I also feed on feeds and and Google Reader acts as my dinner table. And let me tell you that feeds are addictive, though I dont have any scientific or medical proof for it, but yes I can say that from my very own experience. And anybody else who is using some kind of reader must be feeling same. I use firefox as my browser, and there are three things which I open as soon as I get online.

• Orkut
• Google Reader
• Blogger/Wordpress

One can easily understand that there is one thing common in all the three items, and that is social connectivity. The crux is that any thing which connects you with others, and with connection if that thing provides you with infotainment then that thing is going to be addictive. And history is full of examples. And a feed reader does all these things quite handsomely.
One thing which bugs me about the reader, and in particular with google reader is that it does not have any kind of interaction facility. Often there are posts, on which I would love to comment, but I wont, as I have to click and then wait for next page to upload. By the time I decide, I am already on next post.

By the way this is an echo post, and the post which inspired me to write this is here.


And below is an interesting video of Robert Scoble telling about his reading and filtering skills.

Its a real big news for me. One can easily estimate how big this news is by knowing the fact that my exams are going on, and in the midst of heavy schedule I am taking some time out to photo blog about my new camera. It is SONY snap shot camera, DSC W-32, a 7.2 mega pixel camera, quite minimalistic in features, but nice picture quality.These photos were taken from my Nokia 5200 music phone.

Previously I had a film based snap shot camera, which was much bigger than this and presently my hands are trying to get feel of this new small baby. All in all I liked the way it is performing.

Here are few photos from the 35. These are two photos I shot while experimenting with its macro option.

If you can point out my mistakes in shots then please feel free to comment.

I am on Orkut, and at present its the only social network that keeps me busy. But there is something in Orkut which always tell me to look elsewhere. I also have an account on MySpace, but for MySpace isnt interesting enough. Recently after the F8 media hype (hyped for good reasons) I though to give Facebook another try. I had a pending friends request for months, I clicked on it and now I am on Facebook. And at present it seems it is something where I can rest of my time. I have repeatedly felt that quality of social network is not that important when compared to the number of people on it. An avalanche effect takes place when few friends of same mixed group joins a social network.
If I join a network, and so does my friend, then when we both send invitation to our common friends, then there is more initiation force on that third person. And when the number of friends cross a limit of certain value then the number of new friends joining that network increases quite rapidly. But for that to happen, the new social network has to be really interesting.
With Facebook opening their API, the innovation quotient has gone few steps up. And now onus of innovation is on whole community, and developers. Few of the new applications are interesting enough to become a social network on their own. And when such kind of things are being added on a regular basis, then it marks a question in your head, 'Whats Next?' And this is something Orkut is missing, where most of my friends resides.
Orkut and Facebook can be easily compared because both are doored networks. By 'doored', I meant that, to view any profile you have to login. This is a nice options for those who dont want their profiles to be a part of Google search.
So far I am quite impressed by Facebook, last time when I tried to join facebook, it did not had that innovation feel and was more closed. But later they opened their doors to everybody and not only to .edu based schools and colleges( that seemed idiotic to me). But this F8 phenomenon really impressed me, and latest addiitons are quite interesting.
As I have mentioned that I am on Facebook, you can check my Profile here. You have to be on Facebook to watch my profile and add me as your friend.

One thing which this post will be shouting loud is, that user media s indeed becoming more and more prominent and strong.
Those jibing Mac v/s Windows advertisements, shown by Jobs were hit of some sort among the Mac-o-holics, and they really have strong sense of humor...If they had sense of humor then what does these advertisements contain...and they are not even by NOKIA.

They are just plain facts...



Having something in the same way you gave it, can sometimes become bit difficult to swallow. But Apple can thanks almighty that its not an official campaign.



I dont think that these ads are in any way going to harm the ongoing iPhone frenzy, Jobs just create such a beautiful aura around his products that people in general never feels it essential to look elsewhere. He is a pure maverick. On any given day, or night and at any moment I can say three cheers for him.



What would be interesting to know in future is that who will leas the pack, Nokia N95 or Apple iPhone.

Special Mention : Great job by these people, who made this video. Though conceptually they copied but they took it to another level on there heels. Nice job, and a healthy way of advertising also, because many will just follow the links which they give at the end of each clip. I some how managed to stop myself.... ;)

After seeing multi million deals surrounding social network, one can marvel the fact that none of them were a technical breakthroughs. So what made them such a hit?
I am talking about, the major social networks like MySpace, video sharing site like YouTube etc. More often than not it is being at right place and at right time. Social networks were there way back before MySpace, Facebook or Orkut came. But still only few are raking moolah. The most important thing behind the success of a social network is the initial crowd which surrounds it. But why am I talking about it, when we all know about it somewhere inside our brain?
The thing which prompted me to write about this is the arrival of new phenomenon; having a social network of own. And the avalanching force behind this post; social network surrounding Mashable, a very popular blog, and probably the best when it comes to pure social network news. Mashable recently got a social network of its own and woila it got zillion members already. Now thats ok for a Mashable but that not be ok for you, cause you must have a sizable network to start with, either from good advertising or from your connections. And, from my little expireince I can tell you, when it comes to creating a social network, any publicity is not good publicity, and bad publicity is really a bad publicity. I will try to explain it in my future post. And let me tell you, My mom is asking me to leave my laptop and get into the world of my course books, as I am having my Physics examination of second semester on Monday.

One of the major movie rental giant in US, Blockbuster have decided to keep all the major titles in Blu-Ray disk rather than in HD-DVD. This is a great pro step for BR. Blu-Ray can store 50GB on double layering. And HD DVD on otherhand can stor only upto 30Gb on dual layering. So for now it seems BD is ahead than HD-DVD... But to tell you only that format will be successful which will allow people to to copy their material , and the material they bought n number of times. The format which supports porn industry. The format which will support easy piracy or to say the one which will allow easy piracy.

I was lately planning to start penning some sort of autobiography. And the name which came to my mind was "Books and Roses", only those who are quite near to me can understand why I will name my autobiography this way. But for those who are not that near and are still finding themselves reading this post, I have only one thing to say, 'name is quite easy to understand'. Whenever it comes to posting on this blog, the first question which strike me is why the number of posts on this blog are so less, or in other words why I post so irregularly on this blog. This is no excuse, but most of my thinking time is consumed by my books and the life related to my engineering studies. So, I can not just be a full time blogger.
Currently its examination season going on in my college, out of phase from rest of the universities in India. So as it should be, I should be spending more time with my course books rather than on web, and the person who thinks, I have improved with my language, and style thinks, I should shun blogging for few days to come. And that person is none other than My father. He does not visit this blog, its the email feed which I got him subscribed, and which is for most of the time nothing more than a spam make him read my posts. The other reader whom I think is most important to me is My sister, who some how manages to drop on my blog, and post a comment or two, or tell her views over phone. So for now they are the person whom I would like to thanks most, to encourage me to write more and more.
Lately I have been associated with few group blogging projects. One for my college, named interestingly, Friday Colours, and other is Balshree blog this one is from group of students from all over India who won President's award from their creativity in respective fields. So somehow these two projects also took time from my blogging time. Then there is my personal blog, Kattak, where I write my rumblings. All these blogs are taking the limited time which I have got to blog. But still I have few brilliant visions for this blog, and would soon work on them and get them materialized. But for now you have to wait, for few more days for posts on webosphere to come regularly.