Panic Mode, Self Destruction mode – The future of Mobile Phones.

Well I did watch the movie Mission Impossible 1,2 & 3. I am taking this to next level, I think it is high time for Mobile phones to have this feature of Self Destruction mode. Why?

You should have heard about the excellent feature of Mobile tracker from Samsung. Wow -  Awesome, That Awesome didn’t help my friend to get back his mobile.

What is Mobile tracker?
The owner of the mobile phone needs to store 2 sets of mobile number on to Samsung phone. After which in any case some one changes the SIM card of that mobile with a new SIM card, Immediately a SMS is sent to both the registered numbers of the new SIM card inserted or mobile phone number is revealed. So that the Owner can track who is currently owning his/her mobile.

Now back to story…

My friend had recently lost his mobile tracker enabled mobile phone, in spite of he calling up the current mobile owner, the phone has not yet reached his hands. He threatens to throw the mobile in to a WELL, rather he returns the mobile of fearing a plot to get captured by Cops.

So here is my simple suggestion, I am sure the mobile manufacturers are listening

This phone should have these features

1) Data Sync

2) Panic Mode

3) Self Destruction Mode.

Data Sync: Why can’t all data be backed up instantly or atleast every day, week or month, Well I suggest that to happen automatically on a computer through Wifi or any other method possible. As soon as the user authenticates a particular computer and when the user is well inside the network it should back up the new updates, with out even bothering the Mobile phone owner.

Panic Mode: As soon as you loose your mobile phone, you send an SMS to your mobile phone with some unique keys. From then on any SMS on that mobile phone received will be forwarded to the desired number set by you, All voice calls in conference mode. The data card datas are completely erased.

Assuming the thief is smart enough,  inserts a new SIM card, Panic mode automatically gets activated and any future communications are to shared with the 2 desired numbers already set by the owner of the Mobile phone. More of an enhanced mobile tracker. Let us say the thief is even more smart enough to have an SIM card inserted with little money re-charged, then SMS alone gets activated and when money recharged with sufficient money it should do with conference call.

Self Destruction mode: Assuming you spoke to the thief and is not ready for any deals. Then why the heck he should have your Mobile phone or even sell them. Start activating the Self destruction mode by just sending the SMS with a unique key, kindly note that SMS can be activated from any mobile phone. The mother board starts to melt down by alerting the user with a speaker phone voice activated for self destruction.

Happen to read from Seth Godin blog on

“Gil lost his cell phone”

I think Seth would appreciate my idea.

Kindly note: Mobile manufacturers, If you intend to use my idea, Kindly reward me. Let’s discuss.

How Commercial Software, can fight against the Free Softwares?

Before you jumping in to making of a software you looked in to the market and realized there is enough market share. Now you made it, wanted to test them. You made it free as a beta Phase, you now started making commercial version of the same and by retaining the free version with limited features for people to try.

Guess what? A new player comes and provides a me too version of the software for free, only revenue channel being advertisement inside the product.

How do you fight the free version?

Now let us look at same problem solved by the big software companies, I am just taking 2 examples.

1. Microsoft Windows VS Linux
2. Camtasia snagit VS Firefox addons Screen Grab VS WINK (Free)

Microsoft Windows – People continue to make fun of the “Blue screen of Death” in Windows, but funny bone people continue to run their machines with the same Microsoft Windows OS at least the majority of them.

When the threat came from Linux for Windows, I remember every media said that it was death of Windows and even now people say that web will be the new OS, that is still speculative.

What did Microsoft Windows do?
If I am not wrong, they came with lot of advertisements to educate users about the benefits of using Windows. They came with Windows XP SP1, SP2 & SP3 and fixed as much as they could. They executed it well.

I believe the marketing spend on Microsoft XP could have been almost or significantly nil when XP sales was at its peak. Word of mouth still holds good in business. Techies still continue to say XP is stable compared to Vista and there is no major innovation in Vista, that people have upgrade to Vista.

To say, we are still dependent on Microsoft for most of our office productivity. Aren’t we?

The second story is the most significant one. Their product is easy to create and it requires less effort and they still continue to be leaders in their USP. I am taking about TechSmith the makers of Camtasia Snagit.

They did face the similar issue of free software from the open source community.

The popularity of Firefox add ons created a market slow down for Camtasia Snagit and on top of that was the Freeware software called WINK, it did almost the same functionality of Snagit and it was free and forums was available for support.

How did TechSmith Camtasia Snagit fight?
Camtasia Snagit 7.2.5 the earlier commercial version of the software was given free.

