Buddhi

15 sites that changed the world

2006-08-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the web, The Observer has compiled a list of sites that changed the world.

Java, not Ajax

2006-06-07T05:58:00.000-07:00

It's often frustrating to early developers with big visions when something later comes along and steals their thunder by offering far less. But there's a lesson here: as Donald Knuth says, premature optimization is the root of all evil. And that doesn't just apply to performance, it applies to design. It's impossible to think through what people are going to want to do until they start doing it, so sometimes it's best to seed the market with a hack that gets people going, and then follow up as you watch what they do with it.

India Numbers

2006-03-08T04:48:00.000-08:00

12 million PCs
Internet users =~ 38 million
Online advertisers =~ 1,000

100 million television sets
TV advertisers =~ 7,000

13,000 cinema houses and multiplexes
Newspapers and print media advertisers =~ 70,000

Source: Aadi's blog

Dilli or New Delhi

2006-02-08T06:24:00.000-08:00

Winksite is having a problem in choosing the right name for India's capital. People call it by the name Dilli but write it as New Delhi. Go for it - let them know what it should be. Too bad there is only binary choice - Dilli or New Delhi and no option for "Can't Say".

While setting up metros for the mobile chat network side of what we do we’ve come across something we need some help on.

It boils down to something like this - You say New Delhi. I say Dilli.

We did some research, talked to some friends from that part of the world, and checked out what other social networking sites like Xanga were doing. For additional information please see: “India’s New Names“.

We went with Dilli.

…but now we’re hearing some differing opinions as to which is preferred. Including comments made to Scott while he was visiting Mumbai.

So which should it be - Dilli or New Delhi? We would like to know what you think?

At WINKsite a metro is a geographic area. We limit metros to large metropolitan areas. The name for that metro could refer to a major city in that area or the city itself.

Two big-picture lectures about India

2006-01-21T05:51:00.000-08:00

1 The first was the Narayanan Oration (April 2004) at the Australian National University: India: On the growth turnpike.
2 The second was the Gadgil Memorial Lecture in October 2005: India's economic future: Moving beyond State Capitalism.

Source: Ajay Shah's blog

Habermas' Heritage: The Future of the Public Sphere in the Network Society

2005-12-06T01:03:00.000-08:00

"Habermas' Heritage: The Future of the Public Sphere in the Network Society" - Boeder, Pieter

I've always enjoyed a well-constructed attempt to update philosophy and sociology in the context of the current digital era, which is unfolding as we write. In this piece, Boeder offers a lively (if dense) analysis of public discourse and its importance to society in the Web era. Drawing on the work of Habermas, he charts the Internet's growth, the ongoing consolidation of media, and the growing need for an independent sphere of public discourse in the face of these massive forces. He is not a pessimist, though; the public sphere was never a static state, whatever media it relied upon, which have ranged from coffee houses to editorial pages. Habermas argued that as mass media has mutated into monopoly capitalist forms, the role of public debate has shifted from the "dissemination of reliable information to the formation of public opinion." Arguably, this is exactly what MoveOn.Org has been doing, and countless Blogs and Podcasts as well. This article is interesting because it serves as a reminder that the forces that shape society weren't created just yesterday, and that a fresh look at classic philosophy and sociology is not only a good idea, but can actually help us understand the subtle changes the Internet has begun in our public lives. - TH

API Invests $2 Million To Test New Business Models - American Press Institute

2005-11-24T05:22:00.000-08:00

"Newspaper Next: The Transformation Project" will explore the trends disrupting the newspaper industry and develop practical business initiatives newspapers can adopt. API is investing $2 million into this project, which is the centerpiece of the Institute’s 60th anniversary.

Prolific Father of Modern Management

2005-11-17T04:19:00.000-08:00

Extracts from LA Times obituary article on Peter Drucker:

I
Former General Electric Co. Chairman Jack Welch credited a pithy question from Drucker with helping him understand how to restructure the far-flung GE empire, a sometimes-wrenching process that turned the company into a stock market dynamo and made Welch one of America's most celebrated managers.

"Drucker said: 'If you weren't already in this business, would you enter it today? And if not, what are you going to do about it?' " Welch recalled Friday night. "Simple, right? But incredibly powerful."

II
Drucker "was like the exceptionally insightful anthropologist who visits a remote tribe and understands things about the tribe that the tribe itself doesn't understand," said Michael Useem, management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

III
At GM in wartime, Drucker saw "the corporation as human effort" — "people of diverse skills and knowledges working together in a large organization," he wrote in "Concept of the Corporation," the 1946 book that emerged from his two years of studying GM.

It was something new in world history, different from the "command and control" methods of organizing labor that had characterized the building of the pyramids or Napoleon's army or even Henry Ford's assembly line.

"The overseer of the unskilled peasants who dragged stone for the pyramids did not concern himself with morale or motivation," Drucker wrote.

But modern management is different, he said. "Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant," he said in various ways in his 18 books on the profession of management.

IV
He had an acute sense and knowledge of history. In "Management Challenges for the 21st Century," a book published in 1999, Drucker noted that a version of the high-tech entrepreneurs so lionized today appeared before in history, after the invention of the printing press in 1450.

For nearly 100 years, printers were showered with honors and riches, as technology wizards are today. But then printing came to be taken for granted, and the printers' place of honor was taken by publishers, the controllers of "content."

NY Times has sayings of Chairman Peter, as he was sometimes called:

"Marketing is a fashionable term. The sales manager becomes a marketing vice president. But a gravedigger is still a gravedigger even when it is called a mortician - only the price of the burial goes up."

"One either meets or one works."

"The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction and malperformance."

"Stock option plans reward the executive for doing the wrong thing. Instead of asking, 'Are we making the right decision?' he asks, 'How did we close today?' It is encouragement to loot the corporation."

There Is No Such Thing as User-Generated Content

2005-10-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

User-generated content is all the rage! Unfortunately, there is no such thing.

Users are not interested in generating content.

They are interested in communicating.

Blogs are not content. They are communication.

The “15 million” bloggers out there do not consider themselves publishers. Probably only a few hundred or a thousand of those bloggers are “publishing”. The rest of them are communicating. Just like they communicate over email or telephone or IM. They are regular folks who are just talking.

When the communication is captured so it is not ephemeral, you get what people are calling “user-generated content”. But it is not content at all, it is communication that has been recorded for all to see.

This distinction is subtle but very important. Don’t expect your users to generate content. Instead, support their efforts to communicate.

Source: Nivi : There Is No Such Thing as User-Generated Content

NTT preps 3D web browser

2005-09-23T02:55:00.000-07:00

Japanese software company NTT will release its three-dimensional web browser in October, the company revealed last week. The �30,000 ($275) SpaceBrowser package works with Internet Explorer to render information in a 3D space.

What the hell is Web 2.0?

2005-09-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

The great web mash-up begins.

Retail: Fleminfo Duty free to expand in India

2005-09-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

Duty free shop operator Flemingo today said it was planning major expansion by setting up DFS at airports such as Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur and Coimbatore.

Talking to reporters here, Atul Ahuja, director of Flemingo, which runs 25 DFS at Indian airports and seaports, said it was awaiting tenders for the DFS at leading airports including Kolkata, Mumbai and Coimbatore, for establishing its shops.

Mega Deals

2005-09-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

Oracle to buy rival Siebel for $5.85 bn
Oracle, which will become the world's biggest customer relationship management software maker if the deal goes through, said the agreement was worth $3.61 billion after subtracting Siebel's $2.24 billion in cash.

EBay to buy Skype in deal worth up to $4.1 bln

EBay said it plans to pay $1.3 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in stock for the Web communications company.

Asian Wireless Market Booms

2005-09-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

Investors agreed that challenges remain if growth is to continue. Mr. Kirkwood, for example, sees opportunities in blogging and other types of personal content creation. The creation of original content drives Internet usage.

“We try to avoid businesses that rely on intellectual property or media rights held offshore,” said Mr. Kirkwood. “We invest in blogging businesses where people create their own music.”

