Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Should you let Kids Use iPads?
Steve Jobs didn't let his kids use iPads (as per this website) - even though he invented them himself. A lot of parents might want to follow him. "Especially in Silicon Valley, there is actually a trend of tech execs and engineers who shield their kids from technology." The claim is that technological addiction prevents kids minds from becoming creative "setting up our children for incomplete, handicapped lives devoid of imagination, creativity and wonder when we hook them onto technology at an early age."
To me this is an extremely biased and dystopian view of technology exposure - though it is nothing new - the same type of concerns were raised few decades ago for TV and before that even for newspapers.
My view is that it depends on how and what kind of exposure you give your kids. For ex. kids today already know the whole ABC, 123, almost all poems by the age of two. This is all thanks to nicely made kids rhyme videos which you can play in abundance thanks to YouTube. They not only know the poem Baba black sheep, they also knows what the 'black sheep' looks like. That in my view is awesome, and I wouldn't trade this childhood for the one which I had sans technology, sans Internet.
You may argue that as of now it's all guided and controlled learning for tiny tots until they operate the tablet themselves. It may be scary when kids starts using it on their own and get exposed to the bad and ugly side of the Internet. That's an important point and we should keep Internet and Tech exposure guided for a long time - almost well into their teens.
And then, even as we start getting worried about the ill effects of using virtual world on children's phsychology, products like Osmo emerge [see video above]. This takes creativity to the next level, blending the use of tech with Human abilities of random heuristic thinking and learning. The tagline of Osmo is - Play out of the Box - and it indeed does that.
In summary, technology today is as good or as bad as the video games or TV was in our growing up years or newspapers, magazines and radio were to our parents' generation. It can help develop you as an individual if used in the right way avoiding any excesses.
To me this is an extremely biased and dystopian view of technology exposure - though it is nothing new - the same type of concerns were raised few decades ago for TV and before that even for newspapers.
My view is that it depends on how and what kind of exposure you give your kids. For ex. kids today already know the whole ABC, 123, almost all poems by the age of two. This is all thanks to nicely made kids rhyme videos which you can play in abundance thanks to YouTube. They not only know the poem Baba black sheep, they also knows what the 'black sheep' looks like. That in my view is awesome, and I wouldn't trade this childhood for the one which I had sans technology, sans Internet.
You may argue that as of now it's all guided and controlled learning for tiny tots until they operate the tablet themselves. It may be scary when kids starts using it on their own and get exposed to the bad and ugly side of the Internet. That's an important point and we should keep Internet and Tech exposure guided for a long time - almost well into their teens.
And then, even as we start getting worried about the ill effects of using virtual world on children's phsychology, products like Osmo emerge [see video above]. This takes creativity to the next level, blending the use of tech with Human abilities of random heuristic thinking and learning. The tagline of Osmo is - Play out of the Box - and it indeed does that.
In summary, technology today is as good or as bad as the video games or TV was in our growing up years or newspapers, magazines and radio were to our parents' generation. It can help develop you as an individual if used in the right way avoiding any excesses.
2013
The year started with a Baby Shower in mid January, after which Divya went to her parent's place - beginning a persistent nomadic life for me for more than 6 months. I would dash through the week, managing groceries, maids and bills and run off to either Indore or Pune over weekends to spend alternate weekends with Divya or my parents. If there were weekends when I would be in Mumbai, there would be enough office work piled over to catch up.
I spent several train and bus journeys working on my laptop sitting in awkward positions, and being the source of the dim (and for my co-passengers - irritating -) light emanating from my laptop screen. I have been on con-calls at all kinds of odd places - the hospital, highway Dhabas, on way to Mumbai-Pune expressway and Food Plaza on the expressway near Lonavla. Also spent several Monday's coming back from work and going straight to the bed.
To cut the story short - along the way Navyaa was born, adding a few joyous sleepless Saturday nights as well, when I was at Indore and she wouldn't sleep the whole night. Both me and Divya would try till wee hours of the morning, finally giving up and handing over the baton to Divya's mother.
Sometime in June, it seemed that this "travel" rush would end when Divya would return to Mumbai; but the ship's course suddenly went into a reroute. We fixed Abhi's marriage on the very next day of Navyaa's naming ceremony and the circle started again - trips to Pune helping my parents plan for the wedding. And so it went all the way till the marriage in December.
