Late Night Work and The Side Effects

Long time since I blogged , It is a combination of being lazy and being busy.
I think being lazy is the reason and busy the excuse.

Lately I have been working late at work for the launch of the next big product for my company.
Late night work at a Tech company is always Interesting.You make good friends, engage in interesting conversation, get free dinner, free massages etc. Also for some reason I am more productive when I work at night, very few people are around and you get more work done.

As I am waiting on my colleague to continue my work some of my random thoughts about recent events

1) Presidential Election and the aftermath : I am excited about Obama's victory. I consider this a historic result. The economy is a concern and here I am a bit concerned that we might over regulate. I believe in free economy with proper controls and at the same time I think over regulation hurts. Bailing out big companies seems to be the trend. I look forward to see when we are going to have the direct benefits of this practice.

2) Prop 8: I am sad with the results of Prop 8. I hope to soon see this overturned.
In general I think government should stay out of our personal lives.
Marriage is a personal choice and everyone should have this option and the laws should not regulate one way or the other.

3) Nurall: I am excited about http://demo.nurall.com
We are making good progress here. We are building tools with great content, I look forward to provide you more news on this front. On a more broader scale I see how websites are going to be places with content and users .We look at this as connections. These connections should be used on both nurall and outside nurall. More on this as we release additional features.
Working on a start up like Nurall is both exciting and frustrating. We are excited about the possibilities and frustrated at the speed and what we can get done. Our team is learning to be more disciplined and attack the problem.

I am looking forward to post more often, as always I love your feedback

Thanks
Ravi

Lakers, Socal and Social Utility

The day after a long weekend is not my favorite day, you get back to work from your partying,
relaxing, traveling etc. Surprisingly today has been a good day for me. I guess it is a bunch of things.

• Weather is good today, better than the weekend
• Lakers won and are ahead 3-1 in the conference finals :)
  
• Weekend was gr8 to catch up with old friends
• I am blogging after a long time, its been a fun time the last few weeks
• Excited about playing Mah Jong, Looks like a fun game
  

Tech Thoughts

Social Networks: I am looking to see if people will come with ways to serve vertical markets in social networks.I think social networks are horizontal and there are people with specific interests who gather together on social networks, how do you capture these vertical segments and build utilities that serve them , group of people who love astronomy, elvis fans etc.
I think there are better ways to serve vertical markets in social networks.

Maybe a Linked App/Gadget/Utility for Technology Recruiters.

Monetization: Content is becoming an increasingly valuable asset to monetize. You generate
valuable content then you can syndicate, distribute , publish and charge for it. The distribution channels are interesting to me , I am happy that I get to play with this at work.

I have been trying to learn Mandarin.

Xie Xie (Thanks)
wan an (Good Night)
Ravi

Gearing up for summer :)

Hi All,

Long time since I blogged and I cant believe that we are already getting ready
to welcome Summer.

I would like to start out with this weekend of singing.

This weekend was fun, I got back to Karaoke after a long time. We visited Orchid Music Studio in KTOWN. It was a fun night and we had a bunch of great performances.

Rahul was in his usual singing mode. We had the Music Divas singing melodiously in Kate,Ara and Garima. Hayk,Harshal and Anubhav were the three music musketeers. Simon and Roselyn were great together.

Of course I performed like a Rock Star :). Fun night and I think I should go to Karaoke more often :).

Things I am looking forward to this summer not necessarily in the following order.

1) Lakers BasketBall (We Started well in the playoffs 3-0, its time to take this all the way ). The team looks good and I believe we made the best trade in the league by picking up Gasol.

2) Working on Nurall, I am super excited to be working on Nurall, We have a bunch of exciting features coming up.I like the fact that we are moving ahead and with each small step we are moving towards our goal. Also as we interact with Inventors and
figure out how we might help them it makes me feel good about our venture.

3) Building an AdEngine I do this at work in Citysearch. I want to get this out and see
how we monetize it , this is a nice learning experience and a real world test
for what we are building.

4) Surfing Its time to Surf Up in the West Coast. I want to learn how to surf.

There are tons of other things (Work,Girls, Fun,Partying,Events etc ) that I am looking forward to and I will blog as significant things happen.

I have always been an optimist , Signing off with a Jimmy Dean Quote

"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination"

Wishing you the best

Have Fun
Ravi

Red Rock : This place rocks

Its been a long time since my last post and today slightly inebriated from partying in red rock I have decided to post about this place. Red Rock is awesome , right across the building that I work.

The last few months have been fun , working for www.citysearch.com, traveling around the country seattle,san francisco,redmond,new jersey and chicago and of course our regular hang outs at red rock.

For the uninitiated
Red Rock
is the bar right across my work place on Sunset Blvd, it is a weekly hangout on Thursday night to watch football,catch up with friends and relax after a long day at work.

Also having been to so many different places I think LA still rocks, Of course I am being slightly biased as I like L.A. However the weather is perfect it is underrated, believe me after traveling to Chicago in December I think I have seen enough snow for a year,maybe we are slightly spoiled :) by the SoCal Weather.

Also it is great to watch USC win the Rose Bowl yet again and I believe college football needs a playoff system,Is it ever going to happen ?

Today was a nice day hanging out with colleagues John,Gabe,Kate,Ara,Simon from Work
and getting back home and to the city for 2008. Wishing you the best for 2008.

Signing Off
Ravi