Retreat...

What is wrong with WalMart? After 10 years of trying, the retailer accepted thier defeat in Germany!

"It is pulling out after almost a decade with a loss of $1 billion (£540 million) and has agreed to sell its 85 stores to local rival Metro for an undisclosed sum."
-- TimesOnline

And I'm trying to understand, why they need to sell their stores for loss? Metro sure will not only gain a lot financially, but also will become advantageous with WalMart's stores and supplier resources & networks.

It is really not long back that we learnt about WalMart's death in South Korea too. And we also know that they are not only expanding in South & Central America but also in China. Isn't China a very similar market to that of South Korea? Yes, it is understandable that most of WalMart's products are coming from Asian countries and hence, moving things over its supply chain network to China won't be that bad of a hassle as that of the Americas. But, similar to the South Korean market, WalMart will have really a tough time to compete with the local big retailers who sure have a cultural advantage and hence, a better way of attracting the local customers. Don't you agree?

I already wrote this question. Can WalMart be stopped from becoming a leader in other international markets too? Two countries representing Asian & European markets just shut the door to WalMart within 3 months. Global expansion for leaders in retailing industry, is not that easy!

Hmm... Sure, I would like to read & know what happened in these 2 markets if at all there comes out a 'Failure Analysis'!

It Ain't Cool!

My Goodness. These days, the temperature in Southern California is just unbelievable. Almost crossing 110 degrees almost all days and the problem with this climate is, we don't sweat! So, ultimately we end up feeling the pain of the sun piercing our skin... and in the evenings, the whole air is burning around us, when actually the land surface is trying to cool itself! God!

Last week, I played almost the whole sunny afternoon and everyone whom I played with including me, got seriously sick:(. This year summer is especially so bad that atlast I saw the news that more than 100 people and around 16500 cows are dead because of the heat. And the concerns are still growing -

• More & more use of AC & Plasma TVs & hence, energy crisis!
• More blackouts.
• Elders in house somehow are not able to withstand the pressure.
• Health officials are worried about hospitals running out of power & evacuation plans...

Today I had been to one Hindu temple near by and the priest gave a 'cool touch' for the heat:)! Today's prasadas include 'ButterMilk' too - The representation of Goddess Lakshmi & the planet Venus who/which it seems, actually try to reduce the heat and make you feel cool:)! Hmmm... I don't want to cross check the genuinity of that statement;)

On More Happier Terms...

May be someone over saw Dinesh's safer place comment and gave it a different angle - The Happiest Places:)

As BBC reports,

"Adrian White, from the UK's University of Leicester, used the responses of 80,000 people worldwide to map out subjective wellbeing."

Well, Denmark stood for all the wrong reasons when the Muhammad cartoon issue sprang up and now, it is called out as 'THE PLACE' to be in if you want to live happy.

May be the number used, is sure something big for getting some accurate stats but are the measurement criteria of health levels, prosperity & education the real representation of happiness? I wonder, how 'secured/safer' feeling in today's life didn't enter the criteria? Likewise, are education & prosperity "required" to be happy?

Isn't Happiness, a relative term that defines the 'sense of satisfaction' in what we have?

Reliable Enough?

Hmm.. I have put a car sale ad in some of the sites which I heard from my friends are good enough to get some better impressions and hence, quicker responses! Well, yes there are responses, but just that the responses are not only from private parties but that from agencies also who work as middleman, I guess.

So, here is one such email!

Had any luck getting this sold? If not, call me. My name is ****. I work for Itmotors

And we sell cars just like yours all the time. We offer full-financing in addition to nationwide marketing. We charge no commissions and you receive a check for the full asking price. If you want to get this car sold fast, call me toll-free at **** Thanks!!!

Just wondering what their business model is? Why do they need to leech on websites for their customers? If we visit ITMotors, they do boast that their traffic is more than AutoTrader.com and Cars.com. If that is the case, then why do they need to get customers from other websites. Well, looks like they are building the traffic just by pinging all the customers of other websites:)!

Not A Service - Obviously, these people are not going to help their customer as if its a service they are doing. As the email reads, "no commissions" is a good sign but for sure, any customer will be ripped off for all the 'National Marketing' they are planning to do with the car. I'm sure, customers can look to an extent of $200 to $300 for "their service":)

Let's think in other terms. How far is their marketing going to be different than the online customers who are going to take a look into the online car ad or as a matter of fact, into the Auto Sales Magazines? Assuming its my car - does it really need a nation wide marketing when I guess, am in a place where the rich meet the poor and where the cars of low end to high end sell without much of differentiation?

Assuming, a customer crosses over all these worries and still makes a call to ITMotors. I think (s)he would end up in much deeper trouble with the continuous unwanted marketing phone calls from them - who knows even after (s)he may have sold the car.

