One of the world's top blogs Gigaom picked up a Tech 2.0 story on the possible blackberry blackout.
One of the commenters Ashwath seemed to think that the Indian tech media is "notorious in presenting Indian regulators as Luddites" (Full comment here). While to some extent I do admit that reporters get their kicks from poking fun at clueless officials, I would have to say that the latter can't particularly claim to have been unfairly targetted.
I thought I'd do a quick jog down memory lane and pick one instance every year in the 21st century, that India's administrators have been pwned!
2001: The tragi-comic case of India's 'first cyber crime' that was 'cracked' by the Mumbai cops. The lunacy of it all is best summed up in this Wired story. (A recounting of my personal experiences for a column is here.)
2002: Delhi Police arrests noted Kashmiri journalist Iftikar Gilani on charges of spying after finding "sensitive information" on his computer. Their case falls apart after it is confirmed that the documents recovered from his computer were freely available on the Internet.
2003: Yahoo Groups gets blacked out in India. Beeb report here. I had a Jt. Secy in the Dept. of IT proudly telling me on camera, that "If it's anti-national, we will ban it!"
2004: Baazee (now eBay India) CEO gets arrested by the same cops whom he offered to fully co-operate with, in a case of pornographic content being uploaded on the site. He later told me how they tricked him into coming to the police station on a Friday so that they could jail him over the weekend without a hearing till Monday.
2005: President APJ Abdul Kalam (followed by others including the National Security Adviser) wags a finger at Google Earth. While some claim it's a legit concern, I think that anyone seriously interested in planning an attack is not going to sit and look at 3-5 year old maps that are being sourced from freely available satellite imagery.
2006: The Government goes into overdrive on internet censorship and knocks off most of the blogosphere in the process of targetting 17 (at first random looking, but clearly politically motivated) sites and blogs. Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression indeed!
2007: Cops pick up the wrong guy and keep him in custody for 50 days. Apparently the ISP mapped an incorrect physical address to the IP that was posting the anti-Shivaji content. The cops of course weren't concered with the technical details. Thankfully the poor chap is suing!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Poked By Evil Capitalists
Every now and then, the opinions expressed in the otherwise excellent Guardian surprise me, with some absolute tripe that would make even the most Luddite left-wing loonie blush.
I thought it couldn't get worse than George Monbiot's ridiculous piece some years ago mourning the 100-year anniversary of the first flight by claiming that the airplane was the "world's most effective killing machine." He was in Mumbai a month later having a gala time while attending the World Social Forum. I have a strong hunch he didn't come by boat!
But apparently it does get worse. A guy called Tom Hodgkinson, whose earlier works on the site include "Why I Gave Up On Email" pens an unintentionally hilarious deconstruction of Facebook with a special focus on its board of directors (read here). You know how seriously to take this nonsense when you encounter phrases like, "Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment."
Anyway, the most incredible slap in the face comes from the editor's note right at the top of the article (which was added two days later):
The US intelligence community's enthusiasm for hi-tech innovation after 9/11 and the creation of In-Q-Tel, its venture capital fund, in 1999 were anachronistically linked in the article below. Since 9/11 happened in 2001 it could not have led to the setting up of In-Q-Tel two years earlier.
Beautiful! A simple anachronism rips his CIA conspiracy (which takes up a few paras of his fantasy piece) theory to shreds. Of course this won't stop more loons from claiming that the CIA was planning 9/11 all along. Sigh.
I thought it couldn't get worse than George Monbiot's ridiculous piece some years ago mourning the 100-year anniversary of the first flight by claiming that the airplane was the "world's most effective killing machine." He was in Mumbai a month later having a gala time while attending the World Social Forum. I have a strong hunch he didn't come by boat!
But apparently it does get worse. A guy called Tom Hodgkinson, whose earlier works on the site include "Why I Gave Up On Email" pens an unintentionally hilarious deconstruction of Facebook with a special focus on its board of directors (read here). You know how seriously to take this nonsense when you encounter phrases like, "Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment."
Anyway, the most incredible slap in the face comes from the editor's note right at the top of the article (which was added two days later):
The US intelligence community's enthusiasm for hi-tech innovation after 9/11 and the creation of In-Q-Tel, its venture capital fund, in 1999 were anachronistically linked in the article below. Since 9/11 happened in 2001 it could not have led to the setting up of In-Q-Tel two years earlier.
Beautiful! A simple anachronism rips his CIA conspiracy (which takes up a few paras of his fantasy piece) theory to shreds. Of course this won't stop more loons from claiming that the CIA was planning 9/11 all along. Sigh.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
To Bubble Or Not To Bubble …
The most interesting part (for me) of an interview with Mahesh Murthy on MicroHoo day was about ads on Facebook in particular and social networks in general. From the (rough) transcript of the interview is Mahesh's response to my question on whether the page view economics of Web 2.0 will scale infinitely:
"I really do not think so. Facebook is the kind of environment, which is very immersive for the viewer. The viewer does not want to click on an ad and get away somewhere else. In Google, as a search engine, you have to go and click on an ad and leave the website. So, as a result the predominant paradigm in the business is click on the ad and get away from the site.
We have run lots of ads in Facebook for a dozen of clients. We find that they work on a branding level. They give you impressions and eyeballs. But you don’t get those clicks through rates. You get that by doing the regular contextual advertising on Google."
This observation from basically the head of India's biggest search marketing firm, seems totally in line with these observations (published a day prior to the interview). Money quote: "Fuck, this is a pyramid scheme. There is no money input into this system except venture capital. I remember a time, long long ago, when tech companies spent their own venture capital on each other, so revenues were all booked from the same small pool of money. Yeah, as I recall, it didn't end well."
But before you start humming to the brilliant Bu-bu-bu, Bu-bu, Bubble video below, do read this rather spirited defence from SuperCIO.
[youtube dr3qPRAAnOg]
"I really do not think so. Facebook is the kind of environment, which is very immersive for the viewer. The viewer does not want to click on an ad and get away somewhere else. In Google, as a search engine, you have to go and click on an ad and leave the website. So, as a result the predominant paradigm in the business is click on the ad and get away from the site.
We have run lots of ads in Facebook for a dozen of clients. We find that they work on a branding level. They give you impressions and eyeballs. But you don’t get those clicks through rates. You get that by doing the regular contextual advertising on Google."
This observation from basically the head of India's biggest search marketing firm, seems totally in line with these observations (published a day prior to the interview). Money quote: "Fuck, this is a pyramid scheme. There is no money input into this system except venture capital. I remember a time, long long ago, when tech companies spent their own venture capital on each other, so revenues were all booked from the same small pool of money. Yeah, as I recall, it didn't end well."
But before you start humming to the brilliant Bu-bu-bu, Bu-bu, Bubble video below, do read this rather spirited defence from SuperCIO.
[youtube dr3qPRAAnOg]
Friday, February 1, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
A Princely Sum
Yup, a pirated edition of the banned book seems to be doing the rounds of Mumbai all of a sudden. Although the book has been listed for quite some time (though currently unavailable), not many people order from Amazon in India, thanks to the high shipping charges. I thought 400 bucks was quite a steal till GE's post made me realise I'd overpaid. Interestingly, I got the contact details of the peddler from a comment/spam ad, that he left on K's blog. Very good targeted advertising - K deserves a cut! I'll probably put up a detailed review on Amazon sometime, but so far it seems that the Ambanis may just have done Hamish McDonald a favour by getting it banned. It's not as excitingly defamatory as contraband is expected to be. First five pages can be read free of cost :-)
Friday, November 30, 2007
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