As I see it..

Password (mis)management

2008-06-23T22:19:00.004+05:30

Companies are using password policy managers (software! not people) extensively to safegaurd users from password leaks.

However, I believe that these software’s are not serving the purpose at all!
Just take a look at the rules which need to be applied for making a password 'uncrackable'!(The following password policy is actually in place in a lot of companies!)

Password requirement
1.Minimum Password Length - 8 characters (Compulsory)
2.Maximum Length – (no limit defined)
3.Passwords should contain all the following four types of characters:
a.English Lowercase (a to z)
b.English Uppercase (A to Z)
3.Numbers (0 to 9)
4.Special characters such as!@#$ %^&*(){} []
e.g. !deas1sT (ideas first) – ya that is a password! I hope u can remember something like that!
4.Passwords are case sensitive and the user name or login ID is not case sensitive.
5.Require three number of unique passwords before an old password may be reused.

And to top it all, users are prompted to change the password every month! (sometimes every week also!)

Now, with these “simple” rules in place, it becomes a pain in the ass to devise a password (try to make one based on the rules and you would spend more than 10 minutes figuring out the errors it keeps throwing!!)

So the easiest option available to users is – Retaining the default password! And just imagine when every user in the company does that!!! You have a scenario of ‘one password for all’ defeating the whole purpose of a “safe and secure” password.

Yes, now you would think that the users would definitely make an effort when the system prompts them to change the password. The answer is NO..Never! They get away by adding a suffix or a prefix to the default password (no prizes for guessing the suffix or prefix here!!!).

However, this doesn’t mean that there are no intelligent users. But I am sure these users would be a minuscule population. The larger question is the sustainability of such password policies in corporate circles. I simply don't understand the need for such policies, when on the other hand we have the google, microsoft and yahoo's of the world mangaing it pretty well with simple password rules.

Yaari - fighting to stay alive!

2008-06-04T11:28:00.004+05:30

I dont know how many of you would be aware of Yaari - a social network which was targetted at the indian youth junta launched almost an year ago. It was anyways very difficult to survive in the clutter of social networks that came up with the sucess of Orkut and Yaari also faded into the .

The website has recently undergone a transformation- the site now comes across as a dating/flirting site. They also draw "inspiration" from HotorNot big time! One thing i have always appreciated is how well indians "cut-copy-paste" business models (maybe i should write something on this in the future!).

But overall, i dont feel the website will take off even after this re-packaging.
(1) I am not sure how many people would be willing to get rated HOT or NOT in India atleast! (would you do it? and girls? and if girls dont upload pictures, why would boys log in?).
(2) And i also tried searching for girls to just check (seriously!) - some random pics were uploaded!...and i was rather disappointed! Success would depend a lot on this factor.

Anyways, lets see if they can make a mark this time.

Google: Taking Advertising to a new level!!

2007-06-07T17:32:00.000+05:30

How many times do we use Google Search in a day? and everytime we get to see the 'Sponsored Links' and Google makes money.

Google has introduced a 'call feature' in the sponsored links increasing the utility of these links manifold. However i believe the feature is still in the test/beta mode because not all searches return such advertisements.

Using this feature, Google can call your phone for FREE(!!) and connect you to the company (which has advertised). Take a look at the screenshots.

I believe this model ( Cost per Call) is set to 'complement/compete' with the already established CPC (Cost per Click), CPM (Cost per impression) and CPA(Cost per Action) models.

A friend of mine working with Google has confirmed these reports. And more importantly Google is planning to launch this advertising model first in India and not US!! There are many other new products in the pipeline from the Google stable which shall see the daylight in India first!!

Orkut-Indianization!

2007-04-07T11:54:00.000+05:30

Most of you would have noticed by now that the Orkut homepage has changed. The change according to me is quite significant but in reality the change may not even get registered in the user's mind..

Orkut has changed the pictures of people which appear on the homepage. You may say 'Does it really matter?'. Yes, it does. The new pictures are an actual representation of the actual user community compared to the earlier pics. Orkut finally acknowledges the fact that Indians form a significant portion of the Orkut population by putting pictures of Indian users.

