An afternoon of food, books and friends

I am part of a Facebook group of bibliophiles. When I saw a post a week ago, about plans for a get together, I had mixed thoughts running through my mind.

Images of striking up conversations with, and getting to know people with whom I had interacted only online, began flashing. That's exciting for me. Moreover, I have always felt that bonding with people having common interests is easier, than randomly saying Hi to a stranger and striking up a conversation.

But another thought seemed to be weighing me down. After all, they are strangers. Nowhere it's said bibliophiles are also the most affable human beings on earth. (In fact, I know some with airs of huge diameter around them, and attitudes that poke you everywhere.)

Fighting off skepticism, and with fingers crossed, I replied to the post, telling the organizer to count me in.

On the appointed day, yesterday; a few minutes after the appointed hour of 12.30 pm, I landed up at Toit, a popular joint on 100 ft Road in Indiranagar. As I reached the 2nd floor, I was guided to the far corner, where tables had been booked.

I was neither the first to arrive nor the last. But the body language of the few who were already seated seemed to convey the impression that they knew me or recognized me (obviously via the FB profile photo.) Broad smiles, shake of hands, and self-introductions. As everyone else trouped in, the protocol carried on for a few more minutes.

We took out the books we had brought for either exchange or giveaway, and spread them on the table. The focus quickly shifted to that as each one of us lounged forward to pick them up, flipped pages and exchanged notes. Ice had broken even before we realised. Comments about how possessive we are about our books ... jokes and banter ...

Before landing up there, I had thought no one would find me interesting to talk to, and I would myself be struggling to make conversations with strangers. (My social skills are pretty bad.) I was completely wrong. We found many topics (besides books) to talk about. In fact, I was talking so much, I wasn't eating; so had to shut up and focus on food.

The best part, some of them were friends of my friends -- two of them are good friends of my ex-colleague; and the cousin of another is married to my schoolmate and family friend. What a pleasant surprise!

As the drinks arrived - from water to cocktails to beer - the conversation centred around how Indian and western cultures look at drinks... And, when the food - broccoli, pasta, pizza, burger etc - started landing up, the focus shifted to vegetarian vs non-vegetarian. How beef is Kerala's "favorite food", and what would happen if it were banned in Kerala.

Meanwhile, I realised quite late that it had been raining cats and dogs. A gentle reminder was the few drops, which found the gaps in the ceiling, falling on me. O, by the way, toit in French is roof.

At the end of it all, around 4 pm, the most remarkable takeaway was the bonhomie: I didn't feel anyone was a stranger. The only flipside, if there was one, was that the seating arrangement at the corner didn't make it quite comfortable for all of us to move around and mingle with one another as much as we would have wanted to. But we all had resolved to catch up, and keep in touch.

As the evening gave way to night, my Facebook notification pings wouldn't stop buzzing, with friend requests, posts and comments in the group.

So long. ... The buzz now is that the next meet-up will be a potluck party.

Online liberty and tolerance

Section 66A of the IT Act has been struck down. But does it mean that people can make objectionable comments and get away with it?

There are sections in IPC like 153, 153A, 504, 506 etc which have been invoked in the past, and will continue to be invoked in the future too.

What has been struck down is only a section that was introduced specifically mentioning electronic communication.

Since more communication today happens online rather than offline, undoubtedly we need clear idea of what is okay and what is not okay.

NEW AGE DILEMMA

I remember being told when I was a child how I should be careful while talking when elders are around. That's no longer the case now. The new generation particularly is very outspoken. However, not all their comments are objectionable.

Very often, what we see online is only an extension of what we see offline, probably a bit more as the virtual setting works as an incentive to open the minds out.

Free expression of thoughts, ideas, comments, suggestions, criticisms, alternative ways of approaching issues and problems should be seen as healthy rather than objectionable. They might look on the face of it cut-and-dried or irreverent or sometimes even outrageous. But as long as the intentions are good, it should be okay.

What should actually be seen as objectionable and clamped down strictly are incitement to violence, hatred, enmity among sections of people, statements that are coloured and discriminatory from the point of view of caste, religion, gender, language etc. made to show sections of people in poor light etc.

NEED FOR PRUDENCE

We may all have the freedom to speak out our minds. But we should also be mature enough to exercise discretion and ensure that we speak the right thing, at the right time, in the right place, in the right manner.

All of us do that in our daily lives. So many times we would have decided not to say something to someone at a particular time in a particular place, because we thought it was inappropriate. So exercise of such prudence and discretion is nothing new or unusual.

On the internet many of us tend to get carried away because we are physically way from the real world. In one way that is good, because some fresh, original thoughts flow out of our minds. At the other end, when we see such postings and comments, we need to understand that these are unfettered, true feelings of people. We need to acknowledge the genuineness behind the thoughts.

As we see more free expressions of thoughts, parallely we also need to develop greater amounts of tolerance. They are interlinked.

Sometimes I see people who actively support free speech are highly intolerant when other people exercise their right to free speech. That won't do.

Careers in Social Media

I attended the Careers in Social Media session at the Social Media Week in Bengaluru today. The main reason I went for it was that I am frequently asked by youngsters, what jobs they can hope to get in online media.

Here below are some of the points I gleaned from the talks by the members of the panel and answers they gave to the questions from the audience.

