Think about the evolution of the net. First it was a problem of too less. It was just a project by the US Dept of Defense, never meant for wide-spread use. But the work kick-started development on the very first Internet protocols, and rapidly evolved into a set of well connected hubs and the first interweb. HTML happened, and Geocities (RIP) became big, and suddenly, everyone everywhere was making web-pages, Frontpage and Dreamweaver were mainstream softwares, (not to mention, NIIT, Aptech and SSI were making quick bushel-loads of money on coding lessons everywhere in India). Then Java, ASP, PHP, Flash, and things got a bit crazy. The net hit its first billion, then the next, and then we stopped counting (at least I did).

Now the problem is of too much. Of glut of information about everything. EVERYTHING. Think of any topic that might interest you and Google never delivers less than tens of thousands of results. (In fact there is a game that challenges users to come up with any two-word combination that delivers only one Google result). Add to that the blog explosion, zillions of user-generated pages being added on social networks (billions of pages, millions of photos, hundreds of thousands of videos, and trillions of messages). The scale is mind-blowing; so much so that the extent of data produced, consumed, shared and stored every single day surpasses years and years of data that was available to the entire world’s population a few years ago.

Google is the index page to this madness. It is a neat table of contents, ordered by its own algorithm into its own priority list. But it is still overwhelming, and the importance of a page is driven by links that flow in and out of that page (hence the old name Backrub. If you are more interested about how it works, I strongly recommend the original thesis. Very technical, but makes a nice read). Google is trying a social angle to its main search, but is still driven by algorithms and its database than by humans (quite understandably so, given the size of the frickin’ internet). Indexing, crawling, archiving, mining and ordering make the search results relevant, but not necessarily ideal in usability.

For example, say I am searching for the best magazine styled Wordpress themes (as I was, the other day); Google gives me a list of sites that rank high amongst people who visited it and linked to it. But a human would have told me sites that have similar themes, other plugins that I might find useful with the theme, pros and cons of the 10 top listings, links to forums that have troubleshooting help for these themes, cost comparisons for purchase etc. The opportunity for adding value is immense, and there seems to be no one doing the job.

The next billionaire will be the guy who makes search contextual and human. Like a Wikipedia for search. Where the net is broken down by topic, and each topic has the best resources, links, documents, videos, papers, facts, at one single place. And is constantly updated. By you and me. Squidoo is a start, but is still limited to having one author / editor per lens. Knol is an attempt by Google, but the current level of content and coverage, well, sucks. And my guess is lot of the giants want to get their hands into this, but none of them know exactly how. Time will soon tell.

Google made the index page to the internet. Someone has to write a good table of contents with all parts of the same chapter put together. That is when the user experience will deliver an incremental benefit to create the next billion $. Let’s wait and watch.

(Emphasis and italics by me)

It is taken from the Facebook Terms of Use (as of today). Meaning they basically own whatever you ever published, and they can do whatever they want with it. I am no legal expert, so someone correct me if I am wrong. But this is what I gather from all the legalese.

Meaning I will host, publish, post, chat and generally hang around in my own personal nice little blog, and chose what I wish to share and what I don’t. Also meaning now I have to go read the TOU in Twitter, Flickr, Picasa et al. But better than freelancing for someone for free.

Read a fitting description of Media 2.0: “You create all the content, they make all the money.” Even though I am a marketer and am well versed with these business models, claiming rights of all content posted is pushing one’s luck a bit too far.

Update: Time to show Twitter some love :) I love the first sentence in their Copyright section: “What’s yours is yours.“

Granted that there is a lot more ‘content’ in other social media compared to Twitter, it is still an important distinction in the approach to user-generated content.

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They call it ‘a high standard of living’. I call it excessiveness. Garish, unnecessary, stinking of obnoxious opulence. One man’s luxury is another man’s necessity, but now, when the pockets strings draw tighter, luxuries are suddenly being revisited, and necessities are being redefined. I wonder if there is any limit to which this recursive loop can run before we reach a simplistic, minimalistic, bare-to-the-bone existence. Will be mighty boring, but is an interesting thought experiment.

When it is time to cut the fat, the real shit comes to the fore. I am reminded of the story of the rocks, boulders and bumps under the mighty river. The fishermen wading the waters never knew what lay beneath; when the water was aplenty, the inefficiencies were well hidden. It took the drought to expose what the river-bed was actually made of.

Recession is a good thing; it is an economic war, albeit caused by prolific dumbness of a greedy generation; but a war nevertheless. And like all wars, it will, in a very tiny way, level the playing field. Wars consume economies, destroy savings, and over-write past history. It is a reset button. So is a major recession.

