Obama and Caucuses Take II

Update:
Add Texas and Wyoming Caucuses for Obama. Its 14 out of 15, And the one clinton lead was in American Samoa 2 delegates to 1. It more or less a unanimous sweep for Obama. Whats troubling is, if you take texas where primaries and caucuses were both held on the same day with same electorate, Obama while trailing in the Primaries by a good 4%, leadin the caucuses by atleast 15%. Thats a huge disparity!!

That leads to the question - are caucuses democratic and do they represent the public choice?? Remember, there are no caucuses in the general election. We would never know what would have happened if primaries were held in those 15 states instead of caucuses given the Results in TX. Definetely something to think about for democrats at the convention. I am sure Clinton will bring that up late in the game.

Obama and Caucuses

Obama lead the delegate count in 12 of the 13 democratic Caucuses held. With 262 delegates vs Clinton's 135, i.e two thirds majority.

After reading the article in NYTimes on how Caucuses are held, it looks like Clinton is not too far behind Obama in popularity as it appears to be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/opinion/14collins.htm

Selective Ignorance

When Hillary uses generic phrases like 'fired up! ready to go', Everyone unanimously shouts that she picked up the line from Obama. She is not even allowed to say she is for 'Change', for 'Change' is owned by Obama.

Now it turns out that the speeches of Obama are taken in form and content, from Mass Gov. Deval Patrick 's election speeches in more than one instance and were never credited publicly until caught. More over, Obama dismisses it as a non issue. No one in the Media points a finger. Sure, they discuss. They discuss on how Clinton is trying to attack Obama.

I am surprised! In a country where copying and plagiarizing without credit is considered very menial in a very over the top way, Obama escapes unscathed.

Change we are looking for!

Clinton Attacks... Obama Targets!!!

The way Media works -

When Clinton says something about Obama or his policies.. Headlines scream 'Clinton Attacks Obama...'
When the reverse happens... they softly read 'Obama Targets Clinton...'

Can we call it bias??

Live Super Tuesday Results

Source: RealClearPolitics.com

Pathetic TV9

I can't believe how low the Indian media is stooping to. A 15 min program titled 'Choli ke Peeche Kya Hai' on how bad Rakhi Sawant is and bad mouthing her, at the same time showing the controversial kiss with Mikha, a wardrobe malfunction with Madhuri's Choli song in the back ground. Also shown generously are other wardrobe malfunction videos from all over the world and deriding the ethics of those involved in those incidents.
Wow!! 15 min news special on some stupid news with a good dose of sleazy visuals with senseless and ridiculous comments on the ethics of the women involved..
Kudos to the 4th Estate.

Indians in the Middle east!!

Instead of worrying about the 'Indian descent' people in Malaysia, India should first look at the plight of the 'Indians' in Dubai and other parts of the middle east. Not to disrespect Indian descent Malaysians, Any one who has made a trip to Dubai, would easily realize how the Sheiks are building an Expensive Empire with the cheap labour from India.

The workers from abroad, with majority from various parts of India are kept in camps with sub human living conditions. The construction happens round the clock with two 12 Hour shifts. Hoards of the workers are unloaded sharp at 6AM and works until 6PM, to be taken back to their 'Camps' in buses. And the other set would be unloaded at 6PM Sharp. There are no labour laws, no rights. These guys are with out any family life or social life. Their passports are with hold by their contractors. They are bound by illegal contracts and can't leave at their will. No real health benefits. Tough luck if you are injured by chance. They are paid meagre amounts compared to the living standards in their host countries. By any standards, they are bonded labor or can even be called slaves.

These countries are building paradises with the blood of these workers. No voice is raised against these atrocities. USA sees these middle eastern states as allies and do not comment on these human rights violations while they happily bark about the Chinese doing business with Sudan. Indian corporates make money off the contracts. Indian government couldn't care any less.

In the end innocent Indians accept their fate and suffer for the unfair amounts they are paid.

Android, Open Handset Alliance and Google

Last week I was hoping for a mobile OS that is not targeted at smart phone market but one that could serve the consumer market and help the handset makers and carriers move away from the software business.
>>This would probably help the carriers and device makers move out of the software business and concentrate on providing hardware and services instead, which are their core business.

