Tittle-Tattle

Read this at Om Malik's , who in turn is quoting Robert Young's article in wired magazine who in turn is quoting what Rupert Murdoch is claiming ;-). The story goes like this - Google could have bought MySpace for $290m which Rupert Murdoch later bought for $580m. Now MySpace creates lots of search traffic which in turn contributes to around 8% of google's incoming traffic which in turn means $400m for google in terms of annual revenue. And now MySpace wants to put their search business on auction on per year revenue share basis. So google may have to lose out a big chunk of that $400m every year. Now, I remember participating in some survey by Yahoo where they indicated about doles to be given out if the participants use Yahoo search as the default. It hadn't worked, at least for me (how do you show that smiley with tongue wagging!). Google is now an addiction for me and I am sure for many others. Like on Mondays and Tuesdays, nobody needs to remind me now to wear a t...

My son started going to school recently. We have put him in Pre-KG. He is just 2 years and 7 months. He was going to a play home earlier. We have also fixed a cab for him. School is for 3 hrs for him. Add 1 more for travel. He is not really willing to go to school, rather he is not really willing to get separated from us. But now it seems he has taken it as the inevitable. This is so evident in the morning that today it brought tears in my eyes. He was coming down the stairs, quite, I took it as a sign of "not really averse" to going to school now. Then he walked towards the door of the car, looked into my eyes, suddenly his voice broke, eyes got full of tears and he said "bye bye papa". What moved me that I was expecting him to say "I don't want to go" and he said "bye bye papa". It seems he has now lost hope for getting rid of this school going affair. This happened yesterday also, but it was quick. Yesterday, I noticed a faint smile on his...

Surprise in the morning. My yahoo toolbar said I have got 9 unread messages so I asked it to show them to me. And surprise, the Yahoo! Mail Beta (YMB) invite was there and I immediately logged in. The interface is ok, unlike google, Yahoo! believes in stuffing your webpage with as many things as possible including jazzy ads. That's one major reason why I prefer google anyday. Coming back to YMB, the effort has been to make it look more like your desktop mail client (I know a few - Outlook (daily), Netscape (my first), Thunderbird, Evolution). But then my internet connection speed is not fast enough and that hinders the experience because if its a desktop like mail interface you would want it to be as fast. Intranet based applications will show no timelag but for internet based thing the time lag will be there even though we have a few (45 I guess) Mbps internet connectivity at work place. Unlike desktop clients this one integrates RSS Reader by default, for Outlook you need to inst...

There was this poem on "born spectator" which is like haunting me a lot these days. I looked around in google and found this. Looks like the one I read in class X or so - One infant grows up and becomes a jockey, Another plays basketball or hockey, This one the prize ring hates to enter That one becomes a tackle or center, I am just glad as glad can be That I am not them, that they are not me. With all my heart I do admire Athletes who sweat for fun or hire, Who take the field in gaudy pomp, And maim each other as they romp. My limp and bashful spirit feeds On other people's heroic deeds. Now A runs ninety yards to score, B knocks the champion to the floor, Crisking vertebrae and spins, Lashes his steed across the line, You'd think my ego it would please To swap positions with one of these Well, ego it might be pleased enough, But zealous athletes play so rough, They do not ever in their dealings Consider one another's feelings, I'm glad that when my struggle ...