global directory services

as we get everything on the net, the next phase, and a phase which is very much required is consolidation of information. as with any computer system, we need to now build a layer above the existing services on the net like FB, google et al, which consolidates information.

There are already some services like that appearing, one that i know of consolidated status updates from FB, twitter, orkut et al.

but no one is tackling the basics. One of the basic services required is a universal directory service. In Windows world, Active Directory or AD plays that role.

on web world, there has to be a centralised database, which stores all this information.

implementation will not be that difficult. the Online Directory will basically pull in information from whereever you have an account, so if ur on FB, it pull in info from their. and then provide info to whoevery needs it and is authorised to get it. today for a lot of things Google Accounts is playing that role.

the biggest advantage will be that you need to provide info only once, and edit it only at one place if something changes. the push mechanism of the OD will update it everywhere else.

the challenge is, how to ensure that everyone has just one account. well...do you need to ensure that. but even if their isin't a single account for everyone, but am sure from a 'we wanna catch the paedophiles' point of view, all accounts should have some kinda linking.

anyways, so the OD not only provides information, but is also searchable. So i need to search for a person, go to the OD and know that they exist, and that they are a specialist in hair care adivsories...and their public number is given....

and this service is something free of cost which sits on ur 'interface to a space' desktop, and can be use as one of the default services u can use.

the new Desktop

i always like to keep the desktop of my machines as clean as possible, just because i love the sparse but classy look. but then ur desktop is the one place you keep on coming back to always, its is the always there 'page' and frankly the starting and or return point for almost everything on a machine. think about it, the one shortcut (in addition to Ctrl+C/X/V) everyone knows is Win+D.

so why not use it more...but in a fashion where its is useful.

Think about a real world desktop, one of those maghony study tables, with a thick glass put on top of the table. Under the glass are things like calendars, reminders, important numbers. Over the glass, you continue with your work.

in a device, thats what desktops should be like. an underlying layer over which the UI of every other app runs - Win7 i think. It should be called up with a touch, or a simple voice command.

The desktop should have give views of the most important things you would want, time & calendar of course, news feeds, match scores, and ur most used services...FB for example. So basically a collection of gadgets, which can directly lead to the web page with more detailed information.

Continuing the my vision of future machines...their will be multiple desktops, or as i like calling them 'interfaces to spaces', an office space, a home space, a personal space. as you switch between the 'interfaces' you will get automatically logged into that space, or maybe ur presence will change and you will become active in that space. shifting between the interfaces could be like the Iphone (boring) or like rotating a cube, or a hexagon or something. not only will the interface change, but along with it ur entire machine will change.

now this doesn't go with my vision of being everywhere at the same time, being omnipresent across all the spaces, for that there will be a default screen, which is basically a summary screen. which helps you keep an eye on every space ur in, but in a very read only manner, a very non interactive manner. if u need to go interact, activated urself into that space.

for multi users devices, each face will be for a different users. of course all faces will be just another different type of portal, pulled from the cloud, so once u authenticate and as long as u are continuously authenticated on the device, you will keep on getting your screens.

For office devices, there could be controls such as if you walk into office, u cannot go to the home screens.

thats desktops. from a UI point of view, they should be crisp, info packed, but still sparse, non-intrusive.

here is what i think, and would want the future to be...

as we move towards living on the cloud...here is what i think, and would want the future to be.

1. Everything lives on the cloud - all your data, all ur processing, everything lives on the cloud, managed by someone like Google or Amazon.

2. No personal computers. Local storage, local processing will be a thing of the past

3. Instead their will be devices. my definition of a device...at the minimum, it will have a very long lasting battery, a way to connect to the net, minimum (about 32 - 64 gigs) storage to save the most important information that you don't want to share with everyone, a very light weight processor for continuous authentication. (if i am not holding the device, it doesn't work kinds)

The devices, will be touch screen, voice enabled, maybe in the future will have the sixth sense technology, they will be small, more towards iphone sized then a netbook sized, light and highly portable. They might also be user agnostic, explained further on.

4. A universal account - like ur thumb print, will be ur passport to everything.

5. A very very reliable ISP, where you are always connected to the net through either Wifi, mobile tech or someother way.

6. Because of the net becoming pervasive, their won't be any mobile phones or SMS. this will be taken over by services like IM, Wave and Skype.