Types of jobs

There are three types: Creative, Communicative, Analytic.
Creative jobs have got to do with design and visual appeal.
Communication refers to textual content.
Analytical jobs are about crunching numbers and analyzing them.

How do you know you will fit into this type of job?

Ask yourself if you have a passion for working on these lines. You should be comfortable with online social media. May be you should intern in one of the companies and check out if the job excites you.

What does the job involve?

It's about managing a company's social media presence. The generic designation is Social Media Manager or Director, who has a team that looks into various aspects of how business is publicized through social media, and how people respond to it.

What qualifications should an aspirant have?

A good knowledge of the domain area. If you are into creating textual content, then you should have good command over the language. A formal degree would no doubt add value; but what will matter is not the degree but how good are you at work.

How big is the demand?

Social media management is still evolving. The requirements of different companies are different. But the fact is that all companies are trying to scale up their social media presence. And, all of them are looking for competent hands. There is lot of opportunity out there. There is a huge demand.

How does one look for jobs?

Make sure you yourself have a good social media presence. Lot of recruitment nowadays take place via LinkedIn and Twitter.
Update your LinkedIn profile, with lot of details of what you do. Use the right key words, so that your profile shows up during search.

How good is the pay?

It's getting better and better. Right now, there are people who have been hired for around Rs 3 lakh. However, pay varies from company to company, and depends on what job you are actually doing. In about 3 years time, Social Media Managers can hope to be on a par with software programmers. 

Use and misuse of hashtag

The first time a hashtag was ever used was around 7 years ago. Today it's very common on Twitter updates and even on Facebook status messages. Some people use it even on WhatApp and SMS messages. And, it's very evident that not many people clearly understand what a hashtag means; and when and how to use it.

What is a hashtag?

It's nothing but a hash followed by a tag. The tag is a label, or key word(s) that indicate(s) a topic of discussion. So, hashtag comprises a word, or a group of words without space in between them, and prefixed with the hash symbol, #. (Wikipedia entry on hashtag)

For eg: #bbcworldcup, #BringBackOurGirls, #Firstboss

The hashtag was first used on Twitter, and works best there. It serves to group together messages on a particular topic. It makes it easy for people to search messages on that topic by entering the hashtag in the search box on Twitter.

But why have a hashtag when we can search for tweets by simply typing out a word or a phrase like we search for websites in Google?

That's right. If you want to search for all tweets on Obama, you can key in Obama in the search box and get all the tweets with the word Obama in them. So is the case with any other word or phrase. For example: healthcare, MH370, Iraq fighting etc. Indeed, you can search for tweets on Twitter exactly like you search for websites on Google.

Why use hashtag?

A news organization like the BBC or the New York Times, or institutions or advocacy groups, or individual Twitter users, may create a hashtag for an issue or an event. They publicize this hashtag, calling on people to use that hashtag with their tweets. The aim is to bunch all the tweets on that issue or event under one hashtag. It also helps people looking for tweets on a particular issue or event or a person.

For example: for the world cup football matches currently on in Brazil, BBC has created a hashtag #bbcworldcup, So all tweets on BBC related to the world cup has this hashtag. By tweeting with this hashtag, you also stand a chance of getting your tweets featured in the live stream on the BBC site.

The most famous hashtag in recent times was "#BringBackOurGirls". It was created after the abduction of over 200 schoolchildren by militants in Nigeria on April 14. (More from BBC)

There was intense debate online about who created the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag. The BBC, after a thorough check, says it was first used on April 23 by Ibrahim M Abdullahi, a lawyer in Nigeria. (More)

The BBC has some interesting statistics about the #BringBackOurGirls

The purpose of creating that hashtag was to group all tweets on this important incident under one label. Whether the online activism achieved anything tangible is still being debated.

Anyone can create a hashtag. For example, you can tweet about your first boss, with the hashtag #FirstBoss. Popularize it, and get people to tweet with this hashtag. So, if you search Twitter for this hashtag, you will get to see all tweets on this topic.

Wrong use of hashtag

Merely putting a hash sign in front of a word does not make that word a hashtag. It serves any purpose only if it's clickable. So, no point using it in WhatsApp messages and SMSes. Though it's most commonly used in Twitter, Facebook too lets you see a feed of all posts with a particular hashtag.

Remember this

• Hashtags should be as short as possible. Because, longer the hashtag, fewer will be characters in your tweet.

• If a hashtag has more than one word, then there shouldn't be any space between the words.

• It should be unique, or else it defeats the purpose of creating one.

• Hashtag works only on the website it has been used. You can search on Twitter hashtags that are used on Facebook.

Newspaper seen as credible source of information

Those days there were no apps, mobiles, computers, internet or 24x7 news coverage on a dozen television channels. After getting to know very briefly about news developments on All India Radio or Doordarshan, we had to wait for the next day's newspaper to know the details.

Cut to the present. The widespread belief is that fewer and fewer people, especially teenagers and youth, are interested in reading the newspaper. They, instead, turn to websites of their choice or apps on mobile phones or tablets.

