Kingfisher Airlines going bust and the general brouhaha of Indian airline industry running in losses made me think, and also the fact that Indigo is the only airline that's profitable. I had previously written about Indigo and their ability to talk and how I am a fan of theirs. Somehow I was not surprised that they were the only one profitable, I always thought that they were doing something right.
I decided to watch them closely to know the reasons behind this and my findings were very interesting. They say No at the right places but not at the expense of the overall user experience. Below are my little fundas of things they are doing right.
1. They said No to aerobridge
Using aerobridge at the airports is an extra expense to the airline. But using step ladder also adds extra effort to the airline eg more people to support wheel chair bound passengers. Coaches to ferry passengers from the terminal to the aircraft, but no airline can completely say no to it as there are instances when the aerobridge wont be available for use. And of course the not so great user experience.
The ramp you see here is their answer to an aerobridge. This would make the boarding process a little different for the user. They place one crew member at the start of the ramp and one at the turn. Its conversational. And yes they dont need extra people to support wheel chair bound passengers.
2. They said No to in-flight magazine
However they have a very interesting in-flight catalog of things they sell. Its like a magazine in itself. Its also their showcase of talent, mouthpiece to brag and take digs at competitors and yes to make money too. Sample the below shots.
My personal favorite is their Eat Spice, Drink Beer and Fly Indigo T Shirt ;-)
3. They said No to warm food
Warm food means more energy, aluminium foil packing etc. However their menu made it so irresistible to order. I ordered for a samosa and the miss Indigo said "We do serve samosa but its not warm. Is that Ok?" I showed a face but she smiled. I said fine.
She got the Samosa in an interesting packaging which made me smile.
4. They said No to water bottle
More weight to carry and unnecessary expense if given to people who really dont need water. They serve water from a jug to a paper cup.
5. They said NO to delays, ahem in a clever way
Now this is debatable but I dont find a problem with it. The flying duration of Indigo flights are communicated as little more than other airlines coz it includes the slight delay that occur due to traffic congestion or something beyond their control. This is smart as it allows them to be percieved as on time and no one seems to be complaining. Eg Do a search from BLR to BOM on any travel site and look at the flying duration of Indigo flights.
The Tesco South Korea virtual store is one story that excited me some time back. The technology was simple and not new but the right usage of it made it so big hit that I'm guessing it would kill the brick and mortar super markets in South Korea. Apparently grocery shopping is something South Koreans don't enjoy at all.
Brick and Mortar stores failing infront of online stores is not far away. The closing down of Borders, the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain is just the start. Why do you have to go to a book store and browse through the books and then buy when you can get them on Amazon sitting at home and that too for a cheaper price. Hell, soon digital books are going to kill the real books too. I have already moved to kindle edition books and going forward the world also will. If not they will be forced to move as the digital book stores will take over the world.
Recently over a beer Ram, Aditya and Me were discussing about the grand visions of companies like Google, Apple and Amazon and how slowly they worked towards realizing them. If Amazon's vision (no brainer) is to make everyone in this world buy things only from them, then that would be the death of the brick and mortar stores and high streets as we see know it today. But how much of a possibility is that? We debated. Will I stop going for shopping?
There is a remote possibility of that happening. If I see the history a lot of things that I used to do in the real world before has gone digital and virtual. A lot of industries have got disrupted and destroyed because of the digital revolution. Music is just one example of that in my generation. I have seen it evolving from cassettes to Real Player to MP3s to iPods to Google Play and to recently Flipkart. I know that music as we knew 20 years ago doesn't exist any more. Hip and happening air conditioned audio and video parlours dont exist today. We no more go out of rent videos or buy cassettes and CDs. Why cant this happen to shopping?
I was an early adopter of e commerce. My first purchase from an online store was in 2001 from Fabmart.com. Was a cassette. I used to buy books and CDs from Indiatimes.com. Ordered and sent flowers online to my wife (before marriage of course. I buy kindle books. Not to mention the online train and flight tickets. But I always thought that there were some things online stores wont help me with. But Aditya was questioning me and that made me think.