The last 3 months have been tiring, and more so trying - while the preparation of marriage was midway - I lost my beloved grandmother. I was her eldest grandson, and probably the most loved; she meant a lot to me - in more ways than being a grandmother. This was my first close personal loss and made me realize the importance of spiritual awakening in life. Truth to be told, I realized that I am far away from being what the Gita calls [Chapter 12, Verse 13-14] - "समदुःखसुखः क्षमी" - "alike in grief and joy".
While my life took these several turns, almost like a bus crossing a circuitous route filled with ghats - public life in India has also seen a lot of change, not necessarily in 2013, but definitely in the past 3 years. 2013 in particular saw the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, the man who has defined so much for India since the 90s, a man whose career graph can also be said to be analogous to that of the Indian economy.
The past few years have seen a lot of icons of the last 50 years pass away - Bollywood legends like Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Yash Chopra; parallel music icons maestros like Manna Dey, Jagjit Singh; the world lost Nelson Mandela this year. It is as if, the first few years of the 2010 decade are trying to wake us up to the fact that the new millennium is already 10% over and its time for the old guard to retire and a new guard to take over.
This is not all - we saw the rise of people's movements across the globe from Syria to Egypt to Turkey; even a communist, authoritarian and centrally controlled China saw public outburst against Bo Xilai turning him from a modern day warlord to a corrupt criminal. There was groundswell in America as well for Barack Obama, as was the public outburst in UK against Gordon Brown. India saw the rise of public protests over apathy of politicians towards key issues like women's safety and widespread corruption - a groundswell which led to the formation of the 'Aam Aadmi Party' (AAP), which is poised to turn tables in the next general election in 2014 in the world's largest democracy.
These two threads of my personal life and developments in public life have been intertwining in my mind in the last few days and there's a voice which calls out ....
the days of trying are over, take control, your time is here;
the days of taking comfort in being an apprentice are over;
the old guard is no more there to guide you,
beware life is uncharted territory now;
the world is your playground now,
but it is no more a child's play;
Rise up to the occasion, or fade into oblivion,
Shut up and live a life of silent comfort
or have your say and save the day.
2014 clearly looks to me as a watershed - I hope, it will mark a point where a whole generation will mature to take control and another will fade away into past, yet, taking solace in the knowledge that the world is now entrusted into better hands!
Amen.
Lessons from an evening in Ladakh
As luck would have it, we reached the monastery just when it started getting dark (after which usually the doors are closed to visitors), but chanced to get entry into the main gate. However, to my disappointment, the doors of the main temple were closed by the time we climbed up. We were about to turn back when my brother spotted a young lama, in his teens, looking down from his room in the premises of the monastery towards us. My brother quickly ran up to him and asked him if the temple could be opened.
I had started tying up my shoe laces again, expecting a nigh in reply - but to my surprise the young lama agreed, and came to open the temple door. We went inside, prayed and then when we were about to leave, the lama called up to come up to their rooms. The rooms were built exactly like the Mumbai Chawls - smallish and side by side; each room meant for one student lama. The small size also possibly helped to keep them warmer in the extreme cold weather of Ladakh.
When we went up, it was getting dark and as is usual in Ladakh, the temperature was dropping a degree every few minutes. The young lama called us in, and then started heating some tea for us - we were pleasantly surprised! We also saw another boy, with Caucasian features, sitting in the same room. On talking to him we discovered he was an Italian student and had come to Ladakh as a tourist. But he had become good friends with our host and had been living with him since past few months.
The young lama was a Ladakh resident, he studied Buddhism as it is preached in Ladakh - he was studying to become a priest and looking at the thickness of the books in his room, it looked like a uphill task requiring extreme discipline of mind and the soul - the physical hardships of living an ascetic's life being apart! I wondered if this young boy even knew about the world outside of Ladakh and more importantly the "joys of life" outside the monastery. If he knew what it meant to live in a city, what night life was, how much and what all he could learn if he logged on the internet, what was the fun in watching movies etc. Probably, for him ignorance was bliss - but I also wondered if he was lucky not to be exposed to all these distractions of the worldly life and to be without being exposed to them, pushed comfortably into an ascetic life; or was it unfortunate that he would become an ascetic without ever discovering what he was missing (or what he was not missing or what troubles he was escaping), by becoming an ascetic.
Philosophy aside, today when I reminisce back on that evening of a few hours, I figured that I learnt many things that day:
- Life gives you chances only if you dare to take them. We could have walked back that day without even entering the temple, leave alone have a unique experience of seeing a lama's little alcove from inside and having tea with him and his Italian friend - but for the chance that my brother took of running upto him for permission.
