Phoney Girls!

As I work on the mobile internet space, I'm always on the lookout for new ideas which will help me in designing better mobile experiences. I talk to people about how they use their phone, what all they use it for other than making calls and sms, what all do they expect from a phone etc etc.

When my wife was planning to buy a new phone I had suggested to buy a Nokia E51 (I have one) as I think it comes with all the latest useful features at a less price. But she rejected it outright as she thought it was a very common phone as she saw it with many people. She wanted her phone to be something special although she was not clear about what feature would make it so... a qwerty keyboard perhaps. She looked at many options but the moment she saw the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, she made up her mind that the special element she was looking for was a cool touch screen. Every other feature came next to that. Once she started using the phone a lot of things surprised me

• She thinks using stylus is cool and refuses to use finger touch. I think she is gonna hate iphone.


• She hates the accelerometer. Has switched it off.


• She wanted to re install Nokia PC Suite on my computer coz she thought the PC Suite CD which came with the phone was cute.


• She wanted to join Facebook coz she wanted to use the Facebook icon that came preloaded with the phone.

All these things completely bowled me over coz these were valuable data which would help me immensly. I decided to ask more girls about their mobile phone preferences and the answers I got were even more interesting.

I like windows mobile more than Nokia coz win mobile allows me to put Calvin and Hobbes animation on the home screen

I bought my Sony Erricson coz I thought the package was super cute

I think some day I will become a mobile anthropologist.

Remember the milk carton

I use Nestle milk's Tetrapak carton which I think is not very user friendly. Its coz I have to cut open the corner of the brick shaped carton to make a hole which not only makes the milk leak and overflow but also forced to be stored in an opened condition. The same is the case with Amul Taaza milk. Nandini Good Life milk pack comes in a very basic Tetra Fino package and hence cant be kept upright. I wonder why cant Indian milk cartons be made like the typical gable top milk cartons like we get abroad.

A gable top milk carton is a peak shaped smart packaging design marvel which can be pulled from one side of the tip to make a pout kind of opening. This not only helps pouring the milk properly without overflowing or leaking but also can be retracted back to close and store. Tetra Pak has an advanced version of this with a cap called the Tetra Rex.

Is it a cost cutting technique thats making the companies get milk packed in a simple Tetra Brik package and not a gable top milk carton? A more expensive Amul Lite comes in brick shape but has a flip open top which is again not as usable as the gable top carton. I think the people who go for carton milk wouldn't mind paying a little extra for it to be a little more usable. Or atleast make it like the Tropicana juice pack (Indian) which is brick shaped but with a capped opening. Are Nestle/Amul/Nandini listening?

The ultimate Twitter revenue model

Best ideas are born when chatting with friends.

Friend: A friend is planning on starting a website that is similar to smashing magazine... but for movies and music... you interested?

Me: I don’t have time to read or write now a days. Haven’t even opened Google Reader in a long time :-(

Friend: I have had 1000+ in my reader for a couple of months now..

Me: Yeah me too

Friend: been sleeping at 4am, 5am...

Me: Once I argued with some one who said blogging was a fad. Now I think its coming true.

Friend: lol... According to some, blogging is dead... it's become a commercial enterprise now... and blogging as you used to know it, no longer exists.

Me: Amateur blogging has come down like anything

Friend: Yeah... over 100 million abandoned blogs… according to Technorati

Me: It’s more like online magazines now. Blogs are a boon for sure. You search for any shit you get it on someone’s blog

Friend: According to some, micro blogging is the new blogging…

Me: Micro blogging is keeping me updated now a days

Friend: Now how to make money off it is the next phase

Me: hmm may be they will have sponsors

Friend: Likely

Me: Sponsors based on the number of followers. Sponsors need not work based on page views. They just need to be heard.

Friend: yeah, so that's authority and popularity... you need to be popular...

Me: So if you sponsor me, I will talk good things about you

Friend: Is that an offer?

Me: hehe may be I will do a matrimonial Twitter channel and…

Friend: huh? Why?

Me: …only girls are allowed to follow me. I broadcast trustworthy info about prospective boys

Friend: Hmm...

Me: The boys sponsor me.

Friend: Then I’ll definitely sponsor you...

Me: See...

Friend: hey, if they're sponsoring you, how can they be trustworthy?

Me: They need not be trustworthy. I'm trustworthy. Like say Techcrunch

Friend: How so?

