Yahoo Sued for defective Ad System

A class action lawsuit has been launched against Yahoo claiming it mislead investors that its new ad system would make more money.



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Orgoo - The Web Email/IM Replacement

If you are looking for a service-independent webmail/IM service, you’ll want to check this out.The key difference between Orgoo and the major Internet webmail services (Gmail, Yahoo, Live Hotmail, AOL) is that it also integrates instant messaging from all major providers.



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US Military blocks popular websites in war zones soldiers forced to cut ties from home

On 5 April , I had written about the convergence of technology and politics and how websites like MySpace.com were being used as potent communication tools by the US Presidential poll candidates . At that time Myspace.com accounted for 37% of the Internet traffic of the US and more than 64.4 million unique American users . Since then Myspace.com has continued its consolidation as one of the premier social networking sites . While the context of my post of 5 April was Myspace.com as a channel for distribution of political content , it also fulfills a very important social connectivity need . Today , the Washington post reported about the ban of Myspace.com and 11 other such sites , by the US military in war zones . The American Defence establishment's rationale was to free up precious bandwidth in the battlefront for mission critical operations . One really cant fault the military rationale of this argument however it is also important to consider that networking sites provide a great medium for the war torn soldier to connect with friends and family . In its attempts to optimize bandwidth the US Army is perhaps insensitive to the affective needs of its soldiers ....is there a need to balance two conflicting needs ....bandwidth optimization and the social needs of the soldiers........... Hillary Clinton has more than 30,000 friends in Myspace , and am sure Uncle Sam's soldier is also entitled to remain connected with his friends ,a perk that he rightfully deserves for fighting mindless wars for Bush Jr !!

Life in a Metro-Film Review

"Life in a metro” is a conglomerate film , it is an amalgamation of 4 distinct love stories put into one , integrated by love , lust , sensitivity and deceit which runs as common themes in all 4 sub-stories

Director Anurag Basu proves for the third time (after Murder and Gangster) that he's an extremely engaging storyteller. The complexities in relationships, the shortcuts one adopts in life to attain the goals and the decadence of ethics and values have been portrayed lucidly

In spite of the drama, the concept and the music, Metro falls short of being what I call a best selling movie (if there was a phrase like that) , thanks to the choice of Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali as one of the couples in the love quadrangle.

Neha (Kangana Ranaut) and Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon)

Ranjeet is a typical upwardly mobile Mumbaikar who is in this unending quest for money and success .He has forgotten his loving wife Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) and has found solace and physical gratification in his colleague Neha .Neha uses Ranjeet to scale the corporate ladder in a very short time and, using his lust for her as a lever . The physicality of the relationship and the commercialization of values stand out as an important lesson for the viewers, and conclusively prove that success can be achieved through short cuts.

Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) and Akash (Shiney Ahuja)

Akash a struggling theatre actor, chances upon Shikha and they bond very soon. Shikha neglected by an indifferent husband Ranjeet and bogged down by the drudgery of household chores finds a soul mate in Akash . There love story is one of sensitivity, caring, mutual respect and understanding, and when Shikha almost crosses the limit, her values pull her back……..


Shruti (Konkona Sen Sharma) and Debu (Irrfan Khan)

Shruti, in her early 30s and still a virgin, she's desperate to get married. She is dreamy eyed about her RJ, Wishy K [Gautam Kapoor]. She meets Debu through a matrimonial site. Debu is a typical wannabe, unsophisticated, loud, vernacular male who is best described with his crassy jokes and lecherous glances …..Shruti hates Debu and as the drama unfolds gets to know him better and finally falls in love with him

Amol (Dharmendra) and Vaijanti (Nafisa Ali)

Frankly had it not been for Dharm paji , this film would have made it …… I fault Anurag for his choice of actors like Dharmendra for complex roles like these, after all the great Jat is not exactly cut out for sophisticated acting that the role demanded.


METRO is boosted with the brilliant performances of Shilpa, Kay Kay, Irrfan and Konkona vying for top honors. According to me this is the best of Shilpa that I have experienced. Kay Kay is exceptional. You hate him; detest his very sight, all thanks to a terrific portrayal. Konkona’s brilliance is never in doubt and Irrfan is the livewire of the movie. He appeals to a large spectrum of the audience and I could watch the film only for Irrfan.

