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Got GE? GE's new ads are great- esp. the piano with water drops. Any other Web ads impress you lately? I presume everybody remembers this thread.
posted on Apr-29-04 at 7:42 AM

Has the US promised Kashmir to Pakistan? During his recent visit, Colin Powell named Pakistan a US ally. This move has people in India concerned about what the US is willing to give Pakistan to fight Al-Qaeda. [The site has pop-ups. Sorry.]
posted on Mar-30-04 at 6:42 AM

Should dairy farmers be forced to contribute to the "Got Milk?" campaign? At this point, all dairy farmers contribute a per-unit fee to help fund the dairy marketing campaign. Is this just? A recent court decision does not think so. What do you think?
posted on Feb-25-04 at 8:01 AM

Rahula leads the way. An engaging Flash-based comic strip to illustrate the tenets of Buddhism to young souls.
posted on Jan-16-04 at 8:04 AM

Googlearchy: How a few heavily-linked sites dominate politics on the Web. [pdf file] Political communities exhibit winner-take-all properties. Surprising?
posted on Jan-8-04 at 7:25 AM

Primates as Programmers. New firm breaks the mold. Hires primates as programmers leading to significant cost savings!
posted on Dec-31-03 at 7:39 AM

Ranking Emerging Markets by "Market Potential" Michigan State Univ ranks emerging markets by their market potential. Does this mean that all new investment should go to Hong Kong and Singapore? Anyone willing to sink major $ in country #6- Hungary?
posted on Oct-24-03 at 8:23 AM

Self-destructing e-mail Microsoft boasts of a new feature in Outlook- self-destructing e-mail. Killer feature or bloatware?
posted on Oct-20-03 at 10:49 AM

Does India belong on the UN security council? A fascinating analysis of UN politics from a developing country's perspective.
posted on Sep-23-03 at 6:41 AM

College Cost Crisis (pdf alert) Tuition at universities continue to mount. This recent Congressional report chronicles this increase- but places the blame squarely on the Universities. Do you buy it?
posted on Sep-18-03 at 9:25 AM

The Bombay(Mumbai) blasts. Why detonate two car-bombs in Bombay? Destabilize the economy creating a climate for terror. Terror attacks have become commonplace in parts of India. The US condemned the Bombay attack- Powell called Indian officials. But, it seems like India should do more before if it wants broader US support. As the WSJ editorial page put it- "We think India could have helped build even closer U.S. ties had it decided to send troops to Iraq. The U.S. has driven a wedge into the center of Muslim terrorism with its occupation of Iraq, and it is looking to see who its friends really are." What is the lesson from all of this to the Indian government? What would you do if you were running India?
posted on Aug-28-03 at 9:43 AM

Does Information Technology(IT) matter? A recent Harvard Business Review paper has been criticized for its controversial stance that IT does not matter. Does it?
posted on May-29-03 at 7:11 AM

Seen an ad parody lately?[pdf alert] What is your favorite ad parody? [There is a great list of sites that feature ad parodies on page 20.]
posted on Apr-23-03 at 8:51 AM

$300 million in advertising= 300,000 lost subscribers. MSN's butterfly ad campaign has led to a loss of 300,000 subscribers. Why? Terrible creative(remember the butterfly man?)? Price competition? Saturated consumer market? Environmental outrage at the use of decals and graffiti? Discuss.
posted on Apr-22-03 at 8:29 AM

What's a company to do? Imagine this. You are the mighty Gillette corporation. You wish to promote your Mach 3 Turbo razor. You send free razors in the mail on an unsolicited basis. Guess what? There is another company out there that is giving away YOUR razors for free. It turns out that they are pretty aggressive- they ask consumers for their credit card number when they sign up. Those who sign up get eight replacement blades every two months. [You can sign up five friends and not pay for life, by the way.] You know what? There is nothing you[i.e., Gillette] can do about it. Oh, what's a company to do? You start calling them renegade and urge consumers to complain to state authorities. Will consumers care enough to complain?
posted on Apr-21-03 at 7:40 AM

Blockbuster late fee. I recently returned a movie a few hours late at Blockbuster. I was surprised to learn that the late fee was equal to what I paid for the movie- $3.25. The company line now is- "We don't have late fees. We just bill you for another seven days." This can be as high as $5.44, apparently. There seems to be no mention of this in the usual places. Shouldn't there be a legal limit to how high late fees can be? [The store clerk told me that late fees represented 40% of his store's earnings- I am not sure if this is true across the board.] I am ready for Netflix. Are you?
posted on Apr-8-03 at 8:08 AM

San Francisco Symphony's Kid Site. Parents, if you have not seen this, check it out. Are there any other sites that do a good job introducing music to kids?
posted on Apr-1-03 at 11:12 AM

Arundhati Roy on the war. This is the text of a speech Arundhati gave at Santa Fe last September. I have not seen it on MeFi before. Hence, I thought it would still be of interest. TWe have talked about her before here- 1, 2, 3. It is a long speech! So, read it when you have the time.
posted on Jan-28-03 at 7:37 AM

