Perspectives

This is a big surprise for me. The 2007 zeitgeist list for India (Fast rising queries) has just one English word which is not already a Google product in the top five:

01. Orkut
02. YouTube
03. Gmail
04. Map
05. Google

And what it is? “Map”!? So, what does this tell you? Maybe there is a big market for “Maps” and my gut feel has been wrong all along..hmm..But I still cant believe it is map. Not facebook. not iphone. Not javascript. But map. Not “Google maps”, Not “Yahoo Maps”, but “Map”. Interesting.

If you are curious..the six to ten are these. Not sure how zapak managed to jump in there:

06. Indian Railways
07. Yahoo Mail
08. Technology
09. Yahoo
10. Zapak

So, You may have heard about the first result in youtube for the search query “India”. It is called “India driving”, a candid potrait on what happens on Indian roads. One of my friends has even come to a conclusion that Indians dont have the disciplined driving gene in us. Even if you forget the bad PR that such a video could do to the country ( and it’s tourism), it is still necessary that we figure out a way to fix this problem just so that we reach our homes safely.

A little while ago, Siddharth was talking to me about traffic violations and an idea he had about creating a wall of shame and possibly also enable people to say sorry. And then he stumbled upon Traffic Violators.

Although the idea is novel and I have to congratulate Abhishek Kant for the initiative, the website needs to come a long way before it can really make a change.

For the most part, the people who report the violation probably want to remain anonymous. As much as I want better driving conditions, I would rather not get fire from someone else. I dont understand why I have to create a login to report a violation. If you are going to trace me back, I guess, I would not even report in the first place. Also, Login/Register is a big fallout. When it comes to “citizen initiatives” you have to make it as easy and compelling as possible.

There are about four violations as of now in a corner of the page. If the site is about violations, should that occupy center stage? Also, it is unclear what happens once I report. Do you give an opportunity for the owner to come back and say sorry? What about “cabs” driven by employed people? Most of the “travels” vehicles have a “Do I drive bad” sticker stuck somewhere on the car. Shouldnt it be possible to report that too? Other related information such as what is the kind of vehicle and what is the kind of violation is worth reporting as well. How will the information get disseminated? The more places you are able to see it, the better. I am probably talking about an API or a widget.

Anyways, Cheers! to Abhishek and all others involved and drive safe. Please dont Honk.

And you wont even notice it. Well, I guess, that was the idea. It is magical how they all have managed to pull this one through. I mean, everything that worked in Flex works exactly the same way in JS? Makes us wanna think, that they initially used flash for the wrong thing, or they had other feature rich ideas initially which they never managed to roll out.

But, I think this is a good way forward. It takes a lot less time to load for sure. ( Still not very ideal, takes about 8 Secs from a good broadband in India). It will begin to work on those Airport Computers that dont have flash installed. The Yahoo Maps Ajax API will start to get some of these benefits. It will begin to grow faster and cooler.

But having said all of that, It still has some distance to cover before I become it’s fan. Starting from reducing the number of text boxes to removing unnecessary links like “save to my web”.

Kudos to the technical for achieving something close to a marvel. Writing this kind of Javascript and CSS is a painstaking effort for sure.

Google Local India Sticker
Originally uploaded by shivku.

I was at a watch repair shop at BDA, Complex in Bangalore and I was surprised to see a Google marker stuck on one of the side walls of the small shop. On Closer analysis, It revealed itself as a “Google India Local Maps” sticker that Google possibly has shipped it over to these guys.

So, did the shop owner marked himself on the map (Using My maps) and got the sticker shipped? Very unlikely. I dont think he has used email, let alone maps online. I also tried searching for “Clock repair” and could not find anything useful. Infact, I could not find “BDA complex” in Koramangala, Let alone the “clock work shop” inside it.

So, that just means someone came over and distributed these stickers? That is cheap.

Having said that, the idea rocks. First, They have gone really local. This is as random a shop as it can get. Not the kinds you will find even on yellow pages. Second, this is free physical contextual advertising. Not many people are online in India yet, and not many non-internet ( Newspapers or TV) ads are contextual. Now, things in the physical world that you can relate to on the internet which is (also) contextual, well..that is a killer combo. Precisely what made me come back home and search for “clock works” near my house in Google maps.

