Eric Schmidt writes in Don't bet against the internet : "The lesson is compelling: put simple, intuitive technology in the hands of users and they will create content and share it. The fastest-growing parts of the internet all involve direct human interaction. Think about the blogging phenomenon and social networking sites like MySpace in America, Bebo in Britain, Orkut in Brazil, CyWorld in Korea and Mixi in Japan. " Do you notice something peculiar here? No mention of India ... though Orkut is as popular here as in Brazil, though we are much more populous and more 'networking friendly' ... Any guesses as to why India is getting excluded here?? I have one guess .... not enough indigenous innovation is happening in India. We may be kings of the BPO Services and ODC/ Offshoring ... but our report card on innovation is still pretty blank! PS: There are many start-ups in B'lore doing research in Mobile space, protocols, Bluetooth (which employ some of my friends...

VC Confidential writes : "three specific flavors of capitalism: American capitalism (emphasizes the individual), European (capitalism that focuses on community and preserves continuity) and Asian capitalism (Confucian capitalism that emphasizes networks and the extended family). The US has to realize it is not the only model. Americans (or other foreigners) get rolled in Asia if they don't have or realize the role of extended networks. " Wow! I never thought it this way ... did you?

The 3 P's of Business for ... ODC's and Off shoring software companies Process, Process and Process Software Product Development Companies Process, Presentation, Process Web Development Companies People, Presentation, Process Related: Arbit Choudhury Comics' - 4 P's of MBA Visit www.arbitmba.com for more Arbit Comics

Background: I went to Manchester yesterday - spend about 6 hours in train. It was the best setting to brainstorm alone ... and during the travel popped an idea, which i keyed into my laptop there and then. I have a desire to expand this idea and would love readers to provide inputs - especially if you think you have functional knowlegde and experience in the field of Railways. The railway network in India is organised on the 'tree topology ' meant primarily for long distance passenger travel and goods haulage. This is quite opposite to that in Europe where rail networks are organized in 'Hub-and-Spoke' topology and trains are means of fast, comfortable and no-frills (no check-in, etc) transport for domestic & small distances while air-travel is more common for international & long distances. One of the reasons for this might be the political landscape of Western Europe with each country having a hub - usually capital city - connecting other smaller towns & ...

For those interested in this debate, the links below ensure reading material to fill your weekend ... [I plan to collate lots of thoughts on this topic and make a post here ... but that's a gigantic task and should take me some time to complete] The Latest: Will Google Develop Google OS? The Original: Google OS: What to expect? Comments Highlights: Nipun Jain from OCRA desktop - comment 1 Nipun Jain from OCRA desktop - comment 2 Andrew Young Mark shadilac .... there are a lot more interesting comments in there ... but you'd better go to the post directly to read them Related Links [plucked out from the comments]: Google life or Why Google Should be The Firefox Kid Is Google OS an Always-Online OS? Google Client Web 3.0 - The Future Is Almost Here Talk about Google OS? Google: Lighthouse Centre Of The Online Universe Google's Writely Points To and Online offline Future Abandon Vista We Dont Need Another Desktop OS

Rajesh Jain writes : ... there are vast libraries of content sitting in vaults blocked by (among other things) delivery costs. It stands to reason that if an episode of "It's Like, You Know" costs 50 cents to deliver, it's got to sell for more than 50 cents, and, as great as the show was, few people are going to pay more than 50 cents to watch an episode. If, however, you can cut those delivery costs down to 5 or 10 cents, there's a whole new market to be had. This actually brings out a good insight in the way pricing of Digital Content varies from that of physical goods. Consider a commodity like rice or consumable like bread. The per unit price of the product increases with rising quality. So is the case with valuable commodities as well - say Gold - the higher the quality of Gold (in karats) the higher its cost. This pricing strategy arises because physical goods once consumed deplete. Once I consume a loaf of bread - no one else in the world can consume it aga...

Joel on software has used the 'Paradox of Choice' thoery to analyse (rather criticise) the abundance of options in the new Windows Vista. He wites: This highlights a style of software design shared by Microsoft and the open source movement, in both cases driven by a desire for consensus and for "Making Everybody Happy," but it's based on the misconceived notion that lots of choices make people happy, which we really need to rethink. [However] Each additional choice makes complete sense until you find yourself explaining to your uncle that he has to choose between 15 different ways to turn off a laptop. Do read the full article ... its a Classic read .... The theory comes from the book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less . Written by Barry Schwartz this should be a classic book to read from what Amazon.com editorial description is: Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosi...

The reason why many popular products are in 'Beta' is because a web-based application, unlike a desktop app, can be in a state of perpetual upgradation and new features can be added seamlessly without planning for 'release cycles'. More so, users expect quick and frequent feature upgrades for these applications. But adding new features is not excuse for not releasing a final product! One could always add new features to a 'test instance' test it and then release them into the 'production' version. That's the way things work in the corporate sector, shouldn't they work similarly on Web 2.0? The reason why this cycle cannot be performed for most of these new applications is that they 'need' their users to test the new application features. Unlike corporate development environment where a dedicated team usually performs unit testing before release, some of the web based features cannot be tested by a 'small' testing team. Take for ex...

There is a widely single sided debate going on the tech blogosphere regarding "brand dilution of Beta". http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2004/12/fresh_outta_def.html http://napsterization.org/stories/archives/000374.html True techies are increasingly finding the (mis)use of the term 'Beta' objectionable. For the uninitiated - Beta is a term used for a 'pre-release' version of any software and most of the 'cool' Web 2.0 applications from GMail to Flickr started out as Betas. If software was an Indian Children's game 'Beta' would mean 'Kachhi Goti' :-P or 'Trial Over'. But the bone of contention is that most of these startups (some of which are now owned by major companies or themselves are big companies) are perpetually in Beta. For the techies who were groomed in the era of Desktop Suites and Mainframes (where stable release and quality control were critical), this means telling customers that you're not really committed to ...

Mr. Singh's government is now credited with another blunder - they seem to have forgotten that they are leaders of a Democracy and not a Communist country. There is no better evidence than this news that a Left supported government can only become more and more paranoid in its approaches. This unfortunately also hints towards a soft-reversal of India's foreign policy towards Tibet. Sad :-( - that the World's largest democracy should suppress a pro-democracy voice to please the Head of State of a Communist country. Where are democratic principles gone?? Link via: Gaurav Sabnis