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".