iPad is not for me

…it’s for them. In case you haven’t heard yet, hundreds of angry comments were posted by people who landed on a ReadWriteWeb post, after searching for ‘facebook login’ on google. They thought RWW was the redesigned Facebook, scrolled down, saw facebook-connect, logged in using it and posted their protest. These people did not check the URL, nor the header and even ignored the message posted by RWW team stating that the site wasn’t facebook.

This bunch of users is not a rarity; there are tons of people — a few I know — who do this. The way they browse the web might sound hilarious — open a search engine, type the sites name (ex:yahoo.com in google search mind you) click the first result and browse. As convoluted as it sounds, that’s the only way these people know how to browse the web. Explaining or trying to educate these users might not be a solution, because for one, they just don’t care; two, they know one ‘method’ and don’t want to learn another. What’s required is a reinventing of the way information is consumed and web is accessed.

Devices like iPad just might be the way to go. Want to go to Facebook? No need to open a browser, then google, then search and then land on facebook. On iPad, iPod or on most modern mobile devices, all one has to do is press on an app. It doesn’t have multi tasking, but so what? Does it really matter for ‘people’.

Let me give a more personal example. My father is familiar with computers, because he uses them in office. But he is still not too savvy with it. So he bought a new laptop recently and he for one, is enthusiastic about using it and experimenting with things. Open settings, look around etc etc. I like that about him, because that’s just what I myself. Experiment. He’ll get the hang of internet after a while, but I can’t say the same about my mother.

She is also very smart woman and very enthusiastic about learning new things. But she is more by-the-book kind with technology. So make a mistake in one of the steps and she wouldn’t know what to do. But what if she was using a simpler one-click access device like an iPad? There wouldn’t be any ’steps to follow’ would there? No chance of being confused between email address and websites address would there? No I don’t think so.

iPad’s for them, sure media houses and music industry can call it their savior, but the only bunch iPad will save for sure are the less tech-savvy crowd who use internet. They need this device more than you and me. It may not have a lot of things but whatever it has it does really good.

Personally I like Notion Ink’s Adam (going by the videos that is)

Also read: Why I am Excited About the iPad

Why all the hoopla about ‘jugaad’?

I see trend coming up and I don’t think it’s a trend at all — I’m talking about ‘jugaad’ here. I think it started off with this post by Sarah Lucy of TechCruch (she’s been writing a lot about startup scene in India = awesomeness) and now I see a story at Business Week on the same lines. My question… why the sudden hoopla about jugaad?

The basic funda behind  jugaad is to get the work done ASAP with minimal investments but aren’t there lot of people doing that already? The only thing new for someone from the west is the word and not the concept. Don’t believe me? Check out ‘There I’ve Fixed it‘ people have been doing all over the world through the years. It’s no different from one of the home made remedies my mom would come up with if an insect bit me. Jugaad is about meeting the demand without wasting much time.Real time blogging is jugaad. You add more info as and when it comes.

Jugaad is about satisfying the basic need, no added features, just one solid feature. It’s also about an idea, one brilliant idea which, if developed well could become something much bigger over time. To an extant Twitter two years back was jugaad. It just had one feature update your status message. No @replies, no lists, no organic RTs no nothing. It just catered to people who wanted to keep people posted about their whereabouts.

Jugaad is about desperation. I’m late for work and my vehicle just broke down. Autorickshaw refuses to go and what do I do? I hitch a ride. If you think of it, running a website via cloud is also jugaad. Going for shared hosting instead of a full server is jugaad. Using wordpress to design a website instead of developing a CMS+front is jugaad.

So why west… why go over over the top with jugaad? At best your efforts might help land the word in oxford dictionary, if it hasn’t already and may be a place in management books of the future. Apart from that the term doesn’t deserve more attention.

Now get spammed on the move – SPDC 2009

I am cool with spamming, in the sense, I find it very entertaining; amusing rather. Just the thought of someone trying to sell ‘v1agra’ to a guy in 20s who still hasn’t bothered to get a credit card is hilarious to say the least. The most interesting of the lot, are those guys who want to send you hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds to evade tax. Ya right. If you are so desperate to get rid of funds temporarily, why not just send me a cheque rather than an email? Oh sorry, forgot you’re a con-artist. My bad.

I think these con-artists are facing the threat of extinction, thanks to advances in spam filters of email providers like Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail. But hey, guess what — these guys are smart. They figured that there are more mobile users in India than internet users. So now they have started sending out such message via SMS. Unbelievable? Believable, because I got one of these messages. It goes like this.