So what does it bring us to? it puts some sense into people with heavy pockets and ultra-light craniums. Earlier, we had luxury goods that come with no functionality but serve as brag-currency (we, of course, still do). Bags with gold zippers, undies for dogs, mineral water from the French Alps, weird tasting fish eggs. And holy moly pops of lolly, golf clubs. In fact, golf itself. Weirder and more counter-intuitive, the better.

Then, arrogance is replaced by prudence. Means, people not buying shit they don’t frigging need. Dumb-as-fuck adults realising credit cards are not magic wands (I mean, how difficult is it to calculate how much one would owe the bank if one bought the house that one absolutely doesn’t need and can’t afford). Oil prices dropping. Car-pooling. Smaller, more fuel effecient cars. Many more examples all over the world.

Don’t get me wrong. A higher standard of living has its advantages. With higher life expectancy. More money spent in technology, education, medical care. More awareness, more entertainment. With all this ‘more’ comes the topped-up, king-sized, jumbo-combo excessiveness that makes me want to slap many with a thick wad of Zimbabwean cash notes.

I think Indians in general and especially people in rural areas should take up consulting assignments on ‘How to cope with the recessionary environments’; with special modules on low cost housing (using mud, hay and cow-dung), eating with almost no cutlery, minimal furniture interior design, vegetarianism, beedi smoking, recycling clothes (there is an entire supply chain that runs from ‘Rani Readymade for baba and baby’ -> little Bunty -> his younger brother Babloo -> the bai’s son Raju -> Raju’s younger brother Kishore -> kitchen table wipe -> garbage bin -> waste scrap for making readymade clothing). Newspaper and dabba-batliwala. Dhaaro-tej karne wala for old knives. Idli upma from yesterday’s leftover breakfast. We have mastered the fine art of living within our means since a long while.

Anyhew. I think it is time to start worrying when George Carlin and Dilbert start sounding too real. And I think that time is now. But both are as funny as fuck, so, what the hell. I will try to laugh along and get off when my stop comes. Until then, we wait for a time when the developed world erodes its wealth slowly and become level with ours, and then get together over a cutting chai at the nukkad and discuss how the heck did we let it go so awry.

Push, prod, shout, scream, fight; Do whatever it takes.

Just make it happen.

But this is a note, for posterity. To look back and smile at how these days were made unforgettable by two special people in my life :)

“…possibly the best radio station in Singapore.”

“…probably the best Indian curry that you could ever have!”

A new clan of pseudo-claims.

What are claims? (Not the insurance types, and definitely not the legal ones). For the non-branding junta, claims are what the word means. Marketers make claims for their brands based on the product performance, efficacy, credentialing by third party, external certification, internal R&D etc. Look around you and you’ll see claims everywhere (“Toothpaste most used by dentists themselves“, “Reduces dandruff by up to 100% and prevents hair fall“, “Best satisfaction guaranteed or your money back“, “Certified by American Health Association“, “Fights 7 signs of aging” and so on and so forth). I will not call out the brands and their associated claims, but you get the idea.

What is catching my attention is the slow movement of claim history towards more and more murky claims and pseudo-claims. ‘No product is better than X‘ translates to ‘X is as good as any other’. ‘Possibly the best‘ and ‘Definitely superior performance‘ always crack me up. Possibly? Superior? Superior to what? Your own performance 2 months ago, possibly.

And the opening claim is absolutely hilarious. ‘Almost certainly‘!!! How certain are we? Almost? But then, can’t blame the brands nowadays. Especially Web brands have their positions and superiority challenged on a daily basis. So no point wasting time, energy and resources to go for the superiority claim (one has to research into the details, do massive surveys and involves agencies to say that one is the best product / brand / service in the industry). So one would rather use a murky claim that supports and emphasizes the goodwill that Web brand has.

Like I used to say before; such great insights one gets only on my blog. Possibly the best branding blog you’ve never read.

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From the time of the famous Jackson 5, who were the biggest names in Motown in their early teens, Michael was something special. I remember the first time I saw his video when he was about 8 years old: in complete control of the stage, and more importantly, of his voice, and the crowd as well. Such energy, and the voice too powerful to ignore. A voice that overpowers the wonderful accompanying instruments and voices of his brothers. He was the star, clearly.

Quincy Jones and ‘Off the Wall’ happened, followed by ‘Thriller‘. My oh my. What an album. Multi-platinum, multi million selling, multi-Grammy winning and whatnot. Every song is a fricking lesson in song arrangement, voice modulation, instrumentation, bass lines and clarity. And then the ‘Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever‘ TV special happened where he first performed his Moonwalk. And the rest was not just history; it was Michael fever everywhere. And then, to follow it up with Bad, Dangerous and HIStory. How much great music one has to have within himself to come up with albums like that.

