Just a small update for everyone with regard to the road condition between Delhi and Shimla as it stands as of a few weeks ago
First the good news. The stretch from Delhi to Panipat now is simply awesome ( excluding ofcourse our traffic behavior) , the entire stretch from Azadpur to the delhi border has been done up with a series of flyovers placed as well cutting the time drastically. Wide open roads with very few lights ensure that you can zip through this stretch now , a welcome relief from all the years it has taken for this to be completed.

The bad news. Panipat to Ambala is current a massive work in progress project. NHAI is expanding the road to make it into an 8 lane stretch. Good intentions but it makes for poor driving at this point . The current length of the road has been reduced and there are very few straights now available to build and maintain a decent pace. In many places the stretch is only about 500 km’s before there is a small diversion in aid of a flyover pillar being placed. A bit frustrating if you are trying to push but once ready ( not sure when) i am sure this will be an excellent stretch

The flyover work at Zirakpur is over ( FYI for those not aware – post Ambala the expressway has been fully functional for quite sometime now). Traffic is bad but more owing to bad driving than anything else.

The best part and something i have been looking forward to for years is the new stretch between Zirakpur all the way to Parwanoo. A brand new road , with 5-6 flyovers built in makes it a delight now. I managed the run ( which is approx 30 -35 odd kms) in less than 20 minutes , a far cry from the days when it used to take as much as 45-60 mins depending on traffic.

Once at Parwanoo of course the problems which have plagued this area and further on Kalka continue to exist , but there is a bypass being built now which will come out a little before Timber Trail once  completed ( not sure when) which promises to , if not reduce time, at least make the drive less stressful.

Parents can be either both me female or male but not a mix!!

To summarize , Open graph essentially allows other websites to access details of your Facebook account to try and give you a more personalized experience while surfing the internet. FB has tied up with 30 odd vendors across the web right now to try and make this happen. So if you visit a website , the open graph gives you recommendations basis what it thinks you will like – what you like is something it will try and figure out by scanning your FB account – Yes , Privacy suddenly becomes public.

I for one am still in the process of digesting all the implications and the information present on this , but what i did do was to turn off this feature to ensure that till i am 100% convinced (IF) , my details are protected and for those who wish to follow the same approach , this is how you can turn it off ( Incidentally for me it was off by default , but never hurts to check it out)

Login to your account and go to Privacy Settings from the account tab present on the top right. Then go to applications and websites in the choices which you see.  Once inside this page , scroll right to the bottom , to the INSTANT PERSONALIZATION link and uncheck ALLOW. This will deactivate the feature.

Facebook Privacy

http://puchoo.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/driving-from-delhi-to-shimla/

To cut a long story short ( the longer version is available on AlooTechie) is that Perfetti and Digivaasi have launched a game called Shineshah Challenge as a social media activity.

What i find very odd is the use of the term VIRAL while describing the game. I find it a bit difficult to comprehend that digitally active clients such as Perfetti and an agency like Digivaasi would be so careless in the usage of the word.

A viral is something which is created not by the people developing it but through a massive cascading effect owing to the attractiveness of the content that is being shown.  In essence it is a stamp a particular item will get if its gets popular enough such as in the case of Evolution of Dance , Star Wars Kid and so forth, or the latest video doing the rounds in connection to United Airlines.

There is nothing wrong ofcourse is promoting a viral either , though personally i believe that pure virals are ones which are promoted through word of mouth and not an advertising push , but in the context it sounds like an Oxymoron unfortunately for both parties involved , in essence its saying :-

We have a viral video which we will promote through a banner campaign – If you had a viral video , there would be no need to promote it.

Update@ 12:15 AM : The link to the story on alootechie is down for some reason as of earlier this evening and current showing as page not found but it did get indexed by google  and appears at a few other sites as well.

http://www.hondacarindia.com/city/360Degree/City_Interior360.html

Honda City Website Error

website.

See you all in 2010!!

One of the more prominent moves was that of Pearl Uppal and the consequent news that she was launching her own portal with Harish Bahl called www.Fashionandyou.com (covered reasonably extensively by Alootechie and Watblog). An exclusive , private , property wanting to reach out to the cream of the society with respect to its defined TG as well as the offerings (products) which it was going to make.

I have been trying to follow the developments on this property as closely as I can. It’s a relatively new model to enter the market and I am keen on seeing how it develops and gets accepted within the Indian market. Unfortunately, nothing seems to be moving.

The launch date for the website (and I assumed the products as well) was mid November – the website launched in time but nothing has taken place beyond that. What does seem to be occurring is a viral effort by the team to get as many members as possible. Earlier just prior and post to the launch, the ability to get an invitation was reasonably difficult – but the objective currently seems to be exactly that – the site is giving freebies (high end bags) and a credit of 1000 for people referring other people.

There are 2 aspects which one thinks of – Firstly why is nothing being sold on the site despite it being almost a month and a half old. Can we assume that there are have been significant hurdles in the acquisition of high end brands at discounted rates for the consumers – the site boasts of discounts of upto 70% which I am sure are not easy to manage. Discount the fact for the time being that some brands might think this to be a dilution of the premium image that they seek to position themselves in within the market.

The second being for me is the target audience. If the site had started off with a for all approach at the beginning then one would not have given it a thought, and that type of approach would have been fine fundamentally – if one is in a position to offer products at 70% off, then the TG with the necessary disposable income which you need to reach out to increases substantially. But the entire approach was exclusivity – which seems to be getting diluted. At this point in time I can get an invite from numerous sources; almost 8 people I know are members (Who will never really buy the products) and scores of others who piled in wanting the giveaway bags or the 1000 INR credit – and when they realize that a 1000 bucks is not going to go a long way, they will probably form a substantial base of inactive members.

Of course , as mentioned above, there is nothing wrong in reaching out to the masses – the larger the consumer segment , the broader your sales funnel but why then try and aim for a positioning which was not going to be implemented eventually?

Are they exclusive because of the restricted member base (Obviously not), because registration is by invite only (Diluted given the number of ways one can get a membership now) or is it because of the products that are on offer (Currently none) – the first two are clearly out in my opinion which only leaves the products being offered but I don’t see anything exceptional in that.  There are multiple sources online where luxury items can be purchased – the only thing which will differentiate Fashionandyou.com from others could be the price point (70% off) – In which case it eventually boils down to it being a website aiming to create a USP basis price and nothing else – which in turn translates for me into them being a run of the mill model , and nothing different to begin with – leaving aside the fact that the sale might only be on for a few days instead of the product being permanently listed ( Till the seller decides to remove it) on other sites. Even then, the urgency is not the number of days, but that the product is available at a particular price point for a set time period i.e. we come back to money again.

The sites blog speaks about a lot of stuff taking place, conversations with players and people in similar fields across the globe, promotions, website launch etc but there really has been no physical manifestation of any movement forward – other than the website getting launched, which while significant as a physiological milestone perhaps, is not a big deal. A couple of dozen pages at max, integrated with a database allowing for record tracking of sales and registrations – pretty simple.

I would have liked to have seen the site take off by now. And while they might still be able to manage something within this year, I would have assumed that they might want to target the festive season coming up with regard to their product offerings appearing on the site.