glued. I would be hired by Star News to make ads for their 'dekhiye aaj raat nau baje' crime stories).

Q: How do I prepare for the entrance tests?
A: I would want to share my secret recipe for success - 1) Pray to God, before, after and during the exams. 2) Make sure, you send the applications at the correct time, so that your hall ticket number adds up to your lucky number. 3) Scare the maximum amount of test-takers by whichever means possible, so that their bad performance boosts your percentile. OK, on a serious note, I didn't do any of these (except point 1, which probably is the only reason why I am here). There's only a few things that I can tell you over this post. Like, make sure, you take as many mock tests as possible at regular intervals and analyse your performance thoroughly (analysis is a detailed discussion in itself; to cut it short, it is just to find out the best way possible to attempt that paper, and to find gaps with the way you solved them). If you have found where you go wrong, then you can set it right within days. Have confidence in your abilities - it is not just the aptitude, it is the attitude that matters too. I believe the only major task in these entrance test, is to identify the right questions. If you are taking more time to solve a section, then you have chosen the wrong set of questions (unless, of course, you are grossly under-prepared). Even with an average preparation, these two tips would help you easily reach the mid-90 percentiles (atleast I could get that!). Practise would take you a little closer to your dream institutes. Of course, there are many ifs and buts. But, as companies usually say about appraisals and promotions, 'they would be taken on a case-by-case basis'. I may still not be the right person to dole out all this gyaan to you, as I have not even taken so much pain as so many others have done, to get here. (I sometimes feel, my luck would even win me a Sikkim super-lotto; given the extent to which it has helped me till date). But still,I hope these pointers are of some use.

Anyways, its 3.53AM as of now, and I'm still wide awake (how I whine about not getting sleep due to acads, and I am awake even without them). So let me end this post for now. Ye the samachar aaj tak, intezaar kijiye kal tak.FULL ISSHTOP.

Sharper than ever

2007-08-30T00:05:00.000+05:30

Hello Moto....For all those, who have seen the new Motorola RAZR2 (or do they call it V8/9?), this phrase is identifiable. I am not a Moto enthusiast (for that matter neither am I of Nokia or Sony Ericcson, humein kisine brand ambassador/fiat/maruti banaya hi nahi..), but the Razr series has fascinated me (and my bro) since its launch. Even the earliest version was ultra-slim (Aur log kehte hain-Seshadri hi patla hain..) and the most distinctive phone in its class. There was a time, when just holding a Razr in one's hands used to feel heavenly (nearly so..). It used to evoke a sense of status,style,attitude all packed in one. (I never believe any commodity decides your quality - being the owner of Nokia 3315- but the Razr made me think otherwise). It was not the perfect phone (given that it used to have just a 1.3 meg camera), but then, surely no one could beat its design. Following it, were other Motos like the Krzrs and Slvrs which were again, the sleekest in their classs. I was (and I am, even now) almost convinced that Motorola is the only company that can pack so much of hardware in such a slim phone. Though Nokia followed recently with the N75, it appears to me like a me-too phone, the sole purpose being, showing off its design capabilities (Nokia says 'Art meets intelligence'..should I say - 'Nokia meets Motorola'?). Though Sony Ericsson's W880i is even thinner (9.4mm), a Razr is a Razr, afterall.

But now, here comes the newest member of the series- Razr2. Sleeker.Smarter.Stronger. That's what Moto calls it.Not a BIG change since the previous Razrs. But few features distinguish it like the thickness(thinness?) of 11.9mm, 2 meg camera, large external display with keys, and many such. The best part that I have noticed in Razr2 is the disappearance of the bulge at the bottom of the Razr, which used to be present in earlier Razrs (and was not so aligned with the phone's sleek looks). This makes the phone completely flat and gives it a more stylish look.

