What Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, & Microsoft Does Right…and Wrong

From cloning to bear-hugs to street-fights, every trick in the trade is being employed in the new fight for mindshare between the internet giants and the wannabe giants. But it is also really amazing how little they learn from each other.

Who is fighting whom, and who is cloning whom in this newly intensified fight between the net giants? Facebook is cloning key Twitter features like micro-blogging and publishing, as well as bringing Google-like search capabilities into their until-now private user pages. Twitter is aping Google with an integrated search of tweets on their homepage, while Google is cloning Twitter’s real-time features with their now easily accessible ‘Recent Results’ as well as with Followers in Blogger. Yahoo and Microsoft have forever been following Google’s moves in the internet space, and Google on their part was wise enough to quickly incorporate some of Bing’s only advantages like news results and newer results into their search.

But what they miss out in reading others strengths is also amazing. Here is a list:

WHAT FACEBOOK DOES RIGHT

1) Asking Your Email Password

It was not Facebook that invented this audacity, but it was they who made maximum gains from the impudence of asking for your email password. They won’t spam or scam with your email account, but be prepared for Facebook’s neat bag of tricks with your address book. Thanks to this feature, even if you haven’t logged on to Facebook yet, the day you do, be prepared to receive many real-world friend-requests waiting – whether you like them or not!

2) Sophisticated Interface

If some web service has defined the Web 2.0 interface, it is Facebook. It not only wins in sophistication, but in sheer beauty. Facebook’s appeal before the young has a lot to do with its subtle cleverness in interface design that requires young brains to figure out. It is something still missing in competitors.

3) Spam Proofing

If you love spamming, you will hate Facebook. And if you hate spam, you will love Facebook. The efforts and controls that have gone into making Facebook spam-unfriendly are commendable. Most competitors are still to learn of its importance.

WHAT FACEBOOK DOES WRONG

1) A Ticking Privacy Bomb

Facebook might prove to be a major privacy problem in the not too distant future. With access to millions of address books, and clever ways of finding friends and friends’ friends – whether the user needs it or not – Facebook’s current levels of ensuring privacy might not be enough.

2) Too Much Sophistication

Facebook is a bit too sophisticated for older users, who entered internet in the email-age or even before. Not too evident navigation, and almost-hidden key features are not attractive to even people in their 30s.

3) Too Much Friend Focus

Facebook’s focus on friends, friends, friends, and nothing else, might prove to be a dampener in the long-term. People also get on to internet for escaping real-world friends! Facebook is yet to awaken to this fact.

4) Lagging in Search

Facebook with search used to be an oxymoron until recently. Now there is a better search feature in beta, but it is no match to Google Search, and tons of content is lying waste in Facebook, undiscovered.

5) Lagging in Tweets

Similar to its attitude towards search, was Facebook’s attitude towards tweets. But they can’t be blamed for this. Much like most internet giants they too underestimated the power of a 140-character tweet. They are trying to remedy it now, but it is too little, too late.

WHAT TWITTER DOES RIGHT

1) Believing Limited is Valuable

We all thought that something needs to be unlimited for it to be valuable. The web was about unlimited-ness – unlimited space, unlimited emails, unlimited search, and what not. But the guys at Twitter realized that for something to be valuable, it has to be limited first. Enter the 140-character tweets. It was a paradigm shift like no other in recent web history. The 140-character limit forced the twitterers to at least think before they type, and edit before they send!

2) Focus on Real Time

Twitter also deserves credit for inventing the real-time web. While Google, Yahoo, and other search engines focused on delivering more credible but historical results, tweets represented the current buzz around everything – at least everything worth tweeting about. Agreed, tweets are not exactly reliable as search results, but what the heck if what you want is just buzz?

3) Followers

Another of Twitter’s almost original ideas, the concept of followers is the most blatant self-promotion tool that exists in the web today. With its clever mix of chosen celebrities with huge followers, Twitter gives off the impression that you too can be a guru, thought-leader, or celebrity whom others follow. Getting more followers is the craze in social networking today, much like the once popular link-exchange and click-exchange in search and web advertising. It doesn’t matter that many of your followers are automated porn-peddling robots. The concept of followers provides Twitter with something most other competitors don’t have – a reason to use it regularly.

