Lasting Rose

This is not mere Google bashing which has become very fashionable these days. It is not about the deterioratingsearch quality of Google everyone is starting to notice or why Microsoft's Bing is any better.

It is really about how the cyber world is changing and shaping the needs and expectations which have evolved beyond mere key word search and how services likeScoop.it will meet those because Google won't. Pretty soon the question will be "have you scooped it?" rather than "Have you Googled it?"

With the exponential growth of speed and capacity of the internet and cloud computing, the cyberspace has witnessed unprecedented creation and sharing of knowledge, especially through Blogging. If we used to search for information by punching in a keyword in to Google 5 years back, now everyone is searching for actionable knowledge and trickles of wisdom they can rely up on.

Mere information or the meaning of or explanation of something one doesn't know no more satisfy human mind. Thanks to the abundance of global information instantly made available through information technology and big strides in education, we are much better tuned to analyse, compare and judge before accepting anything.

In other words, we are likely to be looking for expert advice, guidance, opinion or recommendation we can trust on what we are searching for, even if we have no intention to use it right away. And there are plenty of those in the Cyberspace. Only problem is Google's search juggernaut can't deliver such 'condensed' knowledge. You need to wade through web page after web page, Google's powerful search machine will flash in front of your eyes even before you type in exactly what you are looking for. Who needs such boring and arduous labour anymore?

When it comes to human nature the observation of Bill Gates is so canny.
Well, in the search for easy grabbing of curated knowledge, that is exactly what the lazy world has done. They have encouraged a host of services like Scoop.it to pop up, which are ready to cull information and dish up curated knowledge on everything you wish to know.

Services like Scoop.it depend on a community of millions of hard working experts who wonder what to do with the wealth of knowledge and wisdom they have accumulated in life and are happy to share it if there is an easy way to make any good of it for fellow humans. Thankfully there is also an army of lazy, time constrained and content hungry, bloggers too to lap up what the experts can share.

Scoop.it in fact is a lot of fun. If you have ever cherished being an editor and creating a colourful magazine like Hello everyone will go gaga about, you can do it easily with Scoop.it. If you have enjoyed cutting and collating things in to your scrap book in school, you already know how to use Scoop.it and what you can do with it.

In fact the power of Scoop.it is in its capability to pull together visually appealing web pages rather than inanimate links to the urls which hide the information behind them.

The way Scoop.it will help you build your powerful magazine is simple. Once you chose the key words you are interested in and like to curate, and you christen your magazine, Scoop.it will scourge the social web tocollate a list of web pages, tweets and comments etc and will present to you the latest of them every time you visit your dashboard. All you need to do is to literally drag what is relevant in to the column and curate by adding your bit of endorsement, comment of approval, disapproval etc.

It is a win-win situation for everyone. You give extra traction to the publisher of the web property you select to add to your little magazine, you add your stamp of little satisfaction to it and dish it out to someone who trusts your views or expertise. Everyone is happy with Scoop.it.

At the end of the day, Scoop.it, which is free, is the right answer for information seekers and providers as well as the experts who like to show off their expertise.

A happy meeting place where the cyber world is fast moving in to at the cost of Google!

Article first published as How Long Before You Will Scoop.it Instead of Google It? on Technorati.