Just days back, Motorola has launched an TV commercial (part of its global 'The Eye for Sharp' campaign) for the Razr2 (in India, that is), and to say that it's superb would be an understatement. It shows a guy and a gal fighting each other (tearing their clothes, too), using their Razrs like swords. The best part is when in the end of the ad, the guy throws the Razr and it sticks to the wall like a knife. Brilliant idea, superlative execution. It puts forth the idea of a 'sharp' Razr without even saying it. (The outdoor ads carry forward this idea, too). I am yet to find out the agency, do tell me who it is, if you know.

PS: As you have noticed, this post purely speaks of Razr2's design and is not a complete review (that's why all's positive about it). Catch the review by ZDNet here.

Har title kuch kehta hain

2007-08-03T23:39:00.000+05:30

The title is not to publicise any paint company's tagline, but just a better way to say 'I couldn't find a title for this one'. This post is, by the way, going to be much different than the ones that you have read till now; you will shortly know why. All those (This seems like addressing everyone in a theatre screening Aap ka surroor in the 4th week) waiting for a long time for a post, here it is !!

Nothing much was running through my mind the past few days (months:(..), except for random thoughts about posts like Social obligation of CEOs, The great Indian education rejig, and bahut kuch aur (Of course, main-aur-meri-tanhai wale poems). But then, I couldnt write them long enough for a post to happen. As far as 'happenings' are concerned, one BIG thing that happened was my annual appraisal. Firstly, ladies and gentlemen, Seshadri is now a 'confirmed' employee of TCS (not such a big thing, it's just a formality of completing one year(it took a few days more due to some 'unavoidable' reasons). But, more of a news is me getting a 'more than satisfactory' rating (for those who are unaware, these are the annual marksheets for modern-day employees). I am not revealing the exact rating, because - I am NOT supposed to!! (tumhe toh pata hi hain, I never break the rules :)...As far as my thoughts on this event are concerned, I feel it is one of the first big achievements in my life, and has made me feel ecstatic. (On my way to the rose garden..?). All thanks also to my leads, (ML and PL), whom I have started holding in high esteem just like an MBA holds Merill Lynch or a Maharashtrian holds Pu La. But there here comes the kahaani mein twist. I am still to get an 'official' notification of my revised salary (aakhir paapi pet ka sawaal hain) due to -again- 'unavoidable' reasons. So, now I am in a similar situation like the small investors in the Indian market, who know for sure that 15,500 is good enough for Sensex, but don't know about what will happen to their money in the next few days.

And yes, the 'Mumbai' rains are here!!! Again, the same old train-kahaan-tak-ja-raha-hain fears, cold shivers after a drenched day, jammed cellphone networks, cancelled weekend plans, everything is back in true Mumbaiya ishtyle.
Of course, besides all this, CAT forms are out. So the D-day (or the C-day?) for me is nearing - 106 days, 9 hours, 35 minutes, to be precise. I don't want to come back this Sunday from my mock test saying the same thing -'Agli baar zyaada prep karke aaonga and will surely get a better percentile'.

And, before I forget, the difference you see in the tone of this post is simply because it has been inspired by my brother's new blog post, (which in turn, is inspired probably from here).So all you folks wanting some time pash shtuff from a smart guy, idhar jaiye. (Psst..partha - I am done, now my payment is due :) )

"Life's lessons learnt" - Murthy

2007-05-29T23:30:00.000+05:30

I recently read about N.R.Narayana Murthy's speech at the Precommencement ceremony at the prestigious NYU Stern University. A man of great stature, he mentions in the speech, some of his past experiences acted as turning points in his life.

The first incident he quotes, is in 1968, when during his post-graduation at IIT Kanpur (as a Control Theory student), he met a US-based computer scientist, who discussed new developments in the field. The discussion generated so much interest in Murthy that he went to the library, referred some papers and came out of the library determined to study Computer science. It was just this chance event (as he refers) because of which he chose Computer science as his career (and which gave us one of the finest IT companies in India).
The second experience that he recounts is during his brief stopover at Nis (bordered Yugoslavia and Bulgaria). He boarded a train in the night, with only another boy and a girl as company. The girl started criticizing the communist Bulgarian government, which resulted in the boy summoning the local police. Murthy was held captive in a 8x8 room with no food for more than 72 hours. He was later taken to Istanbul and released "..because he was from a friendly country called India..", he recalls. This incident transformed the young man (who was earlier a leftist by thought) into a compassionate capitalist. He realised that entrepreneurship, resulting in large scale job creation was the only way to eradicate poverty. Infosys was eventually founded with this very motive in mind.

