http://www.financialexpress.com/news/mybantu.com-featured-as-a-killer-startup/648752

myBantu - an Online personal assistant that gives relevant recommendations for user's needs, gets featured as a Killer Startup.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/mybantu.com-featured-as-a-killer-startup/648752

reBlog from Andraz, under: Fruit Blog

I found this fascinating quote today:

Services that had looked impossible only a few years ago will become reality. Ones helping us book a restaurant, find the right movie at the right place and using the knowledge about who we are and what we like. Technologies we were watching on TV for decades, always believing they are just around the corner. Well now maybe they are!Andraz, under, Fruit Blog, Mar 2010

You should read the whole article.

Apple’s iPhone gets a voice

I used to wonder why, Apple – the product innovation company in my mind, did not come out with voice when they first released iPhone 1.0 – looks like the laziness is right.. http://theappleblog.com/2009/04/22/apple-finally-making-the-iphone-a-good-listener/ – with all the sleek features of gesture base, it would have been a fully packaged on-the-go computer for a consumer.

For various reasons Steve Jobs seem to have waited to have a voice for iPhone – or rather may be it is that he feared if iPhone has a voice – no one would care for his voice ;-) - now that he has stepped out, looks like they have something to say and got the voice out :-)

Anyways – fun apart, with the voice, this can become a powerful tool for the consumer with all the power that iPhone has. I see that it indeed will change the Productivity apps on iPhone are built.

Technorati Tags: iPhone,Apple,Voice,Productivity

Recommendation Engines 3.0?

Technorati Tags: Recommendation,Digg,Amazon,Recommendation Engine

I was reading this on RWW - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/recommendation_systems_where_we_need_to_go.php . I always use to wonder why the current day’s recommendation has to run on a what I call a predictable model – in the sense that the commerce provider like Amazon or the content  provider like Digg, work on the correlation between some of the user patterns and then predict the recommendations.

While it might be suitable for Digg as a content provider, as a commerce provider why not Amazon or any other commerce provider like Netflix, etc., ask the consumer what they want and then recommend based on that --- in fact I used to wonder as put in the article – in the retail store the sales agent asks few questions ( it always used to remind me when I went to buy my Toyota Sedan) and then recommend a few……

I cannot agree more with Bruce D’Ambrosio that the recommendations have to be served to the consumer bringing in the understanding of content, understanding of the context and visitor-in-the-moment come together.

Why twitter wanted IwantSandy?

Twitter has acquired Values of N, more than the company it has acquired two products from Values of N – IwantSandy and Stikkit. There have been blog postings that twitter wants to get into online personal assistant space.

That very well can be inferred given that both the products of Values of N are in the lines of GTD philosophy. However the bigger question comes to my mind, given that twitter has been positioned great for what I call “quick moments” for consumers for ex: what am I doing, I need some thing now, wanna do a quick check, etc., – given this how far can twitter leverage productivity tool like IwantSandy remains a question. But one thing is certain – all the current social platforms some time now or in the future would move towards the “productivity” side of life rather than the fun side of life.

Nothing but social

For the last couple of years I have been observing very interesting phenomena happening in the web2.0/3.0/100.0 ??? – every other person that I met talked about social, social and social.

I was very closely following the happenings during my stint at Cast Iron Systems for the past two years. It all started with Salesforce.com. When I first got into Salesforce.com for architecting their integration solution using Cast Iron, got to know the guts of Salesforce.com. This immediately triggered me a strong reminiscences of IBM Sanfrancisco – primarily component (today’s SOA) driven solution where in even the community in the enterprise can take part…..

Sure it was confirming my thoughts – Salesforce released APEX API and Force.Com eventually. While closely working with Salesforce team and looking from integration perspective, it triggered lot more thoughts on how the current business platforms would evolve.

At the same time, was closely following the way online communities grew – clearly a trend was getting established which was more what I call “ Inside Out ” of online user. This prompted me to follow the networks – facebook, linkedin, hi5 etc.,

At the same time was very interesting to observe what it means where the enterprises meet consumers directly –

• would each of the social platforms enable the “Inside Out” for an online user?
• would each of these emulate an Amazon of “social products” and services?
• on a completely different note – would this open a plethora channels for SMEs to sell their  products and services directly to online user?

These intriguing thoughts have been lingering in my mind since then, I have found some new observations, interpretations of my own etc., and hence this blog as a medium to share my thoughts and  collectively see how the things are moving in this space.

I could not find any other title other than - “Nothing-but-Social” because this blog is all about that – just Nothing but Social.

Enjoy reading and sharing your perspectives as well on this blog…..

Bharath.