Bill Tai, a partner in Charles River Ventures of Menlo Park, California, said his firm invests in a variety of technologies in the wireless market, from semiconductors and routers to mobile content builders. He added that the United States is behind Asia in capitalizing on the growth of web-based services for mobile phone users.

Source: Music Blog Investments

Insurance: Indian Insurance Industry report

2005-09-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

Research and Markets - Indian Insurance Industry: New Avenues for Growth 2012
With an annual growth rate of 15-20% and the largest number of life insurance policies in force, the potential of the Indian insurance industry is huge. Total value of the Indian insurance market (2004-05) is estimated at Rs. 450 billion (US$10 billion). According to government sources, the insurance and banking services' contribution to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) is 7% out of which the gross premium collection forms a significant part. The funds available with the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) for investments are 8% of GDP.

Retail: Pantaloon to open 19 new outlets

2005-09-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

Pantaloon Retail on Monday reported a 105 per cent year-on-year growth in retail sales in August at Rs 146 crore (Rs 1.46 billion).

"The company plans to open six Pantaloon outlets, five Big Bazaars, seven Food Bazaars and the second Fashion Station within the next three months," the company said in a statement.

Pantaloon Retail had ventured into the home retail business through its subsidiary Home Solutions and launched its first home furnishing and textile store 'MeLa' in Mumbai.
"More standalone stores and home representation in Big Bazaars are planned over the next few months in addition to the first full home store called 'Home Town'," it said.

Retail: Movado to expand retail footprint in India

2005-09-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

Movado one of the world's premier watchmakers founded in Switzerland, is expanding its retail presence in India in a bid to increase marketshare.

"With the IT boom and the close links most Bangaloreans enjoy with the United States, Movado has emerged as a clear choice for many connoisseurs of the city," he said.

Its a global world eh - brand equity in US helps sales in India.

Saregama setting up master server with 3 lakh songs

2005-08-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

"Anyone can download the songs from this server after paying a nominal fee. The purpose of setting up this server is to check piracy. We will be the first Indian music company to set up such a server,"...

Saregama is focusing on the ring-tone business too. It would be using the old songs that it has in its archives for this purpose. The company, Mr Goenka said, is now available on all the major e-carriers.

Source: The Hindu Business Line : Saregama setting up master server with 3 lakh songs

The world's within reach

2005-08-30T01:09:00.000-07:00

THE owners of the British India Submarine Telegraph Company, which rolled out India's first submarine telegraph cable between Bombay and the UK in 1870, would have never imagined that Indians could ever control this huge goldmine buried deep under the dark ocean floor.

One hundred and thirty five years later, Indian telecom operators Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Reliance Infocomm, Bharti Televentures and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, with ownership of six major under-sea cable systems, are all set to become the new barons of international bandwidth, a status that was enjoyed by US operators such as Cable & Wireless, AT&T and MCI until a few months ago.The reason for this change in balance of power has been a spate of acquisitions by the Indian operators in recent months.">The Hindu Business Line : The world's within reach: "THE owners of the British India Submarine Telegraph Company, which rolled out India's first submarine telegraph cable between Bombay and the UK in 1870, would have never imagined that Indians could ever control this huge goldmine buried deep under the dark ocean floor.

One hundred and thirty five years later, Indian telecom operators Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Reliance Infocomm, Bharti Televentures and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, with ownership of six major under-sea cable systems, are all set to become the new barons of international bandwidth, a status that was enjoyed by US operators such as Cable & Wireless, AT&T and MCI until a few months ago.The reason for this change in balance of power has been a
spate of acquisitions by the Indian operators in recent months.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Winer's OPML Editor

2005-08-11T02:46:00.000-07:00

David Weinberger's views on Dave Winer's Outline Editor. The foll. paragraph is very important in understanding the potential of what outliners can do. OPML+RSS combo can be very useful in creating knowledge maps; OPML represents the relationships and RSS the information.

"Dave says that what's most important about this is that it's a tool for representing the relationship between pieces of information. Its openness and its ability to link in other outlines -- distributed nested knowledge -- makes this more than cool."

Why Great Minds Can't Grasp Consciousness

2005-08-09T01:41:00.000-07:00

I think because they start with the assumption that consciousness is a state / property of matter i.e. brain.

He wondered whether scientists would ever be able to measure the onset consciousness in infants and speculated that consciousness might be similar to what physicists call a "phase transition," an abrupt and sudden large-scale transformation resulting from several microscopic changes. The emergence of superconductivity in certain metals when cooled below a critical temperature is an example of a phase transition.

In a recent email interview, Gross said he figures there are probably many different levels of consciousness, but he believes that language is a crucial factor distinguishing the human variety from that of animals.

Gross isn't the only physicist with ideas about consciousness.

Read: Live Science: Why Great Minds Can't Grasp Consciousness

India's first Net route-server in Chennai

2005-08-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

Hitherto, it took 500 milli-seconds to transmit Internet content. Now, it would take only five milli-seconds. Two more route-servers would come through at Mumbai and Noida by August 25, he said.

While other countries had only two route servers, India would have three, Mr. Maran said. In the event of any breakdown in Internet traffic, other countries could route their international traffic through India since it had the required bandwidth, he said.

Interview with Rich Skrenta of Topix.net

2005-08-04T06:58:00.000-07:00

Low-key Topix.net tries to recreate a journalist's brain with computers

OJR: How does your algorithm figure out what stories are interesting or what hasn't been done before? Or credible or not credible?

Skrenta: There are a lot of ways that an algorithm can judge a story. Obviously we can't do as good a job as a human could do. We had Lincoln Millstein [formerly with the New York Times Digital and now with Hearst New Media] visit us, and he said, 'You people suck. You need to put human reviewers on all the channels, and then you'll be good.'

Yes, we have to clean it up. And even though we're not as good as Lincoln Millstein, making the algorithm as good as he is, is a 50- or 100-year job, that's HAL 9000 stuff, and it's kind of a ridiculous goal to get there. But we can make it better each day. So it measures the tonal heat of the article, what kind of extraneous information is there. We have an alternative energy section in technology, but we found that a lot of stories were rants about the Kyoto treaty and President Bush -- which have a place but not in that section. But we can create detectors for that and pull it off the page.

We actually have an algorithm here called the Lincoln Millstein Algorithm. He was from a town in Connecticut, and he said, 'The thing that sucks about your service is that when you can't find news about my town, you go the neighboring town. My town is an affluent town, and no one in my town ever wants to hear about that town.' Like Palo Alto should import stories from Atherton and Menlo Park and not from East Palo Alto. So in our system, we have demographic data for these towns. So if there's a slow news day in Palo Alto, it shouldn't jump a big demographic barrier. So that's the Lincoln Millstein Algorithm. It never occurred to us that we could codify it into an algorithm.

IndiaTimes sells stake for $36m

2005-07-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

WestBridge Capital Partners, a Bangalore-based venture fund, and Sequoia Capital, a heavyweight US investor based in Silicon Valley, will jointly pick up a 15 per cent stake in the portal, part of Bennett, Coleman, India's largest publishing group, for $36m, say people familiar with the deal. The sale values IndiaTimes.Com at $240m.

Source: FT.com / By industry / Media & internet - 3i loses battle for stake in IndiaTimes.Com

Web content by and for the masses

2005-06-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

John Markoff has a nice article in NYT which picks on a trend in the evolution of internet which I am personally very bullish about. Jonathan Schwartz of Sun calls it the "Participation Age".

The Google Ecosystem

2005-06-29T02:52:00.000-07:00

Kuro5hin article listing companies that Google has bought till now and possible future acquistion targets.

Grokster case: Winners and losers

2005-06-29T02:48:00.000-07:00

The US Supreme Court recently ruled that peer-to-peer companies such as Grokster could be held responsible for the copyright piracy on their networks.

CNET has compiled a list of potential winners and losers based on early reactions to the decision.

Nikon D50

2005-06-23T00:32:00.000-07:00

Nikon's D50 review by CNET, calling it "a digital SLR camera that amateurs can afford".

