Like.com

Riya 2.0 has been launched as like.com. And it aims to do pretty much what the site says. Find images like the one you upload.

Well it has been said for a while that its not enough to search text and that we need to peek into those images and understand what the image contains and be able to then search these images.

They are currently offering searches under the following categories : handbags, shoes, watches, jewelry and celebrities and are expecting to add many more every day.

Like.com will offer exciting options. We just cannot put everything we want to look for in words. If you like the pattern on a piece of clothing, its not something thats easy to describe or search for in words.

Revenue ought to come from ads and ofcourse lots of online shopping is expected to come this way. A lot will depend on how relevant the search results are ofcourse.

So we will have to wait and watch google is up to, having acquired Neven Vision, another image search company.

Meanwhile, Riya.com will continue to remain a face recognition tool and will be developed and improved in parallel.

Lot more exciting things to come im sure. lets wait and watch!!

Orkutalk!!

Finally, the social networking space has heated up enough to get google to finally do what was being expected for a long time now.

Gtalk has now been integrated with orkut. Gives all those users using orkut without a gmail id all the more incentive to get themselves a gmail account now.

i like the way google is merging all their apps. The day is not far when you have a single sign on where you can do your social networking, your emailing, your document collaboration, your chats, your voice calls, video conferences etc etc.

The Google Way

Its interesting to see what google is up to.

Put yourself in google's position. They dont have to compete against just one Microsoft or yahoo. Each of their little applications has to compete with thousands of site's, often startup's. Competion for example has been from youtube, writely, jotspot, bluedot, friendster, flickr etc etc etc...

Now there are a couple of ways in which you can handle competition.

a) Beat them at their own game. But when there are so many guys trying to out do one another that may not guarantee you success. Besides google's core still remains its search. Whether it is investing or should be investing the same amount of effort and resources on each of its other applications as it continues to spawn many more out everyday, is a question thats been debated in almost every forum and by every name worth a mention.

b) Simply acquire them. And there is no one to compete against really.

Going by recent events you would be tempted to say google's going the option (b) way.

And rightly so. Its the smartest thing to do.

Here's a few reasons why i think so.

a) Google's main area is search. And they should stick to it and not lose the advantage they have in this area right now.

b) Google stocks are worth a lot today. And going by history this may not be the case a few years down the line. What better to do with a stock that has a price to earnings ratio of more than 60? It is clear that maintaining such a high growth rate as the P/E demands is not very likely. So what better to do with an inflated stock than buy out all their competition?
Its simply brilliant. Google has little to lose, as its not buying out competition paying cash. Its using the current valuation of the stock, which hit its peak on 23rd Oct to buy out really good companies.

So yeah, if you can get yourself somewhere close to competing with google, you might just land yourself with lotsa google shares. And of course, if you do that, dont waste time cashing them out. :)

Mama Pendse : Everybody's new best friend

My cousin Satish recently introduced me to mama_pendse. And i must say it was well worth the "networking" exercise.

All you need to do is add mama_pendse as your friend on yahoo and he is always there for you.

Mama pendse is the latest craze on yahoo and orkut. Everyone wants to be his friend.

So who is this guy???

Well mama_pendse is the latest java BOT, that provides you with a host of services on Yahoo messenger. You just need to send him a message with the right command and yo uget a response back immediately with what you are looking for.

This is a wonderful idea considering the fact that almost all of us are always online and on some messenger at any point in time, especially with so many blackberries etc doing the rounds.

Here is a list of services mama_pense is capable of providing as of today :

Command Name tracknumber
Description This will tell you whose phone number is this( USA , pune , mumbai , bangalore ) )
Usage : tracknumber , tracknumberusa, tracknumbermumbai,tracknumberbangalore,tracknumberpune

Command Name rail
Description This will tell railway timetable ( only for India )
Usage : rail deccan OR rail shatabdi ;

Command Name horo
Description Horoscope
Usage : horo aries OR horo sagittarius

Command Name explain
Description This is a online Dictionary
Usage : explain beauty OR explain revenge
Command Name findinfo
Description Searches addresses and telephone number of person , Only in US
Usage : findinfo firstname surname