The number of newspapers might dwindle, even substantially, over a period of time. But it may be too early to write their obituary.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend an open house of some readers of the newspaper I work for. And, in many ways it was an eye-opener. Some of the points I gleaned from the interaction were:

• Newspaper, especially the broadsheet format, is considered as the most credible source of information
• Children are not put off by the language. In fact, they look up to newspapers to learn new expressions and usages.
• Youngsters love to see colour and illustrations in newspapers.
• Few people think that newspapers should minimize or abandon their predominant serious role of informing and educating people, in favour of trivia and entertainment
• It's very difficult to understand what exactly readers want since they are interested in everything from local civic issues to international political developments.
• Web editions are mainly to check out the latest news developments. But there is huge demand for the e-paper format, the digital version of the physical paper. Because people want to see different sections and page numbers.

Even though lot of news is disseminated via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Buzzfeed, Reddit etc, most people turn to news organizations for confirmation. The web formats may be catching on, but for the average reader, the printed word on paper seems to still comes across with a stamp of authenticity. Just as movie houses have thrived, though in fewer numbers, in spite of DVDs and online, many years down the line, we would still see physical newspapers coexisting with the web and e-paper formats.

Cucumbertown: A recipe to bring chefs and foodies together

We are all familiar with companies founded in garages and wooden sheds. But here is one where the founders were sitting in their respective drawing rooms in three corners of the world – two in Bangalore, one in the US, and the other in Switzerland – and none of them had met the others.

There are a number of blogs on restaurants, dining and recipes. But, Cherian Thomas, a Bangalore-based foodie, realised that these blogs are restricted only to the tech-savvy community, since opening a blog and maintaining it requires some amount of knowledge in website management. It struck him that there isn’t a Facebook for cooks, like there is one for photographers or designers and Cucumbertown, a social network for chefs and foodies, was born.

“I used to cook with my brother from the time I was in 7th standard. Later, I realised that many housewives, mothers and grandmoms, besides many men who cook as a hobby, don’t have an online presence, because they are neither comfortable with writing a blog nor have adequate motivation to write long articles on food,” says Thomas, who is an engineer by profession. “So I thought I would devise a mechanism that will make it easy for everyone who is interested in cooking and recipes to have an online identity -- a community where foodies can easily exchange tips on cooking: that’s the premise of Cucumbertown.”

The site is simple to use. You can either log in with your Facebook username and password or create a new account. “Once you are onboard, you can search by ingredient, cuisine or cooking time, upload photos and write recipes, and share all that you cook,” says Thomas.

“I remember one of my friends saying that his grandmother knows a few good Konkani recipes, and he feared that those dishes might become extinct,” Thomas recalls. “Cucumbertown will not let them become extinct. On our site, you mingle with not only chefs and food bloggers, but also with a huge number of home cooks who might end up sharing a few family secrets as well. This is also a place where you can save your recipes for generations to come.”

Thomas, who is the CEO, had worked in Zynga and Support.com. The other three co-founders are CTO Arun Prabhakar who previously worked with Taggles and TutorVista; Chris Luscher, partner at InformationArchitects, a premier design firm in Zurich; and Dan Hauk, theme designer of Tumblr and co-founder of BrewTracker.

Thomas explains the importance of having world-class design experts as cofounders of the Cucumbertown: “For a consumer product, design is extremely important, as important as the website content, for users to keep coming back to the site. Secondly, we decided to work with professionals in America and Europe because we wanted to create a global product.”

Thomas says that Cucumbertown has users from 60 countries, the largest audience, after the US, is from Australia and the UAE. “Thanks to our site, we know of some interesting American-Arabic fusion recipes, created by Americans living in the Gulf. Sanaa A’esha, a user, says, “I spend half my days lookng for recipes, interesting food blogs and sharing my own personal creations. I would have thought of developing this site, if this hadn't come up.”

Cucumbertown raised a $300,000 seed round last year. The first round of investors included Naval Ravikant of AngelList, Paul Singh of 500 Startups, FarmVille co-creator Sizhao Zao Yang, founder of MightyText Maneesh Arora, early Google product guy Richard Chen and Sonique Player co-creator Tabreez Varjee.

(This article appeared in the Brainwave column of The Times of India, Bangalore, yesterday.)

Three cheers to our weather bureau

A proud moment for our weather scientists and India Meteorological Department who accurately forecast every detail of cyclone Phailin and saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Orissa. One may say that's their job, but given the poor reputation they have, they deserve a round of applause.

Meteorologists have always been the butt of jokes in our country. It's a pastime to look at the weather column and trash the forecast. Such is the disdain that if someone is planning a picnic, they check if there is a prediction of thundershowers!

The poor quality of prediction was never because of the lack of well-qualified meteorologists. India has some of the best scientists in the world. But they lacked state-of-the art technology to collect and analyse data. Thankfully, there's been change. Weather men say they now have good computer-backed systems for data analysis and forecast. And, we have seen the result.

In the runup to Phailin, our weather scientists were criticised by their counterparts abroad for underestimating the magnitude of Phailin. While IMD forecast a maximum wind speed of 220 kmph, western weather centres put the figure at 315 kmph. A noted meteorologist, Eric Holthaus, was quoted as saying, "Phailin is already worse than what the IMD is forecasting. A recent satellite estimate put Phailin's current intensity on par with 2005's Hurricane Katrina... I feel that IMD's underestimate of the strength and impact of this storm is potentially tragic and could catch many millions of people off guard." Katrina hit the US coast in 2005 killing over 1,800 people.