We got that and even more and Google had done that, it announced an open handset alliance and android platform.

The press statements are a bit vague on what it is coming up with, but based on what I have been reading an OS platform for phones (can be a smart phone or a normal consumer phone) that works on all kinds of hardware where developers can build apps that has access to local resources and the device makers and carriers can pick and chose the applications... And how it is different from WM/OS X/Symbian/ Palm/ RIM, the carriers still have the say on what they want to provide. The power is still with the carriers, but Google is making it easier for them to have good stable and capable solution and at their own terms.

If I were Jerry Yang

I'd put all new updates to the services on hold and create both open social and facebook applications for all its services, if it wants to continue to be the number one destination on the web. Social web sites with all these new functionality would probably be the place where a good chunk of web users spend their time, if they get all their tv and movie schedules, finance quotes, news and gossip in their social networking platforms like facebook, bebo, myspace... fewer people would have incentive to go yahoo services for such information. So the best idea would be to go where the users are. If web browser is going to be replaced by social network, you better be there with full force and provide the best widgets/ gadgets/ apps or whatever they are called. Of course you can still be in control of the advertising that goes with in the app. And also probably can use the expertise to server ads for other apps as well... And if the Yahoo! Mash comes up well, Yahoo would have the advantage that no other social network platform, no other app developer and even google would have as Yahoo will have the option of holding the user to its Yahoo! mash.

Yahoo, start working on your apps and let them be the best.

Beginning of the End (Part One)

I think Nov 2007 will be marked as the beginning of the end for Yahoo! There are two big developments from Google, one in the social networking and one in the mobile space. These announcements not only demonstrate the brilliance of Google, but also Yahoo!s failure. Yahoo! was first in the game with its Yahoo! 360 and Yahoo! Go more than two years ago, but their lack of vision and lack of implementation is now costing them dearly

Yahoo had its best bet before facebook to make Yahoo! 360 a truly powerful social network. It was a great idea, as a platform it was better than other social networks at that time. Its the implementation that lacked. It couldn't even put up all the Yahoo! services on 360. I was hoping they would slowly but surely get there. The unrivalled user base and the content they generate on the Yahoo! is un imitable and can not be repeated. Facebook was not an open platform then, once the Facebook platform is opened up, it was a closed chapter for Yahoo! 360.  To match the facebook, Yahoo came up with another social networking platform called Yahoo! mash, which doesn't have any significant benefit compared to facebook. Still they have not learned from its 360 failure, and the mash team apparently couldn't convince other Yahoo teams to come up with their app for Yahoo! mash. Sure, it is still in beta, but there is no place for excuses in Tech world. With Open Social from Google, hmm its all over for Yahoo! social network plans unless it goes onboard the train run by its biggest rival. Clearly Yahoo! recognizes the glorious future of Social networks which is evident from its purchases like Flickr, Del.icio.us, jumpcut, mybloglog and many others long before Google paid any real attention (Orkut was stupid), but it failed to deliver it twice.

Now they have all these disparate and wonderful services which would eventually fade away once people start having their content on all these apps that are going to be out there on the Open Social unless they become a part of it.

 

Sorry Yahoo!, you couldn't think big enough.

Where is the plan?

BSE Sensex hits 20K. 540% increase from 2001. Good.
GDP growing 8 -9 % a year. Great.
Mukesh Ambani is almost the richest man in the World. Nice.

But where are we heading. Is there any real plan or road map or even any discussion happening on Food security, Water Security, Energy Security, Basic Infrastructure and Environment?

70% percent of population still working in agriculture related industries which doesn't even contribute 20% of the GDP and is still growing at 3-4 % a year. Next green revolution is over due.

Retail Industry is multiplying with a blink of an eye. We have a Reliance, a Tata and a Subhiksha fresh retail stores on the same street in the interior Vijayawada. What happens to those millions of small vendors.

Good that we have plenty of rains. What do we do if we have 2-3 draughts in quick succession.

Where is the infrastructure. The roads in the cities are not even good to walk, forget about driving. The sound pollution and the smog. Billions of hours wasted in the traffic and hundreds of unnecessary accidents and deaths every day.When would our freeways get safe and hit 110 km/ hr speeds. How long before the IT revolution reaches the second level cities. Where is the broadband connectivity.