4) Developer Support

It looks like this is a lesson Twitter directly picked up from Microsoft. Much like the simple DOS which kick-started Microsoft’s huge success with developers, Twitter was something too simple to have a developer community around it. But just like DOS, Twitter too came with a neat and well-defined Application Programming Interface (API) that enabled a huge community of developers writing programs and hosted services for all kinds of devices to access and extend the core Twitter service. The advantage? Tomorrow, somebody might invent another clever way to extend Twitter.

WHAT TWITTER DOES WRONG

1) Spam Hell

Competition won’t kill Twitter, but spam would. If spam on Twitter continues to grow unabated as of now, it will soon be Spitter, not Twitter. Almost every other tweet you meet is to sell some junk. And it won’t be long before a twitter snapshot looks like your spam mail folder.

2) Got nothing to say?

This is a problem peculiar to Twitter. For many people, there is nothing to say to anyone. They don’t need Twitter. Even worse, they will never understand Twitter. The service is unattractive to such an audience – and that audience is the biggest - and Twitter needs to urgently invent something enjoyable in Twitter - as passive as checking your inbox or viewing television.

3) Too much focus on Followers

In Twitter, life is not worth living if you don’t have an ever-increasing follower list. It is a good initial bait, but it can be tiring too. Soon, twitterers are going to wear themselves out in trying to be a bigger Guru. This too much focus on followers is bad for Twitter, as even without many people following you, what you say has a reasonable audience on Twitter.

4) Tweets are not everything

Tweeting was a good invention, as it married micro-blogging with instant publishing before a sizeable audience. But micro-blogging is not the end, but just another tool that aids more established communication channels. Tweeting was a paradigm shift, but to believe that it is going to stay unchallenged forever would be foolish on the part of Twitter.

WHAT YAHOO DOES RIGHT

1) Bells & Whistles

Trust Yahoo to deliver the best interfaces. Filling up any Yahoo form is not only a breeze, and not only pleasing to the eyes, but surprising for its user-friendly features like intelligent suggestions and pleasant instructions. And these bells and whistles are available across their wide range of products.

2) Identifying & Nurturing Great Services

As things stand today, Yahoo’s only business strength seems to be this – they have been very successful in identifying and nurturing great services. Just two examples are enough – Flickr and Yahoo Answers. Both were pioneers in their category while Yahoo identified and bought them, but it is to Yahoo’s credit that they are still undisputed leaders in their segments.

3) The Best Spam Filter

Yahoo Mail’s spam filter continues to be the best spam filter around. While some competitors still bring some spam mail to your inbox, some others filter it to your spam mail folder, it is Yahoo Mail that blocks most spam mails from even entering your account.

4) Content

Yahoo continues to be the leading news aggregator, and their bet with content is not at all misplaced. At Yahoo, you will never be short of content – almost all of the world’s best content is syndicated there. Content will be one of Yahoo’s last bastions to fall.

WHAT YAHOO DOES WRONG

1) Search is Getting Worse

Something is going wrong with Yahoo Search, or something is going great with Google Search. Once the de facto leader, then a viable alternative, and now just an also-ran, Yahoo needs to invent something big in search before they will be forgotten as a search company.

2) Portfolio Now Seems Smaller

Once the web’s largest portfolio of services, Yahoo is shrinking or competition is expanding. Yahoo can’t be pardoned for the too many missed buses. Blogger, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, or even Google could have been theirs, once.

3) Poor Tools for Small Businesses & Publishers

Yahoo is fast ceasing to be of any use to the websites of small businesses and small publishers. Yahoo just doesn’t seem to have the tools or interest to support the new entrants into web. On the other hand, Google is quickly building up an unimaginably complex network of services for small businesses.

WHAT MICROSOFT DOES RIGHT

1) Focus on Sales

Microsoft first figures out how to make money. Then they do whatever it takes to make that money. Their model is a far cry from the first-free-then-struggle model of internet entrepreneurship. The core focus is sale, and on that focus they have built up the formidable Windows and Office franchises that are not going to die anytime soon.

