Mind boggling....

RIL Q3 net zooms to Rs 2,799 cr

Which means...

In a month they earned around : 933 cr

In a single day they earned around: 31 cr

In a single hour they earned around: 3.8 cr

Which means, as I am writing this (it took me about a minute to post this), RIL would have already made over 6.4 lakhs

Mind boggling, isn't it?

Good Eg. of Structuring Information with Mental Models

Notice how the 'Guru' link is placed right next to Mukesh Ambani's views on how RIL was built. A nice example of information structuring based on mental models. Guru as we all know is a movie based on Dhirubai Ambani's life and placing that link at a strategic level right next to Mukesh's story would induce readers to click on it too since as per users' mental model, the term 'Guru' can be visualized with Dhirubai and his saga of building reliance empire.

Aastha Channel gets Maximum TRPS!!!

...will happen for real if the self styled Moral Police of our country - the I&B keeps blocking channels left right and centre.

Latest to be blocked: AXN.

Ganguly, Beckham, The will to fight.

Sourav Ganguly. David Beckham.

Two different locations. Two different sporting arena. Two different kind of fan following but still something common that joins the two dots together.

Sourav got kicked out from national team.
David Beckham got booted out from national & Real Madrid team.

The similarlity ends here.

Sourav fought his way through the grind, showed the will power and determination to fight back and prove all his critics including your's truly wrong by returning to the team.

David simply threw his hands in the air after being dropped from Real and gave all hope of a great comeback by joining LA Galaxy - the final nail in his coffin. Ok, so he will die rich.

Audience for Mobile IM

I had a very healthy debate with a friend of mine over a subject which is the next rage in mobile communications. The use of IM (Internet Messenger) over mobile, not the SMS way, but in exact replica of the way it currently functions over PC. So instead of PC, the same interface and near about the same pattern of interaction a user can do through mobile. Recently read in TOI that in US more people prefer using IM over mobile than PC based IM. Ok, that's interesting. Now back to the debate point. My point was that the audience for such kind of applications would be the young, college going folks or probably people who are addicted to chatting and spend endless hours chatting on the net (bachelors of different kind - something which even I was couple of years back!) and not people like me (though that doesn't mean I am old!) who are always hard pressed for time be it at home or at work and the last thing I would do is log in to my mobile and chat with friends!!!!

My friend's point was that if you get used to the chat application, you get hooked to it. You can check out your mails, chat with friends while you are on the move. My point: As you keep moving up the ladder, work & responsibilities also increase. Probably 6 years back I would have used such kind of application when I was a self confessed hard core, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, AOL chatter. I used to chat endlessly for hours coz I found pleasure in that(Ekta can vouch for that - how I once spent the entire night in office chatting with her in US and left for home early morning!) . Cut to today. Life is moving in fast lane. Leave for office at 9.00 Already running late. Drop wifey at her office. Wriggle through traffic to reach your destination. And now that I am at office, I am online - why will I feel the need to check mails or chat with someone thru mobile? And if I am driving, how can I do that in the 1st place?

FP (friend's point): Well if you have a chauffeur driven car, or if you are using a public transport then you do get time to log on and check your mails or chat with someone or download your mails to mobile etc.

MP (my point): People who have chauffeur - well the last thing they would like to do is chat with someone on yahoo or msn!! They are a totally different audience segment. yes, they would like to access their emails but they would prefer using BlackBerry for that. In the free time that they get in car, they would rather catch up on the Economic Times.