When would India make significant Science and Technology breakthroughs. When would India win Olympic golds at will. When would India have its own Google, its own BMW, its own SONY, its own Nokia, its own Samsung?

Is there a plan, a vision, on where we want to be and when we want to be there, not to mention how?? When would we cross the bridge of mediocrity to the side of Excellence???

Future Tech Mantra

You are only there.. if you are Everywhere!!!

How about mobile OS for non smart phones??

Device independent mobile operating systems like Palm, WM, Symbian, Blackberry all target at mobile phones with data plans/ web access and mainly aiming at providing advanced features which most of the mobile users do not need or do not want to pay for. Of course there is an option of buying these phones unlocked and just not pay for the dataplan, but there is also this mental picture in the common masses on what a smart phone means. We now have the device makers and carriers come up with their own versions of the software that they ship with the devices. There are no open standards and this system is a closed one and doesn't allow innovation. There are some java apps out there that are supported across multiple OS,
but the utility is minimal where u need to download the apps over the air?


There can be many advantages of having these open OS platforms even in the non smartphones. There can be many applications that can be designed and built for mobile phones with PC - Mobile Eco System like iPods which doesn't need web access. This would probably help the carriers and device makers move out of the software business and concentrate on providing hardware and services instead, which are their core business.

This is one rung lower than what Google is suggesting for the 700MHz spectrum. And a good first step in that direction.

World Wide Widget Web

You see Google Gadgets and iGoogle, Mac OS X Dashboard and iPhone, Yahoo Widgets, Yahoo Badges and Yahoo Go, MS Vista Sidebar gadgets and Live gadgets, Opera Widgets and Facebook applications. They are not all the same, but they are everywhere. These small applications give access to your online services like Email, News, Weather, Calendar, Maps and the like and they run off the servers. The desktop versions still work even when you are offline and syncs when you are connected.
All these services point to the direction of pervasive computing, where you have access to your data everywhere. The widgets are important because eventually they work the same way on your PCs, your Mobile phones, your mp3 players, your in-car entertainment devices, your GPS devices, your televisios, your game consoles, tivos, your digital photo frames and many other platforms. Right now, you have multiple platforms, operating systems for each and every one of these segments and its a hassle because the developers cannot build their applications for every new platform that crops up now a days. The only unifying aspect as of now to some extent are the web browsers with unified standards. But the web browsers are built for PCs with a mouse and a keyboard. And we see how the developers are struggling from many years to port that to the mobile devices with small screens and still there are no where close to interoperability. they all still suck. Now add the future generations of internet connected devices like set top boxes or gps sets. The web browser doesn't make much sense.
Since most of these widgets essentially use the web technologies, I guess there soon would be a time where you can simply port widgets from one platform to another. Google already does that with its desktop and iGoogle versions. Yahoo does that with same base code for mac and win. Other companies would join and probably release simple tools to just port widgets from one platform to another and it might not be very long before that happens.
That makes it easier to adapt to the newer electronics and gadgets connected to the web and it is of course good for the tech companies as it gives them more places to reach to the customers with out having to invest a lot for development. Companies like Slide and Widgetbox have a lot to look forward to.

Lets see how long it takes for the W4 to materialize.

It's not Google, It is Adobe!

Looks like Adobe has the best chance to be a Microsoft Killer!!!

Sure Google is doing great on the web, but that was never Microsoft's money making machine. It's strength is its operating 
system, its development platform and the office suite where MS makes most of its money which it could funnel into the newer fronts. It could sustain losses for multiple years for its Xbox platform and Mobile OS and of course it would do that with 
Zune which is soon going to be a force in the MP3 player market. Google is putting its billions to take the Office suite with its web based apps. But the fact is that it is no where close to challenge MS on that front and it would be few years before it could come up with a serious challenger. Of course MS is not going to sit sucking its thumbs. Already there is a major push 
with MOSS to improve collaboration using the office tools. Also Google doesn't have much experience with Enterprise Business sales, which is on a different plane when compared to Adwords accounts it has got.

