Becoming a social nuisance in the online world

It all started with Yahoo groups when I was in school. A common mailing list that should keep the kids together forever, a means to share all the good and the bad encountered in the outside world. Truth be told. It did have a certain amount of success... Some of the news came through the groups. Like someone getting married, or change of job and the like. It also made it easy to mail a bunch of people without keeping all the email ids in the mind and careful not to forget anyone. And then of course came, atleast in my life, the issue of sharing bookmarks with del.icio.us. and tell the whole world of your ideas using blogs. Of course I jumped on the bandwagon the minute I came across blogging, (these days I would probably say stumbledupon blogging), I created a blog and wrote one damm article. It was too much of a hazzle writing all that I was thinking, and worse, I was probably in a location  far away from a computer and in no state to be writing anything (german pubs still dont have computers in them). Tried starting a blog a year later, and that fizzled out even before I posted anything, and the service was taken down. And then came the bane of all social interactions called orkut!!! damm that was a scarry place. I was there, then I was not there. I never knew why I joined up in the first place, but I def know why I ran away from it. Then of course I was invited to join the german version called studivz. I mean what does one do in such a site if you are so lazy not to upload any pictures, and not particularly interested in poking and kicking others, who probably just want to be left alone. But it gets worse. I was invited to the mother of all social gettogethers on-line, Facebook. Finally people all realised that blogging took too long and that there should be an easier and quicker way to get on your friends nerves, and voila comes along twitter.

Now call me insane, but I love to read what the guys in the software and the electronics industry keep dishing out, hoping that I ll be one of the first to know when the artificial brain is presented! Long story short, I was also on twitter.

Now a couple of days ago, there was a huge discussion with a couple of friends, about the benefits of social-networking and the social side to facebook. About how contacts help in this difficult economic times, and how people used twitter when the plane landed in hudson river, and the siege in mumbai. So I decided to really put my effort into it. Connected my blog to facebook, after deleting most of the entries, i would not want my friends from reading. I could do that easily as noone was particularly reading my blog anyway! ;). Then I installed scribefire and twitterfox, and connected my twitter to facebook. So now even if I sneeze you guys are going to know! HA! There you have it.

I am not going to upload any pictures though... I shaved my head, and i leave it to your imagination about how I look. What a rant!

Lets google using Bing

So as I mentioned in a previous post, MS and Yahoo, have come together in search to take on you-know-who of search. It is interesting to read up on the many advantages Microsoft gets from the deal, and the huge inflow of money that Yahoo gets from this. Like it was summarized in SpiegelOnline, google may know what you may be searching for, but it is yahoo who probably knows why you are there in the first place.

Whatever it is, yahoo is now interested in being the entry portal to ones online life, but I am not so much convinced about that. Yes there used to be a time, when yahoo was my source of information and when i did use quite a few of the services, but these days with Firefox, RSS, Widgets, Tweets, and Search integrated, why there is a need for a portal is beyond me. But since those in command there earn a few hundred times more than what i do, I am going to assume they know what they are doing.

But before I sign off this post, I thought i ll mention Bing. Well I am not sure if Bing is better than Google, but it is atleast a very credible alternative. The last month, I have used more results than Bing has given me, than i thought possible. So for those wanting to give it a shot, try out the page at Google Vs Bing it is pretty interesing. The maps is really cool, with the perspective bird eye view, and the Bing Homepage is actually interesting with the interactive pictures. And now to sign off enjoy the video Googling with Bing.

Musings

It is a sad thing, if the F1 needs a Crash and a 40 yr. old driver's comeback to bring a bit of interest to the sport again!

Micheal Schuhmacher is back

Yesterday was a day surprising news. First off came the announcement that BMW-Sauber is withdrawing from F1. I personally find that sad, knowing how much BMW invests in white-hot technology. But drastic economic situations call for drastic actions. Well nothing much to say about it now, they are gone and there are two more spots for new teams next year.

Next came the news of Microsoft-Yahoo coming to an agreement. Though this was not a surprise, with tech channels hinting at this for the last few days, it was still a good thing to get this out into the open and counter the who-should-not-be-named of search! it is probably time to start using bing for googling.

But the icing on the cake came later in the day when Schummi, decided to help out family ferrari and his friend massa to get behind the wheels of the red prancing horse once more. Honestly I am as excited as a kid before christmas. But I am so fearful that this could turn out to a damp squib. First off, the field has changed, and God how it has changed. With Kimi, probably the most daring of the lot, sitting in the same team, with lewis sitting in a quicker car, with sebastian and jenson in much better cars, the next race is anything but predictable.

My bets are on the silver arrow with lewis leading the way, followed by kimi and sebastian, the brawns too close behind. But the euphoria that is gripping the sport just because of schummi announcement may make miracles, though without todd and brawn... schummi is going to need quite a bit of luck to make a mark on the track in 21 days.

But what a long 21 days of wait this is going to be for me.... hooray to the sport. Finally!