The western commentators seemed to have been bound by their stereotypical perception of India. Our meteorologists stuck to their assessment. Following up on their forecast, our National Disaster Management Authority in association with state and central governments did a commendable job of moving close to 9 lakh people to safety and reducing significantly the loss of human lives. Finally, our forecast turned out to be spot on.

It was good to see our weather scientists and disaster management officials getting their well-deserved prime-time coverage on all national news channels last night.

Incidentally, the India Meteorolgical Department has a very good website. It has a Facebook page too, and it has close to 7,000 Likes.

Time to take our weathermen seriously. No jokes, please.

Shutting petrol pumps and #MoilyIdeas

Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily's idea of shutting down petrol pumps at 8 pm in order to save fuel consumption, shows how befuddled the central political and administrative machinery in the country is, on improving the economy. (The original story in Indian Express & in Epaper). It's difficult to even understand the logic behind this bizarre thought.

Very few petrol pumps are open late in the night, and fewer open round the clock. Most petrol pumps anyway shut by 10 pm. Never heard of people filling up petrol and going on long drives in the night just because they saw fuel stations are open after 8 pm. Wonder how much Moily thought the oil companies would save by closing these pumps 2 hours early.

If at all such a restriction comes into place, one, people will fill more petrol in the hours when the pumps are open. Two, people who need fuel on emergency will be put to great hardship. Three, a remote possibility of vested interests hoarding petrol and selling it near stations illegally at a higher price for people who are caught unawares and need fuel urgently after 8 pm.

Moily's remark has led to a flood of comments on Twitter with the hash tag #Moilyideas. It was trending for a while yesterday. But the tweets are still pouring in here.

Here are some of them:

Nikhil Narayanan ‏@nikhilnarayanan
"Boss, I need to leave by 7 today. Gotta fill fuel" ~ Possible office-talk, thanks to #moilyideas 

Mocking Bard ‏@Spooferman_ 
People are getting fat. Please shut down restaurants between 8am and 8pm.

IndiaFirst ‏@NiketNabriya1
Government bans sex from 8pm to 8am to conrol population explosion! 

Faking News ‏@fakingnews
BREAKING: ATMs to close down by 8 PM to arrest the slide of rupee

Gaurav Sabnis ‏@gauravsabnis
After 8 pm, women traveling alone in cars should walk on the streets instead.

Now Moily says the idea to shut down pumps came from the public and not from the government.

Everyone, including people in government, know that there's not control on fuel consumption for government vehicles. The common logic is that since it comes free, why bother. That attitude has to change, because that's where the maximum wastage occurs.

Secondly, limit free trips and travel allowances for government functionaries.

Thirdly, remove the subsidy for diesel. Or if that could add to inflation, then have differential pricing mechanism for it.

I am sure people are willing to take the hard measures, provided they see that the government itself is setting an example.

Not all autorickshaw drivers are bad

Autorickshaw drivers are a much-maligned lot. Very rarely do we come across one who is not rude or arrogant. But there are exceptions, which give us the much-needed hope.

The following is a Facebook post by Rita Senthil Selvaraj, who works with Cognizant Technology Solutions, posted in the last 24 hours.

I was for sure lucky today..
took an auto from koramangala to yemlur(my house), in between it started raining heavy. somehow i reached home safely and the driver u see in photo dropped me till the door step so that i don't get drenched. I was so excited to see baby that i made the payment and left my iPhone 4 (Gifted by my hubby on my birthday) in the auto..
after almost 35 mins I thought of making a call to my parents and here i don't find my phone. my hubby Senthil Selvaraj called from his cell to trace the phone n luckily the auto driver had kept the phone safe with him which he received.. he was dropping someone to whitefield but he promised that he will return the phone after the drop.. imagine heavy rain and the driver was so kind and honest that he dint think of his comfort.. he was not carrying any phone of his own. it took almost 1 hr for him to come back.. we generally dont trust auto drivers as they keep asking extra money, late night work and what not.. so with that mentality we used find friend and find my iPhone apps to trace the phone and the route of my iphone was sure to my house.. in that heavy rain he did come home and returned my phone..
We should seriously appreciate such people on earth.. and we do.. this auto driver's name is Zamir auto number KA 03 9847.. Thanks Zamir for being so honest and trustworthy.. and also to be a reason of making my day lucky.. 

Not all absent-minded people forget their phones in autorickshaws. And, rarely finders take the trouble to return the phone to the owner. Zamir's effort needs to be lauded. Hope we have many more people like him.

How to remote log out

If you headed home from office, without logging out of Facebook or Gmail, you can do so from anywhere using the ‘remote log out’ feature.

In Facebook, click on the tiny gear sign on the top right of the page, go to ‘account settings’ and then to ‘security’ on the left pane. Under ‘security settings’, click on ‘active sessions’.

No one else might be using your account, but you would not have logged out of Facebook, leaving the session active. Anyone can gain access to your account in such circumstances. To remote log out, click on ‘end activity’.

In Gmail, at the bottom right side of the page, you will see details of your latest email access. If someone else is simultaneously using your account, you will see a notification there.

