Wednesday, July 11, 2007

बी बैक सून

Thursday, March 08, 2007

re: More Generic Ideas

It's been about 2 months since I've been contributing to the CH project.

Managed to pump out 15 ideas during this time frame. Well I submitted 17 ideas, but have to get rid of two of my ideas, the platform doesn't allow me to do that at the moment.

--Update---

CH has revamped their services. The outcome has been dubbed as "CambrianHouse 2.0"
  • The most significant change is moving from a pre-screening process to a "come one come all" platform.
  • The other significant change is the ability to turn any of your ideas submitted into a project. This provides the ability for collaboration with and amongst the different CH members out there.

    There are other minor changes incorporated along with the above mentioned, notably:
    - incorporating wiki's and forums for individual projects
    - tagging and highlighting posts/ideas/projects with video
    - "pitch": basically marketing strategies to sell your idea in a couple of sentences.
    - incorporation of other elements with your idea/project (logo/video e.t.c)




    So, what's my take on CH, being a member for the past 2 months.

    Personally I think they are moving in the right direction. They are making the right kinda changes at the right time.

    Notably:
  • The elimination of the "screening" process by means of picking and choosing ideas to be submitted to "idea-explorer" was a good move. It removes that bottleneck and makes CH stands out as a true crowdsourced venture.
  • Listening to the community. Responding, Adapting and delivering in a timely manner
  • The CH panel (staff), seems to be an energetic and helpful bunch. I am fairly active on the forums and part of one or two startup projects (winner of ideawarz). And the CH guys seem to be helping out with rolling out the startups any way they possibilly can.

    Suggestions: (If anyone at CH happens to ponder by):
  • As more people hop on the bandwagon. And the activity spurs, CH will need to deliver simple tools that help people keep track of their submissions.
    I think this can be divided into two classifications:
    1) People who would stick with one idea and work to make it turn into a deliverable product (the wiki and forums under project would suffice when it comes to their needs)
    2) People who contribute to multiple projects/ideas. With increased activity, it might be hard for them to keep track of all the suggestions made any given/day/week.
    Couple of propositions in that regard:
    a- Better tracking with time-stamped intervals. I have highlighted this in the following forum post (click here)
    b- Follow a simple "Online forums" type structure. Where posts pertaining to comments posted for ideas/projects are filtered on the top. (Based on the recent activity)
    c- Tag/notify an individual user, if their attention or comments are required for a pertinent post/idea/project. (I guess the messaging feature could work in that regard). But I have a feeling this will be handled with the "soon-to-be-rolled-out-features" like " Task Management\Tagging and Project Tagging"

    3) Collaboration software: Virtual whiteboard.

    4) I've mentioned this before. CH should market themselves at targetted spots. Particularly Schools and pertinent departments within schools. (Comp Sci).



  • Sunday, January 07, 2007

    Set-top box 2.0

    Set-top boxes are so neanderthal. From your local cable company to even Tivo.

    Neanderthal in terms of functionality and ease of use.

    Before I explain this idea, I'd just like to point out that I am lazy. I'd much rather get to a space (virtual or non) in a single click, then say 5 clicks. In that regard the "remote control feautures" can be quite cumbersome when it comes to be using any "set-top" box.

    Marry the mouse with the set-top box:
    This idea is very simple. Marry a pointing devices with the set-top box/Tivo.
    This will result in the death of the remote control, it will save the couch potatoes precious minutes.

    I sent this idea to Tivo, let's see if I hear back from them.

    More Generic Ideas

    To make up for the lack of submissions to this blog, I have been contributing to the "Cambrian House" project. It is basically a "crowd sourced" project. Where you submit your idea and if it is selected, the idea is worked upon by the community for an end product.


    I have submitted a couple of ideas on the site, a growing list nonetheless!
    If anyone is interested, they can peruse ideas submitted by me by visiting the following Link:

    Please click below ---->

    Check out my Cambrian House profile

    Tuesday, December 19, 2006

    my{virtua}space {dot}com

    That domain name is already taken. I have yet to peruse that website, but the emphasis is not on the domain name.

