Jonathan Ive - My Hero !

After quite some time now I have had an oppurtunity to call someone My Hero! Jonathan Ive is the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple. Yes the company that can boast of names such as Steve Wozniak, Guy Kawasaki and Steve Jobs. I am sure there are more names to the list but I have heard of only these three people.

So what's so great about this Ive guy? To start with he is credited with the mind behind the designs like G4, G5, iPod, iMac. I mean wow. I always thought that these were cool looking boys toys and the company has put in a lot of money and mind and time to design these. I never thought that all the designs could have come from the team led by one person, one mind, Jonathan Ive.

So what do I know about Jonathan now? He is Sr.VP at Apple. He is said to be one of the key people in the entire history of Apple. His design on iMac in 1998 saved the company from ruts.

Most importanly, I firmly believe that design is as powerful medium of expression as is speech/words. Simplicity makes a lot of sense ...

what are words that mean love that start with the letter "O"?

I think when I type. I have'nt typed for quite some time now and I have'nt thought for quite some time now. There is no reason for not thinking/typing but here I am.

So I was idling on the internet and I was looking at the search engine queries that people use to find my blog and I came across this wonderful query. Someone actually typed a query "what are words that mean love that start with the letter "O"? including the quotes and the trailing question mark.

Coming to psychoanalysis, the guy/gal must have been a techie. I have reasons to believe this. One he used quotes et al and Second s/he used Dogpile.com. Considering the fact that only 0.8% of people use Dogpile to search the web, I can safely quote him/her as techie.

This link refers to the original query and results. My blog is listed at number 13.

Hats Off !!!!

The Most Beautiful Woman on Earth

My blog got even more beautiful ... :)

Simone Singh - the most beautiful woman on the planet.

Test

Test

--
Saurabh @ Septemberthe22nd@GMail.Com

F R U S T A T E D

I just realized that if you have your Yahoo Messenger status as "Frustated", all the friends who have'nt sent you a message in a decade would respond and talk to you.

I was online for an hour with no status message and no one was talking to me. I change it to frustated and suddenly I am flashed with 12 people. And as I am talking to these 12 people (yes its a feat), I am writing this ... :)

How to advertise women's magazine?

Case
Think (lol !!!) that you are a marketing executive for a women’s only magazine. Like every other magazine your company has advertised everywhere but no results.

The Problem
Try to find out new ways to reach your target segment in this internet age when ladies are more content on watching saas-bahu conspiracies and internet savvy.

The Answer
Place a rack full of your magazines in the waiting rooms at gynecologist (female specialists) and pediatrician (child specialist).

Why this post?
I went to a relative's clinic. She happens to be a gynecologist. She was busy with a lady and I was asked to wait and guess what do I see? A branded company rack full of a women's only magazine with all the issues lined up neatly. I went WOW then and there.

On asking more questions, I was told that they have placed that rack there for free (including 12 issues of the magazine). What more, to drive the sales, they placed a registration form and a drop box for completed forms. I was further told that the company reprentative would come once every two days to put the magazines in order and collect the forms. Everything that a marketing professor would teach. You reach the cusomter. You create a want. You provide a method to fulfill the want.

I also saw one of the numerous Prof. Sanjay Bakshi's mental models at work. The drop box for the filled up forms was transparent and a fairly large cube (2 feet per size) and it had some 15 forms in there. I asked the helper if ladies actually filled in those forms. I was told that yes ladies fill up the forms but all the forms in the box were not genuine. I was told that the company people filled some 20 forms at random and dropped in the box. Social Proofing at work. Other ladies would see these great magazines. They would further see that some women have went ahead and applied for subscription. Here is a product that they like and here is a list of people who also like the product. They are not incorrect in loving the magazine and they would also fill in the forms. Pretty Neat. Another mental model in application.

Links in this post
http://www.sanjbak.com
http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/social/social-proof.html

Million Dollar Home Page vs Crorepati Page

The concept is simple. You register a fancy domain name. Make a 1000 x 1000 grid. Put individual pixels for sale and you get a million. Cool and Easy.

A student [Alex Tew] in UK created the original Million Dollar Home Page and got famous. I have to salute him for the amazing amount of creativity and thought process behind the concept.

As always, since it is an easy way to get rich and famous at the same time, people were bound to copy it and here it is... An indian homemaker has copied it and hosted her own indian thought-about creative concept at Crorepati Page. Well done my friend. I am very tempted to put my very own million rupee page on the internet. I think I would do it on saurabhgarg.com ...

I copied this from the Crorepati Page ...

And lastly, who am I?

My name is Sunaina Bansal, and I am married to my loving husband, Karan. I am a homemaker. In addition, I am highly educated and like to think creatively, and be aware of the many milestones that man (and woman!) has achieved today. And it is this awareness and the accompanying confidence that helped me create my concept. I sincerely hope that this influences the online Internet community in India and contributes to the growth of Internet marketing. And that it also influences more women to try the Internet, which also adds to the online community and enormously benefits the companies that advertise on my website. I hope I gain your support."

