Technology

24
Feb 09

Rethinking the User Interface

If you have been following StartupDunia for some time, you would be familiar with my penchant for user interfaces (UI). I have been vocal about my critique for sites with poor UI and have applauded well designed sites. Although I am not a UI designer myself, I think well designed UI is crucial  towards user friendliness and user adoption.

Let us take a look at a few amazing innovations in User Interface and how they have disrupted entire markets:

1) Windows:

Hate it as much as you want, but Microsoft brought the friendly Windows UI to common computer users. Although inspired from the original Mac UI, Windows definitely gets credit for taking the UI mainstream.  Even in today’s date, Linux is still heavily geared towards geeks and Windows and Microsoft office continue to thrive – because of their sheer simplicity and ease of use.

2) iPod:

180px-ipodwheelsvgIts not that digital music players didnt exist before iPod arrived. So, how’s it that iPod virtually ended up dominating the entire digital music market ? For starters, the seamless integration of  iPod – iTunes made buying and discovering digital music really easy. But more than that, iPod has been successful primarily because it is a sleek, sexy and extremely user friendly gadget. The click wheel innovation made the iPod a simplistic gadget with no need of the additional clunky buttons (play, stop, rewind etc.).  If one were to describe the interface using a single word, it would definitely be best said as ‘intuitive’.

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Technology — 5 comments

10
Feb 09

Why GetSatisfaction ?

logoIn case you arent familiar with GetSatisfaction, its a hub for customer support for startups and big corporations alike.  Users can post comments, share ideas, criticize and provide any sort of feedback to a company. Most of the startups – companies have employees that respond to the user feedback, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

GetSatisfaction has seen widespread adoption and the fact that companies like Apple, BBC, Adobe etc use the service serves as a testament to how mainstream the service has become.

However, I still dont understand why companies use GetSatisfaction. The way I see GetSatisfaction, its just a morphed version of a forum. Why do these companies really need to use GetSatisfaction to connect with their customers and provide support ? Why cant they implement the same on their websites ? The functionality that GetSatisfaction provides is not hard to implement.  If they need to rely on a 3rd party service to close the feedback loop with their customers, I’d say that’s a serious problem.

Am I missing something  ?

Do you use GetSatisfaction for your startup / company ? If so, can you tell me why ? Why havent you tried to provide similar ability for customers to connect with you directly via your website ?



Technology — 7 comments

22
Jan 09

Do you believe in the Second Life ?

There was a time when Second Life, the virtual world from Linden Labs, was spreading like a weed. Businesses lined up to setup their presence in the virtual world and buying and selling land etc. in Second Life became a thriving marketplace in itself.

Somehow, I’ve never been convinced about the potential of Second Life (I’m not talking about other virtual worlds like WebKinz & Penguin Club). 2nd life enthusiasts are excited by virtual events, virtual conferences and other immense possibilities, but till date, I’ve never bought into it. The buying and selling of land & other artifacts,specifically in second life, all seemed to be over-hyped to me.

What’s your opinion about Second Life ? Have you ever believed in its potential ?

You might be wondering why I’m talking about Second Life out of the blue – Well, I was just taking a look at IndusGeeks, one of the startups at Headstart, & they do a bunch of 2nd life related stuff.



Technology — 13 comments

13
Jan 09

Infosys gets desperate, asks employees to save $10

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Infosys is asking its employees to make a one time cost savings of $10 each, in which ever form they can make. With 100K employees, that equates to $1 milllion.As per an internal email sent by Infy CEO,

If each one of us is able to identify a savings of even $10-not just per day or per month-but $10 as a one-time effort from each one of us, that would translate to a saving of close to $1,000,000. I urge each one of you as a key stakeholder of the company’s success, to examine your work environment and look at opportunities that will optimise utilisation and control expenditure

Earlier, Infy has also encouraged employees to take 1 year sabbatical leaves and pursue NGO opportunities.

Like others, Infy’s feeling the heat of the current economy.



Technology — 1 comment

13
Jan 09

Yahoo India releases top searches

Yahoo India has released the year end top searches for the Indian market. Bollywood and cricket dominate the list, which wouldnt come as a surprise to anyone.

here’s Yahoo top 10 searches list for 2008.

yahoo-search

Compare this to Google’s 2008 top searches list for India:

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Internet / Technology — No comments

12
Jan 09

Wipro banned from World Bank contracts

Wipro has been banned from World Bank contracts after it was found that Wipro tried to bribe employees by offerring shares in return for contracts.

Wipro’s revenue from WB is about $1 million, but more than revenue impact,  it just brings bad press to Wipro — something that no one wants – especially in the recent light of the Satyam scandal. Wipro’s stock fell by 10% on the news.

via BS



Technology — No comments

8
Jan 09

Librarywala.com revenue at Rs. 63 lakhs ?

As per this story in ET, LibraryWala.com revenues on December 1, 2008 was Rs 63 lakhs – this for a company that launched in August 2007. These revenues came from 4500 subscribers.

That comes out to about Rs 1400 per subscriber. I’m not sure if this takes into account the Rs 499/- one time registration fee and the Rs 499/- security deposit. If you discount the one time fees, actual subscription amout spent by each customer comes out to about Rs 400.

Not bad, eh ?

What do you think about these numbers ?  Have you used their service ? If so, how was your experience ?



Technology — 2 comments

7
Jan 09

Satyam saga could spill over to other companies

The Satyam scandal has been sending shockwaves through India’s outsourcing industry. Satyam is India’s fourth largest outsourcing company and caters to at least 1/3 of the Fortune 500 companies.  The revelation has sent Satyam into a downward spiral with shares closing around Rs 40.

But I dont think the mess is gonna stop there. US companies are gonna closely scrutinize their relationships with other Indian outsourcing firms, especially considering that finance / accounting for several of these companies are done by the Indian firms. At the same time, the big 3 (Infy, TCS and Wipro) also stand to gain by Satyam’s fiasco — they can try and poach away Satyam’s clients.

This scandal has definitely raised concerns about accounting standards in India. People are already calling it the Enron of India.



Technology — 2 comments

4
Jan 09

Happy New Year and some news catchup

Here’s wishing you a very happy and prosperous new year. I’m back after a great, extended vacation and still playing catch up with news and emails.

Some bits that you might have missed during the holidays:

* Movie Booking service BookEazy has shut down:

Its unfortunate, but at times the most viable option. It seems that BookEazy founders are gonna focus their energy on Lipikaar and seem to have lined up an impressive client list already. I was pretty impressed with BookEazy right when they launched and wish them good luck with Lipikaar.

* Times Group has launched payment gateway DirecPay

* Hover.in gets funding from Media2Win – via WATBlog

* India’s 3G auction has been postponed for the umpteenth time and is now scheduled for Jan 30th



Technology — 1 comment

18
Dec 08

PartyGaming founder Anurag Dikshit pleads guilty

PartyGaming founder Anurag Dikshit has plead guilty to a federal crime and agreed to forfeit $300 million. PartyGaming was one of the first online poker sites and is registered in the UK.

Dikshit’s worth last year according to Forbes was $1.6 billion.

via release



Technology — No comments

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