For example, the D50 powers up in two-tenths of a second, so you don't miss shots because your camera's not ready. You don't worry about running out of battery power by lunchtime at Six Flags, either; the D50's battery lasts for weeks on a charge. (It has a 2,000-shot capacity, compared with 200 to 400 on a pocket-size consumer cam.) And a digital SLR reduces shutter lag--the half-second delay after you press the shutter button--to zero.

But a digital SLR's most important advantage is that it takes infinitely better pictures than those little pocket cams. These are big, bright, sharp, professional-looking photos, with ultra-sharp subjects and gently blurred backgrounds. You can freeze motion, making a pool splash look like crystallized ice; you can shoot in the dark, leaving the shutter open to record the orange trails of car taillights; and you can fire off several shots a second, improving your odds of catching the bat meeting the ball, the cork exiting the Champagne bottle or the 5-year-old sitting still.

What you can't do with a digital SLR, though, is capture digital movies, compose shots using the back-panel screen (you must look through the viewfinder) or put the camera in your pocket; a digital SLR is bulky. Harsh trade-offs, yes, but that's the ballgame.

India portal Rediff.com branches out

2005-06-22T23:44:00.000-07:00

Interview with Rediff.com CEO Ajit Balakrishnan on CNET News.com. Here are some tidbits:

* Eighty percent of computer users in India are still use Windows 98
* Roughly 60 percent of PC Internet access takes place through Internet cafes
* Rediff.com has 50 million mobile phone users
* Yahoo, founded around the same time, is the second biggest portal in India, followed by Microsoft's MSN

Web users increasingly prefer online news

2005-06-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

The statistics reflect a broad trend in the newspaper publishing industry. U.S. newspaper circulation has been falling as audiences increasingly turn to the Internet for news.

Nearly one-fifth of Web users who read newspapers now prefer online to offline editions, according to a new study from Internet audience measurement company Nielsen//NetRatings.

The first-time study from Nielsen//NetRatings found that 21 percent of those Web users now primarily use online versions of newspapers, while 72 percent still read print editions.

The remaining 7 percent split their time between online and offline editions. Comparable historic statistics were not available...

The online edition of the New York Times Co.'s flagship paper, www.NYTimes.com, is the most visited U.S. newspaper site. It had an audience of 11.3 million in May, up 25 percent from a year earlier, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

USATODAY.com had the second-biggest online reach, with an audience of 9.2 million in May, up 15 percent. Rounding out the top three was washingtonpost.com whose audience in May grew 10 percent year on year to 7.4 million...

In May, Yahoo News had an online audience of 23.8 million and the audience for Google News was 7.1 million, respectively up 3 percent and 4 percent from a year ago, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Source: CIOL : News : Web users increasingly prefer online news

Fulcrums and Frameworks

2005-05-09T04:06:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on societal phase shifts at one small voice.

And the big changes have occurred despite "the system" of religious, political, military, and corporate power. So I think that working within the system is almost never the right way to bring about progress and change. The Internet was not developed by the telcos; long-haul trucking was not developed by the railroads; guns were not developed by knights; printing presses were not developed by scribes; jazz was not developed by classical composers; personal computers were not developed by mainframe manufacturers; the World Wide Web was not developed by publishing companies; Wikipedia was not developed by Encyclopedia Britannica. Similarly, deep educational reform will not come from the public schools; medical reform will not come from pharmaceutical companies and the NIH; copyright reform will not come from Disney and the record companies; legal reform will not come from trial lawyers and legislatures; monetary reform will not come from central banks; political reform will not come from the Democrats and Republicans.

I happen to think that real reform in all of these areas will be the result of introducing markets and other forms of voluntary interaction from the bottom up: parents teaching their kids at home or contracting with other providers of alternative education services, patients paying doctors and nurses directly rather than through government- or company-provided insurance, creative types selling (or giving) to their audiences directly rather than depending on publishers and record companies, people settling disputes through mediation rather than the courts, folks using gold or local currencies rather than government-issued fiat money, and eventually perhaps even many people seeking consistently voluntary solutions rather than vote-mongering, regulating, legislating, and other forms of forcing their views and desires on others through the instruments of government power.

Internet can help entertainment industry boom

2005-05-07T04:05:00.000-07:00

Survey conducted by Internet & Online Association (IOAI) covering a sample base of 6,200 Internet and mobile users. Lots of stats but I didn't quite understand the following bits.

It is estimated that India has about 37 million mobile users and 25 million Internet users...

IOAI estimates that there will be 165 million interactive users in the 20-40 years age group by 2007

The latest numbers tell that India has 53.78 million mobile customers. So don't understand the 37 million mobile users thingie.

Also, this goverment press release says that the Internet connections and mobile users should be around 18 million and 180 million by 2007 respectively. So, again what explains the 165 million interactive users figure.

Commenting on the release of the research, President, Internet and Online Association, Preeti Desai said: "The Indian entertainment industry stands at over Rs 20,000 crore and is expected to reach Rs 45,000 crore (Rs 450 billion) by 2009.

# 94% of the audience lies within the 18-45 age group. A generation accustomed to keeping in touch i.e. via e-mail, Sms and instant messaging. A prime demographic of moviegoers.
# 68% of the audiences have a personal computer, with 50% part of a 2-television set household.
# 92% of the populations have been using the Internet for 1-5 years, highlighting an online pedigree. 52% access Internet from home. 80% are online for more than 5 hours a week with 30% use the Internet for more than 20 hours a week. An indication of online activity as becoming part of daily activity.
# 30% are online for more than 20 hours a week. 34% spend 5-10 hours a week watching television. 32% reading newspapers for 3-5 hours a week. This clearly shows that Internet is a permanent part of media consumption habits along with TV & Print.
# 86% have mobiles , an opportunity to exploit -- 41% postpaid and 45% prepaid
# 47% would pay for film-related mobile content and do not mind SMS contests and alerts. 70% prefer ringtones, 44% prefer SMS contests and SMS alerts and with 22% use the mobile for surfing the Internet, and one information source can reinforce the other.

IBM restructures Global Services

2005-05-06T04:04:00.000-07:00

The high-end services are meant to set IBM apart from low-cost technology suppliers such as Dell, and traditional computer consulting companies such as Hewlett-Packard, EDS and Accenture. The strategy is to combine IBM's technology products and research with its business-minded consultants, which is something few other services companies can do, IBM executives claim.

Source: IBM retools Global Services | CNET News.com

Google's PageRank secrets revealed

2005-04-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

Google has filed a patent application, entitled 'Information retrieval based on historical data'. It reveals many of the techniques which Google uses to rank sites. Read this report based on the patent application for SEO tips.

Storytelling: Yahoo!'s Next Play

2005-04-29T05:12:00.000-07:00

Interview with Scott Moore, ex-GM MSN Programming who has recently switched to Yahoo as vice president of content operations.

The thing I'm most excited about is the next phases of Internet development, which I believe will be about storytelling. You need good storytellers ... I don't think the Internet as a medium has come anywhere close to realizing its potential as a storytelling medium. The other key area that I'm really interested in is user-generated content, particularly blogs and user communities like Craigslist. The challenge is to figure out how to harness the massive creative energy represented by those things, and harness it in a way that allows the highest-quality content to rise to the top...

The cost of production for the Internet is a fraction of the cost in any other medium. We're dealing with pixels and bandwidth, not film production and movie stars or ink, paper, and postage. It's a lot cheaper than television and film, and that's why I'm so optimistic. Flash adoption is ubiquitous. Bandwidth costs are going down. The creative palette has hugely expanded for professionally produced original content. When you add in the phenomenon of user-generated content--things like blogs, vlogs, photo-sharing, communities of interest, and the like--the medium is set to blossom...

They have great depth of engagement with their audience. They dominate in share of minutes and page views per user in every single content category. In total minutes spent in news, sports, and finance, generally Yahoo! is No. 1. I can't even think of a segment where it isn't.

Java Turns Ten

2005-04-29T05:04:00.000-07:00

Interview with Sun's director of systems engineering, Bryce Schroeder. He estimates the number of Java developers to about 5 million.

Bill Joy, a Sun founder, said, "Most of the bright people don't work for you, no matter who you are. You need a strategy for innovation occurring elsewhere." Joy's "law" describes one of the biggest benefits of Java technology: You can tap into a really strong development community of skilled programmers.