Field Guide to the North American Bikini

Blogger "The Bachelor Guy" has written an amazing post on the North American Bikini.

A well researched , well documented and very well presented piece of information .The summer is here ,and in some parts of India, gaudy bikini's are out ,they come in all shapes and sizes ....... unfortunately the Indian woman has not developed a taste for the bikini ........ for the Indian male , with an upwardly mobile girlfriend , here is your chance to impress her with your nuancical understanding of the bikini.....this is a classy piece of information will be of immense help to you ......the lucid narration of the different kinds of bikin's available can go a long way to develop a taste of these things. My favourites from are the polka dotted and the banded thong bikini (pics above) .Whats yours .......write in

BJP losing its ideological constituency as Maya sweeps UP

As the 2007 UP election results poured , it was evident by the noon of 11 May that Ms Mayawati and her BSP were all set to form the government in Lucknow . I am not a Mayawati supporter and hence there was nothing much for me to feel chirpy about and more so with the BJP being decimated

I am a BJP supporter and I pride myself of being a member of what the party calls the core ideological constituency-“the upper caste, right wing, educated Hindu”. The reason of the party’s attractiveness during the mid eighties to the early nineties was the clearly defined and sharply distinct right wing, pro majority, anti-appeasement agenda. The politics of BJP is based on solid ideological moorings, and like the Left parties over the years build a support base and a dedicated cadre which would stand by it in good times and in bad . The Ram Janambhoomi agitation catapulted the BJP into a position of power in UP and subsequently to central politics. In this process , its ideological constituency expanded manifold from the traditional Chitpawan Brahmin RSS support base to the broader section of Hindu’s .Prominent leaders like Kalyan Singh ensured that the OBC’s were firmly behind the party . BJP managed to create a solid social base amongst Hindu’s of all castes and therefore the setting was perfect for it to consolidate its position and deliver a pan India agenda (both economic and political). However, the myopia of the party’s leadership coupled with the complex caste dynamics of Indian politics has reduced the party into a spent force in UP within a decade

In the following paragraphs, I attempt to analyze the steady decline of the BJP and to me the most critical reason for it is:

Mis-management of political growth and dilution of the core ideology

The party suddenly tasted power in 1989 after being a marginal political force for many years (remember 2 MP’s in the 1984 Lok Sabha ….Rajmata and Pramod Mahajan). The inability of the party to manage the growth through a structured process lead to opportunity seekers joining the party in hoards, while these elements were required for the party to scale up politically, it also started the process of dilution of its core ideology. People who could deliver results at any cost rose to positions of power within the party hierarchy and the flag bearers of its core ideology were gradually marginalized. People like K Govindacharya and Jay Dubashi were no longer relevant in the new scheme of things .The dilution of its ideology made short term growth easier, but had far reaching consequences which the party has not recognized till date ….

a) Its inability to deliver on the Hindutva agenda lead to an erosion of its support base , people who were attracted by its pro-majority stand were soon disillusioned . When I asked this question to a certain section of the leadership within the party , I was told that to remain in power one has to make compromises ……but the cost of the compromise was the steady decline of the support base ……alas the party think tank continues to think differently

b) The party with a difference suddenly looked no-different, it had the same political gene pool (read the Congress...) which was the malaise of our society, it was the same wine in a different bottle ….

c) The party used the same tactics to remain in power and often resorted to improper means to stay in power , it had lost its moral authority over its political rivals , a consequence of not sticking to its ideology

d) Elected representatives of the party were charged of cases of corruption, brand lotus had not been able to deliver a clean administration.

