Month: August 2010

  • The path to transparency

    Google Me is already showing great results, even before its launch. Maybe its the fear of whatever-it-is-going-to-be that has made Facebook release a couple of tools a few days back. 😉

    Facebook Live (via), a live video streaming facility, with features like a live feed, and ‘ask a question’. More interesting is the app that will allow regular Fan Page administrators to add this to their page and the embedding on other platforms – Twitter, Google Buzz etc. But what I’d really like is for Facebook to get into proper video distribution- create an app that will replicate what the Justin.tv and Ustream apps for Facebook achieve. So brands/organisations can stream everything from say, earning calls to new store openings to special brand ambassador promos and so on. Think of the engagement possibilities.

    Notes. I have never found Notes very interesting at all – maybe because I blog a lot. So, except for the occasional note, or using it to get the blog feed into Facebook, my usage has been limited. For long, I’ve been asking why Facebook doesn’t allow me to tag Pages that I need not necessarily have ‘Like’d (in the Facebook way) , but would want to still tag in a status. So I couldn’t do say, “visited the @Wrangler store” as a status unless I ‘Like’ the Wrangler Page. I still can’t, but now I can do this in Notes, and I can add photos too. As ‘Location’ looms, it’ll be interesting to see how brands deal with this.

    Even as the opportunities for brands to engage increase, I can’t help but feel that its also moving them to some inevitable levels of transparency. The good part about all this for brands, though Facebook may not be the ideal way to do it, is a certain accountability that it creates for people who create content and comment on the brand, thanks to identity.

    A few weeks back, Surekha, Mahendra and I had a good commenting session over ‘The Age of Transparency‘ on Reader, an article that talks about the implications of transparency on individuals, society, government, companies. While we’re still far away from a stage when transparency is a default and ubiquitous feature for people, brands and organisations, it might well be a reality in a few years. Like Surekha mentioned in her comment, it wouldn’t do any good for a brand to engage only because it can’t afford not to, but then the question is, will brands/organisations see the trends in the evolution of these tools and more importantly society in general, and be objective enough to start rewiring themselves? Or maybe the ‘forced’ presence and the opportunities that new tools provide will act as a good catalyst for the required change.

    until next time, anonymous comments are fine too 🙂

    Bonus Read: Kapil Ohri’s well researched article on Indian brands on Facebook, (and my earlier post on social media and the scale of organisations) 🙂

  • leg godt

    Sapphire (toys- retail chain) opened a store in Koramangala recently, and lies on my route to practically anywhere. That means that giant Lego display and I stare at each other almost everyday now.

    Lego and I go back more than a couple of decades. As always, no age jokes, okay? 1984, to be precise. Remember, I wrote about it in ‘The Foreign Object‘? Like I’d mentioned then, the loot from dad’s US stay was rationed out over a long period of time. Perhaps the only part that was exposed completely in the beginning were Lego sets.

    The first set had arrived by a special package even before my Dad or the suitcase reached Indian shores. This was a trailer set, literally, and included a motorcycle too. But the real treasure was the lengthy catalog that came along with it. I quickly set about marking the ones that I wanted and sent it back to Dad.

    Now, I suspect that my Dad, from whom I have inherited my skills, being the kind of shopper for whom a ‘milk and bread’ trip to the local grocery store is a mammoth effort, because of the number of choices that present itself, must’ve extrapolated my interest, seen a huge range of Lego sets, and decided that nothing served as gifts to my cousin set (both sides of the family) better, though the age bracket was anywhere from 2 months to a decade. That meant that when he returned, the suitcase had a disproportionate range of Lego sets, and I wangled, via sulks/sobs/means of affection, the right of first choice, and a cancellation of the original, carefully made, catalog choices .

    In later days, I began to wonder whether it was a choice I might’ve been happy without, because each set had something I really wanted, and despite my arsenal of negotiating tactics, I wasn’t allowed to open the boxes and ‘exchange’ pieces. After various levels of filtering, I finally kept a digger-tipper combo, a medieval catapult, and a medieval castle set. My medieval set soldiers only had swords, shields and spears, and I hated missing out on the one with bows and arrows, but it was all about box sizes and number of pieces.