2) Focus on Developers

Microsoft not only make money themselves, but through their support for developers and computer-makers have enabled thousands of software and hardware companies to make money. Once an also-ran in even the Windows Application Development space, today their portfolio of .NET has become the most preferred development platform not only in Windows, but several cross-platform niches.

3) A Different Take at Free

So, what if Linux is free? Windows was always free in some of the biggest emerging markets like China & India. Through a clever strategy of ignoring piracy for long, Microsoft ensured that Windows is the platform for the PC, worldwide. Now, with an equally clever strategy of bundling with computers, and a strict anti-piracy stance, Microsoft is making up for all that lost sales.

4) Never Stops Trying

Nobody believes that Microsoft stands a fighting chance against Google in search. Still, Microsoft carries on the fight. Bing might be just another round of effort, but remember, it is their best effort yet. And it never stops trying – after Bing’s lackluster performance comes a further effort to see whether pairing with Yahoo would help.

WHAT MICROSOFT DOES WRONG

1) Everything can’t be bought

There was a time when Microsoft thought that anything fancy on net could be bought with hard cash. But Hotmail remains the only major consumer product successfully bought by the software giant. It missed out on major buys like Blogger and YouTube, and now finds itself faced with smart developers like Facebook and Twitter who won’t sell that easily, especially to Microsoft. Similarly, there was a time when Microsoft thought that a cloned piece of software could be given away for free to kill competition. But the anti-trust case has ensured that Internet Explorer is the last such victor, and Netscape is the last such vanquished.

2) Can be outwitted

The biggest blow to Microsoft in the web space is the fact that a much smaller and less resourceful company like Google could outsmart it. And that shows a great vulnerability. If Google can do it from a startup status, many other startups or reinvented companies have a fighting chance against Microsoft.

3) Where is the innovation?

Though Microsoft is trying hard in bettering search and other such problem areas, the company continues to suffer from a lack of groundbreaking innovation. If it needs to fight with the likes of Google and Facebook, they have to be very innovative.

WHAT GOOGLE DOES RIGHT

1) The Biggest Provider of Free

Is there any other company offering this much for free? It continues to be Google’s ace. The fact that their services are largely free, doesn’t affect their quality a bit. In fact, the quality is more because they are free, as the free status is for a bigger aim – to conquer the world of information. Coming second in their core business of search is unthinkable at Google.

2) Active Where the Action is

Google has been successful in identifying some of the web’s biggest trends like text ads, video and social networking. And when new services like Twitter and upgradations like Bing appear, Google is quick to upgrade their own features for being competition ready. The length and breadth of Google’s offerings are unparalleled.

3) Well Integrated Offerings

All Google products are tightly integrated with the concept of Google Accounts and seamless transfer of information. For users it translates to an unbelievable ease of access to all Google services, and when the services become more complex like AdSense or AdWords, this integration is mightier.

4) Supporting All

Google is not just there for the big business websites or big publishers. In fact, small businesses and publishers will be pleasantly surprised at the Google tools at their disposal. That too, for free.

WHAT GOOGLE DOES WRONG

1) No Bells & Whistles

Don’t expect many bells and whistles in the Google interfaces. Google excels in the core functioning and not the interface. In fact, the slow upgradation of the Google products’ interface is now more noticeable due to slickly designed competitors like Facebook and Yahoo.

2) Too Many Missed Buses

Google too has missed many important buses. If any company could develop such runaway successes like Wikipedia, Facebook, & Twitter, it was Google. But the fact that it didn’t happen that way should be troubling for the company.

3) Great Features Remain Undiscovered

Google is not too good at teaching its customers how to best use their services to the full. Users often have to stumble upon key features, despite having an extensive help as well as discussion forums.

What Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, & Microsoft Does Right…and Wrong

Will India Become a Superpower? Here are 12 Hints

With its abysmal poverty levels, its rampant corruption, and surprisingly low per capita income, India still doesn’t come across as a superpower in the making. But a closer look at recent developments hints at several unique strengths that can offset these intrinsic disadvantages for India in the coming days.

