Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Why tagging is like sex

An interesting post
[http://www.terryfrazier.com/1748]

Or, it’s about context, Stupid.

Sorry

We couldn't complete your search because we're experiencing a high volume of requests right now. Please try again in a minute or two. We're working hard to make our search results better. Thanks for your patience.

Generated Wed, 24 Aug 2005 15:00:03 GMT by www.technorati.com (squid/2.5.STABLE7)

How many times have you seen this? I see it every time I go to Technorati, which isn't often anymore. This service - and this general idea of tagging everything, everywhere, by everybody - is a real loser. It's the "1,000 monkeys typing Shakespear" theory, writ across the web. To believe that random acts of tagging, by unrelated people and for unrelated purposes, is going to give birth to deep meaning and the secrets of the universe is, well, bullshit. At least, it's bullshit if you want anything useful to emerge in the average human lifespan (which is about how long it takes for Technorati to return search results.) Tagging is a great idea, but there are some great ideas that just don’t scale. Like sex. Sex with one person? Great idea. Sex with 1,000 people? Bad idea. Tagging is like that.

More at: http://www.terryfrazier.com/1748

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Podcasts, Videocasts vs. text blogs

Podcasting or videocasting may not be as fun as it may first seem. An alternative of RSS to support and eventually replace text ? No, I don't think so

Podcasts and videocasts have a importance of their own, they maybe good for songs or some professional videos but that's pretty much it. I was trying to hear some news on a podcast the other day, it just seems so impossible to stay with the pace of the podcasting news reader. In the time I was able to listen to one news I could have browsed through maybe 10-20 articles. On the other hand I would have loved to hear songs or watch videos delivered via podcasts cos that's what I am supposed to do with audio or video (I can make out if the song is gonna be good or not if it catches my attention in 10 seconds, else its pretty much like TV where I have lots of other channels to switch to only in this case it is almost guaranteed that I am not coming back to this blog/podcasting/vcasting site as I have zillions of options available at my disposal). Even if lets say like a TV I were to hear the news I would go and download CNN or engadget podcasts not by just anyone as I will have no idea if its gonna be good or not. Blogs are interesting but lets face it not all blogs are good. If I don't get a guaranteed seal of quality (which is the case with blogs) I can spare a few seconds to filter out the content that I want from several text blogs but not audio or video for which I really have to spend the entire playtime of the podcast/videocast to figure out if it was worth it.


Normally I just read bites of the long article first to see if it makes a good read. Maybe something comes up tommorow that indexes the audio/video and allows me to switch to certain parts of audio/video which I find good then maybe someone can convince me but till then ...

podcasting or videocasting may be fun in social sense where I can tell my friends to listen to me but I don't really think that by podcasting in public u will make any impact unless u can bring up something really compelling for me in the first 5 seconds (even that time is way too much)

Businessman Vs. Entrepreneur

Very interesting post

[Posted by Dana Blankenhorn]http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/2005/04/28/the_entrepreneurs_secret_is_no.php


The secret to being a successful entrepreneur is learning how to handle NO.

I learned this lesson from an entrepreneurial friend of mine today, and it’s so important I had to blog it.

Entrepreneurs bring ideas to businesses and people. They sell these ideas, as businesses. They take a lot of meetings. And most of the time, maybe over 99% of the time, the answer at the end of the day is No.

“You have to turn it into an opportunity,” my friend said. You do that by finding someone else — a money source, another business — who will either run with your idea, finance your idea, or buy it outright.

And you keep moving.

The difference between entrepreneurs and other businesspeople is that most businesspeople are in the yes business. In a going concern you mostly hear yes. People do come in the door, people are satisfied, you do create systems that wind up giving value for money. If you’re not doing this, you’re out of business quickly.

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are constantly being told no. It’s only when they get the yes that they have the chance to build that business they were describing, and this is usually the end of a long, long process. Yet the businesses an entrepreneur launches are often much better than those run by businesspeople, because they’ve been tested, vetted, and designed to grow fast.

Another point about entrepreneurs is they're seldom wedded to any business. People like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are anomolies. They got it right first time. Most entrepreneurs are people like Harland Sanders or Sam Walton. They get it wrong a lot before they ever get it right.

My friend has launched four different businesses over the last decade, in four different industries, all of which he had to learn from the ground-up, through repeated rejection. (I call this the no process.) The point is that he kept plugging away, turning no into opportunity, making another run at each door until it slammed shut in his face, then finding other doors, until he finally broke through. And he's broken through several times now.

Serial entrepreneurs like my friend are a special breed. They often get bored once the business gets going. I think it's because they're wedded to the no process, like fishermen or prospectors. Turning no into yes is a challenge. Hearing yes all the time just doesn't feel right. So entrepreneurial businesspeople are always looking to add new, cutting edge ideas to their lines, constantly risking no, knowing that's the only way to a meaningful yes. And when they can't get that in the business they're in, they leave to start another business.

yes.gif (This happy little guy escaped from a NASA Goddard Space Flight site, believe it or not. Yes, he is driving me crazy. Maybe I'm just an entrepreneur at heart.)

I don't think anyone is taught no in business school. I think most business schools teach people management skills, which only come into play once a business is established. Business schools teach yes processes. They should teach more no.

But my friend taught me an important lesson, even a vital one. Learn how to handle no. Learn to accept it as an answer, but never let it be the final answer. Always try to turn rejection into opportunity. Always stay optimistic. Always believe that yes is around the corner.

Still on dial up?



