Is Twitter Just About "What are you doing?"

Twitter started with "What are you doing?". 

But over last couple of years, Twitter has evolved and the user community has learned various ways of utilizing twitter. It started off with something like "I am having coffee", and now have become a medium where users link to information and at the same time get information. Not just that, it has become a medium to build your brand and give a personality to your brand. It has given a lot of brands and users access to a large audience. 

Twitter created the buzz of real-time search with its search feature. Twitter's search feature would have never taken off and become a huge hit without the link sharing and "retweeting" apart from just saying "what you are doing". 

Twitter search has no value if link sharing and "retweeting" stops. All you will be exposed to will be just opinions and some nonsense from the users. Links will connect tweets to facts/evidences which makes Twitter more friendly and services like Scoopler, oneRiot etc. will enhance the acess to information. (Even Google is now inspired by Twitter to create a real-time search feature.)

I have encountered people who unfollow users who tweet links or retweet. Fair enough. It is upto users how they want to use it and its your decision to follow or unfollow a particular user.

I follow people who just write what is in their head and I also follow people who constantly tweet USEFUL links. And I love them both. 

Twitter, for me, is about "What do you want to share?" than JUST "What are you doing?" ... 

Twitter is what you make of it.

Bing Is Here

The first thing that came to my mind was "Chandler Bing" from Friends TV series but did not find Bing as funny. Neither did I find Bing that serious. Bing was launched recently.

My first impression after loading the home page was that there is something outdated about the page. I am not trying to criticize here, but when a search engine is named as a competitor of Google, it better live up to some minimum expectations. One example is when you search for "Google" on Bing, it give you two results. First one is the Google website and then a set of news on Google. Then it forces you to click another URL to see other results. This probably is not the right kind of user experience that I want.

One other observation is about how the image search compares against Google. I would just say that Google wins it hands down, because of the amount of relevant results that Google gives us. I searched for my name on Bing Image search and it gave me hardly 7 results, at the same time Google gave me 439 results of which atleast 50% were relevant images.

For exploring more on how Google and Bing performs against each other, I suggest checking out this webservice.

Till then have fun "Binging" as I go back to "Googling" ... Hope to see Bing match up to Google's level someday ...

WolframAlpha Vs Google

There is sudden buzz about WolframAlpha being a "Google killer" and I was quite surprised how that can happen when Google has been around for so long and it has vast amount of data already indexed.

Then, it turns out that WolframAlpha is a computational engine which targets at delivering the numbers in a meaningful format. 

I searched for "distance from New York to New Jersey" on WolframAlpha and it gave me the exact distance in miles (52.61 miles) and it also gave me results in meters, kilometers, nautical miles (??) and centimeters (??????). On top of it, it gave me direct travel time taken by flight, sound, light in a fibre and light in vacuum. Now most of the data that it returned are something that I do not care about. When I search the same on Google, I get links to distance calculators. 

After going through the examples, I could gather that, WolframAlpha in its current form is a great resource for research analysts who play with data. It is not that Google cannot provide this data, but WolframAlpha makes this data understandable and much more accessible 

Search for "India literacy" on Google and you will get 61% as the first result (without even digging the link) and this was present before WolframAlpha could do it with it computation engine based on Mathematica.

Is WolframAlpha a semantic search? I don't agree entirely. The structured queries as per their examples are fine, but here is why I am saying it is not entirely semantic.

I did see some weird responses as well. I searched for "voting age US" and it did not give me any result, whereas "voting US" gave me the result as "18 years of age; universal".

I searched for "US viting" and WolframAlpha interpreted it as "US Vitina" and showed me the distance from the US to Vitina in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Google prompted me and asked "Did you mean: US voting".

WolframAlpha has taken online computing to a different level, but not yet usable by common internet user who is used to Google. They are working on a lot of stuff right now and may soon come up with something far more robust, but will it challenge Google at any point? No I don't think so, just because the purpose of WolframAlpha is completely different from what Google is designed for. 

