Some Really Innovative Ads
Posted: February 17, 2008 Filed under: advertisements, advertising, Apple, Business, consumers, Finance, jokes, Jokes / Funny Stuff, media, Technology, Television, The Simpsons, Thoughts, Web 2.0, Web designing | Tags: advertisements, advertising, Apple, Business, companies, corporations, Finance, Life, media, simpsons, Television, Thoughts 32 Comments »1. Don’t Drink and Drive
2. MacBook Pro
3. Plastic Surgery
4. Papa John’s Pizza
5. World Aids Day
6. Life’s Too Short- by Jobsintown.com
7. Dove- This is one of my favorites, because I love Marge Simpson
8. Meet a Giraffe
9. Stop Smoking!
-Source: UAddit
10. FedEx- I love this one too
There are lots of other interesting tidbits that I collect in my tumblelog. You might want to go there for more stuff.
Would You Like To Be Tagged?
Posted: February 17, 2008 Filed under: Business, consumers, Family, Life, Privacy, RFID tags, Technology, Thoughts | Tags: Business, consumers, Finance, General ramblings, Life, Privacy laws, RFID tags, Technology, Thoughts 24 Comments »No. This post is not about being tagged for a blog game. It’s about being tagged by RFID chips. Most of us know about Radio Frequency Identification Chips and their ability to change the way we operate. For those of you who don’t know, “RFID is a system of small electronic tags (comprising a tiny chip plus an antenna) that transmit data via a radio signal to RFID readers and related hardware and software infrastructure.” They have always been around, but it’s because of the recent outcry of privacy issues and the potential misuse that these tags are generating lots of news reports. RFID tags hold great promises for lots of industries, including retail chain management. In fact, Walmart is one of the main proponents of RFID tags, which will help the company correctly estimate product demand, prevent stock outs, determine lead time etc. RFID provides the technology to identify uniquely each container, pallet, case and item being manufactured, shipped and sold, thus providing the building blocks for increased visibility throughout the supply chain. According to this article-
RFID promises to revolutionize supply chains and usher in a new era of cost savings, efficiency and business intelligence. The potential applications are vast as it is relevant to any organization engaged in the production, movement or sale of physical goods. This includes retailers, distributors, logistics service providers, manufacturers and their entire supplier base, hospitals and pharmaceuticals companies, and the entire food chain.
This is only half the story. Like any other new technology, even this invention has its good and bad points. I came across this article that talks about the good part, where the tags are being used to monitor the patients in hospitals, reduce baby mismatches and thefts, to provide extra security to nurses and prevent sexual assault in hospitals, monitoring disoriented disabled patients and people with severe illness etc. The US is the number 1 adopter of this practice, and UK and China are slowly adopting this method too. So far, so good.
I read another article at CNN, that talked about how a company in Florida makes human implantable RFID chips, the size of a rice grain. This can be used by doctors to track information from patients, who can’t even speak. Most of these tags are passive and don’t contain a battery. So the information that they contain, which is very small in size, can be read only by a reader, located a couple of feet away. However, its sheer power makes it a potential tool in the hands of corporations, Government and other bodies who can use it for their benefit.
Clothing stores such as Levi’s, Benetton have already experimented with RFID tags for the purpose of tracking inventory and to prevent theft. But a layman will not know that the pair of jeans or shirt that he bought had a tag attached to it. Suppose we forget to take it off and suppose the company decides to play the role of a trickster and makes the RFID tag powerful enough to read your movements and get important information, such as, the stores that you visit, clothes that you buy etc.- we have a potential invasion of privacy right here!
Uncle Sam can’t be far behind when it comes to providing new twists, eh? These tags are being used by the US Homeland Security Department to issue special “e-passports” to tourists from 27 countries, whose citizens can travel to the US without any visa. According to the US Government, these chips will help them better identify and track the movements of such tourists. Only three countries have refused to issue such passports- Andorra, Brunei and Liechtenstein (as of October 2006). Like the article mentions, I think that this is a very dangerous thing to do and can put the passport bearer in imminent danger. Is there any guarantee that the installed chip won’t be read by another unauthorized person? Issuing such passports is equivalent to giving arms to your enemy. It is a two edged sword. Of course, the Homeland Department says that no one else can read these chips except for the authorized personnel. But I don’t believe it. And what about those tourists who’ve been reduced to the status of chained animals? How safe would you really feel knowing that there is someone watching each step that you take. This is just the start and I’m sure in another decade or so, the situation will get much worse.