In addition non computing devices, like ur TV or your fridge or your walker, will all have some amount of intelligence and will also be connected to the net. All these could be personalized, or rather entity-ised, meaning a home device will get settings for that home, over which can be overlayed settings for a particular person.

eg - a walker, home as an entity will give settings such as 'go to sleep mode between 11 am - 7 pm' where as user as an entity will be give settings such as 'continue yesterdays program'

or a tv - Home entity says 'give me these channels', child entity says 'i cannot watch these 5 channels, block them for me'

and so on.

How it will work:

You buy a device. At the minimum you will buy along with it a data service, which will be 24x7x365, but will be limited by amount of data you can transfer. Along with it, you get would also be able to buy bundled services like Storage space on the cloud, IM services, et al. This could be optional and will surely be upgradeable.

Once you have bought the device, by default you will have to log in. The log in will be authenticated at the device level and then verified by a online centralized service. Once verified, this account in turn will authenticated to other services. So you basically live with only one account.

Once authenticated, you are live.

The device may or may not hold ur personalized information.

Now here there will be two ways

1. A device has no personalization at all, in which case whoever logs in, the device is their. Unlimited users, even the basics live on the net. A rental ownership could be followed.

2. A device can hold multiple containers, its like the PC's of now, where who ever logs in, the device becomes theirs. Limited number of users. Imaging a home device meant for a family.

This will grow to a point where the device is an extension of you, and in most cases, ur existence without the device will be difficult.

looking forward to that future.

Online Bartering...

not sure if bartering is a verb...but anyways.

the idea germinated in my mba, and i know its not the most original of idea, but a quick search on the net didn't throw up any results. plus if i remember correctly it was an idea given by Soni and Sudeep, which i built on. well i remember clearly that i bartered 5-star pencil caps when i was in standard I.

well anyways here goes...

we all end up with a lot of things that we don't have, and things that others have and we want. and we are ready to exchange. so how about a Web site which enables bartering.

the UI et al will be like any online shopping site, ebay maybe, where every user can have his/her own page. they can upload things that they want to offer, a coffee mug with a dogs pic, a nirvana t-shirt, anything which they think someone might want. in another section they can also have a 'i want' items.

the matching engine in the background matches the 'on offer - i want' alerts, on the fly mind you, of course there will be search and browse features.

so once a match is done, the next two things will be a fair value, and actual trial (you don't really know if the mug is really that good).

for the fair value, there can be a negotiation engine which is built in, in which first i offer something in exchange, which i deem is a fair exchange, if i don't have anything, then i can supplement it with money as well.

This is followed limited round of negotiations, if negotiations fail, then the engine automatically prematurely closes the transaction.

if the negotiations are successful, then comes the trial part. Here both parties, through the service's appointed couriers, send the items. the question here is, what about security. what if i don't like what she sent, but she likes what i sent it and keeps it. I am stuck with something i don't like...here's comes the funda of a security deposit, and one of the ways the service makes money. each party deposits some money with the service, this can be transaction based (higher amount) or membership based (lower amount but for longer period). the service ensures, that if she doesn't return what she liked, or doesn't take back what i didn't like, i get a monetary compensation.

of course if everything is fine, the service just returns the money (without the interest part mind you, that where we make money). same when both parties don't like it. but here there is a transaction fees to cover the courier costs.

and why our own couriers, so that none of the parties can claim that they received damaged goods...

and yea till the transaction is completed successfully, no revealing of names, address, phone no's et al, they might by pass the service completely...

how does that sound...its a good business idea, but one problem I see is, for the service to make money, the number items to be exchanged have to be huge and very diverse, so that their are a sizable number of transactions.

also the items listed should be high value...makes more sense. Mugs and Tee's won't really work, Picasso paintings would!!!

and i know i know, ebay is already doing something similar, but then here, the selling point is barter system. you many times are ready to barter something instead of paying for it...

and btw if you wanna freak out, the matching engine, well it doesn't have to necessarily match between two users...it can be a chain of matches, an AI algo can easily do this.

don't be goal driven...

not in everything...but when making something new, something which could be game changing, could be different, could be revolutionary.

being goal driven gets what you started out to get, and thats it. thats when you stop. the probability of creating something great, when you are goal driven, when you have the end picture defined, is remote. simply because your definition limits you.

instead, when starting out to make something which is unheard of, have a vague idea of what you want, have a set of objectives maybe, and start out. Build it brick by brick...always keeping the framework of objectives in view. Mostly when what your building has not been built before, knowing what all is required is impossible, and not required as well. Improvise and innovate as you go along, the only requirement is to insist on innovation, on being different.