    This idea revolves around a startup catered to service the social networking needs of the broadband populace. For this idea to flourish, we need 8 to 10 megabit connections to be the norm. peruse to ---> [ skip ] if you are solely interested in what my idea entails:

    8 to 10 megabit connections are the norm in places like South Korea.
    Blazing fast broadband is one of the reasons why startups like cyworld are a phenomenal success in that region. Well the "phat" connection along with cultural gravitations towards the "cute" aspect of things.

    cyworld.com now has a north american presence. However they are using the same formula they used in South Korea to cater to the North American masses.
    I predict failure for cyworld.com (in North America) using the same strategy they used in South Korea and other asian countries.
    Unless they educate themselves, learn, adapt and act accordingly.

    You cannot sell social networking solely based on cute avatars to the North America public. Some pundits are predicting that cyworld could rival myspace.com in the future. But I predict, it will not so as to cause even a ripple in the pond with the word myspace written all over it.

    I can speculate/rant more on cyworld, but i will keep it here for now.


    [ skip ]


    Social networking needs to evolve as well. This idea is very simple. Users create a virtual room the likes of "second life". Or more like the room is leased to the user.

    However unlike the vast expanse of second life, this virtualdom will be restricted to one room per person. Users are connected with each other based on their existing list of friends or friends they wish to add to their list.
    - Once you are in each others friends list, users can peruse each others cribs a.k.a virtual space
    - Users decorate their room, but instead of the painstaking process of creating everything yourself (like in second life) you get 1000 base point to buy stuff from quick access control panel. (Drag and drop)
    - For creativity's sake users can design their own items too
    - Similar interest are linked together
    - using existing technologies and infrastructure and incorporate them into the virtualdom instead of re-creating everything --> youtube, digg, blogger, myspace
    - Users purchase multi media for others to peruse their aesthetic tastes in everything from arts, entertainment (DRM=Apple+napster alliance), media et all.
    - An alliance with RIAA, so users can play the same music on their virutaldom and on the device of their choice
    - user controllable list access, of who is allowed to enter into their room and browse which "belongings" [a] of that user as such.


    [a]:
    The "belongings" part is key here.
    This is what will generate the moola.

    However, due to the business potential of this idea. I will keep it here for now. If anyone is interested in learning more about this idea, what it entails and what can be done to make this business plan work. Please drop me a line via the comments section. If anyone is embarking upon a project that incorporates "virtual spaces with social networking", but keeping it limited ---> in terms of scope (i.e think anti-vast-uber-secondlife'ness) then I have lots of ideas to make this product work.

    Friday, November 24, 2006

    Windows Live Spaces

    Tracking suggestions made to the Windows Live Spaces Team\Feedback:

  • Suggestion # 1:

  • You should have a "diggin" it section on the blog (space). Not to be confused with digg.com:

    Logic behind this Idea:


    | | | | |
    Music: Food: News: Gagdets etc


    User can digg any particular thing. And then other people on your list (messenger) who are "digging the same thing" Can be tagged\linked together.

    So say for example, I am digging "My Chemical Romanace"'s Music right now. I would digg it, and then another person on my msn list diggs it and just like you have the comments sections at the bottom of the blog entries. You will similarly have the "tagged" section and both of us are going to be linked to each others interests automatically.

    Outcome:
    People are linked via similar interests mentioned on their blogs.

    Linking similar interests is not a new idea, but perhaps a new perspective when it
    comes to blogs.

    Thursday, October 19, 2006

    What should google do? - Ideas for Google [ On-going]

    Originally published on Oct 9th 2006. Now ported to this blog. [ Constantly being updated ]


    I posted the following on an Orkut forum called "What should google do" on the 9th of October 2006.

    some suggestions
    i) Incorporate programs like "writely" and "google spreadsheet" within google pack
    (Google launched writely and Google spreadsheets together on Oct 12.
    I actually just wanted to see the two programs together. Since these are "live services" , it makes sense to offer them together. Google Pack is sorta different.