And here are my honest uncalled for opinion on that ...
1. You do not get creative if you steal the idea. You have not created the concept. You have just copied it from the web. EDITED LATER: She has given due credits to the original Million Dollar Page and I accept my mistake.
2. Growth of internet marketing? I have serious doubts.
3. Benefits companies that advertise on your website? Yet again ... doubts !!!!

I wish people would start thinking originally and stop passing other people's idea as theirs. And if you have to copy it, how about giving the original ones some credit? EDITED LATER: Yet again, I am at mistake. :(

EDITED LATER
Unlike a lot of other people, here someone actually took an initive to reply to the email. My sincert apologies to Sunaina. I was at mistake by being rude.

Here is the reply I sent her ...

Hi Sunaina,

I dont know if this would reach you or not ... (hope this does)

Few things first...

The about us page on your website do NOT say anywhere that it was Alex Tew. Well, now it does (just checked) but the day I posted, it wasn't there. I am not saying that you have added it after I wrote about it but I might have missed it the first time. Hope this clarifies things and reason for my posting it.

I do not call gmail a imitation of hotmail because they do not take credit for being the original email service. They just say that it's yet another email service of course with a change.

Talking about your website and internet marketing, I seriously have my doubts on it. You can have testimonials but I REALLY REALLY think that websites like Alex's and your's do not contribute towards it. Well this is just a personal opinion. I am not convinced.

I agree to the fact that yes internet marketing is growing leaps and bounds; it is the next big thing. If you realized, internet marketing is getting more and more personalized with companies like Google (with their adsense program) targeting people for selected keywords. Your website is opposite. It is in effect is a potpourri of advertisers who think yours is a good website/idea. A website like yours, it's like a classified page on a newspaper (well worse than that - newspapers at least categorize information, your website doesn't even do that. You allocate space based on the preference). So for a person lets say searching for ipod, your website is a bad idea. He can see a list of 1000 advertisers and their services but he hardly can spot an ipod ad. Whereas a website that has a simple page on music is better.

Talking from advertiser's point of view, they would not give you money to place on your page. They would not get their target audience from your website. Please ask them the number of hits they get from google adsense or link exchange and compare with hits from your website. You would be surprised.

Further, I agree that they are getting more than 250 hit per day but once you get more people to advertise on your website, the number of hits is bound to reduce. I might be wrong but these are my personal opinions. I would be glad if you could prove me wrong. I would love to see more stats once your website get that millionth pixel sold.

If you get offended by it, please accept my apologies. I was just trying to say that, like everyone else, all you did was copied an idea and posted in online for reaping quick buck because I don't see it as the answer to cyber marketing.

As far as spreading the mantra is concerned, I am trying to ! I am connected with friends etc just through my blog that hardly attracts about 5 visitors per day. I wanted them to read about your website and I posted it.

I sincerely apologize for being very rude. Trust me it's not in my nature to be rude or negative. I appeared negative but I think you could have guessed the reason. I am real pissed off with a lot of people trying to pass off as genuine inventions. Your case is an exception. You have given Alex credit and I think that is more than enough for me.

In the end, thanks a lot for at least taking time off to reply. I have written to lots of other Indian ideas that are passed off as original without eliciting even acknowledgement for the email. I would edit my post and please accept my apologies yet again.

Regards,
Saurabh

P.S.: Do I get a spot on your website for free ;)?

Star News reports on Dhoni !

Ok so continuing in the series of TV bashing; here is yet another one...

Rupurt Mudroch's Star News was the first to report that Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India’s wicket keeper has clipped his hair.

I mean move over Mr. Bush, leave the bird flu aside and no information about good old politics. Headline today on Star News is Dhoni and his clipped hair.

That was not all. Star news actually went ahead and interviewed the barber at Taj who clipped the hair, compared the earlier look when he had long hair with the new look. They infact got a hair specialist to comment on the hair style.

They did their bit of background research also. They went to Ranchi, Dhoni's hometown and talked to his friends. They found out that Dhoni had long hair since last three years and he always took great care of his hair. They also dug out a picture when he was just one year old. They talked to his mother about his hair.

I agree to the fact Dhoni is on of the best wicket keepers to have served India but I think Star News should realize that they are a news channel with some kind of responsibility attached. They should move beyond these tabloid kind of news lippings just to get a higher TRP rating. And if this was not for higher TRP, I think something is serisouly wrong with Star News.

I thought media industry is growing leaps and bounds in India. I guess I was wrong. If someone out there remotely related to Star is reading this, please do something about a news channel that can make headlines of a the personal life of a cricketer.

Windows Live vs Google Reader

Microsoft happens to be my favorite company. Google is a close second. Google a new company, revenues from advertising, Microsoft a behemoth, revenues from software, both trying to get the best of each other.

For a past few days, I have been grappling with that ultimate feedreader. I initially started with FeedReader until one fine day it somehow managed to delete all the feeds without even asking me. I lost all the news clippings etc that I had saved over few months.

Next in line was good old Windows Live. It works fine, is feature rich and easy to work with. Apart from just a normal feed reader, it is host of things bundled together. It would be a messenger, email console, antivirus and what not all in one interface.

