Few days back I wrote about the iAd program from Apple. I truly believe that it will redefine the concept of online advertising. According to a survey in 2009, there are around 4.4 billion mobile phone users as compared to around 1.5 billion Internet users. Of the 4.4 billion, 1.8 billion are smart phone users. The rate at which smart phone users are growing is alarming and much faster than Internet users. More are more people are today browsing the Internet over mobile phones and more and more companies are developing custom mobile apps. This will automatically lead to a shift from desktop based online advertising to mobile based advertising. What Google did with online advertising, Apple plans to do in the mobile world. They have the biggest share in smart phone market and it will continue to grow as they launch the iPad.
Almost all of Google's revenues come from selling online ads. To maintain their dominant position, Google needs to quickly devise a totally new program for the mobile platform and counter the threat from iAd. I tried their current mobile advertising solution, but its falls quite short of expectations if You have used their desktop based advertising solutions. Google has a good mobile platform of their own - Android, and that's growing slowly but steadily and they can use that to leverage their mobile advertising. The stakes in this field are very high and although I am a big fan of Google products, I have a feeling that Apple might dislodge their dominance in online advertising in the years to come.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
iAd - The Game Changer in Advertising
On April 8th 2010, Steve Jobs made another jaw dropping presentation on the iPhone platform and its new features at the Apple's iPhone OS 4 event. I was amazed at the rate with which new apps are being developed and more amazingly the rate at which people are downloading and using them. All the new features specially multi-tasking, VoIP and folders are great and will make iPhone platform even better, but the biggest one that caught my eye is iAd. Check out the slides at 10:49AM and 10:50AM. Assuming Steve is giving the correct data the three slides that show the numbers game are very very powerful. They show the enormous opportunity that lies in front of advertisers to use the iPhone platform as the next gen in online advertising. It provides them with a perfect platform for targetted and focused advertising. I feel it is much more commanding than web/Internet advertising since in case of mobile advt, the advertisers can actually identify their users. They can know about their habits, usage patterns, geo-locations and routines by placing their ads on specific apps. These ads will also have a better ROI since the platform they run on will be with the users all the time, Internet ads cannot boast of that. The only problem I have with iAd is that is is tied to the iPhone OS. I would have loved it to be platform agnostic so that one could utilize it on Blackberry's or Palm OS or Windows Mobile. But going by Apple's history, that would have been a total departure from their strategy of having everything Apple :)
But overall, I give it a big thumbs up and am sure that advertisers will be quick to grab this huge marketing opportunity.
But overall, I give it a big thumbs up and am sure that advertisers will be quick to grab this huge marketing opportunity.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
We the engineers
A group of managers are given an assignment to measure the height of a flagpole. So they go out to the flagpole with ladders and tape measures, and they're falling off the ladders and dropping the tape measures. The whole thing is just a mess.
An engineer comes along and sees what they're trying to do, walks over, pulls the flagpole out of the ground, lays it flat, measures it from end to end, gives the measurement to one of the managers and walks away.
After the engineer has gone, one manager turns to another and laughs: "Isn't that just like an engineer? We're looking for the height and he gives us the length!"
An engineer comes along and sees what they're trying to do, walks over, pulls the flagpole out of the ground, lays it flat, measures it from end to end, gives the measurement to one of the managers and walks away.
After the engineer has gone, one manager turns to another and laughs: "Isn't that just like an engineer? We're looking for the height and he gives us the length!"
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Day India Burned
Last weekend I watched a BBC documentary on India's Partition titled "The Day India Burned" on YouTube. I was deeply touched and disturbed on the plight of people on all sides(Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs). The partition is considered as on of the largest human migrations, and the number varies from 12.5 million to 20 million. The number of deaths is between 200 thousand to over a million. Apart from these, millions were looted, women raped, people beaten up and forced conversions. So many people got affected because of the decision of few. And its a shame on those few for not planning on such a mammoth event and not taking care of the people they said they were fighting for. Also, it is a disgrace for the British empire for not thinking through on the partition and preparing a blue-print for it. A few more months of their troop deployment could have saved so many innocent lives.
At the same time, its bizarre to imagine what got into people's mind when they started this pandemonium. They went about committing these crimes in their neighborhood, their community, their cities. Shame to the leaders, political and religious, from both sides, who did not take enough actions to minimise the chaos.
Imagine being born in those times, not knowing whether you will live to see another tomorrow, enmity prevalent all over the streets, seeing your loved ones going through pain or all your wealth and materials being looted or burned in front of helpless you . How painful and difficult would it have been to leave your native place and move to a new one and in all probability being empty handed.