Orkut Homepage

Orkut Demographics

Some number crunching now:)
Total users on orkut as on 7/04/2007: 49,636,859 = 49.64 million (this number appears when you come online).
Indians = 13.9% (the third largest group after Brazilians and Americans)
This means that there are 6.9 million Indians. HUGE right!!

Is this change significant? I believe yes because now i feel Orkut (i mean Google!) will try to cater to the Indian audience through local content. For example: To catch on to the world cup fever, orkut had built a community.
Read it here.
Talk cricket on Orkut
Cricket discussions that started in the elevator can spill over to the Orkut network. Especially this season, in association with us, cricket expert and former Indian cricket captain Krish Srikkanth has created his own community on Orkut to interact with cricket lovers, debate the latest happenings and just share cricket views.

This really does not sound like good news for the India based SNS's like Yaari or Minglebox which have 'local content' as their key strength.

I feel Orkut has a lot up its sleeves and it will unfold very soon. Correct me if you feel otherwise.

Comparison of Internet usage:India and USA

2007-03-23T11:22:00.000+05:30

Last week I went to Alexa and had a look at the top 50 most visited websites in India and USA. The data points do reveal quite a lot of interesting stuff about the similarities as well as the differences in the Internet consumption in the two countries….Read ON.

India Top 50

source: Alexa/hsrdce

USA Top 50

source: Alexa/hsrdce

So can you guys see the DIFFERENCE?? Ya I know you can...But before that let’s touch upon the similarities first!

SIMILARITIES:
- The PORTALS remain the all time favorite irrespective of the user. I feel people use portals mainly for their e-mail service and for the all-round content such as news, entertainment, sports, business etc etc etc etc etc etc…..

- SEARCH. How did you reach this blog?? Were you “searching” for something!! People are always searching for something or the other. Google Search has transformed the way we search for information today. There is no other search engine which could come close to Google in both the countries. Maybe if were to look at China, we would see Baidu.comhas the main force instead of Google. This is purely because Baidu could provide “Localised” search for the Chinese. So you may ask now whether Guruji.com has the potential to become the next Baidu of India. All this and more about Search in some other post…

- SNS...ya ya Social Networking Sites. They have taken the world by storm. Communities are rocking the world. And the way these platforms are slowly replicating the real world, the future looks very bright. An important thing to note is that we Indian's are hooked onto Orkut, which is at No.2 in India and surprisingly just manages to break into the top 50 in USA. MySpace is today the BAAP of all SNS's and is the most popular SNS in USA. I hope I will be able to do justice to this topic in another post someday soon.

- Video..oh sorry YOUTUBE. This has been one site which has really transformed the way we watch videos on the internet. And now that Google has acquired it, we should be assured that the experience is only going to get richer. Ya there are some copyright issues still revolving around this wonderful platform, but I am sure all those who are trying hard to curb this medium will eventually be left behind!

-Wikipedia is at a similar penetration level in both the countries. Jimbo has really developed an exceptional piece of technology which is transforming the way we create and share knowledge.

Now lets come to the interesting section of the post..atleast I would think so! :) The differences to some extent give a clear idea about the cultural differences and the business opportunities to be tapped in our country.

DIFFERENCES:
- SHOPPING. EBay is at rank 5 in US and rank 26 in India. What could be the possible reasons??
*We are still in the ‘touch-and-feel’ mode of shopping.
* Credit card penetration is still low and I believe is the biggest obstacle in the way for online commerce.
But yes things will only improve and users will shift to online transactions as they are more efficient. Hopefully in the next few years we will see shopping/auction sites rising up the ranks in India.

- JOBS. Job search is definitely more popular in India than US. We have Naukri at rank 8 compared to Monster, which is at the 40th place in US. The basic factors contributing to this difference could be:
* India the ‘Emerging economy’ and the increasing numbers of jobs.
*IT/ITES companies adopting the online medium in a big way to scout for talent.
Probably we Indians are just not satisfied with our jobs as much as our US counterparts leading to more job searches!! Can anyone give more insight on this?

- SEX sells...seriously. Is it really surprising to see Indians scoring over Americans on this “business vertical”? Indians have shown that sex remains a favorite surfing activity with debonairblog.com coming at rank 14 whereas Americans do not have any XX/XXX site in the top 50.