Me: They ask me to review them by paying me. (I don’t know if Techcrunch takes money to review btw)

Friend: Oy, I'm not stripping, ok...

Me: hahaha

Friend: How will you review me?

Me: Like you pay for my friendship

Friend: :P

Me: I become your paid friend. I study you for a week or so and then I write about you. Millions of girls who follow me will read it and would want to meet you

Friend: You've got to get into action on that... but micro blogging is not enough to write about me... you need a large book.

Me: Well even Alukkas jewellery and Kalyan sarees can pay me coz of the target audience. So that I talk good about them too.

Friend: Hmm... Are you gonna act on that?

Me: How’s my idea?

Friend: I think its good... needs marketing... solid marketing...

Me: First I need to be a ladies man, make a solid girl friends circle and then make them fall for ahem sorry follow me… and then let the boys know that the girls listen to me... lot of work

Friend: You need to have a very sound reputation both on the net and off...

Me: yes

Friend: and you have hang out with the girls study them too

Me: Well that will be a free service. I will do special recommendation of those girls who allow me to hang out with them

Friend: I think you will need a team for that...

Me: No No its like Splitsvilla. Everyone makes me happy

Friend: what the heck is that...

Me: Oh that’s another reality show on MTV

Friend: hmm...

Me: Girls make the King happy and boys make the Queen happy

Friend: What the heck?

Me: In the end the king and queen pick their partners to win the show

Friend: This is some porn reality show?

Me: Hehe not porn but of course little more than Indian sensibilities. However I hope the girls’ parents have sold their TV before the season started.

:P

Happy Singh is King

Long back when I went to my friend's newly opened graphic design shop, I was suprised to see the unusual aquamarine colors he had painted on the walls. I asked him about it and he said that he wanted it to be a conversation starter. Like how I asked him about it, he expected others also to do the same and he can talk about the idea. Something to break the ice with his prospective clients. I found the idea interesting. Since then I have always tried to have something with me as a conversation starter whenever I go to meet people. For some time it was my thick framed glasses (which was not very popular then), mypsychedelic shirts, 'fuel inside' sticker (which looked like the 'intel inside' logo) on my bike's petrol tank, bright red canvas shoes, the apple sticker on my hp laptop etc. I also have a gaping void cartoon on the back of my business card which acts as a great conversation starter when I go to geek camps. Now a days people find iPhones as a great conversation starter. And the list goes on.

Last month on my brief visit to Bombay, I was taken to this restaurant called 'Happy Singh'. I was expecting a typical punjabi dhaba atmosphere when I went there but as soon I entered the place I thought the place looked like an American/Mexican eatery. You know the ones like TGIF, Ruby Tuesday, Indy Joe etc. The interiors were all bright red and green with colorful light shades and graffiti on the wall. The atmosphere was so lively with something or the other happening all the time, happening bollywood bhangra numbers in the air, the servers all ready to help you out.

We were welcomed by a drink and then asked for the order. There were lots of fun stuff for us to look at on our table. The menu card was funny with every creatively named section having the restaurant mascot Mr happy singh in different avatars. There were cards on the table with jumbled up phrases for us to crack. The table also had a number displayed and a note saying if we were unhappy about anything about the place we could complain it to the authorities along with the table number.

When the food came, my aunt commented that it was quick. But the reality was that we were so engrossed in cracking Happy's jumbled phrases, talking about the unique ambiance, commenting on the different funny avatars of Happy Singh which adorned the walls, that we didn't even realize how much time we waited for the food to come. It seemed so very quick. The food too didn't disappoint, it was all beyond expectations. We had a fun time over there beyond the point that we went there to have lunch, till the ceremonial kitchen close bell rang. We were more than happy to give creative feedback (to match up to the ambiance) to them on their suggestion cards, which are usually avoided or typically filled for a formality in other places.

Happy Singh is King

We gushed in sheer excitement as we came out of the place.


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Search using a pic. Can I?

The other day @sampad posted a fun challenge on Twitter to guess the person on the pic he posted on twitpic. I looked at the pic but didnt know who he was. The first thing I wanted to do was to ask Google by giving the picture as the search query which unfortunately was not possible. However I kinda guessed that he was some online personality and searched Google images with terms facebook, twitter etc. Ultimately the guy turned out to be Chris Hughes, the co founder of Facebook, but it was found only after a lot of googling based on the hints given out by @sampad.