I recently bought an iPod online coz there was no need for me to go to a store, check the features out and touch and feel it before I buy. I knew an iPod inside out. So is that the breaking point? But I love going to malls and super markets. But is that right for everyone else? In Indian cities this might be valid as there is nothing much for people to do in the weekends other than hopping malls, restaurants and cinemas. We are not workaholics like South Koreans. People in America have a lot more to do and visit than mall hopping. I'm not saying they dont go out for shopping but a recent survey done with our friends in the US said that they thought the best way to shop was to do it online. So what are the chances that I'll also go online shopping full on...
Electronics
Definitely. If I know the exact model number i will order it online. I'll get it cheaper too. Anyway i dont get to own the demo piece i touch and feel at the store. I may actually scout around for something at the stores and then buy it online.
Grocery
As of now in India there are some stuff that are non branded (daal, chaaval) which i would like to buy in person. Moreover i like my supermarket visits. But i think the day is not far.
Vegetables
No, coz i have to make sure I'm buying fresh ones. But its again an Indian thing. I need not worry about this in America.
Food
I do order food at home on phone, havent done online yet, but nothings stopping me. But I think the eat out option will remain as dining is much more than a chore.
Jewellery
Well ahem, I have once bought jewellery online. It was a gift to my then girl friend. But when the ring came the size was wrong and I had a harrowing time in returning it and getting my money back. I haven't bought jewellery much even otherwise, so i don't know.
Clothes
I would like to try it before I buy, so may be not. Also if clothes shopping goes online my wife will go into depression. I have seen these concepts where people try out clothes on a monitor etc. May be it will happen. Btw there is something I buy without trying out; underwear.
Perfume
Again I would like to test the fragrance before I buy. However just now my wife asked me to buy this particular perfume online. I was surprised and asked her how she can buy perfumes online. She replied saying she is well aware of it's fragrance.
Shoes
Again a No from me. But recently I was talking to the designer of Myntra.com and he told me that his site gets a lot of orders from tier 2 towns in India. The fact is there are lot of rich people in these towns but they dont have the high end brand stores there. So they are forced to order it online. Very interesting. Btw Myntra.com is a very well designed site.
Sun Glasses/Frames
No, coz I have to be sure by wearing them before I buy. But again i think its a matter of time. Warby Parker, a new optical frames and sunglasses brand in the US is trying to make this happen. Not only they are trying to make frames cheaper by optmizing a lot of logistics at their end but also by making it available online. They have this 'Home Try On program' where a user can get a maximum of 5 frames delivered at home and have 5 days to return the ones he is not buying. You should check out their site. Pretty well designed.
Furniture and Other curios
Yes I will. We dont have much of these sites in India. But again in America there is Fab.com
OK that's it from my side. What do you think?
PS: Btw its interesting to know that brick and mortar stores are using mobile internet/technology to fight against the competition from desktop online stores. Most of their solutions are to bring customers to their store when on the move. But that's for another day.
Yes this has been a prediction every year and nothing substantial has happened till Square and Google Wallet got introduced. Its expected that the new Android devices will bring NFC devices to millions of users in 2012. Businesses will start pushing offers, coupons and recommendations electronically on mobile phones over the air using internet, NFC tags and QR code. Payments will be the next obvious thing they will do with their phones after redeeming the offer at the Point of Sale. Mass transit companies will also use NFC for ticket purchase, storage and validation. Mobile Payments will be enabled and driven by
Google: Google checkout is now Google Wallet. All of google's payment services will be focussed on mobile now. Already deployed at their partner stores across US. They are working with Credit card companies and Public transit companies for partnerships; NJ transit to start with.
Square: Biggest adoption seen till now. Mastercard's strategic investment. Their technology doesn't have dependencies other than internet connection. Most definitely Apple will acquire them
Paypal: Already started out trials in Home Depot stores for mobile and Paypal credit card payments
Mobile payments will not become a norm in 2012 but users will start warming up to the mobile payment/redemption use cases.