- When you ask, you often get more than what you ask for! We simply wanted to enter the temple and pray to Maitreya Buddha - the deity of Thiksey Gompa. But the lord blessed us with a bonus experience which none of us would forget for life.
- Life is all about odd experiences! Had we just gone to the Monastery once or during day time, we would have clicked a snap there, remembered the place as a beautiful building and forgotten. But with the unique experience we had - we will never forget the place and the unique hospitality.
- Rules are not always universal. Yes there was a rule that one doesn't enter the monastery after dark, yes there's a rule that the lamas do not usually interact with tourists - but both were broken that day. And it didn't feel unholy in any way. The world is composed of two kinds of rules - the ones made by nature - which if broken lead to disaster, but the second set of rules (which are far larger in number and pervade our lives more multifariously) are made by humans, and these rules can be broken. In fact, such rules also need to be broken once in a while to set into motion a new order of the world - that thought of course is worth a full blog post sometime else.
- Its not about how much money you have or who you are, its always about being in the right place at the right time. Here I let out a secret - part of the reason the lama was generous to us was because my brother was posted in Ladakh then, and he hence could relate to him in some manner. Yet, possibly even an Amitabh Bacchan could not have landed into this kind of an experience as we did. It was sheer stroke of luck! So in conclusion - life is all about taking your chances!
The fact that I am writing about this small incident after more than 18 months is testimony to how deeply it is now imprinted on my memories.
End of Expressway - 4 days ahead :-)
Since then, my schedule has been pre-decided for every weekend - a compulsory travel to Indore every fortnight, and spending many (or rather most) in between weekends in Pune with my parents (except the few when they came over or I had too much office work piled up to manage a Pune trip). So much so that, this Friday, when I told the maid to come on a Saturday, she gave me the look for the boss who asks you to work during a pre-approved leave!
Anyway - the expressway ends finally! This is my last weekend alone - the next weekend, I travel to Indore but to get Divya and Navyaa back, though to Pune first and in a week or two to Mumbai. Finally! And I am not just relieved but almost ecstatic - how life changes you!
I had contemplated that living alone would be something I'd enjoy - after all I enjoyed all my bachelor days! But I hadn't imagined that living as a Bachelor before marriage is as enjoyable as unpleasant the same is after you get used to a Grihast (ग्रहस्त) lifestyle.
For starters, the whole charade of managing the maids, the bills, the presswallah, and other routine - alone - is quite gruesome. Second, you (at least I) can no more tolerate as much outside food as you used to (possibly a sign of ageing :-| ), which as a corollary means you should take care of the chores of buying grocery etc every week - but this time, all alone, without anyone to help or even accompany you. I recollect, I had met a friend's friend at the wedding, who was still a bachelor, and since I was yet to "start" my new bachelor life then, and to his credit, he had warned me about all this while we were chatting at the airport on our way back.
The second part of the problem comes from your habits and those of your friends - which have changed. I can't really put a finger to it - but due to a combination of the fact that I was never available over weekends and also that Divya was not with me - I haven't been to a movie since October last; I would have visited a mall possibly once and that too because I cousin wanted to buy a laptop; and I tend to spend more time at the office on weekdays. So, the whole old way of life is somehow looking like a distant past :-).
Another thing that I wonder is whether something changes physiologically after you cross 30? But this article tells me it does not - so I guess the only other explanation is probably social changes around you. For one - you don't have company. Before you get married, you have friends for company, who have as much free time as you do, and who have the same habits as yourself. As you approach the 30s, almost everyone around you gets married (so do you probably!), and so everyone's habits change. And in between this period, if you happen to have to stay alone again, you become - temporarily - a misfit of sorts in your social circle. That doesn't mean your friends avoid you, to the contrary, I have had more invitations for dinner and lunches in the past 6 months than every before. But more than the attitude of others - its something inside you which makes things not so enjoyable, alone.
Anyway - there are some of the things which I did enjoy. Cooking - I am a bad cook - and I say this from experience! But my cooking skills have improved in the past 6 months; I can make an omelette confidently now, I am even able to make a sabzi - though doesn't taste great and no two preparations have been consistent. I have also started enjoying YouTube more than TV - and the credit goes to a combination of absence of 'family TV time' and 'working on the laptop till late night after which nothing comes on TV'. I have also enjoyed occassional evening runs in the local park - alone listening to music (on weekends when I was in Mumbai).