But it is different with Adobe, whose intentions are getting clearer by the day. It has already got a great foot hold in the small business with it Creative Suite and its Macromedia web tools. And it has got a dedicated army of developers who use their tools. It started with the online versions of its creative suite. Then came the killer Adobe Integrated Runtime, which I think is the future of the software with its unique ability to bring the best of the desktop and web worlds together and has very little learning curve for the scores of the web developers to adopt to. With the huge success of Mac OS X in the recent days and lack of cross platform support with .net (they are trying), there is a great potential for Adobe to become the choice for the developer community. And then it has Adobe flash which is on 98% of the browsers and is improving with every version. 
Now it is coming with the Office suite based on AIR. With its amazing presence in the small business world in both PC and Mac worlds and its connections with the web developer community, Adobe has all the armour to take on MS .net  and their office suite. 

I think Google has to stick with its ad selling business and take it to television, radio, news papers, magazines and hoardings and make the most of the 1 trillion dollars of Ad Money out there.
And leave it to Adobe to cut the life line of Microsoft.

Recall and Media

It is amazing how media feeds their interests into the general public minds like a slow poison. Subtle references and opinions are embedded all over the commentary in the news or op-eds or talk shows.
Last week I was watching a news cast in CNN about the recalls of toys in United States sold by US companies which happened to be manufactured in China. And there is a collective media effort to blame it on the Chinese. OK, agreed. Chinese plants are not sticking to the standards. But they are just factories and manufacturers. If there is a problem with the quality of the products, it is an issue between the company that sourced its manufacturing to these Chinese companies. It's the US companies which are selling those toys in USA and it is their responsibility to make sure they are checked for Quality and are adhering to the standards of the market they are selling into. Even a kid can understand that.
But if you watch day after day, show after show, they blame it on the Chinese. And even more subtle is the way the Media project China as a nation. Check this comment from Lou Dobbs.
Tonight, a massive new recall of dangerous toys imported from communist China, another recall, another example of our government's failure to protect American consumers from dangerous toys, food, and other imports from China.
He referred to China as 'Communist China'. Where does communism come into picture in this scenario. There is no nation by the name 'Communist China'. Given the fact that, here in US, the word 'communism' is more or less a swear word it shows how the media is using to slowly inject the poison into the people heads. And trying to brand China with poor quality. If there is any one to blame here, its the US government and the Company which released them into the market.

And now you have 21.7 million pounds of Beef recalled from the US company from a US source, which is much more dangerous and serious situation than having a little lead in the toys. And I am curious to know the adjectives the media use for United States. Beef recalled from 'Chauvinist US', 'Imperialist US', 'Democratic US' ... hmmm.. Don't get me wrong here...I love US and I think it is the best place to live in.. but can't turn a blind eye on such manipulations. So in the true American tradition, I don't act on it, I just Blog ;)

Vanaja, a Telugu Film

I haven't seen the film yet.. But its great to see a Telugu film to get such a raving review from my favorite movie critic and possibly one of the greatest critics for the english movies, Roger Ebert, a 4 out of 4 stars.

More so because its not a cross over film but a true stick to roots rustic and rural telugu drama with an Andhra Village as the backdrop.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070913/REVIEWS/709130308

This will probably give a big boost to the film in festival circuit and in having a limited release in America to make more than enough money to cover its costs. And this probably gives some boost to some of the movie crazy telugu engineer to venture into the movies.

Congratulations to Rajnesh Domalapalli.

Big Joke

Apple pulls out the NBC TV shows after being show the door by NBC.

Apple is the most expensive MP3 player in its class. Even after it has this amazing market share and un heard of profit margins per device that comes out of its scale. It doesn't reduce the price and it doesn't allow the 'VENDORS' to play with the prices as they want. Yes you cannot sell an iPod for less than the price specified by Apple.

But it does not agree to the owner of the content to sell their content for a price they want. That is alright, it can deny if it doesn't make business sense for Apple. But trying to blame NBC and making it look like Apple is for customer and NBC is this evil corporation because they are not dancing to its tunes is stupid.

Of course, Apple can afford to be stupid. After it has a stupid and loyal fan base who thinks Apple is always right and Steve Jobs is God to root for it and blast NBC with out even listening to what NBC has to say about this whole deal.

They might want to have the content sold through their Hulu for a cheaper price or make it available for free with the support of Ads. With the new video technology that can display un obtrusive in line ads with video based on context, it might have its own plans.