I am so lucky to have not seen any of the partition horrors and being born in a free democracy. I thank my previous generations to have come out of revulsion and building a strong and progressive nation.
At the same time, its bizarre to imagine what got into people's mind when they started this pandemonium. They went about committing these crimes in their neighborhood, their community, their cities. Shame to the leaders, political and religious, from both sides, who did not take enough actions to minimise the chaos.
Imagine being born in those times, not knowing whether you will live to see another tomorrow, enmity prevalent all over the streets, seeing your loved ones going through pain or all your wealth and materials being looted or burned in front of helpless you . How painful and difficult would it have been to leave your native place and move to a new one and in all probability being empty handed.
I am so lucky to have not seen any of the partition horrors and being born in a free democracy. I thank my previous generations to have come out of revulsion and building a strong and progressive nation.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
How Each One Of Us Can Change The World
The title of this blog is borrowed from the book "Giving" by Bill Clinton. I just finished reading it and it has been a fantastic read. I am not qualified enough to write a review for a book, so please dont consider this post as one. I decided to write about this book since I feel each one of us should read it. The book is aptly titled "Giving". Bill talks about how each one of us with whatever resources we have, can make a positive contribution towards hundreds and thousands of causes that might be close to our heart. In the book he highlights a lot of causes including HIV/AIDS treatment, child education, women empowerment, environment improvement, community tutoring, general hygiene, old age support and many more. Alongwith each of these, he also gives many examples on how common people like you and me have made significant impact and continued to contribute against all odds. I salute each one of those mentioned and otherwise for their dedication that is making the world a better place to live in. The book also mentions certain "do's" and "dont's" when contributing so that they can have the maximum bearing. After reading the book, I also realized that there are so many in need and there are so many areas we can contribute, we are lucky to be in a position to give. It doesn't matter how small or big our contribution is, what really matters is that we do.
I thank and congratulate Bill Clinton for writing a great eye-opener and his own personal efforts including the Clinton foundation for lots of positive contributions to the society. I would end by qouting him "We all have the capacity to do great things".
I thank and congratulate Bill Clinton for writing a great eye-opener and his own personal efforts including the Clinton foundation for lots of positive contributions to the society. I would end by qouting him "We all have the capacity to do great things".
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Cool features of Bing Search
After using Bing alongside Google for more than a month now, I have had a liking for few of Bing's feature and would like to see something similar in Google.
Bing textual Search:
Summary - I like to be able to see a concise view of a search result page that helps me to decide whether or not that particular search result is useful or not.
Additional Information on the left column - I like the way Bing picks up the search term and gets helpful links that include reference articles, related terms, additional insights into searches and so on. These help to narrow down searches and get better results.
Bing images search:
Although most of the options to filter and narrow down the results are similar to Google, I love the way it pulls up a list of "Related People" if you search for a person or a list of attractions, tourism info, maps, weather, etc, if you search for a place, or a list of reviews, prices, deals, etc. when you search for a product. I also like to be able to just pull the vertical scroller for more images and not having to click page numbers to go to the next set of results.
Bing video search:
The short preview feature when you hover your mouse over the video seems to be helpful, but the result quality is not as good as Google's video search, which is what is the most important factor when I search.
Bing Shopping:
Although I find the shopping results page a little too cluttered in Bing as compared to Google, I feel that the Category feature on the left column is slightly better in Bing that Google.
These are a few features I think really make Bing sleeker that Google in terms of user interaction, however when it comes down to the search results quality, Bing needs to catch up. Google's search algorithms seems to be better in a few areas. However, Bing engineers, just to underscore, it does not matter how many search results are pulled up(I notice that Google almost everytime pulls up 20 to 30 times the number Bing gets), its Google's results' quality that beats Bing's seldom.
Bing textual Search:
Summary - I like to be able to see a concise view of a search result page that helps me to decide whether or not that particular search result is useful or not.
Additional Information on the left column - I like the way Bing picks up the search term and gets helpful links that include reference articles, related terms, additional insights into searches and so on. These help to narrow down searches and get better results.
Bing images search:
Although most of the options to filter and narrow down the results are similar to Google, I love the way it pulls up a list of "Related People" if you search for a person or a list of attractions, tourism info, maps, weather, etc, if you search for a place, or a list of reviews, prices, deals, etc. when you search for a product. I also like to be able to just pull the vertical scroller for more images and not having to click page numbers to go to the next set of results.
