White Space

Internet on the move

2009-07-09T23:56:00.004+05:30

Its quite amazing to know that inspite of internet being a part of almost all of us, mobile internet has not been able to reach upto that levels yet. Its partly coz of ignorance among the users that their mobile phone can also be used to browse internet other than making calls and SMSing. The other reason would be the not so great user experience of browsing internet on a mobile phone which has made users stay away. But after the iPhone happened, every phone manufacturer has jumped into the "touch phone which is also a powerful internet device" bandwagon, which aspires to give users a compelling mobile internet browsing experience. After iPhone the users are also becoming aware of the fact that they can browse on their phone. Mobile service providers have also started marketing their services around mobile internet; almost all recent Aircel ads have been revolving around internet connectivity on phones. I personally have donned the role of a mobile internet evangelist for quite some time now, spreading the word and have also been able to successfully coax people into using internet on mobile.

Some time back I had run a small survey on Twitter and Facebook asking people what all do they use mobile internet for and also the reason if they don't. As expected the Twitter community was already aware of internet on mobile but there were still some people who hadn't tried it out.

Most people who stayed away from mobile internet said they didn't have to as they are online on their computer. Well I think its like saying "I don't need a mobile phone coz I have a land line". Mobile internet is supposed to be used when you are on the move and not in front of your computer. There is no point in using it when you are in front of the computer.

Some people also thought the small mobile phone screen wouldn't be enough for them to browse the internet. Most of our popular daily use sites (email/news/) have a mobile version which makes it easy to use on almost all new age mobile phones. I had talked about it some time ago.

The following were some of the responses I got...

My Friend: my phone cannot do internet

@mekkanikal: I do. Check my mail and update stuff on twitter all the time. I use it for reader and google, map, local search as well!

@morphiine: I dnt use net on mobile..coz my mobile doesnt have dis facility..ya i wud browse if i had the facility...

@Karthik: I use mobile internet always when I leave comp for long time and it can be anything from twitter to mails.

@KritiA: For Twitter ofcourse!

@vimalg2: EDGE++ Opera mini for news, Nokia Push Email, Gmail Java app, Slick IM (Jabber), and Putty SSH to keep an eye on all *nix servers

@ajuonline: To check mail and stay on IM while on the move. And as a backup, when not on the move :-)

@tsuvik: I use it for tweeting majorly and googling sometimes.

@scorpfromhell: I use mobile internet mostly for jibjib (twitter j2me client), google reader & offfice emails. some times 4 picblogging & googling.

@vsr: Primarily for gmail & twitter on the move. another reason would be tht I don't have a *internet* conn. & EDGE's my way of access.

@cruisemaniac: contacts+sms backup, chat, twitter, mail(push-or-not), music(wifi only), browsing, google-reader, app-download, flickr, twitpic, voip

@FagunB: Mobile bill payment, tweeting, mail check (push) n app download - rarely to connect thru putty (for app testing)

@unitechy: twitter/email/photo upload.. basically for social networking. i think on twitter everyone uses mobile internet

@jinadcruz: Twitter..Local restaurent search..movie search..gmail..actually all kindsa mail..fb..et al

@vivekk: i say no. Nokia 1100 supports torch and SMS. That's it

@fossiloflife: yes I do, to check mails, Tweet, FB, News, general gyan

@Zishaan: email, gmail, gchat, web browsing, calendar, address book, facebook, twitter, maps, google search

@the100rabh: I dont use MI because I am connected to my laptop most of time and plus over the roof wireless internet charges. I wish WiMAX comes to India soon and we have broadband with mobility. Thats when MI makes sense.

@poojakashyap: I don't use mobile internet coz the connectivity is too slow.

@dkris: The only 2 reasons why I use MI for tweeting, checking on emails.But yeah not always.Since its expensive

@jijoy: i use it for twitter,MFE n Youtube

@pratiksinghal: Nope i dont use mobile internet. reasons-i use net almost full day on lappy & mobile sceen is too small to properly browse!

@varunkhanduja: No. The small screen of mobile doesn't gives me same feel as using on comp. Personally don't like using Internet 24x7

@netcraze: Yes for email, fring, almost all google products, twitter, zedge, facebook, feed reading..

@itdeepak: I use mobile internet for everything. What is iphone without a mobile browser.

@nikhilnarayanan: Googling,tweeting/email when no internet is available

Souparna: Don't have a connection on the phone, and somehow don't see the immediate need to since i am connected via my system most of the day anyway!

Joy: I do .. checking location route maps .. and bars in bangalore to go .. some times for scores. works out cheaper than smses :)

Susheel: I do, I use it for twitter, to check the names of actors in movies (IMDB.com, i can never remember names) and to check my business and personal mail.

Anjali: I don't ! There's a life away from the internet !

Shikha: Gmail. GReader. Twitter. AskLaila. Facebook. Music. Finding restaurants. Finding places. A lot of searching. Okay, I know. I'm addicted ;-).

Siddhartha Sen Choudhary: I will use Internet on mobile only when a mobile like Nokia N97 replaces my laptop :) Doesn't makes sense to go for GPRS connection only for mobile browsing.

Phoney Girls!

2009-06-16T20:59:00.002+05:30

As I work on the mobile internet space, I'm always on the lookout for new ideas which will help me in designing better mobile experiences. I talk to people about how they use their phone, what all they use it for other than making calls and sms, what all do they expect from a phone etc etc.

When my wife was planning to buy a new phone I had suggested to buy a Nokia E51 (I have one) as I think it comes with all the latest useful features at a less price. But she rejected it outright as she thought it was a very common phone as she saw it with many people. She wanted her phone to be something special although she was not clear about what feature would make it so... a qwerty keyboard perhaps. She looked at many options but the moment she saw the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, she made up her mind that the special element she was looking for was a cool touch screen. Every other feature came next to that. Once she started using the phone a lot of things surprised me

She thinks using stylus is cool and refuses to use finger touch. I think she is gonna hate iphone.

She hates the accelerometer. Has switched it off.

She wanted to re install Nokia PC Suite on my computer coz she thought the PC Suite CD which came with the phone was cute.

She wanted to join Facebook coz she wanted to use the Facebook icon that came preloaded with the phone.

All these things completely bowled me over coz these were valuable data which would help me immensly. I decided to ask more girls about their mobile phone preferences and the answers I got were even more interesting.

I like windows mobile more than Nokia coz win mobile allows me to put Calvin and Hobbes animation on the home screen

I bought my Sony Erricson coz I thought the package was super cute

I think some day I will become a mobile anthropologist.

