Sexy at Sixty! Why Not?

When I started this Blog, my idea was to write on topics that covered various aspects and Features / Functionalities of web products. So can I write an the Independence Day Post?
Why not?India being a land of festivals and occasions, it gives the marketing and design teams in all Internet companies to establish a connection with the audience of varied interests and needs. I have seen, and have been part of, promotions ranging from Rakhi to Valentine’s Day and Diwali to New Year’s Day and many more. I remember once during my Indiatimes days, we discussed the possibility to auction the largest bouquet of Flowers, online, to create a world record!

So, I thought let me see what the designers across the country have been up to, on this Independence Day! It was heartening to see that most sites have decorated their homepages to express their joy and freedom.
The Shopping verticals of Indiatimes, Rediff and Sify did not carry any significant Independence Day related offers although the portals had subtle design depictions of the tricolour. Ebay India’s special promotion somewhere low down on the homepage did not make any sense.Google and Yahoo are always good at modifying the logos for any occasion, and this time it was no different.

Travel sites MakeMyTrip and Yatra offered special deals, which was heartening to see. MMT depicted the Indian spirit nicely prompting people to take a long Independence Day break. Ixigo, the travel search aggregator’s logo design was neatly done.

Sites in the Networking and User Content domain looked all ready and there for the occasion. BigAdda homepage looked great but Orkut was very creative. Peaking of special offers, Sulekha is running an Independence Day best blog contest.

Pure-play classifieds sites did not seem interested in the Independence Day! Matrimonial sites, Shaadi, BharatMatrimony, and Jobsites, Monster India and Clickjobs were celebrating. Naukri looked complacent with even the new product Brijj not showing any signs of celebration!

However, the expression that impressed me the most today was the headline “Sixty, Getting Sexier” in the Times of India, that I have titled my Independence Day post, likewise. And yes, the Idea of writing an ‘Independence Day Post’ was given by dear friend, Vivek Rastogi ‘Chacha’ (not Nehru!).

Victory for Bollywood ?

The two things that have the biggest potential to equally rock and shock India are Bollywood and Cricket. On Tuesday afternoon, the Indian team beat England and Sanjay Dutt got a six year jail term. It did not take much work, on the TV remote, to see which one was hotter; the Indian team's win or the Jail term!

Well, TV channels, barring a few like NDTV, have a sheep mentality. What I was waiting for was the next morning newspapers. I wanted to see which of the two events takes the prime spot in the newspapers, the next morning.

On Wednesday morning it was pretty clear that the BCCI has indeed been successful in making Indian cricket a not- so- happening entity in our lives. Although the HT had the 2 rightmost columns on the front page mentioning the Indian victory, the more circulated TOI had no space for the 'win' in the first half of the front page!

Indeed its a victory for Bollywood. Whether its also a victory for the Indian judicial system, is another matter.

My Soul Patch!

This started when we first decided upon roping in Mr Pijush Datta to be our design consultant for Extramarks. This guy is a typical Ad agency ex. One feature that stands out, the moment you see him, is his facial hair. He wears this small patch of beard under his lips.

The second time Pijush visited us I decided this beauty spot could adorn my face too.
So there I was within, a week’s time I had this beauty spot on me. My wife liked it and my daughter was thrilled as it grew and started showing prominently on my face. To my surprise even our chairman complemented me for being stylish!

As this beauty spot became prominent confusion crept in. Some one called it a ‘goti’, some couldn’t name it and I started calling it‘stubble’. In my quest to look for an end to this confusion I took refuge in the internet.

This beauty spot is called a Soul Patch and Google throws about 556,000 for soul patch beard in 0.10 seconds. A Soul Patch is a small patch of facial hair just below the lower lip and above the chin as per the Wikipedia

I also know now, that it has a close relation with music as The Soul Patch came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s and was a style of beard popular with beatniks (a member or follower of the Beat Generation) and jazz artists. Jazz trumpeters in particular preferred the soul patch because it provided comfort when using a trumpet mouthpiece.