Command Name country
Description Gets Information of any country
Usage : country India

Command Name to_spanish
Description Translate into spanish
Usage : to_spanish Some text in english

Command Name to_french
Description Translate into french
Usage : to_french Some text in english

Command Name to_german
Description Translate into german
Usage : to_german Some text in english

Command Name to_italian
Description Translate into italian
Usage : to_italian Some text in english

Command Name from_spanish
Description Translate from spanish to english
Usage : from_spanish some text in spanish

Command Name from_french
Description Translate from french to english
Usage : from_french Some text in french

Command Name from_german
Description Translate from german to english
Usage : from_german Some text in german

Command Name from_italian
Description Translate from italian to english
Usage : from_italian Some text in italian

Command Name phonespell
Description Convert your phone number into easy to remember words?
Usage : phonespell 1-883-792-8791

Command Name distance
Description find distance between any two cities in the world
Usage : distance mumbai, orlando

Command Name time
Description Know time in any country
Usage : time usa

Command Name xrate
Description Gets Exchange rate between two countries
Usage : xrate usa India

Command Name google
Description Search the internet ,(Uses google (TM) api to get search results from internet)
Usage : google tajmahal

Command Name climate
Description Gives Climate information of any city in world
Usage : climate orlando , climate mumbai

Command Name quote
Description This will tell you Share Price
Usage : quote VRTS OR quote MSFT

Command Name traffic_usa
Description Know about traffic condition around your area, send me command traffic_usa zipcode
Usage : traffic_usa 10001,traffic_usa 32771

Command Name comment
Description Let me know how I am doing , please send me your comments about me
Usage : comment "your comment goes here"


So guys, no prizes for guess who's everyone's new best friend!!!

Whats interesting though is, how does mama_pendse make money? Certainly not through advertisements. I dont see any ads as yet. Its possibly an option going forward.

Is Minglebox tingling the Janta?

I recently came across a podcast interview with Kavita Iyer, one of the founders of a new social networking site - Minglebox.

My first thoughts when i saw the podcast link to Kavita's interview, was "not another one!!"

In many ways it reminded me of the *Pet.com mania during the dotcom
boom. Every other guy had a mypet.com, yourpet.com and almost every one
of these was funded by a popular VC firm.

So what am i doing in Minglebox!!!

One thing that Kavita did mention and that actually got me interested
was the list of features that this site potentially offered!!! So i
thought hey why not check it out. May be these guys do have something
different after all.

Here's my take on what i've seen so far.

Lets do the pluses first ..

They have indeed flattened the learning curve for most of their applications. Which is great...

This place certainly gives you a feeling of belonging. If you are a
true 'desi', you'll feel absolutely at home. I simply loved some of those typically desi wordings that add to give a great feel.

The campus feature is nice and has a comprehensive(well almost) list of all campuses in the country. Though, i do think it should allow people to add campuses,
probably with an approval process so that there is no duplication. One
of my campuses is missing and im not too happy about it(Please note!!!).

Adding friends. Well lets look at it this way.

I have a profile on orkut. I have created a profile on hi5, friendster
etc etc. So why would i register on minglebox? Surely not because it
has a very attractive chit-chat feature (Which is very nice indeed!!).

Well one potent reason i can think of, is because most of my friends
are on it. And there is a possibility of finding many more of my friends.

One way to make this easy for a lot of people who are already
registered and who want to move to Minglebox to use some of its good
features like chit-chat etc, is to allow them to import a contacts list
or send an invitation out to all their friends on orkut or hi5 without having
to mention each persons email id.

I think Gazzag is doing a great job on this front. And its never too
late!! I havent invited anyone yet. Waiting for that feature to be
added. :)

Well and looks like a lot of good stuff is still on its way.

So coming to the important bit now. Where is the money?

Many people get away saying, its too early and can be worked out etc.
Google can afford to run Orkut without a revenue model. They dont need
additional bandwidth. They have tons lying around unused that they are
paying for anyways.

Even google has ads on orkut these days.

Yes, Advertisement is definitely one of the revenue models. But relying
on advertisements or hoping somebody will buy out a site is no longer a
safe bet.

This being the case, what will be of utmost importance will be : who will use the site?

