Jamuna vs Brahmaputra

We were searching for a friend's house in Assam on Google Earth and found Jamuna river flowing through Guwahati to the shock of my life. Now how did that happen? This should have been Brahmaputra and not Jamuna. Refresh and it is still the same. I have loaded the screenshot here and am notifying the team at Google too.

Interestingly this is a prominent river and not a small tributary. In fact it is the only masculine-named-river in India. I hope Google quickly corrects it.

You can be really careful but there can be mistakes. If you wake up and rectify, there shouldn't be a problem. After all we are all human. Google... Are you listening? Or should I search for Taj Mahal here in Guwahati?

Internet moms or normal moms: Moms are smarter than you

Handling pressures of this world on a daily basis is not easy. But handling pressures and you is not easy at all. However for thousands of years, parents, especially moms have successfully handled all the pressure and yet never complained.

Google depicts a wonderful story with its new ad and thus reaches my core. Loved the ad.

 

Happy birthday yaara!

One of the best ads I have seen this year.

Has a simple story line which you can beat to the end and has even simpler music, simple acting and good editing then how did it succeed.

By taking the simplest gestures you choose to do during any day of your life and showing the impact you could see while harping on a sensitive lost friendship and regaining loved ones, this ad by Google tells you an amazing story - simplicity is the new success mantra.



I think this is a great take away for marketeers like me. Let me try and see if we can make something I like... a list!

• Keep it simple
• Keep it local, global and easy to follow
• Show simple controlled emotions
• Let people relate, give something usable, doable, real
• Use natural elements which don't need to dominate the theme
• Leave a clean branding image to carry on after the communique is done
• Yes, you need to advertise!

Can't wait to see this

Image is from here.

Google Saree

Satya Pauls's creation. Guess Google is dominating our lives most of the time. Pic is from here.

Monday Blues: Create your own world

Wayne Thiebaud said... An artist creates his own world. Be your own artist and create your own world. Guess what, make it beautiful. No, make it awesome.

Wayne transformed the way food is looked at. His painting is displayed as Google Doodle on its 12'th birthday.


PS. Wayne's pic is from here.

Teachnology blues

Got this as a forward from FFO. Very apt. Ain't it?

[Click on the image to see full size]

'Bing'ing ahead

Microsoft want to spread Bing to beat Google and they are working deeply and in correct way to make this real. Starting today Bing is going to throw up results of Twitter messages for search queries. Let me explain how. If you search for 'A R Rahman', you would find @arrahman tweet messages as well! Brings out more realistic and live information online. This is very exciting because there are numerous companies who are trying to build and design widgets which would broadcast Tweets to personal mail boxes, blogs and websites. Now Bing wins it all and throws them into oblivion.

This is really one step ahead of Google but there might be few problems. Consumers expect more intrusion and the privacy factor is at stake and most celebrities would opt out and the search results might be more cluttered and irrelevant. Google is waiting and watching. For now Microsoft has 1 point more then Google. The game has begun.

You can follow me on Twitter at @Vamshiavk. Search for Vamshiavk and you get all my tweets!

Towards a 'Green' blog

I was shocked to hear the claims that a typical web server, hosting anything from a website to your blog, produces about as much C02 as an car! Not only that but a typical data center which houses such servers consumes about as much energy as 30,000 households. But just how accurate are these claims? Are these merely scare tactics used to get would-be web managers to buy into “green” hosting companies?

Google has been receiving a lot of flak lately regarding their carbon footprint. Recently, there was an accusation that every two Google searches performed produce about 15g of C02, approximately the same amount produced by boiling a kettle of water. However, that data may have been a bit exaggerated, according to Google, who responded by saying that each search only emits about 0.2g of C02.

This is relieving. Most firms cash in on making everything 'green' for you. I think this is because they know many people want to use such services. Thankfully I believe that consumerism is a valid thing and the economy runs because people like me buy and pay. So if this blog emits some CO2, so be it. May be I should start planting a tree every month! How will that be?

Behavioural ads

Google has worked hard to create technology that makes the advertising on our own sites, and those of our partners, as relevant as possible. To date, we have shown ads based mainly on what your interests are at a specific moment. So if you search for [digital camera] on Google, you'll get ads related to digital cameras. If you are visiting the website of one of our AdSense partners, you would see ads based on the content of the page. For example, if you're reading a sports page on a newspaper website, we might show ads for running shoes. Or we can show ads for home maintenance services alongside a YouTube video instructing you on how to perform a simple repair. There are some situations, however, where a keyword or the content of a web page simply doesn't give us enough information to serve highly relevant ads.

We think we can make online advertising even more relevant and useful by using additional information about the websites people visit. Today we are launching "interest-based" advertising as a beta test on our partner sites and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest -- say sports, gardening, cars, pets -- with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. We may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads.

Blog me too

Very few things spread fast. Blogging is one of them. Some bloggers post once every fortnight, week or twice or thrice a week. Some addicts like me post almost once daily. Some of the blogs have direct content or articulated or opinions or observations.

Some of the lessons I have learnt are:

• You need to read a lot
  
• Its not easy
• It causes insomnia
• Is a stress buster
• It gives you a chance to vent out what you feel and publish your own articles
  

So what are you waiting for?