Rework is many times good, if the future makes you change what you have already built, thats ok, as long as thats not all you keep on doing.

the new wave...

its touted as the new age e-mail, well i think its more then that. its a collaboration platform, integrates mail and IM, sharing of docs / pictures is possible, and once you have calls and video integrated, thats it.
it would replace a lot of apps, standalone mail and im clients for sure. but maybe one-note kind of apps as well. and more then that, i think as and when wave develops as a platform, most other collaborative apps will come on it.
whether it will replace Facebook and twitter, don't think so. its diff to replace sth which is so very well set in.
anyways, its simple and intutive, like any google product. An iphone / smart phone version is imperative, because google wave is for 24/7 access. its not like old times, when you check your mail once / twice a day, this is an always on option.

frankly speaking, where email was a 1-1 communication platform, this is a many-many collaboration platform. email will still live, simply because in wave like in im you won't write long paragraphs, because of the expectation of quick reply. if not for anything, hopefully just for the charm of writing long mails, will email live.

and thats why i think, wave makes more sense in an office environment (where ironically its blocked), in a work environment, once you learn how to manage the noise, it will be uber productive...
the noise...yes imagine a 100 waves, each with an average of 5 people, they are bound to be updated very frequently. which means we will be on wave most of the time, its like im. there is an offline option, which will have to be used frequently, and expectations set, just because there is an instant collab platform available, doesn't mean its going to be instant always.

as for apps, i know for sure it will replace commenting modules everywhere, group chats, groups like yahoo groups et al as well.

some suggestions for future enhancements.
1. integrate audio and video, conf calling if possible.
2. have the @tagging available like facebook / twitter. so i know that my attention is required in a wave.
3. have a status option which can be set per wave, so i might be offline for one wave, active for one and not interested for all others...

right now there are very few people on it, the full potential is still to be discovered.
and yea i don't like the name wave, it makes no sense...just because wave is one dimensional, wave atleast is two dimensional.

and also was wondering, can anyone in a wave add others to the wave, if that is so, then am not really sure how google is gonna manage it, theoretically, you could have the entire world or everyone with a google account at least (which should be the entire net savvy world) on wave in a single wave...

few more thoughts after trying it out some more...

1. Presence information is now shown for anyone but self, well not sure if its a bug, because logically, presence is required in wave kind of a multi party collaboration environment. I would like to know if the people in my wave are online or not, and if they are, not just answering.

2. On the other hand you should be able to set ur presence on a per wave or per person basis. i want to be seen online in these waves and / or to these other people.

3. it is chaotic to say the least. the fact that you can go and type basically anywhere, that you can answer to anyone and / or edit anyone else's wavelet, its just too difficult to keep track of...maybe training and set of rules might help once this starts getting used to more and more.

4. The edit facility given for any wavelet, basically makes it useless for any corporate environment, where email is many times evidence. Edit facility should actually be turned off by default, i don't really think people are gonna start using wave for collaborative pieces, there are other apps which provide that, wave should limit itself to a collaborative communication platform.

5. Although the UI is customizable, the real estate is gonna fall short when ur in many waves together.

6. Discovering new waves is a pain, yes a wave with new content moves up, but discovering that new content and where it is in the wave is diff...the playback feature is slow and well, useless.

knowing how much you burn at all times...

i go to the gym, and the other day had to change my treadmill midway through my 10 min jog. and on the new machine, everything started from zero. the distance i had already covered, the calories already burnt, all started from zero.

and that gave me an idea...

why not have all machines in a gym connected to a central database. the db would have ha two aspects, a user profile aspect, and a machine aspect. so every gymer will have an account in the db, with their profiles, their gym regime, their minimum calorie to be burnt per day all entered in the db.

and then there will be a machine db, how much calories does each machine burn, and other aspects, like avg running speed, total time et al.

the app in middle will do most of the mactching. how it will work is...Every day when you go to gym, u log in, and ur profile becomes active. ur chart for the day is shown, and ur given ur round for the day. now as per the chart you go to a machine, you log in, could be through a swipe card, biometric or sth. the machine loads ur profile, and ur chart for the day. and starts. it automatically transfers information like calories burnt to the central db, and so when u move to another machine, ur calorie burnt increases incrementally. at the end of the day you are shown a total count.

