The state of ecommerce shopping in India is pathetic. Today I tried shopping @ Tradus E-Shop after getting a special discount voucher from them. It took me 15 minutes to get pass their cranky registration process. I hated the design, validation process and IA of the website. I cussed and cursed throughout the ordeal.

When i was done registering I couldn’t find anything interesting to buy. They had no sewing machine, no magazine worth subscribing to, nothing which was below the market prize and wasn’t available easily outside my house.

The Catch of the day was the Reebok Bag and I added it to basket to try it on. But they don’t have a shopping cart to review items. Anyhow, as I tried to purchase the item I reached a page which said the voucher cannot be used to buy this product. Now I made sure the voucher in hand said – Valid for 7 Days on a minimum purchase of Rs 595 – and I was meeting all the criteria to purchase the Reebok Laptop bag worth INR 999. But then I realized its Ibobo and any further effort is futile and gave it up.

Common Guys – get inspired from USB Geek, Buy.com etc. I understand its difficult to serve entire country like India with no proper pin codes, and delivery mechanism in remote areas and transportation services with crampy roads and cheat excise officers. But that’s not a reason to give up.

Launch some niche stores, like a discounted AC E-Store or just serve limited markets like Delhi, focus on products and concepts rather than start something half defunct and useless for entire country offering nothing new. Get original, hear what people need and provide them that.

My Review for Ibobo Tradus is 0 for Concept, 0 for Execution, 0 for Experence.

Google Nexus, Motorola Droid & i1, iPhone… the list grows, while I am in love with my highly customized Palm Pre Tero Pro Windows Mobile Phone.

HTC EVO 4G: Sprint’s First WiMAX Phone just joinged the list. The phone has 1GHz processor and 512 MB RAM.

The way the processing power is increasing in Cell-Phones, we could soon see laptops passing into oblivion.

Making my first post from Windows Live Writer.
Why should I post log on twitter, when I make mirco blog-posts on my own Blog; blogging would be hopefully less cumbersome when using Windows Live Writer.

Google is continuing its push to gain on Microsoft in the enterprise space. At a press conference today, Google announced a new plug-in that will sync Google’s enterprise versions of Gmail, contacts, and calendar with Microsoft’s Outlook. In the enterprise, Outlook is still king and not everyone is ready to switch just yet to browser-based email, calendars and contact management. So employees can continue to use Outlook if that is what they are comfortable with, and Google Apps will run on the backend. Google is claiming that its enterprise apps cost less than half of Microsoft Exchange.

Also, Google is adding the ability to migrate from another popular enterprise app, IBM’s Lotus Notes.

With punchlines like – spend your efforts in managing your business and not your mail-server, Google seems ready to face the IBM and Microsoft juggernaut.

Watch the Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQcwW9hNRMk

Personaly I admire Google for the quality and functionality of their applications. Whatever they do works and elevates the level of products in the arena. Most products Google has created have rounded the competition [example - emailing, feedreaders etc]

But is Google becoming overambitious by ramming heads on with its rivals and partners?

Case in point:

1. With Google Apps ad campaign targetting Microsoft Office Suite, Google is threatening Microsoft virtual monopoly in the arena like never before.
2. Anaroid Based Mobile Phones have stirred folks at Apple iPhone, traditionally considered a partner/ally of Google. Apple responded by blocking Google Voice and Eric Schmitt resigned from Apple board. This friendship seems to have been ripped wide open with both parties vieing for others blood. Users seem to be siding with Google in this case.
3. Google has announced Chrome OS. Microsoft would like to downplay it, but their hounchos must be loosing sleep withthis announcement. This has worried Intel as Chrome OS is expected to be less resource guzzler than Windows. Resulting in people using Chrome not upgrading their machines resulting in lower sales projections.. Moreover the lower resource usage would catapult small and cheap chip manufacturers into limelight
4. Google is getting aggressive in targetting partnership between Yahoo and Microsoft. Expect developements and discounts from Google to stop outflow of Adwords and Adsense users from its folio. This is big. Google largely earns all its earnings from Advertising. Any crack here and Google would be hardpressed to cut its cost of all the freebees its passing around
5. Google Chrome is getting popular, with each pasing day. Chrome doesn’t threaten Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera Browsers. Its Mozilla Who needs to be worried shit. Chrome is targetting largely the Mozilla community andpoaching on the same.