    Though I was a stickler for not mixing up the pieces in storage, they were allowed to be social and mingle during playtime, and the four sets often gave rise to space crafts which were launched with catapults. (#2 kind of behaviour here) The magnum opus, thanks to a Star Trek/ Space Station Sigma overdose, was a space station, with motorbikes, driven by medieval soldiers, and defended with swords and shields. The tiny spears were also taken to school regularly as part of a superhero costume – they fitted between fingers nicely and could be pushed out using the palm for super-punches. Of course once the punch landed, the spear was pushed back and the palm hurt, so it was discontinued.

    Much later, the Lego sets were passed on to cousins who were more than a decade younger. The stories remained, pushed back, as a life was built. And these days, when I see the Lego display, I am tempted to go in and check out the sets, maybe they have those Star Wars sets here now. Wonder how much they cost now, never had to wonder about that, back in 1984.  The price of growing up.

    until next time, toys are us 🙂

    PS: Lego owes its name’s origin to leg godt, Danish for play well

  • Magnolia

    One of the biggest contributors to Koramangala’s food-and-mouth epidemic is the 80 ft Road, which has more than a dozen (underdone estimate) outlets that cater to all sorts of tastes and wallet sizes. This week, we decided to drop in at Magnolia, whose earlier version existed in a quaint house very near to its current location. When coming from Sony World junction towards Sarjapur Road, cross Wipro Park, and you’ll find Reliance Fresh on your right. Magnolia is on the top floor of the same building. Here’s a map. Parking shouldn’t be a problem at all. We reached by about 7.30 and in half an hour the place was almost full.

    Magnolia has indoor as well as terrace/semi outdoor seating options. The latter is rather dim, but with the kind of weather Bangalore’s been having, its an awesome place to be. The only snag was that the photos turned out to be quite like those ‘paranormal activity’ photos. See. (that’s the soup!!) 🙁 We could’ve maybe got it right with some tinkering, but since the focus was on eating and the required material was right in front of us, being photo-foppish wasn’t a priority. Magnolia serves Thai and Chinese cuisine, (menu 1, 2 – this is the last printed one, the prices are higher by about Rs.10-20 now)  These days, we devoutly devour the former cuisine, thanks to Aroy for the Thai-in.

    We started with the ‘Thai Chicken & Lemon Grass Coconut soup’. Even considering the Mallu bias towards anything remotely coconut, this is a great soup. Its almost the Tom Kha soup, but slightly thinner and without the Galangal. The lemon grass flavour was just right, and not overpowering, and except for the rare chilli, not very spicy either. Definitely recommended.

    Next, we resisted the dim sum call and moved on to “Leg Mai Kai”. Even Google didn’t help me figure the name out completely. The closest is Loh Mai Kai. I thought it must be the iron-rich version of our dish but it turned out to be rice based. The ‘leg mai kai’ is roasted chicken with red and green pepper and turned out to be a reasonably good choice. The red and green pepper actually complemented the tending-towards-bland chicken instead of performing their regular role as space fillers. Maybe you could try the Crispy Chicken Chilly Honey, it does sound good. 🙂

    For the main course, Chicken Pad Thai with cashew nuts and as per their suggestion, Thai Chicken and Bamboo Shoot Red curry. The Pad Thai was quite good, though the cashews were conspicuous by their absence and the tamarind flavour was really subdued. The Red curry was awesome, mostly because the coconut overruled every other flavour that might have been there, except for the spiciness. The quantity of lemon grass was slightly overwhelming though. While it goes best with rice, this is a reasonably good combination too.

    The dessert options aren’t much. The service is great, and very prompt. All of the above cost us just over Rs.700. Definitely worth a visit when you need to go beyond the regular Chinese options around Koramangala.

