Category: Google

The New GMail Sucks

Ladies and Gentlemen, today I take up your precious time and invest my energy in putting forth an opinion, that in one short sentence says, The new gmail sucks.

So much so that since I started using gmail more than 7+ years back, I am considering moving to an alternative free email provider. I am inclined towards hotmail. I will give it a shot in a while and see if I want to port to hotmail.

Coming back to the new gmail,  I am not denying that there are some great features. The cascading search bar, the new tabs on left, the conversations are all nice but the underlying UI is really bad. Its very bland in the default theme and once I switch to the HD themes, it looks sick. Reminds me of geocities and freeserver days when people would make gory pages with glittering fonts, blinking images and haphazardly placed text in various fonts.

I sincerely hope that with time, they release some new themes because I cant seem to get the new theme working on my netbook. May be it works nicely on the large monitors used by developers and designers. May be I am too boring for the exciting world of coders and designers to appreciate the design and fluidity in the design! Ofcouse in time, Google devta would prove to be right and I would get used to the new look. This post would be easily forgotten and the anguish I am facing at this minute shall be rendered useless.

Damn!

And just a thought. I dont use Google +. And I have stopped using Google Reader ever since I got the Pulse Reader and RSS Reader on iPad. Whats wrong at Google? Someone at design team at Google needs to be fired? Or its just me?

@Saurabh is suspended

Twitter. How can I live without it for a single day. Action, inaction, attention, ignorance, work, play, meetups, tweetups, its everywhere.


I went to Delhi and when I came back after about 4 days, I discovered that my twitter account @Saurabh has been suspended. Their support page says that they suspend an account if

  • Impersonation: You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others
  • Privacy: You may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.
  • Violence and Threats: You may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.
  • Copyright: We will respond to clear and complete notices of alleged copyright infringement. Our copyright procedures are set forth in the Terms of Service.
  • Unlawful Use: You may not use our service for any unlawful purposes or for promotion of illegal activities.

I have been using twitter since 2007 and have about 1400+ followers and 8730 updates. As far as I can remember I have NOT impersonated anyone, breached privacy, threatened anyone, violated copyright or used it for unlawful purposes. Wonder why is twitter showering me with all the attention after two years of use?

Mails to twitter support remain unanswered as I write this blog post (I did get an automated response telling me things that I already know). My previous experience with twitter support has been really great (when I changed my handle from @s4ur4bh to @Saurabh). Wondering what is taking so long this time.

I really want my account back. And I dont know how to do it. May be a tweet to @biz, @ev and @twitter asking them to reconsider? Any volunteers for the same? Or any other tips maybe?

UPDATE (2009Jun 30)
Zishaan pointed that my website SaurabhGarg.com is reported as unsafe by Google. And may be that is what is causing Twitter to block my website. I logged into my twitter account and it DID point my website as “[ unsafe link ]”.


For the moment I have changed the url to point to this blog. Hope this would help expedite the process of removing suspension.

And this brings me to another problem. How do I fix my website? Twitter is important but SaurabhGarg.com is more important!! It cant be marked as a site “that may harm your computer”. More help?

orkut – Update on your recent abuse report

Wow .. Orkut does take action on profiles that you mark as spam. Way to go Google.. !

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: orkut <3504732672376623859@mail.orkut.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:43 PM
Subject: orkut – Update on your recent abuse report
To: XXX@gmail.com

Hi + PseudoSocial,

Thank you for your reporting of abuse on Orkut on “2008-06-29”.

We have reviewed your request and agree that this content is not in
accordance with Orkut’s terms of service. Our team has taken action to
remove this content, but if you find it again, please report it to us
again.

We thank you for helping us to keep Orkut clean!

Content reviewed: “Arathi S”

Branding 101 for Digital Brands

In this post I shall talk about brands as I understand them and as they are applicable to digital brands. Please note that this list is still in beta and will evolve with time. Your feedback would be really appreciated.

This is required because we need to stop looking at startups as just startups but serious businesses where branding plays a vital role. Often, the way you look at the business makes a lot of difference to way you work.

Coming to the point, I think there are three principles. Utility, Emotional Connect and Relationship that goes beyond just one product.

A: Utility

  • Customers never talk about a brand they are going to use. They talk about the action they will perform. What problem does the brand solves?
    • I need to book and air ticket. I will use Cleartrip.
    • I need to upload slides and show them to friends. Let me use Slideshare.
  • The brands that can make themselves synonymous to utility invariable become the leaders.
    • Can you Google the data on number of Internet users in India?
    • Can you Slideshare your presentation please?
  • The utility could be functional, mechanical, emotional, psychological or any of those –al things.
    • Using Twitter helps me stay in touch with friends on the go.
    • I use FB because the elite Internet users in India are on FB.

