• Imperial + Cream & Fudge Factory

    It’d been a while since i paid a visit to the friendly neighbour joint thats imperial, and someone had to pay for the dessert fetish, that turned out to be keeping dinner to a vfm joint :D. I doubt if Imperial would be the place to test out soups, though starters are a different matter altogether.

    We skipped both (remember dessert?) and chose to have a brain onion fry (half plate) and a tandoori chicken masala, along with Kerala Paratha. For once, I was disappointed with the brain onion fry, it was too salty, and the roles of onions and chillies were interchanged. The quantity has also been reduced drastically.The tandoori chicken masala was also only passable, though the quantity was sufficient. But since the place has been an old favourite, it merits one more chance, especially since Empire’s brain fry doesnt hold a candle to Imperial’s.

    The Cream and Fudge Factory is quite a place for the sweet toothed Bangalorean. I refuse to allow flavors other than chocolate to enter my dessert horizon, and despite this being the second visit, I’ve to make at least 4 more visits to complete the chocolate based stuff there, so you can imagine. This time we had the Cookie dream which had chocolate chips, chocolate cookies, and chocolate fudge with a vanilla base. While there are so many flavours to choose from, thats not all. You can make your own ice cream with your chosen flavor, and an army of toppings ranging from Ferrero Rocher, Snickers, M&M etc to hazelnuts, almonds and sooo many things in between. Yes, it just might be the closest you’d get to the mythical chocolate paradise, and as for price, while it’s not peanuts, it doesnt make you ask for a personal loan either 😀

    The Cream & Fudge Factory, Opposite HDFC Bank, 7th Block, 80 Feet Road, Koramangala. Tel: 41726222.

  • Fooling around

    Other than the regular dose of pranks that say, the print medium does, the digital medium is also becoming quite a treasure trove. The stuff thats being done on print is becoming quite stale which its bound to be since people are expecting a prank, so its really a creativity or more aptly an imagination issue, and since today’s papers leave very little to it……. (Incidentally, Bangalore Times attempted a Saif-Bebo marriage prank, which, during the day became a confirmed fact. To asli fool kaun hain?)Before we get to the point, here are a few links –  this is a very good take and this and this, i’m sure are pranks, though one can never be sure with these guys.

    Now, i got mails from two digital entities on this auspicious day. One was from Contests2Win and the other from Times Jobs. Going by past records, I would’ve expected C2W’s efforts to easily upstage those of Times, who except for the ‘upload CV directly from the banner’ ad have not done anything spectacular. But i was in for a surprise, but I’ll let you judge. This is the C2W video – Ravan ki Kahani, and this is from the Times – Foolmaal.

    Ravan ki Kahani took potshots at everyone’s favourite target – Rakhi. It was exactly what they wished – a very stupid April Fool’s day, though i wonder if they really wished for that. The problem was that there was no context, perfectly valid on the day, if the work itself attempted to fool you, and the end result was the context, but this was just an almost funny video, but yes, they did make an effort, there are loads of entities who didn’t even attempt. Incidentally it is also “Today’s Top Video” on Rediff’s iShare. Definitely not bad publicity 🙂

    Foolmaal is based on the old Golmaal *ing Utpal Dutt and Amol Palekar. In this take UD tries to fool AP in many ways on April 1st using income tax raids, throwing a belt and screaming ‘snake’ among other things. AP doesn’t fall for any, and when UD screams at him in frustration, he shows him his salary cheque and says ‘what to do, sir, ever since i’ve started working in your organisation, being a fool has become a habit’. The execution has been done very well with the voices and character expressions mimicked very well. More importantly, it ties in extremely well with the ‘Stuck in a low paying job’ communication line that Times Jobs is following. The context is there, the humour is good, and the characters are ones which have already stayed in your memory for sometime. Even if you are not Bollywood lovers, and dont know the characters, the humour still works, though at a layer lower. But for a nation obsessed with Bollywood, its a safe bet. And thats why i think its a great effort from Times Jobs.

    until next time, foolfilled 🙂

  • Sorry Bob

    He loved wedding lunches, and was disappointed when work kept him away from one, especially since all his friends would make it. But that was nothing compared to his bemusement, when a casual enquiry on how it went got this Bob Dylan response from his friend ‘the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind’


    until next time, fart attack

  • Yeh Moqqa

    haath se nahi jaana chahiye is what a lot of guys seem to be thinking about social networking. During a movie interval, I happened to see an ad which asked me to go to Bangalore’s very own social networking site – moqqa.com. While the communication still lost out to Bipasha Basu (i didn’t leave the movie halfway to have a look) it did make me curious to figure out if they actually made a site only for Bangalore. Nah, it was only a communication gimmick designed perhaps to elicit exactly that kind of reaction.