World’s First CEO-Style Prime Minister
Who introduced professional leadership in politics? Barack Obama? Of course not. For all his NGO work, his oratory powers, and his professional education, the fact remains that Obama is a political leader and not a seasoned professional in economics or governance. He has to consult Ben Bernanke and others economists to understand the complex challenges. Contrast this with India’s once makeshift Prime Minister. He will never win a Nobel Prize for Economics, but Dr. Manmohan Singh’s Oxford education, and his professional career with UNCTAD, India’s Ministry of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Finance, and as the Governor of Reserve Bank of India, make him more than enough to understand the complex economic challenges on his own. In a world where the political challenges are all increasingly economical, that is a definite plus for India. More than that, Dr. Singh’s repeat success in 2009 has forced other political combinations like the BJP-NDA too to consider professional leadership, which is a development that can transform India into a superpower much earlier than anticipations.

Family Values Drive Savings & Entrepreneurship
Nobody knows for sure whether family as an institution will survive as long as the earth, but if it does, India will be family’s last bastion. It is not just a matter of allowing or not allowing gay and lesbian sex, but a matter of children, children’s children, and transcending one’s existence. Struggling to have children, struggling more to bring them up, and struggling even more to keep them from fighting each other like Kokilaben, and forcing them to have families of their own are all chapters of the Great Indian Story. 22 years is considered late for a girl to get engaged, even if she is Sania Mirza. Here children never grow up, at least for their parents. And reverse mortgage will never become fashionable. Here homes and houses are for keeps, for generations. How this will translate to a booming India is simple – India’s entrepreneurship and its savings culture are rooted in its family. Grandparents, uncles, or parents run joint families almost like a small business. Family is India Inc’s smallest unit. And family keeps India young. If nations like USA, UK, & Japan had once reached superpower status relying on their strong families, and started withering based on their weakening families, India has an unbeatable long-term edge in this regard.

Cricket Fosters the Competitive Spirit
Yes, it is India’s cricket. Not an Englishman’s game anymore. Don’t be fooled by Pakistan and Sri Lanka battling it out for top honors recently, while India watched on the sidelines. That is Indian complacency, Indian overconfidence. But India will rebound. If Ramayana, Mahabharata, & Gandhiji were the only things holding this diverse nation together once, today India has cricket. Whether you like it or not, Sachin and Dhoni are as revered as characters from the epics or India’s freedom struggle. And not without reason too. It was cricket that defined India’s competitive spirit. The man on the street can’t understand India’s philosophical uniqueness or the country’s software prowess. But the moment he watches Dhoni & Co playing the Australians, he realizes – India can! India’s population strength will ensure that the cricket industry will be more and more India centric, even while forcing traditional sporting giants but non-players like USA, Brazil, and the European nations to adopt the game. Cricket is something that made India shrug off its non-competitive attitude from the ancient times. Every superpower needs its brand of nationalism, and cricket is India’s version.

Passionate About Information Technology
If anybody thought India’s information technology is only about business applications programming and outsourcing, they are going to be wrong. TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and the hundreds of smaller IT companies are only part of the story. Indian engineers have a noticeable presence, if not a dominant presence in the world’s top IT products and consumer applications companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle, IBM, HP, Adobe, and lots more. Imagine a scenario where India somehow taps into this talent base. That day we will wonder what we used to call IT until now. Information Technology will achieve for India what automobiles did for making USA a superpower, what electronics did for making Japan a superpower, and what military manufacturing did for making Russia a superpower.

No Enmity With Any Nation
Not exactly Gandhi’s non-violence, but India still is one of the most non-violent nations on earth. And it is a mature, seasoned non-violence. Because, India had its experiments with strategic violence, be it Bhindranwale or Prabhakaran. But India was fed up soon. Violent means to achieve anything is not just Indian. India is interested in the world, but not terribly interested in Middle East, Afghanistan, or North Korea, thereby freeing enormous energy and resources for development. Even the response to the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks was superb, something only India was capable of. Had India responded immaturely then, Pakistan would have been torn apart into two nations by the Taliban, which would have been an even dangerous scenario for India. India's patience with Pakistan has ultimately forced the world and Pakistan to admit its experiments with terrorism, including owning up the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. The country’s eventual superpower status will be unique in that India will be the first non-violent superpower, not resorting to violent means in its past, present, or future.