- NEWS is one more area where Americans are much more active in terms of catching up on news. CNN, NYtimes and BBC all in top 30 whereas not even one news site in India. But yes the news sites are catching up big time in India with the media powerhouses all focussing their energies to tap this online opportunity. Look at CNN IBN, Moneycontrol, and NDTV and how they are climbing up the popularity charts...first it was TV and now the Internet!!

- Dating: USA::Marriage:India. This can be purely attributed to the cultural differences between the two countries.

- CLASSIFIEDS. Craiglist makes it into the top 10 in USA whereas there is no one who is purely focused on classifieds in India. There is a dire need for an Indian version of CraigList. Sulekha classifieds , I believe comes closest to it. But yes, I definitely feel there is an opportunity for guys who can build a scalable/monetizable business on online classifieds in India.

- Others like Photo-Sharing and Maps/Directions are quite popular in USA and do not appear even in the top 50 in India.

*Disclaimers:
- Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users.

-The opinions posted are strictly author's views and please feel free to give your feedback/comments anytime.

Indian equity brokerage firms and the ACTION..

2007-03-17T23:50:00.000+05:30

There has been a lot of action recently in the equity brokerage sector. But it is interesting to see two different strategies being adopted by the players. On one hand we have a few firms like JM Financial and kotak who have decided to go out on their own by breaking their tie-ups with foreign investment banks.On the other hand we have Enam securities, Sharekhan, Geojit who have entered into partnerships with the foreign players.

JM to sell broking biz to Morgan Stanley for Rs 1,970 cr

Enam, JP Morgan in talks for alliance

Are Sharekhan, SSKI promoters exiting broking biz?

BNP Paribas picks 27.1% in Geojit Financial

Why are players in this space, in the first place, getting so active? The answer to that lies in some astonishing figures!! Investment banking houses have earned more than $200 million in fees from deals involving corporate deals compared to $150 million in the year 2006. Also, Indian corporates are today getting involved in a lot of HUGE cross border M&A firms. Look at the recent Hindalco-Novelis, Tata-Corus and the Hutch-Vodafone deal! Investment banking units are the direct beneficiaries of this trend.

Read this article to get the larger picture :)

I believe that local investment banking units are still pretty small compared to the global powerhouses like Goldman, Lehman, ML etc. and it would be definitely tough for them to win the large M&A deals on their own. They will not have the required financial syndication strength to finance the big deals. So it makes more sense to go in partnership with foreign banks who are also looking to roll out their presence in India. But on the other hand i feel they are pretty well positioned to get advisory roles because of the local expertise,which have higher margins.

So i believe companies like JM will definitely witness expansion in margins but on the other hand will take a hit on the topline.

Lets see which strategy works out best in the future. Only TIME will decide! :)

Let me know what you guys think about this.

Indian YouTube(s)!

2007-03-06T13:54:00.000+05:30

Youtube has become so popular that it has given birth to 'hazaar' clones in different countries. Look at India and you will see the following companies fighting it out in the video content space:

- Meravideo.com : Redefining Desi Entertainment
- ApnaTube.com : Desi Broadcasting!
- AapkaVideo.com : Desi Video Sharing service
- Videodubba.com
- Canaravideo.com
- Tubedesi.com

But i do believe that some (or infact one or two) of these companies can become successful! Why do i say that??

Simple. Today the biggies like Youtube are focussing on US. They will shift focus to Asia when the growth matures in the US and i am sure that it will take sometime. Today they are struggling with copyright issues and digital content owners. But once the dust settles, i am sure the next largest market for them would be the Indians and the Chinese.

But how do you ensure that they are hooked to your site. Again simple. Localised content will drive people to the site. Success for indian video sites will come only if they focus on LOCAL content and position themselves as purely Indian. I am sure a day will come when they will be acquired by the Youtube's of the world at phenomonal valuations.

Best of luck to all the video service startups! May the best man win :)

WikiCamp 2007

2007-02-26T03:39:00.000+05:30

I was fortunate to attend the WikiCamp at Tidal park, chennai. This was my first 'unconference' experience, where unlike a conference the participants decide the course of the day.

Jimmy wales (Jimbo), the founder and visionary of Wikipedia was the highlight of the event. The first thing that struck me atleast was his humbleness. He was very open in sharing his experiences about Wikipedia.