The incident made me think; once again... :P

What if Google had a feature in 'Image Search' where I could upload a pic for Google to find content on the pic and give me results based on that? It would be fantastic. I'm sure that Google can do it, coz it already has Similar Images Search in the labs, which shows other images that look like the one which showed up as a result of an image search using keywords. Similarly Google has to just accept my pic via upload and then do a search in their database to find similar images which are appropriately tagged to know who/what the person/object is on the picture. Then it can show me results on the person/object it found out; not only image results but also other web results like a normal Google search. In Chris's case it would give me this page as a result of my "fundoo image search".

I know this is not far away. Oh btw it would not only work for famous personalities or landmarks, but also for your lesser known friends and relatives; remember all those image tagging you did in Picasa web albums? Google knows them all.

What happened on 23rd February?

Last month my business analyst friend at work was analyzing the traffic report for IBN Live mobile site for the month of February and was not able to figure out some patterns. At last he asked me

Friend: Umesh, do you remember what happened on Feb 23rd ?

Me: Mmmmmmm not exactly. Whats the problem?

Friend: Well I see a sudden spike in traffic on that day and some how I missed out to note it down then. Now I have no clue what happened on that day.

I tried to recollect the happenings but as I’m very bad at remembering things I decided to ask others. Even they were clueless. Then we started spitting out random things which came to our mind…. Tendulkar’s century, Karachi Attacks, Elections, Stock market crash… but none of them could be traced back to the 23rd of February.

I tried Google, but didn’t give any helpful results. I also tried Twitter search expecting to see some tweets which happened on that day. But it didnt have a way to search for tweets on a particular day. The date as the search query didnt help too.

Then some one shouted.. It was Maha Sivratri. Then someone remembered Resool Pookutty saying it was all god’s grace as the Oscars happened on an auspicious day. Bingo. It was Oscars which made the traffic spike on IBN live site. Supposedly it was not only the television channels but also the news channels which had benefited from India’s triumph at Oscars.

I was sad that as a self confessed web lover who swears by Google couldn’t find out a popular event which happened on a previous date using the search engines. That day the whole world was talking about Twitter as a real time information search engine and I didn’t have to think of use cases to understand its potential.



Twitter is a huge archive of information about all the things happened and happening in this world on a day to day basis as there will people tweeting about them. And hence it’s also the place to search for things happened in the past and things that are happening right now in real time. Sadly Twitter couldn’t help me with the Oscars day but may be that’s what they are working towards. If Twitter had accepted the date as a search query and shown me the trending topics on 23rd February and also the tweets on those topics, I would have easily found out the answer.

Twitter as a search engine for live happenings is very powerful and there is no doubt about that. Its something even Google cannot do. The other day we the mallus in our office were so eager to find out about the Malayalam movie Sagar Alias Jacky which got released at around 12pm that day. As usual we had to wait for the first day first show to get over for the reviews to come out. I decided to try my luck again. At 1 pm I searched for Sagar Alias Jacky on Twitter and bingo there were people tweeting from the cinema hall as they were watching the flick and we got the very first reviews come to us live from ground zero. FTW.

Kindle the Amazon fire

Go to know that my friend is getting the Kindle 2 so thought of catching up with her the same way we did some time ago for the iPhone

Friend: I’m so excited about the kindle 2

Me: Hows it? Just today morning as a part of our Friday Ideas session, our team was discussing about bringing digital experiences close to real world experiences and book reading was one of them. Someone wondered how was it to read a book using the Kindle.

Friend: Kindle 2 is a pretty neat device - I actually bought it for my husband. It's got a great design and lets you lose yourself in your reading. It's got free Sprint wireless connectivity built in, so it is fairly easy to order a book on Amazon and have it delivered to your Kindle in seconds. Kindle versions of books are a lot cheaper than the hardbacks I buy, often less than 1/4 of the price of a regular book. I do a lot of reading on my iPhone but the glare of the screen really hurts my eyes. Not so with the Kindle, the screen is very easy on your eyes, almost like reading a real book. The best part is you can adjust the size of the text, which is a great usability feature for older readers.

Me: What are your favorite features?

Friend: Text to speech version - You can get your Kindle 2 to read the text to you. I think this is pretty neat. I know that my husband loves this feature the most.

Play MP3s - You can upload your MP3s to the Kindle and listen to them - I expect you will be able to buy amazon mp3s directly from the Kindle in the near future but this is just me speculating

Built in dictionary - You can highlight any word and the have the inbuilt Oxford American dictionary tell you the meaning.