To assess the effects of an RFID on human privacy, some volunteers from the University of Washington have taken it upon themselves to wear these tags and record the information and then investigate the entire issue. According to this article, in a project called RFID Ecosystem, researchers will give RFID tags to 50 voluntary participants to put on either themselves on their belongings. The location of the tags will be recorded every five seconds, saved to a database and published to Web pages. What’s interesting about the entire experiment is that one tool is used to track a person’s movements in Google Calendar and the other tool is used as a “friend finder”, that sends information such as what the person ate, whether he’s sleeping, going for a movie etc. to participant’s cell phone, email program or even Twitter! This, according to me, is a step in the right direction and I hope it reveals some interesting finds.
All of this brings me to the main issue: How Regulated are these tags? You will be surprised to know that there are no “hard rules” that govern these tags. According to the RFID gazette, FCC regulations stipulate that it the manufacturer/importer is solely responsible for compliance and in case of non-compliance it is the manufacturer and not the retailer who faces stiff fines and disciplinary action. In Europe, several laws have already been passed that need RFID-tagged products to carry a label informing this fact and that consumer data can be gathered only after the consumer has been informed and their consent is necessary for using that data. I haven’t seen anything of this sort in the US…or maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention? I don’t know, but I have never read a label that declared that the product that I’d purchased had a tag attached to it.
Currently, the European Union doesn’t have any set rules that govern the tags. They are likely in the future, depending upon the industry practices though. As far as I know, introducing such laws will also take a considerable amount of time, if you take into account all the industry and political lobbyists. What are these EU people waiting for? Isn’t this the right time to look into this issue? This is a classic case of “Wait and watch”. They need to act before any serious consequences arise.
Alltop
Posted: February 8, 2008 Filed under: Business, Finance, internet, Life, Technology, Thoughts, Web 2.0 | Tags: Alltop, Business, Finance, internet, Popurl, Reviews, Technology, Thoughts, Web 2.0, Websites 18 Comments » 
Guy Kawasaki introduced his news aggregating service, Alltop, sometime ago. It’s “inspired” by Popurls.com, another very popular feed aggregator.
Alltop has nine sections:
As you can guess, Ego features the rantings of “top” bloggers, such as Kawaski himself, Scoble, Fake Steve Jobs, Seth Godin etc. I am surprised that he’s given Mac a separate section. On second thoughts, I’m not really that surprised. But it does look a little unfair. If he’s given Mac a separate section, then why did he hesitate in giving technology and science two different pages?
The news sources that Alltop uses are quite good content wise. For example- The Science section has New York Times, BBC, Newsweek, Yahoo! Science News among others. Popurls is more focused on user driven content, such as, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Truemors etc.
Some cons:
- I’m hoping that with time, he will let us customize the look of the site.
- Don’t like clicking on different pages for accessing different sections. Probably I’ve gotten too Popurlized.
- Also, if you notice, the page footer is quite annoying because it keeps moving as you scroll up or down the page. A static footer would have been much better.
Will it be a popurl killer? Probably not. The crowd that Alltop wants to attract seems to be quite different. Unless Kawasaki makes some changes to the basic layout of the site, I don’t see myself being a regular reader. That footer is way too annoying.
The War Between MSFT and GOOG’s Not Yet Over
Posted: February 4, 2008 Filed under: Business, Finance, GMail, Google, internet, laptops, Microsoft, Software, Stocks, Technology, yahoo, YouTube, Zune | Tags: Acquisition, Business, computers, Consumer Rights, Finance, Google, internet, Law, Life, Merger, Microsoft, Technology, Thoughts, yahoo 24 Comments »The other day, I made some points on this entire move made by Microsoft. Most of this was focused on the effect it will have on Yahoo and how the combined entity will be able to pull off such a humongous merger. There is a very interesting post in the Official Google blog that totally highlights their insecurity:
So Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It’s about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.
Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies — and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.
It’s tantamount to one thief calling the other person a thief! What about Google’s interest in the 700 MHz spectrum? What about their “habit” of copying each product that their competitors release? None of their products like Google Documents, Google Talk, Google Mail etc. are totally “original”. They shouldn’t even be talking about Microsoft’s “legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses”. Their financial statements were being audited sometime back because the regulatory authorities felt that they were incomplete. Correct me if I’m wrong.
It’s not that I’m against Google. In fact, most of my regular readers call me an “Anti Microsoft” person. So this post is quite out of the line for me. You won’t read such good words for Microsoft very often on this blog.
I think Google feels quite threatened and they have good reason to be. Microsoft has a huge share in the PC Market and if they were to merge with Yahoo, then the internet dominance fight will only get more interesting. The consumers will benefit in either case. So it’s good for the consumers I would say.
Further, they say:
Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and web-based services?
Google shouldn’t even be commenting on the monopoly issue here because this is exactly what they are trying to do now. How else would you explain their coming out with every possible internet service and all of them being accessible from a single Google account?
And you’ll find it interesting to know that I could hardly find any “Google suggestions” when I started typing “Google trouble” or “Google audit”. Of course, Yahoo! gave me more results for once.
Market Watch (owned by News Corp) has another take on this entire issue. I kind of agree with what they have to say because it’s perfectly logical and quite unbiased. While they mention this positive point:
If Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo is consummated…
…the Goliath of the PC desktop will represent the one truly credible competitor to Google in the online world. (News Corp. is the owner of MarketWatch.com, the publisher of this column.)
They also mention the negatives:
Put it all together, and Microsoft/Yahoo vaults to the number one position with site traffic that’s nearly double Google’s. That’s the good news. The combination would still lag Google’s sales by a factor of two to one — $2.6 billion for Microsoft/Yahoo in the last quarter of 2007, despite the traffic advantage, as compared with $4.8 billion for Google.
And I agree that Microsoft +Yahoo is the only way that Google can be stopped. Otherwise, even though Google propounds “Do No Evil”, this is exactly what the company has started to do and will do full scale in the future.
Someone’s Trying to Hack My Gmail Account
Posted: February 2, 2008 Filed under: Business, E-mail, Economics, Finance, GMail, Google, Life, Microsoft, Orkut, Software, Technology, Thoughts, yahoo, Yahoo! Mash | Tags: Business, digg, E-mail, Economics, Finance, flickr, Gmail, Google, Life, Microsoft, Orkut, Software, Technology, Thoughts, yahoo 48 Comments »UPDATE: Now my Yahoo! account has been hit. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m not being able to log-in. I use this email for a lot of correspondence work. 
I had used this account to purchase a domain name today and my credit card detail’s stored. This Yahoo! account was earlier being used as the Alternate Email address for my GMail account. Before this problem started, I’d changed the alternate email address for my GMail account. I’ve been trying to log in. Doesn’t work. I’m trying to use the Forgot Password Page. But all that I get is a BLANK PAGE. No Password. I am on hold with Yahoo! Small Business Center because I bought a domain through them and my Yahoo! Mail account is linked to my Domain account. Let’s see if they’ll be able to help…else I don’t know what to do.
In the mean time, if you want to contact me, email me at timeandagainblog at gmail dot com. I’ll answer your comments once this tension is over. Please bear with me. If you have any advice, please leave me a comment or an email at the above mentioned GMail address.
*******
A couple of weeks back, Ish had written a post saying that someone is trying to hack his GMail account. The same thing’s happening to me now. I got a “Change Password” link in my secondary e-mail address thrice. Good thing that I was online when this happened.
Me: Is this a genuine email? This can’t be happening to me!
Yahoo! Mail: Yes, this is a genuine email. We’ve verified it.