All said and done - its been an interesting half year for me, of course also momentous as I became a father! And starting the next weekend, the real fatherhood will now begin and I am really looking forward spending time with my daughter and 'again' with my wife (as a bonus, my mom's going to be with us for the next few months!).
.
My latest phone
My track record of buying new phones is not very aggressive but not too dull as well. I last bought my HTC P3000 in late 2008 and my latest phone is the Blackberry torch which I bought in March this year. In fact, it was bought by Shubham for me from the US.As yet I am quite liking the phone - blackberry's app ecosystem may not be as ecstatic as Apple or as explosive as Android but its a good mix. I have downloaded a couple of apps mostly for quick updates from social networks, email client for GMail, news updates from sites like ndtv, bookmyshow app for movie ticket booking and stuff like Google Maps and Waze.
I think blackberry is a good option if you are one of those office users of phone as you get a good mix of social apps and office email (which is the core functionality) together.
Life after Marriage
No! This is not a rant! Its just an update on this blog about my life in the past 4 months after my marriage. As expected, life after marriage has been busy marked by weekends spent either traveling to some place or playing host to parents / friends at our newly set up home.
Gudi Padwa at Home
Visit to Hanging Gardens Mumbai
Climbing up the last few steps
For more photos goto: http://picasaweb.google.com/kulkarni.nikhil/56Home?authkey=Gv1sRgCKTai57x8PT73gE#
Gudi Padwa at Home
Travel with my Mom-Dad to Sardar Sarovar Dam
In the backdrop - Sardar Sarovar Dam
Dad, Divya, Mom
In the Valley near Sardar Sarovar
My Brother (Abhishek), cousin (Manasi), wife(Divya) and me(Nikhil)!
My In-Laws: Mom, Dad, Wife and Sis-in-law (Neha, sitting)
Visit to Hanging Gardens Mumbai
Visit to Nariman Point
Me and Bro - Riding uphill in the trolley
at Champaran / Pawagarh near Vadodara
My Brother: While Climbing Down
The Courtship
I haven't updated much about my personal life during the past 6 months ... probably the most 'unusual' 6 months of my life. I met Divya exactly 6 months ago on July 12th (this was at the Oberoi Mall, Goregaon), and probably the first time I drove her back to her office in KulupwadiBorivali (also the locality where she stays .. till now).
Sidethought: I am feeling spooky about my life again! My courtship is ending in an exact 6 months (a limit I secretly desired for my courtship period). I got engaged on 15th August and am getting married on 25th December. Something is really spooky ... why does my life have so many 'perfect' endings?
Since then there have been numerous trips to Borivali - in fact averaging 2 per week - one each on Saturdays and Sundays. Today, as I was driving back on the Western Express, I suddenly felt nostalgic realizing the fact that today was the last time I dropped Divya off to 'her' home in Borivali; the last time I was driving back as a bachelor from Borivali to Powai; the last weekend of continuous trips to and from Borivali was almost over ...
I endured a lot on this road in the last 6 months .. the making of the Kandivali (Times of India) flyover and the resulting dreaded traffic jam, the loads of cars from JVLR to Malad moving at snails pace, the crappy cab and call center drivers, the potholed turning from WE Highway into the JVLR at Jogeshwari and numerous sights of Oberoi Mall - getting the butterfly in my stomach everytime I cross it.
In the meanwhile, Divya who came in my life as fresh breeze on a a newly discovered hillock has become inseparable part of my life - more so without letting me feel so much in the intervening period. My life which felt just about ok till I met her, now feels enriched and fulfilled by the voids she filled in me, which I never knew existed.
Another sopan in life comes to an end - while my bachelorhood ends officially this Christmas - practically, today marks the end of my courtship period!
PS: Do visit my marriage invitation website .. www.divnik.in
PPS: Related posts - the other sopans in my life:
The day Could not have started worse
Image Credit: deen
I took about 2½ hours to reach office today. Apparantly some truck has oveturned near Chembur and hence all traffic from the Sion-Trombay highway has been diverted towards the Suman-nagar flyover (where Eastern Express enters the Island city). This has resulted in a huge traffic jam at Sion.
The small incident explains how fragile the infrastructure demand-supply equilibrium is in Mumbai. The roads are just about sufficient to support traffic. So, if it rains or a truck/bus stranded on the road side - it creates queues of traffic kilometers long.
- There are no alternate routes to reach the Island city apart from the arterial roads. The JNPT road remains unutilized even at the time of the traffic jams and natural calamities like water logging.
- The Highway Maintenance services such as towing trucks to clear stranded vehicles are not sufficient.
