Google snaps up Jotspot

Google is on a massive buying spree. After snapping up YouTube less than a month ago, they have gone ahead and bought Jotspot, the online Wiki company. Though this deal will be lesser than what they paid for YouTube, nevertheless, it clearly indicates Google's growth and expansion policy. They definitely are moving ahead rapidly in the Office 2.0 space and the Software as a Service model (SAAS) will not be far from reality. This is going to be an interesting battle with Microsoft pitching for its Office/Vista 2007 versions and Google luring away more and more customers to a free online platform.

The battle has just begun !

-- Thyaga

Changes needed in the Indian team

Do people like Viru, Pathan, Raina still deserve a chance in the Indian team? What is surprising is that even in spite of non-performances by these players in the recently concluded Champions Trophy, they have retained their places. What I find a little apalling is why performances in the domestic circuit is not taken into account? - lets bring in some fresh legs and lets see what changes that they can do.

At this rate, our World Cup dreams are just slipping by.

-- Thyaga

Google's new tool for Webmasters

Google has come up with a really cool tool for webmasters - it is called the Website Optimizer. The best part of it is that you can do various combination of pages to see which of the pages gets you the highest ad conversion. I haven't played around with it - but there seems to be quite a buzz in the Blogosphere about this.

If you have checked it out, I would like to hear from you about it.

-- T

Web 2.0 - for real?

If you thought that Web 2.0 is not for real, then you will love this site

Enjoy
-- T

Google Docs and Spreadsheet

A while ago, I had posted on Google's neat marketing trick of promoting Firefox - you can read more about it here. Today, i realized that they are doing it for their latest product innovation - Google Docs & Spreadsheet. Check out their home page now and see the link that I have highlighted:



Its amazing how Google manages to do these small but neat marketing things.

Cheers,
Thyaga

How to make meetings more effective?

Today, i came upon a link about how to make meetings more effective - it is very good and it has some of the important points, which i always feel that a meeting should have. My company's website also has a great course (FREE) on how to conduct great meetings - check it out if you can.

-- T

Alternative to Sgstream

A friend of mine pointed me to this site - for watching live cricket over the Internet at a fraction of the price that other sites charge. It is http://www.desicricketlive.com

I haven't used it yet - so don't know about the quality. If you have used it, then do leave your comments here - would appreciate it a lot.

I plan to use it during the Champions Trophy though ...

-- Thyaga

Omkara - was it worth it?

I am beginning to wonder what the whole hype about Omkara was about. Was it because it was adapted from Othello - i know many movies that have the same theme but presented differently. Was it because it was directed by the talented Vishal Bhardwaj who was the music director, script writer and director of this movie? - or was it because it had a good star cast of Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, Vivek Oberoi et. al. ?

I really don't know what the fuss was all about - i thought that the pace of the movie was quite slow - probably, it was just me but i definitely felt that the movie needed to move on at certain places. The music is good but the songs are also too many. All in all, IMHO, the movie was not worth the wait - i would give it ** */2 ;-)

-- Thyaga

My famous prediction - Yahoo! will buy Zoho

Ok, you might think that i am out of my mind to predict something so drastic. But i really believe that Yahoo! will soon snap up Zoho simply because it has no visibility in the Office 2.0 space. We have already seen Google snap up YouTube to improve its footprint in the Online Video product category. However, Yahoo! does not need to worry about Online Video because it seems to be getting some good traffic numbers if Comscore's data and Techcrunch is meant to be believed.

In today's Web 2.0 world, the other area where there is a lot of competition but still no market leader, it has to be the Office 2.0 space and Zoho is appearing to be quite ahead of its competitors including Google. Yahoo! is yet to create any buzz in this space, Google is already doing acquisitions in this space and Microsoft already is doing some kind of online Office thing with its Windows Live platform. So, it is a perfect opportunity for Yahoo! to come in and snap up Zoho and nosedive ahead as the leader.

As for the price, i would put it anywhere from $35-50 million and that should be really sweet deal for Zoho.

Any takers? :)

-- Thyaga

Rentometer

How many times have you asked your friend during a party the following:

"So , where do you stay?" ... "So, what 's your rent in your Apartment Complex?", "Is it a 2 bed room or a 3 bed-room", "2 bathrooms or 3 bathrooms" etc. Once you got answers to all your probing questions, you must have run a mental check on whether or not your friend was getting a good deal or was your friend getting ripped off :).

But now, thanks to a wonderful mashup tool called Rentometer, you just need to ask him/her - "So, whats your address" and you can find out whether or not the deal is good by comparing "visually" with the other properties nearby. Check it out - it is really cool.

