Perspectives

It has been a wonderful few past months. Yahoo India maps is a very special product for me. Ever since I joined Yahoo!, in bangalore, I have been wanting to do something for India. I guess it is my way of giving it back to my country. Also, I always believed indians deserved more and better. And my time finally arrived with maps. The levels of passion and interest India maps generated inside of me were unprecedented. At times, I was myself surprised. Sure, I did have my few ups and downs on the way, but who doesnt?

Maps was completely new to me. Now, I understand that it is, to India. Over the period I was with maps, I have learnt up quite a bit about GIS in general, the other open source activities around GIS in India etc. It seems pretty obvious that a large portion of the cake remains uncut. GIS and mapping activities are few and far apart in India. Mostly in research labs of companies trying to come out with GPS devices and in a few graduate institutions. There are a few enthusiast groups. But nothing of the levels of understanding and appreciation that you would see in the US and elsewhere. To say it has been a wonderful learning experience is an understatement.

And as lack of icing on top of this cake, many people, including me, begin to wonder if India really needs GIS and GPS. Havent we rolled down the windows of our cars and found many willing people to give directions? Havent we reached our places without any of these tech supplements? Is technology trying to do too much when we probably dont have tarred roads in most part of the country ? And when a sizable portion of the population dont possess a vehicle? Maybe there are a few corporate requirements for GIS. But, I am mostly a end consumer GIS person. I get convinced that was the case with most other inventions too. When the television came into existance, I am sure people were thinking “Why would I need it?, Am I not happy with the radio? “

In the days to come, according to my gut feel and from what I see around, Local and Yellowpages is going to be big in India. And if it is the case, Maps is going to be a lovely supplement. Maybe, maps will never take the podium in a long time. Here are some of the reasons:

1) we are a decade away from usable end-customer GIS data in India. My mom wouldnt give a damn if she cant find how to go to her bank from her home. For her, it will remain un-usable until we do that.

2) Indians perceive addresses very differently. We dont differentiate between a landmark and a point of interest and an address. I have found many people specifying “Opp. regal cinemas” even in postcards and envelopes.

3) Thanks to colonisation, we have every possible addressing schemes in the world here. I have been trying to write a regex to possibly parse and understand Indian addresses. I have hardly been successful.

4) As most places have local language names, which are proper vocabulary words in that language, it gets hard to understand what the user is trying to say when it gets to english. Road is called “marg” and “galli” and “pathai” and “veedhi” and “salai” and “vazhi”, to name a few. To top it, every user prefers a unique spelling to the place. Is it Ahmadabad or Ahmedabad? Thiruvallur is right, so is thiruvellore and tiruvallur!

5) There are zillions of people out there who use public commute. I dont think we are doing any kinda service to them if we are not able to tell them when the next train to his preferred destination will arrive. Or which bus to catch where.

6) Considering there are no road signs and boards telling you what road it is, does it make sense to give directions based on road names? Do all roads have names? Are all roads motorable? Do we know if it is a one way? And if it becomes one way, is there standardized way with which the city corporation disseminates that information? I dont know!

I can go on to write more of these things. But the point being, maps is and will remain a challenge. It is going to be an interesting problem to solve. And when we do solve it well, I am confident people will embrace it. For now, maps will have to be looked upon as a supplement to local and a thing to mashup with.

Back to Yahoo! India maps, we have lots of interesting ideas. And there is no time to do all of them. Very soon, you will be able to mashup with our maps. It will be our honour and pride. And there are a few surprise elements too. We are confident you d love it. I will write another post on what is cool about what we have done in a bit.

Do you have a few suggestions? Let us know. We would love to consider it and possibly implement it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Please welcome the newest member of the Yahoo! India family, Yahoo India Maps.
Even as I would like to write a book on the “making of India maps”, for now, I would just recommend you just get there and check it out for yourself.

Got any comments? Flames? Leave me a note. Leaving you with a picture that hopefully captures the mood amongst us and with you!

I wanted to find out what has been my most popular photograph to date. Frankly, I know very little about photography. But, I dont suck at it either. Flickr seemed to tell me about four different categories.

Though I dont have a clue about how they come with “interesting-ness” of a pic, here is my apparently most interesting pic:

This is a view of a tea garden bed taken in Munnar, Kerala, India from a moving vehicle with a Fujifilm FinePix S3100 on 15th of January 2004.

Most people have viewed the thunder thighs of this wonderful lady. I have no idea who this is. I used to have a big obsession for thighs. I am saying that in past tense because, I cant make up my mind on whether I am still interested in them . It was the time when I had just gotten introduced to Picasa. So, I had tried a few funky things wth it and ended up with this. I think, this female was flaunting hers in san francisco, somewhere around Pier 39, again taken with a Fujifilm FinePix S3100.

My most favorited pic is also the most interesting pic we just saw. So, I thought I will pick the next best: A view of the Magical Golden Gate Bridge, San francisco. I dont have to add much detail about the probably most popular bridge in the world.

Finally, most people had commented about my dumb post about a computer for sale. As most of those comments suggest, I am going to give this off to some foundation that can possibly teach computers to girl kids. It is my contribution to increasing the fairer sex population in the tech industry in India. I am hoping the next gen men engineers in India will have more reasons to come to office.
This was taken with my Nokia N73 cameraphone at my chennai home a few months ago.

So, Do you like these pics ? Find more of my pics here.

Finally,
What are your interesting pics?

It is the 200 and odd product question. Which is the best Yahoo service ? A little while ago, I created this list on Amazon Unspun. Flickr is my personal best. Nothing comes close. I also tend to use gmail more because I got my favourite id shivku with them. I also hate messenger for the simple fact that it is so heavy on my computer for nothing.