Jimbo, surprisingly comes from a financial academic background and was an Options and future trader in Chicago. His first startup, Nupedia was a disaster. The concept was very much similar to Wikipedia, but the only difference was that it was a lot more 'process driven' due to which it could not scale. We put in more and more processes into place because we dont trust the community!!! and when you do trust like Jimbo did, what do you get...the 10th most visited site in the world..WIKIPEDIA!!

Wikipedia is best desribed by this one line - Imagine a wrold in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.

Jimmy went on to speak about a number of things...

- He is one of the 'Open Source' champions of the world. He believes in creating tools (like wikipedia), which people can later use to drive further innovation. i was amazed to see 'Wiki' concept being applied to organizations for project management.

- People today are concerned about the sustainibility of open source business models, given they dont talk about monetization at all. Wikipedia only runs on donations today. There are only 6 full time and 25 part time employees. They have moved from having a single server to 350 servers in such a small time and the traffic keeps doubling evry 3-4 months. But Alas...no money coming from such extra-ordinary growth. Give Wikipedia to Google or Yahoo and you will see how it becomes a cash cow. But yes the larger issue is that how will 'open source' models survive??

- Jimbo also mentioned about the Wikia project. He gave a wonderful analogy where he said Encyclopedia: Wikipedia whereas Library: Wikia. Wikia would create the virtual library for people to stack things and contribute according to interests. This will definitely be something to keep an eye on!

- Jimmy is also actively involved with a Search engine project. They are trying to address the issue of 'lack of transperancy' in today's search. He wants to empower people for their own searches wherein they have access to the search algorithms and they know the parameters on which the search results appear. And people can build more models on the basic framework.

During the interaction sessions, a few interesting points came out:

- Do you know Google employees love Wikipedia and almost all of them use it daily! But lets see how this goes forward with Wikipedia getting active on the Search front and treads into the Google's territory :)

- A lot of discussion is today revolving around 'copyright' content being posted by users. How do we deal with it? Today, with 'n' number of social networks and 'video streaming' websites, it is infact becoming a challenge to address this issue.

On a whole, it was a splendid event and thanks to the organisers 'The knowledge foundation'.

Business Etiquette Training...

2007-02-26T02:31:00.000+05:30

I attended a business etiquette training program, which was organized by 'Global Adjustments'. The first thing that struck me was the business this company was catering to! Do you know that all this explosive growth has resulted in a lot of 'flux'. MNCs are setting up shops (IT, manufacturing, pharma etc.) in the country and a lot of expats are coming into the country and on the other side there is a huge 'onsite' outflow from India (typical of an IT company!)

One thing that is common in both the cases is that the 'individual' is getting exposed to a completely diferent 'CULTURE' and there is some level of adapting and adjustment that is required. Global Adjustments, based out of Chennai, are addressing this specific need in the market. They teach expats Indian culture and we are taught western culture.

It was a great experience listening to the instructors Shanti (had lived in the US for 20 years), who focussed more on the communications part and Ashok (with his experiences from US, France and Japan), who focussed on the cross cultural differences.

A large point of our time was spent on actually 'defining' culture. When Ashok asked us to define culture, we found it really hard to come up with an answer (Can you define culture??). But at the end of the session i believe there were 2 key terms which can be associated with culture- 'accepted by the community' and 'in transition always'. The transition aspect is really critical for India,since we are getting exposed to the western culture and we are trying to adapt to their style in order to succeed in business.

Some of the key examples which were given to highlight the cultural differnces:

- French people are totally shocked to see Indian men holding hands and walking on the streets.(They feel how can India have so many Homos?? :D)
LOgic: Holding hands is considered to be symbol of friendship and warmth and not Love! i.e why in the western world we find lovers holding hands and that is not the case in India (though we are changing).

- Expats find it difficult to digest the fact that we use hands for eating.
Logic: We belive food is God and we also believe that hands are our own responsibility and we need to keep them clean. Whereas expats depend on knives/forks which are cleaned by someone else (not under your control!).

- French people are low on masculinity and Americans are 'high on masculinity'. This implies that french people 'Work to live' and hence you will find them taking long lunch breaks (sometimes 2-3 hrs) and taking a month off from work to enjoy life. Americans on the other hand 'Live to work' and their lunches are '15 minutes' break (they were the ones to introduce the concept of 'fast food'). If you ever get to handle a french client, do make sure that you never try to schedule a weekned meeting (that is just out of question!!) and the meets will also have a lot of non-official discussions.