Java Technology: A Decade Old and Going Strong

The Darwinian Interlude

2005-04-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

Here's the most interesting part from an article by Freeman Dyson in Technology Review:

Now, after some three billion years, the Darwinian era is over. The epoch of species competition came to an end about 10 thousand years ago when a single species, Homo sapiens, began to dominate and reorganize the biosphere. Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the driving force of change. Cultural evolution is not Darwinian. Cultures spread by horizontal transfer of ideas more than by genetic inheritance. Cultural evolution is running a thousand times faster than Darwinian evolution, taking us into a new era of cultural interdependence that we call globalization. And now, in the last 30 years, Homo sapiens has revived the ancient pre-Darwinian practice of horizontal gene transfer, moving genes easily from microbes to plants and animals, blurring the boundaries between species. We are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era, when species will no longer exist, and the evolution of life will again be communal.

How Philips India doubled sales

2005-04-27T02:09:00.000-07:00

"Radio sales in themselves are not significant for Philips -- they account for about 15 per cent of the audio business. But, as S Nagarajan, head sales and service, explains, they help penetration and distribution of other products, such as DVDs, colour televisions and mini music systems.

To ensure that happens, Philips changed its distribution strategy around two years ago. Distributors are now allocated smaller geographical territories so they can concentrate on getting firmer footholds in their areas.

Distributor in upcountry markets, who were earlier allotted five or six districts are now given only two or three. And not all are given the entire product range.

'We allocated only some products so that the focus is sharper' explains Nagarajan."

Source: Rediff

Lijjat Papad!

2005-04-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

Amul and Lijjat Papad are two "co-operative" success stories in India; Proving that there can be alternate ways to generate profit and do business.

This is the incredible story of Lijjat Papad! Also check out Lijjat's distribution flow chart.

P2P Cash Systems

2005-04-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

P2P Cash has invented the ICU, or Intelligent Cash Unit. The patent pending ICU allows individuals and business to conduct secure transactions between themselves without expensive credit cards and traditional server based transaction-processing systems. The ICU enables 50 million members of the major file sharing networks of Kazaa and Morpheus to legally buy and sell music, video and other content while ensuring that the copyright holders receive proper payment.

P2P Cash Systems

Amazon buys BookSurge

2005-04-04T22:53:00.000-07:00

Amazon.com has acquired BookSurge, a South Carolina-based on-demand book printing company.

"Print-on-demand has changed the economics of small-quantity printing, making it possible for books with low and uncertain demand to be profitably produced," Greg Greeley, Amazon's vice president for media products, said in a statement.

Talking tech with Bill Joy

2005-03-31T06:42:00.000-08:00

Interview with Sun co-founder Bill Joy who has recently joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner.

For example, the idea of a Web had been implemented in different systems 20 years before Tim Berners-Lee did the Web as we know it. So you knew something was likely to happen, but you didn't know when or exactly what the details would be.

What allowed it to happen was an environmental change. All of a sudden, a lot of computers were interconnected at a decent speed in an ecosystem that had been created by the existence of those networks. Then this idea, which had been around for a long time but had never been fully flushed out, certainly became possible.

LATCH

2005-03-31T00:59:00.000-08:00

Sunil Goyal in a comment on Emergic.org post.

There are 5 key ways of organizing information. The "LATCH" Principle:
L - Location,
A - Alphabet,
T - Time,
C - Category,
H - Hierarchy

I would tend to replace (or atleast add to) Category with Tags

Some advice for Newspapers

2005-03-30T03:41:00.000-08:00

What Newspapers Can Learn from the iPod

The iPod took something that people assumed was free - the MP3 file - and created a vision of value. Likewise, news publishers should not automatically assume that the escalating costs of newsprint are a negative. They need to be more creative in leveraging their newsrooms to create products that are friendly to advertisers.

What Newspapers Can Learn from Video Games

Newspapers don't have to become something different in order to realize Nisenholtz's dream of profitability. They don't have to become uber-blogger conglomerates or a worldwide provider of classifieds. However, I think it does mean that they need to take a look at their newsroom and what it might mean in this vague new world...and remember that their integrity, however cheap it may seem today in the face of bloggers that can seemingly make up "facts" with impunity, is an asset not to be trifled with.

Yahoo! Netrospective

2005-03-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

Nostalgia! Definitely worth checking out.
Yahoo! Netrospective: 10 years, 100 moments of the Web

Share ware

2005-02-26T05:27:00.000-08:00

From Economist's The economics of sharing:

Economists have not always found it easy to explain why self-interested people would freely share scarce, privately owned resources. Their understanding, though, is much clearer than it was 20 or 30 years ago: co-operation, especially when repeated, can breed reciprocity and trust, to the benefit of all. In the context of open source, much has been written about why people would share technical talent, giving away something that they also sell by holding a job in the information-technology industry. The reason often seems to be that writing open-source software increases the authors' prestige among their peers or gains them experience that might help them in the job market, not to mention that they also find it fun.

The characteristics of information—be it software, text or even biotech research—make it an economically obvious thing to share. It is a “non-rival” good: ie, your use of it does not interfere with my use. Better still, there are network effects: ie, the more people who use it, the more useful it is to any individual user. Best of all, the existence of the internet means that the costs of sharing are remarkably low. The cost of distribution is negligible, and co-ordination is easy because people can easily find others with similar goals and can contribute when convenient.

Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Modality of Economic Production - Yochai Benkler, Yale Law Journal, November 2004

MouthShut.com - A Case Study

2005-02-26T01:24:00.000-08:00

I have used mouthshut.com, an Indian epionions.com, occasionally and found the reviews/site useful to some extent. This agencyfaqs! >case study looks more like a press release though. But nonetheless it has some useful tidbits on mouthshut.

Today's brand owners know the imporatnce of a consumer platform such as mouthshut.com where consumers freely talk about their products. They willingly pay for some genuine consumer feedback and that's the revenue model for mouthshut.com. As Farooqui, says, “Mouthshut.com earns revenues by providing market research solutions to corporate clients. Over the years we have provided market research services, brand identification services and we've also help companies retain their customers and build brand loyalty,” he adds.

ajax: a new approach to web applications

2005-02-24T05:05:00.000-08:00

A timely article, as we think on innovating the UI for the Events Web that the New Media enables.

Desktop applications have a richness and responsiveness that has seemed out of reach on the Web. The same simplicity that enabled the Web’s rapid proliferation also creates a gap between the experiences we can provide and the experiences users can get from a desktop application.

That gap is closing. Take a look at Google Suggest. Watch the way the suggested terms update as you type, almost instantly. Now look at Google Maps. Zoom in. Use your cursor to grab the map and scroll around a bit. Again, everything happens almost instantly, with no waiting for pages to reload.

Google Suggest and Google Maps are two examples of a new approach to web applications that we at Adaptive Path have been calling Ajax. The name is shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and it represents a fundamental shift in what’s possible on the Web.

A Biased History Of Interactive Media

2005-02-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

Way back before the stock market bubble, even before the web, a lateral tribe of artist-programmers accidentally invented something called the New Media Industry...

Developing story, Looks intresting...

What were the Indians Searching

2005-02-24T03:51:00.000-08:00

Google Zeitgeist lists the top 10 terms that Indians were searching in Jan 2005.

1. tsunami
2. indian railways
3. sania mirza
4. trisha
5. aishwarya rai
6. anara gupta
7. ignou
8. bollywood
9. ndtv
10. australian open

Forrester Magazine

2005-02-24T02:16:00.000-08:00

First issue of Forrester Research's Forrester Magazine.

As the web and newer technologies continue their inevitable journeys from new to mainstream media, the curious persistence of print is unmistakable. All of us have the ability to read full-length books and magazines on our computers and handhelds; hardly any of us does it. There’s something reassuring about print: The simplicity, portability, and permanence of print make it an ideal communication vehicle. This magazine’s ambition is to become a permanent part of CEOs’ business libraries, stuffed with ideas and advice that will last. We cover pressing topics with rigor, utility, and imagination.

