mere funde

Category: Blogging

  • Corporate Blogging

    I once had a discussion with a friend about the use of corporate blogging. I said it was a good for PR and feedback, he did not agree much. Well, whatever be the use, I am a great fan of the style of Jonathan Schwartz.

    He admits in this post how his admin screwed up and apologises to Matt Mullenweg (the brilliant guy who brings us WordPress). Now I am sure that no PR department wrote or edited it but makes you feel that they listen. Meanwhile you can also watch his interesting interview with Scoble.

  • Babel: Don’t just listen

    Just yesterday a colleague at work asked me to explain the significance of the movie title Babel. She had not liked the movie, me immensely. Anyways, that is not the point here.

    I was checking out the Cisco official blog, a pretty nice one they have going there, and I came across these lines.

    Cisco – We’ve been following our iPhone trademark issue in the blogosphere closely and it’s been interesting to see the commentary from some posters suggesting that somehow Cisco either in the US or Europe didn’t meet the requirements to maintain the iPhone trademark.

    Jonathan – You might be listening, but you’re not understanding. (Babel)

    Brought a nice little smile to my face. Also shows how seriously big companies take the blogosphere in todays world.

  • Cisco blogs about iPhone!!

    Cisco has gone public with details of the iPhone deal with Apple Inc and seems to have made a good point for itself. This information comes directly from Mark Chandler, Cisco’s SVP and General Counsel. Also this comes on a coporate blog of Cisco which goes a long way to show the power blogging has in today’s world and how companies use it to manage its public relations. The post has excited a lot of bloggers and has won Cisco brownie points with them. Also if you read the post, it does blame Apple, but very subtly and in a corporate fashion, not a big deal coming from a senior counsel.

    Also during negotiations with a certain vendor a few days ago the sales personnel there directed me to their corporate website for more information on their product. Way to go!! How I wish some people would listen.

    I did some searching on this tussel myself this morning and summarised below are my findings.

    The interesting thing here is that whereas Cisco (through acquisition of InfoGear) holds the trademark for “computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks” (S.No. 75076573), Apple (through Ocean Telecom Services) holds the trademark for “handheld and mobile digital electronic devices…” and “hand-held unit for playing electronic games” (S.No. 77007808).

    If you actually check out the description the Apple trademark is more specific to hand held mobile devices and it is not difficult to see why Apple is not too concerned about trademark infringement.

  • Scintillations – Oasis 2K6

    I have believed that over the years the quality of the Oasis website – a starting point for other colleges – has gone from bad to worse.

    oasis2k6.png

    Though no expert at website design, I do have a few points to make about this year’s website. One important aspect of a good website is that it should be easy on the eyes of the viewer. Sadly, the website this year, falls very short on this standard. The colours used are garish and unpleasant. Black with pink. Yucks!! Seems like a webpage of those days when people experimented with geocities. Flashy and very odd. Light backgrounds and gentle colours are expected nowadays.

    Second. I do not yet get the BITSian fascination for flash and shockwave objects. Any page designed at BITS has to have a dash of embedded flash objects. Could someone please tell me why??

    Third and probably most importantly. Please do not copy and paste text from somewhere. “If you are going to BITS on an assignment, BITS will send you a complimentary car” (from the section on getting here.) I am sorry but I could not believe that this was written by an on-campus BITSian for Oasis website. As Google later revealed, the entire section has been lifted from the BITSAA website, without any attribution whatsoever. When did things become so bad? Could they not find a decent writer within the batches on campus? Come on you guys, before claiming the material as your own with that misused copyright symbol, did you check that BITSAA already has a copyright on it?

    A simple website, probably based on some blogging platform like WordPress, would have been recommended by me. Very professional and neat. But then, I am not at BITS and can only do so much.

    I have a wish to make here though. I wish that someone from EPC/HPC/Junta takes it on himself/herself or collaborates to get a blog going and provide real time posts from the scene as an when it happens.

  • Desicritics, F1 and MS

    I am now a part of Desicritics.org and will henceforth be cross posting sports related posts there. My first post on the Sunday Moza F1 race is up there. Check it out.

    Also this is the first post using the MS Live Writer. Hope this works 🙂