Remember the milk carton

2009-06-05T00:00:00.004+05:30

I use Nestle milk's Tetrapak carton which I think is not very user friendly. Its coz I have to cut open the corner of the brick shaped carton to make a hole which not only makes the milk leak and overflow but also forced to be stored in an opened condition. The same is the case with Amul Taaza milk. Nandini Good Life milk pack comes in a very basic Tetra Fino package and hence cant be kept upright. I wonder why cant Indian milk cartons be made like the typical gable top milk cartons like we get abroad.

A gable top milk carton is a peak shaped smart packaging design marvel which can be pulled from one side of the tip to make a pout kind of opening. This not only helps pouring the milk properly without overflowing or leaking but also can be retracted back to close and store. Tetra Pak has an advanced version of this with a cap called the Tetra Rex.

Is it a cost cutting technique thats making the companies get milk packed in a simple Tetra Brik package and not a gable top milk carton? A more expensive Amul Lite comes in brick shape but has a flip open top which is again not as usable as the gable top carton. I think the people who go for carton milk wouldn't mind paying a little extra for it to be a little more usable. Or atleast make it like the Tropicana juice pack (Indian) which is brick shaped but with a capped opening. Are Nestle/Amul/Nandini listening?

The ultimate Twitter revenue model

2009-05-25T21:37:00.007+05:30

Best ideas are born when chatting with friends.

Friend: A friend is planning on starting a website that is similar to smashing magazine... but for movies and music... you interested?

Me: I don’t have time to read or write now a days. Haven’t even opened Google Reader in a long time :-(

Friend: I have had 1000+ in my reader for a couple of months now..

Me: Yeah me too

Friend: been sleeping at 4am, 5am...

Me: Once I argued with some one who said blogging was a fad. Now I think its coming true.

Friend: lol... According to some, blogging is dead... it's become a commercial enterprise now... and blogging as you used to know it, no longer exists.

Me: Amateur blogging has come down like anything

Friend: Yeah... over 100 million abandoned blogs… according to Technorati

Me: It’s more like online magazines now. Blogs are a boon for sure. You search for any shit you get it on someone’s blog

Friend: According to some, micro blogging is the new blogging…

Me: Micro blogging is keeping me updated now a days

Friend: Now how to make money off it is the next phase

Me: hmm may be they will have sponsors

Friend: Likely

Me: Sponsors based on the number of followers. Sponsors need not work based on page views. They just need to be heard.

Friend: yeah, so that's authority and popularity... you need to be popular...

Me: So if you sponsor me, I will talk good things about you

Friend: Is that an offer?

Me: hehe may be I will do a matrimonial Twitter channel and…

Friend: huh? Why?

Me: …only girls are allowed to follow me. I broadcast trustworthy info about prospective boys

Friend: Hmm...

Me: The boys sponsor me.

Friend: Then I’ll definitely sponsor you...

Me: See...

Friend: hey, if they're sponsoring you, how can they be trustworthy?

Me: They need not be trustworthy. I'm trustworthy. Like say Techcrunch

Friend: How so?

Me: They ask me to review them by paying me. (I don’t know if Techcrunch takes money to review btw)

Friend: Oy, I'm not stripping, ok...

Me: hahaha

Friend: How will you review me?

Me: Like you pay for my friendship

Friend: :P

Me: I become your paid friend. I study you for a week or so and then I write about you. Millions of girls who follow me will read it and would want to meet you

Friend: You've got to get into action on that... but micro blogging is not enough to write about me... you need a large book.

Me: Well even Alukkas jewellery and Kalyan sarees can pay me coz of the target audience. So that I talk good about them too.

Friend: Hmm... Are you gonna act on that?

Me: How’s my idea?

Friend: I think its good... needs marketing... solid marketing...

Me: First I need to be a ladies man, make a solid girl friends circle and then make them fall for ahem sorry follow me… and then let the boys know that the girls listen to me... lot of work

Friend: You need to have a very sound reputation both on the net and off...

Me: yes

Friend: and you have hang out with the girls study them too

Me: Well that will be a free service. I will do special recommendation of those girls who allow me to hang out with them

Friend: I think you will need a team for that...

Me: No No its like Splitsvilla. Everyone makes me happy

Friend: what the heck is that...

Me: Oh that’s another reality show on MTV

Friend: hmm...

Me: Girls make the King happy and boys make the Queen happy

Friend: What the heck?

Me: In the end the king and queen pick their partners to win the show

Friend: This is some porn reality show?

Me: Hehe not porn but of course little more than Indian sensibilities. However I hope the girls’ parents have sold their TV before the season started.

Happy Singh is King

2009-05-10T12:45:00.006+05:30

Long back when I went to my friend's newly opened graphic design shop, I was suprised to see the unusual aquamarine colors he had painted on the walls. I asked him about it and he said that he wanted it to be a conversation starter. Like how I asked him about it, he expected others also to do the same and he can talk about the idea. Something to break the ice with his prospective clients. I found the idea interesting. Since then I have always tried to have something with me as a conversation starter whenever I go to meet people. For some time it was my thick framed glasses (which was not very popular then), mypsychedelic shirts, 'fuel inside' sticker (which looked like the 'intel inside' logo) on my bike's petrol tank, bright red canvas shoes, the apple sticker on my hp laptop etc. I also have a gaping void cartoon on the back of my business card which acts as a great conversation starter when I go to geek camps. Now a days people find iPhones as a great conversation starter. And the list goes on.

Last month on my brief visit to Bombay, I was taken to this restaurant called 'Happy Singh'. I was expecting a typical punjabi dhaba atmosphere when I went there but as soon I entered the place I thought the place looked like an American/Mexican eatery. You know the ones like TGIF, Ruby Tuesday, Indy Joe etc. The interiors were all bright red and green with colorful light shades and graffiti on the wall. The atmosphere was so lively with something or the other happening all the time, happening bollywood bhangra numbers in the air, the servers all ready to help you out.

We were welcomed by a drink and then asked for the order. There were lots of fun stuff for us to look at on our table. The menu card was funny with every creatively named section having the restaurant mascot Mr happy singh in different avatars. There were cards on the table with jumbled up phrases for us to crack. The table also had a number displayed and a note saying if we were unhappy about anything about the place we could complain it to the authorities along with the table number.

When the food came, my aunt commented that it was quick. But the reality was that we were so engrossed in cracking Happy's jumbled phrases, talking about the unique ambiance, commenting on the different funny avatars of Happy Singh which adorned the walls, that we didn't even realize how much time we waited for the food to come. It seemed so very quick. The food too didn't disappoint, it was all beyond expectations. We had a fun time over there beyond the point that we went there to have lunch, till the ceremonial kitchen close bell rang. We were more than happy to give creative feedback (to match up to the ambiance) to them on their suggestion cards, which are usually avoided or typically filled for a formality in other places.

Happy Singh is King

We gushed in sheer excitement as we came out of the place.

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Search using a pic. Can I?