I have a lot of personal favorites: Lyrics arrangement and Van Halen’s guitar in Beat it; the rhythm pattern in Jam (the first English song I ever heard); powerful chorus in the live version of The Way You Make Me Feel; beatboxing in Stranger in Moscow; Liberian Girl, Invincible, Bad, Billie Jean, Earth Song, They don’t really care about us; and I’m not even talking about any of the videos. Just the bleddy songs. Unbelieveable!

Almost all his songs are genius material; hence no point listing all of them. He is a true legend, in the sense that he has been the material of public paranoia many times over; has been inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (twice); 13 Grammy awards, 13 number one singles, 750 million albums sold worldwide; the Moonwalk, the Crotch Grab all becoming parts of the repertoire of many budding dancers world over.

Sheer Musical Genius.

But there’s one thing I would like to say to Michael.

Stop whatever the fuck you are doing. Sleeping with children, dangling your baby from your balcony, painting your face, drafting skin from your ass onto your chin; Stop all that for fuck’s sake.

And get back to making your music. That’s your only emancipation. That’ll save you from yourself.

[Pic courtesy: Yahoo.]

Update: And he dies before he hits 51. What a shame! What a loss to music! How I wished he would re-discover himself. He was almost on his way back to stardom, with his new tour. And then, history loses the true superstar. Sigh. I am really pissed at fate for once. He deserved another chance.

There are 76 plugins used: 35 active plugins and 41 inactive plugins.

Active Plugins

  About Me widget 2.1
» Samuel Devol & John BouAntoun (url)
Adds an “About Me” widget to your sidebar.

  Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button .9.9.4
» Add to Any (url)
Help readers share, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any service. [Settings]

  Advanced Category Excluder 1.4.3
» DjZoNe (url)
This plugin helps you to manage your content, RSS feeds, sidebar widgets, and fine tune where you want to display your posts, pages, links, link categories, or hide.

  Advanced Category Excluder Widgets 1.4.3
» DjZoNe (url)
This plugin one basic widgetsm that support exclusion

  Akismet 2.2.7
» Matt Mullenweg (url)
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin.

  All in One SEO Pack 1.4.6.13
» Michael Torbert (url)
Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog.

  Audio player 1.2.3
» Martin Laine (url)
Highly configurable single track mp3 player.

  Configurable Tag Cloud 4.5
» Keith Solomon (url)
A tag cloud plugin for Wordpress 2.3 to give you more flexibility with the styling of your tag cloud.

  Configure SMTP 2.7
» Scott Reilly (url)
Configure SMTP mailing in WordPress, including support for sending e-mail via SSL/TLS (such as GMail).

  Contact Form 7 2.3
» Takayuki Miyoshi (url)
Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.

  Exclude Pages from Navigation 1.9
» Simon Wheatley (url)
Provides a checkbox on the editing page which you can check to exclude pages from the primary navigation. IMPORTANT NOTE: This will remove the pages from any “consumer” side page listings, which may not be limited to your page navigation listings.

  Feed Statistics 1.3.1
» Christopher Finke (url)
Compiles statistics about who is reading your blog via an RSS feed and what they’re reading.

  FireStats 1.3.6-stable
» Omry Yadan (url)
Statistics plugin for WordPress.

  flickrRSS 4.0
» Dave Kellam (url)
Allows you to integrate the photos from a flickr rss feed into your site.

  Google Adsense widget 1.0
» Otto (url)
Like the Text widget, but specifically for Google Adsense blocks. Up to 4 instances of this widget may exist (since Google only allows 3 ads and one link block on a page). Heavily derived from the Text widget code included with the widget plugin by Automattic, Inc.

  Google Reader widget 1.8
» James Wilson (url)
Adds a sidebar widget to show your latest shared stories.

  Google Reader widget 0.1
» Miguel Ibero (url)
Adds a widget with the links to the stories shared or starred or of a certain tag of a google reader

  Gravatars 2.6
» Scott Merrill (url)
This plugin provides an administrative interface to control default gravatar options. Registered users can also (optionally) define local gravatar images that will override their gravatar.com default. Copyright 2005 Scott Merrill; Licensed under the terms of the GPL.

  Page Links To 2.3
» Mark Jaquith (url)
Allows you to point WordPress pages or posts to a URL of your choosing. Good for setting up navigational links to non-WP sections of your site or to off-site resources.