Serendipity
The mobile device enabling you to encounter things as a pleasant surprise. Almost all the contenders are right now in the data collection stage to find out people's likes and dislikes and what all they do. Location based services will drive this as they go on a recommendation mode making way for mobile phones to be the best companion.
Square: The Card case app has an explore feature recommending places. It alerts store keeper about your presence who in turn will call you by name, get your regular drink fixed, pushes rewards, offers etc.
Foursquare: Gradually going away from the checkin model to a recommendation service as they have already collected enough information from the checkins. Radar on phones and the new Redesiged explore feature on web is a start.
Google Places: Currently in data collection mode using Google plus checkins, Location history, Schemer and Google map maker. They are trying to acquire Pinterest (At the time of writing this).
Facebook: Knows about you quite a bit. Bought Gowalla who was on the path of becoming a travel companion.
Kevin Rose's Oink: You rate things and not places. Has good potential for Google acquisition.
Big Screens
Phones will get bigger screens. More Phablets will come to the market. Single hand operations will become more difficult, but no one is likely to complain. Mobile phone application navigation patterns will change to anchor more towards the bottom of the screen. OS providers will be forced to get their voice action capabilities right as typing and tapping becomes a two hands activity. Trousers will get bigger pockets. An entire ecosystem will be introduced to handle the user problems the bigger screens create.
Voice Actions
Voice will find more adoption on mobile but not as a virtual assistant. The curiosity Siri created will make users want more of voice interaction with their phones. This will be rekindled coz of the bigger device screens. More and more devices, mobile and non mobile, will start supporting voice. Google will come with a better version of their voice actions and will integrate to all their devices including tv. Siri will come out of beta. Nuance, who powers Siri has already announced Dragon TV a voice control platform for all TV makers. Kinect as a platform will be used in more use cases like retail. Cars will get integrated voice Actions to control media. Voice will be primarily used in relaxed use cases like to control media/games which will improve adoption which will pave for more adoption in the future.
I recently noticed that my bathroom floor tiles were getting increasingly dirty day by day. I was not surprised as I clean it only once a month or so, but I quickly realized that its not enough. As usual I started thinking about a possible solution to this like a typical design problem.
I first identified the reasons that stopped me in doing a better job at cleaning
Cleaning the entire bathroom took some time. As I usually enter the bathroom at the last minute I skip the cleaning to another day
I had to dedicate some good amount of prime time for bathroom cleaning on weekends; which I didnt want to do.
I was getting lazy coz of the effort taken for bathroom cleaning. I started procrastinating
As I was forced to do it I was not doing a good job of it
As I was cleaning only once in a month or so and that too a bad job of it, most of the times the bathroom remained dirty. This brought down my spirits
The main issues that bubbled up from the above points were Time, Effort and Quality and that's what I had to crack; and i came up with this solution.
Clean daily but just one part of the bathroom, and do it well
This takes less time and effort and as a result I can do a good job of it. By the time I finish all the parts the first part would have become a bit dirty, so I start again. After the bathroom is considerably clean, then do it on a need basis, ie clean wherever gets dirty. Its also encouraging for me to see the cleanliness so that i'm more enthusiastic to maintain it.
I think I'm on the right track. My bathroom is a whole lot cleaner now.
Product Lessons Learnt
Don't attempt to design and build a product in its entirety on day one. Have the bigger picture in your mind but take the most important/basic feature and build it with the right depth, quality and polish. Add the just enough ancillary features to make the basic stuff look complete. This will also help to channelize the energy of your resources. Once the first set of features are done well, take the next. Once every feature is done with the desired quality, revisit the first feature and continue the cycle. This will make the product live and remain clean.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, use Google reader, attend unconferences; basically a tech fan, then chances are that you will like google plus. But only if you use it the way it should be used.