The next significant day that he speaks of is in 1990, when the seven founders of Infosys met in Bangalore to decide upon a possible sale for $1 million! When everyone, except Murthy, almost reached a consensus, Murthy spoke passionately of their 9-year old journey. He offered others to buy out their stakes, if they felt appropriate to sell off. That changed their thinking, and today, we find the company having more than $3 bn in revenues!

The final event that Murthy mentions is when one of his big clients (he has mentioned in another interview earlier that it was GE), talked to multiple vendors regarding a project and put in harsh terms (and unfair price) before them. Given the fact that it accounted for 25% of Infy's revenues then, it would have been difficult to say no. But Murthy took the call and made it clear that it would not be possible for Infy to service them effectively. This, eventually brought about a risk-mitigation strategy into Infosys to stabilize revenues.

Through these examples, Murthy summarises the lessons learnt in his life:
Learning from experience: Be it failure or success, it is important to look back and learn what went wrong and what could have been done better.
Power of chance events: Chance events, as he says, play an important role in one's life. But more importantly, how we respond to them decides the tapping of such opportunities.
Mindset: He distinguishes between a fixed mindset (avoid challenges, learning) and growth mindset (embrace challenges and learn from criticism)
Self-knowledge: Greater awareness about oneself and belief in one's abilities, clubbed with humility.

To end the speech, he reminds that we are all merely temporary custodians of wealth, be it financial, emotional or intellectual, and the ultimate goal is to share it with those less fortunate - "To sow the seeds for trees, whose fruits you may not even be able to see". This message from one of my idols, will not only enlighten the Stern grads, but kindle the thought process in the Indian youth, as well.

It's not just a song - It's a thought

2007-05-03T00:25:00.000+05:30

Yesterday being a holiday, I was busy doing my 'usual' task of browsing through all the music channels for some good music. A new song, Sadho Re, from a band called Agnee suddenly caught my attention. From the music, I could make out it was a typical 'Indian Ocean' kind-of song. But then, the video was even more convincing..

The video (MediaPlayer streaming link), shot in an Indian pilgrim city(probably Varanasi) shows, a small girl, touring around a mela, grabbing her father's hand. Suddenly, another poor kid grabs her toy and runs away. The girl runs behind her, but is unable to catch hold of her. Now, she raises her head to look at the diverse kind of people present at the mela. She now starts realizing the fact that she is lost in the crowd. In the next frame, a man throws some food on the ground and four poor kids fight on the road to get hold of it. The girl's expression says it all at this moment. She can't understand, why anyone needs to fight for food. Someone knocks off the ice-cream she held, but she is still motionless. She later starts crying and walks in search of her father. The video ends with the members of the band taking her to her father and an ecstatic smile on her face.

But more than the video, the interpretation that I guessed, disturbed me very much. Did the director/band try to portray the universal truth from the innocent eyes of the young girl. Picture this: Every one of us is smiling and care-free in the happier times of our life. The moment we happen to lose any of our closest possessions, we engage in an endless chase for it. If we fail to find it, we retard, tired and helpless. But then, when we look at the world around us, we find so much pain and suffering; that our loss seems to be miniscule. We start realizing, the ordeals, others have to go through, for even a grain of food. We feel that all our possessions are just namesake and are no more than ornamental. And at this dividing line of the world and the self, we find ourselves helpless. But, most of the time, this realization is momentary, only till we return to the material world. The big divide of the whole world no longer makes sense to us, as we embrace our new-found happiness in objects of desire. And this is what the song probably means, when it says, Ye murdon ka gaanv..