From what i see the site seems to be targetted at the college going
crowd. But its interesting to note that a majority of users on orkut or
other social networking sites are in their late 20's or 30's. Thats the
'working and single' crowd.

Thats good news. There is money in those wallets. And some of those mobile services that are to be offered on minglebox could hit it off with the crowd.


Having said that. There are quite a few sites eyeing the same space. Yaari, Jhoom, fropper to name a few... So lets differentiate people!!

All the best guys.

YouTube: From Concept to Hypergrowth

Jawed karim gives a presentation in Stanford. A very interesting video. A definite "must watch".

A survivors tale : Funny, but True!!

This hilarious article was written by a Dutchman who spent two years in India, as a visiting expert. A little long article but makes interesting
reading!!!

For the benefit of every Tom, Dick and Harry visiting India and daring
to drive on Indian roads, I am offering a few hints for survival. They
are applicable to every place in India except Bihar, where life outside a vehicle is only marginally safer.

Indian road rules broadly operate within the domain of karma where you
do your best, and leave the results to your insurance company. The hints are as follows:
Do we drive on the left or right of the road? The answer is
"both".

Basically you start on the left of the road, unless it is occupied.
In that case, go to the right, unless that is also occupied. Then
proceed by occupying the next available gap, as in chess. Just trust
your instincts, ascertain the direction, and proceed. Adherence to road rules leads to much misery and occasional fatality. Most drivers don't drive, but just aim their vehicles in the generally intended direction.

Don't you get discouraged or underestimate yourself except for a belief in reincarnation; the other drivers are not in any better position. Don't stop at pedestrian crossings just because some fool wants to cross the road. You may do so only if you enjoy being bumped in the back.

Pedestrians have been strictly instructed to cross only when traffic is moving slowly or has come to a dead stop because some minister is in town. Still some idiot may try to wade across, but then, let us not talk ill of the dead.

Blowing your horn is not a sign of protest as in some countries. We horn to express joy, resentment, frustration, romance and bare lust (two brisk blasts),or just mobilize a dozing cow in the middle of the bazaar.

Keep informative books in the glove compartment. You may read them
during traf fic jams, while awaiting the chief minister's motorcade, or waiting for the rainwater to recede when over ground traffic meets
underground drainage.

Occasionally you might see what looks like a UFO with blinking colored
lights and weird sounds emanating from within. This is an illuminated
bus, full of happy pilgrims singing bhajans. These pilgrims go at
breakneck speed, seeking contact with the Almighty, often meeting with
success.

Auto Rickshaw (Baby Taxi): The result of a collision between a rickshaw and an automobile, this three-wheeled vehicle works on an external combustion engine that runs on a mixture of kerosene oil and creosote. This triangular vehicle carries iron rods, gas cylinders or passengers three times its weight and dimension, at an unspecified fare. After careful geometric calculations, children are folded and packed into these auto rickshaws until some children in the periphery are not in contact with the vehicle at all. Then their school bags are pushed into the microscopic gaps all round so those minor collisions with other vehicles on the road cause no permanent damage. Of course, the peripheral children are charged half the fare and also learn Newton's laws of motion enroute to school. Auto-rickshaw drivers follow the road rules depicted in the film Ben
Hur, and are licensed to irritate.

Mopeds: The moped looks like an oil tin on wheels and makes noise like
an electric shaver. It runs 30 miles on a teaspoon of petrol and travels at break-bottom speed. As the sides of the road are too rough for a ride, the moped drivers tend to drive in the middle of the road; they would rather drive under heavier vehicles instead of around them and are often "mopped" off the tarmac.

Leaning Tower of Passes: Most bus passengers are given free passes and
during rush hours, there is absolute mayhem. There are passengers
hanging off other passengers, who in turn hang off the railings and the overloaded bus leans dangerously, defying laws of gravity but obeying laws of surface tension. As drivers get paid for overload (so many Rupees per kg of passenger), no questions are ever asked. Steer clear of these buses by a width of three passengers.