I made my circles. Now what?
Agreed that the most important thing Google Plus talked about when they started off is the circles. The first thing even i did was to put my friends and family (same FB crowd) in creatively named circles. And then I had the same question. Now what? I waited and waited. Nothing happened. Then i started searching for twitter crowd on google plus added them to a circle called Twitter crowd. Now my stream was full of updates from a regular set of people but not all of the Twitter crowd. All their updates and conversations were around tech. I now gained some ground and started posting tech stuff there and started getting a lot of traction. It was working. At the same time Facebook was full of updates to the effect of calling Google plus a burial ground.
A Social Network is all the about the network of people you have there
I quickly understood that the people using Google Plus are early adopters. And early adopters of technology are of course people who love technology. Previously there were Twitter and Facebook. I used Twitter for crowd sourcing and FB for friend sourcing. I also linked Twitter to FB so that my tweets automatically got posted on FB. The reason being most of my tweets to the open world were good enough to be shared with my friends who were not on Twitter. But when it came to posts on tech and design (google and twitter) i never got much traction in FB. Most of my friends on FB even said they dont understand most of my posts. Also its difficult to have a good conversation on Twitter. Twitter is not designed for meaningful conversations; its unstructured micro broadcast. And that's the beauty of it. And ofcourse the noise rate of Twitter is more. So even if my tech tweets had takers, I didnt know about it or couldn't have a meaningful conversation around it.
So here is the deal. Twitter has general crowd who I cant really categorize into relationships or interests. Facebook has my friends. People on Google Plus are tech.
So add the right kind of people to your circles so you will see meaningful posts in your stream. Don't add people whose last update is about their new display picture.
I have you on Twitter and FB. Shouldn't that be enough?
A friend once told me that he is inundated with my same posts on Twitter, FB, Buzz and Linkedin. Its a valid problem. But I've fixed it. Right now I dont post anything tech or design related on Twitter or FB. They are on Google Plus for the same reasons described above. Also one good thing Google Plus did was to not allow linking of Twitter feed. Which means it has original content. So if you are a tech fan it does make sense to have me in your Google Plus circles and check my updates that are original.
Which circle do I share to?
As I'm talking tech and nothing personal it makes sense to share things Public. The idea is to make my posts available in the open so that someone who is adding me to his/her circle knows what I'm talking about. Also it will be available on Google Search. Google Plus is a combination of the best features from Twitter and FB. It works on a Follow model with a FB style algorithmic Stream/Wall of conversations. I dont add random people into my circle unless i know what they are talking about.
So why should I have family and friends circles?
Going forward all Google products will be integrated with Google Plus. It makes sense to maintain your contacts on Google Plus centrally and not on Gmail. It reduces Google's loose contact problem. If you are a heavy user of google's products you have to be on google plus as early as possible. Google plus is also going to influence Google search in a big way.
Will I stop using FB and Twitter?
No. I will continue using it for the network i have there.
Somehow I have suddenly become a big fan of mobile payments especially because of the cool quotient of how they are being implemented.
I like Square coz they are the best example of being innovative and disruptive at the same time. They identified a problem, ie the inability of smaller businesses to accept credit card payments and came up with a mobile phone based credit card reader, which is cheaper, more handy and easy to use; a solution no one else could even imagine. Once they disrupted the payment segment, they slowly started getting into Point of Sale applications and made them tablet based. The next obvious step was to get onto the customer's phone who pays the bill. Once paid The Square card case app allows customers to pay any Square merchants hands free.
I like Google wallet for being the fun way to pay as they dont really solve any major problem. They are just making it easier to make payments and eliminating the need to carry wallets.
I'm now inclined to compare both the services as they both are trying to revolutionize payments using mobile phones.
1. Square enables small merchants to accept real world payments using mobile phones and not having to go for a more expensive conventional Point of sale systems and credit card readers. It also allows customers to pay using mobile phones.