    ii) Incorporate the most popular programs within google talk (think tabs on the side)

    iii) Google talk should be more maleable. Users should be able to add and remove the tabs of their choice (blogger, orkut, google {desktop} {video}{finance}{analytics} {earth} come to mind)

    iii) form an alliance with Microsoft and Yahoo when it comes to Instant messaging (just like yahoo and microsoft did)

    iv) Google should buy http://www.netvibes.com

    v) Expand google travel. incorporate it with google earth.

    vi) Set up a presence in "second life"

    vii) Work more closely with the makers of BlackBerry (RIM) and other wireless handheld makers.

    viii) Offer more content (wml) for Wireless handheld, Blackberry users. (news)

    ix) Form an alliance with Apple, atomfilms. Sell google videos (tv serials, episodes) through the itunes website.
    This was before the Google+Youtube announcement

    x) Work on Google OS. A live cd version (like knoppix) that users can plug into the cd and use to surf the web, chat, use writely and google spreadsheet, listen to some music

    xi) Build more functionality into Google video player. Perhaps buy Real media player or winamp from Nullsoft\Aol and incorporate that techology into google video player.

    xii) ***Google University***. Free Educational resources for everyone. Specially focusing on third world country. In this regard google can incorporate with companies like heymath.net and for higher education with MIT's OpenCourseWare.

    xiii) Last but not the least. Google MUST not, SHOULD not buy youtube. I will start a separate thread for this topic
    Again this was before the merger announcement

    xiv) Today I thought if Google had a "presentation software" like Microsoft Powerpoint, then it could seriously dent the "casual Microsoft office" market. I mean OpenOffice has always been there. But everyday computer users are more familiar with Google software or are prone to be, then something like say Openoffice

    xv) Google Widgets:
    Pre-configured scripts that run automatically, semi-auto. Users can configure
    and run these widgets in various google applications\products:

    examples:

    Gmail:
    If you always delete messages from you spam and trash folder. Then you can have a script\macro\widget do it for you. SImilarly only display emails using a certain "label" upon sign-in

    Gtalk:
    Gtalk is integrated with Google Finance (e.t.c). Everytime you log into Gtalk, a gooogle finance page pops up which displays the stocks you are tracking in your google finance portfolio.

    Writely:
    Everytime you open writely, you want to open a new doc or spreadsheet. This process is automated using widgets.

    To top it all off:
    Every time you load Google desktop, all the widgets you have configured are loaded using Google desktop.

    I do all of this using batch scripts. And I believe Yahoo has just launched a yahoo widgets product (which I have yet to check out). I am downloading it as I type this.


    xvi) Google Big-picture:
    Main logic behind this concept:
    Google search results are formatted such:

    a) that one entity is linked to another
    b) all returned entities are linked to your "parent search term"

    CNET owned News.com is doing something like that [ Click here for
    example
    ---> Ok this example doesn't work half the time. ]

    On News.com, the back-end the "big-picture" technology is being served by
    http://liveplasma.com/
    It is worthwhile to check out the live plasma website and see the
    capabilities this technology has to offer.

    The potential by encorporating technology like this is endless for Google or
    any other search engine out there. The results can be be incorporated in:
    a) Google search results
    b) Orkut
    c) Google Finance
    d) Blogger
    e) Google Scholar
    f) Google Book search
    g) and a whole lot more!

    Attached is a screenshot of a search on www.liveplasma.com when I search for
    "Anthony Hopkins" on the site.



    xvii) Google | grep : ( Added 12/18/2006)

    Run a search and pipe it to conventional linux grep command

    Examples:

    "leonardo |grep -i renaissance"


    "robert langdon |grep -i \"associate prof mit" |grep -vi \"dan brown" |grep
    -vi \"da vinci code"


    The search would be put in soft quotes, to get the grep functionality working. A trailing slash or a predefined set of characters (example \&) could be added before the search term, so that the contents within the soft quotes are not taken literally and that the grep executes.

    Update: Mar 08, 2007
    The following document entails, that which I wished to accomplish with the above mentioned proposition.


    Shells:
    To keep google grep separate from the conventional search engine page. Another "shell could be created". (An inter-laced Java applet over the browser) whereby you use the "google grep" shell to execute your search terms without the fuss of remembering all the switches. This way the conventional search page and the google grep search pages can be kept as separate entities.