Do you want to know why they made it free?
The story goes like this in the Indian shop vendors or Medical Shops, If you ask for a medicine and if it is currently out of stock, they will send one of their members to collect the same medicine from the medical store just opposite their store or even few streets away to procure the same and give it to their customers. It is that the customer gets a feeling that any medicine he needs can be obtained. And that he will come back to the same medical store if he needed one.

TechSmith didn’t want end users to try free software instead allowed users to try the previous commercial version for free.

I use Camtasia Snagit free edition as I experience the reliable, proven and easy to use screen capturing/recording software. BTW, I have already tried the software and its features, and even know each and every interface. It is just that it is easy to use, Comfortable. The only feeling being left out, that I am unable to use the advanced features, which are available in the current commercial version.

For the extra mileage they have contributed few projects called Jing Project and ScreenCast
That takes care of community etc etc

Final Notes: Winning over Free is difficult, but not impossible. If you believe in Free, you can’t win over Free. Undo the learning and fight against Free. If you wish to.

Technorati Tags: software, free, commercial, fight, microsoft, Linux, techsmith, camtasia, Snagit, Jing, Screencast, story, advertisement, revenue, marketshare

FaceBook killer – Bravo Google Friend Connect

Seems like Google wants to embrace the non social networking sites to be part of social networking sites.

If you thought Myspace, Ning and Facebook made a killing, Please welcome the new Kid on the Block – Google Friend Connect. Do check the introduction video for more elaborate answers.

I see a lot of traffic to be increased to the personal or corporate websites too. All you need to do is sign up then embed few piece of code in to your website and let your friends and customers do the talking (bring the traffic back to you)

How does the traffic happen?
When ever a visitor visits a site and interact, their interactions are being reflected as updates in to the social networking sites which they belong. The updates are not mandatory, if wished, the interactions are reflected.

Corporate sites could integrate friend connect to have more authentic users

Personal websites could bring all friends buzzing among themselves and create new friends too

Bravo Google
An approach to fight spam is unleashed.

Technorati Tags: google, freind connect, friends, social networking, social, networking, traffic, facebook, myspace, ning

What it takes to win in Marketing?

You must have had this aptitude test questions asked by some marketing guys or hot sexy ladies during interviews or during a casual talks.

“Suppose you are the conductor, and there are 2 tracks, on one track 5 kids are playing which is the usual path for the train the track 1 and on the track 2 has one kid playing, Now which track will you allow the train to pass through“

What would be your choice?
I choose the track 2 with the one kid, because I didn’t want all of them to die.

Here comes the Smart marketing guy’s answer. Hey, the 5 kids on the track 1 know that it is the usual path for the train. They expect the train to cross on this track, so they will move away. So don’t kill the single kid who doesn’t expect the train to pass on track 2.

Wow, a smart answer isn’t it.

Is there any one in the crowd wants to fight with this Smart Marketing ass.

Well I do, Did you ever notice the missing pieces of text from the above question.

Suppose you are the conductor, and there are 2 tracks, on one track 5 kids are playing which is the usual path for the train the track 1 and on the track 2 has one kid playing, Now which track will you allow the train to pass through. Well the 5 kids do know that the train passes through this track 1 apart from that, the kid on the track 2 also know that the train passes through track 1.

So ask the above question to a close friend to find the answer?, You will get the answers.

The trick comes by concealing vital information, Like saying it is obvious or known fact or even by jumbling words to make it look like it conveys the meaning.

So be careful, when you have conversation with a marketing guys and sexy marketing women too . Mostly they win by their words, it’s Ok to loose, but gain the experience.

That is marketing – all marketers are lairs. I didn’t say that, “Seth Godin ” said that.

Well I  just pulling my close marketing friends in to debate.

Software Professionals – Beware

When was the last time you used internet search to buy new or old homes, or when was the last time you made a search to find used cars.

Well con man have become tech savvy and using sites to find the lazy software professionals as bait. 

Try searching this site like magicbricks.com  to find new homes at low prices. Well the answer you are sure to hear is “Boss it is sold out, there are some more homes in that range, do you want to try?”

You take the lead, they will show you homes at the sky rocketing market prices. The real market.

Even the used car industry is not spared by these offline spammers. You are bound to find cars at low market price. Do not fall a bait. Check sites like carwale.com Use the online tools to find the best market price to buy used cars.

Well internet has become their local leads than usual petty shop leads.

Future of softwares

This is just my wildest imagination, sometimes I get cranky, may come true… Well I am not Nostradamus for Information technology either.