The patch has been famous for centuries. William Shakespeare sported a Soul Patch beneath his famous moustache and there is an Annual world championship in 12 Beard & Moustache Categories.

D.H. Lawrence rightly said "How beautiful maleness is, if it finds its right expression"……….the pictures below are a perfect example :-)

LinkedIn IPO

Reuters has reported that LinkedIn is headed for an IPO. This will make it one of the first social networks to go public. The company claims to have 12 million users, and is likely to have $100 million in revenue by 2008.

LinkedIn was founded by Reid Hoffman in the year 2003 and he managed the company as the founding CEO for the first four years before moving to his role as Chairman and President, Products in February this year.

LinkedIn is located in Mountain View, California and is funded by world-class investors including Sequoia Capital, Greylock, the European Founders Fund, and Bessemer Venture Partners

In December 2006, Xing , the so-called “LinkedIn of Europe”, raised 35.7 million Euros in an IPO. Compare this to the Infoedge IPO, which helped Info Edge raise Rs 170 crore.

The LinkedIn Blog however does not have a mention of this story. I would write more about the Blog in my next post.

Delhi Autos dot com!

Indian is embracing the Internet well now. As we read reports from IAMAI and other sources that the Internet penetration and usage is increasing at a good rate, we are encountering the word 'dot com' more often in our day to day lives.

The newspapers are covering the Internet better, there are TV shows and there are FMCG brands creating brand/segment specific websites to increase the customer interaction. Whats interesting is that you are getting to see the word 'dot com' at places where you would expect it the least. On the back of Autos in Delhi, for instance.

The first time I noticed it was when I saw a sticker of mouthshut on an auto, while I was driving down to my office. Some weeks later I saw another one. This time it was oktatabyebye, which is the blogsite of the travel portal MMT.

I am sceptical if any kind of milage (in terms of customer acquisition) is derived out of such promotion. However I am forced to think that there could be some juice in it as more and more sites are using the 'Autos Back' to publicise their urls.

Thanks to my Nokia N70, you can see what I clicked, on my way to the office.

Helped by a 'Halwaii'

In these last few years of creating and managing Internet products, I usually had a tough time explaining my 'work' to people and friends in general. Internet is, still to a majority of people, nothing more than Email and Chat. However a lot of kids would tell you that they know Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia.
I might sound like I live in a far off village somewhere in the Himalayas, but no, I am in New Delhi and that too in the heart of the city in South Delhi, however the setting is a mix of modern day apartments and an adjoining semi-urban residential colony.
Last evening, everything changed! Thanks to the neighbourhood Halwaii (sweet shop owner).
I was at Madhuvan Sweets to buy Kadai Paneer to have it for dinner. It usually takes 10 minutes to get it packed, so I was just standing idle waiting for my food to arrive. I heard the shop owner talk to another person, and was immediately drawn near as I heard the word 'Search'.
Bunty (the shop-owner) was expressing his inability to find a machine for producing 'Vark'. Vark is a thin silver foil that is edible and is used to decorate traditional Indian sweets. He said he had searched and explored all resources on the Internet. I became even more interested and as I thought I can really contribute, I suggested him a few sites like Globalsources, but he knew it all.
With people like Bunty looking at Internet as a utility, people like Praveen can enjoy the 'Kadai Paneer' and have a 'Rasmalai' too!!

Fly for less!!

I would now wait for this one. Travel portals in India like Yatra, Indiatimes, MMT, Cleartrip, would be looking to implement this sort of a service for their users soon......
I am talking about YAPTA which is a clear disruption in the online travel space. Yapta does a lot of things for its users:

1. Gives alerts on Price Drops!
2. Tags exactly the flights that you want to track.
3. Gives refund if the price drops!!
4. Tracks prices of all flights at 1 place

The user needs to,

• dowload the Yapta Tagger. Whether you have already purchased a ticket or are just starting your travel planning
• All the trips are stored in theYapta account so the user can glance at all the latest prices in one location.
• User enters the confirmation code and Yapta will then track prices on that flight and alert the user if eligible for a refund.