2009-05-03T20:45:00.001+05:30

The other day @sampad posted a fun challenge on Twitter to guess the person on the pic he posted on twitpic. I looked at the pic but didnt know who he was. The first thing I wanted to do was to ask Google by giving the picture as the search query which unfortunately was not possible. However I kinda guessed that he was some online personality and searched Google images with terms facebook, twitter etc. Ultimately the guy turned out to be Chris Hughes, the co founder of Facebook, but it was found only after a lot of googling based on the hints given out by @sampad.

The incident made me think; once again... :P

What if Google had a feature in 'Image Search' where I could upload a pic for Google to find content on the pic and give me results based on that? It would be fantastic. I'm sure that Google can do it, coz it already has Similar Images Search in the labs, which shows other images that look like the one which showed up as a result of an image search using keywords. Similarly Google has to just accept my pic via upload and then do a search in their database to find similar images which are appropriately tagged to know who/what the person/object is on the picture. Then it can show me results on the person/object it found out; not only image results but also other web results like a normal Google search. In Chris's case it would give me this page as a result of my "fundoo image search".

I know this is not far away. Oh btw it would not only work for famous personalities or landmarks, but also for your lesser known friends and relatives; remember all those image tagging you did in Picasa web albums? Google knows them all.

What happened on 23rd February?

2009-04-08T00:00:00.001+05:30

Last month my business analyst friend at work was analyzing the traffic report for IBN Live mobile site for the month of February and was not able to figure out some patterns. At last he asked me

Friend: Umesh, do you remember what happened on Feb 23rd ?

Me: Mmmmmmm not exactly. Whats the problem?

Friend: Well I see a sudden spike in traffic on that day and some how I missed out to note it down then. Now I have no clue what happened on that day.

I tried to recollect the happenings but as I’m very bad at remembering things I decided to ask others. Even they were clueless. Then we started spitting out random things which came to our mind…. Tendulkar’s century, Karachi Attacks, Elections, Stock market crash… but none of them could be traced back to the 23rd of February.

I tried Google, but didn’t give any helpful results. I also tried Twitter search expecting to see some tweets which happened on that day. But it didnt have a way to search for tweets on a particular day. The date as the search query didnt help too.

Then some one shouted.. It was Maha Sivratri. Then someone remembered Resool Pookutty saying it was all god’s grace as the Oscars happened on an auspicious day. Bingo. It was Oscars which made the traffic spike on IBN live site. Supposedly it was not only the television channels but also the news channels which had benefited from India’s triumph at Oscars.

I was sad that as a self confessed web lover who swears by Google couldn’t find out a popular event which happened on a previous date using the search engines. That day the whole world was talking about Twitter as a real time information search engine and I didn’t have to think of use cases to understand its potential.

Twitter is a huge archive of information about all the things happened and happening in this world on a day to day basis as there will people tweeting about them. And hence it’s also the place to search for things happened in the past and things that are happening right now in real time. Sadly Twitter couldn’t help me with the Oscars day but may be that’s what they are working towards. If Twitter had accepted the date as a search query and shown me the trending topics on 23rd February and also the tweets on those topics, I would have easily found out the answer.

Twitter as a search engine for live happenings is very powerful and there is no doubt about that. Its something even Google cannot do. The other day we the mallus in our office were so eager to find out about the Malayalam movie Sagar Alias Jacky which got released at around 12pm that day. As usual we had to wait for the first day first show to get over for the reviews to come out. I decided to try my luck again. At 1 pm I searched for Sagar Alias Jacky on Twitter and bingo there were people tweeting from the cinema hall as they were watching the flick and we got the very first reviews come to us live from ground zero. FTW.

Kindle the Amazon fire

2009-03-27T14:43:00.007+05:30

Go to know that my friend is getting the Kindle 2 so thought of catching up with her the same way we did some time ago for the iPhone

Friend: I’m so excited about the kindle 2

Me: Hows it? Just today morning as a part of our Friday Ideas session, our team was discussing about bringing digital experiences close to real world experiences and book reading was one of them. Someone wondered how was it to read a book using the Kindle.

Friend: Kindle 2 is a pretty neat device - I actually bought it for my husband. It's got a great design and lets you lose yourself in your reading. It's got free Sprint wireless connectivity built in, so it is fairly easy to order a book on Amazon and have it delivered to your Kindle in seconds. Kindle versions of books are a lot cheaper than the hardbacks I buy, often less than 1/4 of the price of a regular book. I do a lot of reading on my iPhone but the glare of the screen really hurts my eyes. Not so with the Kindle, the screen is very easy on your eyes, almost like reading a real book. The best part is you can adjust the size of the text, which is a great usability feature for older readers.

Me: What are your favorite features?

Friend: Text to speech version - You can get your Kindle 2 to read the text to you. I think this is pretty neat. I know that my husband loves this feature the most.

Play MP3s - You can upload your MP3s to the Kindle and listen to them - I expect you will be able to buy amazon mp3s directly from the Kindle in the near future but this is just me speculating

Built in dictionary - You can highlight any word and the have the inbuilt Oxford American dictionary tell you the meaning.

Bookmarks - you can bookmark several different books at once and the kindle will remember where you left off your reading.

Size - it is incredibly light and is as thin as a pencil - for someone who reads as much as I do and lugs a ton of books around, this is the best feature.

But I personally think that there are some missed opportunities in terms of other features that can create an ecosystem around the product.

Me: May be a full blown internet browser, an SDK to build third party Kindle apps :-) Btw I heard people saying that no one will buy Kindle as it’s now available as an iPhone app. What’s your take on this?

Friend: Well iPhones/iPod touch do have a bigger market share than the Kindle. Both devices enable you to stay connected (through cell network and wifi) and both have a great existing ecosystem that is built around them.

The Kindle device is pricey and works well but from a business perspective, the device is not as important as the digital selection of books that is available. The Kindle is a means to an end. If you want to reach a wider audience for your ebooks, then you first start with your device, then target other device enabled customers, and once ebooks themselves gain traction, target the masses (PC users et al).

This strategy is consistent with Amazon's strategy of providing Earth's biggest selection. I think it's brilliant.

So the question really should not be "how many kindles will be sold after the iPhone kindle app is released?” Rather, how many more incremental ebooks can you sell by being device independent?

Apple and Google are also trying to tap into the digital book market but Amazon has existing relationships with publishers and will win in the long run.

Me: Oh. So you are saying Amazon's strategy is to sell more ebooks (makes sense) than focusing on selling and making kindle to be "the ultimate" device. Kindle would be just another device offered by Amazon along with iPods and iPhones on their catalogue. It’s just that Kindle is an in house brand and has special features to be a better reader than iPod. Am I right?

Friend: Absolutely. Amazon is first and foremost a retailer with a huge selection of digital content and a proprietary device. With the latter, they can make sure competitors do not lock them out of their devices.