Google has opened many a warfronts. Every bit of its advertising revenue is being spent in producing and running the applications like Youtube, Orkut, Apps, Mailing, Maps etc. Hitler too did the same thing in not so distinct past. While fighting with Soviets his armies rammed in, while Soviet army invited him deeper into the territories and cutting in food and water supplies.

Would the battle with Microsoft drain Google and would ultimately lead to its doom?

US Air Force developing decision-making attack drones

US Air Force is readying an unmanned drone that could fly over a target and then make the decision whether or not to launch an attack, all without human intervention. These drones laced with Artificial Intelligence [AI] would take combat decisions and act within legal and policy constraints. Humans will monitor the execution and would have the authority and ability to overide the system.

The Air Force plans to have these dudes operational by 2047.

Just heard the inevitable, Apple had refused to approve official Google Voice application itself from the App Store, citing the fact that they “duplicate features that come with the iPhone”. The news hasn’t surprised many and was on expected lines after Apple last week changed the Terms and Conditions and blocked several Google Voice based applications like GV Mobile from their App Store.

A Google Spokesperson was quoted as saying:

We work hard to bring Google applications to a number of mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users — for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.

About Google Voice: Users of Google Voice are able to select a single U.S. phone number, from various area codes. When a Google Number is called, any or all of the user's phones may be set to ring. Which phone(s) ring can be set based on the calling number, based on contact group (e.g. Family, Friends, Work, etc), and/or based on time of day (e.g. disabling a home phone during business hours and routing calls to mobile or business number). The service also features centralized voicemail and indexable, automated voicemail transcription, accessible by PC or phone. Google Voice incorporates long-desired abilities, such as automatic blocking of known telemarketer numbers, the ability to switch lines in mid-call, different voice mail greetings based on the caller, SMS forwarding, and even call recording.

Its not hard to guess carriers like AT&T, Verizon etc are all wary of challenges posed by Google Voice as it allows users to send free SMS messages and get cheap long-distance over Google Voice’s lines. It also makes it trivial to switch to a new phone service, because everyone calls the Google Voice number anyway, which is why AT&T is keen to keep them off the iPhone. Carriers have known about Google Voice for a long time, but it wasn’t until recently that it began accepting new users, and there has still been some hassle associated with actually using the service.

Gives me more reasons to ignore Apple and wait for a decent Anaroid phone to hit the market [I am not actually a fan of HTC Hero or G1 due to their ageing hardware and Nokia N97 touchscreen has failed to amuse me].

Update: Google CEO Eric Schmidt Resigns From Apple Board

Apple today announced that Dr. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, is resigning from Apple’s Board of Directors, a position he has held since August 2006.

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”

I tried Google Latitude [The application of Google Maps for iPhone] to keep tabs on friends or employees or girlfriend or wife or husband and find out exactly where they are works great. I am testing it, but soo far it has me smiling ears to ears .

Yahoo has launched an interesting feature to their Image Search which lets you do Sightseeing Without Leaving Yahoo Image Search.

There is no separate section. When you type in a city in image search, Yahoo will suggest related points of interest to your search, giving you more relevent information about your city search. I searched for Las Vegas on Yahoo image search, and it showed me Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace, Paris Las Vegas etc on left hand navigation bar that will include image results for various points of interest and popular destinations within Las Vegas. Further clicking on any of the popular joint shows the image results of that place or building.

Search Result of City Name Las Vegas

Probing Further an Attraction

I dont see logic behind Microsofts danglings with different domains and though Google has 3 times move searches, Yahoo is the one which is scoring over its competitors with scores of innovating and well thought our features like Search Assist, thumbnail images and preview panes for Image Search.

Intel’s “We are sponsors of Tommorow” is an excellent campaign by created by Venables Bell & Partners along with Grow Interactive (who crafted the site).