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Life without Skype

Sux!

Skype today in my life is the same as Google. Any of them go down and there is trouble!

I want Skyyyypeeee!!!! Bring it back!

Craziest collection of videos over the web

revolution in men shaving - Philips

A funny corporate video by Philips

Extreme Ways

I got introduced to this song by Moby with Bournce Supremacy. And it keeps coming back to me. I think the reason I like it - it has got the "passion of a lost mind".

So I started digging into all the videos that have legally or illegally used this song. A few clips below


Moby's original



Bourne Supremacy



LOST



Windmills



War Crime Shootouts



trunks tribute

Facebook - Worlds Collide Theory

Seinfeld Season 7 Episode 8 - The Pool Guy shows how George's world shatters with his date hanging out with his friends. Its a collision of the 2 worlds - George's relationship world with Susan and his independent world with Jerry, Kramer and Elaine.

"This world here, this is George's sanctuary. If Susan comes into contact with this world, his worlds collide!"
- Kramer, in "The Pool Guy"

Something similar is happening to me on facebook now. Somehow all the daylifers are now my friends on facebook and I am changing my social settings now. Starting from my personal "Interested In", "Looking For" statuses and pictures, co-workers at Daylife started chatting about my personal life on the work skype chat. I saw my 2 worlds colliding - the personal world and the work world. Goddamn facebook opening up for everyone. And stupid me adding co-workers to my facebook profile. Linkedin is the right place for my work-world.

Caartoon with animals that talk

Brian finally helped me find these funny cartoons by googling for Aardman. These cartoons are simple but funny. The one below is called the "Creature Comforts- At The Circus". My favorite in this one is the pig at the end of a cannon ready to be shot and he says "I am a bit afraid of heights"...



Atom films has a good collection of them. The one below is pretty amusing.



And this one on ordering Vegetarian Option at a steak restaurant...ahh..the tragedy of my life..

Brand Entertainment

Brand Entertainment - make a movie, show, music video, or any media, which itself is an entertainment piece promoting a brand.

Example - the BMW Films "The Hire"ad campaign with Fallon (wiki).

Here is one of the bmw film starring Clive Owen and Madonna, directed by Guy Ritchie.



Other BMW films on youtube.

I believe that brand entertainment is a good idea. It captures my attention for much longer duration than a regular ad. Put a regular ad on, and, all i am trying is to skip it somehow - possible or not.

Google Calendar "Unscheduled" --- Its down

Yes.. Goog Cal is down. so annoying...Totally Global error messaging

Quote

"Advertising is not a sprint.

It's a marathon."

- Mike Hughes
President, Creative Director The Martin Agency

All About Advertising

Well that is the title of the class that I just started attending at The New School. The class is taught by this 68 year old guy Kurt Brokaw who has been in the advertising industry for last 48 years. Teaching at new school for the last 21. He has been a creative director at some big ad agency here in nyc and his wife and kids all seem to be in the same business.

Anyhow, I think I liked the start of the class. He started with how advertising is changing that is visible to the consumer. Things that came up in that discussion (really, it was interactive) - more mediums like online ads on cellphones and your websites, more contextual, more personalized, lesser control of marketers in terms of where the ads are being served, more global.

Kurt did have a good start for the class by showing us a few advertisements that have been successful either in creating a buzz or in terms of their creativity. The ads that he showed us:

1. 1984 superbowl ad for Apple: This ad was supposedly a big hit in terms of creating a buzz for Macintoshes and was talked about for a lot. No one had seen an ad like this before. It was directed by Ridley Scott (wiki), a famous english film director. He has the fame of directing BladeRunner and Alien and this ad no doubt has the same feel, look, and texture.



One thing that Kurt pointed out was that the zombie looking marching people in the ad were supposed to be referring the office workers who would always choose IBM when it came to buying their work computers. And of course the ad tries to blow away that paradigm and introduce something revolutionary for the office workers.

However, I don't agree that this ad was any successful if it really wanted to target the office workers. IBM has lost a large market share in the office PC market, but its not Macintosh that has replaced those IBM machines. Its Dell (interesting ad campaign article from 1999). I hope I find some time to research some Dell ad campaigns.

It was amusing to see that there are teaser Hillary clinton and Barack Obama ad campaign videos making use of this video.


Moving on, Kurt introduced us to AICP (Association of Independent Commercial Producers). According to them they specialize in producing commercials on various media - film, video, computer - for advertisers and agencies. Here are the 3 commercials he showed us:

1. Adidas "Hello Tomorrow" ad.
Director: Spike Jones
Music: Helen Sheppard



What I saw in it - the guy goes around different terrains, positions etc and then they end it with a tag line - "Intelligent shoe" and it all makes sense, at least to me. But again I dont think there is much of intelligence in any shoe, esp if its not made for just my foot shape and size.

