Flipkart's recommendations

I recently bought a nebulizer from flipkart. This was my first purchase with flipkart and my experience from looking at different products, placing the order to the delivery of the product was, as I had read and heard, excellent. After the product got delivered, I received an email from flipkart recommending some other products I should look at (or buy?), which included BP monitors and thermometers. I was a little surprised when I looked at the products recommended. Out of the eight products the email recommended, five were blood pressure monitors. I think their recommendation engine could do much better. They could have included more items that I have recently looked at on their website (which includes a lot of other interesting things and bought some offline).

Waiting for the disaster

I seriously wonder about the motivation levels of the Kingfisher or Air India's staff, considering they have not received their salaries for months and have been staring at an uncertain future of their jobs and careers for quite some time now. I hope that the safety is not being compromised or overlooked amidst all the chaos that's going on and the government is not waiting for a disaster to strike before the government and the airlines seriously sit together to fix this mess.

(Feeling of) Scarcity to Increase Demand

I read in Enchantment last week how creating a sense of scarcity can increase demand in some cases. Saw this happening on the day of Diwali at a sweets shop. The owner knew that people were doing their last minute shopping and would not want to go back home without sweets. So he kept only a small percentage of the quantity that he generally keeps on display, and told the customers that everything else was sold. As I stood there in line waiting and thinking what to buy, I saw how the workers kept replacing the empty trays with less than half filled trays. The trays kept selling and getting replaced again with less than half filled trays. Anyone who entered the shop got a feeling that there was not much left and would buy in haste. Everyone was so busy buying that it was hard to notice what was going on. Oh, and while I was leaving the store, I overheard a distressed wife telling her husband how she had been asking him to go and buy the sweets and now everything was over. :-) 

Time To Reflect

I recently read this wonderful HBR article How Will You Measure Your Life, which has made me thinking for the last few days.  

With just a two more weeks left for graduation, I think it's the best time to ask myself these questions:

• How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?

• How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?

• How can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

What did your professors gift you when you graduated?

Check this LipDub the faculty and staff at our school did for our graduation brunch.

Ads in Books?

Just saw that Amazon has announced Kindle with special offers for $114; $25 less than their cheapest model in the market today. I think this is a nice and clever step from Amazon to keep the model with $139 price tag in market. Not sure if Amazon will be able to make up for those $25 from the ads/special offers. But this will attract people who thought $139 was a high price for Kindle and these offers, since only present on the home screen and screensavers do not interrupt reading. 

For people waiting to buy a new kindle for a $100 in near future, they may have to put up with ads within books while reading. Hmm.. would be interesting to see.

Comcast Outage Threw Me Off The Cloud

I have read and sometimes felt that we are so used to be connected 24x7, that not having internet makes us feel that something is missing. I experienced it first hand last night. At around 9pm EST, by internet connection from Comcast suddenly stopped working. It took me around 2 hours to figure out a workaround to access the internet and to realize this strange addiction.

After I started thinking about it, I wondered what it would mean for all those already in the business of cloud computing - both who provide such services and who consume such services. I'm sure they might have already considered such risks. But I thought what if this outage was not on a sunday night but on a Monday morning and was more widespread; what would have it meant for the businesses impacted.

What about the Chrome OS and many other such OS to come? I don't know the technical details of Google Chrome OS, but if it is something that will run only using the internet, and is meant for people spending most of their time on internet, what would it mean having a Google Chrome OS computer but no internet connection. I wonder!

Novell Enters Social Collaboration Space Through Vibe

I just saw that Novell has launched a new social collaboration tool called Vibe. From the video and text on its website, it sounds more like Google Buzz. But it looks more formal. Currently, it is open to everyone to join and profiles are public. But if it is received well, I can see Novell rolling it out for enterprises with teams using this tool for collaboration.

Fall Colors in Boston

I was in US for three years earlier but could never come up north to see the fall colors. In last two years, I have seen some wonderful sights of fall colors in the city. I wish I had gone to NH or Maine, but maybe next time. Here is one of the pictures that I took in Boston Public Garden two weeks ago. Hope you like it.

Online Music Sales in India

I just read that Google has launched Music Service in India. This looks like a good move. The article suggests that there is a growing demand of online music sales in India. The PwC chart looks just too promising.

It's been long since I bought an Indian music cassette (I have never bought a CD). I have been roaming around since CDs became more prevalent in India and never wanted to invest in a CD player. Also, I think sale of music on CDs was very short-lived. Internet soon made CDs obsolete too. 

After reading this news, I went to www.saregama.com and saw a lot of songs have a price tag of $0.79, which amounts to approx Rs.35. I don't know why but I still feel that Rs35 is a little too much for a song in India. I don't know if I would spend this much to buy a song. I just wonder if people are really spending that much or is it just me who thinks that it's still a high price to pay for a song.