One-way Street: These boards are put up by traffic people to add jest in their otherwise drab lives. Don't stick to the literal meaning and
proceed in one direction. In metaphysical terms, it means that you
cannot proceed in two directions at once. So drive as you like, in
reverse throughout, if you are the fussy type. Least I sound
hypercritical; I must add a positive point also. Rash and fast driving
in residential areas has been prevented by providing a "speed breaker"; two for each house. This mound, incidentally, covers the water and drainage pipes for that residence and is left untarred for easy identification by the corporation authorities, should they want to recover the pipe for year-end accounting.

Night driving on Indian roads can be an exhilarating experience for
those with the mental make up of Genghis Khan. In a way, it is like
playing Russian roulette, because you do not know who amongst the
drivers is loaded.

What looks like premature dawn on the horizon turns out to be a truck
attempting a speed record. On encountering it, just pull partly into the field adjoining the road until the phenomenon passes.

Our roads do not have shoulders, but occasional boulders. Do not blink
your lights expecting reciprocation. The only dim thing in the truck is the driver, and with the peg of illicit arrack (alcohol) he has had at the last stop, his total cerebral functions add up to little more than a naught.

Truck drivers are the James Bonds of India, and are licensed to kill.
Often you may encounter a single powerful beam of light about six feet
above the ground. This is not a super motorbike, but a truck approaching you with a single light on, usually the le ft one. It could be the right one, but never get too close to investigate. You may prove your point posthumously.

Itsyourstage

Pretty cool stuff... at 1 cent a pixel, looks like a great deal for the Youtube fans.

With google gobbling down Youtube, it is indeed the most sought after place on the web. But with so many videos being uploaded daily it is indeed very difficult to get someone to notice a particular video.

Itsyourstage (http://www.itsyourstage.com) gives everyone a wonderful platform to showcase their videos. Whats more, at 10 cents a pixel they have got a cracker of a deal.

Most importantly the site has been timed beautifully. With so much media attention on Youtube and google, anything thats got anything remotely to do with youtube is grabbing a lot of attention and eyeballs and mouse clicks .. and ....

As far as I see it, this is definitely going to be 10 cents well invested for a lotta people. For those of you who havent got there yet, go grab that pixel of yours before somebody else does.

Happened to read an article that may very well highlight why i think itsyourstage makes sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/technology/25agency.html?ex=1319428800&en=108d1712877c6f09&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

IE7 Launched!!!

IE7 is out at last and is available for download!!! So go get it!!!

Too many passwords? Not in the Google world and "Writely" so!!!

You see an interesting app on the web and register yourself. Rest assured you will not need to remeber your login and password for long. For very soon you will have the option of logging in with you gmail account and password!!

Google is apparently all set to announce a new product google docs (http://docs.google.com) at the Office 2.0 conference tomorrow. This product will combine writely(which google acquired last march) and google spreadsheets, and offer an online document management solution to users.

This along with Google apps for domains, a a free package that combined Google's e-mail, calendar, IM and page creation software, which was announced earlier this week puts google well ahead of Microsoft in the online document management space.

It does for now look like bitts and pieces of software stuck up together. But i guess once people do get used to working and sharing their documents online, things will start falling in place for google.

So congrats, all you need is a gmail account!!! :)

Youtube goes down the Google!!!

$1.65 billion !!! Thats no small amount. As far as Youtube is concerned, way to go guys!!!

Now thats one hell of a deal these guys have struck.

Somebody please explain why google would build google videos, which i did not think was doing too badly on its own, and then spend such a huge sum and acquire YouTube!!!!!

There has got to be better logic than same business goals and sharing the same vision!!!

Considering the fact that this whole "videos" area is yet to be scrutinized especially around DRM et al, i just cant seem to put things together here.

Congratulations, Youtube!!!

Is the 'Hot'mail man heating things up again?

My cousin TP just happened to mention blogeverywhere.com Sabeer Bhatias new venture. It would be difficult to call the idea novel or something new. Im sure we have all come across it in one form or the other.

So i just thought i'll dig up a little more into what else he is up to these days..

And here's a few links i found after an initial probe...


Navin.com, India's largest provider of Voice Mail services

BlogEverywhere.com, allows you to read and write comments on any web page as you surf the net. Also has a Hotmail enhancer that allows email downloading for better performance and an Outlook-like preview function that allows an entire mail message to be viewed directly in the Inbox.