- There is no organized public warning system - apart from the fact that the huge LED hoarding put up by the traffic police are far and few, they anyway are used only to display public-services messages and little traffic updates are available on them.
- There is little automation in Traffic management of the city. For the amount of traffic that Bombay has, all major roads need to have monitoring cameras which along with all major traffic signals should be linked to a common hub-station to coordinate movement of traffic across the city.
- Lack of driving discipline; while I dare say that Bombay has the most disciplined driving in India - a lot still is left to be desired. Especially the taxi drivers (call center cabs included) and even some BEST bus drivers need to be taught some basic of lane discipline.
At the end of the charade, my day started as bad as good it had started yesterday. This has reduced my productivity throughout the day.
Leave alone the actual tangible hours lost by millions of workers in the city during travel - the subsequent loss of productivity, due to bad mood set by the harrowing morning experience, is costing us more. Just imagine, how much more productive the whole city can become if we improve infrastructure of the city and how much we may be loosing due to such teething problems surmounting.
The day Could not have started better
Image Credit: Abhijeet RaneI took the Bandra-Worli Sealink to work today and as I started on the Sea-Link the song "Yeh Tumhari Meri Batien" from rock-on started playing on the Radio. Reached office from Borivli to Lower Parel in flat 40 minutes - the day could not have started better.
Mumbai's infrastructure has been improving by the day. This city which looked "more like a conglomeration of many small cities from Ghatkopar to Andheri joined together" [ref] is now starting to take shape of a real megapolis.
In the past 5 years, almost all roads have been cemented, pavements redone and flyovers has been made on most major traffic signals. To add icing to the cake we have the first phase of Metro (Andheri-Ghatkopar) coming up by 2010-11 and at least 3 monorail (Bandra, Santa-Cruz, Borivli) coming up by almost the same time.
But a lot of this good work is undone by - hawkers who still occupy the pavements and footpaths (and often uproot the tiles on them to set up 'permanent' shanties), defunct taxis and goods carriers who park all along the roadside and the numerous people who spit all over the place. Anyway - I do hope this is a small issue and people will soon upgrade their habits and make most of the infrastructure being laid out in the city.
Conclusion
Bloozle – the Startup that never was (Part VI)
Continued from Environmental factors (Bloozle – the Startup that never was - Part V)
We are confident that we will get customers and we will be able to multiply our customer base fast once we cross the incubation stage. But reaching that stage needs massive amount of research and development effort. And that cannot be sustained by us on our personal savings – and definitely not without quitting our corporate careers.
And to do all this we need Seed Funding – it’s a vicious circle which probably every entrepreneur faces. Most entrepreneurs overcome this phase by sheer determination of cutting through the hardship – even borrowing money to run their dreams. We would probably have done the same – if this was a smaller venture which could be incubated on less money, but we don’t think it is like that. And so the wait is on – for the VC who would help in Seed Funding and kick starting.
And to do all this we need Seed Funding – it’s a vicious circle which probably every entrepreneur faces. Most entrepreneurs overcome this phase by sheer determination of cutting through the hardship – even borrowing money to run their dreams. We would probably have done the same – if this was a smaller venture which could be incubated on less money, but we don’t think it is like that. And so the wait is on – for the VC who would help in Seed Funding and kick starting.
Till then – we reminisce on the mistakes we committed and try to learn from them. May be for this venture, but if not then for another one, whenever it comes!
Concluded.
Index of all posts in the series: Bloozle – the Startup that never was
Environmental factors
Bloozle – the Startup that never was - Part V
Continued from Product Development Mistakes (Bloozle – the Startup that never was - Part IV)
We probably still would have survived, because at the end of the whole charade – we still had a working prototype*, a proof of concept and most of all a revenue model – which hardly any online startup in those days had. But unfortunately for us – recession had to set in just when we were readying our b-plan and reaching out to investors.
In the months since October 2008 and today – we have heard responses from umpteen VC’s^ that they are not even considering investing in seed stage startups till the recession goes away. Most of them of course camouflage their response by saying that they would have invested if we had customers (essentially saying no to Seed Stage and asking us to reach beyond that stage).
Unfortunately for us, personal lives are at a cornerstone where we could not have risked our personal savings (beyond what we already had) in taking this concept beyond the seed stage. We knew (and still know) that this is an idea which needs incubation time – a couple of months may be, but may be a year – before we can approach our first customers. And we know our personal savings will not help last that far – so relying on them is a sure road to an unfinished race.