Cheers,
Thyaga

Google snaps up YouTube

[Photo source: http://www.marketingshift.com]

Ok, the deal is done - Google has bought over YouTube for $1.65 Billion. The first thing that struck my fantasy was even if you were a novice programmer in YouTube, you will soon be a millionaire. The best is of course the Sequoia Capital folks – they pump in $11.5 M and in 1 year they make around $495M that’s a real big exit (41x) – dot com days are here!

Amazing stuff - congratulations to all who were involved in this deal.

-- Thyaga

Tale of 2 Koreas

Today, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was nominated by the UN Security Council as the successor to Secretary General Kofi Annan.

And on the same day ....

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned North Korea's claim to have tested a nuclear weapon underground.

Amazing indeed are the tales of the 2 Koreas - just miles apart from each other.

-- Thyaga

Check out this Keyboard

If you think that you have seen all that is there in keyboards, you are going to be blown away by this keyboard - check this out:
If you want more details go to the creators of this unique keyboard.

Cheers,
Thyaga

Google and YouTube in acquisition talks

The Wall St. journal is reporting that Google and YouTube are in acquisition talks. With Google Video lagging the Network effect of YouTube, it just makes sense for Google to do so. Of course, YouTube uses Google for its advertising network - so, it makes even more sense.

Lets see what happens ...

-- Thyaga

Pakistan Cricket - the musical chairs have started

Pakistan cricket has always been an enigma for me - they always have one the most talented teams which, on any given day, can beat any team in the world. But they have always come up croppers in major tournaments and the reasons are pretty obvious - the behind-the-doors politics that keep playing in Pakistan cricket. The latest is that Younis Khan has DECLINED the Pakistan captaincy because he believes that he is being installed just as a 'dummy' captain.

Here is my take on this:

(1). Younis Khan definitely appears to be a more suave kind of person and probably, some of the powers that run Pakistan cricket might not have backed his captaincy.

(2). Mohammad Yousuf has always wanted to captain Pakistan - in fact, many believe that his conversion to Islam was inspired by that fact because given a choice, a Christian would never be given an opportunity to lead Pakistan

(3). Younis Khan has always had problems with players and officials in the past - Inzamam, Afridi to name a few. But he has always let his bat do the talking and even in the moments that he has led Pakistan, he has always shone as a captain.

(4). Having said all this, i believe that Younis may have lost the plot a bit here. Granted that Faisal Iqbal was grafted in without his consent and probably others resented his presence, he should have just taken over the manted, baited his time and then shown the way with his performances. That is the only way to gain respect - his current tantrum will not go well with this current team members.

This is an unfortunate incident for Pakistan cricket - just when they were slowly getting out of the Oval Test chucking controversy, they are hit with another storm.

Hopefully, they can come out of it.

-- Thyaga

Billy Doctrove out of Champion's trophy ...

First, it was Darrel Hair and now it is the turn of his partner at the Oval Test, Billy Doctrove to face ICC's music - he has been left out of Champion's Trophy. Of course, ICC believes that there is nothing fishy about that and that Billy's exclusion had nothing to do with the Oval Test match.

How can ICC be so naive or they think that we are naive?

-- Thyaga

Google Groups - page not found

I seem to be on fire the past week - I seem to be discovering sites going down and pages on websites with the dreaded 404 error (page not found). You could check them here and here. Now, its the turn for Google Groups which released a new look today - some of the URLs are not accessible - growing pangs baby :).

Hope, I don't get any more :)

-- Thyaga

Slideshare server names

Today, Slideshare was Techcrunched but that isn't why I am blogging about this. I was going through their company Blog and i found something really interesting - the names of their servers are named after Bollywood heroines - so for example,

"Ash is a Pentium 4 machine with 2 Gigs of RAM, and is used as a web server. She won Miss World in 1994, and is often referred to as the “Queen of Bollywood”. " ;-)

This is a refreshing shift in trend from the days when servers were named after rivers (Nile, Mississipi, Ganga etc) or Emotions (Happiness, Passion etc) or famous scientists (Newton, Einstein etc).

Do you know of any other innovative nomenaclature for servers? - write in.

Cheers,
Thyaga

Bloglines down but checkout their message

A couple of days ago, I had Blogged about the pleasant message that LinkedIn shows when it is down :). Today, it was the turn of Bloglines, the Browser based RSS reading website. Check this out:



Now, the question to be asked is - why are these sites going down so often? - hmmm, good point. Any takers?

-- Thyaga

Happy Durga Puja

Durga Puja at Sunnyvale Hindu Temple

Wish you all a very very Happy Durga Puja.

-- Thyaga