Surely, songs like these-though may not be part of popular trend (should I say Himesh!), are very much thought-provoking. Reminds me of the lines from Indian Ocean's Bharam Bhaap Ke - "Jang ka rang sunehra samjha, Lekin baad mein gehra samjha. Janga ka rang toh kaala re..."

Sweet dreams..

2007-05-01T01:48:00.000+05:30

Just to let you know that I have not digressed into writing only the below-mentioned kind of poems :). This one always reminds me of one of my sweetest dreams, after which I would never want to wake up that morning..

I see a thousand colours painting the sky,
The sun hiding at the horizon, pleasing my eye,
Feel a cool breeze, and roses, my hands running through,
To live this dream forever, I want to...

Meri kalam se...

2007-05-01T00:51:00.000+05:30

With the absence of posts for a long time, I think you would have understood the importance I attach to reader requests, by not continuing on the tech-blog lines. (Oh! how much pain it was, to resist my fingers from typing so many significant tech-news that I read these days..) But, on the insistence of some of my close friends, I began writing some more Hindi four-liners. Only that this time these were with a 'different' purpose. Here, I have some lines with an 'imaginary ('virtual, pseudo, whatever you may wish to call it!) person in the context..

My imagination running wild, on the day Mumbai faced pleasant blink-and-you-miss-showers last month or so...

Yeh thandi hawa jaane kahaan se chali hain,
Mitti ki ye khushboo, dil ko choo gayi hain,
Baraste boondo se chehre pe nami hain,
Jannat hain ye, bas tumhari kami hain.

And when the train stops till eternity (or so it seems) on an almost-empty station, I could think of nothing but this...

Aaj in nazron ko dekhkar, ye mehsoos hua,
Waqt tham jaaye, to koi gham nahi.
Is muskurate chehre ko dekhkar ye mehsoos hua,
Dil ka dhadakna ruk jaaye, to koi gham nahi.

And one more, local train-window seat setting-- an ideal scenario for a person like me :)

Woh zulfe teri, aur woh nigaahen nazar aati hain,
Chehak si hansin kaanon mein bas jaati hain.
Jaanun har kadam, pehchaanta hoon har aahat,
Jab dhadkanein meri tez ho jaati hain.

Let's give a poetic end to it (or should I ??)

Har raat yehi sochta hoon,
Aankhen band kar, tumhe yaad karta hoon.
Aur usi yaad mein jo do shabd gun-gunaata hoon,
Duniya mein ek shayar kehlaata hoon.

Just a request...Please do not compare it with all the great Hindi shayaries that you have heard till date. And, if you have read the first 3 lines of this post, you will never ask me about the reason for these lines. Or so, I assume..

PS: Whoever got the idea of me contributing to a book [hehe..haha..I didn't start this :)], only I can understand how difficult it is, to maintain readership of even a simple blog like this. (Look at the kind of posts I have resorted to !)

M(SFT) for Mobile

2007-04-07T00:48:00.000+05:30

Firstly, with some of my posts being inclined to a certain company (I will NOT take its name in this post !), and people doubtful about the purpose [:)], its time to clarify. I actually spread my interests in technology mainly to the internet and allied services. Primarily, I am involved in techno-GAMY (dont search for definitions of this term..this is coined by me for my own convenience) - that is an eye for the big four - G_____, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo. So hear goes another technology story for you...(though I regret the delay in bringing this story to you)

First, Microsoft spun off a mobile service as a separate venture, 10 days ago, called Zenzui, which, till then was a Research effort by it. Zenzui is a new way of surfing the web on the mobile phone. It involves a personalised grid of - what MS calls - 'tiles'. Each tile represents a thumbnail representation of a particular service or a website. Users can navigate through the tiles by using the thumb. Zoom in by simple tapping the tile. Though currently it offers a grid of 4 tiles (with feeds from predefined partners), I assume the grid size and content should be customisable in the future. What is even more interesting is its promotional video, which almost gives a feeling that the technology is meant for high-end phones or PDAs. It's just a matter of time to see whether people would accept this as an equivalent of the iPhone navigation.