Click on the ‘Details’ link below it. A new window opens, with a notification on whether the account is simultaneously open elsewhere. Like in the case of FB, you might not have logged out of the account, leaving it active. If so, you will see an option to ‘log out of all sessions’. It also shows you the details of your previous 10 accesses to the account.

How to declutter your Facebook news feed

If you have many friends or followers on your social network, it’s only natural that your news feed is cluttered. You are either swarmed with photos and videos; or you miss the all-important updates from the people you really care about. Social media makes better sense if you are organized.

Be selective while accepting friend requests. There is no obligation to ‘confirm’, since, even if you don’t, he or she will remain subscribed to your public posts.

Even if you have 1,000 friends on Facebook, you can still have your small private corners to share photos and status updates. They are called Lists.

Facebook, by default, provides three lists: Close Friends, Acquaintances and Restricted. A few others like family, your workplaces and schools, are automatically created, depending upon the details you add to your profile.

To see the lists, go to “Friends” on the left pane of the home page. You can create your own lists as well, like “Party pals”, “Teachers” etc. When you upload photos, make them visible to one or more lists, so that only people in those lists will see them. The same applies to your posts.

In Facebook, contacts added to ‘Close friends’ show up more often on News Feed.

In Twitter too, you can make Lists. Categorize people you follow like Celebrities, Friends, News organizations, etc. This will help if you are following too many people on Twitter.

Freedom of choice -- to igonre

Controversies over tweets and Facebook posts are nothing new. It’s been there for over a decade, ever since the advent of web 2.0 that gave us tools to publish, broadcast and telecast whatever we wanted to tell the world. Earlier, controversies were around blog posts. There have been numerous cases of netizens losing jobs, being served legal notice for defamation, threatened, forced to take down posts etc.

Information -- an objective statement of fact or a biased personal view -- exists either in the private or public domain. When only known number of people are aware of what is said or discussed, then that is in the private domain. For example, letters, phone calls, emails, SMSs etc between two people or amongst a group of people. But, when communication happens amongst countless number of people, it is in the public domain. And that's where all the problems lie.

Earlier, defamation and libel cases were only related to what was published in books, magazines or newspapers or what was broadcast on radio or telecast on television. Most of the communication then was in the private domain. But today, arguably, we spend a lot of time talking to the world at large -- uploading status messages and comments, besides pictures and videos. Perhaps what is forgotten in the process is, there is a huge number of people -- most of them strangers, unlike in the private domain -- reading and listening to what is being said.

There is an old adage: "My freedom ends where your freedom begins". This makes eminent sense when two people communicate with each other, or in such private-domain interactions, where "I" and "you" are known entities. But does this adage hold good in today's changed communication paradigm?

Facebook has come to symbolize the new communication structure -- a lot of supposedly private and personal information and views are broadcast, knowingly or unknowingly, to the whole world in the public domain. The virtually unbridled freedom of expression that everyone has to express their views has forced us to adopt a new way to tackle the torrent of comments.

Facebook is also about a new freedom of choice -- where you choose to ignore. When friend requests from people  you aren't quite bothered about come, ignore. If for some reason, you are compelled to add them, then make list of people you want to follow, and ignore the rest. There is the 'hide' option, where you can choose not to see the types of posts you don't like. You can customize the news feed option: choose to ignore what you don't like.

Where is the compulsion to read and react to everything in the public domain? Ignore. Just as I may not make favourable comments always, why should I make unfavourable comments whenever I see something I don't like? Ignore.

Inundated with so much information in the public domain, the freedom of choice that I seem to exercise nowadays is to ignore. There may be limits to freedom to my expression; but thankfully, no one has curtailed my freedom to ignore. That's an absolute freedom I enjoy.

(Crossposted from Kaleidoscope)

Personal computers are not dying

Desktops may be on their deathbed but definitely not any other personal computing device.

The original definition of PC referred to desktops, the complete set of CPU, monitor, keyboard, speakers, modem and voltage stabilizer. Now desktops have shrunk to laptops and netbooks (notebooks). PCs are seen different from smartphones and tablet; though mobile devices are highly personal and effective computing devices.  
 
The talk of imminent death of PCs is evidently prompted by the ever-growing popularity of mobile phones. Many people have two phones, or a phone and a tablet. But it’s no argument that personal computers, to mean laptops and netbooks, are dying.
 
In spite of all the advantages, mobile devices have their flip side. One, small user interface, because of the screen size. A 14- or 16-inch monitor of a laptop is definitely not the same as a 4-inch mobile screen. Higher dimensions of 5, 7 and 10 inch screens are a shade better. Besides, wider screens are easy on the eye.
 
Two, mobile devices generally work well for quick work on the go; a multitasking device that lets you talk, text, check mails and Facebook, send a one-line reply, do a web search, etc. But if you want to watch a 3-hour movie or live streaming of a sports event, or read or type a long document, the wider screen and broad keyboard of a laptop is more comfortable.
 
Three, screen navigation is easier when it comes to keyboard and mouse. Be it opening multiple tabs or copy-pasting text or working on photos or playing games, the superior user experience of a laptop is undeniable.
 
PC shipments in India grew by 4.9 per cent to 2.99 million units in July-September period of the current year over the previous quarter, according to global market intelligence and advisory services provider IDC. Even the netbook with 10-inch screen and much lower processing capacity compared to the laptop, was supposed to have flopped but that’s not the case. Many people possess both netbook and laptop, and use each for different purposes.
 
