The Farmer’s mobile phone

Mobile handset sales in India is up 6.7% in the last 12 months (this is June 2009)

All of these are low end mobile phones hovering around a maximum of Rs.1500/-. Even I lost my Nokia N73 and went for a phone which is pretty basic – not much addicted to the phone these days

Beside that point, it is refreshing to see the farmer with a mobile on him. Hope they get to utilize it well!

How to connect your society and the social media

I have been tripping major on social experiments.

Ever since late 2007 when I moved into online advertising, people all around are going major gaga over ’social media’. The Facebook way of doing your thing, the iphone way of seeing your thing and the Twitter way of saying your thing. A big huge bunch of keywords and people revolving around it.

Somehow, this strikes an idea that social media is a mirror of the society around you. 300+ friends on facebook is a sign that 300 people trusts you and you are somehow or the other responsible for these 300 people with the little things you say and you do. Just like everyone else, one may find himself / herself (i know) in sticky situations once in a while. This is the time when you could use some help from your friends and then come clean.

1. Try creating a sticky situation – could be one that existed before and you have not really come out 100% clean. There are chances that you might find yourself back in the situation if not checked / controlled.

2. Make use of your friends in an offline way – I tried SMS. Its good, its easy and no use of vocal chords.

3. Come online and push it – Use Facebook messages, email, Twitter, personal blog (I use this one) etc. to clean yourself out.

I see results in terms of numbers on the internet. I also see results in the form of an easy, quiet, non-sticky mind.

Definite winner!

The president’s phone

Techcrunch has come out with a killer article on Obama’s blackberry.

To be very frank, I never thought it created much of a fuzz anyways. But, then again one could track the exact location of the president, maybe hack into the emails, get some satellite ‘ping’ on the phone, get access to the calls made by the man etc. etc.. On the other hand there is the need to be super efficient, save time, schedule work and a serious blackberry addiction to worry about.

Solution would be to get to manufacture one phone with proper encryptions – un-hackable to use the word. Only the president could use the phone. Voice Recognition and finger print recognitions are nice. But there still could be a chance of bypassing them. Use DNA recognition if you can. Military security systems could also be employed on the phone – for the satellites. One very cool way of doing things would be to duplicate the position of the president. Create maybe 2456 replicas of Barack’s position across the globe. There would still be a risk of 1/2456 of finding his exact position though. If he appears on TV live in say Calcutta, one could be sure that he is not in say Moscow.

Good time to refer movies for ideas. Even Rajni movies for that sake.

iPhone trends not skewed the video way

 

I was playing around with the idea that online video may not really take off here. For one, it does not fall into the erratic online behavior – takes time and the final result is not always worth the wait. However trends were saying a different story. 

Stumbled on this report about Top iphone downloads.

Top 10 Free Downloads (Overall). 

1-Pandora Radio (music, 2 million iPhone subs who spend 90 minutes listening on average)

2-Facebook (social networking)

3-Tap Tap Revenge (game)

4-Shazam (music)

5-Labyrinth Lite Edition (game)

6-Remote (entertaining app)

7-Google Earth (only launched 2 months ago)

8-Lightsaber Unleashed (cool and fun app, close to a game for Dark Vador fans…)

9-AIM (highlights the strength of AIM in the US vs Europe) 

10-Urbanspoon

Top Paid Apps (Overall):

1-Koi Pond 

2-Texas Hold’em (game)

3-Moto Chaser (game)

4-Crash Bandicoot: Nitro Kart 3d (game) 

5-Super Monkey Ball (game)

6-Cro-Mag Rally (game)

7-Enigmo (game)

8-Pocket Guitar 

9-Recorder 

10-iBeer

The keywords are free music, Facebook and such social networking activities and games (people are ready for pay for it too). Video does not really feature anywhere. Is it time to relook at the trends now?

Schools and Web

I trip on the concept of teaching. My grand father is a prof. My mother is a prof. Few of my uncles are profs. Few of my aunts are profs. A few of my cousins are profs. A few of my friends are profs. I have lived in universities for more than half my life – I am 24!

Education has been all around me. The present day which we love to call the Information Age can do a lot to the schooling system around. Just like how Web 1.0 graduated to Web 2.0 based on the key concept of interactivity, the same could be done to Schooling 1.0. Keyword: Interactivity.

How?

I keep my blackboard. I love to use the board – preferably a white board. Less dust!

