Tech Ramblings

It has been a long time since I have posted on my blog, Working as a Java Developer I get to play with and learn interesting tools/technologies and I wanted to share them with you.

This post is skewed towards version control, continuous integration and related areas. These areas interest me and I think the right choices/tools here help teams be more productive.

Here is the list

1) JSONP (JSON with Padding) : I like JSONP,the idea is to wrap the JSON response with a callback function.

Reference: JSON Wikipedia, Ajaxian,Oreily

At Citysearch we have been involved in building API's/ webservices to support Citygird.
Recently I worked with the consumer team to consume a citysearch webservice.
Support for JSONP from the webservice allowed us to get our work done in a quick and easy
manner. I do see the security concerns with JSONP, I think JSONP can also be used as a nice way for inter company web services to operate.


2) Hudson and CI : I worked on continous integration a long time ago (couple of years)
Recently I got an opportunity to set up CI for my team and we choose hudson :)
Hudson is super simple, intutive to use and easy to deploy. I like the maven2 support within hudson, the configuration for svn polling and periodic runs are also easy to use,
if you are looking for an easy to use, lightweight approach for CI I recommend hudson.

3) Svnrepo for SVN: Working at Nurall we decided to create a new SVN repository to
host the Java version of our site, we decided to use sourcerepo and their services have been
useful to help us get going on Nurall. We would need to play with this further to decide if we are going to use them for the long run, I do suggest them as an alternative to get you started quickly.

Few other technologies/tools I want to learn about, would love to hear your thoughts and feedback

GitHub and Git
Gerrit

Nurall Matching : How it Works

Hi All,
I am really excited to announce that we launched Nurall with Smart Matching.
Our Minimum Viable Product allows Mentors/Proteges to register and enter their preferences on Nurall. Once this is done Matching is as simple as 1-2-3

Step 1: The Nurall System Receives your Submission and starts working on smart matches.
An Automated Email is Sent to the Mentor/Protege with status updates on the matching.

Step 2: Once matches are found we get back to you with the profile information of the Mentor/Proteges. If you approve we proceed to the next step, note both the mentor/protege need to approve to connect with each other

Step 3: Once the approval is complete we allow the mentors and proteges to connect.

We have kept the process simple and we don't share your information without your consent/approval. We would love you to go ahead and try it out at http://nurall.com

As always we love to hear from you, tell us what you like/hate

Regards
Ravi

Validate Your Ideas Before Executing on Them

Most people would agree that both ideation and execution are critical for a successful organization. Working on the technical side of things I have focused on execution and executing efficiently. As I have started to work more on Nurall I have come to realize that it is critical for us to get our ideas validated before jumping in and building the product.

It is at this step that I have found the Customer Development Process to be extremely beneficial. The vision of Nurall is to connect Mentors with Visionary Proteges.
I see strong correlation in what we are doing at Nurall and the Customer Development Process. Our customers are mentors who can guide us to build a product that will satisfy their needs.
We seek to learn from the customers, if you are interested drop in at Nurall and Sign up with us.
We also see social tools like Nurall's FB Page, Nurall's TwitterAccount as means for us to engage and learn from users.

The challenge I see is incorporating the customer development process while we are in a mad rush to build the product. There are a bunch of questions that are running through my mind.

When do you decide that you have talked to enough customers?
Is there a magic number?
What do you do if you cannot get hold of enough people to talk?
How do you handle conflicting customer feedback?

As we go through the customer discovery and learning process at Nurall I will share my thoughts here. I hope this will be beneficial to Entrepreneurs and others who are engaged in a similar process. As always I love to hear from my readers. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Thanks
Ravi

Useful Books for Entrepreneurs

Recently I have been reading a bunch of books that are useful for Entrepreneurs.
I wanted to share my thoughts and get your feedback on it.

Here is the list

1) Purple Cow by Seth Godin

A must read if you are looking to build a product/service that is customer
oriented. I like the focus on the product in a marketing book. Also Seth clearly
instructs the concept of Sneezers/Early Adopters in his book

2) The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

I am reading this book, the concept of the long tail has been explained and made popular on the internet. I also see similar concepts with this book and Purple Cow. This book is useful to my role at Citysearch. At Citysearch I work on the Search Marketing Product.
I see how we can use the concepts of the long tail in monetizing search queries.
I was introduced to the concept of the long tail a couple of years ago while working at the Search Engine Marketing team at Citysearch. I finally got around to reading this book.
On the internet as we see economics of scale come into picture and the ability to provide almost infinite choice to consumers I feel this book will gain more and more value

3) The four steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

My co-founder at Nurall , Karthik recommended that I take a look at this book.
The book focuses on the Customer Development Methodology. The focus on customer discovery and customer learning is nice. Also the step by step approach helps start ups.
We have incorporated this approach and methodology to building Nurall.com.
The introduction of a well defined process to the chaotic world of internet startups is great.
A must read if you are going to start any new company

I have the following books that I am going to start reading soon

4) The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

I am interested in this book to explore further how an ideavirus grows and spreads.
A small groups of people can influence a majority. Is this true? How does it work?
How do you recognize these Sneezers/Early Users/Geeks?

5) The Art of the Innovation by Tom Kelley

I am looking to read this book with the following open questions
Is innovation an art? How can it be practiced?
Creativity: how to be creative?

These books have been useful to me as we are working on building Nurall.com
I feel lucky that I can learn and apply the principles in an internet start up company.
I am always looking to find more books/resources that would help entrepreneurs.
If you have recommendations I would love to hear your feedback. If you like/dislike my list let me know.

Thanks
Ravi

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