Perhaps it is time the Americans considered changing their electoral system for something 'funnier' like the Presidential election of India. In the Indian Presidential election a candidate some parties refuse to declare their support for has more of a chance to be elected as the President of the country than others they chooses to support. It is merely the negative political sentiments which come in to play irrespective of the calibre andsuitability of the individual.
With the trend of latching on to the 'negativity' in every statement, every faux pas the president or his opponents make and blowing it out of proportion, the American democratic process also beckon the question if it is a desirable trait for a free and fair electoral process of a leading democratic nation.
In terms of political power, the two presidencies have no comparison, except in an emergency when the Indian President can assume unlimited and unprecedented executive powers like those of the US president. Yet,the electoral processes which decides the president by an election or a unanimous choice can reflect the political balance in the Indian context.
By all counts, Pranab Mukherjee, India's finance minister fit the bill to be elected unanimously as the country's president. If Mukherjee, despite his three decades of service to the country as part of various governments including that of Indira Gandhi, is not well known outside India it is his own fault for being a thorough, non controversial and soft spoken gentleman politician, which has made him universally acceptable. Yet In the Indian system even an eminently suitable candidate like Mukherjee has to be propped up by negative and partisan vagaries of the political class.
Four years back, when the congress party president Sonia Gandhi chose to install Pratibha Patil as the first woman President of the country, perhaps with a vision in to the future for herself, it was the refusal of BJP, the main opposition, to support the incumbent President Kalam which led to her success.
Interestingly, an open declaration of support of BJP to Kalam this time has simply precluded his chances of ever becoming the president again, as practically ever party rejected the suggestion.
A few weeks back the Indian communists declared their support for Pranab Mukherjee, a native of West Bengal and India's minister for Finance, as the new president. Though this had increased the support for Pranab, Mamta Banerjee, chief of Thrinamool Congress who rules West Bengal did not support, merely because of her opposition to the communists. Such is the nature of egoistic negative politics of India.
However, the communists now have changed their mind and are clamouring for someone outside the ruling congress party as the new president. This no doubt has increased the fortune of Pranab Mukherjee as Mamta Banerjee now has no excuse but to support him.
What is interesting is the credentials and capability of a person to be the figurehead of the largest democracy of the world has no relevance in this incredibly idiotic process which, every Indian needs to be ashamed of.
These ridiculous vagaries of the Indian politics which several regional players play out, may never infect the American system, clearly established in a two party political debate and balance. However, the bickering and wrangling amplified by the media and social web certainly take the sheen out of a process which may inside and outside the country believe must be a model for the fledging democracies of the world.
Article first published as If Only Barack Obama Could Win The Presidency By Negativity, Like Pranab Mukherjee of India. on Technorati

Anna Hazare proclaims to be a surviving disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, the Gandhi who won independence for India from the British Empire. It is no secret that Anna Hazare can't read English and can't understand the charges he raises and his team knows very little other than Law, a subject the worst students in India can count on for a degree. For a growing community of frustrated investors and expatriate Indians, Anna Hazare team is looking more and more like a bunch of Motley Fools out to destroy India.

Not without some reason. The "poor" nation of half a billion people Gandhi bequeathed has made impressive strides and record growth even when the rest of the world was reeling under crisis after crisis. Now, along with several other distracters, the very disciple of Gandhi has succeeded to drag the country back several years to where it started from.

The Indian Rupee has touched the lowest ever exchange rate to the US Dollar, the growth has plummeted from the heady 10% India boasted about in the past decade to a 5% range India was stuck with for ages and most of the foreign investment which brought in the growth and prosperity has all but withdrawn.
It is hardly surprising that the investor confidence has taken a flight from a country whose Prime Minister and 15 of his ministers have been accused of corruption without any basis by the Anna Hazare team, crippling any decision making power left with a government held together with finicky regional parties. More disgustingly, it has brought a world renowned economist to offer his resignation as the prime minister of the country. This is a more serious issue affecting not just India but global economy, given the globalisation which render growth in any part of the world vital for the rest of us as well.
The latest accusations of corruption is based on a report the CAG of India has produced which claims loss of astronomical sums to the government by allocation of coal fields to private companies. What the CAG hasn't taken in to account is that the coal the government offered to reluctant and risk-averse entrepreneurs to excavate was worth the mud it was covered with, without the massive inflow of foreign investment. It is different matter that in a fast developing India coal has become a scare and costly commodity. If the ruling government took a view and acted upon it in the interest of developing the Industry, it becomes corrupt act only in the lopsided logic of Indian accountants. What if the companies didn't find any useful coal when they had excavated?

In effect, there was no governance in India for the last 3-4 years because Anna Hazare and several insane politicians refused to let the government or the parliament function. More than Anna Hazare, the people who have ganged up around him, in the name of fighting corruption, must be made answerable for this plight.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the Anna team can understand that the deliverance of a billion poor citizens of India from poverty will only happen from sustained economic growth. But this motley crowd who use his popularity to stir up emotions and obstruct all efforts of a hard working and well meaning government, by casting aspersions and raising baseless allegations, eroding investor confidence, must surely share the responsibility for the downfall of India

Article first published as Who Can Stop Anna Hazare and His Motley Fools from Taking India to Where Gandhi Left it? on Technorati.