- Americans/Brits are low on 'uncertaininty avoidance' which means they are ready to take risks and the French are the comlete opposites. It is evident from the fact that US/UK have already accepted outsourcing and they are moving ahead whereas French opposed the 'Mittal Arcelor' acquisition.

-Japanese never mix Rice and curry. They feel if you mix it you are making it dirty!!

I will keep adding other examples as and when i remember them.. :)

Other take aways from the course: 4 course continental lunch :D

BottomLine: You can take an Indian out of India but not India out of an Indian!

Investing based on Advertisements...

2007-02-17T17:23:00.000+05:30

Just finished watching an awesome indian batting performance! India deservingly wins the series against Sri Lanka. But apart from the batting performance i also observed another interesting thing- 'the commercials' after every over!

Ever wondered which is going to be the next big sector in the country. If you want to know just watch TV commericals and you could easily predict the rising sector.

During the whole series i could see only 'INSURANCE' companies flooding the TV commericals. And yes it is no surprise that it is going to be the fastest growing sector for the coming 2-3 years atleast. Look at the players who are into this, to name a 'few' and the 'senti' taglines:

- Kotak Life insurance : Zindagi se ek kadam aage
- Bharti AXA insurance
- ING Vyasa life insurance: Mera farz
- SBI Life insurance
- Reliance life insurance

and many more... the list may never end!

But the fact is that TV commercials to give an indication of the upcoming sectors. To support this argument we can look back into 2003-2004 and during those times we could see only 'TELECOM' companies in the commercials. We would never forget the Reliance- Kar lo duniya mutti main or the Hutch dog! And today it is a sector which has risen exponentially in valuation (no wonder Hutch was valued at $17-18 billion by Vodafone).

Looking at this trend, i feel 'INSURANCE' companies are a 'GOOD' buy today. See how easy it is...no need of valuation and fundamental analysis..just keep watching Cricket matches on TV and keep investing :)

And if you still dont believe me, then you can go and do your research to unearth the real value in the sector. You can find some dope on the sector here

Sectors to watch in future TV commercials during cricket matches (probably next year) : RETAIL..with taglines like 'Humse sasta aur koi nahi' :))

Online Travel portals

2007-02-17T01:24:00.000+05:30

Makemytrip announced that they have already crossed $100 million in sales this year and are planning to end this fiscal year with $120 million in sales. Thanks to the tremendous growth in the Indian aviation sector which has given birth to a whole lot of online portals. These portals are today helping customers plan their entire trip from leaving home to getting back to home!

The commissions are generally 5% of the sales, which means a cool $6 million income for Makemytrip. It has nearly 50% of the market share and others like Yatra, clearmytrip share the other 50%.

+ Aviation and travel in general booming!
+ Credit card penetration increasing. These models are enirely driven by credit cards.
- Too many players already. But yes it will drive innovation in terms of features and all..

Oh no!!! ....another 'crash' tomorrow

2007-02-14T00:52:00.000+05:30

Just read this article...

RBI to raise CRR by 0.5%
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/RBI_hikes_cash_reserve_ratio_by_05/articleshow/1606134.cms

and the obvious consequence of this is a 'deadly crash' tomorrow. So there is no respite from the crashing markets, which has alreaady lost 400+ points in 2 days!

Especially banks are gonna take the brunt tommorrow...bhagwaan bachaye unko kal :(

-ve signals: Rising inflation, rising interest rates, falling markets.

The journey begins....

2007-02-13T17:16:00.000+05:30

Hey...i finally start my blog after years of laziness! and i hope that i keep posting regularly..

A brief about me...
Worked my way through Delhi College of Engineering (Delhi), Polaris Software labs(Chennai and Gurgaon), Indian Institute of Management kozhikode(u guessed it right) and currently working with Irevna Research services(Chennai).. if you have not heard of the name..it is a part of Crisil, which is a subsidiary of S&P, which is in turn a subsidiary of Mcgraw Hill group!..enough now:)

Readers(if there are any..high hopes i know!)...you can expect a lot of stuff on:
- India
- Internet
- Startups
- Finance
and yes i am not an expert on any of these! :)