mere funde

I have lived at in my current apartment complex for almost three months, and have almost never seen anyone else outside, except in the morning.

But it rained today and it brought a lot of people out of their homes. The old gentleman trying to cover the stuff lying in the balcony. The neighbour and her three small kids, with outstretched arms, trying to feel the rain. The cute kid in the bajoo wala ghar, playing with her dalmation. The uncle (in 605 I think) having a smoke outside. And me having chai, and feeling the rain on my face.

It felt so fresh

So much has been said about Yahoo over the recent past, that it seems like a blessing in disguise for Twitter. The laundry list of senior execs leaving has not gone down well either.

However, I do not agree with Mike Arrington when he says that Yahoo should have sold out to Microsoft. I have great respect for Mike but I think he is wrong, and big time at that, about this issue. Maybe the decision seemed to make business sense, but personally I feel that the two companies are so different that merging them together would have been the great disaster since Yahoo’s move with Geocities.

Anyways I would like to agree with a contrarian view put forth by Danny here. And to add to it I have some suggestions. Yahoo currently owns some of the best stuff on the internet.

1. Yahoo Mail - As much as I dislike the service now, loads of people still use Yahoo mail. Provide free POP access. Remove those obscene ads. And think of a better way to monetize it. STOP THE SPAM. Let me say that again. STOP THAT SPAM. And no, Ymail won’t solve your issues here. Also, the RSS reader (does anyone use it??) is a joke. Do away with it.
2. del.icio.us - Yeah, the founder is leaving. But you guys are to blame. Release the new version already. You know what people using it are thinking. Use it. Use it with Answers. Use it with Search. Probabaly integrate with Flickr.
3. Flickr - Again, the founders are leaving. Don’t mess with the product. Its awesome. Think integration with Image search results.
4. Messenger - Cut those stupid ads. Simplify it. Let it do the job. I dont need bull shit on it. Let me talk and chat.
5. Answers - Something I know least about, but have heard awesome stuff about it. Let it be.
6. Finance - Good as is. Let it be.

Get back into the game by getting back those users who used to swear by Yahoo at a point of time. You can always look at better ways of monetizing. Get rid of non-committed people. Don’t let go off good ones. Get rid of pro email. Perhaps you missed the memo but people have stopped paying for it ages back!! Get rid of competing products. Get rid of stupid execs. Focus on technology, the money will follow. You don’t need to do everything. Get rid of non-core products. Slim down and focus your energies.

I grew up on the internet with you folks. Don’t throw in the towel just yet. Stop eating peanut butter.

According to the Met department, it has been the quickest the Monsoon has hit the Indian Capital in more than a century. Well, I don’t know the weather record, but the rains have sure made for the best summers in this part of the country in many many years for me..

Anyways, this weekend has been especially wet and very very nice. Sunday morning and the Gurgaon skyline resembled the Darjeeling weather. I have been using the DSLR a little more nowadays and the extra time this morning gave me a chance to experiment with it.

Clicked a few snaps but this is the personal favourite. Comments welcome

I have been a great fan of the Tata Sky service for the past one year. The picture and sound clarity is worth the additional money for the installation and the premium one pays for the monthly subscription. However, the events over the last week or so has left a very bad taste in the mouth and I would say that everyone should stay away from them.

About a week back Tata Sky announced that they are reducing the monthly charges and providing the Sports Channels (ESPN-STAR bouquet, Ten Sports) and the BBC add-ons at the same cost but as optional components. While this is a welcome change I had two issues with it. Bad implementation and incorrect information.

Bad Implementation - The ideal way to implement it would have been that each customer should have been called or given an option to opt out (rather than opt in). That too while the French Open is underway and the Euro 2008 is a week away. If they are changing the plan, they should ask the customer, rather than the customer having to take the pains. That said their helpline was busy and unavailable, and they did not have the courtesy to call back after making me wait on their stupid helpline for 20 mins, thrice.

Incorrect Information - They said that the cost would remain the same even if I added the optional package. I think this is incorrect since if you add the BBC channels and Ten Sports, the cost is more than the existing cost.

Now - Super Saver (Rs. 260) + ESPN-STAR (Rs. 40) + BBC (Rs. 30) + Ten Sports (Rs. 15) = Rs. 345

Earlier - Super Saver Pack (Rs. 300). (My subscription charges for the month of May is provided below as an example)

I am shocked that Tata - very recently crowned to be a trusted brand - would take such a stupid step and harm its own image. I would now advise all friends to go for the cheaper option of DishTV despite the very very irritating SRK ad. You guys have lost a loyal customer is all I have to say.

That’s an email from the Google Alerts not spam!!

… or why STN is going to fail. DGENE and USGENE recently introduced an option to limit sequence searches (BLAST) by % match. But I think it might just be too little to late for them.

For too long now STN has enjoyed the benefits of monopoly in the field of patent sequence searching. However, a new entrant in the domain threatens not only to end the monopoly but might also bring an end to STNs business in this field. GenomeQuest has quietly, but steadily has become the tool of choice for patent information searchers. More and more people, including some patent offices, have started accepting it as a standard. So why exactly is this happening??