Certain things just won’t change and I guess, its better to avoid some unwanted future tensions. What say?!

Bad Nature!

What is happening in & around Indonesia? Today, I ran over this another news of volcanic activity around that area. And yet another time, I saw the same statement as in any other news...

"Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin."

We all know of the worst tsunami on 26th Dec 2004, the Mount Merapi blow (and its Lava Dance!), a tremor in May, a tsunami earlier this month and yet another volcanic activity now. And if we see the status of recent earthquakes that are being tracked from Ask.Com, almost everyday we can see Indonesia producing a tremor more than 5 richter scale!

Don't we need better theories on the tectonic plate movement in that area? I'm still not sure about why the movements are more dynamic in that area... If the place is prone so much for such bad disasters, isn't a necessity to foresee them & warn the public or for that matter, evacuate people around that area permanently?

Why BPO....

Here is the news -

Tanya Banerjee, 25 years old is killed in Bangalore.

This is just another isolated incident in India, but I have no idea why this is so much hyped - by relating her to that of a BPO/Call Center employee! Yes, it is purely coincidental that she is another BPO employee and is killed just 6 months after a similar killing!

Guess, news makers need something to really 'cook & make' some news:)!

Wh's...

Over to International politics & crisis - These are just some open ended questions at my end (with some vague history details)... and some personal comments modified as questions:)!

• Why is US (alone?) against a short term cease fire in the Israel-Lebanon conflict?
  
• Isn't it better to save civilians' life at this point of time instead of thinking about a sustainable "putting down" Hezbollah cease fire?
  
• Where did C.Rice fail to find a diplomatic resolution for the conflict? Does that mean G.Bush got to involve himself personally?
  
• Even then, can we see any progress - I mean, it shouldn't turn out like Clinton's diplomacy?
  
• Why the "urgent meeting" in Rome of International leaders failed to find a solution?
  
• And is the suggested 'International Peace Keeping Force' for patrolling the Israel-Lebanon border going to be effective?
• Do Syria & Iran, have some influence?
• Why do I feel that the world's response to the killing of four UN Observers by Israel, kind of sluggish?
  

Every second, minute & day now is making history and ofcourse, there are going to be lots of answers to these questions floating around online everyday...

We Fly Too!

Hmmm... At one end there are these small car segment (like Yaris or Fit) which is expanding like anything in the US market. Meanwhile, we also saw that Toyota has been expanding into some unrelated territories! Unlike Toyota, Honda is atleast entering a segment which it can categorize somewhat into its core Transportation business - Aviation!

The news on the making is Honda's readiness for the Very Light Jets (VLJ) (I guess, they are still termed as Air Taxis)! Still don't know what a VLJ is? Just have a quick video preview from Honda themselves! And you know what is best about Wiki - They already have the HondaJet segment updated with the July 25th, 2006 announcement:)!

"HondaJets will sport several innovative features. Unlike on other light jets, the turbofan engine will be mounted on top of the wing instead of on the fuselage's tail section. Its fuselage exterior will be made of lightweight, composite materials, not aluminum. Those characteristics, combined with its unique-shaped wings, result in larger cabin space, higher cruising speed, and greater fuel efficiency than its competitors' models, the company says."
-- USAToday

Okay! So, what about the possible competition? We don't need to look anywhere else than Wiki! With AirBus & Boeing already into too much of technical issues & delays and hence, into some financial issues, should sure keep VLJ's too in their mind!

With so many companies into VLJ production, the Air Taxi service providers like DayJet & Linear Air are sure looking into some bright future!

Talking About Video Ads...

Video Ads are impressive on their own fashion and some of them are really fascinating enough for me. Talking about it... I just placed this Video Ad for Happy Dent White here today. It seems, what Irshadh & I have done is in fact, give more publicity to so called 'Viral Ad'! I never knew that there is this term and a big business behind it! Who else is going to introduce this to me other than BusinessWeek:)! Check it out!

I'm sure Google Videos & YouTube are making great profits out of this business model. Especially, the model where they provide the code snippet for 'embed'ding their videos in blogs, is sure helping 'us'! Google has slight advantage because they also provide links for directly blogging into MySpace, Blogger, LiveJournal & TypePad!

You Don't Park!

I got that photo from Skyscraper Page Forum and thanks to Sridhar for the forward.

And some information on the same is available at AutoStadt! As you can see, this is VolksWagen parking space in Wolfburg's Auto City (AutoStadt) technology theme park as pointed out in the forum referenced.

Wow... Doesn't it look like some futuristic sci-fi place? Just started looking for more info on it! Wiki is not of that much help. And the picture explanation of VW assembly plants in another forum doesn't explain these towers either!