*Thanks to Aniruddha Maru, our second developer, who developed the missing pieces of the working prototype. Aniruddha is one the most intelligent and quick to learn chaps I have met. He picked up the app-architecture and the code within hours from Manpreet. He was always quick to code new functionalities. His strength though became one of the weakness for our team – he thought so fast that he often coded things even before we could crystallize our ‘specs’ :-) and hence we could never document stuff.
^Kalpesh Khivasara also deserves a note of thanks – he has been helping us since 2007 working on concept development, helping contact VC’s and researching the web. I am sure he will be the first person whom I’d contact if I were to restart bloozle or start another venture.
Product Development Mistakes
Bloozle – the Startup that never was - Part IV
Continued from Product Vision mistakes (Bloozle – the Startup that never was - Part III)
If the service is not ‘personal data service’ (like email), then one should try providing as many features as possible, without requiring users to log in/register. Registration and Login is a big barrier in enticing new users (especially non-techies) to try the service out. If you cannot provide the service without registration, try to provide screencasts and previews or even better, guest logins (slideshare does that!) for new users.
Its important to get at least one section of your site work completely and bug-free than have your complete set of services rolled out but all in a half baked shape. While it is true that beta users are usually tolerant, but they can't be tolerant towards a product that looks full blown, but doesn't work even for some basic requirements. They would rather have fewer sections - but those few work well. Project Management lesson - make sure you get your priorities right!!
Get commitment from the development team that they will not desert the concept before it reaches its logical completion. Our development team changed hands often – what made matters worse was that I was so preoccupied with the product vision and marketing aspects that I never got a chance to dig deep into the technology aspects. So, at one point when our lead developer went away and I got in a new team to carry forward the work, I had to spend my own 2 weeks understanding the way the code worked before I could navigate the new team.
Make sure you have a captive group of users who would be prepared to participate in your beta before you launch. This captive group could be your own developers if you have a large enough team, or your friends – but it must be a group of ‘real’ users. While we tried to create a captive group by asking a few friends initially and later offering a chance to barCamp participants – in true essence, every new feature rolled out was tested only by the developer and me before launching. We did not do cross browser testing – ignored Internet Explorer downright – and our testing too was never rigorous. As a result the product when it came out was bug ridden and every subsequent feature made matters even worse (increasing loading time for the site, but not offering any core performance improvement).
Use standard libraries/development platforms wherever you can – if required take extra time before starting your development to discover the different tools available. When we coded the first version of bloozle, we started from scratch building the most basic Javascript functionalities ourselves. Where we could have crunched our development time by a fourth using Prototype or jQuery, we spend in making our Javascript scriptlets compatible with different browsers. Since, we had just one developer for most of the time, we never used SVN which became a problem going forward when more people got involved with the development.
Document Document Document – we never documented our code or even the basic application architecture. Software development practices such as naming conventions used, class names and database table names were documented (thanks to Manpreet – our first developer who did a fantastic job!) but the working of our code were never put in words. This again became a big problem when the code had to change hands – which unfortunately happened twice over the last leg of the project. I happened to the only person apart from Manpreet to know the architecture of the code when it changed hands and there was no document which I could pass on.
Next - Environmental Factors
Product Vision mistakes
Bloozle – the Startup that never was - Part III
Continued from - The Concept (Bloozle – the Startup that never was - Part II)
But call it limitation of technologies of the times (2004-6) or our inability (ignorance?) to harness them, but the concept of aggregating feeds based completely on automated algorithms did not appeal to us. Instead we decided to develop a Feed Reader for users which would be our means to enabling aggregation.
However, once we set out to build an RSS reader – we got too engrossed in it. The means became the end – we got lost in the barrage of features which we needed on the reader to make it more user friendly to our users.
Even worse, unfortunately for us, we came up with a RSS reader just when RSS reader usage peaked and was just about to start its decline [RSS is dead]. Being at its peak, the major user share was taken by the big players (Google, Bloglines, Newsgator) – and our bug-ridden product became a student experiment never to see the number of even a 100 users.
The key reason, in hindsight was to leave to vision of the goal and follow a highway which led to a different direction. Just because the road is a highway does not mean that it leads to your destination and not every wave can be ridden.
We ran on the RSS Reader highway and tried to ride on the RSS wave, in pursuit of an audience which was never our target, using the right concepts (rating, tagging) but for the wrong purpose, concentrating on features (like a ‘post filter’ within the reader) which had nothing to do with our core product/service and hence we failed.
