It’s exactly one year since I’ve been on Twitter.
First, i was skeptical about Twitter itself. My first initial reaction? It’s a micro-navel gazing tool and worse, watching others gaze their navels too.
Really, why would you want to know what folks are doing every errr.. hour? Are we all *that* unemployed?
I stayed away from it laughing at its stupidity. Then I saw more and more people, typically folks I have high regard for, jumping into it. I had this, ‘Damn! if I’m not in it, I’m not cool enough‘ feeling. Signed up to see what really it is.
Now, a year later, I find myself enjoying it. Especially catching up with people’s activities, who otherwise, I really wouldn’t have had a chance to. And Yes, it still continues to be a navel gazing tool.
Another reason why I like Twitter because its a place where I can write down things that I think are too frivolous for a blog post. “Crap! The crow just shat on me!”.
Sometimes, it can be a place for me to type my thoughts down and then pick one to expand into a blog post. It feeds my blog.
But mostly, it eats into blogging. I’ve noticed that my blogging frequency has fallen down ever since I’ve taken up twittering. The beauty of twitter may lie in its simplicity.
A few days ago, it was deja vu for me when I sat down to write about the ‘Business Uses of Twitter’. My initial feeling? Twitter is as useful for businesses as Orkut is. I was skeptical until I saw more and more businesses jumping in. Fastrack, JetBlue, SouthWest Airlines,Wrox. Then I woke up and peered in closer. The result of which you can read in this article for my Business Standard Column.
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Posting my tech column that appeared in today’s New Indian Express edition. I had a lot more to say but had to stay within the 350 word limit.
Wikia Search: The Human Powered Google Competitor?
The news that is catching everyone’s attention in the tech world is the new Wikia search. It’s a new search engine that has close relationship with its better known cousin, Wikipedia. Infact, they share the same founder, Jimmy Wales.
Wikia Search is an idea that fundamentally uses people to refine and better its search results, pretty much the same way Wikipedia uses people to bring out a better encyclopedia.
Jimmy Wales has been very pro-transparency and at many times I have heard him speak his discomfort about one company controlling a lot of our info and search habits. And we know that the “one company” is Google. From my take, I don’t think he is against Google because of its monopoly but because it isn’t as open and transparent with the data as it should be. And that’s exactly what Wales and his team are trying to do with Wikia.
Wikia will publish the full code of the search tool in the spirit of open source.
He says, “I believe that search is a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the Internet, and that it can and should therefore be done in an open, objective, accountable way. This site, which we have been working on for a long time now, represents the first draft of the future of search.”
Unlike Wikipedia, Wikia Search is a for-profit initiative and hence will eventually carry ads alongside the search results, much like Google. In fact, I won’t be surprised if its Google Adwords that is used.
The new search engine launched yesterday to some critical reviews. The most influential reviewers have trashed the product and I can see why. It’s pretty bare-bones and half-baked. Combine that with the high expectations from people’s comparision with Wikipedia and the let-down feeling is understandable. For example, I ego-searched my name ‘Kiruba’, and received only 43 results as compared with over 82,500 in Google.
Jimmy Wales defends saying that Wikipedia on day 1 was pretty bad as well but eventually grew to be the world’s biggest encyclopedia. The idea is to launch early and launch often. It’ll be interesting to see how this project shapes up.
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I’ve been invited by the editor of The New Indian Express to author a tech column. It’ll be a weekly column where I talk about interesting tech developments in an easily digestible language. The first of the series appeared today.
Haven’t decided on the name of the column though. Apparently the paper fixes the column names. But I’m sure they’d be open to ideas. I’d love to hear from you of interesting ideas.
My run with authoring columns has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Back in 1997, I authored a column for DQ Week (Data Quest Week) called Net @ttitude and wrote about interesting stuff online. It still remains my favorite till date. Had a decent response. Must’ve lasted close to an year.
I moved this column later to ChennaiOnline.com and it stayed there for close to six months.
I later wrote a column called ‘Net Results’ for the now-defunct IndiaInfoline.com. Internet information relating to the financial market. Didn’t last for more than 3 months. A failure.
Then followed a fairly high paying gig at ITspace.com during the IT boom. They even flew me to Bangalore to sign the contract and put me up in a 5 star hotel. Splurged. Not surprisingly, they over burned and shut shot after 5 months. This must be around 2001.
What followed next will be the biggest opportunity missed. I got an invite from The Hindu to write a column for the Sunday Magazine. I started off with a couple of pieces and for some reason I slowed down on my writing and eventually the opportunity bypassed me. I still kick myself when I think about what I had missed.
A brief stint with Economic Times followed where I wrote about half a dozen pieces for Madras Plus. My bad luck caught up with me when the Editor who chose me quit her job and the new Editor brought on changes. Damn! Just when I was beginning to think this might last…
So, as you can see, I don’t have the best of runs for Column. Yet, almost with amazing consistency, I keep getting offers to author column. The New Indian Express is the latest and I’m really hoping that I make this work longer than any before. Wish me luck, fellas!
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Email:Kiruba @ Kiruba.com
Phone :+91-44-42733619
Mobile : 98415 97744
Snail Mail :(Home)
Virugambakkam,
Chennai, INDIA
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