The BJP has faced the nadir of its political achievements in UP in the last 2 decades , lets try and understand what really happened and is BJP going the Congress way in the UP

The 2007 UP Elections and the decline of the BJP

This elections saw the worst ever performance since 1991 , the BJP managed to garner 50 seats (down by 43) since last time , with its vote share falling 4% which one would imagine was transferred to the BSP ( vote share increase by 7%). Initial analysis says that Mayawati was able to successfully create a grand caste alliance of Hindu’s, though its Sarva Samaj Abhiyan – an all inclusive caste coalition. Mayawati was able to sell the concept of an inclusive society "Sarva Samaj" as against her traditional vote bank the "Bhaujan Samaj" . The process of building this coalition started a couple of years ago with her deliberate strategy of wooing Brahmins and other upper caste Hindus, to the extent that she gave more than 100 tickets to Brahmin candidates .The BSP caste coalition was so compelling and well designed that the party was able to get solid electoral support from all the Hindu castes and the thereby completely erode the core constituency of the BJP. The BJP Chief Ministerial candidate Kalyan Singh - the iconic OBC warrior in the Ram Janambhoomi agitation was not able to stem the migration of OBC votes from the BJP to the BSP. East UP with a Brahmin population of 20% , an area which has been a traditional stronghold of the BJP has voted overwhelming for the BSP. Rohilkhand and the Doab (Muslim majority areas) which are traditional vote banks of the Samajwadi Party have seen a huge migration of votes towards the BSP, so its safe to assume that the Sarva Samaj Abhiyan also include Muslims …..making it a deadly combination

In Conclusion

Still pretty much a BJP supporter and hopefully one for many more years , I am pained with the developments in the party and I hope that the party will go back to the drawing board and build the cadre from ground zero , rather than being bothered about short term gains . Advanji /Rajnath ji are you listening …….??

President of India -Somnath Chatterjee !!!

I have tried to steer away from politics in this blog (though I do have a strong views on the same )....barring some posts on reservations ...this blog has been apolitical. However when I came back from work today , an article in the Mumbai mirror provoked me to write this post .....which has political content and lashes out at Somnath Chatterje's candidature for the President of India .

The Context

In order to understand this post in its true spirit it is imperative for the reader to have a context of West Bengal and its polity. I was brought up in Kolkata ,.....we migrated to the city in 1977 and I lived there till 1995 . In these 18 long years , I have many experiences with the politics of the state -the good ones being :

caste free society

empowerment of villagers

the implementation of the land ceiling

However with this came trade union aggression , lock outs , strikes , depletion of employment opportunities ,scientific rigging , an aggressive and arrogant CPI(M) cadre etc . It did not take the Left many years to decimate the economic fabric of the state .When I qualified as a CA in 1995 , I found it very difficult to find a reasonable job in Kolkata and soon had to migrate out of the city.....today as an expat Bengali (Probasi Bangali) and with the current state of economic progress , I reckon the doors of the city are closed to me for ever ....

The CPI(M) and Somnath

Somnath Chatterjee, the MP from Bolpur was the Chairman of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) during the tenure of Jyoti Basu. I will never forget those days , when almost everyday, leading Kolkata based newspapers would carry stories of innumerable overseas trips that Mr Chatterjee made to promote FDI in West Bengal. His penchant for signing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU's), many of which never came to fruition earned him the nickname Mou-da. The industrial climate was so despondent that industries closed down ............Dunlop, ICI , Bharat Metal Box, Hind Motor ...could not withstand the rage of the communist labor unions . It would be fair to say that our Presidential candidate was a one of the key facilitators of this regressive process , West Bengal once a leading industrial state was converted seamlessly to an industrial waste land courtesy people like Jyoti Basu , Pramode Dasgupta and of course Mr Chatterjee included . It is ironical that the current Chief Minister says that the process of industrialization of the state is irreversible .......building a few shopping malls in Kolkata is not exactly industrialization.

Here is why according to me Somnath does not qualify for the job at Rastrapati Bhavan

a) He represents a political interest group which has always worked against the development of this nation , in the garb of inclusive development the Indian Left has been a show stopper to the nation's development and neither have they been able to deliver as is evident in West Bengal , a state that they have been in power for about 3 decades now .Can we have a President from a political party which is not exactly buoyant with the 8%+ growth that we hope to achieve as a nation

b) His track record as WBIDC Chief is appalling and if that man could replicate the same performance as a President , our national anthem can well be " God Save India" !!

c) His views on Judiciary ,post the Supreme Court's stay on the OBC reservation issue , mirror the myopia of his party's top boss Sitaram Yechury , the least said about it is better......It truly amazes me that a lawyer by profession, Somnath has not learnt to value the independence of the judiciary.