But, as we think about it, this sure is less space consuming than any other US parking facility. I mean, if we consider theme parks like Universal Studios, Sea World or Disney Land, the parking lots occupy too much of land & space. And the time to find the parking by any customer is almost a ridiculously frustrating experience. But, this VW tower facility kind of parking is more like Valet Parking and sure, customers will welcome this as they don't need to find the "parking space".

So, where does the actual implementation of such parking lots for day to day use stand? I would atleast love to see this in Irvine Spectrum ASAP!

Journey - A Looong Way...

Well, I'm not sure how to put this in perspective but things are becoming more & more accessible in everyday life. Here is an example... An ordinary citizen can now do a SpaceWalk!

Well, we had been aware of the Dennis Tito's space station tourism vacation. But, looks like the next step now, is to step out of the space station and literally do a space walk:)! That is what Space Adventures have been planning now!

"For a mere £19 million, Space Adventures will broker 190 hours of training at the Star City cosmonaut school near Moscow, a stay of 16 days aboard the space station, round-trip rocket flights from Kazakhstan, and the chance to float outside the orbital outpost for 90 minutes — the time it takes to orbit the planet once."
-- TimesOnline

Well, as you see the £8 Million, is for those 90 minutes float outside the space station. Otherwise, you can just make it a cheaper deal like that of Tito's for £11 Million! BTW, the next tourist (fourth right?) to space is Dice-K!

Let me buy a lottery today;)

'Cool'ness Stands Out!

If there are somethings which I miss from India in US, one of them is the TV Commercials. I guess, I have already told... The cool aspect of Indian Ads are not there in the US TV Commercials, not even in many of the SuperBowl Ads. I don't see Indian channels in US and so, got no idea how the 'coolness' have increased.

Here is one of the latest cool-innovative Indian TV Commercial.

Thanks To Irshadh!

'See' Internet...

I guess, my mind lingers a lot around sufferings of handicapped people and I wish I can help them as much as I can. So, when I see things that are aiding them to use 'stuffs' (like latest technologies et al.) just like any other normal people, I feel a sense of happiness.... Like for instance 'To Move... You Think'.

And now, it's time for Google to get into some action on this. One of the latest from the Google Labs is Accessible -'Accessible Web Page for the Visually Challenged'! What is different...

"The software sorts and ranks search results based on the simplicity of page layout, the quality of design and the organization and clear labeling of information on each page making it easier to enlarge or for voice synthesizers to convert to spoken words."
-- Hawaii Health Guide

Really an great appreciatory initiative!

Atlast... A Way Out!

For internet browsing, pop-ups are frustrations and we have pop-up blockers. There are two, in fact three other places where we get unwanted rather unrequested irritations. One is TV - We have got used to it so much that we accept the TV ads as such (Well, there are ofcourse other ways out)...

The second is the unsolicited marketing phone calls in our landline - heights of frustration. The worst case scenario for me - From some phone card company who mis-informed my roommate that the sales rep (on the other end of the phone) is MY friend!!! Also, it had always been a pester from competitors - the phone companies (AT&T and SBC before), internet (DSL, Dialup, Cable) or TV (Cable, Dishnet etc). And thank God, we ended up in Do Not Call Registry!

But the third one has been the biggest problem for me & my friends. The junk letters that always fill up our mail boxes - Visa, Discover, Amex, MasterCard pre-approved credit cards from different banks & agencies... I guess Citibank & Chase stand first on my list followed by Amex & Chevron! My goodness, most of the days we can see atleast one junk letter for one of us and many days, almost all the mails go directly to trash!!??

Atlast, I found a solution for that too. Just wondering how I have been unaware of this! Its like the famous statement from the movie 'I, Robot' - "You have to ask the right question to get the answer". Probably, I didn't put the right search query:) Anyways, here is the solution provider! Not bad.

Actually, Rock sent me this video on what to do with your junk mails :) and that is when I started looking for the real answers.

More Burns...

Some 'Anonymous' had asked me a question on buying a Dell Notebook! Well, we already know the incident of Dell Notebook burning. So, whoever you are, you better learn the latest facts about the Dell notebooks. All you need to do is visit these two links...

• The Inquirer (With the relevant photos!!)&
• CRN

Doesn't look like a good sign for Dell, the largest seller of Notebooks... May be Google is still reconsidering its Deloogle deal:)

It's About Us!!!!

Ofcourse, there should be a lot of surveys on this new changing looks of internet - The blogs. And here is a survey findings from Pew Internet & American Life Project!