We ran on the RSS Reader highway and tried to ride on the RSS wave, in pursuit of an audience which was never our target, using the right concepts (rating, tagging) but for the wrong purpose, concentrating on features (like a ‘post filter’ within the reader) which had nothing to do with our core product/service and hence we failed.
Next - Product Development Mistakes
The Concept
Bloozle – the Startup that never was - Part II
Continued from Bloozle – the Startup that never was
The idea is simple – also a clever combination of various existing concepts like Social Bookmarking, FriendFeeding, RSS Readers, news rivers, co-ranking (digg/stumbleUpon):
- Users would subscribe to their favourite blogs in our custom developed feed reader.
- They would read their regular blogs and would rate and tag blog posts they read
- Incoming blog posts would also be automatically tagged based on the labels/tags which the authors attach them when posting. Going forward the system will also perform intelligent tagging based on factors like source, number of times a word appears in the post body, words in the title etc.
- The rating and tagging would be aggregated by our server and then blog posts would be rejigged (segregated) – grouped under tags and ordered by ratings.
- Users would subscribe to their favourite tags (such as technology or sports) - also called TagFeeds - and they would receive the top-most rated blog posts which have been tagged under the same tags by other users of their site (from blogs which they don’t follow).
- While users would be able to take care of their information overload (surf your own favourite blogs and read other popular stuff through tagFeeds), we would use the same meta-data (rating/tagging) to generate our blog-newspaper (christened bloozPaper)
Coming Next - some mistakes and other environmental factors which lead to the untimely demise of our product and stillborn startup.
Bloozle – the Startup that never was
This is the story of a startup that never was. It’s a story which I want to document to crystallize learning which I myself have had from this experience and also for several wannabe innovators/entrepreneurs to read and take lesson from.
The Story
In the heady days of 2004 when me and Hemant were incubating MastishK, our talk sessions lasting into the wee hours of the morning often threw open many revolutionary ideas which we canned and kept at the back of our minds for future use.
The Story
In the heady days of 2004 when me and Hemant were incubating MastishK, our talk sessions lasting into the wee hours of the morning often threw open many revolutionary ideas which we canned and kept at the back of our minds for future use.
One such idea was to create a newspaper out of blog content – essentially as we realized later, we wanted to build an intelligent aggregator of user generated content. Fast forward to 2006, when I conceptualized the idea in words and posted a prelude to it on my blog. The idea then developed further on in discussions with Aurko, Shubham and Manish.
I developed a very basic prototype of the idea (I learnt Ajax during this development phase) but it was looking very amateurish. About the same time, I got hooked on to using Google Reader and following increasing number of blogs and the realization that information overload was a potent problem also started taking root in my mind.
Finally in the summer of 2006 when I was in London and Hemant in Geneva, we met for a 5 day long Swiss tour and during the journey we finalized what we were looking for. Thoughts on our Google Reader habits, information overload (which both of us were experiencing), our canned idea of newspaper-of-blogs amalgamated into the first product spec for bloozle (a name which we came up with over the GChat brainstorming session soon after).
Soon after I came back from London and Hemant back from Geneva, we recruited* Manpreet – one of my engg college juniors – to do the core development. Manpreet, the amazing programming brain he was, created the complete website from scratch – including a basic set of JavaScript libraries with cross-browser compatibility, the core PHP based API engine for the feed reader and aggregation routines, and the front-end in HTML+JavaScript including the webpage designing in Photoshop.
... to be continued
Index of all posts in the series: Bloozle – the Startup that never was
- The Story (this post)
- The Concept
- Product Vision Mistakes
- Product Development Mistakes
- Environmental Factors
- Conclusion
*We recruited Manpreet as a volunteer. We never paid him in cash for his work – the idea as you will read later was to get funded and reward him big time through a joining bonus! We will now always be indebted to Manpreet though for helping convert our thoughts into flesh-and-blood (or should I say design-and-code).
Main Chalta gaya .. Car'waan Banta gaya
Its been 8 months since I got the delivery of my Car (on August 7th, 2008); I recently clocked the 10001st kilometer on the road in my car.
The Mumbai-Pune Expressway - one of the finest roads in India to drive on.
A couple of days before that, I clocked 9337 kilometers - so what's so special with that. Just that my registration number also happens to be 9337 and I was fortunate to notice the meter when it turned to 9337.
My experience with driving my own car has been great till now - the machine - Maruti WagonR Duo runs pretty cool. Except for a little lack of pick up at high speeds, the LGP engine works just like Petrol hile saving money and of course environment as well.