Me: Great. Also got to know that Amazon gave in to the ridiculous Authors Guild claim to allow authors to block text-to-speech. This was one of your favorite features right?

Friend: That is hilarious. Too bad about the text to speech but that was husband’s favorite feature. My next favorite feature is downloading books in seconds on to my device, which the stupid iPhone Kindle app cannot replicate. I’m not too gung ho about the iPhone Kindle App. Kinda sucks if you ask me.

OK so that was some serious talk. Btw I have neither an iPhone nor a Kindle. I might go for an iPhone some time in the future when the prices come down but would never go for a Kindle. I actually like the device and its features but I’m not a voracious book reader. All my reading is confined to Google Reader which works well on an iPhone. I might get one for my wife provided Kindle allows non amazon ebooks to be loaded onto it. :-) After all we are Indians.

Upwardly Mobile 2

2009-03-10T00:24:00.001+05:30

Another powerful mobile app is the Qik web casting on mobile. It records videos using your phone’s camera and in real time uploads it to your qik.com account, enabling you to do a quick and easy way to do a live web casting. Last month I was attending my colleague’s wedding in Guruvayur and I did a live qik of the ceremony for the folks at office. It was a phenomenal experience. Although later I meddled with the video quality setting to make the upload faster only to make the video quality poor. But the first clip did make a sensation in the office.

Mapunity’s BTIS service helps you in getting real time traffic status updates in Bangalore so that you can decide on what route to take when you are driving. They have a very useful SMS based service but I'm not sure how will I be able to remember all those keywords. So they have a mobile app which is still in the alpha version. But I think the app can be only used by people who have an engineering degree in mobile technology. They are really in need of an UX expert to make the app simple to use and if they do the app could be a runaway hit. I don’t mind helping them out if they are Ok with it. Coming back to the matter, if you manage to figure out how to use it, it has a mint cool feature of showing live pictures of on the road traffic powered by cameras kept at different traffic junctions.

Talking about user experience, the ICICI imobile app is very simple to use. Yes it doesn’t even ask for your ICICI web User id and password to login. They have a real cool way of integrating your bank account with the app. I paid some of my bills using this app but again recharging my wife’s Airtel prepaid card is still a problem. Even though I can easily make a payment to Airtel using the app or ICICI online, the prepaid account just doesn’t get topped up. ICICI does re fund the money after two - three days though.

Thanks to my phone, I don’t forget a thing now a days. Previously I used to get SMS reminders from Google Calendar for the events I shouldn't miss out, but now I’ve synchronized my phone with Google Calendar and Outlook. I use Google Calendar Sync to bring in Google calendar events on to my Outlook which has my official appointments and tasks. I then sync my phone with Outlook using blue tooth. So once I setup the sync thing, as I add events on Google Calendar and Outlook it automatically gets updated on my phone which will then remind me by putting the day’s tasks on my phone’s home page.

Then there is mobile.ndtv.com my favorite for reading news; they actually have enough things on mobile for me not to even go to their website. I also use the network18 sites m.ibnlive.com for news, m.buzz18.com for time pass movie gossip stuff and last but not the least m.moneycontrol.com; just to see my portfolio value going down day by day :-( Ah for cricket fans there is m.cricketnext.com too. Network18 has a very good presence on mobile and they are open to trying out new stuff. Oh btw these sites are powered by the company I work for, July Systems. ;-) That’s also a reason behind me being addicted to mobile internet as I'm supposed to be an evangelist of all the mobile sweetness.

PS: Also check out Wikipedia (en.wap.wikipedia.org), dictionary.com (m.reference.com/d), Yahoo Mail (m.yahoo.com/mail), Delicious (m.delicious.com) and Flickr (m.flickr.com) on mobile. Some of them do redirect to the mobile version when accessed using their regular web urls on mobile phones. Some of them don't, which is bad.

Upwardly Mobile 1

2009-03-06T23:40:00.003+05:30

I’m becoming an exceptional mobile internet user, day by day. Gone are those days when I used to be content with the features of my Nokia 6510 even though it rang or beeped message only once or twice in a week. The new Nokia E51 has changed the way I see mobile phones. Ahem well the calls and messages are still as bad as my good old 6510 days, but the change now is that I’m checking emails, reading blogs/news, searching for local shops, movie timings, quickly clarifying things on dictionary.com and wikipedia, tweeting and of course the Google maps and latitude. When I’m at home I feel extremely lazy to open my laptop now a days. Everything is now on my phone, ah except typing this story. I’m not yet good at typing things on my phone.

Asklaila.com (asklaila.com/m/blr) is a frequently visited site on my phone to search for shops and restaurants when I’m on the go. Like the other day I was in Koramangala and wanted to know where was Lawrence & Mayo. Just did a search on Asklaila and it showed me the shop address and also gave me options to find other optical shops nearby. It also gives me phone numbers and clicking on them will make a call. I’m not saying Asklaila has a better database than Google Local Search or anything like that (I seriously don’t know) but the user experience on this one is really nice. Well they can still improve if they can also show results that are around the location which I specified. Eg the other day I searched for Chinese restaurants on MG road and I wouldn’t have minded if it also showed me Chinese restaurants on Church Street and Brigade road. Their full blown website does that and it would be wonderful to have the same feature on mobile. Also they could integrate a map view. Or may be integrate it with Google maps app. Or an Ask Laila app with Google maps/latitude integration… I don’t know ;-)

Oh btw, If you are in Bangalore and if you know exactly which restaurant you are going to and you want to call them to reserve a table, then you don’t need an internet connection. Call Ubona at 4070 0000 and tell the restaurant name to the IVR response and it will connect you instantly to the restaurant. It’s powerful enough to understand you regardless of your accent and it works well even if there are multiple outlets for the restaurant you are looking for. It will guide you well through all the locations. Once I tried a restaurant and they didn’t have that in their database. The IVR voice sounded confused. But 5 minutes after hanging up I got an SMS from them saying the restaurant I asked for has been added and gave me the contact details. Ubona’s restaurant search works only in Bangalore and it’s a beta service they are running to demonstrate their software’s capabilities.

Avid mobile internet users would know that Google apps (Reader, Calendar, Gmail) are available for mobile on the regular urls. Google India movies (google.co.in/m/movies) is one page you want to save to your bookmarks, coz it shows all the movies running in your city, timings, theatres etc. Very handy when you are in a sudden mood to go for movies and no access to news papers. But to book the tickets you might have to turn to the movie ticket booking mobile apps like BookMyShow.com’s B Mobile app (Send BMS to
51818). But again BookMyShow doesn’t take booking for PVR Cinemas. Oh listen to this, Last weekend I was trying to book tickets for Delhi6 on PVR’s online booking site and for some reason it was not working. I quickly downloaded their mobile app (Txt PVR to 53030) and continued booking the tickets. It was like a breeze to use the app; very nicely done and extremely simple to use.

