Ram Gopal Varma

I would say Ram Gopal Varma is the catalyst for changing the face of Bollywood. Not just in the creative aspects, but also in the business sense. Before Ramu, there were many acclaimed directors, many acclaimed producers, many acclaimed writers. But story telling was not what used to drive the industry. It was all what the industry calls as 'proposal making'. The producer will go around to find who is the IN hero, IN director, IN music director etc... and it's about stars and making money. Then ascended Ramu for the south. Successful or unsuccessful, his movies are about telling a story than about star value or music or gloss. And that set the wheel in motion with other willing to do movies that are not bound by commercial constraints. The came the big push, that put the industry on a race car. Ramu, the producer. Probably the first time in India, movies are being produced by a 'Creative' person who understands cinema and not by deal makers. He started giving directing opportunities to his assistants who are also driven by story telling. Though he is not highly successful overall, that opened the gates. Yash Chopra's yashraj, Yash Johar's Dharma productions, Ghai's Mukta, Bhatt's Visesh films, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Shankar and Maniratnam (wow, that was a list) also got into production. They are the best and they are the most successful directors. They know the talent of their assistants, they drive the projects and the change in the quality of cinema is for all to see. Indian Cinema has made a big leap.
I think with out the fearless Ramu, taking the big stride to become a producer, Indian Cinema would not have come this far.

Two telugu personalities

I was checking the blog of Janus Friis (creator of Kazaa and skype) and came across this term 'disruptive technology', technolgy that is responsible for a paradigm shift making the existing technology obselete. Good.

May not be totally related, but that reminded me of two telugu personalities who brought change that was 'disruptive' in India.
Ram Gopal Varma and Chandrababu Naidu.

I'd follow up on why I think they are important.

Web based apps vs Desktop apps (Take Two)

Wow!!
I was talking about this earlier on which of the two is better.
And i said i think there is a middle ground i believe is the way to go.
And you've got it.

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo

This new run time (??) would do exactly that.

The developers need to develop flash based or html based (and more) applications and they can be run on this Apollo run time. (like java run time).
The good about this platform is the interface is not constrained by the web browser, you have access to desktop resources, its cross platform.

It sounds like it is the future of apps.
Can't wait to see the beta and the products.

USA - Then and Now

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/09/emails.1967/index.html

What is so right about Google??

What is it that makes people love Google so blindly. Why do people lose objectivity when Google or even Apple is in the picture.

Apple and Google are great companies with a lot of innovation and marketing and most importantly some great products. But that doesn't make them invincible. Are they?

Though Google is churning out a number of unsuccessful products like a factory that are supposed to change the world, no one mentioned the lack of integration of all these features and lack of a common thread that connects these dots, every one gives it to Google and assumes that Google knows something that other mortals doesn't even comprehend and would surprise every one, until the CEO himself came out and said they are going in a wrong direction and mentioned the need to have features, not the products.

Until yesterday, when google bought You Tube, for a crazy 1.65 billion dollars. No one in the world said or though, that a company with 67 employees and no business model to generate revenues is worth even a fraction of that. Now once this unthinkable happened, people assume google knows what it is doing and even comment that news corp got myspace for a paltry 600mil??

What did you Google see in YouTube that is worth 1.65 billion dollars. Definitely not the technology, since they have their own video site, which is pretty good, if not great. Users? I don't know. I don't know what it is.. Nobody does, every one speculates what can be the reason.

Many are trying to guess something that would make sense out of this deal. I don't see anything that is worth 1.65 bil, unless it starts generating revenue 'yesterday' . I don't even want to go into the copyrights issue. Is it just because they have money that is lying there unused, they just fell like spending so much? In good intentions for the share holders, I wish they really have something up their sleeve, that works like magic.

I Like this Video... Innovative