From Gapin Void

As technologists, we have two choices:

One is to provide the customer a better experience, the freedom to select what he wants, a differentiation based on service quality against a backdrop of abundance.

The second is to create artificial scarcities around the things that are abundant, create new inconveniences for the customer, new lock-ins, new irritants. Irritants like Region Coding on DVDs. Lock-ins like we see in digital music.

For the last thirty years, too many of us in IT have focussed on creating these artificial scarcities, often without even knowing it. First we paid to bury the data in vendor stacks, then we paid to try and dig it out. We've been doing this for years. And we're in danger of doing it again.

Time for a change.

Time to focus on ways of delivering service where the customer wants, when the customer wants, how the customer wants. Time to focus on open platforms, open protocols, open software, open ways of doing business.

That's what the economics of abundance is really about. Making money because of what you do, and not with what you do. Having customers who stay with you because they want to, not because they have to.

Just another day at work

Caught these guys helping keep C Naidu's Cyberabad Squeaky Clean. Thats the glass walls of "Cyber Gateway". The walls provide a nice view of the clouds and the odd plane flying by, Nice!:)

World Usability Day & Social Networks

SUMMARY:
Social Networks: Evolution and Impact On Society
Tags: Social Networks, orkut, web 2.0, social impact of media


Vox Populi today: Don't Make Me Think! and it applies to everything. Starting tomorrow, I am going to start putting pictures of designs that I hate. That is to celebrate Usability Day!(You can send me your pet peeves as well)

And about social networks, a question was raised about blogging/orkut/ with reference to whether they are a fad/ and what is the impact on society/culture. As much as I think I don't belong to the why talk about this topic brigade , I still keyed my thoughts and here's part one:
Blogging is just one of the varied aspects of social computing:

Before we conclude whether it’ a hype or a change agent; we must try and understand what lead to it, what’s happening today and hence where it might go. Since it’s very hard to predict where things go, but when you look at them in retrospect, they seem so obvoius

A Brief History of the Phenomena: (I promise its brief)

Cheap Technology available to everyone, so youngsters used it to their advantage and elderly to theirs. Think Bit Torrent, Skype, Kazaa and SMS, MMS, Chat, XML/RSS.

What does the trend indicate: Networks erode institutional power.

Why: People love right to freedom, are more independent and less trusting. These technologies/platforms just fuelled that.

Now what happened:

Explosion of social networks like:

Orkut/my Space/friendster/Linkedin

RSS- I want the Internet my way:
Yahoo/FeedBurner/Bloglines

My Free Open Source Software
OPen Office/MySQL

Search Engines and now my own search engines
Yahoo, Google>>Rollyo

User Reviewed portals
Cnet/Tripadvisor

My Music/Files free
Kazaa/emule/Gnutella

C2c Commerce
eBay/Craigslist/ubid

Comparison Shopping
Froogle/Shopzilla

POdcasts
Odeo/Juice

Wikis/Collaboration Software
Jotspot/Basecamp

Tagging
Flickr/digg/delicious

Now coming to the sub topic of Blogs, Here’s a fact: There are about 59.5 Million Blogs today that they are being tracked by technorati. So whether it’s a phenomenon or a passing fad remains to be seem. But if you look at he growth of Blogs, it’s certainly reached a plateau-ed growth as seen here http://google.com/trends?q=blogs.

Blogging has given everyone a right to express there thoughts on whatever they feel like, from recipes to travelogues.

Companies that have used this concept, have taken the first mover advantage, now every company including Google has a web log that talks to its consumers in a seemingly informal way. Every newspaper website has weblogs, every job site has weblogs, every technology has a weblog, almost every corporate has a web log. So the face of blogging has changed from being perceived as rebellious to now a contributor to the society.

It’s certainly going to stabilize, like a lot of other phenomenon, but what amazes me is that it took just a decade from when usenet appeared to when this debate started. That in itself speaks about how entrenched this has become in our society, especially in certain quartets, because of it were a passing phenomenon, it would have eroded by now.

Its certainly speaks about what our world wants, a right to basic freedom of thought, speech and experession!

But are most blogs really monologues? Will explore in part two, the impact on society and whether they are leading to more complex human behaviors.

Also, You feel iam left out something, please leave your feedback.

Departed and Open Season

The madness of Scorsese and the magic of Pixar!

Two movies in two days is not so much, but these are perhaps the best movies I have
seen this year.

Departed is all about cursing, and just to mention what my esteemed friend remarked" There's only two languages in which cursing soundS effective, and he has used both(english and panjabi)". And it's got great plot, amazing storytelling, a splendid cast, the Janus Jack Nicholson, Mark Whalburg, Matt Damon and should have been excluded Leo Caprio. Vera Farmiga Impresses too.

Open Season(In 3-D, which was a nice surprise) is just phenomenal graphics rendering. I mean I have seen tons of animation, but the combined effect of three dimensional projection and cutting edge animation was surreal!

Kudos to Hollywood! Some movies just, make sense.


Oh and I found a list of all makes by Martin Scorsese.

What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? • It's Not Just You, Murray! • The Big Shave • Who's That Knocking at My Door • Street Scenes • Boxcar Bertha • Mean Streets • Italianamerican • Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore • Taxi Driver • New York, New York • American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince • The Last Waltz • Raging Bull • The King of Comedy • After Hours • The Color of Money • The Last Temptation of Christ • New York Stories • Goodfellas • Cape Fear • The Age of Innocence • Casino • Kundun • My Voyage to Italy • Bringing Out the Dead • Gangs of New York • The Aviator • No Direction Home • The Departed

Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance 5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade, 10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate: 15
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

And coming to the point of the post, Raid it seems has got some decent media attention with a four page article in the November issue of autocar and a half an hour capsule on cnn ibn. Here's the Link to the videos, will try and scan and put the articles here for your reading pleasure.

http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/24627/raiddehimalayas-tests-driving-skills.html

Note: The video is in three parts, so be careful while navigating.(Requires flash)