    I haven’t actually registered because it seems to concentrate on areas in which my interest is minimal. From the cover it looks to me like an ‘activity based’ SNS, because immediately after the (yes we all know that by now) make friends, its ‘what you can do’ covers MotorBiking, Trekking, River Rafting, Jeep Safari, Beach Volleyball, Weekend Football, Skiing, Snowboarding, Shopping, Partying etc. It also plugs sharing of creative ideas eg. Ad Ideas for Products like Colas, Jeans, Mobile Phones etc, 2D-3D-Flash Animation, Bike & Car Designs, Biz Ideas, Fashion Design, Movie Scripts, Song Lyrics etc. While a Facebook or an Orkut does have groups which do all or at least most of the above, an entire SN platform based on adventure sports/creative designing etc is definitely intriguing. Before we go further, other features include a chat platform (Talky), info emails (which would let you know about fashion, cool gadgets, Discounts & Sales etc), a public chat platform called Zap, music, blogs, videos, photo sharing, and a displaying of people who visited your profile. Overall, it seems more like a niche version of Orkut.

    While focusing on specific interests is an intriguing proposition, I am not sure if the mix of adventure sports+ shopping+ creative designing makes sense. Maybe the idea is to broaden the base. In any case, I feel, to make it work will require a lot of activity from the makers of the portal outside the web. These will have to be local efforts which can then be later scaled up. For example, tie ups with holiday service providers who give adventure sports packages, efforts to make this a one stop shop for knowing about discounts (there are enough niche players in this already), corporate tournaments in say, weekend football and so on…

    The creative designing itself spans a lot of territories, each of which require customised efforts – design contests in association with local ad clubs, bike car, fashion designs to be integrated with auto/fashion expos, and bollywood (since they’ve anyway started an SN site, they could adopt the other cliche too – reality shows for movie scripts and movie song lyrics).

    So while I’m still wondering about its physical geographical location, it’ll be interesting to see whether they manage to brand themselves as a unique SNS or will fall by the wayside as yet another wannabe.

    until next time, is there some numerology in the name (qq being a succesful chinese SNS) 😉

  • Zen & the art of SNS monetising

    The thought started from this article, which talked of how Google was losing top execs to Facebook. It apparently isnt just a phase because SNS (social networking sites) are increasingly grappling with the issue of revenue, or rather, the lack of it. These hires apparently fit the bill.

    Remember the initial days of the net? I don’t because i was a pretty late starter myself (2000- a virtual space odyssey, thats what my book would be called 😀 ), but that was still the time when (at least in india) revenue was a puzzle for everybody in dotcom, which partly explained the bust that soon happened. They had a partial solution happening with banner ads, and slowly that became the norm. In most places, it still is 😐 . the problem was that to most users, it became a blindspot.

    Then came Google, and the era of contextual ads, first in searches as sponsored links, and then in any site in the context it  had content in. It still works. But the net has moved on. So, users know exactly when its useful to them. This is of particular relevance in the case of social networking sites.

    At a basic level, I go to SNS to have a conversation with friends –  that could be just plain catching up, bitching about work, life etc or (thanks to facebook) just sharing a common interest over a game of scrabble. Can contextual ads work here? It was a difficult question to answer until one takes a look at the Facebook revenue scene. I personally don’t think it does, for the simple reason that, well, the context is wrong. Unlike search, where my intent is clearly info/purchase, its not so in SNS. This video, while totally out of context, shows what i mean about intent.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4]

    So how does a free site (for users) like Facebook get revenue, and god forbid, if they don’t, will they shut down? No, dont call Mummy yet, this WATBlog article clearly shows the Chinese (damn them) have found a way to monetise their SNS, especially QQ. ( what a name. dont ask me kyun) And its not online ads, thats only 13% of the revenue. The rest is from virtual goods, services and mobile.

    But i personally think there’s more that can be done. And that has a direct connection to brands. We’ll discuss that next week, after i hear from you.

    until next time, remember you need to be social 😀