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.