And finally I just stumbled across Google Reader. Amazing piece of web based software. However as all the Google initiatives, this is also in Beta stage. One needs to sign in to google with the regular account to have fun with this ultimate feed reader. Google Reader looks a bit buggy as of now. When you add or delete a feed, you need to re-login to see the effects. In due course of time, it might get better with all the research and development happening at Google.

As of now, FeedReader is certainly out of picture. It is very hard to choose between Windows Live and Google Reader.

The "really idiot" Idiot Box

I have always felt that making a good comedy show is very difficult. You can make scary movies, suspense movies, thrillers; just about anything but making a comic show is real hard. This is also proved by n number of shows on TV and m number of movies and just about 1 divided by m multiplied by n actually manage to get a very faint smile.

Ever since I completed my education, I have been confined in my house. Although I am a proven claustrophobic, I can manage in my home without much difficulties. Respite being provided by a huge terrace and few friends who have managed to not work in a call centre. Almost everyone works in some call centre aka BPO aka KPO aka Value Added Service Provider. It is real hard on someone like me who

- hates television,
- reads the newspaper in one sitting in the morning and
- has an erratic internet connection that can’t work more than 10 minutes on stretch

to sit at home and spend time.

So because of all the above citied reasons, I am forced to watch television. The very first problem is the sheer number of channels on air. My good old BPL television has all of 32 channels and I have hard time selecting 32 out of about 100 channels that are beamed down to my home.

By the way these 100 channels include at least 40 regional channels with all the languages like Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bangla etc thrown in. So much for unity in diversity. I can only understand one channel in a diverse selection.

After those regional channels, there are about 20 odd movie channels that would air movies like Jungle Ki Sherni, Bhoot ka Badla, Basanti ka Baag, Andheri Raat Main .. so on and so forth. Who the hell thought of those names.

Then we would have some news channels. These channels are actually like any other entertainment channel with models clad in business suits acting as newsreaders. The stories are pepped up to touch the audience. Each news channel would have at least one sting operation running in daily and one news item about how they made world a better place to live by exposing someone with the sting operation. Further they would have a four digit number where you could sms your opinion about a certain issue. No offenses meant to him, I am also a huge fan, but today it was Aamir Khan's birth day and every channel had a marquee running with all the messages from people. I sometimes wonder do people actually send in the messages or the channels cook em up?

Not to forget some 10 odd channels where you would have sages and great souls delivering sermons. Some of these people would use an electric guitar, some would sing hindi film songs, some would have a ten year old kid crying and singing praises. And no one ever told them that they would put the worst bathroom singer to shame with their singing skills. The best part about these "religious" channels is the creative names. Aastha, Sanskar etc.

After all this, we have some sports channel and they would have WWF (not the wildlife fund but wrestling) all day long with commentry in Hindi. The kind of language used in that hindi commentry would put any "awara" to shame. And finally there would be a few channels left that you can spend time on (only if they are not showing those numerous saas-bahu sops and shows starting with letter K).

Ok this started out as a post to highlight a few good comedy series on television. I got emotional and got off-topic but here are a few good comedy shows on TV...
1. Lo Kal Lo Baat on Sab TV
2. Sarabhai vs. Sarabhai on Star One
3. The ever classic Dekh Bhai Dekh
4. Office Office on Sab TV
5. Khichdi on Star Plus

Would add more as and when I find more intersting shows or I can recall ...

Secrets to Cyber*** success ... !!!

Well, here is something that would make a lot of people happy. Some people I know and a lot I don't.

Wired.com published an article titled "Secrets to Cybersex Success". Here is a true and comprehensive guide for all those who are "moved" by the very concept.

There was this friend who once told me that a common friend of ours asked her for the "favor". Ofcourse she refused to grant the favor. The friend who asked for the favor can read the above mentioned guide and make sure that he is never embarrassed again in public.

apparently this author has authored a book called "The Sexual Revolution 2.0". WOW !!!! the world has ACTUALLY changed in the two years I wasted with MBA.

As I was typing this, a message on my Yahoo messenger from "neogirlowyah" pops up and she says "Hi there I was looking around yahoo and i saw your ad.. anyway, you seem interesting.". All this when I had never posted any kind of ad on the internet.

When you have lot of time to read everything on the internet, these are the kinds of posts that come on to your blog.

LibraryThing.com

I very recently came across LibraryThing.com. It is one of the most convenient methods to catalog the books. Fast and Easy.

After getting a free account, all you need to do is enter the title of the book in the window. The website would search through the amazon databse and come up with matches. You select the book from the results of the search. And the book gets added in your database.

Another good feature is the cover image. The website would also fetch the image of the cover page of the book and publish in your catalog.

An indicative list of my books is located here.

Dangerous Curves Ahead !

Dangerous Curves ...
2006 Feb: St. Francis' Cathedral, Goa

Long Time No See

Its been long since I posted something on my BLOG. Last time I talked about placements at MDI Gurgaon and it seems like ages since I wrote something.

Just to break the jinx, here is a post, titled Long Time No See ...

There are reasons why I havent been posting stuff.
1. Very busy with placements and placement aftermaths.
2. Trip to Goa.
3. Lack of internet connection at home.