Anyways, the rest of the world seems to think otherwise. As it stands, Y! Mail beats them all by far. If you still havent voiced your preference, head over to the list and say what you think.

I just came across the RIS project undertaken by the National Highways Authority of India. Frankly, I was sweetly surprised. To give some context, Golden Quadrilateral is probably the largest and the most ambitious infrastructure projects undertaken by the Indian government. It connects the four largest cities of India and has made me proud the couple of times I have driven on it.

But this blog is about the RIS, which apparently has GIS data on these highways. I tried to check it out, but as expected, I was asked to come back with IE. So, more info on what exactly it promises as soon as I check. But, I am pretty certain it is going to be interesting.

From the site:

Road Information System (RIS) is an application having data of highways on Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), North-South (NS) and East-West (EW) corridors of NHDP with features of graphical viewing through GIS technology.
The application provides the information through different modules on various parameters such as NH location details of above corridors, Wayside amenities, Bridge location and details, Corridor Environment related information, Toll plaza location and toll data, Construction contractor details. Over the GIS interface additional thematic and raster maps are available.

As promised earlier, and as predicted earlier, the only real reason to watch world cup now would be Mandira. But, my only worry is, she is getting dumber by the day.

Anyways, here we go from the India Sri lanka match that you want to forget:

I just came across Zipazap, which apparently claims to be the first online and mobile TV guide for India. I was thrilled and wanted to check it out. But, sad that they asked me to come back later.

Undeterred, I screwed around a bit to see what is the best we have otherwise. I came across indiatimes TV Guide. Now what the %^&* is that ? If you guys dont have anything better to do, please dont write websites. Anyways, Star seems to have a pretty decent but cluttered site that has all the programming info that one would look for. And then, I headed over to Sun Network. They have an even better site and their schedules are sweeter. Point is, by writing a small screen scraper for these two sites, I would have already covered 25 channels. The same is true with Zee and covers another 10 channels.

Now that we are confident we can create a compelling TV guide, both on mobile and web for about 35 indian channels in about half day this saturday, the only thing I am worried about is, can I get into trouble ? Do you guys think I should just do it anonymously anyways ? Should I call these TV folks and try to explain I am probably driving more users to their channels which is their primary business anyways ?

A more basic question, do you think it is a worthy enough service ?

I came across Amazon’s unspun via Keshava’s entry. Quite an interesting idea. I dont completely understand their ranking algorithm though. Nor do I understand how they get those numbers (in the brackets). But assuming they have some funky way of doing it ( and hopefully better than digg, without the local maxima and not being influenced by a few power users problems):

They have not solved the fundamental problem that plagues the other web2.0 wonder – tags. How do u represent one sort of information in just one way ?

For instance, in this list of best pubs in bangalore, you got styx twice. One with an “M.G.Road” and the other without. I am not sure if there is a styx elsewhere, but irrespective, I can always spell “Anjelina Jolie” instead of “Angelina Jolie” in the woman you would leave your girl for list. They, ofcourse, do some sort of a normalization and also suggest item even as you type. But that doesnt help completely.

Anyways, as purple blood streams through my body, I have created “Best Yahoo service” over there. Go check it out, add and rate them.

update, which is pretty cool, I think:
From unspun’s FAQ:
List items have a computed score based on the number of people who have ranked the item and at what position it was ranked. We’ve indexed the score so that the 3rd item is always 1000. Items that are ranked higher and lower have their scores adjusted accordingly. This allows for general comparison of top items across lists. For example, if George Bush is the top item in a list with a score of 6914 and Angelina Jolie is the top item in another list with a score of 3118, and Verizon is the top item in a third list at 1427, you can deduce that George Bush holds a stronger first ranking, compared to other items on that list, than Angelina Jolie and Verizon in their respective lists.

How are you? My name is Alena. I from Russia, city Cheboksary. To me 28 years. I shall tell to you about myself a little.

I corresponded with the man from the your country before. His name Mark. He is from your country. We had a long correspondence and Mark wanted, that I have arrived to him in the your country that I have seen what life there. We have together submitted the statement on reception of the visa in your country! Mark spoke, that will help my in our meeting. I thought, that have met on the Internet the love.

I and Mark made the big plans for the future, but in a flash all has changed. From the moment of submission of the statement for the application of the visa has passed 5 months. For these five months there was for what I least waited. Mark informed, that his former wife has returned to him and lives together with him. Soon they should get married. And now in Mark plans there is no me. I wrote to him some times after that, but Mark have wished me only good luck in the further searches worthy men and have told, that our ways miss. And in October to me there has come the invitation in embassy behind reception of the visa.

In the beginning I wanted to throw out the invitation in embassy. To me it was sad, because my dreams were failed, I have nobody to fly in the your country. But my uncle have dissuaded me from resolute actions and have told, that else there is a chance to find worthy the man and to use the visa to a meeting with him. I well know English and practically I have visa your country. My uncle speaks, that it really solves many problems.

Approximately in 7 days the visa will be ready, and I should go to Moscow behind reception of the visa. I write to you because in my heart there is an empty seat. I do not search rich or poor. I search careful and responsible man which wants to enjoy a life together. Is this person you? I think, that I ask not much. I have told to you a little about my life. I have told not all about myself, but it will be easier to me to write about myself if you will ask questions which interest you. I have told to you my history, and now I shall look forward to hearing from you with impatience. Write to me! I shall send you more photo in the following letter. I wait you answer. Alena.

I Checked my spam folder after a long time and found this interesting read. Not bad at all for a time pass

Mandira bedi
Originally uploaded by shivku.

Considering there is a strong possibility that the team might head home soon, the only interesting thing left in world cup would be Mandira Bedi.. I will try to cover her as time and matches progresses. Watch out for more Bedi on this space.