The Unofficial Statement

Journey through the internet archives

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:05:17 +0000

A ride on the Wayback Machine at Internet Archives is a bit of fun, and a lot about understanding business strategy. Take vimo for example.

A who.is query on vimo.com reveals the following:-

Expiration Date: 2011-04-19
Creation Date: 2000-04-19
Last Update Date: 2009-04-14

One is led to believe that the site and hence the business at vimo.com is running since 19-4-2000, since that’s the domain creation date. Probe further and wayback machine tells you that in 2000 no pages were available from vimo. In fact even as late as 2005 end/early 2006, the domain was on sale with no business running, Feb 13 2005 snapshot and Oct 05, 2006

Next, take a look at Nov 21, 2006 snapshot.

See the GiveAways to incentivize user to rate doctors

The company is seen actively promoting Doctor Reviews and is giving away ‘5 free songs from emusic.com’. By December 09, 2006 the 5 free songs strategy seems to have failed and the site is seen donating $1 per doctor review to Toys For Tots. Move on, and by March 13, 2007 , the $ is now seen going to American Heart Association. Getting users to rate doctors is certaainly a difficult task, or vimo was probably ahead of time in trying to do this.

We missed out an important aspect while figuring out where the dollar was going. From the day the site was launched till about July 2007, close to an year in operation, the focus had been engaging the user on the site and proving her information online. Speaking to a broker was not the primary message ompare local plan benefits and premiums, learn about health insurance, or speak to a broker. This changed in October 2007, when the primary message changed to an interaction with a licensed agent in a call center.

Change in Strategy - Voice becoming the primary sales channel

In subsequent months, this grew in importance and occupied about half of the home page. To me it occurs that either Vimo got a broker license then, or realized that conversions on phone are much better than on the internet. By August 07, selling insurance had suddenly accquired centerstage and doctor ratings (and hsa and prices of medical procedures) were found losing importance to pitches and information about insurance. Possible change in strategy?

Vimo.com today gives a decent focus to both the self service on internet and assisted health plan search through phone, change resulted over 3 years of innovation, growth in online traffic and coming of age.

( This is author’s attempt to correlate website changes with possible changes in business strategy. Choice of vimo.com as an example site is purely incidental)

Google Wonder Wheel

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:36:41 +0000

Google Wonder Wheel is similar to a mind map that a user will create. The wonder wheel suggests related searches and helps narrow down the user search to a relevant keyword/keyphrase.

To get to the wonder wheel, make a google search and use the ‘Show Options’ menu on the bar that shows the number of search results. Under ‘Show Options’, you need to navigate to Standard View section to find the wonder wheel

Christmas Gift – Health Insurance Reform Bill

puneet — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:45:57 +0000

President Obama delivered a fantastic Christmas gift to the people of United States. With the Senate passing the landmark healthcare reform legislation on Christmas eve, an additional 30m uninsured Americans can now be brought under medical insurance and the health insurance companies made more accountable. They cannot deny covering pre-existing diseases and cannot disallow insurance because a person got sick with a certain disease

However, this coverage for the uninsured does not come for free. Though the government is planning to offer subsidies to people to buy health insurance, it is the people who will have to bear the major fraction of this cost.

Another part of the reform bill is the creation of state based exchanges where the uninsured can compare health insurance plans and shop for their coverage.

There is still time for this to become a law and a huge financial burden on the exchequer , but it still is a major move to ensure that people get the medical coverage they need at a cost that they can afford.

The US Health Insurance System

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:43:00 +0000

I recently joined a company by the name hCentive Inc, which is creating a health insurance exchange for US, where people could logon and buy affordable health insurance. After spending some time on understanding the US health insurance system, I realized that consumers need someone who could explain to them the policies they were buying. Leave apart the basic insurance details, even the process of comparison and selection is difficult as a single search on few of the health insurance portals in the US, gives back hundreds of policies to choose from. Until someone himself works in the same domain, I bet it must not be easy to purchase the right insurance.

We are lucky here in India to just understand premium and deductible. People in the US have to comprehend a whole bunch of insurance jargon, like co-insurance, co-pay, out-of-pocket maximum, to name just a few. And then, there are HMOs, PPOs, HSAs

Well, leaving the details of these acronyms for a later post, hCentive is in an exciting space. If the crack team @hcentive can collectively solve this problem for the end user, of choosing the right insurance, we can make a lot of difference to the life, health and pockets of people around, apart from making a mark for ourselves.

We are doing some really exciting stuff. If you happen to read it, and get interested, drop me an email and we can get talking.

Enjoy Google and Wolfram Alpha together

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:32:00 +0000

Now, one can enjoy the coverage and ranking of google with the preciseness of Wolfram Alpha at the same time, for the queries that Wolfram Alpha answers very well.

All one has to do is to download this excellent firefox add on available here.

The addon, throws the same search to Wolfram Alpha as well in addition to google and shows results from the former only when it has to show something.

Take care with the addon since it is still experimental, which means that the add on could be in alpha, beta or pre production and not tested on the field much.

Wolfram Alpha disappoints

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 16:26:00 +0000

Had a first look at Wolfram Alpha and got disappointed. The search engine which had so much of euphoria built around it did not deliver to my expectations. Here are the results of the test drive.

Search 1:Number of internet users in India.

Wolfram gives a number (80m) which seems higher than the number that we had in 2007 (and mentions that the relevant year for this number is 2007. We should be close to 80m this year. There is no way to find out if this was active users or ever users. However, the data is close to the real number that we know of through various studies in India.