Launched as beta Yapta currently works with the following sites...
Alaska Airlines Northwest Airlines American Airlines Orbitz
Continental Southwest Airlines Delta Air Lines Ted Airlines
Expedia Travelocity Frontier Airlines United Airlines JetBlue US

Lets see when something like this comes up in India.

Bageshwar and the nearby places: Map

I have tried to embedd the map with Jamkhitola in the centre. Although it is not mentioned in this map but Jamkhitola is exactly between Bageshwar and Baijnath. Please take your cursor on the map and as the cursor turns into a thumbnail drag the map (right or left) to locate other places in the vicinity of Bageshwar .
If you continue to go towards bottom left (follow NH 87 and then NH 24), you would reach Delhi.

हमारा पैतृक घर: Our native Home

After walking for nearly 2 hours we finally reached Jamkhitola. There was our 2 'Chachis', 2 ealderly ladies, 3 little girls to greet us. We drank water from the natural source of water called 'Dhara' and felt immediately relaxed.

This house is at least 100 years old. Its amazing even without any sort of maintenence its in good shape!

The house looks very elegant from the sides. Notice the lock on the 'Sangal', its been there for a long time now.

The unmaintained lawns have a lot of thorny bushes, I still managed to get to pose on the boundry wall.

Nandini seems to be enjoying the company of the milk providers.
Mona experiences the mub floor and walls, and the alpana on the door enterence looks great.

पहुंच गए: End of the Motor road.

After spending nearly 7 hours in the jeep we reached Kwerali. The motorable road ends here. We started on-foot from Kwerali.

We were fortunate to get two mules who carried our luggage. One of the mules was unwilling and after it's throwing the bags twice we finally were ready to start the 'Walk'
Both me and Jibda were pretty relaxed once the bags were on their way!
.... चलो अब बैग नहीं उठाने पड़ेंगे...:-)

The view from the Kwerali School is awesome!
.....but we had to follow the mules....

....and click the fresh pine trees !!

Chami village is quite populated and the land is fertile. We walked past the beautiful wheat fields. Never thought step-farming could make the scene so beautiful

माँ और दीदी भी धीरे -धीरे चलते रहे, दृश्य का आनंद लेते हुए.

हिमालय: The first sight of the Himalayas

As we moved ahead leaving the river behind, we had still a lot of distance to cover.....

The kids were however enjoying the ride in this 'Tata Spacio'

नंदिनी भी मजे मैं है.

When you see such sights , you forget the tiredness!

Wow!! See the snow behind us.

गोमती नदी: The river Gomati

As we moved ahead after the Neembu-Pani, we came across the beautiful River flowing down the hills. first i tried to take a few snaps while sitting on the front seat of the moving Jeep, and endedup clicking some locals.
The valley and the land looked extremely fertile.

Children asked us to stop the jeep and got down for a photograph.

....फोटो खिचाने के लिए मैं भी बहुत उत्सुक था!!

चले On our way!

As we prepared to leave Haldwani for Bageshwar, children ate 'poori-aaloo'.

The roads are surprisingly smooth and we cruised @ nearly50Kmph....

........the jeep was also in good condition and was spacious too.

हम रास्ते मैं रुके भी और नीम्बू पानी पिया!

Jamkhitola

After a wait of 36 Years, I got the luck to visit "Jamkhitola" our native village. A village in the foothills of Himalayas, in the Bageshwar district of the North Indian state of Uttarakhand.
This is the place where my father Lt. Shri Devi Datt Lohani was born and brought-up, and from where he got the nector of spirituality, truth and hard-work running in his veins.
I can write this now because thats the 'power' of the soil that is "Jamkhitola".