Saurabh Garg on The New New Thing

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2nd October came and went. It was Mahatma Gandhi’s Birth Anniversary. I have read a lot about Mahatma Gandhi and with my limited comprehension, I can say that Gandhi is one of those few people who had real powers. Powers to communicate, connect with the masses, use un-conventional thinking to get more ideas, lead by example, so on and so forth. If I can develop about one-tenth of his people skills, I can bring about a larger revolution that he got. Anyways, getting back to interesting developments over the past week, Business

• Jagdish Khattar (the man who ran Maruti for about 15 years and recently retired as Managing Director) is back and has launched his new venture. Carnation Auto India will be a chain of multi-brand automobile sales and service outlets. (link to news release). Awesome idea. This is a one of those industries where the unorganized sector rules the roost and as we have seen in the past, anyone who can “organize” or “brandize” even a small share of market, stands to gain a lot (Organized Retail, Jumbo King Vada Pavs etc.). In terms of competition, the ones I can think of off the hand are Mahindra’s First Choice and another one by Shah and Sanghi Motors. Need to read more about this. And probably write more on this brandizing unorganized sectors. Truly a new new thing that I will look forward to.
• Warren Buffet invests $3bn in GE. This is second investment in a week. Last week he put money behind Morgan Stanley Goldman Sachs (EDIT: I have no clue how I could have got this wrong. Thanks Shefaly.) However this time I disagree with him. I have worked with GE and my limited experience, I can say for sure that the management is over-hyped and is not up to the mark. They simply dont know how to allow employees to take risks. And the mangers have no clue how to run the show.

Interesting Tidbits

• On their 10th anniversary, Google created this page where you can search the index of Google as it was in 2001. Google Search in 2001. The world has changed like anything in last 7 years. Google for things as simple as India to as complex queries as “prime minister of India” and you will be surprised.
• Discovered Jose Gonzalez. His Heartbeat was used by Sony for their Bravia (Balls) commercial. Love the way he strums his guitar. He makes me want to learn playing guitar all over again. May be I will pick it up soon.

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• Finally wrote the Credits page for this blog. It was long overdue. Please check it out.
• Have started using visual thinking and visualizations in my blog post. Although it is more time consuming for me to actually create these visualizations (given my limited skills on an image editor) but I think the image gets the message across faster and better. Thanks to David Armano for inspiration.
• The govt. of India has finally banned public smoking. This I think is a welcome move. I dont know if smoking is any good/bad, it certainly irritates me and I would rather live in a smoke-free India. ITC can crib as much as it can but the move definitely is a positive one.

Even though this has been a short week but so many interesting things have happened. The world moves ahead. One baby step at a time. P.S.: This post is being published on Saturday. I was traveling on Friday.

The Google Blog has this post called The future of search by Marissa Mayer (I would love to meet her someday and bug her with my questions on Google). Very interesting I must say. This is my interpretation of the same and things that are possible and yet Marissa hasnt talked about.

Apart from everything that is mentioned on the blog, I would like to see these things in any discussion on future of search.

1. Device. A search device that I can carry along. A device that does not rely on an Internet connection. Hints: Kindle. Why cant I have a hand-held device that lets me use a search engine and emails and feeds? This could become my net access device and with cloud computing and software as service on browser, I can corner a large chunk of a market. TechCrunch’s web tablet could have been an ideal device but for size. Can iPhone become such a device with an always-on, high-speed net access? Can someone think of new devices?
2. Human Search. As the post on Google blog says, that universal search probably is the future, I would love to see it extended a wee bit. Instead of just uploading pictures or sounds, I should be able to capture inputs the way human do - by seeing (point my device at things and with a combination of great web camera technology, image recognition and bit of luck, the search engine should give me results - with QR codes, we are already seeing glimpses of the future), hearing (voice recognition and searching the sound pattern) etc. If we get close to any of these, that for me would truly be human search and evolution of search as a concept.
3. Recommendations and Personalization. When do we want to use search? When we are looking for more information about certain things. Search should be able to give me recommendations that will truly work for me. If Amazon Suggests can be extended to search, it will make my life so much simpler. As Google Blog mentions, its about personalization and the device/algorithm knowing you well enough to predict that you want to search for. Once that happens, I would be harnessing the power of search engines. Users look for answers when they search. With things being done at Mahalo, Google Knol and Wikipedia we are moving towards giving answers to users rather than a list of webpages that has those keywords or are relevant. Will the search engine that gives answers please stand up?

Search is something that I am really passionate about. Although I cant really speak from a technology perspective, I sure have end-user and product ideas. Here are my previous posts on search.

• Search Cost
• Hal Varian on Search

Google today announced Chrome - their own version of a browser (via TechCrunch). Everyone on the Internet is talking about it. And here is my two cents on it. I dont know a lot of things from the technology perspective but the browser from Google makes a lot of business sense.