Well, in probability terms, the sample set the survey would have used should be very less comparative to the actual number of bloggers because for sure, the number should be in millions. I guess, most of the findings can be accepted as general facts about any blogger -

Like more than half of the bloggers are less than 30 years and ofcourse the next 40% should be from 30 to 40 years I guess.

But, if we see the distribution of bloggers based on time, its quite interesting. About 18% are blogging for less than 6 months and 33% is for around an year. Those sure represent the real hype in Web 2.0:)

And you can obviously expect the number of daily 'impressions' on the blog page to be less - The survey reports like around 22% of the blog sites have less than 10 hits a day. Well, I guess my blog has been consistently falling in the next 17% of 10 to 99 hits per day! Thanks to whoever is visiting my blog;)

Well, the fact for sure is mostly the blog visitors should be some friends, relatives & colleagues and looks like 50% accept the same. But there is always this unknown factor of "who knows who is visiting our page?"...

Whatever it is... This blog really helps me keep my mind busy in sharing somethings which I come to know from lots of Internet & news browsing. That's how I see it:)

It Kills...So What?

Does advertising always have a positive impact on us? Most of the cases will be YES. The advertisements will linger in consumers' mind for whatever reasons, setting the mind to look for the respective products & services later. So, does that mean the ads always talk about the strengths of the product? Once again, most probably yes but...

Let us take Cigarettes for instance. Does it really matter that we need to put on commercials for these products? Even then, do people worry about the statutory warning - 'Cigarette Smoking is Injurious to Health'! It sure is saying the weakness of the product but who cares. People got so much used to smoking pleasure that they don't even worry about their health anymore!

Tobacco industry sure is big and so, curbing it as a whole from the market is next to impossible. But that doesn't mean, their usage need not be checked & kept under control. The Health Ministry in India has put forward another effort to reduce smoking - Made another warning to be mandatory for all the tobacco products - Tobacco Kills, Smoking Kills. Along with it, the packages may contain some signs like bones & skeleton representing the ill-effects of tobacco consumption. Once again, is this going to affect the market? Probably, a negligible percentage because no one cares...

Some things like this & alcohol consumtion are to be digested as daily facts of life because, they ain't simply walking out of our lives. Are they?

Still IE?

Both Mozilla & Google are pushing Firefox a lot to capture market from IE! And here is the latest marketing strategy!

Well, if you are still with IE (generalizing on the 85% market), may be you can consider the offer of your name encrypted in Firefox 2.0:) Haven't you heard about World Firefox Day? I guess, this July 15th is like the 3rd year for Mozilla. Am just wondering what will be their next move? May be something like EathLink opening retail stores or may be, capture the whole college kid market with tents and freebies in schools:)!

Well, at the same time installing Yahoo Messenger 8.0 Beta does give the feature of tabs in Internet Explorer too. Guess, Yahoo is just trying to put forward some advantageous features of Firefox into IE and hence, encourage people to download Yahoo Messenger!

Painful Send Off!

He claimed my father’s body for Rs1 lakh compensation
-- DNA Mumbai

That is how the news headline read. And the complete news article expressed much deeper pain.
When you know a person is so punctual, to be available back at house at 7PM and if he didn't turn back, and if that happens to be your father, just imagine the hard feeling...

Already there are lots of complaints about corruption and malpractices in the Tsunami funds distribution in Tamil Nadu & Kerala. And now, comes this sad story about a family who couldn't find their father's body one week after the Mumbai bomb blasts. The worst part is, the body had been already claimed & cremated by a different person just for claiming a lakh rupees from the government.

Can't corruption atleast spare the loved ones? Or atleast can't they feel the pain the family will undergo and give them their dutiful rights to perform the last rites? When there is going to be no procedures to follow, everyone is sure trying to exploit the situation...:(

A Livelier Version!

I don't know how I have been ignorant of this format of the game for such a long time, probably because I have not been following too much of international cricket except for that of India:) Well, once in a while, I do have seen the newer version of the game mentioned in different places but haven't took time to know what they are talking about. Like recently I wrote about the charity game between Pakistan & International team which was played as Ten10!

Well, today once again I ran into it because it seems BCCI approved this form of cricket. And is called Twenty20!Ahh... Wiki, you got something to help? Well, ofcourse!

I always used to wonder why the ODI game of cricket alone has been defined to be played for the whole day? I mean, when I enter a stadium for say a Football (American) game (or may be NBA), it becomes so lively for three & a half hours and then, we walk out with a complete satisfaction! But in cricket, I guess we walk out with more of tiredness rather than satisfaction...

Anyways, I think 'Livelier' is sure a better way to define this new form of cricket & I hope, it'll sure live upto my expectations. With fouls defined with additional runs, penalty 'stumps knock out' procedure for a tie & sudden death too, this is a whole new game!