2. XBOX 360 "Jump Rope" ad


McCann-Erickson took home the Best of Show American Advertising Federation (AAF) award for this commercial. From the press release:

This extreme double Dutch jump rope jam metaphorically captures the excitement and social aspect of the new generation XBOX 360. It was shot completely in-camera in one take. This is a beautifully crafted piece of work, and the soundtrack is inspired.

If its one take shot, pretty amazing - not sure how long it took them though. To me the ad was a good way of saying: hipsters, jump into the xbox gaming.

3. Hummer "Modernista" ad. This one is funny.



We had a good discussion about this ad as if it was too intense and created more of a negative image for the product. An interesting "anecdotal" fact that Kurt told us is that most of the hummer owners that he has talked to own it because they feel when the disaster comes to new york, hummer would be the safest car that can take them out of the city. Frikkin Aey!

And here is a regular stop for the hummers:


More Hummer images on daylife.

So this if my first class which is all about advertising.

My Hip Hop TV

We moved offices to a temp space called Sunshine Suites, the one at 419 Lafayette near Astor Place. In addition to the fancy lounge like waiting spaces, and the bathrooms playing sexy house chill music - they happen to be a home to a range of startups in the area.

One of these companies is HHTV (see'em on myspace). Their CEO Ganiu "Scrills" Ladejobi is this hip hop "dood" whose passion for hip hop is pretty obvious after talking to him for 5 minutes. Hip hop and HHTV in SCrills's own words:

Hip Hop is more than just music; it's a lifestyle, a culture, the very essence of people like me that grew up on it. With the world becoming more tuned in to Hip Hop, it is only right that we have our own avenue for spreading and enjoying our culture 24/7...And by our own avenue, I mean our own television network, where we can broadcast everything hip hop 24/7 for cats like me that live hip hop, and even for those who want to be a part of our culture. Well, to the hip hop nation, I give you HHTV- Hip Hop Television. HHTV is the world's first internet-based hip hop television network.

These kids seem to be doing some great work surviving in a highly competitive environment and producing some good shows. I would love to see them providing more user interaction on their site and let users create their own shows or channels. However, Scrills for now aspires to have his own TV network thats available on your cable box in addition to being online. With companies like Facebook (and hopefully Myspace) opening up their platforms, compenies like HHTV can exploit the POWER OF THE USER.

Indian consumer services market

Ok thats a flashy headline but my sis got her visa approved this time to come to the states and take her USMLE exam for being a resident.

The secret sauce - there are services in India that help you train for the visa interview. They assess your situation based on your logistics, of course - and how many times you have been rejected the visa before. They have a full list of questions that will be asked and how to answer them.

My sis took a 7 hour crash course to get trained on these Q&As. And 15 mins at the embassy and she has her visa. Exact same questions asked as she was trained on.

Finally, the fee - 100 dollars. wtf!

And really - you can get these training centers for almost everything - except adult education..I believe!

Surprise party by the kids!

It was 4pm yesterday, on May 2nd, when I fell asleep while browsing and watching TV. I had finished watching a mafia movie with a sad ending and was dreaming some crazy crap about it. Yes I always get dreams from things that happen thruout the day...

In any case..so it was my 29th birthday yesterday and my mom threw a surprise party for me with her friends - a group of around 10 kids 5 to 10 yrs old. These kids started banging on my door when I was dreaming and I almost felt that i am in middle of a fight. I woke up, opened the door and the kids shouted -- "SURPRISE!". It was a surprise - i had no idea what had been happening for last 2 hours. This is the second surprise party for me - the first one by Maryam and Aman was incredibly good.

So here are few pics below and the rest are here. It was a fun party and I had a great time celebrating my bday with these kiddos. Oh I sound like 29 yr old now...

Walking down the memory lane!

Supposedly photography wasnt as easy when I was growing up as it is now.. hard to believe in this age of digital cameras..anyhow..I finally dug out a few pics from some old family albums here at home. Goddamn - how cute we were - me and my sis! ok me - not that much..but still...



---YAY! me and my sis!




--- My sis 2 yrs old



--- My sis 9 months old!

I am pimpin'

So here is an email I wrote trying to get my sis an arranged marriage...goddamn! its a whole different world...but hey what it takes to find the mr. RIGHT for her! its sad that she doesnt know about it...

Respected Dr. Gupta,
I am writing to you with regards to your advertisement in TOI Apr 29th looking for a doctor girl for your son (I presume).

