Social Networking, Web and the computer

One will easily associate three big names with each of the above- Facebook, Google and Microsoft- in that order. And I believe each one is doing a fantastic job in that area. The problem is when they try to invade the other territory. There is a saying in Hindi- "Ek jungle mein ek hi sher reh sakta hain." When translated to English, it means- "There can be only one tiger in a forest".

It has now become very clear that Google has been struggling in the Social networking area. With the failure of Google's Buzz and Wave, the web gurus could only just give a "I-told-you-so" look! Read it somewhere that Google is again planning to build something on the lines of Facebook. And one shouldn't write anymore about the colossal failure of Microsoft on all Web fronts.

I don't understand this. Why diversify into a sector in which there already is a great player and doing great work. For Google, there has been no dearth of revenues from the Search engine and Ads market. Why move into Social Networking, where even if it succeeds (which is not something that I am looking forward to), it will gain only a portion of the market share. I don't believe that Google can't come up with new products for the web and move to unexplored territories or to sectors which does not have great players. Why focus on Social Netwroking?

Well, as far as MS goes... I think they have no other option. With people moving away from the computer and to the web, it has to diversify. But Microsoft is again doing the same things which have already been done. Bing for instance. You come up with Bing when Google already has cent percent market share and is still improving at a fantastic rate. Microsoft is great with Office Suite. If it wants the harness the power of Web and Google, they should start looking at Google docs and do better than that which I believe that they can. Google docs is pretty basic and companies are just starting to use it. The market is still open as compared to SE market. It's as naive as that. Heard that MS Office 2010 comes with a rich Web version- but only if you buy Office Suite. On the one hand, MS wants to gain traction in the web world but not ready to give what Google is giving for free. At least a free basic service with upgradation to Premium should not be a problem to MS :)

But still then, Web is still evolving and evolution can take drastic steps. But, according to me, in all probability the biggies in these areas will remain biggies and that the Web will evolve not by overthrowing them but opening up newer arenas where we will see new players.

So what's next?

It's now over 3 months since I joined a job. Phew, it does sound good.

Everyday we listen to people complaining about their job. Most times it is true. Doing the same thing everyday over and over again gets boring after a while. The remedy is to do different stuff each day.

My experience with Drishti Soft has been good till now. Yes ofcourse I am working much more than what most people are doing right now... sometimes doubting if the remuneration makes justice or not.... But when I think about it, I realize that I knew this would happen. When I ditched a job in a good MNC and decided to join a startup, I knew what I was getting into. The point is I chose it for myself.

Working in Drishti has not been boring at all. You have the freedom to experiment, you keep doing new work each day. But even then there are times you are made to do something which you dont want to do. Or sometimes listen to people who want to do something in a way that you do not approve of. And then you think, what am I doing? This was not what I had in mind.

And then comes the next question, ok, I have been doing a job which I am, at the least, doing well. What next? In the second month, going to office not knowing which new project you would work on was exciting. But human beings want more. Everything becomes passe. And then you start thinking, can I do this forever? And what's the next step?

Personally, I am kind of an impatient person. I want to see beyond today. I want to know where am I heading to. For that matter, any person would or, in my opinion, should. This sort of baffles me... really, what next? Answering that question is not an easy thing to do. You may just say... quit, do something you want... go start something on your own. The thought does seem rosy. The problem is not that you dont want to or you dont have that risk taking ability. The problem is  "where do I start? What do I do?" This is the question that has been eating my for the past few weeks.

And thus I have been thinking "What's next?" I wonder if this is the way all entrepreneurs start. Sometimes, I think they do...

Indian beauties- where are they?

So this time the Miss Universe title goes to Miss Mexico.

I just couldn't help wondering why is India no more figuring in the Miss Universe or Miss World winners. There was a time when I was in school, there were Indian beauties winning these contests every year. And now I can't remember when was the last time a girl from India won these. It was really sad to hear that Miss India Ushoshi Sengupta did not even figure in the top 15 in this year's contest. Not expected from the Bong beauty.