We currently see a change the way the internet is operating, sooner our internet speeds will be equivalent to that of our local area network (LAN’s),  Desktop  softwares will be obsolete,  the only illegal software on a pc can just be the OS.

Enterprise to soho applications will move to the web as services, late adopters will be forced to make their desktop applications free so that they can sync with the online service sooner or later.

Companies will run their applications on behalf of the customers on servers grids or even serial main frame computers.  Where applications gets legitimate and revenue would be pay per use.

PC also might get obsolete or it may take other forms like your house hold items like table to refrigerators getting smarter or even the Mobile phones turned to powerful features of a PC.

all this could happen between 10 to 15 years from now i.e 2015 -2020

New way to make your users read the content of your website

1. Run a Contest on your website, say you will provide them with some fancy gadget for the chosen one among the correctly answered.
2. Send a mailer to your list of clients and ask them to refer more.
3. Ask them some related questions?
   Provide a hint button and link to your website content.
   The hint button leads to the content of your website (it could articles, white paper, or just plain news)

here is a link to one such contest.

Technorati Tags: marketing, mailers, contest, gadgets, website, ROI, clients, internet marketing

Rent Movies from Online

I read a post on Catchflix – a new concept of renting movies from online. You place the order, they deliver the DVD’s at your door step.
Now IT people have more advantage than any body else. They can now afford to spoil themselves or even have a better option to become more lazy than ever before.
I  read about catchflix at
http://chennai.metblogs.com
thank to Lavanya.

and here is the url for the site catchflix

Love watching movies at home.

Technorati Tags: movies, movie, online, chennai, india, spoil, lazy, home, watching

End to Anonymous Phone Calls & Privacy

I guess Citibank  is the first to be proactive to put an end to anonymous Phone calls, promotional mailers (spam mails). Yesterday I received a Mail from Citibank asking me for the preference of me receiving the mails.

I remember the same when I worked in Clasticon Solutions a year ago, My friend Navin told me that Citibank is planning on sending mails to all its customers, about the choice of mails which the customers would like to receive.

Well it took one year, but good they are likely to be the trend setters as the same may be expected from other banks and mobile operators like Airtel,aircel Hutch.

Here is the mailer which I received from Citibank

But one more thing is that Who ever designed this form is mean
Why don’t they like a customer?
Imagine, I would like to receive email’s but not phone calls- there is no option for me to list in the above form.
The brilliant IIM guys @ citibank suck

Technorati: anonymous, phone, privacy, clasticon, citibank, customer, relationship

What can make application more successful?

After looking in to most of the online applications like delicious, flickr, wordpress, blogspot and much more, there is been something called control or what users want to have or show on their applications have shown to rule.

It doesn’t stop with the community application like flickr, wordpress and other. It could be applied to other applications or even domain specific. It could be a network monitoring software or a document editing software or photo editing software.

What I am actually trying to communicate is that the core application gives the desired functionality and the users are given an option to play around to express themselves different from each other by providing plugins or extensions which could relate with their personal interest.

For example
Assume that I use a network monitoring software being a system administrator when my core application is doing my job, well actually monitoring my network, what else would I like to show off or my interest would be

1. My own personal presence online, what are the ways it could be my blogs, my flickr, my orkut, yahoo groups, IM etc
2. or I might be even a contributor, who may not even blog but contribute in forums or make comments in blogs
3. or just read tech news from different aggregators

So how should my application should be
My core application does the job, allows notification/alerts on the current news (eg. virus alerts for network administrators, a new tech on spam blocking etc)

When he reads these articles, he should be able to blog (export) to his wordpress, blogspot of use flickr etc from with in this application or even send this article as a mail to his boss or friends.
For eg. if you have been to groceries store or medical shops in India (cities), if some medicine or a product is not available, he wouldn’t say that he doesn’t have the product, he would send one of his men to fetch the product and give it to the customer. (building repetitive customer ),
so you could ask me does the shopkeeper gets anything and every thing the customer wants?
The answers is simple, what would interest his shop he would, what would his shop gain he would..

the above is just my thought process, if you are a network administrator, just let me know what you have in mind
in short “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”

to summarise, people like to control things what they own, would be ready to explore make a change if some one has on the community is contributing things which could improve/change their productivity.

Take my previous post Crazy about cars, The company allows to configure the toys, how about they have a site which allows people to contribute their designs

that could be a kick ass is my feeling

Technorati Tags: network administrator,apps, application, contribute, community, success, customer relationship, retain customer, brand building