Of The People, By The People, For The People
The good news is that the world’s largest democracy is working. If showing the door to the flashy types is one parameter of a vibrant democracy, Indian democracy is alive and kicking. Lalu, Mayawati, & Buddhadeb learnt it the hard way. Indian voters can’t be fooled easily. They reiterated many things that were always true. Like for example, Advani is no replacement for Vajpayee. Best performing Chief Ministers from all sides led their parties to thumping victories in the last general elections. With 33% and 50% reservation coming for women in parliament and local governments soon, India’s democracy looks just unstoppable. Isn’t it just a matter of time before the world’s largest democracy becomes one of the world’s superpowers too?

Communalism is Getting Weaker
Leaders like Gandhi and Nehru harped on about secularism with a definite agenda. Because, they were smart enough to realize that communalism is the country’s only bane. But India is finally showing definite signs of growing up on this front. The miserable failure of the Ayodhya Temple plank during the recent election is a definite sign that the people are more Indian and less Hindu or Muslim now. With one of the largest Muslim and Christian populations in absolute numbers, India’s secular credentials will only get stronger by the years. Ongoing economic development will make secularism stronger and stronger, thus taking India closer and closer to superpower status.

Not a Lawless Land Anymore
One of 2009’s most startling Indian images is of Maya Kodnani, a Gujarat Minister, getting arrested for her alleged involvement in post-Godhra communal violence. Whatever be the court verdict on her eventually, that simple act proved a profound lesson – this country which is often tarnished for its lawless pockets, is not just the same anymore. Kerala’s CPM Party Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan also learnt the bitter lesson recently, when CBI charge-sheeted him on a major corruption case. India sometimes resorts to strange tactics to ensure rule of law. Prabhakaran was wanted for killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and India maintained an aggressive silence when neighbor Sri Lanka finished off Prabhakaran and his LTTE systematically. A similar tactic is now pursued by US against Taliban , Al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden, by using Pakistan. The fact that India can decisively move against the guilty, however mighty they might be, and whether they are inside or outside the country, speaks about the country’s emerging superpower-class power.

A Talented Race
It is not just APJ Abdul Kalam, AR Rahman or Saina Nehwal. Indian talents are getting noticed in diverse fields like business, technology, governance and what not. It is a sort of coming off age for Indian talents now. Agreed, not many like Ram Charan, Indra Nooyi, Padmasree Warrior, Arun Sarin, Sanjay K Jha, or Rajiv Ouseph are working or playing for India. But the message is clear. Indians are supremely talented. If USA became a superpower by attracting talents from worldwide, India has plenty inside.

Native English Speakers, Almost
One hundred years from now, there is every reason that English will be identified with India and not England or US. With a population more than double that of English strongholds like USA, UK, Canada, & Australia combined, this should be a reasonable projection. Middleclass Indian youth are not learning English anymore; it is almost their native language. If English is the international language of business and collaboration, this poses some problems to India’s competitors like China & Brazil to be the next superpower.

Natural Aces Like the Himalayas & Coastline
The natural resources of India are still to be realized. Just two examples would suffice – the country’s long coastline and the one and only Himalayas. Today’s technology may not be enough to fully tap these resources, but a day will come when India will be looked upon as a much more resourceful country than ever thought before. And just as in the case of USA, natural resources will be an ace up India’s sleeve in the days to come. India’s possession of two-thirds of the global occurrence of thorium, the alternate nuclear fuel to uranium, is just one hint.

International Competition is More Like Tug-of-War Now
Yes, there was a time when India used to think of her children as one billion mouths to feed. Not any more. Today it is like playing tug-of-war. Each nation’s youthful working class is their team. And India has a pretty growing team. With a burgeoning working middleclass – that is larger than USA’s population - it is only a matter of time before many teams slide against India. For the second-largest population in this globe, becoming at least the second-most powerful superpower might be easier than imagined.