Oops, I am an Apple fan boy and I can't think.

Thats a pattern... i can recognize that.

Oh! we are so nice.. we are so great... we want to make the world a better place to live in... we are the greatest company... we love people.. we do no evil... we empower people.. hmmm...

for the 12 questions asked, this guy was able to parrot the same statement 7 times irrespective of what the question is... OK it is good that Google is participating in the auction for the 700MHz spectrum and proposed some constraints that will sure help every one in the US to make it more open.. but to act like they are doing all this for the greater good of the world and not to increase their dominance beyond the PCs. may be they want to do good to people while making money. But not even once he mentioned that they are doing this to reach more people for longer periods and make money off that. He kept repeating the same phrase and want to stress that they this because telecom companies are evil and they are the robinhoods.

"Brand Management"

http://news.com.com/Googles+battle+for+wireless+spectrum/2008-1039_3-6199374.html?tag=st.num
Sacca: "The 700MHz spectrum auction represents the last big chance that the United States has to create an opportunity for meaningful change in access to the Internet for the broadest set of people possible."
"We have fought hard on a number of fronts to make the Internet as available as possible to the largest number of people as possible."
"What is going to make the Internet most available to the broadest number of people at the lowest price possible?"
" Google is willing to do anything necessary to introduce some competition into this space and to really drive the prices of service to where they are most affordable to the broadest number of people. It is reprehensible that there are still so many people left off the Net."
"We are deeply committed to changing this industry for the benefit of end users."
"we are trying to do what we can to remove obstacles that are standing in the way of making the Internet available to the largest number of people possible."
" We are trying to look one by one at those obstacles to see where we can have an impact to make the Internet available to everyone. "

Funny he said this -
" I think we do have to question when Verizon and AT&T jump to accept any proposal. We have to look at what their ulterior motives are."

Yahoo! should think BIG

Yahoo is the largest visited site with more traffic than any other site and is consistently at the top for several years. Still in terms of revenues its lagging way behind Google. It is also lagging in innovation. Yahoo! is coming up with more and more services to keep its leadership intact, but it was not able to deliver that next 'BIG' thing. It adopted web 2.0 stuff like RSS feeds, tags etc.. faster than other portals and even Google. But it has lost on its best opportunity with Yahoo! 360, which could have been a best combination of social networking and taking advantage of the huge content that's generated by users every day on Yahoo properties. Shame, it failed on that and didn't go that full mile. Now facebook has hit with its platform strategy and made it big. Wait till it hits the wall street. It may not be as big as Google, but I think it may topple Yahoo! s position.

So, what should Yahoo! do now. Adding more yahoo properties may not help much. Yahoo should take a leaf from facebook and amazon which are providing the front end and back end of the new innovation on the web with Facebook platform and Amazon web services by building on their core strengths. So Yahoo! which is now creating or licensing and hosting most of the content with portals like Yahoo! news, Yahoo! TV, Yahoo! Sports and like. should build on its strength - Scalability in hosting content.

If you break the content to the elemental types, most of the web sites have text, images, audio, video in various page layouts. There might also be other elemts like maps, lists, comments, ratings etc.. And who is better than Yahoo! to present them to largest user base.

I think Yahoo! should open up its website for content providers. Allow the companies to create their own micro sites. Give them elemental blocks and give them the power to change the look and feel in the way they like. Provide them a hosted web content management system, where they can upload their content and present it in the way they want. Provide them what Amazon and Facebook are providing separately, give them the storage space to store their content and UI blocks to present it in the way they want. Make it really really easy to add content, just like blogger, flickr and youtube. Host it for them, provide them all the web analytics, host the ads and share the ad revenue.

Its taking Yahoo! web hosting to the next level. Make it for the content creator instead of small business. Smaller content creators like news papers, magazines, local radio, local tv channels, smaller television studios, indie film producers, professional photographers, sports teams, celebrities and what not. And you give them access to all your users and all your services where ever it makes sense. With this, they do not need to worry about all the IT infrastructure and web developers and designers and eliminatr a whole lot of overhead and spend their resources on their core competency, ie creating content.

Its a win-win.

Create A Yahoo! Web. (like world wide web)