Bing video search:
The short preview feature when you hover your mouse over the video seems to be helpful, but the result quality is not as good as Google's video search, which is what is the most important factor when I search.
Bing Shopping:
Although I find the shopping results page a little too cluttered in Bing as compared to Google, I feel that the Category feature on the left column is slightly better in Bing that Google.
These are a few features I think really make Bing sleeker that Google in terms of user interaction, however when it comes down to the search results quality, Bing needs to catch up. Google's search algorithms seems to be better in a few areas. However, Bing engineers, just to underscore, it does not matter how many search results are pulled up(I notice that Google almost everytime pulls up 20 to 30 times the number Bing gets), its Google's results' quality that beats Bing's seldom.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Should I Bing or continue Googling
It has been quite a while since Bing(Live), the search engine from Microsoft has been launched and many of you reading this would be wondering as to why am I comparing Bing to Google after such a long time. I wanted to use Bing extensively before even trying to compare it with Google. Google for me, has been THE search engine from the start. I did try Alta Vista, Ask, Yahoo Search but after a couple of searches then, I knew that I had to go to Google for all my web related searches.
After the huge hype sorrounding the launch of Bing, I decided to try it out. I made Google as my benchmark since I was comparing Bing against Google. I started off going with Bings punchline - "The Decision Engine". I couldnt figure out as to why MS calls Bing a decision engine. All of my searches just gave me search results. I typed in specific questions, but still search results. Maybe, I just dont get the whole concept of the decision engine!
My searches for specific terms like "Liz Hurley", "vancouver 2010", "super bowl", "nikon d90", etc. returned excellent results. As compared to Google, Bing returned more refined search reults on the search page directly rather than having to click on the results and figuring out myself. Moving on to my more generic searhes that included "best blogging sites", "mta schedule", "health care summit", etc. I found that Bing performed just about OK. Some of my searches returned almost similar results to what Google did. Others were not as good. Also when I searched for current news or events, I realized Google had a much broader base and that Google crawlers were made to work much harder. Google also seems to have an upper hand when it comes to searching within Blogs.
Now comes the part that impressed me the most. Type in terms like "risotto recipes", "flight tracker", "flight to sfo from nyc", "movie listing" or "weather 07306" . These queries returned answers that were relevant to what I was looking for. I did not have to look among the search results to locate my answer. Bing is hands down much more superior to Google in these kind of searches. A couple of other neat features that I liked about Bing were the "summary" feature that lets you get more information about a specific result and the "related searches" that come up on the left margin.
Overall, there are few areas where Bing does impress and beats Google, however overall I am a little disappointed that with all the engineering prowess of Microsoft, they have failed to raise the bar on web based textual searches. It seems that I will stick with Google and conintue Googling, ofcourse Bing once in a while!
After the huge hype sorrounding the launch of Bing, I decided to try it out. I made Google as my benchmark since I was comparing Bing against Google. I started off going with Bings punchline - "The Decision Engine". I couldnt figure out as to why MS calls Bing a decision engine. All of my searches just gave me search results. I typed in specific questions, but still search results. Maybe, I just dont get the whole concept of the decision engine!
My searches for specific terms like "Liz Hurley", "vancouver 2010", "super bowl", "nikon d90", etc. returned excellent results. As compared to Google, Bing returned more refined search reults on the search page directly rather than having to click on the results and figuring out myself. Moving on to my more generic searhes that included "best blogging sites", "mta schedule", "health care summit", etc. I found that Bing performed just about OK. Some of my searches returned almost similar results to what Google did. Others were not as good. Also when I searched for current news or events, I realized Google had a much broader base and that Google crawlers were made to work much harder. Google also seems to have an upper hand when it comes to searching within Blogs.
Now comes the part that impressed me the most. Type in terms like "risotto recipes", "flight tracker", "flight to sfo from nyc", "movie listing" or "weather 07306" . These queries returned answers that were relevant to what I was looking for. I did not have to look among the search results to locate my answer. Bing is hands down much more superior to Google in these kind of searches. A couple of other neat features that I liked about Bing were the "summary" feature that lets you get more information about a specific result and the "related searches" that come up on the left margin.
Overall, there are few areas where Bing does impress and beats Google, however overall I am a little disappointed that with all the engineering prowess of Microsoft, they have failed to raise the bar on web based textual searches. It seems that I will stick with Google and conintue Googling, ofcourse Bing once in a while!
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