But it is a fact that PC shipments have slowed over the past few years. One, most people have a laptop. So the boom-time, first-acquisition numbers have tapered. Two, with tablets and other options, use of laptops have reduced, making them last longer. So, the replacement-buy is delayed.
 
Personal computers will be around for some time. Multiple devices is the norm -- each being used for a specific purpose. Nevertheless, a time may come when the nascent convertibles, a cross between mobile phones and laptops with detachable keyboards, would replace laptops. But that is quite some time away. At least now, it’s too premature to say PCs are dying.

(Crossposted from Kaleidoscope)

Gaming company Zynga aims high on mobile phones

From playing alone, to playing against a computerized opponent, to now playing against real people, be they friends or strangers: it's a whole new genre of social games. The biggest boost it got in recent times was arguably the epidemic spread of Farmville over Facebook. And Zynga can claim some credit, for it was their creation.

One of the leading players in the industry, Zynga says it aims at connecting the world through games across multiple platforms and devices. Apart from Facebook, gaming enthusiasts, now can have access to their games anytime and anywhere on several mobile-enabled platforms giving mobile game developers the opportunity to grow tremendously.

It has a growing portfolio of mobile social games for both iOS and Android including recently launched Draw Something, Scramble With Friends, Dream Pethouse and Dream Heights.

In Bangalore, Zynga has its second biggest studio in the world, after the one at their headquarters in San Francisco. It opened in 2011, and a lot of mechanisms and features across an array of the most popular games are developed in Bangalore. Zynga India has more than 200 engineers and creative professionals.

Sean Uberoi Kelly, Vice President of Product Development at Zynga, was in the Bangalore studio recently. Here are the excerpts from an interview:

On Zynga’s new strategyOne of our philosophies is to go where the audience wants us to go. People are increasingly playing games on mobile devices, and now we are striving to have a big presence there. We launched a number of mobile titles in the last few quarters.

We acquired Draw Something, we launched last year Scramble with Friends. Another is Zombie Smash which which has come out on Android. We think Android is a great platform and we have a number of games on Google play.

As people are getting connected through smarter and smarter phones such as the iOS and Android ecosystems, they are also looking for new ways to be social through games.

The mobile presence
Zynga has been on mobile devices since 2010. Our first mobile game was Farmville on the iOS platform, and since then we have produced many games. We have more than 21 million active users on mobile devices. 

Factors spurring mobile gamesStrategically, we have seen three factors that have contributed to the success of mobile games. One, the app economy. Different platforms allow different experiences to be launched from them. It's not just about the browsers. There are now other capabilities like touch.

Secondly, we have a new business model that is the user-pay economy. Here the users don’t have to buy a game upfront. Our games are free, but if a user wants to play at a higher level, or derive more fun out of it, or if he wants to buy some goodies, then he can pay for them.

The third is the new set of devices that enable people connect socially. They allow you to connect with your friends. Like Words with Friends. I may not call up my friend every day to talk to him, but I can play games with him, that is more fun way to keeping in touch. This is a trend we think will grow in the years to come.

Web vs mobile
We look at mobiles as a unique space. We don’t believe that just because a game is right for the web, we should automatically put it on the mobiles. because there is a lot of difference in the way we interact with our friends on the mobiles.

On mobiles you can play anywhere. Secondly, on the mobile you tend to play more and in a different way. A game on a PC may be one that you play during your coffee break. But on a mobile you could be playing while walking down the hall or just for a minute on your way back home, or just before you sleep. Also, you can get in and out quickly out of mobile games, unlike on a PC.

Limitations of mobile appsA mobile screen that is only as big as a business card, is a huge challenge for a developer and designer. The interface has to be different. But mobile devices have grown impressively. Like they now have hardware accelerators, and you get experiences comparable to what you would get on a laptop screen. So technology hasn't been a really obstacle.

The India story
india is important to us in two ways. As a technology company we have a lot of developers. We have now a private cloud in addition to the public cloud, and India has been a major contributor to the development of the private cloud.

We do a lot of analytics here. We track data and get valuable info on how games are being played. And we also do a lot of software work here that helps us run our business well.

Six of Zynga’s global games are operated from the Bangalore studio. They are: Empires and Allies, Mafia Wars, YoVille, Treasure Isle, FishVille and Vampire Wars. The two latest mobile games developed in Bangalore are: CityVille HomeTown and Dream Zoo.

Bangalore, the only studio in India, is cross functional; meaning, we have the technology team here, there is the gaming team here and also a business team here. That is not the case usually in an external environment. but the technology infrastructure in Bangalore is so good that we are able to grow faster here.

Third-party initiativesIt’s not necessary that we should make all the games. We have announced some third-party initiatives. We recently launched our own platform zynga.com that will enable players to discover and play social games created by third party game developers. There are six publishers who have lined up with games for that platform. We will only be happy to connect with others.

(This article appeared in The Times of India, Bangalore, today)

Living with multiple identities

Recently I got a Facebook request from Roby S, my schoolmate. I was surprised, because he is already my friend. Why was adding me again? The profile photo was similar. The ‘About’ column too matched. Was it someone else who had stolen Roby’s identity and playing mischief?