Picture this...Something that lets you connect to your friends was sold for 648 million dollars. It reminds me of my dialup connection ...Think its high time to get a broadband :)

Connecting vs. Staying Connected ..the choice is yours!

Monday, August 29, 2005

Who wants to broadcast ?

Who wants to shout in the dark when they know nobody is hearing them? We always joked about my 3 year (now he's 10) cousin who never cried when nobody was around even if he fell from the bed and hurt himself badly, but as soon as he found anyone entering home he would start shouting and crying for the fact that he was hurt 15 minutes back (as if it suddenly started to cause him pain;)).. a 3 year old understands it but maybe most of us don't get it still.

People communicate. They want to and believe me they really do. All they need is someone who can hear them. What's the killer app for web..clearly email as it gave them a medium to do so but they have a guarantee that whatever they are writing is reaching to someone they want to. What about SMS..its directed towards someone and its the most sucessful application on cellphones besides voice (which in itself is communication).

Now what are blogs? Why do people write them? Clearly, it gives them a way to connect to the world. But what if it is simply shouting in the dark.. will people blog? They need audience. A guaranteed audience. Is it that difficult to ensure?

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Nivi : Greasemonkey will blow up business models (as well as your mind)

http://www.nivi.com/blog/article/greasemonkey-and-business-models/

Sunday, August 21, 2005

del.icio.us

http://johnvey.com/features/deliciousdirector/

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Making blogs browsable

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/categories/businessInnovation/2005/05/19.html#a1151

Dave Pollard writes: "By allowing blog articles to be indexed the way their author would organize them in a filing cabinet, and by allowing the reader to view blog articles by topic and sub-topic instead of just reverse chronological order, blogs would become much more useful for browsing, and this capability would also greatly enhance their value as business tools."

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Blogs..what's in them

Internet brought along a new era of communication ... Some of the most widely used applications have clearly been email, IM, chatrooms and almost anything that would involve interpersonal communication would be a sure sucess! But what next for this social animal that is always on the hunt for more. As I am seeing it, possibly an ability to create more shareable information or an ability to not just consume but actually use the information supplied to you. ..Well how ?

I will give you my personal experience, I somehow never cared too much to look into newspapers or news websites ... What I want is not just a standard set of opinions by some standard set of people day in and day out and that too without the ability to express my opinions on what they have written.

How many people have you seen that would write "Letters to editors" or even in the case of websites do you think editors at CNN or MSNBC even care about your opinions.

Blogging has changed my opinion altogether...it now gives me not just an information I can consume but something I can use...I want to choose to read the people whom I want to hear and that too I can change it anytime if I think they are not worth it..

And its not just me these days everyone is getting involved in blogs, a few stats:

- 11 million people write blogs in the US alone
- Fifty-seven percent of blog readers are men. Most are under age 30, higher-income and well-educated individuals. They are broadband users and Internet veterans.

More on it in my next post...

Were we born big or do we grow big ?

One can take really long time to realize such a simple theory. I am still on the learning curve personally.

Imagine if every 1 year old kid starts thinking that "If I am not gonna be 20 tonight that is the end of my life"...The thought seems weird but that's what people(including me) have a hard time understanding. Miracle may happen to turn a year old into 20 rite away...but those who wait for miracles to happen are never gonna succeed.

Evolution, adaptation and survival ..these words mean a lot. We are all humans, have the same structure still everyone is unique and has the potential to do very different from each other. But above all what matters is everyone with a will to survive will survive, can evolve and grow bigger than the rest and it doesn't matter if he/she is 1 or 20 today !

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The quest for a mobile killer app...

Why is TV not the killer content on the web? Is it the bandwidth? Well, had it been the nineties I would have agreed to that but now when broadband is almost ubiquitous (atleast in the US and most parts of the world are getting there) that doesn't seem to be a valid reason.

Lets try and analyze at a high level how the TV and web story works:
-- Someone picks up a bunch of channels (a few hundred) based on the market needs and then there is one way flow of the information that you can receive. Its easy and involves minimal effort (except for the fact that most of the SOAP operas make your mind to work on a suicide/no suicide decision every second!). Then you have some amount of downtime where you are made to watch advertisements in the middle of something intersting which are obtrusive for sure.

On the other hand, on the web you have to spend more energy but you have a zillion load of information that you can scan, interact with and minimal to none downtime (thanks to Google ads and all the popup blockers of this world).

Now, why don't people use their computer to sit back and watch SOAP operas on the web (as interesting as they may seem). Well, one reason could be the people's perception of computer/web never changed (web that initially only allowed you to browse simple HTML's and was not capable of videos and stuff).. the people simply carried the perception in mind..got used to it and are not ready to change now...OR another more likely reason atleast according to me is that they got the feel of being able to interact and now even contribute (thanks to the blogging revolution) to the information or content they receive so that made a big change in their habits and thus internet encompassed the world like a revolution.

Where am I getting to with this...

What makes sense on a mobile phone..Is it gonna be an application like MobiTV (it is already successful and is being quoted as the killer app for mobiles) where they have around 22 channels for people's to peruse thru OR is it gonna be something that offers user an ability to interact, share and contribute to the information..and not just a limited information but variety to the order of what a web does . Let's wait and watch!

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

By Comscore

[via A VC Blog]



Blog stats Posted by Picasa

Blog stats ..contd

[via A VC Blog]

Interesting thing to note is that the number of visits/unique visitor for youth blogging sites such as Xanga is way more than blogger.com or typepad for old bloggers


Blog stats  Posted by Picasa