InstaColl.com, a contextual collaboration solution.

Hotseasons.com, a travel website that will focus on hotel ratings.

VoiFi.com, a project using VOIP

telixo.com, A project that turns your mobile phone into a personal organiser

Things do seem to be hotting up again for Mr Hotmail.. :)

IBNLive : Live Video Feeds!!!

IBNLive has a live video news feed thats comes in two options Low Res and High Res. If you are on a broadband the service is really good.

But what really takes the cake is that ibnlive is not charging you for this live video. Its absolutely free and is as good as watching the channel itself.

Not sure if this is intended to remain this way or its just an attempt to grab some eyeballs from sites like ndtv.com etc.

In fact while i was at it, just realised the number of sites offering video services.

I could name a few on the fly like google videos, youtube, videosift, Break. Im sure a search on google will get you plenty more. There are plenty of sites being built around these services. For example VideoDL is an excellent site that lets you download videos from google videos, youtube and break.

And the news is, that Amazon will be joining the fray soon with its unbox service. This would be a service based on windows media player and DRM, letting you purchase or rent videos from its site. The service will ofcourse need to compete with the likes of iTunes and indirectly with services like netflix and blockbuster.

Three weeks of solitude

The last few weeks in Brussels have been amazing. I have had nothing to do on the weekends. No work!!! no social engagements and no phone calls. Phew!!! Dont i sound like a busy man???
.. well i've been really busy doing nothing much in particular.
So i've been sleeping, watching TV and browsing the net in peace. The only work!!! i have to do is the laundry. But over the last 3 weeks, even this process has been audited and tuned, to maximize efficiency and minimise time and effort. Phew!! i can justify that management degree now..

So i've also had the time to catch up with whats been happening around me. There's plenty as usual. Almost overwhelming infact to digest all at once. But the good thing is i have started digging in.

Just noticed a few weeks back, that google has added their services to the top of your gmail account. Its a pretty kewl idea especially if they can integrate all their services and provide access to all of these through one's mail account. But they have indeed taken the right step forward yet again.

Hope to see u guys here more often now.

Cheerio..

The Belgian Golden Boy

Well i've been moving again... Bangalore to hyderabad and now in Brussels, Belgium.. the land of chocoloates, diamonds..

But thats not what this is about... This is bout the pissing boy...

For those who thought Tintin was the golden boy.. he he you ought to see this to believe it...

This dude is one hell of a popular guy...

check him out.. i have been told u should NOT miss it if you are in belgium..

Software Production Lines

Having been a part of the software industry in the last 2 years, I could not help noticing a radical change thats taking place in the industry. The pronounced impact of this change is on the developers and those that are still playing technically inclined and find themselves in the software services industry.

Gone are the days when an Architect was required to have an understanding of all the technologies involved and the developer needing to be skilled enough to deliver the solution. We are walking into the SOA age and developers are working on very high level languages.

Some of the tools that i have had a chance to work on like TIBCO BW, SAP XI or an Oracle BPEL PM and many more on the same lines like Savvion, Pega, Fuego, Staffware etc that are in the market, provide you with GUI's and require you to just drag and drop images and build entire flows.

With SOA coming into the picture and each application / end point being exposed as a web service, enterprise integration is just a matter of dragging and dropping a sequence of activities in the right order. What would normally take a design phase and almost 10 days of development can now be completed within 30 minutes. Ofcourse this is not to say these products are perfect and do not introduce any bugs, but what they have achieved is the ability to produce mass software within no time.

This has helped software service providers to set up a software development production line where you can deploy a huge number of resources and can still develop exactly the same quality of software rapidly.

Will knowledge still have a say in the years to come? Or will it just be a software production line with yet another 'resource' being required to meet deadlines.

If the count is all that is going to matter, India and China certainly have a lot to look forward to.

B2B

Yes, Back 2 Bangalore. Got here a few weeks back and waiting to catch up with life et al. Something that i havent done in the last few months.

Just want to thank all u guys(yes,even the fellows who come here and post ad's), for visiting whats been a dead blog over the last few months.