To be continued

Subprime Crisis, Credit Crunch... What?

2009-02-27T19:00:00.003+05:30

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo

OK I know that its recession time. Oh yes I also know that its something called subprime crisis which started it. But never knew exactly what that meant. This video explains things in simple terms. I like simple stuff.

Longawaited Latitude

2009-02-14T22:04:00.006+05:30

One of those days when I was bored to death, I decided to chat with my friend

Me: Today I thought of sharing an idea with you, may be we can build on the idea if it makes sense

Friend: yeah tell me

Me: My problem is this… My cousin stays at RT Nagar and it take an hour's drive from my place to his place.

Friend: ok

Me: Whenever I start from place i call him and say I've started. After some time he calls me in between to check where I have reached. If I had a mobile app which uses GPS or cell tower id or whatever possible to locate me and broadcast my location at regular intervals on a map using GPRS and could be shared with him then he doesn't have to call me. Right?

Friend: There are apps available which does this

Me: But I haven't found anything which works well in India and especially with my phone which doesn't have GPS. That's why I thought of building it ourselves

Friend: Nice idea

Me: The app should have some privacy features too. E.g. I have you and my cousin in my friend list. But I don’t want you to see my location every time, you should see only if I decide.

Friend: yeah true....I don’t want everybody to know that I am in the bar :-)

Me: correct.

Friend: Yeah. You can hide yourself. In that case app will show only your last known public location

Me: but then no one will see me right? I should have granular settings to say who should see me and who shouldn't. Show my location to Everyone or Selected ones.

Friend: Yes

Me: I went to bar and broadcasted my location to everyone. This happened y'day. Now I’m at work but I’m not broadcasting

Friend: ok

Me: should it still show the bar as my location?

Friend: It shouldn't.

Me: Yes. But the thing is so how do you decide when to show me or not

Friend: if you are not broadcasting, the map will not show you - even your last location.

Me: But when do i broadcast, ie i opened my app… Will it continuously be connected via GPRS or update periodically or updated when i press a button

Friend: You need to open the app to broadcast. But may be we can work on making the updater run in the background. it will periodically connect and send and recieve data

Me: ok so say it will connect every 5 minutes and update and standby

Friend: We can have a priority for outbound updates - means when your location changes, it has to be updated fast but only when you change location, second priority is for updating friends locations on the map, which can be time. So if you don't move from your place and the map is open it connects every 5 minutes to check your friends’ positions. If you move it will connect immediately and update your position. If your app is closed it updates only when your location changes.

Me: That’s good. But I think we should also consider having the time interval for outbound updating. i.e. I should be able to switch off the on location change update and say connect every one hour or 5 minutes.. For both outbound and inbound updates.

Friend: Yeah the on location change thing works well if I’m in the city. If I’m going for a long drive the connections will be faster and internet usage will be more - right?

Me: Yes

Friend: Sounds interesting. We will do this.

Enter latitude

Well we just saved some time by not attempting to do the app. Google just added the latitude feature to the new version of the mobile map application. I can set to update my location automatically or manually and it shows me on the map. The manual update allows me to choose from options like Google map’s “my location”, manually point a location on the map or just type a location. Which means the map only helps you but never forces you to use its powers. The auto update also asks me if it should update even if the app is closed. Very nice.

Once I set my location I can invite other people from my Gmail contacts. Oh ya it also shows me who else in my contacts is already using latitude. I can quickly share my location with others who requested my location. Have granular privacy setting for each and every user. Wow.

What I didn’t like

To switch between auto and manual update I have to do multiple clicks coz it’s hidden under the privacy settings page. Should have been little more visible. Also I don’t know what the time intervals between every GPRS update are. And I can’t do anything about it. Also when I change my display pic on mobile to make it less pixelated, it passes the same image to Google talk to make it look bad on comps. But I think thats minor. I’m not complaining.

After all 'where are you' has indeed become a thing of the past!!

Android vs iPhone?

2009-01-16T19:38:00.003+05:30

As I talked about Android some days ago, My friend who is currently working on Android projects pinged me to talk more on it

Friend: I watched the videos, seems pretty neat! though the phone seems quite bulkier than the iPhone..

Me: :) I would say, Android should not be compared to iphone, may be to start with we can compare, but ultimately they will be two different gadgets

Friend: But they are launching it as a competitor in the same space

Me: That’s the easiest to do when you start. Remember Gmail? When gmail came they just said it gives 1 GB storage space, which was easy to make people take it

Friend: True... but its not like the 1gb thing was just a carrot... they have still kept up with it and maintained it..

Me: Yes. But 1 GB is the last thing u use Gmail for now… right?

Friend: True.. absolutely.. I have not used the iphone… but at a very basic app to app thing.. it will boil down to the same wont it?

Me: Bringing out a brand new phone experience challenge has already done by apple. Now Google doesn’t have to repeat it, it will just say it’s like iphone to start with. The common thing in both the phones is they have really played down the “phone” aspect of it.

Friend: It will be a phone.. which lets you do things.. only difference being that since its open source.. experiments with it would be higher..

Me: The user has nothing to do with open source

Friend: True... you n me don’t have.. But as a whole its easier to build stuff on top of it right ?

Me: Yes. It’s like your computer. What I’m saying is its early to be directly compared to iphone. iPhone is all about experiences and Android will be of affordable and powerful things which u can do using a handheld device.

Friend: Longer run... I’m sure its gonna surpass the iphone in more that being just a phone.

Me: The objective of Android and iPhone is not to build a great phone. Phone is just a part of the feature. They will go on to become powerful handheld computers like the Mac and windows machines. I don’t know if I will ever compare Mac with a windows machine when I go to buy a computer. I will be clear on that. I will only compare machines in the same platform with a hardware perspective. For me Mac and Windows are two different products… even though on a high level they are two different computer brands. A couple of my friends have a Mac and windows for doing separate things. They might have some similar features and functionality overlap though…

Friend: Hmm

Me: Objective of Google is to make users use only their stuff for computing, tomorrow they might come with a Google TV :P which runs on top of Sony or Samsung

Friend: hehehehe! Wont be surprised... ! That would make it quite interesting I’d say.. !

Me: so your point of being the G phone bulky is least of Google’s problem, people will still look at HTC, Sony, Motorola and Samsung for options on hardware

Friend: do they have a system wherein i can have my tv on cable n online at the same time?

Me: I don’t know. I know there is Apple TV

Friend: Google might become like a service then!

Me: No... OS or OS like

Friend: yeah. i guess..

Me: It’s like this you can buy Samsung laptops, Dell or HP, but ultimately you r going to use Windows

Friend: hehe yes!