Me: Okay! I gotta think fast.
So, I deleted those emails with the “Change Password” links. Next, I logged into my Google account and Changed the Password and the Security Question too. Unfortunately, I use the same Google account for all my services- Google Mail, Google Reader, Google Analytics, Google Calendar, Google Notebook et al. Not to forget, the most important of all, Google Checkout, which has my credit card details. So, I’ve deleted that too. The last thing I want to be hit with is a bill costing me thousands of dollars.
The GMail account associated with this ID is quite important because I use it for lots of important work. Anyway, after doing some preliminary damage control, I sat down to think who could be behind this attack. Can be anyone, unfortunately. People are so curious to know about other people’s private lives…it’s quite funny.
Did the hacker really think that clicking the “Forgot Password” link would be a good way to hack into my account? Didn’t he know that the “Forgot password” link would be delivered in my secondary e-mail address? I’m guessing that whoever tried this method is probably an amateur hacker.
This incident reminds me of another one that happened a couple of months back. One of my good friends tried to hack into my Yahoo! Mail account. I was dumb enough to assume that nobody will ever try to hack my email account. This friend knew enough about me to guess the answer of the Security Question. The next day, I tried to log into my Yahoo account and failed to do so. It didn’t even occur to me that it might have been hacked. I thought that Yahoo’s server must be down.
Next, I logged into my GMail account to check my emails. To my surprise, the very first email was from my friend, explaining to me that he tried to hack into my account and has not read any of my personal emails and he’s very sorry about it. He also gave me the new password. Now starts the fun part. I logged into my Yahoo! account to change the Password and the Security Question. Well…there was no direct link to change the Security Question! Can you believe it? I had to contact Support and verify my identity. A whole bunch of administrative hassles later, my Security Question was changed.
Lessons Learned:
1. Never ever trust anyone. By anyone, I mean just that. Look at my friend. If a friend tries to hack into your account just because he’s very curious, can you blame a stranger?
2. Don’t panic. First do the needful (Change your password and Security Question). If you have confidential information in your email account, then forward those emails to another account and then delete them from the primary email address.
3. I’m thinking of contacting Support, but probably it won’t help. The GMail help section says:
When an attempt to recover your Gmail username or password is made, an email from Google is automatically sent to your secondary email address.
If you didn’t request to recover your username or password, you can ignore the message. If you’re concerned about the security of your account, we recommend changing your password and security question.
The Gmail Team isn’t able to provide you with information about attempted logins to your account including, but not limited to, the IP address from which the attempted login was made, and the time and date attempted logins occurred.
So there is no way that I’ll get to know who did this sinful deed. But you can follow these directions in case your account gets compromised.
4. I tried the “I cannot access my account link” and clicked on “Forgot my password”. After I entered my username, I got this message:
We’ve sent instructions to the secondary email address you provided during signup.
If you don’t have a secondary email address, or if you no longer have access to that account, please try the ‘Forgot your password?’ link again after five days. At that point, you’ll be able to reset your password by answering the security question you provided when you created your account.
To prevent someone from trying to break into an account you’re actively using, the security question is only used for account recovery after an account has been idle for five days. The Gmail team cannot waive the five day requirement or access your password under any circumstances.
If you’re unable to answer your security question or access your secondary email account, we regret that the Gmail team cannot provide further assistance. If you’re concerned about the security of your account, please visit our Security Center.
So, this person might try to retrieve my password after the five day lock period is over. On my part, I’ve changed the Security Question and no one knows the answer except me. Unless the person uses a brute force mechanism. *shudders* I like the way GMail is handling this by providing a five day safety period. That’s an amazing find because it gives me an opportunity to react and change the password/security question in the mean time.
Yahoo! has started a sign-in seal process that will help you distinguish a genuine Yahoo! site from a phishing site. It’s a good idea to do that. Earlier, I had seen that sign-in seal process only while signing into my credit card accounts. Good to know that email service providers have also introduced such a feature. I’m waitig for GMail to come up with something like this too.