CONGRAT! YOUR MOBILE NO HAS WON 450,000 POUNDS IN 2009 SPDC INTL MOBILE DRAW, TO CLAIM CONTACT EDWIN MORGAN ON +447014225488 EMAIL SPDCENGLAND@HOTMAIL.COM

Awesome no? By the way the message was in all caps I kept them like that to retain the originality. Internet users are always skeptical of such mails and have learned to ignore them, but mobile users, well there will be a lot of users who are naive and fall for this and hey, SMSs don’t even go to any spam folder! So in case you get such an SMS don’t get over excited  and jump into the fray, instead pause for a moment and appreciate the humour. You can optionally reply with a “Thanks but no thanks”. Any other suggestions?

Talking of spam I suggest you read this comic FlyYouFools and it looks like I am not the only one to get this SMS and yes, this proves my point about mobile users being naive to such scams. The funny part is that people don’t even stop to wonder what the hell SPDC is, or how they got your number, or why they would have a ‘hotmail’ account as email id.

Please do spread the word.

UPDATE: According to Thejesh, if you call back probably you will get charged heavily…airtel had warned few months back.

Google Reader and a barrage of updates

My friends say I am an internet addict, but I would like to call myself a Google reader addict. Though I spend a lot of time on twitter, friendfeed and yes in the bathroom taking long baths, reader is what keeps me occupied through the day.

So in the past two days I started noticing a barrage of updates in the service which will make your life much easier. Of course most of these ideas have been adopted from sites like twitter, friendfeed and tumblr.

Search and follow

Earlier to read someone’s shared items, you had to know that person’s email id or subscribe to the RSS feed of his shared items. But then those feed would be displayed under “subscriptions” and not under “People you follow”. Well now that has been done away with. You can search for people by their name of email id and follow them, just like you would in twitter. Sweet =)

Thoughts to share

After adding a few new followers, if you head to “People you follow” section you will be greeted by a “Have some thoughts to share” window which reminded me of twitter and friendfeed. If you want to see updates you make through this window you need to check your notes under “all items”.

I like it

In Tumblr I could “heart” posts, in Friendfeed I could like it, in twitter I could star it. Facebook liked “like” and added that feature to their site, however there was no way to go through all the ‘likes’. Google Reader always had a starring option to favourite interesting feeds, so the addition of a “like” button at the bottom of feed entries puzzled me. Of course, everyone who can view your shared item can see that you liked it, but isn’t that the reason you shared it in the first place? A rating system for shared items would have been a better alternative

Customised it yet?

I am not sure if this is a new update, but I never found this feature before. You can now even give a custom URL for your shared items. You can find mine here. If you want one, head here for how-to.

Overall I am liking the new reader, apart from the like feature which doesn’t make sense to me. Of course, feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong, or missed a point.

How do we prevent such a situation?

Yesterday I saw this story about Lori Drew who was recently acquitted off her crimes by US federal judge. Remember Lori Drew? The woman who impersonated a boy’s profile on MySpace and drove a girl (Megan Taylor Meier) to suicide?

What I found interesting was the argument put forward by her attorney.

Dean Steward argued that the facts used to support Drew’s conviction on illegal access –that she violated the website’s terms of service by creating a false account — do not constitute a criminal offense and there is no evidence she even knew the rules existed.

I argue with his argument that most people are not aware of the laws or bother to read through the terms of service. But do everyone on “dating sites” like MySpace lie? Is there any details posted on your Facebook / Orkut account which you would call a lie? At least not in my case. I am surprised no one pointed out the difference between lying on a small detail and impersonation. Even if no one pointed it out to the attorney, I can’t believe judge took his theory to come to such a conclusion.

That said, what rules does India have in this regard? Of course there is a law which holds bloggers responsible for content posted on blogs and even for content posted in comments. (comments too?) So what about Fake IPL Player, the same dude who’s cynical posts were one of the reasons quoted for the increasing conflict within Kolkata team? Can Shah Rukh Khan sue him? If yes, why didn’t he? Would a judge in India accept to the point put forward by the lawyer in MySpace case? I doubt it. That aside, shouldn’t India make an addition to its IT law to get rid of such a loop hole…

After all, you have to ‘agree to the terms’ when you sign up for any service don’t you? What say?