d) In 2005, our pompous Mr Chatterjee was caught in a controversy over his statement on the Supreme Court orders related to the vote of confidence in the Jharkhand Assembly. He accused the Supreme Court of encroaching on the rights of the legislature

e) On a lighter note , as a President he would only go down well only with a Bangladeshi audience (courtesy his English with a thick Bengali accent ..) , I fear that his global trips ,(given his love for international travel -as displayed during his stint in the WBIDC) would be great occasions to erode the growing brand India

In conclusion

Have there been Presidents who have been worse than Somnath -the answer is a resounding yes , but the larger question to ask "can we afford a person like Somnath as the Head of State at a juncture of our history when the nation is poised for unprecedented growth" ...definitely not ..what say you ?

Spiderman 3 -Movie Review

I went to see Spiderman -3 , in the sparking new Palm Beach Galleria today morning . My five year old Neelabjo is a crazy Spiderman fan , we have DVD's of both the movies, innumerable CD's of the cartoon version and often watch them to kill boredom.

As one would expect , there are digital effects galore to remind us that Sony is a high-tech company and getting better in what it does everyday. The three hours was full of interesting digital effects particularly when the new villain the Sandman is transformed into a sandstorm and pulverizes half of Manhattan . Sandman provides more than a serious challenge to Spiderman and in course of the movie learns of a connection with the murder of his Uncle Ben with the Sandman . To make matters worse a mysterious black alien substance turns his Spiderman costume black . This black thing is an alien parasite which feeds on a host body and brings out the darker side of Spidey that nobody has seen before. The central theme of the movie is how Parker deals with the darker side of him when he was actually enjoying it and manages to overcome it .

However if I were to critique the movie , I would say the "evil" side of Spiderman is hopelessly mild mannered . The audience is exposed to a tableau of his Mr Hyde exploits. His hair droops over his eye , he flirts with the women in Queens and Manhattan , he is rude to his girl , dances like a Travolta in a night club before making an ass of himself ......not exactly a horrifying sneak preview into the nadir of the human soul . Spider manages the struggle with his evil self well and soon comes out of it and in the end copes with Sandman .......in the process he loses his childhood friend Harry Osborne.

In conclusion a well thought through story line , very well executed digital effects contribute to make it a great viewing experience .

To your dream destination with Katara Travels

I wish to dedicate this post to all our elected representatives who are part of a newly discovered business -"Travel anywhere , anytime, without papers ..... for a premium" . Sadly this business has not received media attention in spite of being in operations for quite sometime . The post is titled "Katara Travels" in recognition of Shri Babubhai Katara -BJP MP (picture courtsey Vikram Nandwani), who was one of the first entrepreneurs in this sector to have been discovered by the national media . Other prominent competitors to Katara Travels are "Mayawati Darshan and Tours" -operated by Team BSP , and the recently discovered "Go Anywhere Destinations " lead by the TRS chief . I am hoping this sector has some more players like the "Milano Agenzia Di Corsa" blessed by the fist lady of Indian politics ......who will be discovered soon ....

Business Model

Pretty simple , pay a hefty sum of money anywhere between Rs 15- Rs 25 Lakhs and get dropped to the destination of your choice accompanied by a Member of Parliament of India ....can it ever be better.....and as expected , no papers required .....you will be travelling as his/her brother , sister , spouse etc (these guys have diplomatic immunity, by virtue of their status..)

Anyone interested ......contact the local travel agent in Punjab , Gujrat and Andhra ...that's where the services of these tour operators are presently concentrated....Happy Journey !!

One Laptop a Child (OLC) for USD 100 -India to do better

In one of my earlier posts , I had talked about my bias about discovery based learning for school children . According to me the malaise of our education system is the overemphasis on rote learning to the extent that constructivist/discovery learning is completely ignored . However the question was how do we implement discovery learning across a country like ours . In another post I had also mentioned about technology based applications for learning and the presence of technology based classrooms in rural Karnataka , but it did not seem to be a scalable model . In the absence of a plan , I would assume that it would be interesting to implement the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project which is being led by Nicholas Negraponte of MIT Ad Labs .