In other tech news, Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo! for $44+ billion. This came as a big surprise to me. Ballmer has been trying to acquire Yahoo! since more than a year. Yahoo’s share price has been declining since a couple of months. Recently, it hit an all time low of $20. Just two days back,
Business Week had published an article that says-
Layoffs and a refocusing effort can only do so much. CEO Jerry Yang needs to find exciting new products or services if he hopes to make Yahoo sing again.
Shortly after, I read this piece of news about Microsoft’s public offer to buy Yahoo! Yahoo’s share price increased as soon as this piece of news was disseminated. Google’s share price has recently been on a downward spiral, because the company has missed the earning estimates of the analysts. Nevertheless, Yahoo and Microsoft are facing increasing pressure on account of Google’s Search Engine.
Yahoo! has a very strong brand value, which, in my opinion will be compromised if this deal fructifies. Even Ballmer has said that he’s not sure if the brand name “Yahoo” will remain. As an avid Yahoo! user, I’m not very happy with this announcement. My dislike for Microsoft is well known. All that Microsoft will bring to board is its 75,000+ strong work force, who’re anyway bundled up with useless ideas. Yahoo’s email service and the photo sharing service Flickr are really popular. But it does lag behind Google by a very wide margin in the search engine depart. Perhaps an acquisition with help Microsoft, which has the 3rd highest share in the Search Engine market, compete with Google on an equal footing.
Almost all of Google’s income is due to its Adsense business, which is indirectly a success thanks to its killer search engine. If Microsoft were to acquire Yahoo, the former will capture Yahoo’s market share and also bring on board its R&D department (how good is the R&D department….is another question) and tremendous wealth. Recently, Microsoft posted high profits on account of its new Operating System Vista and very low profits in all other departments. Perhaps this deal is all that this company needs to revive itself. Maybe Microsoft will still manage to screw up its business. Who knows. Merging two companies that have different work cultures, different product offering, different set of business principles and ethics is not so easy. Not to forget, lots of Yahoo! employees will be laid off, in addition to the already announced 10,000+ people who are being given the cut. This will only leave the other employees disgruntled. On top of this, imagine working for a new boss. The problem will only aggravate for people who are higher up in the corporate ladder.
It takes a couple of years (in the very minimum) to pull off such an acquisition. $44 billion is not exactly peanuts either. Ballmer says that he’ll save at least a billion dollars if this deal comes through. Let’s hope he’s right and let’s hope that Yahoo and its products survive. He’s known for his craziness and I hope that this is not one of his “pet projects”.
In the mean time, you might want to look for other email and photo sharing applications. I don’t know if Yahoo! Mail and Flickr will remain the same. 
UPDATE: Found this on Digg- What Will Happen To Flickr if MSFT Buys It
Remove Vista and Repair Your Notebooks
Posted: January 31, 2008 Filed under: Apple, Business, comics, Finance, jokes, Jokes / Funny Stuff, laptops, Microsoft, Technology, Windows Vista | Tags: Apple, Bill Gates, Business, computers, Finance, funny stuff, General ramblings, internet, jokes, Life, Microsoft, operating system, Steve Jobs, Technology, Thoughts, Vista 45 Comments »
A sign outside the computer store A&D Computer. (Source: Seattlepi.com). I still can’t digest the fact that Microsoft’s profits are up 79% on account of Vista’s sales. Windows Vista’s got to be THE worst OS ever to be released. This increase in profits can be due to a couple of reasons-
1. Aggressive revenue recognition and fudging the numbers. I want to take a look at their balance sheets as soon as they’re released.
2. Bundling all the laptops/computers with Windows Vista instead of Windows XP, by default. People who don’t have an Apple computer get/got swayed by the way Vista looks/looked and start/started buying new machines.This might be a possible reason for the sudden increase in profits.
I have been working on both the OS’s and I can tell you how painful it is to work on Vista. For one, my wireless keeps getting shut off after a certain period of inactivity for some reason. I don’t have the patience to see what exactly is happening there. It’s not like I’m paying for my internet depending upon the number of minutes that I’m online. So, why exactly has Microsoft made Vista this way? I don’t want my wireless to go off!