So, You all have heard about this wonderful little company called Mapunity trying to take on the daring problem of Traffic information services which nobody thought was possible to solve in India? If you havent, visit, their Bangalore, Hyderabad and recently, Chennai Traffic information services. Chennai traffic is still in Beta and was released sometime last week. If you are from Chennai and if you find something glaringly wrong (with respect to traffic, that is), make sure you let the guys know.

BTIS has also put out a little mashup with Yahoo India Maps, for Bangalore. If you ever thought the basic maps of BTIS wasnt enough, then you know where to go.

TWO BILLIONTH
Originally uploaded by yukesmooks.

The two billionth photo on Flickr. I am sure someone is asking about this in some quiz somewhere.

So, the online maps battle is not being fought just between Google and Mapquest. We also have Ask Maps on the hood. (along with MSN and yahoo! and a bunch of others). It surely does not win over the other map services yet, but they seem to be the only ones so far to have “Walking directions“. Although (what they have implemented is) no “rocket science” technology wise, We still have to cheer them for first to market.

Walking directions are significantly different from (GMaps’s) “Avoid highways”, when properly implemented.

• Walking doesn’t (Infact, shouldnt) need to take care of One ways.
• Walking should strictly be the shortest. It needs to avoid every other consideration, how wide the road is, speed limits, How many lanes etc.
• It needs to take care of which side of the road to walk and Zebra/pedestrian crossings and subways. I dont think zebra crossings is an easily available information and don’t think Ask considers it. For instance, that is not how I cross over from Yahoo’s one building to another.
• What about (underground) subways? What if the subways have many exits? What about stairs along bridges and ramps? I can just climb up the stairs right? Again, Lack of data.
• How can you possibly walk 115 miles? I mean, not unless you are Forrest Gump mindlessly running around. Features need to make (human) sense.

This is a spectacular feature that has been in my mind for a long time. It is nice to see Ask making it happen, but needs to improve. This along with “Cycling” and “public transportation” and a combination of the three should be fantastic.

What do you think?

Reached like six hours ago. Beautiful place. Awesome weather ( a little chilly, but I like it that way). Amazing people, lovely babes. My only problem, Just no food for me. All the Maggi and Ready to eats that I got is of no use. No microwave in my hotel.

Anyways, As time progresses, I will get introduced the online space of the country with the largest internet penetration. I will try to give a desi view of what is happening on the web in this part of the world. For now, Naver is a very popular search engine and portal. Barring a few services, Neither Google nor Yahoo is all that big here.

The pictures that I take will be here.

I am not exactly sure when they released this new looking Yahoo India Movies, but finally , they are thinking about movies and what people do with movies.

The older version used to be service with no real value add to anyone. It had a bunch of images, videos and links and stopped at reviews and comments. With the world talking about web3.0 and mobile2.0 , it was time the site had an overhaul with layout, content and everything.

Yahoo India Movies now tries to give movie showtimes close to about twenty three cities. The show times are apparently from bookmyshow ( which is a pretty good service, btw) with ticketing option coming soon. Now, we are talking business.

The “A-Z index” was pretty interesting. It gives a list of all the movies releasing this year and in the past. I discovered a few movies that I ve never heard of before. “Coming soon” should be pretty handy too, considering Imdb does not do a very good job for Indian movies. Not sure if you are the kinds that sits and reads interviews of random celebrities. If you are, there is a section for you as well. I guess, they will also have some downloadable stuff like ringtones and wallpapers and what not. Not for me. Oh, you can watch trailers too.

Dont expect to see a radical layout change. It is a very usual Yahoo look with a banner ad on top and left with links that says “replay ad”! (Give me a break guys. ).

No feeds either. Wish I could subscribe for “coming soon” movies. Or maybe subscribe to a search criteria (say action movies) in a few theatres.

But there is still one reason why I would never go back to this site. No Search. How am I supposed to see “No smoking” trailer now? Keep clicking the links and hope that I will find it ?