Perspectives

I am not sure how long this has been around, but I just saw google with tons of better India data. Zoom in and you know what I am talking about. It is still not searchable ( Geocodable, to be precise). But my guess is, it is coming very very soon.

Google has done a brilliant job with the look and feel of the map. It just somehow seems to blend and merge with the US maps. That translates into a seamless user experience. Kudos!

Boundaries are all over the place in Jammu and Kashmir. But I guess, we dont know what is J&K and what is not, ourselves.

Many of their National highways are broken. But, that I guess is a data issue more than Google’s.

Though they have all the railway stations in place (with a cute little icon), I dont think they understand the importance of railways in India. Or to be specific, Mumbai subarban is way more important than a random road that runs across colaba. In the future, I think India driving directions have to purposefully consider connecting places also on public means of transport. People in India go to places. They dont necessarily drive up there. Right now, this translates to making railway stations and possibly the lines prominent on the map. Atleast in selected cities and suburbs.

I love the way they are using gradients of a selected few colours rather than using hundreds of colours.

They also have the one ways spot on. They have an unintrusive arrow that gives a feeling of which way is one way. Lovely!

And a last mention at the choices of icons for places of Interest. Actually, I have no words.

Rock on! Google.

It is crazy. You work you ass off for a year or two and then you get to prove yourself in 50 milli seconds? Or that is what some canadian researchers seem to think.

Webyantra’s new blog has a couple of good first points. Thanks for that good post Amit. I completely agree on “Users are distracted”. I almost agree on “UI is the software, but you cannot get away with a bad backend. UI supplements a good backend but does not help a bad backend.

I also agree on KISS ( Keep it short and simple) . Talking of simplicity, I got this pic from one of the blogs I was reading a while ago. (Sorry, I am unable to acredit the author of this pic. If you know, please let me know, I would like to give him a mention).

This is a brilliant expression of feature simplicity. I think most people work because they dont have anything else to do. It doesnt matter whether the user needs it or not.

I guess a good product manager’s job is not at all about loading a product with features. It is finding that tipping point, where you have all that most users want and nothing more.

Here is another piece of suggestion. If you like this kinda stuff, go read “Getting real” from folks at 37signals. Pretty darn neat!

Please dont subscribe to startups.in. Because, blog feed entry has something like this:

By Startups.in on e-commerce

We strongly believe that there is HUGE opportunity yet to be tapped by serving niche markets in India especially by way of leveraging the power of Internet, and TechMirchi.com, a Chennai based…

The name Startups.in/India in itself describes the purpose of this site. We are crazy (read passionate) about start-ups and have always been fascinated by the stories revolving around the operation, success & failure of startups around the world. This site is to profile everything related to startups in India.

I subscribe to this blog to read that one incomplete line ? Fuck you startups.in . You lost me.

I just happened to go back to onyomo as I heard they have released an SMS based local search service in a few cities (Bangalore et al). Though I like their SMS search ( I tried a couple of them and they got it ok both the times), I thought just one result was quite disappointing. Here is the simple math that all these SMS based services should do. I am going to be charged close to 3 Rs for each of those Value Added SMSs. And I get back one phone number to call to ? I would rather call the Just Dial folks in my city ( that would be 22222222 in Bangalore) . They would not only listen out to all that I have to say, but also go on to suggest a business, give me the number and would also probably tell me the address, land marks close to it and wish me a good day. That would cost be a buck every minute. Fortunately or unfortunately, The state of the Indian Internet scene ( I dont seem to be able to get the link to that white paper) suggests that Indians like to get a look and feel of a product. On the same analogy, it is only fair to assume that they would also like to talk to a human to get suggestions about a business or a restaurant. We are only too used to picking up a phone here in India.

Ok, So the point being, Onyomo’s SMS search, though good, cannot possibly compete with the existing ways of getting to a business which are much cheaper and familiar unless they manage to get you to SMS for free. To top it, they seem to add tons of text in the result explianing their business and what you should be SMS-ing to where. Bad. I am already paying, keep your advt. away!

The last time I went to their site, I didnt notice a map feature. This time I did. I have no idea why they have it in the first place. Second, It doesnt seem to work. All I really get to see is this big map of India. The links to the city maps dont get you anywhere.

Here is the best part, I can hardly see anything in the map I get with the local search result. Wait a minute, I am searching for a restaurant in bangalore. If the best map I can see if that of Bangalore and cant zoom in any further, you call that local maps?

Even if I am whining, I should be spelling Bangalore bengaluru ( or is it bengalooru ?). Anyways…

Dont like the eye paining purple coloured banner ads spoiling the coolness of Yahoo! Maps beta (Which is no longer in beta, btw) ? I dont too. Dont stop at cribbing, Tell them about it here