Again, Google Squared is in the news now and is being termed as "WolframAlpha killer'.

Note to Wolfram: ... I am not looking for distance from New York to New Jersey IN CENTIMETERS OR NAUTICAL MILES, and I am definitely not interested in how soon light will reach NJ from NY in vacuum. 

Ginx - Review

Ginx is a web based twitter client. I started using it because Ginx let me access Twitter stream where Twitter was blocked.

The primary advantage of using Ginx is the way it lets you know the URL before you click.

 

The other benefit of Ginx is auto URL shortening, a service which not many twitter clients provide. When you click the Ginx URL, it opens up on a page similar to Digg Bar. Ginx, however, supports the URL shortening and expanding only for one URL per tweet.

Ginx also provides the history of clicked links as a stream.

The demerits of Ginx overshadow its merits, probably because it is still in pre-alpha phase. 

- Sync up with Twitter was a major issue which they seemed to have fixed. But I still see a lag in the stream and is not quick in its sync up with Twitter.

- Although Twitter has updated "replies" to "mentions", Ginx is still lagging behind in the implementation when clients like Slandr rolled it out immediately on their versions. 

- Ginx does not show you which client was used (Eg: TweetDeck, Web, Twhirl etc.) to send the tweet by any user which most twitter clients support.

- I did see another issue which was pretty hard to digest. A particular user showed up on my stream whom I had un-followed using Ginx. Now that is not cool!

- The stats keeps on changing and most of the times does not show the accurate count. By stats, I mean number of people I am following, my followers and number of updates. 

Even manual sync with Twitter does not fix this. The stats shown above is when I have 252 followers and over 1700 updates. 

- It shows all sorts of replies sent by the people I follow which clutters the view on my Ginx page. Twitter and most clients like Slandr, TweetDeck etc. handles this as per Twitter configuration.

Ginx is a good concept with its URL shortening/preview functionality, but they have to work on getting the basic functionalities stable. Real-time is another "in" thing which, if they implement, can make it more popular. In its current form, it is hard for Ginx to pick up market share in this competing environment.

You can follow me on twitter @knkartha ...

iCloud - OS/Desktop In The Cloud?

According to the post on Geek.com, first desktop in the cloud has been launched. iCloud allows users to have free online storage (upto 3GB free), applications, virtual desktop and backup.


It provides you with 30 free applications and at this moment, supports only IE and Firefox.

Does this service make sense?

iCloud gives you a whole host of options including a command line console. It also manages internet outage, which they explain in their Q & A section:

... if no Internet connection is available when attempting to save or perform changes to a document, icloud will simply store all changes in a transaction buffer that will be sent and synchronized to the data center once an Internet connection has been re-established.

In my first trial, after playing around for 5-10 mins, my IE crashed (which I can probably attribute to Microsoft), but my in subsequent trials, iCloud/IE refused show me a desktop. Firefox was no exception. It got stuck after using for 5 mins. I had to kill Firefox process to get my other applications work. Having encountered this scenario, I want to point out few things:

- iCloud has to evaluate providing an alternate provision to access the data in case the browser or iCloud desktop does not show up. Uptime of the service is very critical.

- Customization options to make the desktop lighter to a level which a user wants to use will become essential from a user experience perspective.

- After 8 years of development, even if it is an Alpha release, I would expect the application to be relatively fast, but it failed my expectation.

I think is a revolution in the making and I hope their beta release focuses more on performance and reliability more than functionalities. Also, there is massive amount of data going to be stored in the cloud once the user community starts using this application more. It's probably time that they also start thinking about monetization model.

6 Ways To Monetize Twitter

Twitter has been around since March 2006 and has been growing ever since at an exponential rate. However, Twitter does not have a revenue model and has been running on venture funding from various Venture Partners. In the long run, the moment investors stop funding it, Twitter may not be able to sustain its unprofitable business.