Media Business Magazine

2005-02-23T05:33:00.000-08:00

Came across this magazine on business publishing. Looks interesting, especially since a few articles in the latest issue cover "online / new media" - an area of interest.

3G Linux phone allows video calling, Web browsing

2005-02-18T01:20:00.000-08:00

Article lists a few leading companies in the Mobile Linux space.

Paulus said that the real drive for Linux-powered phones is coming from carriers, which want more control over their platforms.

3G Linux phone allows video calling, Web browsing | CNET News.com

The History of Online Comics

2005-02-15T06:20:00.000-08:00

Much as some webcartoonists would like to pretend otherwise, webcomics are not really an industry apart. They are part of the larger online content industry, and any analysis of their business has to take the business of all online content into account.

The History of Online Comics by T Campbell (Chapter 9) :: Comixpedia :: Covering the Digital Frontier of Comics Online

The new format is no format

2005-02-15T06:19:00.000-08:00

"What the consumer would buy is a data file, and you could create whatever you need. If you want to make an MP3, you make an MP3. If you want a DVD-Audio surround disc, you make that."

"We're moving beyond the media stage to the delivery stage," agreed Mitch Gallagher, 41-year-old editor of EQ, a San Mateo, Calif.-based magazine for music producers. At some point, he said, "you won't have something to hold in your hand" until you transfer a data file to a blank disc or tape.

10 Million iPods, Previewing the CD's End (washingtonpost.com)

BlueRun Ventures

2005-02-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

Article on BlueRun Ventures, a $350 million fund in which Nokia is the largest investor.

The firm's principal interests are 3D graphics and graphical search and navigation technology aimed at making activities like Web surfing easier on devices such as mobile phones, Malloy said.

"It probably doesn't make sense to do text-based search on cell phones, so the question is, is there a way to navigate graphically?" Malloy said. "If you begin to have better and better displays, are there ways you can search graphically?"

Buzz Marketing

2005-01-21T02:26:00.000-08:00

Put simply, buzz marketing is the practice of gathering volunteers to try products, then sending them out into the world to talk up their experiences with the people they meet in their daily lives. The idea is that the more people see a product being used in public, or the more they hear about it from people they know and trust, the more likely they will be to buy it for themselves. Of course, word-of-mouth has long been the way that many people find their favorite products, or learn about a new favorite movie, book or restaurant. "For years, people recognized the power of word-of-mouth in convincing, influencing, affecting consumer behavior," says marketing professor Jerry Wind. "It has more credibility than traditional advertising." But it's a fairly recent development for companies to try to create a structure around the practice, to harness and direct the way that word-of-mouth spreads -- and to attempt to measure its effect on sales once the 'campaign' is complete. "Buzzing isn't really new. The hype about these different kinds of buzz agents is what's new," says Kahn.

Source: What's the Buzz About Buzz Marketing?

Review: Online Content Services in 2004

2005-01-19T06:05:00.000-08:00

DRM-powered online content services in 2004 focused primarily on music, as they did the previous year. Events during this past year in the online music market followed two trends: consolidation among me-too download services, which is not proceeding as quickly as we predicted in our 2003 year-end review, and the coming rapprochement between DRM and P2P file sharing, which did happen as we predicted.

Source: DRM Watch: 2004 Year in Review: Online Content Services

Malcolm Gladwell

2005-01-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

Fast Company profiles Malcom Gladwell, author of Tipping Point and the yet to be published Blink.

But as the expert in social epidemics knows better than anyone, it's not how many people you reach, it's whom you reach. Gladwell and his ideas have reached a tipping point of their own, and evidence of his impact can now be found in all corners of our culture, from politics (Donald Rumsfeld used "tipping point" to describe the war in Iraq) to entertainment (legendary hip-hop group The Roots used it as the title of their latest album).

Tipping Point is one of the most important book that I have read as it changed the way I look at society and trends.

Network Economics

2005-01-03T02:19:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Schwartz of Sun says that whatever the network touches is subject to subscription pricing.

This is the foundation of the pricing distortion that occurs when networks, time and value blend. It's how Echostar and DirecTV subsidize satellite dishes, cable companies subsidize set top boxes, and how carriers sell handsets. Take out the network delivery part of the equation, it's how magazines sell subscriptions (first 6 months free). The spot margin is less interesting than the number of subs, ARPU, churn - and longer term EBITDA. Terms the PC industry will learn to respect, it's inevitable. Maybe not in the enterprise, where purchasing agents are fixed in their ways, but surely in the consumer marketplace, where "NO MONEY DOWN!" is popular signage.

My Nominations for the IndiBlog Awards 2004

2004-12-31T06:42:00.000-08:00

I'm one of the Jury members at the IndiBlog 2004 awards.

Here is a list of the blogs I have nominated along with brief comments on why I chose them.

* IndiBlog of the year
1) http://www.deeshaa.org/
Atanu Dey is one of the most incisive thinkers on India and its developmental issues. Amazing insights and innovative solutions to India's problems can be found in almost every post.

2) http://www.worldisgreen.com/
Suhit Anantula has a good understanding of rural and semi-urban India and his blog covers related business and economic trends, technologies and ideas.

3) http://gauteg.blogspot.com/
Gautam Ghosh has consistently blogged some good stuff on Management and HR from an Indian point of view.

4) http://varnam.org/blog/
Topical, thoughtful, interesting, identifies and covers the topics that really matter, non-pseudo.

5) http://www.gigaom.com/
Om Malik is a thought leader and one the most influential Indian bloggers around.

* Best Sports IndiBlog
1) http://www.cricinfo.com/23yards/
Focused, Professional, Informed, Insightful (and not just passionate opinions)

2) http://blockhole.blogspot.com/
Opinionated, Sports != Cricket here, bloggers seem to be genuine sports fans

* Best science/technology IndiBlog
1) http://jain.faculty.gatech.edu/blog/
Ramesh Jain is the guru of multimedia search, internationally.

2) http://123suds.blogspot.com/
Extensive in writing and has personal insights on the IT industry.

3) http://www.movalog.com/
Actually useful resource for MT users.

* Best IndiBlog directory/service
1) http://india.blogstreet.com/
India's First Blogs and RSS Portal. (This was easy :)

* Best Topical IndiBlog
1) http://blameindiawatch.blogspot.com/
The other side of the offshoring story. As it says - Don't blame India, or Indians.

2) http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/
Its commendable what these guys are doing - useful stuff.

3) http://mediamusings.blogthing.com/
Somebody needs to monitor Indian media, seriously.

* Best Group Blog
1) http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/
2) http://wetware.blogspot.com/
3) http://caferati.blogspot.com/
4) http://vichaar.org/

We should have a "Best Group Blog" category next year.
Is it too late to have one this time?

On Wikipedia

2004-12-31T01:55:00.000-08:00

Simon Willison has notes on one of my favourite online resources - Wikipedia:

It's not just Wikipedia any more; there's also Wiktionary (a multi-lingual dictionary), Wikibooks (developing open content books on various topics), Wikiquote (quotations), Wikisource (a repository of public domain source texts), Wikispecies (a biological species database), Wikicommons (free images and other media) and Wikinews (a new Wikipedia-style news site). Not to mention the huge numbers of projects in other languages.

Also check out an inteview with wiki inventor Ward Cunnigham, who now works with Microsoft, in the September issue of Wikimedia Quarto

EPIC 2014

2004-12-29T05:59:00.000-08:00

In the year 2014, The New York Times has gone offline.
The Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned.
What happened to the news?
And what is EPIC?

Find out: EPIC 2014

India is 4th largest economy

2004-12-29T00:14:00.000-08:00

Some interesting numbers:

The US accounts for 21.1 per cent of the world Gross Domestic Product, China 12.6, Japan 7, India 5.7, Germany 4.5, France 3.2, UK 3.2, Italy 3, Brazil 2.8, Canada 1.9, Spain 1.8 and Mexico 1.8,

With the US running huge trade and budgetary deficits, America's top ten creditors are Japan, which held 542.2 billion dollar in Treasury securities in 2003, followed by China 168.1 billion dollar, South Korea 61.8 billion dollar, Britain 58.3 billion dollar, Taiwan 50.4 billion dollar, Hong Kong 48.9 billion dollar, Switzerland 45.3 billion dollar, Germany 43.8 billion dollar, Bermuda 38.3 billion dollar and Mexico 31.9 billion dollar; total held by the top ten of America's creditors 1.5 trillion dollar.