Second, I don’t see any improvement in the OS, except for the “cool” looking UI, which I can do without. Give me some new features that are really helpful, dammit.
Please feel free to abuse Microsoft in the comments section.
Related Reading: Check out the Macbook Earth, Water and Fire
Article that explains how to uninstall Vista and re-install XP
McDonald’s Now Offers Courses Equivalent To A-Levels
Posted: January 31, 2008 Filed under: Business, children, Entertainment, Fast Food, Finance, General ramblings, health, Life, Movies, Thoughts | Tags: Business, Calories, children, Entertainment, Fast Food, General ramblings, health, Life, McDonalds, Movies, Nutrition, school, Students, Thoughts, UK 18 Comments »
You must have just entered your house after eating a horrible, calorie-filled meal of French Fries, Cheeseburger and a super sized Soda from McDonald’s. Sit on your couch, switch on the TV (or the internet) and get ready to see/hear some amazing news-
All your dreams have been answered. The Qualifications and the Curriculum Authority of UK has given the fast food giant the liberty of offering courses “equivalent” to A- levels. You can now enroll in training and development courses at the “school” which will be started by the world’s biggest tyrant, who has earned a notorious reputation for its greasy, unhealthy and soggy food.
I agree to the fact that such a move will help the company better train potential employees. And people who want to work for McDonald’s (I don’t know in what ca
pacity- Dish washer, server, cashier, branch manager etc) can definitely look forward to receiving good hands-on education. I doubt that people who will be placed in senior management positions will go to their school because of the comparatively low level of education that will be offered.
I have a feeling that people who will enter their training programs will obviously prefer McD’s schooling over the traditional schooling that’s provided elsewhere in the country. What kind of people will want to enter such a training school? Obviously they don’t care very much if this A-levels equivalent degree will ever get them into a decent undergrad college. Maybe they don’t even want to go to college and are happy with this McDonald’s degree, which I think, is good only for getting a job at McDonald’s!
Another angle that needs to be explored here is whether McDonald’s really needs such an approval to start a “training” course, which is primarily aimed at future McD employees.
And by the time they graduate and get ready to work, they’ll look like this the man in picture on the left…or maybe 30 pounds lighter.
And if you think that that one meal at McDonald’s didn’t do you any measurable harm, then you need to take a look at their Nutrition Facts. Since I’ve come to the US, I haven’t been to McDonald’s more than three times. And I drank a coffee (tasteless), ate a salad and a baby sized ice-cream.
I’ve noticed that most of the workers at McD joints are considerably over-weight, inspite of the fact that they work on long shifts. Obviously they consume more number of calories compared to the number of calories that they burn while working. Imagine what’s going to McD for your schooling will do to you. Forget about the so-called education, I wouldn’t go there for the sake of my health.
If you’ve not already seen it, then I highly recommend that you get a copy of Super Size Me and watch it. Even Fast Food Nation is an amazing movie that is loosely based on the book (same name) and reveals lots of hidden truths of fast food companies.
Even if the employees will be better trained because of this course, it still won’t change the very back end of the McDonald’s operation model- suppliers of meat. And it is this highly processed meat that you eat. Does it matter that the cashier or the cook is/will be better organized? Or maybe it does. You’ll feel happier eating that pile of grease on your tray.
Instapaper
Posted: January 29, 2008 Filed under: Business, Cell phones, E-books, Finance, General ramblings, Howto, social bookmarking, Software, Technology, Thoughts, Tumblr, Web 2.0 | Tags: Business, delicious, E-books, Finance, General ramblings, Instapaper, Life, social bookmarking, Technology, Thoughts, Tumblr, Web 2.0 11 Comments »Marco, a co-founder of Tumblr, introduced a new service yesterday, called Instapaper. It’s a bookmarking site with a difference. So many times I’ve come across amazing articles which I’ve wanted to read, but because of time constraints, haven’t been able to. Generally, I’m hesitant in adding these to my Delicious list, which I use exclusively for items that I’ll be “using” sometime in the future. Adding articles that I want to read later to my delicious account doesn’t make sense. Maybe I’m just extra organized, but I don’t like it even if my Yahoo! Inbox is crowded with unread (and useless) emails, even though there is no space limit. Anyhoo, getting back to the topic- You can use Instapaper to add these articles which you want to read later. It serves as an Instant Newspaper, featuring articles chosen exclusively by you 
This is a great tool for people who have long commutes, for students who love to play around with their cell phones in between classes etc. You can open your mobile phone browser and log into Instapaper and catch up on some reading.