Another technology that MS unveiled shortly after this is the Deepfish, (still in Live Labs), which is again a new mobile browsing experience. Deepfish will make browsing on the mobile phone, similar to the desktop, it says. That is possible because it would load the entire web page, but in a bandwidth-friendly low resolution version on the mobile phone. The user can navigate to the section he wants, through the use of joystick, and zoom in on the section. It would load a full version of that part only. This would mean, website developers would not have to create a separate low graphic version. All this is possible through the use of server-side technology and a light-weight client. More still, it provides features like standard link navigation, simple form submission, client caching and bookmarking. Though it is still not complete in terms of advanced features like AJAX, the later versions should probably support them.

Though both these services are very different in terms of their motives and the technology, it clearly shows how important the mobile app market has become for all the big players.

A personal touch to Google

2007-03-24T00:17:00.000+05:30

Can you imagine getting the feel of a beach while you are searching? And obviously, when I say search, I mean Google(though I wished not to make this a 'Google' Blog, but for these innovations !). Google, had introduced the Personalized Google home page long back, on which you could have RSS feeds from hundreds of sites. And as days went by, a growing number of sites, dealing with varied topics, started being available for such feeds. So, this page has become a one-stop update for many people like me. My current homepage includes feeds ranging from the usual Times of India to word/quote of the day to my regular dose of technology news from multiple sites. Of course, a smart move by having tabbed page, thus helping us organizing it better.

On the 20th of this month, Google added one more interesting feature to it - themes! The banner of my home page can now contain images depending on various themes, which currently include only six - city, teahouse, winter scene, sky, beach and bus stop. And to add to this, the banner changes its appearance depending on the time of the day, so that you are in the mood, always! Here's my Google home page's technology tab, with beach as the current theme.

But then, there's always a Googley twist to it. According to tech observers, Google has put in some kind of tweaks in the code(e.g here's the Sweet Dreams xml), which results in the banner changing its appearance everyday at 3.14 AM (Remember pi !!). And that too, is different for each of the themes.

Here are the UFOs that appear in the City Scape and the Pi appearing in Sweet Dreams themes.
(Though I have tried setting my local time to 3.14 am, I have not yet encountered this hidden images :( )

And that's not all, Google is asking its users to suggest many more themes here, so that it can provide other themes in the future. And I assume in the near future, it will also allow users to upload their own images in their homepage. (I can't stop imagining my face beside the famous Google logo!). So now you know where to head, when you want a search engine that knows your mood..

Cats, Dogs & Microsoft !

2007-03-09T01:07:00.000+05:30

While following the news about Microsoft's TechFest 2007, which focusses many of its innovations, I came across a peculiar service. Called Asirra (Animal Species Image Recognition for Restricting Access) , it basically plans to provide a service wherein humans would be distinguished from robots by asking the user to identify whether the image is that of a cat or a dog ! Surprising, isn't it? This challenge is often called the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). And is very important these days to make sure that automated programs are not filling up forms or posting stuff on your website.

Currently such a distinction is established using images, with garbled/corrupted letters that have to be typed in by the user. (Remember all those times when you have been asked to do so on creation of email IDs or when posting on some blogs?). These are being widely used in websites but as Microsoft says are "Unfortunately, such challenges can be difficult and frustrating for people, yet are often easily solved by computers".

So, the solution ,it says, lies in asking users to identify whether a photo (a 'real' photo courtesy PetFinder.com) is that of a cat or dog. According to Microsoft, "This task difficult for computers, but our user studies have shown that people can accomplish it quickly and accurately. Many even think it's fun!". And then, it will also show an 'Adopt Me!' link below each image, which will support PetFinder's mission of finding home for these animals. And Microsoft aims to provide this as a service to website owners for identification on their website. I just tried the test on Asirra's website, which had 12 images of cats/dogs and 2 out of four times it flashed 'You are a bot!', because I identified one photo wrongly. (This was because the pic was a long distance shot and it was very difficult to identify the hairy animal in that small pic!). Only time will tell how effective, fun (and less frustrating !!) this system is for the visitors. Lets hope we see many cute puppies & kitten everyday on websites !!