No other aspiring superpower has all the core drivers of a superpower – population, democracy, leadership, nationalism, talent, youth, language, and resources – as much as India has. If India takes on its triple challenges of alleviating poverty, eliminating corruption, and ensuring growth, it will enter the superpower league effortlessly.

Will India Become a Superpower? Here are 12 Hints

Confused About Diabetes Symptoms?

Are diabetes symptoms too vague or too late? Here is how you can be more precise with the classic diabetes symptoms, as well as about more reliable ways to be sure whether you have diabetes or not.

We have all heard the list – fatigue, thirst, hunger, urination, weight loss – all in excess. Yet, it will be interesting to analyze how many people have actually found out about their diabetes through such symptoms.

55-year old Theresa was shocked not as much with the news that she had diabetes, but when her doctor told that she had probably contracted it 15 to 20 years back. A pregnancy that happened in her late 30s would have sounded it off, but she had suffered an early miscarriage.

And finally, when she came to know it, it was not due to recognizing any diabetes symptom on her own, but her ophthalmologist getting alarmed at her eye condition. How could she probably have missed all the symptoms for 20 years? On hindsight, she did recognize many diabetes symptoms, but all of which she had put down on aging.

Anthony was 42 when he went for a varicocele operation. His pre-operative diabetes test was fine, but the incision failed to heal even after a week. Suspicious, the doctors tested him again, and were alarmed at what they saw. Anthony was quite fit, not feeling any diabetes symptoms at all.

The problem is that while some of the diabetes symptoms are vague, some other diabetes symptoms appear too late, and some other diabetes symptoms don’t appear at all.

Take for example diabetes symptoms like excessive fatigue, thirst, or hunger. Any or all of these diabetes symptoms can appear due to a variety of reasons, of which hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) is only one reason. But a diabetologist can help you be more precise – is your fatigue increasing in evenings or getting worse with sugary stuff? That kind of fatigue is a defining diabetes symptom.

On the other hand are diabetes symptoms like blurred vision, tingling sensation in the extremities, erectile dysfunction etc – none of which appear as soon as you develop diabetes. It might take years to develop these serious diabetes symptoms, as they are not direct symptoms due to hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), but symptoms arising out of organ damage brought about by diabetes. But by the time one diagnoses through such diabetes symptoms, the damage is done.

Some other commonly mentioned diabetes symptoms like excessive urination or weight loss may not appear in everyone with diabetes. Even worse, many people who develop Type 2 diabetes are overweight, not underweight.

Some quirky diabetes symptoms like irritability and dry mouth are harder to pin down, but a physician can educate on the typical diabetes breath. Type 1 and Type 2 diabetic patients are often found to have different smelling breaths. Similarly, a physician’s help is needed to ascertain whether wounds that refuse to heal or peculiar skin infections are diabetes symptoms or not in your case.

The nature of diabetes symptoms being such, the question is whether there is any easier way to know for yourself. Nowadays there are many inexpensive home glucose monitors and their test strips are also cheaper now. They are ideal for self-use and don’t require drawing blood into a syringe. A simple prick with the lancet would do.

If you prefer not to invest in a home glucose monitor, you can check for diabetes at a local clinic or hospital. It would be ideal to check for HbA1c and not the usual fasting, postprandial (PP), or random blood glucose tests. Unlike these regular tests that give only a snapshot of the current glucose level, checking for Glycosylated Hemoglobin (HbA1c) gives an estimate of how your blood glucose levels have been over the past 1 to 3 months. HbA1c is also ideal to detect insulin resistance or pre-diabetes, much before the actual disease sets in.

If you think you have one or two diabetes symptoms, you need to verify it by visiting a doctor or going for a test at your home or clinic. Though not all reasons behind developing diabetes are known, some factors make a person more susceptible to the disease. These risks include genetic factors (mom or dad or both having diabetes), obesity, lethargic lifestyle, high stress levels, and existence of other diseases like high blood pressure or high cholesterol. People with such multiple factors should never rely on self-diagnosing diabetes symptoms and should check their blood sugar often (every three months or so) and seek medical help if tested positive.

Confused About Diabetes Symptoms?