Sachin - A tribute

I have always been a supporter of underdogs. I never liked anybody run away with all the glory and records. Be it Schumacher or Federer or Sachin. I always supported Kimi, Nadal and anybody who would come close to Sachin’s record. First it was Dravid, then Ganguly, Ponting and now Kohli. On several occasions I have said that Ponting will break Sachin’s records which my friends won’t let me forget.
To make it clear, I always liked, admired and loved Sachin. As with anybody else, my question always used to be “Score? How much Sachin?” But he was never my favourite cricketer. Probably in our insignificance, Sachin critics (sometimes me as well) could never fathom that somebody could be so great, so loved and so respected - by so many people at the same time. Personally I could not accept that somebody, anybody – could not stand somebody standing heads and shoulders above others.

But Sachin, You are not just anybody.

If there is anybody who could unite the whole of India, it is You, Sachin. Divided by states, United by God. Nobody else deserved the Honour, Respect and Love with which we said our goodbyes than You. It was great that Your retirement was separated from the others because You do deserve that special GoodBye. You were the greatest batsman but a much much greater Man.

Not only do I love, respect and admire You. I, like 1.1 billion other people am now your devotee. I can’t be a true Indian otherwise. I was wrong. You did not run away with all the records and glory. You earned all Glory, Records, Love and Respect.

SACHIIINNN SACHIINN!!! SACHIIINNN SACHIINN!!!

The new Digg Reader

Being  a Google Reader user for more than 4 yrs, I'm suddenly  thrust into the world of RSS feed aggregator sites, none of which have the features or the useability like Google Reader, and its getting increasingly tougher to keep myself updated. It is difficult to point any 1 feature out but G R filled all my needs perfectly. Whether it was Starring or Sharing or commenting or just mark as unread. Its very surprising that features which seem insignificantly mundane have not been included in the newer readers.

The Digg Reader gave me a lot of hope but it does not match up either. But it does seem the best among the alternatives available. Some of the features they could add/ modify are

• I cannot see how articles are unread. And if I do not know how many articles are unread, then I will not know how long it takes for me to finish that segment and in that confusion I lose the interest to read. 
• I do not have the mark as unread feature.
• While adding a new feed, I discovered Digg's very well hidden Browse feature. It would be extremely useful if that option was highlighted.
• In Google Reader, the fonts, layouts and colours were such that each post seemed separate from the other. In Digg, all the posts seem a huge cluster and it feels intimidating to start with.
• I again cannot stress enough how important the unread count is for me.
• The dull theme in Digg is boring. Bright white in Google Reader is energizing as well as increases clarity.

I am posting these suggestions to Digg as well. I hope they are added in the list of features to be implemented.

What should Whatsapp do?

Whatsapp has taken over Mobile SMS and has sort of become the defacto messaging standard. They were probably responsible for the fall of Blackberry, especially in India. With constant updates making the App easier to use and more beautiful, at some level Whatsapp is the biggest App on the web. I for one use it a lot more than any other App. So if Mobile is the future, Whatsapp has the most firm footing on that front. Infact whatsapp like google is now a verb in the urban dictionary
The only problem, how do they make money?
At the moment Whatsapp charges the user a small measly amount per year. The amount also depends on the OS and the country. Windows OS and Android is free for a year and after that is $0.99 per year, iOS has a one time fee of $0.99. In India they have not yet started charging. I have not paid for the service and am using it for more than 3 years.
Now Whatsapp cannot start charging higher than they are right now. Users will simply shift to another cheaper App and developing an IM App is not rocket science. Whatsapp should also be wary of Google. The search giant has killed a lot of companies by coming up with already existing services. The most recent being Drive and Keep. They just might tweak their GTalk and make it an effective competitor for Whatsapp.
Whatsapp backs up all their user data. At 10 billion messages a day, that is a lot of storage. To aid further development they do need funds, however efficient they are as a company.

Whatsapp in my opinion has 2 options

• Sell to Google, Nokia or Samsung - make a cool truck load of money and leave. Those companies I am sure are ready to pay top dollar to integrate the world's most popular instant messaging App onto their OS.
• Develop related services and increase dependencies by linking and integrating all those services, just like how Google does. This would make Whatsapp a mini OS under the main OS. 

Recent rumours were that Google was looking to buy Whatsapp for $1 Billion. Now that would put Whatsapp on par with Instagram. But I personally think Whatsapp has more potential and with a little financial backing, can reach for the skies.