1. Search Business. Search is the biggest cash cow for Google and with every new app or product, they try to integrate search with it. With a browser, they can do it even better. Every-time a user writes something in the URL bar, Google can suggest links (paid and unpaid). Every-time a user wants to click something, Google can suggest alternatives. (More on search here)
2. Integration. Better embedding of all Google tools including Gmail, Calendar, Groups, Spreadsheets, Docs etc. in the browser. It will help users, developers and Google itself make better and effective applications. I can envision functionality for each Google app built in the browser.
3. The Platform. In fact we might see the browser actually becoming the next platform. Developers will now make applications for the browser and all the applications can then be easily ported to all systems, devices and machines where ever that browser can be ported. The speed of application development would be very very rapid (I am assuming that it will be easy to make applications for Chrome).
4. Thin Clients and Cloud Computing. We are getting closer to the thin computing. Everything (data and preferences) would reside on a server and will be accessible from everywhere you have a Google Chrome. All Google needs to overcome is the adoption bump and the network effect. With the kind of clout and fandom Google enjoys, this should not be a very difficult task. In all probability Google will add Chrome to their famous Google Pack before pushing it with other things.
5. The Start Page. Everyone is trying to battle it out to become the start page for the user. From the New Facebook to Windows Live to iGoogle. Chrome can now become the start page. And in fact if things like TechCrunch’s webTablet becomes a reality, we can see a monumental change in the way Internet as we know it today. From applications to usability to accessibility.
6. Analytics. More data and more analytics. Google would be able to collect data easier, faster and be more accurate. This data can then be used to come up with more business applications. Its like yet another positive feedback loop. Use of browser makes life easier for users. And use of browser helps Google collect data. With this data, Google comes out with more applications that help the users. So on and so forth.
7. Artificial Intelligence. With a browser that Google owns, they can mine into the browsing patterns of people. How long to they spend on each page, how do they navigate the links. Which links are clicked most. With their Analytics software, they were already doing this for all pages that have embedded the code. Now they can do without the use of the Analytics code.
8. Death of Mozilla. A large part of money at Mozilla comes from the Google Search Box (the default home page on Mozilla). With Google pushing Chrome, will we see the fund-flow drying for Mozilla? Can Mozilla survive in the browser market with two giants in Microsoft and Google? Does Chrome translates into death for Mozilla and Firefox?
9. Internet Explorer. How can a rant be complete without talking about the rather infamous Internet Explorer? Already losing ground to Mozillas and Safaris and Operas of the world, Google Chrome would present a formidable challenge. And since the future is all about Internet (refer to thin clients and cloud computing above) rather than software residing on the hard-disks, this is another battle where Google and Microsoft would compete head-on. Who will win, only time shall tell.

Of all the above mentioned things, I am really excited about the browser becoming the Start Page, Thin Client and above all a Platform for everything that we do on the Internet. This for me is a New New Thing and I am really looking forward to how Chrome advances.

What is your take? What do you think is the business side of Google Chrome?

In this EconTalk podcast, Hal Varian, Chief Economist with Google speaks about Search amongst other things.

He says that search is about two things. Precision and Recall. He then defines precision as “off the number of documents retrieved by a search result, how many are relevant” and recall as “off all the relevant results, how many were retrieved”.

This is my opinion is very important aspect. Before we take on a problem to solve, we need to have the exact definitions in place.

He also spoke about co-evolution of technology and users. He said that any technology and its adopters evolve rapidly with time. He took examples of cars and extended it to search engines.

He said that users are getting more skilled at entering search queries. This helps both user and the search engine in delivering results that are high on precision and recall. And thus making the experience better for the user.

This probably explains why most of the user-dependent (user generated, network effect etc) businesses remain in beta stages for long times (gmail is still in beta). Till the time both (business and users) evolve and are mature enough to help each other, system has to remain in beta.

Lessons? Help your users evolve. Give them tools of the trade. They would need some hand-holding to learn initially. And then they would need the freedom and independence to play around with the system before they start making effective use of the system. And same goes for the system as well.

Please note that the definitions might not be exact (since I took notes while listening to the podcast), but the essence has been preserved. Link to podcast.

Google’s April Fool’s Day pranks is an awesome way to get free PR. Google creates a small application around search and then they release on the Internet. And all this is done with as much fan-fare and secrecy as an actual product.

They have played a lot if interesting pranks over the years and no wonder the entire world waits and watches what they would do this year. What is amazing is that even though people expect them to do things on 1st April, they still manage to come up with something that can surprise the world.

Lessons for companies? Start small things like April Fool’s Day pranks that can grow bigger with time and people will actually look forward to reading about it. And all these things count in the end. Especially for a small and a growing company.

List of Google April Fool’s Day pranks over the years
1. gDay with MATE
2. Google Romance
3. Virgin and Google’s Virgile
4. Gmail Paper
5. Google Mentalplex
6. PigeonRank
7. GoogleGulp
8. Google TISP

Did I miss something?