What is the reason behind this? Surely not exposure or financial problems I believe. With so many Miss Indias already having won these contests, I don't think that there is any dearth of people looking to make money out of this business. The problem cannot be that of mentoring as well because Ash and Sush gave birth to whole new industry here. The problem could be that Indian beauties are still doing the same things what their predecessors did and hoping to make the cut.

If this is the case, then I could not help but draw an analogy to Indian hockey. Stop evolving and you stop winning, it is as simple as that. If something is not done fast, then we might have to see the day when young girls stop aspiring to become the next Miss India.

A new life: Back to blogging

So, I am not a student anymore. I am a working professional. This change took place on June 14th, 2010.

Leaving college was a painful experience. Leaving college also arouses in one the sense of excitement and a sense of the unknown. Joining the mainstream of life- where you stand on your own legs, where you work, do something more meaningful which you know affects other people, where you earn your own money for the first time and where you spend your own money- not knowing when you exhausted your first salary and are now on what you brought from home :)

This new life doesn't seem as rosy as it one thinks it would be when passing out of college. But once we start realizing that this is the life everybody leads and this is what you would be the rest of your life, you start to look beyond the campus and start trying to find out what's in store and the road that is to be taken.

For me personally, this life looks good. The fact that I am now contributing to the Indian economy and society brings a sense of responsibility. When I wake up in the morning, like most people, the thought that comes to mind is "Oh no... office!" After the intital endurance of the hardship of leaving the bed, the thought that comes is this is what one is supposed to do. Men work. Their is no other way of living. We work. We contribute. We do our part- however small. Every small contribution adds up in the final result. We work. I work.

Cheers to the life ahead. Cheers to life and cheers to production.

Dying a natural death?

Eventually, everything comes to an end. It is written even in the Bhagwad Gita. Is the blogosphere following this path and coming to an end? Has it run its full course? I cannot but muse about this lifecycle of blogging drawing to an end.

Blogs took birth not very far down the memory lane. It was welcomed whole-heartedly by the internet-enabled people of India and the rest of the world. The frenzy of activity in the blogosphere by the youth and businesses and journalists soon made headlines. Blogs were the in thing at that time. Everybody I knew was blogging feverishly- the discussion among people those days was about what the hot thing that the blogosphere is talking about and what will the next big discussion to be put on the altar. Youth blogging about move reviews and the general stuff of everyday lives- college events, breakups etc- the businesses leveraging the power of blogs to reach to the general public to sell their ideas and their brand. Blogging was everywhere.

The main purpose of blogging was to give people the power to fulfill their right to expression. People always had the right to expression but blogging took it to the next level by bringing the whole world together. Now one's views were not only heeded by one's friends' circle but by the whole world- at least by the whole internet fraternity. This power was too much for the common man and he was in no way going to let the opportunity slip. Thus the blogosphere.

Then suddenly some genius who was not in the mood of typing so much for getting his views aired came up with the idea of microblogging. This is where blogging lost out. Strangely, people appreciated this idea of less typing and getting ideas across in tweets which comes packaged with the slaughter of the English language- well there are always side-effects. But the thought that microblogging will almost completely outstrip blogging, and that too this soon, was not something that was not anticipated.

While many would argue that blogging still holds reign, the fact remains that blogging has lost. Remnants remain and journalists still publish blogs on news websites because they don't make it to the print edition but the new age is that of microblogging. Movie stars, businesses, youth and Shashi Tharoor now-a-days tweet. If we have a look at blogs now-a-days, they have become shorter and shorter which is coming to resemble more to microblogging on a blog- a hybrid.

Will the blogging community completely die someday? And will it be a natural death or will it be because of external factors? Something to ponder upon- the similarities between blogging dying due to microblogging (an external event) and the extinction of rain forests due to climate change (again an external event). Ironically, the external agent in the both the cases is the same.

On Pune…

Life isn't fair. At least that is what we hear most of the times. But sometimes, some things happen when you realize nothing could be more wrong than that. Yes, life is always fair. One should only be ready to appreciate what life gives them and not ponder for too long, far too much, on how much one has to sacrifice to get those short-lived moments when they come. Fleeting as they be, but all the more ever lasting. If you still see a paradox there, you know it is time for speculation.