Here are some screen shots with explanations:
1. The Sign Up Process is as easy as it can get. All you need to do is enter your Email address or a username. You don’t even need to set a password. In fact, you should sign up for this service just to see the “Register” process in action
2. This is the Log In page. Like you can see, all I’ve done is entered my Email address (which is not really a secret).
3. This is my Instapaper page. So pretty and white. I’m in love with the way it looks. It even beats WP.com in simplicity! On the upper right side corner, there is a small logo called “Read Later”. This is the bookmarklet that you can drag and drop to your favorite web browser and use it for saving articles. My log in page had three articles when I took the screenshot.
4. If you notice, there is a pink box called “Skip” next to each Article link. You can click that in case you don’t want to read something right away. When I skipped my first item, it landed at the bottom of the page in the section “Recently Skipped”. Here, a new link for deleting this article also appears. So, you can either read it later (in which case it automatically lands under a section called Recently Read) and delete it or mark it as unread (using the green box on the left), in which case it will land up in your ‘Unread Section’ again.
5. I decided to delete my first item from the “Recently Skipped” section. As you can see, the “Unread” section displays the remaining two items.
Simple enough? Now go and sign up for it and you’ll never have to skip another article on the internet.
Edit: All screenshots have been removed because of some privacy issues. Sorry.
Aggregate All Your Online Feeds
Posted: January 22, 2008 Filed under: Blogging, Business, Facebook, Finance, GMail, Google, Howto, Orkut, Social Networking, Software, Technology, Thoughts, Tumblr, yahoo, YouTube | Tags: blogger, Blogging, bloglines, Business, digg, esnips, facebook, Finance, Google, Howto, Microsoft, MyBlogLog, netvibes, Orkut, social bookmarking, stumbleupon, Technology, Thoughts, Web 2.0, Wordpress, yahoo, YouTube 12 Comments »Online social networks seem to be proliferating at an exponential rate and it has become quite necessary for us to aggregate them in one place. It’s difficult to keep track of different people and their online activity in different networks. There are lots of websites online where you can aggregate all your online accounts and then, circulate a “master feed”, that simplifies the entire process. I really love this idea and have been tinkering with it since the past couple of days. These are some of the websites that I would recommend:
1. Friendfeed- Started by three ex-Google employees, and still in beta phase. You need to request an invitation to join it. I got mine on the same day. They plan to make this service public by the end of next month. The UI is extremely simple and resembles Google. Friendfeed tops my list for the simplicity of the sign up process (less than 30 seconds), and the overall usability. You can aggregate all your online accounts, such as Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Facebook status updates, Netflix queue, Amazon wish list, Tumblr, Youtube, Blogs, Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Delicious…I’m tired! Your friends can just subscribe to the “master feed” and know what you’ve been doing everywhere. Simplicity is what we should aim for. Take a look at my Friendfeed page.
People can also comment on your activities and decide if they “Like it”. Deleting a particular activity from your feed is also very easy and takes only a single click. You can also install a bookmarklet that lets you post anything that you liked to your friendfeed profile. You can also install a Facebook application that will integrate your Friendfeed with your Facebook profile. I haven’t seen these features in any of the other “Aggregation” services.
The only drawback that I see here is that there is no way of adding any sort of single sentence profile. Louisgray.com has ten suggestions for its improvement.