(Images courtesy : www.asirra.com)

Keeping me busy

2007-03-05T00:43:00.000+05:30

Last week and days before that, I was a little (did I say little?) busy with my work. Just completed a task this week and felt a little satisfied (being the 'Employee of the month' in my project could also be a reason :)). But nowadays, I am far more busy at home with the online puzzles as part of Transcend (the fest at Symbiosis). And I am solving the 404 Not Found, just like that. For those who have been through Klueless 1 and Klueless 2 (part of IIM-I's Iris), its almost exactly similar to the Klueless. Equally challenging. Equally involving. And equally frustrating! Just try it out, if you find time that is. Because once you start it, you may never want to leave the PC until you finish the last level. And if you ever get stuck at some level, you may realize why I call it frustrating. Lotsa brain-scratching moments ahead.. And yes, don't blame me if you manage to sneak in just 5 hrs of sleep after hours at the computer (like me!!)

PS: You may also try out the 'original' Klueless. But, in both the cases, dont ever think of completing the puzzle without the game's blogs.

Dreams never die

2007-03-03T20:09:00.000+05:30

After many days, I took some time off to listen to many songs that I used to cherish last year and earlier. And in my playlist was also the inspiring Aashayen (Iqbal). Those lines are really very inspiring and when Shaan says 'Ab mushkil nahin kuch bhi ..', it sets my mind into the thinking mode. "Can determination really drive a person towards his goals, inspite of the unsurmountable challenges?".

As if to answer my question, the Times of India carried an article today about how Dreams never die. It mentions the story of a paan-wallah Birbal Chaurasia, who fled away from his village 30 years ago with Rs.180 in his pocket and set up shop outside the Indian Express building in Delhi. Earning very little from his paan-shop, he used to prepare pickles and home-made drinks and ensured his daughters got Rs.10 for their bus fare. Last month, his elder daughter became a Chartered Accountant and his younger daughter is about to complete cost accountancy in a year. Surprising? Inspiring? It should be. We have seen many of our friends trying hard for completing the CA exams and cribbing about it being 'one-of-the-most-difficult' exams ever. GIven the fact that we have much of the resources and luxury to help us achieve our ambitions, many of us still falter in our path, and take pride in 'putting up an average show'. Think of all the cases where we hear of physically challenged people earning success in their fields. And still we talk about the many 'challenges', because of which we fail.

When I read of cases like Chaurasia's, I am reassured that determination is the most important thing (and in many cases, the only thing) that will help us out in reaching out to the stars. When you hear him say "I understood (on interacting with women journalists) that progress is linked to education. Which is why I decided to educate my teo daughters along with my son...Without education, women cannot be self-reliant and take independent decisions", you may never realise that this paan-wallah is a class VIII dropout.

Brin-ning with success

2007-02-17T11:25:00.000+05:30

No.It's not a typo. Its just to associate success with the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, who has been featured by the Moment magazine.

All of you may probably be knowing how much I am fascinated by Google, not only for the variety of its product releases, but the speed at which it has grown and the huge risks that it is ready to take. And, not surprisingly, Fortune Magazine has rated it as 'The Best Company to Work for' in the United States for in this year's survey. As it mentions

"Our new No. 1 sets the standard for Silicon Valley: free meals, swimming spa, and free doctors onsite. Engineers can spend 20% of time on independent projects...."

Only time will tell how far this company will go in fulfilling its mission "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. "

PS: The PC at my place is up and running (and the first thing I did was, obviously, visit www.google.com !!), so you can expect more frequent posts on my blog!!