Me: So the laptop being bulky is not Microsoft’s headache, that’s something that the hardware company should figure out

Friend: :)

Me: Btw it’s all in the air OK, I really don’t know what their real strategy etc is

Friend: Yeah. Well. When it comes to Google you can hardly tell what the theory behind it is

Me: Yes

I retire. Google hire me... :P

Sky's the limit

2009-01-07T00:41:00.002+05:30

I was watching all those cool Android videos the other day, which I think is clearly going to have an edge among the iPhone droolers if positioned right, and that’s when it struck me that whatever I was seeing were only a start of what Google wants to attain as their ultimate goal of being the omnipresent in the digital world. Whatever Android does on phone is exactly what I’m going to expect from Google on my desktop in the coming years. May be they just chose to start early on mobile as there is a clear opportunity there at the moment and make it slowly on desktops.

Even though Google has already emerged as the undisputed king in the internet, its Chrome, not a fat ass OS as we think, that is going to turn the game around for Google on desktop. I’m no one to predict anything in the digital world but this is what I think which is going to happen or at least would like to happen.

Chrome won’t be a run of the mill web browser which will compete with IE or Firefox but their aim will be to remain light weight in terms of features but focus more on making Google’s products work well on it. I have already started using it as I’m a user of most of Google’s web services and I think they work the best on Chrome. Remember I have always been an IE user and no other browser was ever able to convince me to dump IE for whatever reasons till Chrome happened.

Now as Google has me using its products on its browser, here is my wish list for the future

Chrome should remember me as a Google user; i.e. I login and it knows what I want, my favorites, my history and geography.
All Google products on chrome as an integrated environment; i.e. Chrome as a one stop application which has search, email, calendar, contacts, things to read and write, pictures, videos, music, docs, maps, other websites, file storage and every other thing I use computer for.
All the Google apps available offline i.e. I can open Chrome to draft a gmail even when I’m not plugged into internet.
Plugins which work well with the integrated apps.

Simply whatever things I can do on my Android phone and Chrome on desktop should be almost the same.

Do matrimony site ads actually work?

2008-12-04T20:14:00.003+05:30

The other day I caught my friend on chat

Friend: I figured that the matrimonial sites never work.

Me: Huh why not?

Friend: Whenever I go online I see good looking girls' profile posted on the ads for matrimonial sites.

Me: OK so...

Friend: Its more than a year now, I see the same girls still on those ads saying they are still looking. If these beautiful girls couldn't find anyone on the site for this long, then people like me will have a tough time. I think I will stay away.

Me: Haha boss they are models posing for the matrimony site ads, not actual profiles. But of course I get your point :-)

My friend has lost all hope. I think its high time the matrimony sites change their strategy or at least the models.

The mChek Experience

2008-11-07T21:55:00.000+05:30

Maha impressed by the Airtel mobile payment ads I decided to give it a try as I thought it will be helpful in at least recharging my wife’s Airtel prepaid phone. I sent the keyword to the airtel shortcode as per the ads and received the link to download the mChek client on to my phone. But the first impression after downloading and installing the application itself was bad as the mChek icon looked really ugly on my phone’s screen which also made me wonder if I have downloaded the right thing.

But I decided to forget and forgive and clicked on it to get mChek’s main screen which said pay Airtel. The UI again sucked big time (which was not the good looking screen which I seen in the ads) but by then I was ready to accept the fact that if it works it was good enough. Then came the screen which asked for my credit card number. I’ve been pretty OK in using my credit card to buy things online all these years but I kinda held back at this one. My concern was that if the makers haven’t spent time on making a decent user experience then how much time they would have spent to make my credit card info safe? I looked for some info which assured me it’s safe, but couldn’t find any. There were Airtel and Visa logos on the screen, but that didn’t really tell me anything. I closed the application and decided to forget about it.

Fast forward to the MoMo Monsoon event where I met Navin, director market development of mChek who gave a presentation of their product at the meet. At the q&a hour I asked Navin about the problem I faced when I used mChek; that how safe it was. Navin told me that mChek complies with the most stringent security measures ever and it was absolutely safe to use it. I then suggested that they could make users like me comfortable by just putting a line saying its safe to enter the credit card details. He immediately bought my point and also asked me to go through the app in detail and let him know my impression.

I came back home and with the newly acquired enthusiasm I decided to check out mChek again to recharge my wife’s phone. I ignored the bad user experience whatsoever and went on to enter the credit card number and it asked me to enter the pin number. It took some time for me to find out that the text field was selected by default even when there was some default text in it. I was actually trying to select the text field by clicking on it which gave me error message saying wrong pin number. Luckily I figured out my mistake (?) and then overcame that too. The credit card screen also had the same problem like the pin number entry screen but by then I had figured out how to use it. After entering the credit card number it showed me a message saying I can start doing m-commerce transactions (?) and to transfer money I should contact icici (what?). It also asked me to click OK to continue but they didn’t have anything called OK for me to click.

Once again I figured out that OK was hidden under the options menu. I selected the OK option and then selected the pay Airtel option which again gave me two options; Gift Talktime and Recharge for new. I didn’t know what to click on so I decided to call mChek support. I called their number and explained the problem and they said they cant help me with it and I have to call Airtel customer support. I called Airtel customer support and they explained to me some weird funda which I couldn’t understand. I chose to play safe by clicking on recharge for new and entered my wife’s phone number and the recharge amount Rs 333 and yippee I got a success message.

After some time I called my wife to ask if she got the Rs 333 topup. She checked and told me that she got only Rs 290. Now if I topup for Rs 333 from outside I normally get a full talk time and wondered why it didn’t happen when I did it from mChek. I called Airtel customer care again and explained my problem and they told me that recharging via mChek shouldnt be any different from other recharge means. But it was impossible for him to check the balance coz the system was down.

After a month when I was at work, my wife called me and asked me if I can recharge her phone as it was going to die. I hesitantly opened mChek, once again went through every option (by then I was a pro in using it) and entered the amount Rs 333 and submitted. This time I got a message saying I can’t recharge for Rs 333 anymore and I should try recharging for 186 bucks instead. I quietly closed the app and walked down towards the nearest shop and got a topup for Rs 333 which gave a full talk time too.

PS: Well I found a better way to recharge the phone next time… via icici online banking.

Creative but Logical

2008-10-28T12:38:00.000+05:30

A couple of years ago I had gone through the interview process of Kanbay (Now Capgemini) which I ultimately didn't crack. But I consider their process to be the best I have gone through till now. They initially sent me a questionnaire with some interesting questions to answer and then a face to face interview from which I actually garnered a lot of knowledge. I didn't get through the interview but the place left a great impression about the potential work environment they would have offered me.