Rating: 5/5
2. Soup.io- Very similar to friendfeed, minus the ability to comment. The best part is that you can try the service without even signing up. Of course, if you want to make your profile permanent, then you need to make an account, that takes only 20 seconds. You can customize the look of your page by adding a theme and editing the CSS. But I didn’t like the fact that I need to click twice in order to delete a particular entry (once, initially, and the second time, to confirm) and for me, that’s very important! But yes, it’s open to public and you don’t need to wait for an invitation. Take a look at my soup page.
Rating: 4.5/5
3. Readr- This has been in existence since a longer time, compared to Friendfeed and Soup.io. Again, you have the ability to comment on particular items, choose a theme and merge all your online accounts together. There is nothing unique about this service, IMO. Soup.io and Readr are clones of each other. Readr’s output of the feeds is not that nice looking and it kind of looks jumbled up. Another problem is that when you initially set up an account with them, then your items will be shown in the order you added the feeds and not in the chronological order. So, you might have three pages of Delicious, two pages of Stumbleupon, one page of Digg etc. You get the picture. Take a look at my page for an example. The process of adding accounts was a little more cumbersome because the default number of accounts that are available are less compared to Friendfeed or Soup.io.
Rating: 3.75/5
Apart from these major player, there are others such as Mugshot, 30boxes (the sign up process needed me to click on a link in an email and that is a complete no-no when we compare it with its competitors), etc. The bottomline- The web 2.0 sites are showing a tremendous upsurge in the usage. If you don’t sign up for an aggregator today, you very well have to a couple of months down the line. And what are those RSS feeds for? We need to embrace anything that helps us save time (and become lazier).
Someone forgot about WordPress
Posted: January 21, 2008 Filed under: Blogging, Business, Facebook, Finance, Google, Microsoft, Orkut, Social Networking, Software, Technology, Thoughts, Wordpress, Yahoo! Mash | Tags: blogger, Blogging, bloglines, Business, digg, esnips, facebook, Finance, Google, Microsoft, MyBlogLog, netvibes, Orkut, social bookmarking, stumbleupon, Technology, Thoughts, Web 2.0, Wordpress, yahoo, YouTube 24 Comments »In this Web 2.0 picture:
I thought that Reddit was bigger, but it’s reach is 900 and valued at just about $30 milloon. Of course, Stumbleupon is much bigger, with a reach of 1,800 and valued at a little less than $100 million. Digg remains strong and steady with a reach of 6,000 and a little less than $500 million in valuation. The biggest joke here is Windows Live Spaces, right at the bottom of the graph (towards the middle), with a reach of 15 and any guesses regarding its market value?
MyBlogLog, Netvibes, and Meebo (also won a Crunchie) are almost in the same category. Orkut (reach of 26,000) is still bigger than Facebook (reach of 9,000), yet the latter makes more noise in the Web 2.0 world.
And you know the best thing? Google owns three out of the top five market value/reach grossers- Youtube, Orkut and Blogger. Just another graph to show how powerful Google is becoming. The only thing is that I see Bloglines in the third tier, with a reach of 2,200, but I don’t see Google Reader anywhere. It might be possible that Google Reader was excluded (very unlikely though). Bloglines was my first feedreader. Then I changed to Google Reader and now I use the in-built feed reader provided by the social web browser, Flock.
Box is also doing pretty decent with a reach of 500 and I strongly feel that it will rise very soon because of its lovely user interface.
Where is Yahoo Mash? It seems to have disappeared already. I wanted to do a follow up on it…maybe I need to take a look at my account and see if Yahoo has introduced any new features. There is no way Yahoo Mash will be able to play catch up with Facebook or Orkut. Something that is very evident from this graph.
Now let’s get down to the big question- Where is WordPress? With millions of users, surely it should have made a splash here, even though the graph has been made by the CEO of Esnips?
While we’re on the topics of Web 2.0 start ups, maybe it’s not too late to assess what kind of a Web 2.0 user are you? I’m sure most of you are at least Spectators (33%), else you wouldn’t be reading this blog.
I could write miles about Web 2.0 and each of these companies, and still not get done. So, it’s better if we just talk about issues in the comments section, right?
Edit: By the way, Apple haters might want to take a look at this. Microsoft haters, I have something for you too. I don’t disappoint either of the sects.
