• e-Tales

    An India e-commerce study done late last year by IAMAI-IMRB pegged the industry to reach Rs.9210 crores by the end of 2007-08. In this, the etailing market is expected to have a share of Rs.1105 crores. The study also gives the things going for and against etailing. More recently, the JuxtConsult India Online report states that 80% of all regular online Indians ‘shop’ online  they either search or buy online, though I dare say that this would be driven a lot by online travel bookings than by etailing.

    So, perhaps, the timing could be just right for Storrz. I first came across the site when i read the coverage of Proto last month, and have been wanting to check it out ever since. But the immediate stimulus were recent articles in Headstart, and Mashable. I signed in, and was given an option to invite my friends too from the different email services, with a reward possibility too. A small query here, why not friends from my social profiles too, the reason being, my conversations there are so much more contextual. It would work great, for say the tees brands like Xtees, Youthcode, Nitrotribe etc. In general, aren’t those networks better places to find existing social crowds who can add quite some value to a social shopping network? (more…)

  • Blog…Blogger..Bloggest

    .….and after over five years of floating around the net, trying to find itself, manuscrypts seems to have found its final resting place. Of course, I’m quite sure there will be regular cosmetic changes, but yes, we won’t be shifting now. The EMIs for the domain and hosting are being paid, and there’s lots of interest. So you see, nothing much has changed, the bad jokes remain.

    So, take a look around. I’m still working on the categories, grappling with whether/how to include a blogroll (there are just so many bloggers I have to add, that I fear the list may be too long. Those familiar with the manuscrypts blog would know that I even keep links of people who haven’t updated in years). I have to clean up the brants tags, and I’ve used too few in Blogger. So, its still work in progress. Since all the blogs’ content will now be here, there should be about 5-6 posts a week. One restaurant review, a couple of personal posts and 2-3 brand/social media posts.

    What I’d love you guys to do now is give me feedback. Positive mostly…. just kidding. 😉 But seriously, have a look at ‘Type Scrypts’ and let me know whether I should categorise differently, so that its easier for you to navigate. Also give me your opinion on the relative positions of items on the sidebar. (tags, categories, archives etc). Do you like the about page? And finally, and most importantly, do you like the content, whether it be the manuscrypts kind, the restorants kind or the brants kind. Shorter? Longer? More of something you’d like to see? Lesser? (Be nice and don’t include me in the last one) 😀

    I’ll miss my old blog, these words from Garden State would express it best for me ” You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.… You’ll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s just gone. And you can never get it back. It’s like you get homesick for a place that doesn’t exist. I mean it’s like this rite of passage, you know.… I miss the idea of it. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.”

    When I first wrote the words ‘Blog…Blogger..Bloggest’, it was perhaps my own site that I had in mind. At that point, to a guy who couldn’t code for his life, it was a big step. It still is, but it also marks the end of one five year old chapter. And so, if you liked the blog, and you liked the blogger, I hope you’ll be with me as I start this new journey.

    until next time, thank you 🙂

  • Silk Route

    Considering it was the Olympics season, this was as good a time as any to try out Silk Route in Wilson Garden. The route to the place is as follows. When you’re coming from the Koramangala side, towards Double Road, this is on the left, immediately after the junction before the LalBagh Gate (the junction where a left turn leads you to Ashoka Pillar. you need to go straight). We reached there around 7.30, without reservation, though the places was getting crowded by around 8. And yes, they have reasonable parking space. (more…)

  • Tweetorial

    I’ve been seeing several sites recently trying to take the online offline – ActiveCiti, MeetUp, to a certain extent AroundMe, but I wonder if any of them would ever get the kind of enthusiasm that the recent tweet up in Mumbai received. That got me thinking of Twitter….again. Though I feel its a bit too late to answer the question “Par, Bhaiya, hum twitter kyun karte hain”, I’ve never actually dedicated an entire post to twitter, so here goes. (more…)

  • Community Opportunities

    While BBS and IRC could technically be called communities, I’d still consider my first major experience with a community to be blogging. It wasn’t the kind of social communities that we see now, this was more a set of people who frequented each others’ blogs, but used names like well, manuscrypts. Yes, it is a remnant of those days. 🙂 With the advent of the likes of Facebook, communities started getting built basis real world relationships. With a business network like LinkedIn, it became even more focused, in this case, a set of people who you dealt with (or potentially could) in a business scenario. So, why have I been giving you the nostalgia talk?

    Well, I still believe that blogging is a good form of communities, though social networks and micro blogging are the rage. While I have a good rapport with my Twitter crowd, I have known several of the people who comment on my blog, for years now. Over these years, they have become good friends. So, the news that Live Journal, a major blogging platform, has made special plans for India,  was very heartening. Now I’ve never used LJ, I started with rediff, moved to blogger, and am using WordPress for this blog, but I’ve known several who swear by it. We’ll come back to their offering in a while, but there’s an interesting flash fiction contest they’ve launched in association with Caferati, you might want to check it out. I’d have loved Blogger or WordPress to give India some attention (or have they already?) since they are extremely popular here, but the WP guys, i guess, are busy with Buddypress, a social network based on the multi user version of WP. Its supposed to have all the stuff that a social network should have and is expected to be completely out by December.

    Like I said, blogging still has the potential to build communities. In the case of LJ, I have always thought that they were for the constantly updating kind of blogger, not the constantly ‘upgrading’ kind. Let me clarify that, since it might be misconstrued. By ‘upgrading’ I only meant the tendency to tweak around, play with code (even if you don’t know s**t about it, in my case), test out new platforms, and finally get their own domain. So, the name fits, as does the contest idea. In the case of WP, it’s a great place to be once you’re comfortable with blogging, I’ve even seen people start with WP. And that starting up crowd will exist for sometime. As more experienced bloggers move on, there will be guys who discover blogging. A community will actually be a great way to encourage stickiness. Coming back to LJ’s action points, they are aiming at localisation (translation and multilingual interfaces), Socialisation, and Integration (accessible through many platforms). The first one is quite important especially considering that Orkut has made quite some strides in this area. Like I have said before, I can’t understand why Orkut can’t link with Blogger, for blogs + friends communities. Hope LJ’s plans make them think about this.

    Okay, now that’ve you digested the LJ news, check this out. LinkedIn has got India specific plans too. They estimate the Indian market potential to be about 20 million users. To give you a perspective, their current global base is 25 million users, and India’s share is 1 million. They’re looking at a few strategic players locally, to help build their brand. If you notice, they already allow you to add contacts from Rediff and Indiatimes. A tie up with a local brand would definitely be a win-win. Imagine seeing a job on Naukri and being able to recommend your friend for it with his LinkedIn profile link. LinkedIn can have contextual listings provided from naukri’s base and share revenues. References are made easier with LinkedIn data. And a job portal/aggregator is not just the only kind of strategic alliance. An entity like Criticat, for instance, which lets you rate companies and share experiences would also be a great fit. There are indeed tremendous possibilities, which could result in increased transparency in at least the HR/Recruitment/Work Culture part of the business.

    until next time, jobs ahead 😉