  Post-Plugin Library 2.6.2.1
» Rob Marsh, SJ (url)
Does nothing by itself but supplies common code for the Similar Posts, Recent Posts, Random Posts, and Recent Comments plugins. Make sure you have the latest version of this plugin.

  Previous Posts widget 1.0
» James Carppe (url)
A more customizable version of the built-in Recent Posts widget.

  Random Redirect 1.1
» Matt Mullenweg (url)
Allows you to create a link to yourblog.example.com/?random which will redirect someone to a random post on your blog, in a StumbleUpon-like fashion. You can also specific in the URL `random_post_type` or `random_cat_id`.

  Recent Comments 2.1.1 beta
» Rob Marsh, SJ (url)
Displays a list of posts most recently commented. Instructions and help online.

  Recent Posts 2.6.2.0
» Rob Marsh, SJ (url)
Displays a highly configurable list of the most recent posts. Instructions and help online. Requires the latest version of the Post-Plugin Library to be installed.

  Twitter for Wordpress 1.9.7
» Ricardo González (url)
Displays your public Twitter messages for all to read. Based on Pownce for Wordpress by Cavemonkey50.

  Twitter widget 1.5
» Sarah Isaacson (url)
Sidebar widget to display your Twitter timeline. The widget allows you to choose to display your twitter username in front of your updates. You can also choose whether to display the time before or after the twitter post.

  Wordpress Automatic Upgrade 1.2.5
» Keith Dsouza (url)
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions. Go to Wordpress Automatic Upgrade to upgrade your installation Thanks to Ronald Huereca for making the plugin run in automatic mode.

  WordPress Database Backup 2.2
» Austin Matzko (url)
On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Navigate to Manage → Backup to get started.

  WordPress XML Export 2.0
» Aaron Brazell (url)
This will generate a WordPress XML export for import into other WordPress blogs. Based on code provided in 2.1+ versions of WordPress and originally written by Matt Mullenweg.

  WP-PluginsUsed 1.00
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Display WordPress plugins that you currently have (both active and inactive) onto a post/page.

  WP-PostRatings 1.11
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Adds an AJAX rating system for your WordPress blog’s post/page.

  WP Subdomains 0.6.9
» Alex Stansfield (url)
Setup your main categories, pages, and authors as subdomains and give them custom themes. Originally based on Subster Rejunevation.

  Yet Another Related Posts Plugin 2.0.4
» mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine) (url)
Returns a list of the related entries based on keyword matches, limited by a certain relatedness threshold. New and improved, version 2.0!

  Youtube Favorites Plugin/Widget 1.0
» Ozh (url)
Customizable display of your latest Youtube favorite videos. (quick readme & manual)

  YouTube widget 1.1
» James Wilson (url)
Adds a sidebar widget to show a YouTube video.

Most of these are wonderful in functionality and are easily customisable. Do check them out for using in your website. And if you are using anything other than Wordpress to run your blog, it’s time to change, I say. Download the Wordpress engine and host your own; or get a free blog at Wordpress.com.

How about spending exactly the same amount of money, and gifting a donation? How about using the money you would’ve spent for a momentary pleasure to sponsor a year’s education of an underprivileged child, lets say?

I am not going to exalt the merits of charity or advantages of doing good to the society. Some like to do it, some don’t care. People should be fine either way. But for those who like to contribute, and especially for those who have friends who would appreciate such a gesture, there is www.Giveindia.org.

Very simple in design, takes a minute to create an account, and you can choose different causes to donate; old people, children, education, upliftment, food, water, rehabilitation etc. Choose your cause, enter your amount, and gift the donation to someone dear. My favorite choice is Children’s Education; you can choose your favorite from the many options available.

How is this different from the thousand other charity websites out there? First of all, Giveindia is just a portal, a funnel or a filter that makes sure money reaches the right hands. It is also an NGO (or so I think) but it validates and verifies all NGOs associated and registered with it. And the abundance of choice and ease of transaction add to the experience.

Give it a try. Giveindia.

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Discover Tommy Emmanuel. I present two videos here. Angelina, recorded from a Korean TV station, and Somewhere over the rainbow, again a live recording.

Angelina: Notice just one thing. How much he is in love with the instrument, how he caresses it, how he enjoys his song. The mix of melody, chords and harmonics are second to none.

Somewhere over the rainbow: Beautiful harmonics, speed and incredible life in a song played on just one instrument.

Yes, there are many fingerstyle guitarists who are really good. Many classical guitarists who are also brilliant. But this is the first of the geniuses that I discovered, so the first I will write about. Read more about him here. And yes, go listen to the rest of his videos on Youtube.