Seven out of the world's biggest companies are American, two British and one Japanese.

The ranking is - Citigroup (USA) at the top followed by General Electric (USA) American International Group (USA), ExxonMobil (USA), BP (Britain), Bank of America (USA), HSBC Group (Britain), Toyota Motor (Japan), Fannie Mae (USA) and Wal-Mart (USA),

Source: India is 4th largest economy: US report

How to Make Money on the Internet v2.0

2004-12-28T22:35:00.000-08:00

And after computers every product that has an embedded computer will shift to user design. Today's companies become fulfillment houses, building products on contract. Manufacturing margins will shrink, the real value will be in the insight -- this is what people want now -- and the risk taken that today few manufacturers seem willing to take.

But listening to users is actually not that easy. It's easier to *be* a user and make products for other users. And that my friends, the combination of user-based information exchange and products that reflect user experience and wants, is where money will be made on the Internet.

Source: DaveNet : How to Make Money on the Internet v2.0

Publisher-Driven Advertising

2004-12-28T05:55:00.000-08:00

Imagine that we start with the idea of PPC—that advertisers pay publishers only if their ads are acted upon by readers. Next, imagine that, instead of buying into PPC networks or specific sites, advertisers release their ads onto the Internet.

Because an Internet-based ad is already a little piece of software, it can be tagged with information about its target audience, how much the advertiser is willing to spend to reach that audience (and how much each click will cost), what kind of websites are acceptable or forbidden (such as porn sites), and any number of other attributes. Most important, each ad could communicate with a “home” application that tracks its progress and status.

Once these tagged ads are let loose, publishers could simply copy and paste them into their own websites. Through connections to their home sites, the ads would report which publishers have pasted them where, how many clicks they’ve received, and how much money is left in the advertiser’s bank account. The ad propagates until it runs out of money. If it is working, the advertiser simply fills up the tank with more money.

Source: Publisher-Driven Advertising

Changing the way music is consumed

2004-12-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

Nice article comparing Pay-Per-Use v/s Subscription models in Music downloads industry.

Music labels charge a wholesale rate of about 65 cents a song, and most services offer them for 99 cents each, leaving a razor-thin profit that also has to factor in credit card fees, marketing and overhead. The services favor subscriptions because they generate more profit and bring in steady revenue each month. Resnikoff says services profit about $4 per subscriber on the $9.95 subscriptions.

Source: USATODAY.com - Microsoft plan lets subscribers download away

What kind of Tech Architect are you?

2004-12-10T00:47:00.000-08:00

Generally the goal of any technology architect is to provide architecture to guide the development and implementation of a technology. Essentially, we create an organized conceptual framework that enables description and can guide the construction of complex systems. The key word in that last sentence is "conceptual".

Conceptual means that it does not include vendors, technologies, platforms or anything related to the 'current state' of technology within the organization. It is a framework that should be applied to all technology initiatives and guide the organization to a specified target infrastructure regardless

Source: What kind of Tech Architect are you? And does it really matter?

search 'n' chat

2004-11-29T05:56:00.000-08:00

Neat idea! Have to think of all the possibilities such a combo creates.

For any search term, you can click a link to (dynamically created the first time) message thread dedicated to that term. For example, search on "K-3 remedial reading" and you'll get comments from experts offering advice, people soliciting ideas, perhaps disgruntled users of a particular product.... the founder, Robin Li, says spam is not a problem. perhaps there's some self-policing mechanism, and as the thing scales you could add slashdot-like functions..

EDventure :: search'n'chat

Public Choice Economics

2004-11-18T02:50:00.000-08:00

"Choice" is the act of selecting from among alternatives. "Public" refers to people. But people do not choose. Choices are made by individuals, and these may be "private" or "public." A person makes private choices as he goes about the ordinary business of living. He makes "public choices" when he selects among alternatives for others as well as for himself. Such choices become the objects of inquiry in Public Choice.

While traditional economic theory has been narrowly interpreted to include only the private choices of individuals in the market process, traditional political science has rarely analyzed individuals' choice behavior. Public Choice is the intersection of these two disciplines; the institutions are those of political science, and the method is that of economic theory.

Source: JBC - Public Choice Economics

Think Big but Start Small

2004-10-27T02:23:00.000-07:00

Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small _trivial_ project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision.

Source:Linus Calls Hurd "Dead"

BlogStreet India Launched!

2004-09-30T03:59:00.000-07:00

We have soft-launched BlogStreet India this week. It is a pioneering service for Indian blogs offering analytics and services like Blog Directory, RSS Search Engine, BlogProfile, BlogRank, RSS2Mobile and more.

There are various useful tools for both, authors and readers of blogs. Some of the salient features include:

RSS Search Engine for Indian blogs. It searches the Indian blogosphere and takes you directly to the blogposts which contain what you searched for. Unlike other search engines, the database is current and updated daily.
The Top 100 Indian blogs and Most Influential Indian blogs lists
RSS2Mobile service is India's first service enabling you to read your favorite blog / RSS feed on the go i.e. on your WAP enabled mobile phone.
Blog Directory listing Indian bloggers city-wise
Find out what popular Books, Movies and Music are the Indian bloggers talking about in their blogs
Community Forums are a place to discuss anything that is blog related, show off your new blog, ask for help if you are newbie, announce the blogger meet in your city or just make friends with other bloggers.

Blog authors can have more:

A blogger can check his popularity by way of BlogRank listed in his BlogProfile.
The BlogBack features tells you which blogs link to you from their blogroll.
Another interesting feature is BlogNeighborhood which take a blog URL and lists other blogs that are similar to it.
Those whose blog is already listed in BlogStreet India can claim their blog and update their profile.

BlogStreet India is part of BlogStreet, one of the first portal in the world dedicated to blogs. BlogStreet was launched in August 2002 and grew to be one of the most popular web-services in the blogosphere.

Is Speech Recognition the Killer App for Mobiles

2004-09-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

The main point in the article is that a mobile, due to its size limitations, is not the right device for input and thus cannot replace the laptop even though it may match its functionalities.
I don't buy the argument completely. Agreed that there are obvious issues with the input interface; But what if the "input" barrier is overcome by Speech2Text and Voice Commands technologies. Will Speech Recognition be the killer app for mobiles?

Record, not compose. Instead of loading a device with additional input devices, like a keyboard, focus on the way people use the phone today and capitalize on those habits. Make recording a call or a meeting easy. Keep a complete record of text messaging (Nokia's Lifeblog is a solid start on this feature). Include desktop software that makes importing recordings on the phone into the applications people use on a PC. Make taking a picture, saving and organizing those photos easy. The handset is a sensory device, not a computer, so capture everything that it senses.

Source: Red Herring Blog: Rules for developers: When phones get mass storage

Produce Content to Sell Services

2004-09-10T02:08:00.000-07:00

This is a content provider morphing into a consultative service for readers, a highly responsive, on-demand system in which editors satisfy readers' tastes and needs in near-real time. In some cases, it involves using this voluminous feedback to determine article topics, but it could also mean hunting down information and resources for individual requests. In this consultative model, editors regard readers as the experts—experts about their own information needs, which editors must satisfy.

Source: Let’s Get Hired! The Age of Consultative Content

Polaris to sell software the detergent way

2004-09-04T02:03:00.000-07:00

Should we approach marketing of Emergic CleanMail in this way too? Considering that Spam and Virus are more user problems than technical problems.

“This approach is needed as we feel that it is time tech products were marketed not as technology but as something more understandable as the technology user is not necessarily a techie,” says Balaraman. “And bankers, who are the target audience for Polaris among others, do not fit this bill.”