The One Laptop per Child association (OLPC) is a not for profit organization set up to oversee The Children's Machine project and the construction of the XO-1 "$100 laptop". The objectives of the OLPC is to facilitate learning in developing countries and to provide a children's machine at approximately USD 100 . Wikipedia has documented the details of the project including the hardware of the machine . As per plan the laptops will be sold to governments of developing countries and distributed through the respective ministries of education willing to adopt the policy of one laptop per child . At this point in time 13 countries (including Pakistan) have committed to the project in various ways , India does not feature in the list and the reason being that our HRD Ministry believes that it can manufacture the same laptop for US 10 . Considering the fact that as a nation our capabilities in computer hardware manufacture is quite limited , I fail to understand how the HRD Minstry is planning to execute the project at this price . According to me the OLPC is a great way to kick start the process of technology enabled education at a grass root level and hopefully the myopia of Arjun Singh will not come in the way of making use of global synergies (ie the OLPC laptops ..).... lets see when the USD 10 laptop of the Minstry of HRD takes off , if at all .....or is this another missed opportunity !!!

Breaking News - Microsoft pursuing Yahoo for merger

New York Post and the WSJ.com reported today (4 May 2007) of a possible merger between Microsoft and Yahoo to combat the growing influence of Google . The rationale of the merger would be to compete with the scale and the search capabilities of Google and the failure of the Panama search engine ,which has widening the gap between Yahoo and Google and coupled with Google's plan to develop web based software which directly competes with Microsoft Office , makes it imperative for Microsoft to react now .

Charlene Li analyzes the possible implications of the merger and opines that while on paper there are synergies in the merger , but the combination (Microsoft+ Yahoo) may not be able to deliver the goods that are the strategic intent of such a combination

Google could be one of the bidders for Dow Jones

Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion takeover bid of Dow Jones and Co has sparked of an auction for the 125 year old publisher . This first leg of the drama has been reported by Bloomberg

Michael Chren, managing director of Allegiant Asset Management Co. in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida quoted that other bidders would include General Electric (owner of the CNBC network) , Washington Post and even Google Inc .

Jon Murchinson, spokesman Google, declined to comment, Washington Post Chief Financial Officer John Morse wouldn't comment, while Jack Immelt of GE negated the news .

Google watchers , will keep you updated on this from Google's perspective.......

Khosla ka Ghosla-The Indian Middle Class Strikes back

Readers of my blog and my close friends would find it surprising that I am writing a film review . People close to me know that I am not a film buff ......and my wife is quite an opposite , she loves Hindi films , is a die-hard Amitabh fan and I am exactly the opposite....(though I like to dance to the tunes of filmi music with pretty women...) Hindi films are at times the cause of matrimonial stress....but more on that some other day .

A couple of weeks ago my dear wife got me tickets for a film called "Kholsa ka Ghosla" ....and my first reaction was "Oh my God , not another one"....I was sure that this was one of the variants of "Mehne...XYZ...Kiya", while I have nothing against such kind of films but neither do they particularly excite me ....but I decided to go along to the theater with an open mind...as open as I could keep it ....... It was a three hour film and I must say it was an amazing experience . Kudos to Director Dibakar Banerjee, who in his first outing presented a social problem with a delectable blend of comedy.

As one would easily guess the setting of the film is in New Delhi (Khosla being a common Punjabi name).......it's about a middle class government employee who wants to build his dream house (ghosla) . He lifetime savings went into buying a piece of land for a princely sum of Rs 30 lakhs. The members of Mr Khosla's household view this piece of land acquisition through their own filters -his younger son is indifferent, he wants to go to the US and already has a job in NY , so he doesn't care for dad's ghosla , the elder good- for -nothing son is amused ...Ms Khosla supports her husband in his Taj Mahal dream .....and finally on one Sunday when the family goes to do the Bhumi Pujan...they realize that their plot has been captured by land shark Khurana (played by Bomman Irani). His dream shattered ,Mr Khosla ,goes to meet Khurana who demands a hefty ransom to release the plot that was rightfully his . Mr Khosla approaches the police , the local politician and an NGO , all of them have a standard response , "we will negotiate with Khurana and bring down the ransom amount , you pay us our fees..." in this day and age , you would expect the police and the politicians to do this to you , but not NGO's......... a dejected Khurana loses all hope of getting back his land.......while the drama of deceit was unfolding , there was a transformation happening parallely........Khosla's second son (the one who wanted to settle down in NY) was silently feeling his father's pain and was plotting to pay back Khurana....he and his friends duped Khurana to buy a plot of land which belonged to the fisheries department and with the proceeds of the sale to paid back Khurana his ransom and releasde his father's plot .