Bookmarks - you can bookmark several different books at once and the kindle will remember where you left off your reading.

Size - it is incredibly light and is as thin as a pencil - for someone who reads as much as I do and lugs a ton of books around, this is the best feature.

But I personally think that there are some missed opportunities in terms of other features that can create an ecosystem around the product.

Me: May be a full blown internet browser, an SDK to build third party Kindle apps :-) Btw I heard people saying that no one will buy Kindle as it’s now available as an iPhone app. What’s your take on this?

Friend: Well iPhones/iPod touch do have a bigger market share than the Kindle. Both devices enable you to stay connected (through cell network and wifi) and both have a great existing ecosystem that is built around them.

The Kindle device is pricey and works well but from a business perspective, the device is not as important as the digital selection of books that is available. The Kindle is a means to an end. If you want to reach a wider audience for your ebooks, then you first start with your device, then target other device enabled customers, and once ebooks themselves gain traction, target the masses (PC users et al).

This strategy is consistent with Amazon's strategy of providing Earth's biggest selection. I think it's brilliant.

So the question really should not be "how many kindles will be sold after the iPhone kindle app is released?” Rather, how many more incremental ebooks can you sell by being device independent?

Apple and Google are also trying to tap into the digital book market but Amazon has existing relationships with publishers and will win in the long run.

Me: Oh. So you are saying Amazon's strategy is to sell more ebooks (makes sense) than focusing on selling and making kindle to be "the ultimate" device. Kindle would be just another device offered by Amazon along with iPods and iPhones on their catalogue. It’s just that Kindle is an in house brand and has special features to be a better reader than iPod. Am I right?

Friend: Absolutely. Amazon is first and foremost a retailer with a huge selection of digital content and a proprietary device. With the latter, they can make sure competitors do not lock them out of their devices.

Me: Great. Also got to know that Amazon gave in to the ridiculous Authors Guild claim to allow authors to block text-to-speech. This was one of your favorite features right?

Friend: That is hilarious. Too bad about the text to speech but that was husband’s favorite feature. My next favorite feature is downloading books in seconds on to my device, which the stupid iPhone Kindle app cannot replicate. I’m not too gung ho about the iPhone Kindle App. Kinda sucks if you ask me.

OK so that was some serious talk. Btw I have neither an iPhone nor a Kindle. I might go for an iPhone some time in the future when the prices come down but would never go for a Kindle. I actually like the device and its features but I’m not a voracious book reader. All my reading is confined to Google Reader which works well on an iPhone. I might get one for my wife provided Kindle allows non amazon ebooks to be loaded onto it. :-) After all we are Indians.

Upwardly Mobile 2

Another powerful mobile app is the Qik web casting on mobile. It records videos using your phone’s camera and in real time uploads it to your qik.com account, enabling you to do a quick and easy way to do a live web casting. Last month I was attending my colleague’s wedding in Guruvayur and I did a live qik of the ceremony for the folks at office. It was a phenomenal experience. Although later I meddled with the video quality setting to make the upload faster only to make the video quality poor. But the first clip did make a sensation in the office.

Mapunity’s BTIS service helps you in getting real time traffic status updates in Bangalore so that you can decide on what route to take when you are driving. They have a very useful SMS based service but I'm not sure how will I be able to remember all those keywords. So they have a mobile app which is still in the alpha version. But I think the app can be only used by people who have an engineering degree in mobile technology. They are really in need of an UX expert to make the app simple to use and if they do the app could be a runaway hit. I don’t mind helping them out if they are Ok with it. Coming back to the matter, if you manage to figure out how to use it, it has a mint cool feature of showing live pictures of on the road traffic powered by cameras kept at different traffic junctions.

Talking about user experience, the ICICI imobile app is very simple to use. Yes it doesn’t even ask for your ICICI web User id and password to login. They have a real cool way of integrating your bank account with the app. I paid some of my bills using this app but again recharging my wife’s Airtel prepaid card is still a problem. Even though I can easily make a payment to Airtel using the app or ICICI online, the prepaid account just doesn’t get topped up. ICICI does re fund the money after two - three days though.

Thanks to my phone, I don’t forget a thing now a days. Previously I used to get SMS reminders from Google Calendar for the events I shouldn't miss out, but now I’ve synchronized my phone with Google Calendar and Outlook. I use Google Calendar Sync to bring in Google calendar events on to my Outlook which has my official appointments and tasks. I then sync my phone with Outlook using blue tooth. So once I setup the sync thing, as I add events on Google Calendar and Outlook it automatically gets updated on my phone which will then remind me by putting the day’s tasks on my phone’s home page.