Top 10 Challenges for Microsoft. This is from a company called "Directions on Microsoft" in Kirkland, WA. All they do is analyze Microsoft. One of the challenges is to "keep a lid on LINUX"! My favorite part-"Hopes that the Linux community would fragment are not being realized, at least in 2003". Will these challenges hold MSFT in check? What do you think?
posted on Jan-6-03 at 5:07 AM

Kick his ass and get the gas. Three anti-war activists[Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali and Gilbert Achcar] discuss the current focus on war with Iraq on Turkish TV. Here is an alternative URL, just in case there are problems with OutlookIndia. P.S.: "Kick his ass and get the gas" was apparently a bumper sticker issued by the Republican party in California.
posted on Jan-2-03 at 9:18 AM

Happy New Year[in the language of your choice] Happy new year, my friends. See you on the other side.
posted on Dec-31-02 at 7:05 PM

Chickens are "natural born killers". This is the basic message of a recent ad from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. This organization has filed a lawsuit against Tyson Foods for making false health claims. I came across this organization and its campaign on an entertaining C-Span program[Did anybody else watch this program?]. On the program, Neal Barnard, the leader of this organization, said that when you heat chicken(and other meats) certain carcinogenic amines are created. But, when you heat a veggie burger, it just warms up. Therefore, he recommends a 100% vegetarian diet. It looks like the organization's next move is a TV ad with this message. Your reactions?
posted on Dec-30-02 at 7:51 AM

Nobel Laureate says it is right to rebel against globalization. "The protests against globalisation are often ungainly, ill-tempered, simplistic, frenzied and frantic, even highly disruptive. And yet, they also serve the function of questioning and disputing the unexamined contentment about the world in which we live." [Exact quote- British spelling]
posted on Dec-17-02 at 8:53 AM

Budget cuts threatening your college athletic team? No problem. Raise $210,000 on eBay.
posted on Dec-4-02 at 3:03 PM

ABC lets Koppel do his thing. Have you watched "Up Close", Ted Koppel's in-depth interview segment? NYTimes does a good job describing how Ted has chosen to be himself (i.e., high-brow and ministerial) with scant disregard to ratings. Is this type of program the antidote to the media's obsessive and corruptive focus on ratings?
posted on Dec-3-02 at 8:59 AM

Outdoor Sculptures from Australia. This is a great collection of evocative outdoor sculptures from Australia. The setting is not bad, too. Outdoor art is very well supported in my city (sorry- no images). Is it a big deal where you live?
posted on Nov-21-02 at 7:46 AM

Advertising and Idealism Clash at Colorado University. Most schools have pro-advertising courses(which are offered in the Business School) and those that take an anti-advertising approach(which are typically offered in Media Studies or Communication). Given the complex nature of the advertising world, is there room for both types of courses? By cutting departments with a more practical bent, are academics further weakening MBAs?
posted on Oct-7-02 at 10:15 AM

Study: One in five start-ups dot-bombed "Nearly one in five start-ups backed with venture capital at the peak of the Internet boom went out of business before first-stage investors could sell their shares, costing them billions of dollars, according to a study released Thursday". Does 20% seem like too small a number to anybody else?
posted on Sep-20-02 at 9:07 AM

Your guide to recent corporate scandals. An excellent visual description of recent corporate scandals and all the connections between the different firms and people involved. There is a small pop-up thingie that comes up if you drag your mouse on any box (the techies will know the more precise term for it).
posted on Sep-17-02 at 3:22 PM

Few Advertisers Use Pop-Ups (or do they?) "Though they seem to be everywhere on the Internet, pop-up advertisements are used by less than 10 percent of all companies that advertise online, according to a report from Nielsen//NetRatings." Do you buy this? Is this industry propaganda or a true description of what is out there? The sites I visit regularly all seem to have pop-ups (e.g. nytimes, espn, slate, theatlantic.com). For the last 1 month or so, ESPN seems to launch two pop-ups when I first visit them, in fact. What has your experience been?
posted on Sep-16-02 at 8:19 AM

Welcome to the State Department... I mean, the Republican Party. "For some time, travelers browsing the State Department Web site for helpful tips about Guadalajara, Mexico, found much more than they bargained for when they clicked on a photograph of President Bush. The click transported them to a partisan playground, where they were told how to get involved with the Republican Party and even how to donate money to it." (Why does nytimes.com have all the good stories?- metafilter, metafilter)
posted on Sep-13-02 at 8:46 AM

George Bush's Article in NYTIMES. I was surprised to see an article by the prez on nytimes.com. We are used to presidents communicating through TV- but there the speech is picked up by all major channels in that case. It seems odd to see a sitting president use one newspaper to put forward a viewpoint. Perhaps, Al Gore's articles in the same space spurred dubya. Oh, by the way, what did you think of the story? Is this the work of a speechwriter or do you think it is genuine? Did everyone notice the absence of the word Iraq in this article? (The customary apology for the nytimes post applies. I believe you can still register as metafilter, metafilter.)
posted on Sep-11-02 at 5:41 AM

