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

Ron Paul : Got me thinking

Here is my story. As an active young blogger I follow politics but recently
few events hapened that got me really interested about the Presidential Race.
One of my good friends recently quit is Job and traveled cross country from
Los Angeles to New Hampshire to Support and participate in the Ron Paul campaign.
Crazy and foolish act I thought.

I later talked to my friend and he provided his reasoning.I was more surprised
that he was not alone and more of his friends had joined him in the campaign.

This got me thinking.Who is Ron Paul? and what is this all about.
So as usual I followed main stream media like CNN,FOX,MSNBC etc and it looks like this guy does not have a chance. But Wait lets check out the internet and see if this
story has a buzz and here you some of the numbers from different sites.

You Tube (Around 41,500 results)
Digg ( Has more than 10,000 diggs for some posts)
Technorati Ron Paul is one of the most searched for items

Google Trends
http://www.google.com/trends?q=ron+paul

Notice I am not comparing Ron Paul to other candidates. That is not the point
I am making. The point is that there seems to be more buzz,interest about him
on the internet than on traditional media.

I discussed this with my friends and there were different reasonings provided.

Some of the common one's

A media conspiracy.
A political conspiracy.
He has a bunch of bloggers working for him.
Young people like him.
People Hate Him.

As a practical personal I debated about this. One thing that occurred through this
process is that it got me more interested in the presidential race.

It also got me thinking more about traditional media versus the internet.
People kept mentioning that it is easier to game the system on the internet
than on traditional media channels.

I cannot concur to this idea simply based on the fact that the internet is all about
me and you. The people. How can we say that few people know better than the masses
on the internet. The internet also lends itself to self regulation.

Still unanswered questions. Do comment on this topic.
I would love to hear your reactions and wouldn't mind if you hate this piece

I have always received passionate responses on this topic.

Signing Off
Ravi

Pausing Google Web History

One of the things that I noticed is that when I am signed onto one of Google's services like gmail,orkut,blogger,etc and perform web searches on Google. Google collects my web history, the web history is the record of searches that you performed on Google.

My friend Rahul was freaking out that Google was collecting all this information and
he didnot want them too. Google does have a simple way to pause it from collecting
your web history, when this feature is enabled I believe all your searches are not
recorded.

Here are the instructions on how to pause your web history on google

1) Log On to Google Web History by clicking on the option Google Web History

2) You can delete all items from your webhistory using the clear webhistory button.

3) When this is done it will also pause your webhistory. Alternatively you can click
on the pause button to prevent your searches from being recorded.

4) Help section for the google web history feature


Help for Google Web History


It is nice to know that the Opt Out feature from Google is Simple.
As always there is debate on whether people should Opt In to such features or
Opt Out as shown above.

So If you want to pause your web history on Google, Go Ahead.

Am I paranoid or is this is something that people want :)

Ravi

Yahoo Pipes:Having Fun

I started playing around with Yahoo Pipes.
For information about Yahoo Pipes.

Yahoo Pipes


Yahoo Pipes is a powerful framework for mashups, working with RSS,Feeds
and also data integration.

Some of the pipes that I Created.


Search for apartments on craigslist.



Flickr+Delicious.


I can see this as a useful tool and it is hosted by Yahoo.

Got to Go, Have Fun

Social Networking: Better Late then Never ?

For a long time I have been too lazy on social networks.
I decided to come out of hibernation and become active on orkut and facebook.

My Friends if you read the blog find me on orkut,facebook.

I get why people get hooked on to these sites.
It s kind of fun actually to track your friends find out what they are upto
and discover new friends.

I am looking forward to the SC game tonight.
Waiting to see our Q.B Booty has improved from last year.

In the season I am looking forward to SC vs Cal and SC vs Oregon.
I believe these are going to be make or break games for us.

Signing Off, Fight On !

Ravi