I have done 2 Pune trips, 1 Lonavla drive, 1 trip to Daman and numerous trips to the Palm beach road and South Mumbai - trust me having your own car to drive around gives you a feeling of freedom - Iyamlouvingyit ...
Here are some snaps of my Lonavla trip with friends (way back in September).
[Click the images below to get enlarged Flickr versions]
The Mumbai-Pune Expressway - one of the finest roads in India to drive on.
A tunnel on the expressway ...
A spot along the expressway - 3 our of the 4 of us who visited. Sanjeev, Arijit, Me (from bottom to top)
My Car ... Anoop's artistic take ..
With my car on the slope leading to Lonavla city - off the Expressway
Duke's Point in Khandala - overlooking the Expressway .. Anoop, Arijit, Sanjeev
Me and Sajeev looking into the Lonavla valley from North Point
Me, Arijit and Sanjeev - Duke's point again!
Another artisitic take by Anoop - subject: My car Keys ...
Anoop, Arijit and me at the North point - one of the topmost points in the valley - it was one of the toughest climbs for the car - quite steep - but we managed well with 4 of us sitting inside :-)
The car and the hillock - from North Point
Me ... at North point
Another North point shot
Another artistic take by Anoop
Check out the step garden in the snap below - taken from the North Point
On the way back to Mumbai ...
Bhopal - the city of passion
Living in Mumbai, its not difficult to find people who have no idea even about neighbouring cities like Nasik, leave alone cities like Bhopal. It pains even more when people are all praises for cities like Chandigarh (which is a good city, but to be frank a little hyped) and treat Bhopal akin to a village.
Being born and brought up in Bhopal, one knows that this is a city with many positives; to enumerate a few:
- A beautiful landscape dotted with parks, ponds and lakes. The hilly terrain on which the city is built gives it a unique ambience - roads rising up and down the slopes, formations of row houses on ascending tracts, long winding roads along the lakes and parks ...
- Superb infrastructure compared to the size of population it supports. Unlike most old cities in India, Bhopal has very good amenities - whether it is underground drainage or roads and traffic signals.
- Smooth roads in most arterial tracks
- Cleanliness in most of the new Bhopal areas is a lot better than other cities
- Well maintained squares and turns
- Roads lined up with trees all over the city
- Widely distributed residential colonies leading to non-congested roads and removing the need to create too many flyovers and subways to manage congestion
- Enough subways and flyover to criss cross railway lines
- Many good schools and colleges of repute which have churned out many a scholar who have been at illustrious positions in India and abroad
- No dearth of places to go on outings in an around Bhopal
- Decent number of good restaurants and food joints and equally good number of places to simply hang out ...
However, what separates Bhopal from most other small cities is not its infra, neither its beauty - it is the culture of the city. Unlike other small cities which seem to sober out on most days after 7 or 8 PM in the evening, Bhopal is a place that has, since my childhood, been lively till late into the night.
Whether it is lakeside, the restaurants or the markets - the city definitely does not sleep till 10-11 in the night. And this liveliness gets a further boost during the festive seasons - especially Navratri leading up to Dussera. This lively culture which permeates the city may be a complete antithesis to the 'night life' as it is known by people living in Metros, but is a passionate celebration of human society nevertheless.
There are many cultural traditions local to Bhopal which date back centuries like the Ijtima but post independence, Bhopal also emerged as a boiling pot giving rise to new festivities (like the Durga Puja at BHEL Kali Bari or Navratri Jhankis at New market) which are celebrated by all Bhopalites without their own ethnic/regional affiliations.
My Cellphones
I would not be too far from reality if I said that internet is my food and cellphones are my drinks. Yeah .. I am constantly using one of these two things - whether I am at work, at home, or on a vacation. So its particularly painful when my cellphone breaks down
And so it was even more troublesome when this time my phone's keypad went bad and after 15-20 days of enduring it, and trying to get it repaired/replaced, I was told that it was beyond repair. So finally, I decided to spend some more moolah on another phone ....
I bought a fully loaded HTC Touch (P3000) - Windows Mobile, 64MB memory, 2.8" touch-screen, 2 Megapixel Camera. What I am going to use most if the internet and To Do list features. The battery seems ok - runs 2 days flat without any problems. Tried the Google Maps app for starters - and 'twas awwsome.
So that takes my cellphone tally to 3 .. my previous 2 phones being
Nokia 2865
LG RD2130
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