The issue of land grabbing and harassment is quite common in India . My father was harassed by local CPI(M) and Congress goons when we decided to build a house in Kolkata in 1986 , and a middle class family like ours had no recourse ....it's been two decades after that and still today the social evil not only exists but has been compounded , at least twenty years ago there were some checks and balances in society , there were avenues for the "aam admi" to be heard ....not any longer , the film brings out how the situation has become worse with the NGO's also doing their fair share to complicate matters ( I am not at all suggesting that all NGO's do it , but I am personally aware of many who claim to be NGO's but their objectives are not exactly what their MOA claim to be...).

This film shows the middle class how to survive , and if it means to pay back these corrupt elements in the same coin...so be it ....how long can we the Indian middle class be harassed by our polity , our police ...

This brilliant theme and the script was brought to life by versatile actors like Bomman Irani , Anupam Kher , others like Tara Sharma , Ravin Shorey and Parvin Dabas form a perfect caste for a near perfect film......

Google responds to Viacom's suit on YouTube

Viacom in a suit filed in March 07, alleged that YouTube was guilty of building a library of copyrighted video clips without permission and thereby blatantly violating copyright norms . Google's response has relied heavily on the of the "safe harbor"provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, enacted in 1998. The New York Times quotes ...."Those provisions generally hold that Web sites’ owners are not liable for copyright material uploaded by others to their site as long as they promptly remove the material when asked to do so by the copyright owners "

The Technology section of the New York Times carried a detailed article on the subject

This article is an interesting read for Google watchers and a negative outcome of this suit may significantly alter the fortunes of YouTube and impact Google's overall strategy adversely. More updates soon......

Yahoo buys off Right Media for USD 680 million

Yahoo announced in 30 April 2007 its decision to buy off the rest of Right Media Inc for USD 680 million (it had already bought 20% of the company in October 2006) . Right Media's business model is unique ..... for an advertiser the network facilitates buying media through a transparent process in an auction-based exchange. The model ensures that network barriers come down, giving the advertiser open access to the entire market of sellers and their inventory. Because the advertiser now manages all sellers in a common platform, it gives him a a clear sense of how his advert objectives have been served, where the best new users lie. Bidding for each impression based on the value it generates and therefore and advertiser never overpays .

This acquisition is a strategic move to bridge the gap between rival Google's pay-per-click advertisements that run alongside its search results and also the growing popularity of Google Adwords . It is interesting to note that Yahoo has been trying to migrate to a similar revenue model like Google for quite sometime now , Project Panama is also a step in this direction . However Project Panama has failed to deliver at least till now (as borne out by the Q-1 results of Yahoo) , therefore this acquisition could well be the last throw of the dice by Yahoo to get close to Google . It is also important to note that the Google -DoubleClick deal has been completed only recently and the impressive Q-1 results of Google do not include the financial impact of the deal . Google analysts say that post the deal , DoubleClick is working in creating an ad exchange (which is what Right Media also offers ...)

Financial Implications

At the time of acquisition ,Right Media had around 20,000 advertisers, publishers and networks to its online advertising exchange. In its advert network it has 1,000 customers on whose behalf it sells advertisements and its revenue is projected at USD 70 million this year and is expected to break even by the end of the year

Financially I don't think this acquisition is going to make a difference to Yahoo's results this year , because the deal is expected to be closed in Q-2 of this year . Analysts say that the valuation's are a bit pricey , however strategically the deal is expected to boost Yahoo's fortunes in the display advertisement business .

In conclusion

Considering the deal price and the fact that DoubleClick is creating an advertising exchange of its own , I am personally not hopefully that this acquisition would make a significant contribution in reducing the gap between Yahoo and Google in the display advertisement segment....however the Yahoo management is still bullish on Project Panama and what it can deliver .....so lets wait and watch ......