well this alone is not very useful, but since all charts are saved in one place, and everyone's regime is more predictable, automated scheduling is possible, so users know which machine is getting empty, or machines can be pre-booked as well. it will hugely help in rush hours like morning and evening.

advantages - well users convinience, a true picture of ur workout, a trending over time, better management for they gym owners....a cooler gym.

and if you want to go crazy, the application also asks you to do better, inspire you ala the trainers...well if you want to go crazy.

a portal for NGO produce

two things which brought me this idea, one, intern's at Rediff, where i was basically involved in sales process for their e-shop for corporates, and second being this event we had at my present job, where some NGO's were called to showcase what they were doing. 

one thing that most NGO's now have realised is that they cannot work on charity, most of the one's there had this ingrained, they all knew that unless they make the people they are helping stand on their feet, and make a business, maybe a non profit one, out of their NGO, they can't survive. or atleast the survival is unpredictable. 

at the fair i saw that many of the NGO's had some creative products to sell. they were different in general, they had something to do with nature and saving the environment (so prds out of hand made paper, hand prints, natural colors etc), each product was different since everything was hand made, they all had that rich look to them. 

so i was wondering, why are they not selling, asked one of them, and he said they know how to make things, but they don't know how to sell.

well the problem was not only selling, but marketing in general. 

on a macro level problems that i see are - they have no idea about what people want, they just make stuff that they can, or rather people who they help can make, 

they don't know where and who to sell, presently they sell to people who visit their premise, so they have a small souvneir shop, and also at such fairs. once in a while they get corporate orders, out of people who are patrons of the institution or through word of mouth, but unlike word of the virtual mouth (on the net) true word of mouth takes a long time to spread, and mostly its a small brush fire which gets extinguished easily. also they can't create in big numbers, because they don't have the capacity and also they don't have the business acumen or atleast have not realised the business acumen to plan a business. and that brings me to the biggest problem, the people who run these places, don't have the business leadership, these are the NGO kinds, for whom money is a necessity, but otherwise a bad word. they are here to do good. thats the biggest problem.

so what do i suggest, well, why not have a e-portal which becomes a marketplace for products created by such NGO's. get a sizeable no of NGO's together, standardize two or three products from each of them, and put them up on the e-portal for sale. do not brand each of the products, atleast not on the front, in the detail section maybe. make sure that the e-portal is marketed as a NGO product portal, as a place where if u buy, you are also helping someone somewhere. maybe even put numbers, like if u buy this from here, ur helping teach one kid for 10 days or on those lines.  

why not brand on the front page, well simply because the sourcing from a particular NGO is not decided, some NGO might be able to put up things at some point of time.  and also because you donot want to be target one NGO, one cause, in the portal's eyes, every cause is equal. 

problems i see...investment on part of the NGO, one of the problems of coming to a marketplace is that you have to predict the sales, and have a percentage of that ready, alteast a percentage. but that can't be true for an NGO, because they cannot invest. so what do you do, well have a delivery time attached, something like if u buy this 'hand made cup' it will take 4 weeks to deliver, simply because its hand made.  it adds to the value...oh u know what, they take time to deliver becuase everythign is handmade, and the delivery times are different depending on the product.

also make sure you can gift these products to someone, the value attached for the giftee increases quite a lot if they know its from an NGO, and handmade, customised et al, and in turn it increases for the buyer as well. 

from a setting up point of view, this needs some work before hand. setting up the portal is the easier part, but get those initial NGO's needs a lot of leg work. need to find a sizable no of NGO's to contribute. also handling the Supply chain, taking the order and money (needs a payment gateway, can't have COD option, as money gets blocked), gettign the order to the NGO, making sure its produced and delivered on time will take some work. 

the good thing is that, once the portal becomes a little known, it will become easier from both sides. ofcourse, word will spread through the virtual mouth to the buyers, and through word of mouth to different NGO's. 

also have a suggestion place, where visitors to the site can suggest products. and ofcourse have a blog where contributors are the people running the NGO, where they can showcase the manufacturing process, or simple write about their NGO.

how does it sound, tell me if u implement it...happy to help.