Kartoo, a New Search Engine. Do check out Kartoo. It basically creates a map linking sites related to a search. Interesting graphics, too. It seems like this would serve a different purpose than Google.
posted on May-22-02 at 9:05 AM

Keep your CEO out of grad school. I found this article to be provocative. Can the performance of a CEO be judged by just one number (i.e., return to shareholders)? Shouldn't the study be controlling for size of firm, industry characteristics, economic cycle etc.? What do you think?
posted on Apr-29-02 at 2:35 PM

Don't delete that e-mail. It could be illegal. Why can't this guy delete his e-mail now?
posted on Mar-20-02 at 10:42 AM

Ethical Coffee Are you likely to drink more coffee if it is more "ethical"? Do you buy into green marketing?
posted on Mar-14-02 at 9:05 AM

Small Pieces Loosely Joined. If you liked the cluetrain manifesto, you may enjoy this new book. The entire book is available for reading at here. Do you buy what he has to say?
posted on Feb-21-02 at 10:02 AM

What were you saying on the morning of 9/11? I have been very dissatisfied with this archive of the news on 9/11. I think this stuff has its place. But, it does not help us tell our grandkids how people were reacting that morning. For posterity's sake, I think it is much more important to record what happened on blogs and other online communities that morning. So, I am trying to collect online conversations that took place immediately after the news of the attacks broke on September 11. I have one link from here and one from Slashdot. Sorry if I am missing out on important ones. My hope is that this post will lead to more links to conversations. I am not interested in war blogs unless they have a reference to a conversation on the morning of 9/11.
posted on Feb-1-02 at 11:09 AM

Taxi Dreams Did anyone watch the PBS show- "Taxi Dreams"? The PBS site is very informative. I enjoyed the video clips in the gallery . The facts and figures section was decent. Overall, I thought it was a great way to study the immigrant experience and the American dream.
posted on Jan-4-02 at 9:21 AM

The Life of an Indian-American Teenage Girl. A friend sent me this link and I felt quite sad reading it. Agreed, the teen years are cruel to everybody. But, it seems like the unique constraints that are placed on member of a minority community(especially with first-generation parents) can uniquely exacerbate the angst. I was particularly taken by one statement- "Although you have the ideals and values of an American, you look like an Indian". What advice would you give this sixteen-year-old?
posted on Dec-20-01 at 9:08 AM

The Catch with Wells Fargo's Share Builder Some of you may have seen Wells Fargo's ads touting $4 per transaction and unlimited transactions for $12. The main catch is that you cannot trade every day. From their FAQ- "ShareBuilder trades can be made the first, second, third or fourth Tuesday of each month. You select which day you would like your trade to take place when setting up your ShareBuilder Plan. In the event of a month with five Tuesdays, no ShareBuilder trades will take place on the fifth Tuesday." When the rest of the world is going to real-time trading, why do you think Wells Fargo is pushing this? Do you think it is deceptive that this is not mentioned up-front?
posted on Dec-12-01 at 11:13 AM

Is E-Commerce dead, past its prime, or just resting? This journal special issue has some interesting thoughts about the future of E-Commerce. I especially liked the paper by Peffers. The conventional wisdom at this point is that B2C E-Commerce is viable only for certain types of products or contexts. Others (e.g. Andy Grove, Michael Porter) seem to think that in the future, all commerce will be E-Commerce and will be integrated with physical companies. Then there is the M-Commerce angle- e.g. DoCoMo. What do you make of all of this? How will we be shopping and communicating in the future?
posted on Dec-11-01 at 10:05 AM

Why Don't People Read Newspapers from Other Countries? The early promise of the Web was that it would create a smaller world. Yet, most individuals read their local newspaper or their favorite national newspaper online. For example, most people I speak to are surprised that there are English newspapers in Pakistan- there are at least two good ones- Dawn and The Friday Times. I see a lot of posts on MeFi from UK papers such as The Guardian and also from Australian papers. How about the English newspapers from the rest of the world? Have we stopped browsing?
posted on Dec-4-01 at 10:03 AM

Looking the World in the Eye Huntington, a Harvard prof., lays out his vision for the future of the clash of civilizations in an article in The Atlantic Monthly. The main points are- • The fact that the world is modernizing does not mean that it is Westernizing. The impact of urbanization and mass communications, coupled with poverty and ethnic divisions, will not lead to peoples' everywhere thinking as we do. • Asia, despite its ups and downs, is expanding militarily and economically. Islam is exploding demographically. The West may be declining in relative influence. • Culture-consciousness is getting stronger, not weaker, and states or peoples may band together because of cul tural similarities rather than because of ideological ones, as in the past. • The Western belief that parliamentary democracy and free markets are suitable for everyone will bring the West into conflict with civilizations—notably, Islam and the Chinese— that think differently. • In a multi-polar world based loosely on civilizations rather than on ideologies, Americans must reaffirm their Western identity.
posted on Nov-28-01 at 1:27 PM