Users on Twitter have figured ways to make money (Magpie, Twittad etc.). There are non-profits who raise funds using twitter.

In a hilarious interview, Twitter Founder Biz Stone stated that Twitter is focused on creating value right now and not business model. It makes a lot of sense considering that there is a lot Twitter can incorporate to increase the value and experience. But being around for over 3 years, it is high time that they start thinking about how to sustain their business. In fact, they are. Evan Williams, Twitter's CEO and co-founder tells The New York Times:

"If I say any particular idea, it gets made too much of," he said. "We think Twitter will make money. I think it will take some time to figure it out."

I will still try and put in few of my ideas to monetize Twitter.

Tweet Words

           On the same lines as Google's Ad Words, Twitter can implement "Tweet Words" (I could not come up with a better name ...) where advertisers can send ads using DM or as a tweet based on keywords that the advertiser is interested in. The number of such tweets or messages will be consciously limited by the advertisers for the fear of spamming the users. This can also be done by targeting user's home stream page as banner ads. One other option is also to change the service to include ads and then create an Ad Free service which can be a paid one. 

Power Accounts

           Twitter sets API usage limit and there are Tweeple who want to use more that what is allowed. Here, Twitter has the option of creating a paid model where users/brands can pay and use Twitter API extensively without limitations. I also see a lot of users following more than 10,000 people. These users may be using search/filters to read the content that they are interested in, but when Twitter limits the "following" count to 2000, there is money lying there for Twitter to reap. For any person who wants to follow more than 2000, Twitter may charge them with a nominal amount and there are enough users/brands ready to utilize this opportunity. 

Corporate Accounts

           There are a lot of brands/corporates (Dell, Accenture, Google, Yahoo, Capgemini and many more ...) who tweet and increase their brand value. They very well can do it by using their own blog or fan pages on Facebook, but Twitter is a great source for them to get traffic and value. A partnership model can be setup with these corporates in a way that both parties can benefit. Lets say, Twitter can provide analytics facility for these corporate accounts helping them track where the traffic is coming from and probably also helping them on trend analysis. 

Get "Suggested"

            Twitter has "suggested friends" feature is largely the source of followers for high profile accounts. If there is a paid model to get into the list of suggested friends, small/large brands will always want to utilize to reap benefits and I am compelled to think that these brands would not mind paying for it. 

Communities

             ExecTweets is a sponsored site featuring feeds from "top business executives". On the similar lines, Twitter can create specialized communities for users to participate by paying a nominal fees. This, however, will have to be different from the regular membership that every user has. 

Goodies

             Not the greatest of ideas, but Twitter can come out with goodies. What I mean by this is, convert Twitter Bird and Fail Whale into commercial commodities that can be sold and I am pretty sure, they can make some quick bucks out of it. 

Twitter has to come out with a comprehensive business plan. Microblogging is relatively young and without a good business model, Twitter may not survive to become as big as Evan Williams claims it to become.

Do follow me on Twitter @knkartha ...

And Here Comes The Flying Car

No more road trips?

Seen flying cars in movies? Here comes one for real.

"Terrafugia Transition" is first flying car and it passed the first flight test on March 5th, 2009.

It can fly up to 450 miles at 115 miles per hour.

"... two-seat, four-wheeled, carbon-fiber-composite aircraft, which can fly up to 450 miles at 115 miles per hour and is distinguished by folding wings that ratchet out of the way when it’s on the ground. That makes the craft just 80 inches wide, narrow enough to tool down the highway—where it can go up to 65 mph and get 30 miles to the gallon."

The video of the first test:



I want 500 meters stretch infront of my apartment so that I can take off this "car". I am going to write a letter to GHMC for leveling the road.

Working From Home

Let me say ... I love it.

Working from home is not a new concept but in India, probably it is not encouraged. I am not talking about people who are into free lancing. This about those people who work for large enterprises and works along with a team to deliver services.