Google wallet enables customers to make payments using their mobile phones at any merchant who uses the conventional Point of Sale systems. It also allows users to make online purchases (Google checkout is merged with Google wallet now).
2. The Square card case app allows customers to use them only at Square merchants.
Google wallet allows user to pay at any merchant who uses a Pay Pass credit card reader, who is more common.
3. Square applications can be used on any iPhone and Android devices with an internet connection.
Google wallet is currently only available on Android and also on devices with an NFC chip.
4. Square lets merchants to know about their regular customers being present even before they come for paying so that they can given them personalized offers while in the store.
Google wallet only gives the information of the user to the merchant while paying but it can capture and save (google) offers online, even while outside the store.
5. Square applications and the way they work is more cooler than Google wallet. Square allows users to explore stores and pay hands free. Whereas Google wallet looks more like a practical solution.
Is there a winner yet? I dont think so. Both are working to solve different problems and they will definitely get better at it. Square has taken off really well in the US as a credit card reader for smaller businesses but Google wallet is still in its nascant stages as there is a big technology adoption barrier for its usage; NFC.
Updated on Dec 1st
But according to me who will win?
I think Google will win provided more NFC based devices come out. Here are the reasons.
1. Google has a bigger foot print than Square. Google can be quicker in getting their integrations done in countries like India.
2. Even though Square is indeed a better solution for small merchants the customer solution is too cool and dependent on internet for users outside US/UK/Australia to use it.
3. Can my NFC Android phone with Google wallet use the new Beam feature to act as a Pay Pass like thing? ie accept payments by tapping a credit card onto the phone?. That will make a killer feature.
If you are a Twitter user, you see a stream of your Tweets and from people you follow listed in real-time order. Twitter calls it the Home Timeline. When you go to another user's profile it shows the User Timeline.
Public Timeline
There is no general public twitter timeline showing tweets from EVERYONE. Twitter had this long back but not anymore. It doesn't make sense. But what makes sense is a public timeline which is curated by trending topics. All the major trending topics mapped against a timeline. Something using which i can search for topics or explore by zooming in into geography or slice and dice by say nature of topic (sports, entertainment) etc. If this happens the Twitter public timeline will be looked up as the World History Wall. If you want to browse through the history and not only know the events, but also read through what the world thought about them and have an in depth analysis. Twitter has a huge wealth of data in their data bases. Its time for them to do something with it. However its not an easy job. The key is in how they are going to visualize the data and make it interactive for people to make read sense out of them.
So what will we achieve?
I will never need to search on Google when and where was the last Olympics held and get a Wikipedia link on it. If I want to quickly know the important events happened last month or during last 6 months which will help me in some decision making this will be the place to go. If i want to know the major annual events of Australia to plan a trip I can come here. And its public, I don't have to be a Twitter user to look at the timeline.
What more?
OK this can be a stretch but Twitter will be in a good position to find patterns and may be predict the future. Or at least it will enable people to do that.
I'm so kicked about Google wallet. Readers of this blog may not be surprised as I get kicked about everything google comes up with. Its disruptive and its also cool. Google describes it as the fun way to pay. Well, i dont think paying can ever be fun :) but I like the fact that i can finally use my phone to make payments by just simply touching on some gadget (the pay pass thing). I'm excited the same way I was when i got my first debit card and went out shopping with it.
The Google wallet app can hold my credit cards virtualized and then i can pay at any store that supports Pay Pass by simply pointing or touching my phone to the payment reader device. Done. No credit card handing, waiting for it to come back and no signatures. In the US you swipe your credit card yourself on this machine and do a virtual signature using a stylus. From now on you just touch the machine with your phone. Of course Google will have to integrate all the credit card companies all over the world to have their virtual cards addable to Google wallet. The have started with Citibank credit cards and soon will be Amex ready. Till then should i wait? No. Google wallet comes with a virtual Google prepaid card to which i can fill money using any credit card.