It all came to me this last weekend. Not a secret, I'd been to Pune to visit my sister and my brother-in-law. And boy! What a great time I had there. I couldn't have asked for more. When most things go wrong and life seems all bleak, a little light shines through. You know you are not alone- there are people who care for you. That the disappointments, the daily monotonous life aren't everything that you are presented with. You go through to all those things day after day and in lieu of that you get that little light, that moment of joy and you know it was completely worth it.

My reason for visiting Pune so suddenly was not exactly what I should discuss. It has become immaterial after all. I'll take it as a price I'd pay for the holiday. For if it hadn't been because of that precise reason, I wouldn't have visited Pune in the first place. Meeting my sisters and my brother-in-law, those moments of laughter and joy stemming out of nothings, those eating out with family, that catching a local bus running for the first time… everything has now become a part of me and I'll always carry it with me for my life. Indeed, I can say that was the best time I had ever had as far back as I can remember.

Lastly, I want to my sister to know that she means a lot to me. She may not be the wisest person I know, she may not be the smartest person I know, she may not be the perfect person I know… but I can say this she is person who loves best her brother. And I can only hope of loving her the way she loves me… I will consider myself lucky if ever I can love anyone in the same amount she loves me and cares for me. Thank you, didi. You're the best.

And in the future when I'll be bogged down by disappointments (which will undoubtedly happen), I will just have to close my eyes and think of the sweet memories and remember a line which a friend of mine always says, "God works in mysterious ways."

26/11

India is a, indeed, a strange land. And from every point of view-the cultural multi-diversity, the plethora of languages that we speak and, foremost, our diplomats. It's more than a year since the Mumbai attacks. Let's see what has happened since then.

To describe it tersely, one say, it went from outrage to rage to token gestures to a comfortable mellowing down. Nothing's changed after the Mumbai attacks. No tangible action. Nothing, in the least, that could result in some tangible action in the future. The oh-so-interesting case of Kasab, which invariably and with a growing uninteresting episode of events, hasn't yet be concluded, and what we get to encounter are the notorious and funny demands of the terrorist. Clearly, it's not helping. We could as well hang him while I complete this post. Some columns in the newspaper every now and then, with decreasing frequency and even more rapidly decreasing length of those, only suggest that we haven't yet got amnesia.

No one can ever forget what the mood was just after the attacks- it's surely going down the history line. The world at that time was sympathetic to India. The US was just too eager to help India to wipe out terrorism from Afghanistan and the place where it is bred- Pakistan. Pakistan sure had a tough time to deal with. But, I got to say, Pakistan diplomats are far too clever for us to recognize that. They stuck to their old theory that India is a "soft state". And we just proved it with a more concrete proof. Islamabad was keen to buy time and Delhi sold them- at a bargain. Now, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that US, too, thinks that. We are a soft state.

So is everything lost? The lives taken all goes futile? Supposedly, yes. And no one's helping. India took a tough stance by stopping outright the dialogue process with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Though they should have done that when the Shimla pact was no more respected, but nevertheless, better late than never. Omar Abudallah, the CM of J&K, wants the talks to be revived now. It is no surprise Pakistan seconds that opinion. And the US, given the turn of events, will also want that- maybe it'll also lure India to start the peace talks by showing a lollipop called the "permanent member of the Security Council". Newspaper editorials, which at that time, commended Delhi's move now talk in the same vein. But the question why should the talks be revived? Just because a year has passed and the dead people doesn't matter anymore. Talks were cancelled for a reason- so that some tangible action will be taken by Pakistan. Even after dossier after dossier on the masterminding of the Pakistan terrorists, Pakistan still claims the evidences are inconclusive.

In short, the Mumbai attacks were just another chapter with no real significance. India is known not to have a foreign policy- only a Pakistan policy. It seems Delhi is losing the Pakistan policy as well. War is not the answer. The dilemma is, what is the answer?

If such attacks are meant just to be forgotten, India might well be schizophrenic.