Net Result

India Inc - the Next Giant Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Net-Result) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:24:00 +0000

Or so George tells me.

Must confess the numbers are impressive!

India's GDP growth is one of the highests in the world - clocking a massive 9.5% in 2006-07
The export in services sector for the country rose by 235% from 2005 to 2006
Salaries in IT jobs rose by average 14% whereas the average wage of the country rose by 3%
Huge foreign investment into the country (am still searching for the numbers on this)
Increase of higher engg institutes by a whopping 470% (makes you wonder if they ever had any institutes in the country - only joking)
etc etc etc.

Now the question is: do we assess everything in life with numbers? Silly, of course we don't but dude we are talking about a nation's progress here! Right, sure, then in numbers, let's see how the country fares among other developing nations in terms of development in infrastructure:

From 2005 to 2006 only 3550 KMS of new roads built in India where-as that number is roughly 9000 KMS in Malaysia (a much smaller country in size than India) and 10000 KMS in China.
Only 201 new health centres added in 2006, India's reach of federal health services to people is 1:2150 (one doctor per 2150 people) - versus, China's 1:1800, Malaysia's 1:350 and Philippine's 1:1010.

While I will shed more number-stories in my next blogs and will also touch upon the overall vibes of Indians living abroad and inside the country about what they feel of the path India is on now, it will suffice to say that the growth it has achieved so far is stupendous but the government has done little or almost nothing to sustain it, to hold it or better to increase the potential.

I can already see George yawning there!

SEO - My Arse!

noreply@blogger.com (Net-Result) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:17:00 +0000

Okay, this is biting me for a few days now. Let me see how many of net-veterans feel the similar way!

Five years ago, if I had to search for anything on the net I would of course go to Google, but the amount of information I would get out of a search was not only smaller than what one gets today - but also was mostly very precise and helpful. I could find what I wanted in first or second page of Google's search results. Today, I often get a ludicrous amount of information - mostly vague, meaningless and useless, it takes a lot more time to really get your hands on what you want.

Why so? I asked my techie friend George. And he explained for 30 minutes how this wonderful world of Internet is "indexed" and how information is "served". SEO techniques, he quipped, had created tremendous insight/potential to how we create, store and serve data. SEO - my arse! All I know is that it's making life of an end user like me harder and harder to find the information I am looking for on the Net.

Let's take a simple view of the world. Why is SEO needed? So that search engines can serve quality information to us. Very good, then they (search engines) must also state what information-creators (authors) should do to make sure their stuff is of substance & quality and that they will be indexed and served ? Answer is NO. Apparently Google, Yahoo and others won't tell you exactly how their robots work, or at least that's what I am told. To keep the competition alive. What competition? Competition to serve junk data as much as you can? If you are so good at identifying what's good and what's bad how come others can fool you with "technology" and get their crap sites returned by your search engines?

I do not know technology - I can only comment as an end user. But I think it's time we (end users) dictate what we want (that should be the way of any business anyway) rather than others telling us what we should want. We want information - which serves our purpose, which has a minimum standard and quality with it and most importantly information which is relevant. How we achieve it is up to the Georges to find out, however we can tell them what we want in clearer terms.

One. Tell us how your robots work. Tell us in clear terms. So that all the authors know what they should do to get listed.

Two. Appreciate we have a problem when there are multiple sources of same information - which one is better? Have a rating policy on all websites - something that the search engines will request as opposed to the author. I really do not mind if someone was collecting information of the pages I was browsing, if that is how they want to get the rating. If every user can have a "ballot" for every page they come across we build a repository of correct relevant quality information. A bit Wiki style. Let people decide what they want to see and let it grow. Organically!

Three. De-index/remove all sites/pages that do not have any information of its own and simply add links to other sites (I get so annoyed with those time wasters).

I personally think eventually the world will see a handful of serious information repositories to serve the whole human race on the Net. Wikipedia will be one of them of course. Application oriented websites will take a major leap too (eCommerce, online job applications, online banking right from account opening, online library, federal grievance procedures or other applications, etc etc) - and a few news serving websites will stand out. The rest will die.

Should die!

And then, nothing's been lost. As yet anyway!

noreply@blogger.com (Net-Result) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:26:00 +0000

Kudos to life! The ever evolving panorama of human strain to achieve what is often locked behind a chest of desire, fulfillment or simply the very fun of doing it. Yet it progresses. Air pollutes. Icebergs melt. Roads get built, trees cut. Evolution in a bigger scheme of affairs. Exciting, methinks!

Really boils down to what we want out of it. Some always complain, some bubble with new aspirations and optimism: there's generally a balance, for good! Depends which angle you look at it from - quite frankly, you like what you like, that's alwyas been the rule. Tastes change though, thankfully - and that's evolution too. From good to better, or bad to worse. There's always a change. Can we balance while the change is happening? Medoubts, cynically though it's impossible - 'cause that will stop the change, won't it? You don't balance when you change, as in, you don't not drink when you are drinking. See what I mean?

Why blog then, you asked? Well, for a change. That's the point I was trying to make. Change for good here. Some write it for passion, some for money - some because they have absolutely no clue what else in the mad mod world! This blog is for a change, a change from what I didn't do ever, to what I will do now for sometime. It already sounds fun to me!

Here's to tomorrow!