So, I sent Roby a message seeking a clarification. He replied saying he had an FB account opened with his official ID. Later he discontinued it, and opened one with his personal ID. Now, he decided to revive his FB account opened with his official ID after he came to know that some friends whom he had added there, had sent him messages to which he hadn’t replied.

There was another case of Vini. Her earlier email ID was on Hotmail, and she had opened an FB account with it. Later, she dumped her Hotmail ID and moved to Gmail, and she opened another FB account with the Gmail ID. Now there are FB accounts of hers, confusing her friends no end.

Should Roby and Vini have opened another FB account? No. Even if your email ID has got hacked, you needn’t dump the FB account opened with it. Just add another valid email ID to your existing FB account and delink the hacked email ID from it.

You can link multiple email IDs to one Facebook account and use any of them to log in. You can even use your phone number as login ID if you have added it.

To add another email ID to your FB, click on the downward arrow beside ‘Home’ on top right corner, click on ‘account settings’, click on ‘Edit’ against Email, and click on ‘add another email address’. It will get activated, after you click on the verification link sent to the email ID you added. Just as you add, you can remove email IDs as well.

LinkedIn works the same way. There’s no need to another account, just because you have changed your default email ID.

Of course, there are cases where people do have two FB accounts. But that’s when they want to have two sets of identities -- like one account that can be accessed by acquaintances. colleagues etc; and another more personal one that can be accessed only by family members and very close friends.

Similar is the case with email accounts. Suppose you have three email IDs, used for different purposes, they can be accessed at one place. All major email clients like Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail allow forwarding emails to another ID. They also allow you to open different email ID that’s linked to the original one, and you can toggle between them.

Gmail also lets you reply from a non-Gmail ID from within Gmail. Meaning, you can send a mail from your Yahoo! ID, say abc@yahoo.com, via Gmail. The recipient of your email will see it as sent from your Yahoo ID, but via Gmail. These can be done by going to ‘Mail Settings’.

Cyberspace lets your different identities easily co-exist.

(This article appeared in my Wireless World column in The Times of India, Bangalore, today.)

Build your family tree on web

Online networking platforms, like Facebook and Google Plus, have expanded not only our friends’ circle; but also our family circle. There have been instances when the friend request was actually from a long-lost distant cousin, with whom you had indulged in many a childhood prank during your summer-holiday visits to his house!

Knowing 50 family members is not the same as knowing 50 friends, because, unlike the latter, we also need to know how they are related to us. And that’s no easy task: one, because of the large number of relatives we have got to know through networking sites, and two, it’s simply impossible to remember how someone is related, especially if it goes something like: “she is my father’s brother’s son’s wife’s mother’s sister’s daughter”!

The web, as always, has the solution. Make a family tree, of not just 50 members but even 200 or more. It was in late 1990s that attempts were first made to draw on the power of internet to help people trace their family lineage. Ancestry.com, which owns many related sites, is said to be the world’s largest genealogy company in the world. It’s a paid site.

However, there are now many free online family tree websites that are very user-friendly. Geni.com, Myheritage.com, Tribalpages.com and Familyecho.com are a few. Some of them become paid if you have to add beyond a specific number of members.

Most of these have similar features. Begin by opening an account either with a dedicated login and password or by using your Facebook account. Enter names of your parents, siblings, spouse, and keep adding to make the tree bigger and bigger.

There are many attractive features that make these sites interesting to work on. You can add photos and personal details like date of birth, wedding date, email ID etc. You can create a family newsletter so that everyone is updated about all the family events. You can indicate if the person is alive or deceased.

You can invite family members to open their own account and you can merge their trees with your tree. When trees are merged, there could be “conflicts”, meaning, the same person could be referred to by different names or have different spellings. In such cases, the software will identify and suggest you to resolve the conflict by picking one name that you like.

You can search people in your family tree; and the best part is, the software figures out how you two are related, and shows the names and relationship of everyone who is in the chain. For example, your relationship with E will be shown as: “You →  A your father →  B his mother →  C her sister →  D her daughter → E her daughter.”

Such sites are useful in these times, when families are nuclear and scattered; and the newer generations have lesser and lesser knowledge about family lineage and relationships.

(This article appeared in Wireless World column of The Times of India, Bangalore, today)

Measure your cyber-fame

There are no introverts online. A few comments, a few likes, a few followers -- you gain a strange sense of accomplishment and self-confidence. Yet, some remain cocooned in cyberspace, using it as an eternal refuge from real-life claustrophobia. For others, it’s a launch pad for many a real-life venture.

Most cyber-beings are bitten by the self-promotion bug at one point or another. It manifests in various ways (filling up an elaborate profile, putting up photos of oneself and family) and for various reasons (letting oneself known to others, making friends or for business promotion). Cyber-fame is key to leveraging the full potential of one’s online existence, be it on blogs or networking sites.

You need to work your way to it, though arguably it’s easier than in real-life.
One, make sure you blog on topical issues; two, regularly post updates; three, network by visiting blogs, liking updates, and leaving comments; four, link your blog to networking sites so that each time you have fresh post, your friends see it on their timeline; and five, revive contacts by messaging.

