Category: Technology

ICICI Bank Credit Cards advertising on Facebook


Just saw this 5 minutes ago.

ICICI Bank Credit Cards is now advertsing on Facebook.

Orkut vs Facebook seems to be a popular topic amongst people in India. This advertisement by ICICI Bank Credi Cards might just be the beginning of Facebook’s acceptance as a social networking platform frequented by Indians.

This brings me to another discussion. Effectiveness of text ads delivered by Google Adsense vs ads delivered by Facebook as a notification.

For an online ad to be effective, it should have following …

1. Visibility – With those slick blocks, FB ads are far more visible than cluttered text ads delivered by Google.

2. Hook – Why would someone click on an ad knowing that it is an ad? Because of a hook. Hook like “Rs. 250 on your first purchase”, no points for guessing which platform has better hooks.

3. Reach – Obvisouly Google Adsense leads by a long way. FB can display ads only in its network and Google can reach the dense rainforests of the world wide web.

In the long run, its hard to tell which one would win. FB looks better but they have a huge problem. The ads can only be served within the social network and hence is limited in scale.

Any other opinions?

Past-Present-Future of e-commerce in India

Mitul asked this question on LinkedIn. I am posting my answer.

Past-Present-Future of e-commerce in India.

E-commerce in India is at a very nascent stage compared to western world. However, if compared to last year, transactions have grown by over 1000% (or more) and my assumption is that the future is going to be even more exciting.

Railways & Airlines have played a major role in this. What is the next big thing that will take e-commerce to the next level?

My Answer

Hi Mitul,

I think the next wave is going to be commodity products. Something like Books. Things that you don’t mind buying from any store, you would buy them online if the website gave you a discount. Other things that would fall under this category are computers (Dell), Stationary (OfficeTiger, Office 1 superstore) etc.

Fashion as mentioned by Heber might not work in India as we still want to touch and feel these products. In fact even when we go to a store, we spend hours deciding on the right fit and look. Its something innate to Indians. (am not sure about other cultures).

If I come across more, will update this.

–
SG

I further updated the answer …

Hi Mitul,

I dont know what would build the future. It’s just that I put myself in customers shoes and figure out what would I want to buy online.

Talking about mobile phones, one reason why I dont think it would work is that we as Indians want to touch and feel a product a before we buy. With an online model am not sure if I can touch and feel a product.

Second we buy things from a trusted service provider rather than any random person. Websites are still not trusted parties for most Indians. I would pay a premium to buy something from a trusted shop and might leave the 5% discount that online sales get me.

Third a mobile phone is still 5000 bucks and this is above average amount for an average Indian. Spending this much means that stakes involved are high (might not be able to buy it some time soon in case it is faulty). Thus we go the extra step in making sure that decision is correct in the first place.

Hope this helps.
Warm Regards,

SG

Anyone wants to share their opinions .. ?

Long Time No See

Been a long time since I posted something. Quite a few things are happening.

Sensex touched 19000.

Realized that photograpy is INDEED very difficult.

Saw a raod accident for the first time.

A very good friend made me realize that blogging is not only about connecting with people.

A very good friend (philosopher and guide) is getting married. Yes I am talking about you 😉

Realized that snapfish is one of the rare Internet services that I like and will extensively use in future.

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.

Colour Blind

Once upon a time, I went to get my driver’s license made. There were a few tests to be taken – including a colour blindness test. I flunked that test. I thought the inspector there was trying to fleece me and get bribe out of me. Anyways I got the license made and thats an old story.

Yesterday I was trying to download some files off rapidshare. Rapidshare uses CAPTCHA to fend off automated downloads. To download the file, I had to look at the following image and key it in. And I wasn’t able to read it. I still can’t.

I could get the file after refreshing the page and “decoding” another picture but thats not the point. The point remains I am now proven colour blind.. .!

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk is the answer to people who thought human intelligence is out and artificial intelligence is here to stay (that reminds me, I used to call myself Artificially Intelligent at one point in time).

The concept is simple. Amazon is trying to create artificial intelligence artificially. Most of the tasks can be performed by machines better than humans and then there are tasks that a machine can’t even think of doing and humans are completely at ease with them. mturk uses image recognition as an example. CAPTCHA is designed around the premise that humans can read the images and machines can not. mturk calls these tasks HITs.

A Human Intelligence Task, or HIT, is a question that needs an answer. A HIT represents a single, self-contained task that you can perform to completion and collect a reward. You may do as many HITs as you like, whenever you like, in any order.

mturk helps everyone. People can get their work done at low costs from many people (use crowd-sourcing), people can make money and in turn Amazon can make money from exchange and then they must be hoping that some people end up spending money they earn on Amazon itself … !!!!

Oh yes, the project is still in BETA and yet to catch up. When it is up and running, may be I can put my blog as a HIT … ?

Removing hpmsnt32.exe

After removing se.dll, today I had to remove Srchui.dll and hpmsnt32.exe. This file is also known as HP Compaq Presario driver file or HP Compaq driver or some variant.

I was back on my desktop after a few days and found something malicious has taken over it. A Virus? Trojan? Spyware? Something was bothering my poor desktop because all my anti-virus software were not working, Microsoft AntiSpyware was not working, taskmgr aka Task Manager was not working, regedit aka Registry Editor was not working and the computer was acting funny. Something was wrong.

I copied the file regedit.exe from the windows directory and pasted it on the desktop. Renamed it regedit1.exe. Opened it and realized that this file (hpmsnt32.exe) was there in CurrentVersion > Run. And here is the root of the problem. I thought I would have to wipe the hard disk clean and then install everything but again I thought lets try summoning the lady luck. And for a change, I indeed got lucky.

I copy pasted taskmgr.exe also and renamed it taskmgr1.exe. I executed it and killed the process in the memory. Opened registry using the regedit1.exe and deleted all the instances of the dreaded word. Turned the computer off (did not use the classical Shut Down method, just unplugged it). Restarted to find everything in working condition and it made my day 🙂

If there are any people reading this and are facing the same issue, please follow the steps of removal I mentioned above. Of course if someone wants a clearer picture and a DIY tutorial, please email me. I work for ipods 😉

From Tables to CSS

A complete redesign of the Blog and the Website is keeping me busy now a days. I hope to complete eveything before I start working.

I am trying to eliminate (or minimize) the use of tables in my pages and port everything to CSS. And in process, I might come up with a new design.

Need loads of luck 😀 (As if people actually read the blog :D)

Removing se.dll

I posted this title few days back and people have been coming to the website askin for this very thing.

My comp was infected with se.dll and I tried every thing that was listed on the websites and could not do it. Had to waste a couple of nights but finally I found a way. Although I corrupted the Windows Search (that I rarely used) but the se.dll thingy has been removed and I am very happy about it.

If ever someone uses what I tell here, please understand that s/he is doing things at own risk and I am just listing here what I did. I would not recommend anyone to follow the steps.

Step 1. Restart the comp in Windows XP Safe Mode (F8)
Step 2. Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
Step 3. Search for all the instances of Search Assistant and delete them. This would screw the Windows Search.
Step 4. Start msconfig (msconfig.exe), delete an entry called sp.XXX.
Step 5. Search for a four lettered exe file having a size 32 KB and delete that also. This might screw up some other stuff also. Worked for me, others might not be as lucky.
Step 6. Say thanks to me and restart.

I would add more in the mean time but I recommend searching on google rather than on yahoo about this and I am sure you would find it. Also Norton Anti Virus 2004 is able to remove this hook up. I tried other AV software but none of them worked but Norton.