People like me who spend around 10 hrs online at office and again around 1-2 hrs online at home won't feel the need to check their Gmail or rediffmail on their mobile. I can very well check it whenI reach office or go back home. That whatever little free time that I have while I am driving or moving in public transport is the only time that I will have for myself and to be honest, chatting with someone or checking mails won't be the 1st thing on my mind then :)

Tell me will you yourself feel the need of activating your GPRS service and paying though the nose for it to view your yahoo/rediff/gmail mails on your mobile??? Unless of course if you are waiting for some coveted job opening reply. Yes, probably as a curiosity they would check it out, which I will confess, even I do, but not as a long term thing. And as far as chatting is concerned, again as you move up the ladder and work increases, how often do you get time to really chat with someone? And in most of corporates with all IM blocked, slowly you get over it and you get time for chatting only when you actually have time for it and that is mostly at home when you are catching up with personal mails, orkutting or sending that personal mail which you couldn't do from office. Activating my GPRS and paying 12 rs everyday for it besides monthly fee just to chat thru my mobile and that too only when I am not accessing net on my system (which is if I am on vacation or in public transport)...is not my cup of tea.

So to sum up my take is that the primary audience for applications like these are the college kind of gang, love birds, Lukha vella log who are optimistic that through chatting they can find their dream partners, young bachelors (MTs, graduate software engineer trainees) who have ample of time besides work and don't know how to spend or the Lokesh that he was from 1998 to 2004 - the baap of chatting arena which many of the current readers would vouch for. :)

What's your take on this thing? Would love to know.

UP..Bihar...and now the House of Commons!

After lutofying UP and Bihar it seems Shilpa Shetty has created a storm even in the House of Commons in UK. Last heard the House Of Commons have condemned the racist attacks and have asked Channel 4 to tender an apology over the matter and investigate it further.

The Bitch is Back

Kashmera Shah. Who else?

Previous post on Kashmera can be found here and here.

Choti Muh Badi Baat...

Was watching Choti Si Baat on Zee. Movies of this particular gerne, irrespective of how many times you view it, they always feel refreshing. One thing I always felt was that life was so peaceful and simple then. No internets, no mobiles, no traffic jams, no pollution, no satellite TV, no Osama, no George Bush.

On the 'peaceful' and 'simple' part, I wonder what our parents have to think about it? :)

What all will you block, Mr. Minister?

The I&B is furious over The Gandhi slapstick video posted on You Tube. It's planning to block You Tube - just like the way they blocked Orkut and Blogger for a while. Fearing that You Tube would be blocked for sure, I quickly logged on to check out the fuss about the video.

The video shows an NRI comedian (Gautam Prasad), imitating as gandhi doing pole dance and strip teasing to the tunes of Bhangada. The pole (more like Gandhi's staff) is used for all the jigs and gyration.

Ok, the video is not amusing, I mean you don't feel like laughing but I don't understand what's the big fuss about I&B finding it as insulting and all. Get over it Mr. Minister. Blocking the sites won't do. A small percentage of Indians might be knowing about the video but now by making this as issue - you are just propogating the video. And anyways, in this India Poised kinda era, who has the time to even think about all this stuff.

Gladiator

With Suvi in office and nothing much to do on a saturday afternoon, was watching Gladiator on Star Movies. I must have lost count of how many times I would have watched the movie but each time I see it, I get hooked on. What I really also like about the movie is its background score. It gives me goose pimples. The music is so very haunting. I need to find out if there are any music Cds available which has compilation of memorable background scores. If someone has any idea about it, lemme know.

Rakhi Sawant User Experience

Ok let me confess with you. I have become a big fan of Rakhi Sawant. Not because of her jhatkas and matkaas but beacause of the entertainment angle that she adds to the daily soap - Big Boss. Love her or hate her - but you can't avoid her. So the other day I thought, what if Rakhi Sawant was a product - a software application, a fully customised, bespoke application. Would she have succeeded on user experience? Would she have fulfilled all desired usability goals? Let's take some of the factors that we use for measuring uability of a product and find out.