    Magnolia, #37, above Reliance Fresh, near Wipro Park, 80 ft Road, 3rd Block Koramangala. Ph: 41102222

    This review happens to be the 50th one in Koramangala. It is also the 100th restaurant review on the blog. There is a reason why we chose Magnolia. More than 7 years back, when a newly married couple made Koramangala their home, and relied on Mars Chicken Delight, Lazeez and some others like Szechuan Garden, which don’t exist anymore, for their gastro-adventures, they saw Magnolia, the big cars parked outside, and wondered how many of their dine outs would have to be sacrificed to afford a visit.

    They picked up enough courage one day in June, and though were quite intimidated by the place, and the chopsticks presented to them, managed to have a good meal for about Rs.350, which they still considered costly. A lot of things have changed since then – they now have a blog that has a hundred restaurant reviews, for starters. They have changed too, as has the locality they once lived in. But its heartening to note that some things haven’t – despite many halfhearted attempts, chopsticks remain a strict no-no. 😀 The post is for that couple, and for the life and times then. Thanks for reading. 🙂

    PS. A new design. Much thanks to Arun and especially Mayank for the help against cruel Microsoft 😉

  • ‘Like’ Minded People

    I read an interesting post by Dare Obasanjo titled “There will be many social graphs“. It took me back to the context of my post on Google’s social plans, where I’d mentioned the possibility of creating networks around different contexts – with not all connections being ‘friends’- a Twitter kind of asymmetric relationship, and how Facebook and Google both have an opportunity at that level. The form and kinds of data that we share – blog posts and thoughts, status updates, photos, videos, answers, people and the contexts we share them in, are many, and sometimes I wonder if one service can actually aggregate all this, while still providing user friendly privacy options.

    When i read (and saw) that Facebook is replacing ‘boxes’ with tabs, and also saw that my ‘Like’s (Interests and Likes seem to be undifferentiated now!) were now displayed prominently on my profile, I wondered if Facebook could really aggregate everything. Imagine, if those Likes+ interests were differentiated – i.e. Interest was ‘Music’ and ‘Greenday’ was a Like. Now, the way I’d like it is, if I had Interests displayed on my Profile page (or a tab, if you prefer) – there could be options of ‘how many’, ‘most active’, ‘most recent’ etc, with the existing ‘who can see’ privacy option, but more finely grained for each interest. For each interest, I should be able to build a page – with third party content included – subscription to blogs on the subject (either through FB Notes or say, Networked Blogs), Facebook Questions  and Quora, it could be Facebook groups, Pages that I have liked (so the interest ‘Music’ could have every artist/band/music media brand/ label I’ve liked), Friends who share the interest, people I ‘follow’ in that interest category (will explain in a minute) and when FB plays location, include that too, and sync Events. Goes without saying that I should have micro-level privacy setting options for sharing with others. I should be able to ‘Like+follow’ an interest of a person even if I’m not his friend (assuming he’s kept his interest public),  and even recommend to my friends.  A sort of ‘Twitter list’ for each interest. Yes, of course I need to be able to import Twitter lists too. There would also be a universal ‘Interest’ page that collates data from all the Interest Pages created by individual users, and also gives suggestions on ‘Whom to Follow’ for that interest – an algorithm based not just on mass ‘Like’s, but also basis contexts like Location, sub-genres, and my previous activity. To scale even further, use (mass and personal) data from services where I’ve used some form of Facebook Connect. Of course, Facebook would then have ginormous data on me, but they have it anyway, so I’ll be optimistic and hope that they use it to ‘personalise the internet – like Hunch, than for anything evil. Of course I’m assuming I get data portability too. Then maybe the different Facebook Search options can also really have fun. The entities who want to ‘engage’ users would also find this useful. I realise that I might be being simplistic about this, but what about the direction?

    And though most people are skeptical about Google’s social efforts, perhaps justifiably so (read this at GigaOm and Stowe Boyd’s “Can Google go Social“), and the Wave crash doesn’t really help perception, I don’t want to rule out  the possibility  (like I said in the earlier post) of Google getting over their privacy agony, and surprising us – imagine the ‘Interests’ as a separate service/ something around or integrated with iGoogle/Profiles/Buzz (brrr)/Chrome (browser or OS)/ Search itself.