New age schooling

I must have a projector in my classroom. I must have a laptop as a teacher and high speed internet. My classes would be full of Podcasts, Youtube videos, Slideshare presentations, Wiki and of course Google. My students would be smarter or more informed than I am. I am talking about your average Joe college in India and not IITs here!

Students would be encouraged to use their GPRS enabled phones, laptops and other gadgets – no, I don’t have a problem with it. Porn if the student is not interested is still ok! No point forcing a person in the 2.0 era. All doubts and clarifications would be done with the latest information available off the web. Also, good RSS feeds from the students. A real community. They would kick ass in the exams too!

On Organisations and innovations

Amazing speeds of innovations and sinusoid behavior of the markets makes Hype Cycle a very relevant concept these days.

One look at the leading tech blogs can get a little mind boggling – too many things happening at the same time. Following up with the trends itself can take up time, effort and money in a big way. One very relevant question here. How do you leverage the hype cycle to your advantage?

Hype Cycle

A graphical representation of progress of innvoation especially in technology. Idea proposed by Garter Consulting.

Hype Cycle - Gartner

Its pretty interesting to note that innovation is not accidental. It depends on quite a few parameters such as-

1. Tangible value of innovation to the organisation
2. Maturity level of the innovation
3. Risk appetite of the organisation

Quite intersting to note that one could plot three different graphs for these three concepts and work backwards to reach the level and intensity of innovation intended.

Trippy shit!

Google looking deep into the mobile market

Launch of Android phone sure makes this Fortune 150 company mobile focussed. Mobile net and smart phones can kick the laptop accessed internet in say three years from now. Similar funda – who wants to go to a telephone booth these days to call up their mom?

Just heard that GMail in Blackberry got an upgrade. Even in the absence of network, you could compose your email and hit send. The email would sit in the outbox till the phone detects network and then fire the mail. Works in similar lines as a text message.

Are we seeing simplicity taking over the tech world in a big way here?

Experiments on the Long Tail

I was tripping on what happened to music in the 90’s. Oasis, Nirvana and Soul Asylum. GnR and Metallica along with a little Megadeth. Limp Bizkit and Korn evolving to the end.

None of the above names could bring in the wow factor of the past. “Is talent dying out of the Generation X?”

2000s suddenly came up with the little known names and a plethora of genres. Psy Trance, Drum and Bass, IDM, Progressive Metal, Death Metal, Gothic Scandinavian Metal, Shillong’s blues etc. etc. Talent is hidden in the streets of Andheri West and Borilvali East. Some arbit college dude is spinning his tracks at some parties happening somewhere in Mumbai suburbs.

Long Tail has started rearing its head. Right on your face around your locality in middle class India. 17 year old sitting in a tier C city is tripping the shit out of Vimeo and Metacafe at 4 in the morning. He got his mixes running well too. One movie coming out of his mobile camera with sounds mixed last week at his home near the town hall!

Some obvious long tail stuff we could stumble upon and even publish some –

1. Mobile movies
2. Tracks
3. Photographs for auction; paintings
4. Comic Strips
5. Ebooks

and some 756 more things if ready to spend some time and effort on it.

Throw in your beanbags and get connected to the broadband.

Phone wars continue

There was a time a few months back when iPhone was the favorite kid of all bloggers of all shapes and sizes. Even I copied a ‘sillies‘ from Ctrl Alt Del in this mad fever.

I am not a phone geek. I do not trip on phones, their weight, their look and feel and apps. However, I do believe that the Blackberry is a pretty cool gadget. I am buying a blackberry too. My N73 sucks a lot of ass. The phone has lost the very basics too. It fails to call or send text messages. I have to switch the phone off at times to read a bloody text message too. Even missed a nice chick’s call who wanted to hang around with me.

Joy of Tech did a very neat comic on iPhone vs. Google Android recently.

Google Phone is much cooler than the iphone

Fuck you iPhone seems to be the deal here. Loving the concept. Cut down the hype. Sure Steve Jobs got some neat gadget ready for launch soon. I know – the Macbook Pro.(new one) with two video cards and all.

But yes, phones should focus more on the functionality than other jazz to lure your clients.

Answer the following questions.

1. Can you do X on your phone?
2. How much time and effort to do X?
3. Can you easily update X to X + dX?
4. Does your phone tire out / show fatigue after performing X + dX?
5. Does your phone do X and Y at the same time?
6. Is your phone so simple that it cannot be made simpler (Zen)?