Now, why I love it?

1. Freedom: It lets me operate the way I want to and the pressure is far less compared to being nailed down to a ergonomic (or not so ergonomic) chair and the manager or team lead breathing down your neck.

2. More productive: Given the freedom and environment that I am most comfortable with, I get more work done than when I am in office. In fact, I log into start work earlier than what I would do when I am in office. Moreover, when I am at home, I somehow feel more responsible towards what needs to be delivered and does not feel that I am stretching myself.

3. No distraction: Working from home is a bliss if you need long hours of concentration. It is next to impossible to get that level of concentration if you are in office where people bump into you and end up in casual conversations that you sometimes cannot escape and ultimately lose time.

4. Other benefits:

• No commute
• No traffic jams ( and no heart attacks)
• Save fuel
• No pollution
• Not stuck with canteen food (especially when Chinese Combo has banana and curd rice)

These were personal benefits. But, for corporates, there are huge benefits by promoting this culture.

1. Save on the infrastructure - Reduce investment in power, desk space, desktops, phones and other company utilities. Instead divert fraction of this investment to setup better servers and connectivity infrastructure (VPN, Bandwidth, 3G etc.)

2. People care - Employees benefit out of less travel (health, time and monitory benefit). The concerns of work-life balance by employees get addressed as they get to be at home and they feel responsible for their own time.

3. Business Continuity - For any incidents like 9/11, this kind of operation model always helps with such attacks never affecting the services because you don't station all you employees at one place. One recent incident was the snow fall in the UK where most of the services were disrupted. But there was one case where Silicon.com ensured business continuity by having people work from home.

Working from home has its own set of challenges which corporates may dig out. I am going to try an give some answers here for those challenges.

1. Collaboration & interacting with a team - While this may be one of the prime concerns, instant messaging (IM), VoIP and collaboration tools like Google Docs are always there as a solution to this. For the conference facilities across geographies, there are virtual platforms like SecondLife that can be tapped to reduce travel.

2. Monitoring the staff - Yes, this is a problem. Working from home culture is not going to start working just like that. Unified Communications Technology can be used to create monitoring mechanisms. Clear roles and responsibilities need to be defined for the employees who form a team and thereby creating accountability.

For people interested, here is a post about tips for working from home.

There are some things I miss when I work from home. The human interaction, all the gossips and office politics :). But then, there is Facebook, Twitter and IM for that (i know, not for human interaction). These not just things for personal use. Its high time business starts using these and avail the benefits.

C'mon, this is age of the internet.

Having said that, I have some work to finish before I go to office tomorrow.

Bespin: Coding In The Cloud

Introducing Bespin from Dion Almaer on Vimeo.

This is a radical change in development. This probably can be called as Coding-as-a-service. The best part for me is that your development environment is accessible anywhere, anytime.

Read more about Bespin and how you can contribute ...

Macbook Wheel - Notebook With No Keyboard

Innovation getting better ...

- No keyboard
- Hummingbird battery that powers the laptop for full 19 mins before it needs to be re-charged

What's puzzling is how to type using the wheel to scroll to each alphabet. Looks cumbersome ....

Will wait for the next generation ...

Free Software?

Hilarious one on Facebook Beacon

One of the blogs that I read often is Geek And Poke.

Here is a smart and hilarious one by Olive Widder on Facebook Beacon.

I am sure Google Reader's privacy issue is not as bad this. ;)

iPod utilities

New generation of iPod is out. What can you do with your old iPods?

This is what you can do:
1. upgrade to iPod classic and introduce split screen interface(Read more)
2. Wiki enabled iPod (Read more)
3. Install iPodLinux and play games (Read more)

For the new ones:
1. Chuck iTunes - Use Floola(here)
2. Sync pocasts to your iPod from any computer using myPodder (here)
3. Rip DVDs for your iPod - Use HandBrake (here)
4. Convert youtube videos for your iPod (here)

Read more