    While on interests, suggestions and discovery, Twitter’s ‘Who To Follow’ hasn’t excited me much in terms of the people it has suggested. It says that the algorithm is based on people you follow and those they follow, but for now everyone’s busy trashing it, using its own acronym – WTF. So, how about using interests (Why To Follow – work harder on the existing Interests structure?) – either ask me when when i register, you can ask me now too, the lists that include me, keywords from tweets and bio, hashtags and hopefully ‘learn’ my preferences over a period of time. Popularity by itself is really not that great a parameter – if they’re popular, chances are I already know, and there’s a reason I don’t follow, even if its ego 😉

    Its not as though these are the only guys who can build a more nuanced social platforms – perhaps its possible for someone like Quora to start with questions and build more – eg. relevant posts from say Networked Blogs, and more people from Twitter Lists? Foursquare, or any of the LBS could scale too – from places to activities and consumption that happen at those places.

    Meanwhile, interests, context, relevance, building authority and influence, all of these are established on identities,  but there’s a debate on whether an old friend merits a return – anonymity. 🙂 More on that later. 🙂

    until next time, interesting?

  • Moth-eaten

    The Mothman Prophecies, a 2002 film (based on a 1975 book, which is supposedly based on real events!) starring Richard Gere, is about a town that has several people experiencing paranormal events. Gere tries to get to the bottom of it, and as part of his research meets an expert on the subject. There is an interesting conversation between Gere’s character – John Klein, and the expert – Alexander Leek. The snips that interested me –

    Alexander Leek: If there was a car crash ten blocks away, that window washer up there could probably see it. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s God, or even smarter than we are. But from where he’s sitting, he can see a little further down the road.

    ………………….

    Alexander Leek: In the end it all came down to just one simple question. Which was more important – having proof, or being alive? Trust me. I turned away years ago, and I’ve never looked back.

    John Klein: Didn’t you need to know?

    Alexander Leek: We’re not allowed to know.

    …………………..

    Alexander Leek: Their motivations aren’t human.

    John Klein: Alright, then. What do they want?

    Alexander Leek: I have no idea. What you really want is to know… why you?

    …………………..

    John Klein: I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don’t they just come right out and tell us what’s on their minds?

    Alexander Leek: You’re more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?

    …………………

    Now, I’m sure conversations similar in meaning to these have appeared in other movies or books, but that doesn’t make this any less interesting. Though in this context, the entity being discussed was more alien, the discussion could still apply to what we consider God, or for the sake of discussion here – a creator. (architect for Matrix fans) Humour me, and forget evolution for a while.

    Leek nailed it when he said the ‘Why me’ part. The search is that – ‘what am I doing here, really’ though the question manifests itself in many other ways – meaning, purpose, secrets of the universe, life and death etc. Sometimes the argument that one is not meant to know is quite compelling. I read an article a few days back in the TOI, coincidentally, written by one Jonathan Leake. To quote

    Some of the greatest mysteries of the universe may never be resolved because they are beyond human comprehension, according to Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society.
    Rees suggests that the inherent intellectual limitations of humanity mean we may never resolve questions such as the existence of parallel universes, the cause of the big bang, or the nature of our own consciousness.
    He even compares humanity to fish, which swim through the oceans without any idea of the properties of the water in which     they spend their lives.

    I wonder if that also applies to the ‘God’ question. But when the unexplainable happens, when I sit there awed by the stars in the night sky, when I pause for a moment and try to figure about where this is all going, and the inevitability of it all, it is frustrating not to find any answers.

    Meanwhile, I’m not sure how much of research has been done on the cockroach’s brain (can’t open this completely 😐 ). But sources on the net say that its brain is ‘spread around its body‘, and the question of whether it has emotions is unresolved. Unfortunately for us humans, it is known that we have an ego, and can’t understand why all of it can’t be explained to us. We’re the chosen ones, isn’t it? And we need closures, we’re uncomfortable otherwise. And so the search must continue, irrespective of the result.

    “Is it the gods who put this fire in our minds, or is it that each man’s relentless longing become a god in him?” ~ Virgil, Aeneid

    until next time, roach ka lafda 😉