links for 2009-05-12

"In a rare display of independence among otherwise tight-lipped current and former Googlers, Mr. Bowman laid out on his blog the reasons for his abrupt exit, creating a bit of a commotion in the technology blogosphere. There was no sugarcoating. Mr. Bowman essentially said that Google was not friendly to designers. Mr. Bowman’s main complaint is that in Google’s engineering-driven culture, data trumps everything else. When he would come up with a design decision, no matter how minute, he was asked to back it up with data. Before he could decide whether a line on a Web page should be three, four or five pixels wide, for example, he had to put up test versions of all three pages on the Web. Different groups of users would see different versions, & their clicking behavior, or the amount of time they spent on a page, would help pick a winner."

“Data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions,” Mr. Bowman

Blogs offer an excellent way for communities to come together over a common interest despite physical location. Educators can take advantage of this shared pool of knowledge to find inspiration, enhance their teaching, and help students learn more. The following blog posts come from a variety of bloggers sharing their passion and insight.

"But, as Rudy and I have both pointed out in our recent presentations mobile search is not about the usual suspects (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft). Rudy spoke at Next09, and you can find his slides further on in this post; I spoke at the European Mobile Media Conference, and my deck can likewise be found after the jump.

Indeed, context and personalization change all the rules (!)

A highlight of our recent presentations: A comprehensive overview of the market and (thanks to Rudy) a SWOT analysis of the players that stand out in their category such as Google (universal search with a poor mobile offer and an even weaker grasp of social search) and Twitter (a case of mobile search + social media = real-time results that really reflect what we discuss/share)."

"Mobile VAS Statistics : India
* Almost 63 million urban Indians accessed Internet using their phone in February, 2009.
* Checking emails and searching information using search engines are the two most popular reason cited by almost 3 in 4 urban Indians.
* 16 million urban Indians access Internet on their phone almost on a daily basis.

Prediction of mobile VAS in India : … Mobile VAS accounts to 10-12% of the total telecom revenues. Over 375 million mobile subscribers in India, out of which 8-10% of the total mobile subscribers are expected to be GPRS subscribers as well. … As per TRAI predictions, mobile VAS revenue growth contributing to telecommunication industry is expected to grow to 30% in next 5-7 years, which is way beyond the current contribution of 10-12%. Many experts are predicting mobile VAS in India to be 1 billion USD market by 2010."

"A communique from BMC is being circulated for information.
Floods – 2009 : Mumbai
Floods in Mumbai are attributable to simultaneous occurrence of rainfall and high tides. If, the rainfall is in excess of 200 mm in a day (24 hrs), floods can occur anytime irrespective of tides. However, if there is moderate rainfall but the tide is in excess of 4.50 meters at the same time, the city of Mumbai is sure to get flooded.

Accordingly, heavy floods are anticipated on the following days in Mumbai, if there is excessive rainfall at the time of high tides, since the tides are extremely high on these days: -
Date Day Time Ht. of Tide ( m )
24 June 2009 Wednesday 1:41 PM 4.95
25 June 2009 Thursday 2:24 PM 4.97
23 July 2009 Thursday 1:23 PM 5.01
24 July 2009 Friday 2:03 PM 5.05
25 July 2009 Saturday 2:43 PM 4.94