B: Emotional Connect

  • A customer will use a brand that he can associate himself with.
    • I like Apple products because they stand for innovation, user interface and simplicity.
    • Google stands for open culture. I am an open source evangelist and hence I will use and promote Google initiatives.
  • If possible, the association with the brand should elevate the status of the user.
    • Google could have invited everyone when they launched Gmail. Limited invite was a way to get traction. All limited launches are like that.
    • Alltop gave away batches like “featured on alltop”. People displayed these batches because it was a way to show off that you belonged to the best of the category (as rated by alltop).

C: Relationship extending beyond single product

  • The relationship should start with one product and when the company launches more products, I should be aspiring to buy them too. This is very important for creating sustainable businesses that go beyond one time relationship.
    • My relationship with Apple started with an Ipod. I have already bought a MacBook and have pre-ordered the iPhone.
    • I started using Google as a search engine. Then I started using groups. Then it was Gmail. And then calendar. The list continues.

Which one of the three things are valid about your brand? If it does only one, how can it do other things?

Please give your feedback to me at saurabh.garg+digitalbrands@gmail.com

List of Google’s April Fool’s Day pranks

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?

Crossposted

Google and Publicis to share Resources and Talent

Adage.com has this interesting article about Publicis and Google. According to adage, Google and Publicis have agreed on talent sharing to design and develop new product and services. Talent sharing has been done in the past as well but there is more to this sharing than any other partnership.

In an interview to adage.com, Publicis CEO Mr. Levy said
1. “For a few months or a year, people from Publicis Groupe will be working at Google, and people from Google will be working at some of our companies”
2. “We’re bringing Google our knowledge of advertising communications, consumers and client needs. They’re bringing us knowledge of technology and the world of the web.”
3. “Google might develop partnerships with other agencies, and Publicis is free to work with other groups, such as Yahoo or MSN.”

Publicis is into advertising and communication and Google is in technology and web. How can these two companies benefit from talking to each other?

If you look deeper into the core businesses, Publicis is effectively into communication of benefits of existing brands and still deeper, creating the need for a new brand. Google on the other hand is in the business of providing information to users and enabling transactions between users and brands.

If Publicis was to get into a relted business, they would logically get into Google’s domain and if Google integrated backwards, it would go into Publicis’ territory.

More and more companies are willing to share information to design new products. Interesting times ahead.

Google: Gmail: How Does An e-mail Travel?

Google asked its users to help them imagine “how an email message travels around the world”. They asked users to submit movie clips featuring the Gmail M-velope (). Thousands of users submitted clips and Google edited those clips to make a one minute video on how an email travels around the world.

I would say this is a small step from Google, a giant leap for User Generated Content.

Billboards on Virtual Earth !!!

Its been a long time since I have been thinking about a career in advertising … I know I wont be any good but I want one shot at it. Was reading things related to advertisements when I came across yet another new concept in advertising … Billboards on Virtual Earth. They place virtual billboards on Google Earth and Virtual Earth.

We have seen ads everywhere ..

In the movies … starting with Forrest Gump to Cast Away to The Truman Show
In homes … Hangars, Carry Bags
In shops … well loads of them
On roads … billboards, traffic lights etc
On products … logos, punch lines
On internet … banner ads, pop ups, minisites
On email … like this one
On software … DAP, Web Accelerators etc
On blogs … 🙂

Its everywhere. Add to the list Google Earth.

BrightGIS is offering spaces on Google Earth, ofcourse for a fee. Awesome concept .. !!!!

P.S.: Got this story from http://adverlab.blogspot.com/index.html. This is a very good resource for people interested in adverts.

Something even Google can’t find !!!!

For the last 20 years of my life, I have been looking for a girl who would be rich, has just the right looks, got a bit of brain and is the sole heiress of the entire fortune of her dad. Needless to say I have been unsuccessful.

So I though why not try Googling for her? I conjoured up all my techie skills and wrote a query. I wanted a “female” who was still “single” and had a “rich dad”. She should be the “sole heiress” of the entire estate. Further I want her to have some kinda “brain”. And finally … this is not that important … some “good looks”.

The query goes like “single” “female” “rich dad” “sole heiress” “brain” “good looks”.

I ran a google search hoping to get some help and realizing my life long dream of getting instant money and not having to work a single day again in my entire life … 🙂

BUT


Google dissapointed me and I could not find a single result 🙁 Guess there are things that even Google can’t find ! May be it’s time Larry and Serg got back to their research days and authored yet another “back”rub algorithm .. but may be with a human touch this time .. 🙂

Open Pit Mines and Google Earth

Google Earth is yet another free software that has helped me catch my fancies on the world wide web. I wanted to be a traveller – I have no resaon for it.

You dont live twice and you got to learn as much as possible for everyone.

Coming back to Google Earth, ever since I laid my hands on it, I have been visiting a lot of places, I might have been real close to your home at some point in time. Keep looking out for those peering eyes 😉

Anyways, one of the revelations was the Open Pit Mines. Looks awesome. I plan to go to one of the mines somoneday – physically … !