I have no idea when its going to be available in India. I have seen Pay Pass credit card readers in Shoppers Stop. But never used it. Google India should be proactive in getting Citibank India integrated which will enable Android (with NFC) users at least pay at Shoppers Stop. By then all other stores will be able to keen to get this done at their counters. India is big on Android but not all Android devices have NFC. Thats one more hurdle. The device manufacturers are reluctant to invest in NFC as they dont see people benefiting from it yet. Someone in the line has to take a step forward for others to move. Its a chicken and egg problem. NFC can be used for other purposes also like sharing and checking in. Device manufacturers please do something about it... make people comfortable using NFC. Android Beam is Google's next step at making people use NFC for other than payment.
Google is taking all the steps to make this happen. Google brought out there own phones with NFC built in. They have integrated with Citibank master card but also came up with the prepaid card. They worked with pay pass to make the point sale compatible. They tied up with merchants in the US to ready them to use the latest version of pay pass gadgets. Their volunteers are going to these stores and demonstrating google wallet to the customers. They are working with other credit card companies for integration. They have now acquired Motorola and its a given that all their new phone will have NFC. And this is happening in US now. They have long way to go before making this happen around the world.
So is your wallet (the real one) only about payments? Well i have my movie tickets, loyalty cards, discount coupons, gift cards, metro pass and flight boarding pass in it. Google wallet will eventually have all of them too. Of course your family's picture is already there on the phone. Google literally means it when they say "Bye bye wallet, we will take it from here".
I'm so excited about Google wallet. Next time I go to US, i'll make sure that i go to all the stores where I can pay with Google Wallet and experience it first hand. I can only pray that it should come to India soon.
The career timeline in my resume is divided into pre iphone and post iphone era. I'm an Android fan but if it weren't for iPhone, Android as we know it today wouldn't have happened. Thanks Steve Jobs for changing my career, teaching me some lessons on user experience and ownership, making my life easier and also making my workplace more happening. You will be remembered.
My work timings tend to stretch more into the night nowadays and I totally miss the prime time tv programmes. I do manage to catch up some of the re runs of my favorite shows late night or I wait for the weekend. Again I'm completely at the mercy of channels' timings to catch them. I'm more and more becoming unsuccessful at watching tv shows and all the latest movies. #fail
I want the tv shows to apear whenever I want them to happen. By this I dont mean I want all of them to be on You Tube. Today almost all businesses, even movies to an extent, have gone on demand and there is no reason why TV channels cant. Imagine Star World working as it is by default but also works on demand as per our convenience.
I think this is possible if I have access to apps like Hulu (I dont get it in India) or to an extent on You Tube. But then I have to watch them to my laptop or tablet or do some dance to connect it to my television to watch it on bigger screen.
Google TV is trying to help me out here. I will be able to watch live tv as it is or if I want to watch something specific i can search for it on the web or open the channel's video app and watch the show. I can even use it in India too. Logitech Revue is available on Amazon.com for $99 and you can get it delivered in India for $26. I'm seriously thinking of buying this.
Why am I not buying it? Well I have an old tube tv right now, will have to upgrade it to a nice LCD tv and then go for it. Its Ok to wait for some more time as Google TV is currently little low on content. I'm sure it will pick up soon after Ice Cream sandwich release in October after which it will be easy to develop android apps for different screen sizes. There will be more apps for Android tablets and Google TV by next year. Plus Google is currently working with every video provider on the web to make their interface friendly for Google TV. They are also working with every tv channel to make their content available on Google TV as on demand. Content is the big adoption factor right now for Google TV coz I think most of the TV channels dont understand this business model.
I know its a long way for Google to convince every content provider to be on board, have apps, and again they will have to repeat the integration efforts in India for it to make sense to me completely. Currently the problem is that Google doesn't have a lot of users to show the content providers to convince them. Its again the chicken and egg problem. As as Google fan and an early adopter I've decided to be their user as it will only help me in the long run. I can at least browse the web and watch online videos on a bigger screen as of now.
Name:Umesh Gopinath 
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