Source: ET: Polaris to sell software the detergent way

InfoCommerce: Contextual Advertising: Fear Today, Great Tomorrow

2004-08-31T02:49:00.000-07:00

Some theorists are going further, suggesting that advertisers could place their ads at a central location, and publishers would select what ads to place on their sites. Presumably, they would select the ads most relevant to their audiences in order to maximize clickthroughs, and thus their own revenue. A nice side benefit is that publishers would have complete control over what appears on their sites...

Contextual advertising may in fact be clever and beneficial if most of your revenue doesn't come from advertising. But if you generate the bulk of your revenue from advertising, you need to be afraid -- very afraid -- of contextual advertising. Let's go back to that rationale I mentioned earlier: you're getting some money from advertisers you'd never sell anyway. Actually, that was the rationale for going with some of the old syndicated advertising services like DoubleClick. They sold massive traffic in broad categories to marketers of broad-appeal consumer products. That is indeed free money for any specialized publication. But if you publish a magazine for, say, the machine tool industry, and a contextual ad appears on your site based on the keywords "NC simulation," that's your advertiser -- or it should be -- meaning the search engine supplying that ad is competing with you and you're helping them do it. Let me say it another way: by definition and design, contextual advertising is competitive with your own advertising sales efforts.

Source: InfoCommerce: Contextual Advertising: Fear Today, Great Tomorrow

Wired News: Net Publishing Made Profitable

2004-08-30T04:20:00.000-07:00

The books are written by a small stable of independent authors, who receive 50 percent royalties, a rate unheard of in traditional publishing. Edited collaboratively over the Net, the books are published "within moments of going to press" as small, downloadable PDF files.

Costing $5 or $10, the books come with free updates for readers -- the electronic equivalent of second and third editions. The books are nicely laid out and designed to print well on home inkjets. They include lots of links to information on the Web.

Crucially, the books are timely. Print books, on the other hand, especially computer-oriented reference texts, are often out of date by the time they hit store shelves.

Most important, he said, is offering a tangible product like a PDF file, which -- though digital -- is more concrete than Web subscriptions. Many other electronic publishers, especially magazines, lean toward subscriptions.

Unsurprisingly, what's popular in print is also popular in digital format. The notable exception is reference books, which benefit greatly from being searchable.

At O'Reilly Media, the third-largest technical publisher in the United States, e-books are being taken to the next level: O'Reilly is digitizing its offerings to build a huge digital library that makes possible things like customizable textbooks -- printed books assembled from dozens of different texts.

Source: Wired News: Net Publishing Made Profitable

Endurance of Great Civilizations

2004-07-14T05:02:00.000-07:00

This text talks about the Greek civilization - I think its more true for the great but neglected Indian civilization.

"The Greeks and, learning from them, the Romans created a noble and complex civilization, which flourished for a thousand years and was overthrown only through a long series of invasions and civil wars, epidemics, economic disasters, and administrative, moral, and religious catastrophes. It did not entirely disappear. Nothing so great and so long established does. Something of it lived, transformed but undestroyed, throughout the agonizing centuries in which mankind slowly built up western civilization once more. But much of it was covered by wave after wave of barbarism; silted over; buried; and forgotten. Europe slipped backwards, backwards, almost into savagery.
"When the civilization of the west began to rise again and remake itself, it did so largely through rediscovering the buried culture of Greece and Rome. Great systems of thought, profound and skilful works of art, do not perish unless their material vehicle is utterly destroyed. They do not become fossils, because a fossil is lifeless and cannot reproduce itself. But they, whenever they find a mind to receive them, live again in it and make it live more fully."

Further Reading: The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature

Tim O'Reilly's Clue

2004-07-07T00:34:00.000-07:00

"O'Reilly's point is that we all use Linux, every day. Google runs Linux. Most big Web servers run Linux. The fact that your client is a Mac or PC doesn't mean you don't use Linux....

His point is that, just as the IBM PC moved the locus of profit from hardware to software, so the Web is moving the locus of profit from software to services...

A site business model is more important than the software written for it."

Source: Moore's Lore: Tim O'Reilly's Clue

Peter Drucker on Making Decisions

2004-07-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

Eight practices of Effective Executives:

* They asked, "What needs to be done?"
* They asked, "What is right for the enterprise?"
* They developed action plans.
* They took responsibility for decisions.
* They took responsibility for communicating.
* They were focused on opportunities rather than problems.
* They ran productive meetings.
* They thought and said "we" rather than "I."

On the need to review decisions, especially people decisions:

It's just as important to review decisions periodically—at a time that's been agreed on in advance—as it is to make them carefully in the first place. That way, a poor decision can be corrected before it does real damage. These reviews can cover anything from the results to the assumptions underlying the decision.

Such a review is especially important for the most crucial and most difficult of all decisions, the ones about hiring or promoting people. Studies of decisions about people show that only one-third of such choices turn out to be truly successful. One-third are likely to be draws—neither successes nor outright failures. And one-third are failures, pure and simple. Effective executives know this and check up (six to nine months later) on the results of their people decisions. If they find that a decision has not had the desired results, they don't conclude that the person has not performed. They conclude, instead, that they themselves made a mistake. In a well-managed enterprise, it is understood that people who fail in a new job, especially after a promotion, may not be the ones to blame.

Source: HBS Working Knowledge: Leadership: Peter Drucker on Making Decisions

How to Argue Like a Lawyer

2004-07-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

1. Analogize and Distinguish
If the outcome of the previous case is favorable to your client, you analogize by emphasizing how this precedent is very similar to your case. But, if the outcome of the previous case would encourage a decision against your client, you distinguish by pointing out how the precedent differs.

2. Don't Hide Bad News
"After looking at all the options, I recommend this plan. I know it's more expensive than the other bids, but the quality is better and the contractor is willing to commit to an earlier completion date."

3. Ask Leading Questions
"You've been working on Capitol Hill for three years, right?" The non-leading version "How long have you worked for the congressman?"

Source: KnowledgeNews

Pilgrims of Discovery

2004-06-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

Aristotle said in the first sentence of his Metaphysics, 'All men by nature desire to know.'
This is the secret magic and danger of having a mind. Even though your body is always bound to one place, your mind is a relentless voyager. The mind has a magnificent, creative restlessness that always brings it on a new journey. Even in the most sensible and controlled lives there is often an undertow of longing that would deliver them to distant shores. There is something within you that is not content to remain fixed within any one frame. You cannot immunize yourself against your longing. You love to reach beyond, to discover something new. Knowing calls you out of yourself. Discovery delights the heart. This is the natural joy of childhood and the earned joy of the artist. The child and the artist are pilgrims of discovery. When you limit your life to the one frame of thinking, you close out the mystery.

Further Reading: Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Yearning to Belong - John O'Donohue

Quotable Quote

2004-06-26T03:49:00.000-07:00

Time makes more converts than reason.
- Tom Paine

Jerry Kaplan's Top Five

2004-06-25T05:03:00.000-07:00

From brendonwilson.com Jerry Kaplan's Top Five

Top 5 Critical Attitudes Entrepreneurs Need

* The belief that they can make a difference: To overcome the odds against success, an entrepreneur needs to passionately believe in the idea that one person can make a different. And that they are that person.
* Passion for making things happen: The people that make good entrepreneurs can't help but make things happen. Lots of people have ideas, but if you don't try, you'll never succeed.
* Unjustifiable optimism: If you're going to be turned down by 30 venture capitalists, you're going to need something to keep you going. Great anecdote: FedEx, early in its development, couldn't make its payroll and it looked like the company was going to fold - so the head of the company took the remaining money to Las Vegas, bet it all, and won. You have to believe you're going to succeed.
* High tolerance for uncertainty: You're not always going to have all the information you need, when you need it. If you wait for all the information, it'll probably be too late to do anything useful. Deal with it.
* Urgent patience: This is a balancing act between trying to get things done, and realizing that things take time.
* Genuine concern for other people: The only way you'll succeed is if you actually care about the people you work with - it breeds loyalty, and that breeds success. People love to work for people they know care about them.