No of hits, friends and comments fair indicators of your online popularity. Blogger, Wordpress, YouTube etc have an in-built device to let you know the number of visitors. Or else, you can let sites like Blog Counter or Sitemeter do that by signing up and placing an HTML code on your blog.

The credibility of the number of comments depends on the nature of comments, because not all could be relevant, and there could be spams.

Now, you have sites that combine your presence, activity and contacts on various platforms and calculate your influence. One of the popular sites is Klout. Another one is Peer Index. Both work on similar lines, though Klout assesses your influence on a broader scale. Sign in with your Twitter or Facebook login and password; and add to it all your networking sites.

Klout Score measures your influence on a scale of 1 to 100, and takes into consideration Comments, Wall Posts, Likes, Mentions, Reshares etc. It measures your Reach (number of people you influence within your network and across extended networks), Amplification (how likely your audience will respond to your actions) and Impact (the influence of your audience).

Klout also will tell your style from among 16 possibilities -- a Conversationalist, Networker, Observer, Pundit etc. The score can be tweeted and shared on networks to publicize your fame and influence.

The authenticity and credibility of such online indices are debatable, but recently, a matchmaking site Tawkify announced that it would consider members’ Klout score when pairing them with each other for dates.

(This article appeared in Wireless World column of The Times of India, Bangalore, today)

There’s nothing private online

From the password you type to access email, to the texts and photos you put up on social networking sites -- they are all visible to someone other than you. Theoretically, that is. Practically, of course, there are institutionalized safeguards to prevent data from being accessed.

But, how much privacy can Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft etc ensure? After all, our data are on their server, right? And, for free, in most of cases!

We define privacy differently online. Offline, private means, only I have access to it. But online, we trust the owner of the server where our data is, and we co-opt him into our personal space. This handing over of data to a trusted guardian will become the norm as we move more and more to the cloud.

While we fret about privacy, we have no qualms about proclaiming either to the entire world via Twitter or to our “Friends” via Facebook and similar sites, our location, our travel plans, what articles we read, our political views, our religious faith etc. (By the way, in the days of yore, “Friends” were people whom we knew very closely and whom we trusted. No longer!)

The most we can secure our privacy is to not let our browser know which sites we visited, by using “Incognito window” in Chrome or “Private Browsing” in Internet Explorer and Firefox. But it isn’t as private as one may think -- it only prevents history of websites visited from being saved on the browser, and prevents cookies being placed on the computer. Even with private browsing, service provider can track websites and malicious software can get implanted.

Privacy issue has grown alongside the shift that has taken place in the way we communicate. We have moved from “person(s) to person(s)” communication to putting up data in a central place that is accessible to many people. Now, you don’t send information, instead others access your information. Earlier, email was the way you shared photos. Now, you put them up on a site (cloud), where others view it. The problem here is, not all of us are careful what information should be made accessible to whom; with the result, all info becomes visible to all people!

And people whom you may not even know may get to see the info. For example, if on Facebook I Like a photo put up by SMJ, that photo will reflect on the feed of my friends all of whom may not know who SMJ is. Why should strangers get to see SMJ’s photo, even though SMJ originally made the photo visible only to her friends?

Privacy issues are tricky. If you are too fussy about privacy, never put anything personal online!

(This appeared in the Wireless World column of The Times of India, Bangalore, today)

Virtual pinboard gets into news feed

Six months ago, very few of us had heard about a site called Pinterest. But Friday last, cyberspace was abuzz after "The 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report” reported that Pinterest was the third-most visited social networking site by people in the US, after Facebook and Twitter. The report also said that 60% of visitors to the site are females and 55% in the 25-44 age group.

Pinterest, development of which began in 2009, is a virtual pinboard (or a notice board, as the Brits would say) on which you can pin interesting items. It could be photos of animals like puppies or decorative items like wall hangings, or nature like mountains or culinary delights. To join you have to send a request or you can join by responding to an invite sent by someone on Pinterest. You can also connect Facebook and Twitter accounts.

There are three ways you can pin: “add a pin” by pasting the URL of site where you found the item or “upload a pin” from a folder in your computer. Also, you can have a ‘pin it bookmarklet’ on your browser, and each time you find an interesting website, you can pin that by clicking on the bookmarklet. Only a website with a photo on it can be pinned.

The site works like Twitter or Google Plus -- others can follow your pin; you can follow others’ pins; you can repin what you find on others’ sites; you can “like” pins of others; and you can comment on others’ pins.

But, who has time for another networking site and why is it catching on?

One, it’s a visual medium, which tends to be more popular. Two, like FB, it’s a place to publicize and discover new ideas. Three, it is a social marketing medium: if you are, say, an interior decorator, you can see the latest trends just as you can publicise your innovations. And, four, this is not a Flickr-like site where you upload your pics and share it among friends. Pinterest combines elements of Facebook and Twitter.

A random check shows that the site has some following in India; and the fact that some well-known websites already have a “Pin it” button on their pages, indicates that the site is gaining some traction here.

Will Pinterest pose a threat to Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and Yahoo!? It may not, since this looks like a niche site that is to do with style, decor and such visual aspects; unlike the other four that are more broad based with many facets to them.

Still, the established giants -- even while competing among themselves -- will have to take notice of cyberbeings’ new interest to pin items.

(This was published in the Wireless World column in The Times of India, Bangalore, today)