Sequence searching on STN is complex, not-user friendly, and extremely expensive. On the other hand GenomeQuest offers a easy and intuitive interface for searching. Also, for searches with more than 50 odd patent results GenomeQuest becomes a more cost effective option, that too if you are searching on one database only through STN.

However, GenomeQuest is not without its share of problems. Their coverage so far is not comprehensive, and they do not have clear information on what patent-ranges (date or jurisdiction wise) are covered by them. Also, GenomeQuest lacks amount of filtering offered by STN.

The geek in me loves the STN for the impressive options, and here is what they need to do to get back ahead.

1. Introduce a simple single combined search on all interfaces with automatic duplicate reduction. I understand this might not be possible in cases where the databases are supplied by different companies, like CAS Registry and DGENE, but you got to do it for business - so figure it out, will you!
2. Reduce the cost and make the search affordable. Treat sequence searches (structure too if possible) as one search and charge a fixed amount (say USD 200-250) to do the search and display the results. No separate display charges.
3. Keep up that brilliant customer service

So here. No go ahead, make the changes and be the best again STN!

PS: The views expressed above are mine alone and do not reflect those of my employer. Also, this post is not to defame any service.

… after a brief hiatus. I have been away for almost a month, mostly due to increased work load. But I am firmly and surely back again. I recount below some of the more interesting things that have happened over the past month.

1. BarCamp Delhi 4 was attended. It was my first BarCamp and a very nice experience at that. It was held at the Amity Incubator in Noida, and they were excellent hosts with brilliant WiFi and lunch. Met a lot of interesting people. The event was low on tech and more on networking I was slightly disappointed. I personally delivered a talk on “Software and IP” and Akshat one on “Folksonomies”. After the camp clicked a couple of snaps at the India Gate and got caught in hail and rain. Thankfully the lappie and the cam were unaffected. Photos here.

2. The Quiz at office was won. The Bong (Aditya Chakrobarty) and me - named as “Two Bongs or Not” - defeated three other teams by a huge margin and got ourselves coupouns for Landmark worth a grand each. Luck played a huge part, but I am not complaining.

3. Gurgaon experienced a week of “Awesome Mausum” - I phrase I can claim to have invented. Rain pounded and the temperatures fell so low that the fans were switched off! In the middle of May - who would have thunk!

Fell in love with Poets of The Fall - Carnival of Rust. Other than that I have been twittering quite a lot. You can follow me here.

Following the footsteps of a lot of musicians (Nine Inch Nails), the UK based band has decided to offer a free download of their latest single “Violet Hill” for free download from their website for a week. (Got this from Facebook.)

We’re very pleased to announce that Coldplay’s new single, Violet Hill, will be available as a free download exclusively from Coldplay.com for one week starting tomorrow, Tuesday April 29th, at 12.15pm UK time. This is a full week ahead of the single’s conventional paid-for digital release, on Tuesday May 6th.

Way to go guys! Good music - that too for free, legally that is. Awesome! Also, they have announced a couple of free gigs in UK. Ojas, you might be interested.

Is this another nail in the coffin of the music industry? I don’t know. But this sure is a huge step in that direction.

.. to Jeff’s post. Finally. I had almost given up hope but Matt is back with a bang! Now wait for Jeff’s reply.

PS: The post by Matt has apparently been removed

The Times of India had an article today on how the IPT TV ratings have slipped after an initial bang. Was it unexpected? Not really. The IPL is supposed to be modeled after the league structure in soccer. However, there remain major differences between the two.

Soccer is a sport where club rivalries have been established over decades, with most major clubs being more than five to six decades old. The international matches are few and far in between, with only one major international tournament every two years (the World Cup and the Euro Cup/Copa America). Therefore the level of interest in the club as well as the international matches remain very high. One the other hand cricket has since its beginning been a sport which has seen inter-country rivalry rather than inter-club rivalry. So the legendary tourneys have been the Ashes and the Indo-Pak series earlier, and the Indo-Australia series nowadays. Other than in England, the league structure is not very widely watched in countries that have high TV audience, i.e, the Asian countries (the Ranji trophy being an example). Further, there is enough international action with almost one large tournament every year (World Cup, Champions Trophy and now the T20 World Cup).

Next is the fact that the IPL T20 league is an overdose in a sport that already suffers from excesses. Lets take India for example. It played nearly 10 Test and 40-50 ODIs last year, exlcuding the T20s. Which means nearly 100 days of cricket every year. 8 teams in IPL will play close to 60 matches over a period of 7 weeks. Which means you would be watching Indian cricket every 2-3 days, in a year that is (and I haven’t even included the ICL). Compare this with UEFA Champions League where 32 teams from different nations play 122 matches over 8 months. There are saas-bahu soaps that are on TV lesser number of times than cricket for God’s sake!! [There goes the argument that "yeh saa-bahu toh roz hi aata hai"].

I think these would be major factors in reducing the viewership of cricket in general, and IPL T20 in particular. And I haven’t even started on the atrocious commentary (Arun Lal - Stop talking for Christ’s sake!!) and pathetic production (We are taking a break, no we are not, no we are done for the day!). And did I hear someone say overdose of advertisements?

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