For a novice user or someone who haven't heard rakhi sawant's name, her eye popping glam posters are a perfect demo of what the product is all about. A first look at her performing, and your eyes track out that the 'product' is loaded with features you always wanted. Her straight talk ( the one we saw in her cameo interview in seedhi baat & now on Big Boss) demonstrates her shallow navigation - no beating around the bush - she comes bang on! Her more than inviting clevages are the perfect breadcrumb path for you to ensure that you don't get lost. Heavily loaded, yet she doesn't take time to load herself on to your system - which in this case is your mind. Her theatertics keep users aware of the system status while she fetches data from her backend for her next jig. Are user's in control of the application? Is exiting from the application an easy job? Unfortunately not, but then the product was not designed for users to exit. Content wise, the product is again fully loaded and users don't even need any labeling on it. They can find what hey are looking for - pretty easily.

i think Rakhi Sawant as a product rocks. What's your opinion? Would love to hear.

Chikki - my new love in life!

My friend's one month old labrador. She just goes beserk when in playful mood. :)

By George! It's for real!

Just read the other day about the story of a 2 year calf who during Eid time, sensing that he would be slaughtered created a hell of a ruckus in the slaughter house, running from one corner to another, pushing back anyone who cam in his way and finally managed to hide himself in some corner of the place from where it became difficult for the butchers to pull him back. Interesting, isn't it? After hours of persuation the calf still stuck to its guns and finally Cruelty Against Animal Society came in the picture to save the animal. And guess what? They adopted the calk and christened him - hold your breath - George!

Why George? Coz just like George Bush who fought against all adversities both in US and across the world to stay put in his place- this calf too fought against everyone who came in his way to save his life. Nice, really nice. But why only George??? Couldn't they think of anyone else?

Btw, I wonder why aren't the so called saviours of hindutva fanatics not making any noise about it? I mean a country like India where cows (ok, it's a calf) and hindutva and whatever goes with it goes hand in hand, naming a calf 'george' - well, hmmm, isn't it a case of forceful 'conversion'? :-)

Last heard the calf had gone into a shell and was sulking after finding out the name that have been given to him.

The 'baap' of all partnerships

As I write this post, India stands for 94 for no loss in the 3rd test. First time after spending countless hours in South Africa, India have finally managed to create a 'mamoth' partnership. :)

New year eve edition - a reading feast

I always love to read 31st Dec newspaper - especially the TOI edition. If you have missed out on any major stuff in the year - you can always catch up with it in this editon. Thankfully 31st being a Sunday, I could lap up the paper with leisure. I can read paper for hours. In Crayons I used to read atleast 6-7 papers before getting on with work. The same thing continued in BSIL. I think after books, a newspaper can be your next best friend (I hope Suvi is not reading this!). A day without newspaper is so unimaginable. Throughout the day you get the feeling of being constipated, not that reading helps with your bowel movements but I guess who relate to my feelings can understand where I am coming from. Somehow Suvi finds it very difficult to understand how I can spend so much time reading a newspaper. For her, reading the headline and perhaps a para or so of the news to get a gist of the story is more than enough. Most of the time she tolarates me with my reading habit but whenever she blows her top, the poor newspaper gets trashed in a corner and I am back to the business of cajoling her, cooling her down. And for the remaining newspaper part? Well, I can always catch that up on the digital edition! :-)

Nostradamus or a deserting rat?

As 2002 came to an end, I could feel that the time for me to move on for sure had now come. I could sense that there was nothing for me to stick on with Intiqua. So in Jan, 2003 moved to Mumbai with BSIL. Six months later, Intiqua ceased to exist in India. Right move at right time.

Feb 2006. The only person besides me who believed in usability practice and helped it nurture in BSIL quits. Someone else take hold of the mantle and the team but I could sense that the usability practice as such won't last for long - atleast the 'seriousness' and the 'commitment' to making usability as part and parcel of evey project that gets shipped out from our desk would go missing. So in August I moved on.

Jan 2007. In a hot, humid city, the winds of change are blowing again or rather have been blowing for the past 2 months but have taken force now. I wonder who would be the last man standing.

So am I a modern day Nostardamus who could sense what might happen in future and took preventive steps or a rat who when sensing danger jumped the ship in advance.

I guess the viewpoint depends on which side of the fence you are standing on.