My sister, X Gupta, is a beautiful 27 years old, very fair, 5'4" tall, sensible, sweet and a wise girl. She has completed her MBBS from ZZZ and aims to pursue her residency in USA. She has completed USMLE Step 1 and 2 and is in the process of taking her USMLE Step 3. She was born and raised in Lucknow and is convent educated. She has a very charming personality and at least I would say she is the best sister in the world :)...

A little about our family background - My dad, AAA, is a well settled businessman in Lucknow. He is one of the leading dealrers of BBB in JJJ for the last 10 years. My mom is a housewife and has been our caretaker and a perfect mom. Both me and my sister have always respected and cherished the values we have attained from our parents. I myself am a Computer Engineer - B-Tech from MMM, MS from USA and have been working there for the last 4 years. Currently, I am settled in New York.

We are actively looking for a groom for Ruby - someone who comes from a good family and preferably is a doctor. As X aims to study in USA we would prefer the groom to be working or studying there. I am sorry that I dont have a soft copy of my sister's bio data, so I am writing as much details as possible in this email. Your advertisement in TOI seemed to us like a good match and we hope the details above would interest you.

We would love to talk to you over the phone sometime and it would be great if you can email us your phone number. In case if you would want to call us, our home phone number is - XXXXXXXXX and my dad's cell is YYYYYYYY. I am currently on vacation at home until May 7th and would be back in New York after that. I could be reached there at ZZZZZZZZZZZZ after May 8th.

Thanks a lot for your time and we hope to hear from you soon,
--Vineet

Good!

Good is a new upcoming magazine published every 2 months or so. they claim to be the magazine for "People who give a damn!"...not sure how accurate it is to what is in the magazine but maybe I dont give a damn...anyhow, I liked the last 2 editions a lot. I read the recent one in the flight on my trip back home...sweet home!




A little bit information about their editorial spirit - they are much more artsy than other newsie, corporate, glamour or sports magazine. here is a graphic statement from their recent issue - "Each issue, GOOD asks an artist or group to set the tone for the magazine with a visual interpretation of the theme." .. The images for the theme of this edition are pretty funny...esp the one with a road sign which says: "Ignore this sign"...

GOOD's story on north korea is pretty interesting - it almost felt like that the contemprary way of life there follows a very static thoughtline which is centered around the politics in the country. Even the religion is more like a political theory called Juche. Juche means achieving true chaju ("independence").

The article on Decongestion of streets in several European countries by encouraging people to use bikes is a great example of how in modern day life problems can be solved by masses adopting a simple solution.


Transperancy section exposes some interesting numbers like korea.com was sold in 5.5 million dollars by a a Korean-American Lee Hee-Joon to the ISP Thrune tin South Korea. Or sex.comwas sold in 14 million dollars to Escom.

** Daylife gave me this "Juche" idea center. Wiki does have a better picture of it.

test

Products for The Man

I saw 2 advertisements today - which explicitly focuessed on being the products for the "Man"..Burger king commercial where guys left their hot dates in classy restaurants and went to burger king for the meat filled burgers for the Man..and then there was the Volvo commercial with the Volvo logo inside the male gender sign

I am surprised that marketing teams for these companies are ready to miss on attracting the female homo sapiens..oh well..whatever works..for the man!

Daylife at NYC tech meetup

Jon Harris presented daylife.com on Jan 9th 2007 at the New York Tech Meetup. Here is a video of it. Unfortunately, we lost internet connection during the demo, but Jon managed to get the idea of daylife.com across.

Mashing up Visual Search and Shopping

My friend Nikhil (alias:kholu) works for this startup company in visual search and face recognition called Riya. Pretty neat idea about maintaining and searching photos based on faces in the photo. I did not like the fact that face recognition works only within my riya album and does not work globally..but thats just too hard a problem to solve..

Necase, the reason I am writing this post is because of their new venture called like.com...pretty amazing how these guys mashed the idea of visual search and shopping. I think this is the killer in the next generation of online shopping. People love celebrities and people love buying what their celebrities are wearing...Check it out..its pretty sweet!

Also, amazon.com started a new venture to sell shoes, handbags etc..Endless.com. Its all coming down to online shopping for the girls!

Daylife APP3 goes live

Life comes to Daylife

Daylife.com went live today at 11:00 AM EST. Moment of truth has arrived...Traffic is being monitored...it was exciting..although people here at work just clapped..I was expecting Champagne..(i know its 11 AM but we launched)...

I think perfect way to start a new year! launch products! ... i think i am lucky that I am seeing this 3rd product being launched in 3.5 years of my career..pretty neat!