Then there is mobile.ndtv.com my favorite for reading news; they actually have enough things on mobile for me not to even go to their website. I also use the network18 sites m.ibnlive.com for news, m.buzz18.com for time pass movie gossip stuff and last but not the least m.moneycontrol.com; just to see my portfolio value going down day by day :-( Ah for cricket fans there is m.cricketnext.com too. Network18 has a very good presence on mobile and they are open to trying out new stuff. Oh btw these sites are powered by the company I work for, July Systems. ;-) That’s also a reason behind me being addicted to mobile internet as I'm supposed to be an evangelist of all the mobile sweetness.

PS: Also check out Wikipedia (en.wap.wikipedia.org), dictionary.com (m.reference.com/d), Yahoo Mail (m.yahoo.com/mail), Delicious (m.delicious.com) and Flickr (m.flickr.com) on mobile. Some of them do redirect to the mobile version when accessed using their regular web urls on mobile phones. Some of them don't, which is bad.

Upwardly Mobile 1

I’m becoming an exceptional mobile internet user, day by day. Gone are those days when I used to be content with the features of my Nokia 6510 even though it rang or beeped message only once or twice in a week. The new Nokia E51 has changed the way I see mobile phones. Ahem well the calls and messages are still as bad as my good old 6510 days, but the change now is that I’m checking emails, reading blogs/news, searching for local shops, movie timings, quickly clarifying things on dictionary.com and wikipedia, tweeting and of course the Google maps and latitude. When I’m at home I feel extremely lazy to open my laptop now a days. Everything is now on my phone, ah except typing this story. I’m not yet good at typing things on my phone.

Asklaila.com (asklaila.com/m/blr) is a frequently visited site on my phone to search for shops and restaurants when I’m on the go. Like the other day I was in Koramangala and wanted to know where was Lawrence & Mayo. Just did a search on Asklaila and it showed me the shop address and also gave me options to find other optical shops nearby. It also gives me phone numbers and clicking on them will make a call. I’m not saying Asklaila has a better database than Google Local Search or anything like that (I seriously don’t know) but the user experience on this one is really nice. Well they can still improve if they can also show results that are around the location which I specified. Eg the other day I searched for Chinese restaurants on MG road and I wouldn’t have minded if it also showed me Chinese restaurants on Church Street and Brigade road. Their full blown website does that and it would be wonderful to have the same feature on mobile. Also they could integrate a map view. Or may be integrate it with Google maps app. Or an Ask Laila app with Google maps/latitude integration… I don’t know ;-)

Oh btw, If you are in Bangalore and if you know exactly which restaurant you are going to and you want to call them to reserve a table, then you don’t need an internet connection. Call Ubona at 4070 0000 and tell the restaurant name to the IVR response and it will connect you instantly to the restaurant. It’s powerful enough to understand you regardless of your accent and it works well even if there are multiple outlets for the restaurant you are looking for. It will guide you well through all the locations. Once I tried a restaurant and they didn’t have that in their database. The IVR voice sounded confused. But 5 minutes after hanging up I got an SMS from them saying the restaurant I asked for has been added and gave me the contact details. Ubona’s restaurant search works only in Bangalore and it’s a beta service they are running to demonstrate their software’s capabilities.

Avid mobile internet users would know that Google apps (Reader, Calendar, Gmail) are available for mobile on the regular urls. Google India movies (google.co.in/m/movies) is one page you want to save to your bookmarks, coz it shows all the movies running in your city, timings, theatres etc. Very handy when you are in a sudden mood to go for movies and no access to news papers. But to book the tickets you might have to turn to the movie ticket booking mobile apps like BookMyShow.com’s B Mobile app (Send BMS to
51818). But again BookMyShow doesn’t take booking for PVR Cinemas. Oh listen to this, Last weekend I was trying to book tickets for Delhi6 on PVR’s online booking site and for some reason it was not working. I quickly downloaded their mobile app (Txt PVR to 53030) and continued booking the tickets. It was like a breeze to use the app; very nicely done and extremely simple to use.

To be continued

Subprime Crisis, Credit Crunch... What?

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo

OK I know that its recession time. Oh yes I also know that its something called subprime crisis which started it. But never knew exactly what that meant. This video explains things in simple terms. I like simple stuff.