Top 5 Critical Skills Entrepreneurs Need

* Leadership: Leadership is a difficult thing to define. When things are going well, you don't need leadership. But when things are going badly, the ability to get people to come together, make compromises, and move forward is what makes the difference between success and failure. That's leadership.
* Communication skills: Most people won't remember what you said five minutes after you said it. You have to keep it simple. Which leads to the next point...
* The ability to make sure people know their jobs: Communication is critical to making sure everyone knows where they fit in the company, what will happen if they aren't successful in doing their job.
* Know when to make a decision: Amateurs make decisions too early, before they have corrected all of the pertinent information. Perfectionists wait until everything is certain. An entrepreneur needs to learn to live in between those extremes.
* Teamwork: Key to utilizing the people you hired (presumably the right people, right?) is having the sense to delegate tasks, accept their input, and let them get the job done. You can't do it all yourself.
* The ability to "telescope": An entrepreneurs needs to be able to "zoom in" to examine the detail in various areas, while maintaining the ability to "zoom out" and take in the big picture.
* The ability to be direct, but polite: At some point, you're going to have to be able to be polite, but direct. Example: at some point you're going to have to figure out how to say "Bob, it might be a good idea if you took a shower before you came to work", but nicer.

The Torturous World of Powerpoint

2004-06-25T04:24:00.000-07:00

A list of questions that a pitch to a VC should address.

1) WHAT IS YOUR VISION?
- What is your big vision?
- What problem are you solving and for whom?
- Where do you want to be in the future?

2) WHAT IS YOUR MARKET OPPORTUNITY AND HOW BIG IS IT?
- How big is the market opportunity you are pursuing and how fast is it growing?
- How established (or nascent) is the market?
- Do you have a credible claim on being one of the top two or three players in the market?

3) DESCRIBE YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE
- What is your product/service?
- How does it solve your customer’s problem?
- What is unique about your product/service?

4) WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER?
- Who are your existing customers?
- Who is your target customer?
- What defines an "ideal" customer prospect?
- Who actually writes you the check?
- Use specific customer examples where possible.

5) WHAT IS YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION?
- What is your value proposition to the customer?
- What kind of ROI can your customer expect by using buying your product/service?
- What pain are you eliminating?
- Are you selling vitamins, aspirin or antibiotics? (I.e. a luxury, a nice-to-have, or a need-to-have)

6) HOW ARE YOU SELLING?
- What does the sales process look like and how long is the sales cycle?
- How will you reach the target customer? What does it cost to "acquire" a customer?
- What is your sales, marketing and distribution strategy?
- What is the current sales pipeline?

7) HOW DO YOU ACQUIRE CUSTOMERS?
- What is your cost to acquire a customer?
- How will this acquisition cost change over time and why?
- What is the lifetime value of a customer?

8) WHO IS YOUR MANAGEMENT TEAM?
- Who is the management team?
- What is their experience?
- What pieces are missing and what is the plan for filling them?

9) WHAT IS YOUR REVENUE MODEL?
- How do you make money?
- What is your revenue model?
- What is required to become profitable?

10) WHAT STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT ARE YOU AT?
- What is your stage of development? Technology/product? Team? Financial metrics/revenue?
- What has been the progress to date (make reality and future clear)?
- What are your future milestones?

11) WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR FUND RAISING?
- What funds have already been raised?
- How much money are you raising and at what valuation?
- How will the money be spent?
- How long will it last and where will the company "be" on its milestones progress at that time?
- How much additional funding do you anticipate raising & when?

12) WHO IS YOUR COMPETITION?
- Who is your existing & likely competition?
- Who is adjacent to you (in the market) that could enter your market (and compete) or could be a co-opted partner?
- What are their strengths/weaknesses?
- Why are you different?

13) WHAT PARTNERSHIPS DO YOU HAVE?
- Who are your key distribution and technology partners (current & future)?
- How dependent are you on these partners?

14) HOW DO YOU FIT WITH THE PROSPECTIVE INVESTOR?
- How does this fit w/ the investor’s portfolio and expertise?
- What synergies, competition exist with the investor’s existing portfolio?

15) OTHER
- What assumptions are key to the success of the business?
- What "gotchas" could change the business overnight? New technologies, new market entrants, change in standards or regulations?
- What are your company’s weak links?

Creativity Barriers

2004-06-23T02:07:00.000-07:00

Naina Redhu excerpts an article by Mary E. Corcoran

When one feels as creative as a blank sheet of paper and every project appears overwhelming or boring, it isn't simple boredom, but an absence of creative thought. You're not productive, and, instead of relishing your downtime, you feel guilty and mildly irritated.

Q&A With MIT's Nicholas Negroponte

2004-06-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

From Business Week Online:

Companies cannot really see beyond their current customer base. They explicitly or implicitly do things to protect their current customers. And the last person to want real change is your customer. This is why most new ideas come from small companies that have nothing to lose.

On Skype:

As I said above, innovation comes from those who stand to lose the least from it. That said, lets separate what Skype is doing from innovation itself. Skype is remarkable (I know them well) and will change the landscape radically. However, they have done so not by innovating and inventing either peer-to-peer or IP telephony, but by executing extremely well. The actual innovations came long before.

Where do new ideas come from:

Historically, four places: government labs, big corporations, startup companies, and research universities.

Localize and Globalize

2004-06-22T04:04:00.000-07:00

Andrew Anker on Venture Blog:

Localize for language and localize for purchasing (not everyone uses Mastercard and Visa). But globalize for product development from the very beginning.

Success of Google Ads

2004-06-21T04:05:00.000-07:00

Comment on A VC's post by Alice Marshall.

I think the secret to the success of Google ads is the low price. They are affordable for even the smallest business. Moreover, there are no production expenses involved.

Production expenses of the ad, that is.

Technospiritual Bumptiousness

2004-06-18T03:01:00.000-07:00

Canadian history professor David Noble thinks that modern technology may be deluding scientists with an exaggerated sense of their power over nature:
"The military development of man-machine systems gave rise to both 'virtual reality' computer simulation systems (described by Jason Lanier, who coined the term, as 'computerized sensory immersion') and 'cyberspace' (the term invented by science-fiction writer William Gibson), the on-line world of computer-mediated communication (via the Internet, originally the Department of the Army ARPANET). Enmeshed in computer-based communication and simulation systems, human beings experienced an 'enhancement of the senses' and the seemingly infinite extension of their mental powers and reach--delusions of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence that fueled fantasies of their own God-likeness.

"'Our fascination with computers is more deeply spiritual than utilitarian,' computer-industry consultant and philosopher Michael Heim has argued, tracing its roots back to the seventeenth- century mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. 'When on-line, we break free from bodily existence,' from our 'earthy, earthly existence,' and emulate the viseo dei, the perspective of God, the "all-at-oneness" of divine knowledge.' 'What better way to emulate God's knowledge,' Helm wrote, 'than to generate a virtual world constituted by bits of information. Over such a cyber world human beings could enjoy a god-like instant access.' Indeed, the designers of one of the earliest civilian computer-communication networks, a community bulletin board created in 1978 for the San Francisco Bay Area, opened their prospectus with the words: 'We are as gods and might as well get good at it.' As one sociologist described them, these pioneers of cyberspace were charged with a 'technospiritual bumptiousness, full of the redemptive power of technology.' 'Much of the work of cyberspace researchers,' she wrote, 'assumes that the human body is "meat"--obsolete, as soon as consciousness itself can be uploaded into the network. The discourse of visionary virtual world builders is rife with images of imaginal bodies, freed from constraints that flesh imposes.' 'The body in cyberspace is immortal,' declared one enthusiast."

Further Reading: The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention - David F. Noble

Shubharambh

2004-06-18T01:36:00.000-07:00

I do a fair amount of reading on the net and many times come across interesting and insightful stuff. But there was no easy way of recording these bits. Tried with wikis, notepad.yahoo, saving in text files, emailing, bookmarking etc.

Bookmarks are good for organizing links / sites. But if you find only a certain paragraph of an article insightful there is no good way to annotate it. A blog seems the right medium for this kind of recording activity.

Also, this blog is intentionally unfocussed. Its there to collect every interesting / thought provoking that stuff I come across.