One of the sections in the questionnaire (i had saved it in my comp an dug it out some time back) was a lateral thinking questions part where I had to give three similarities between a pair of objects. I think I kinda did well in the first point but freaked out towards the 3rd one :-) Thought of sharing them here... just for fun...

-------------

Write down 3 similarities between the following pairs of objects.
Note: This is a Lateral Thinking question. Provide creative but logical answers.

- Mirror and pencil
(Example: Both mirror and pencil communicate feelings)

a) Both mirror and pencil have corrective features; we look at the mirror to correct ourselves of some flaw in our grooming. Anything written with pencil can be erased and corrected if something written goes wrong.
b) Co-Existence - A mirror’s main part is the glass and a pencil’s is the lead. Both are not useful in this context unless a silver coat on one side or wood covers them respectively.
c) Both mirror and pencil helps to gauge one’s persona; by the way one has presented himself and also from his hand writing skills.

- Chocolate and telephone

a) Both chocolate and telephone are used to communicate our feelings to someone, especially love.
b) Too much of both won’t do any good. One would run into health problems due to too many chocolates and with too many phone calls one would run into billing problems.
c) Telephone was invented by Graham bell whereas chocolate is from the land of cow bell.

- Chair and clock

a) Both chair and clock is closely related to the concept of waiting
b) When hands are the main parts of a clock, legs are the main parts of a chair
c) Being in the chair gives a sense of responsibility, and looking at the clock reminds me those responsibilities

What an irony!

2008-10-24T19:24:00.001+05:30

The Google Map Image Cutter is an application using which large images can be published on the web in a format that allows the user to pan and zoom using the standard Google Maps interface. I downloaded it and thought of storing it in my Gmail. But Gmail simply didn't trust the file and declined to attach.

Sigh :-(

Gmail filter rules

2008-10-16T18:32:00.002+05:30

I send screen shots, conversations, story links to my Gmail whenever I discover them so that I can later use them here on my blog posts. Most of the time this happens when I’m at work and I send out these mails from my work outlook. Then later when I get onto Gmail I select these mails and label them whitespace and make them easy discoverable later when I sit down to write things. Lot of work. I basically dont like working.

I was wondering if I could just send these mails out and then forget about them till I’m really in need of them. After a bit of googling for help, I created a filter in Gmail which says any mail received which has umesh.gopinath+whitespace@gmail.com in it’s TO address field should be labeled as whitespace and be archived.

There it goes. Now when I send out those mails from outlook, I send it to umesh.gopinath+whitespace@gmail.com and Gmail labels them whitespace and archives them so that it’s less work for me and I can catch up with other good things in life.

Office Treasure Hunt Game Plan - Part 4

2008-10-07T17:34:00.004+05:30

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

We really didn’t have a treasure which was exciting enough for the team to find. We had thought of giving the winning team a bottle of champagne but when Vandana went to buy the bottle she had an idea of getting miniature liquor bottles instead. She also brought the miniatures to office in a gold colored gunny bag so that no one would see what it is. When we saw it in the morning we had an idea to make that as the treasure. We also added some ferrero rocher chocolates into the bag and packed it in such a way that it looked like a treasure bag.

But how would the team find it?

Last minute changes had to happen keeping all the other plans intact.

The plan was to keep the treasure in a cupboard which will be locked and the key would be kept in the toy tram. The key would have a note which says where it belonged to.

And this time we had got everything perfect.

We were afraid that if the teams would find the clues impossible to crack. So we decided that all of us will hang around with the teams and if we found them not able to crack the codes we would help them by giving out hints etc. Also we had printouts of every team’s path with all the clues so that if any of the clues go missing, we could still help them out.

The game was a true sell out super hit among the team as they enjoyed the activities and the thrill of finding the clues which led to the other. We still had to help some of the teams to crack the clues and there were instances when some of the clues went missing. We could still help them out thanks to the fallback options but they had to miss out on the complete set of clues to form the final puzzle. Finally one of the teams cracked the big code and found the treasure amongst an extremely upbeat crowd. It was a roaring success and everyone had only good things to say about the event. It was a very well deserved break for us also to move away from the mundane job to something more interesting, challenging and brain teasing. It was also a best example on how team work works well in solving problems and designing something interesting and setting up the logistics.

The treasure hunt game in a nutshell

The teams would go to the basement to count the number of pillars there and sms us.
The first team which smsed us would get the first clue ie. a small piece of random shaped card which had a part of the picture puzzle on one side and a cryptic description of the next location, pasted on to the “colored coded” other side.
At some points it would also ask them to open a url on their phone or sms a code to a number to receive the next location.
After collecting the 7th clue from the 6th location they would have to keep all the clues together to form the picture puzzle. The team had to figure that out on their own as the last clue would only tell them to contact the person in the puzzle (One team actually got all the clues but missed out the puzzle part. They didn’t know that the other side of the clue was a part of a bigger picture).
After recognizing the person they would have to go to him/her who would hand over a folded picture of the toy tram.
The team would guess the location of the toy and find it.
A key would be kept inside the tram which would have the word ‘pantry’ written on it.
The team would then have to go to the pantry, find and unlock the closet to find the treasure.

Simple ;-)

Office Treasure Hunt Game Plan - Part 3

2008-10-04T21:05:00.004+05:30

Part 1
Part 2

Abhishek and Bhavna identified 35 locations from which 30 were picked by me to create the cryptic clues. I made the clues by following a similar pattern so that once a team gets hold of the pattern, they would be able to crack others comparitively easier. Some of them were

'Dual door food box' to safeguard against bacteria (fridge)
‘Ground zero makeup galore’ for a ‘race made of Adam's rib’ (ladies restroom)
Look behind the ‘robot who makes stimulant beverage out of seeds’ from Ethiopia which made the goats dance (coffee machine)
Table which supports injurious activities (smoking area table)
They live among boxes and racks and are always ready to lend a hand (helpdesk)

Once the locations were fixed, Bhavna and Abhishek started working on the hunt path for the teams. It consisted of the locations and the things the team will have to do to retrieve the next clue. It was decided that for a team if clue 1 is kept at one end of the office, clue 2 will be kept at the other end, so that lot of chaotic movements happen. We also made sure that at one given point of time two teams won’t be present at a single location searching for clues.

We got 5 of our really tough to recognize teenage pictures printed, pasted them onto 5 different color papers and then cut them into pieces to make the color coded puzzle. The location clues were then pasted on to the pieces. As some of the steps in the path would ask the team to open a url or send a code to a number to get the next clue, mobile friendly web pages were made with the clues in it and also sent out the clues to the phones of our team members with which they were supposed to reply, when they receive the codes as sms. Abhishek also came up with an interesting way of folding the toy tram picture which was our final clue to be handed over by the mystery person in the puzzle. We also managed to keep all the clues at the designated locations when there was no one around and also do a dry run, hours before the game began.

We were all set to start the game, but there was still something missing.

To be continued...

Part 4

Office Treasure Hunt Game Plan - Part 2

2008-10-03T10:48:00.006+05:30

Part 1

Problem 1

As we said that each team would have their own path to find the treasure, what if team A find clues of team B and follow them?

This was quite possible as there were 10 players in one team and they could virtually sweep the whole area to find clues and picking up the other team’s clue would mar the other team’s quest too. Also if the last clue gave away the treasure then what if the teams somehow (thanks to the sweeping nature) get the last clue well in advance?

We decided that a team picking up another team’s clue should have no use to them and we will also say this upfront as a rule. For that we decided that every step would have 2 things – One which will give them an idea of the final treasure and the second the clue of the location where the next set of clue was. The clue which would give an idea of the treasure would be of different kinds for every team i.e. if Team A gets a part of a map of where the treasure was kept, Team B would get a part of the picture of the treasure which they had to ultimately join together to know what/where the treasure was. The treasure would be the most unassuming thing which was always there in the open in the office. Like this we said we can make Team A’s clues unusable for Team B.

But we couldnt come up with 5 different ways of expressing the treasure. Vandana pulled us out of this problem.

“What if at every step they get a part of a picture of one of us?” she asked.

Team A would be actually searching for Person A and Team B would search for Person B, by collecting parts of his/her picture from all the locations. After the 6th clue they would have to bring all the parts together to make the bigger picture puzzle to identify the person and then contact him/her for the final clue for the treasure. This way we also resolved the problem of someone getting the last clue well in advance. It would still be unusable till they find the other pieces. We zeroed in on a toy tram kept at Vandana’s work station as the “unassuming” treasure.

Problem 2

Team A knows that picking up Team B’s clue is not going to help them. But what if they pick it up by mistake?

We decided to color code the teams and their clues. Teams A, B, C, D and E became Blue, Red, Green, Yellow and Brown and they were supposed to only pick up clues which were of their color.

Problem 3

What if the team identifies the person after one or two clues?

We would use our tough to recognize teenage pictures so that its not that easy. It would also add an element of fun.

Problem 4

It was tough to come up with 5 practical activities for the teams to do at every step to get the next location clue.

So we stuck to only two activities

To open a url on the mobile phone
To send a keyword to a number to receive reply with the clue

These activities would repeat for every team at different intervals with different urls, keywords and numbers to receive their location clues. This way we brought in the mobile usage part for all the teams.

Problem 5

How can we come up with the final clue for the toy tram at Vandana’s desk which had to be exactly pointed out?

The final clue for the treasure which had to be handed over by the person in the puzzle, would be a close up picture of the toy which would pin point the treasure but wouldn't give out the exact location. The team would have to guess the location of the treasure.

Problem 6

How would the game kick off?

We didn’t want to just give out the first clues to the teams once they were formed. The teams would have to feel that they earned the chance to get the first clue to make it more challenging. We thought of a time based activity for the teams and the early the team finishes the task the early they get their first clue. We came up with a task of making the teams count the pillars at the basement car park. As the basement car park was in a huge circular area we were sure that to count the pillars there would not be an easy task. The teams would have to sms us the correct number along with their team color and then come to us to collect the clue. The sms was to avoid arguments among the team regarding who had come first etc and also to keep the number a secret.

To be continued...

Part 3
Part 4

Office Treasure Hunt Game Plan - Part 1

2008-10-01T00:22:00.001+05:30

Everyone in the User Experience Team was super excited when I suggested that we would organize a treasure hunt game for the monthly team building event at work though the only thing we knew about a treasure hunt at the point was that it would have some clues which would lead the players to a treasure. It was our team which had to host the event this time and we wanted to do something which no other team had done before. As our 8 member team was kicked about the idea, the task of designing the game was given to the three interaction designers in the team. The requirement for the game we agreed upon was to make the game challenging and interesting for the players, but also easy for them to crack the clues once they get the hold of it. We also decided that it should have elements of mobile technology thrown in and also encourage team management by bringing in team activities.

Abhishek, Bhavna and I, the interaction designers, who were entrusted with the game design job did couple of brain storming sessions to bring in a shape to our scattered ideas. We pulled in Vandana our manager as a sounding board of ours to look at our ideas from a different perspective. She was also a great help in helping us manage the logistics.

The first thing we did was to group the office strength into 5 teams of 10 players each. We were aware that a 10 member team would be tough to manage when the game is on but we didn’t want to have more than 5 teams as each team would have their own separate path to the treasure. We had to create 5 paths each comprising of 6 steps which meant we had to come up with 30 different clues which lead to the treasure. All 30 clues would be kept at that many different locations which we had to identify in our comparatively modest office space. Abhishek agreed to identify the locations for me to make the clues. To bring in the technology/mobile aspect we decided that at every step we will ask the team to do something with their mobile phone to get the next location clue. Bhavna agreed to come up with the activities. This was just the framework of the game but that’s when we came across different problems.

To be continued...

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Whose sense of humor is it anyway?

2008-09-16T19:21:00.001+05:30

I first thought it was Google's error message and was quite impressed by their sense of humor. But later figured out that its a Windows error message which pops up for every software application which fails. Nevertheless its funny...

Small Wonder

2008-08-29T00:10:00.002+05:30

Great experiences never look “designed”. But that doesn’t mean the experience was not designed. It’s just that great designs are invisible. The outcome of great designs are often looked as the most obvious thing to be or the simplest thing ever. The well designed experience can be so smooth that no one ever realizes that someone actually thought and made that experience to be like that and its not really the only way it could have been.

Why I love twitter is coz of this reason that it’s so well designed that it looks like the simplest thing ever. Whatever you can actually “see” in Twitter as a tool is so tiny even though the impact it creates is huge. Twitter as a tool is a breeze to use, there is nothing much to figure out to use it and nothing much to do to setup things.

For example, in Twitter you can choose to receive tweets on your phone as text messages. You need to register your phone with twitter to get it activated. Once you put in your phone number Twitter shows a PIN and asks you to send it from the phone number to validate if the number your have entered is right. Now the interesting part is here. I have seen so many sites giving me PIN for phone validation but the PIN Twitter gave me was special. It was wgjmga

Now what’s special about wgjmga? Look at it carefully… Ok if you still didn’t get it start typing them on the phone and you will. The 6 letter PIN needs only the same number of key punches as it’s a combination of all the first letters on the phone keys.

Now this is what I call a good design as seldom users will even have the time to actually notice it, he would finish the task in a jiffy and continue with other good things in life. This is what I also call a small wonder coz it’s a small experience which makes life really easy. Oh well it also proves that design is not only about photoshop :-)