Search 2: Mobile users in India

As important as the number of internet users and as actively tracked by digital media enthusiasts as the internet population. This one was a big put off. Wolfram Alpha could not understand what to do with the query, even after trying various versions (cell phone users, count/number of mobile users etc.)

OK, may be Wolfram isn’t tracking India as actively, I moved on to a search for AIDS patients in the US.

Search 3: Number of aids patients in USA

Wolfram Alpha was as clueless as for the mobile users in India.

This, when I have not tried anything which is not non -computational. I think Wolfram Alpha is still prealpha and has been released prematurely. There is a long way to go before it can win my trust and may be yours too.

Move over microfinance, microtelecom is here

admin — Mon, 25 May 2009 03:45:00 +0000

Have you heard of microtelecom? I hadn’t till upto 15 minutes ago.

Microtelecom is all about optimization of telecom infrastructure for a very specific application: serving low-income, hard-to-reach communities in rural areas. As with all industries and all early movers, the company pioneering the concept has gone ahead and coined this term.

But what a wonderful idea it is. Lack of power infrastructure and availability and the cost of running telecom networks on low density markets have been touted as the impediments of growth of mobile user base in rural areas. And VNL, claims to solve both of these through its WorldGSM technology – solar power based towers, consuming less than 100 W of power (compared to the current systems which take 3000 W to run).

An entire WorldGSM base station packs into two carts and can be transported over rough terrain in something as simple as a bullock cart. It is self-deploying and requires near-zero maintenance. Also, it can be assembled and activated by non-engineers.

Quippo telecom, which manages about 18K towers in India is doing trails of WorldGSM in rural areas in India.

Can’t wait to see a revolution ushering in rural areas in the country post deployment of this technology

Information Technology Act (Cyberlaws) 2000 Simplified – Part 2

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:10:00 +0000

Continued from part 1 …

Regulation of Certifying Authorities

Central government may appoint a controller of certifying authorities, and also deputy controllers and assistant controllers
Lays down the functions of the controllers, especially certifying the public keys of the certifying authorities themselves and the form and content of the digitial signature certificate and the keys
Lays down procedure for grant, rejection, renewal, display, surrender and suspension of license to issue Digital Security Certificates
Grants the controller or anyone authorized by him, the power to investigate contravention

Digital Signature Certificates

Process of application, grant and rejection of a digital signature
Allows for different fees to be applicable for different class of applications, not exceeding 25 thousand rupees
Talks about when can a certifying authority revoke/suspend a digital signature

Duties of subscribers

Use of the digital signature means acceptance of the same
The subscriber certifies to all who depend on the digital signature that he is the right party to use the signature and has the private key, etc.
Safekeeping of the private key and informing the certifying authority in case the private key has been compromised
Hacking, access without permission, causing denial of service etc. is punishable upto the maximum extent of 1 crore Rupees
The act lays down as to who can be an adjudicating officer for cases involving contravention to any provisions of the act and the factors that need to be taken into account by the adjudicating officer

The Cyber Regulations Appelate Tribunal

Authorises the central government to establish one or more appelate tribunals for matters related to the act which will be called cyber appelate tribunals. The central govt. also to specific the matters to which this CAT will exercise jurisdiction
The tribunal to have only one person, to be known as the Presiding Officer, whose term will be 5 years or age of 65, whichever is earlier.
A person shall not be qualified for appointment as the Presiding Officer of a Cyber Appellate Tribunal unless he- (a) is, or has been, or is qualified to be, a Judge of a High Court; or (b) is, or has been, a member of the Indian Legal Service and is holding or has held a post in Grade I of that Service for at least three years.
Most other sections here talk about the position, powers of the tribunal, resignation of members, recovery of penalty etc

Offences (under the Information Technology Act)

Tampering with computer source documents knowingly and/or intentionally (3 years imprisonment or 2 lakh fine or both)
Hacking a computer system (penalty same as above)
Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form (publishes, transmits or causes to be published) – information which is lascivious or appeals to pririent interest (5 lac and/or 1 year imprisonment on first conviction, 10 years and/or 2 lac second conviction)
The controller can direct any agency of the government to intercept and/decrypt any information on a computer/passed through a computer network in the interest of the sovereignty of the country, cordial relations with neighbours, and to prevent incitement to the commission of a cognizable offence.
Misrepresentation or hiding facts from certifying authority for getting a license/digital signature (2 years imprisonment/1 lakh/both)
Other cases of offece and their penalties

Network service providers not to be liable in certain cases

Network services providers will not be liable if any of the cyber crimes is committed on/through/using theoir network provided they can demonstrate that the contravention was committed without his knowledge or he had exercised due deligence to prevent such contraventions from happening

Miscellaneous

Among other things in this chapter, the most important is that if a company is found to commit a contravention of the act, then all employees who were in charge for the conduct of business at that time could be liable unless they demonstrate that the contravention was committed without their knowledge or they had exercises due deligence to prevent such incidents from happenning

Information Technology Act (Cyberlaws) 2000 Simplified – Part 1

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:49:00 +0000

Part 1 of my attempt to put the Indian Information Technology Act of 2000 in simple words, without legalese

Digital Signature

Recognizes digital signature and approves that electronic records can be authenticated with digital signatures. Also empowers the government to decide and modify rules around digital signatures

Electronic Governance

Allows for exisitng laws to recognize electronic documents at par with hard copies and digital signatures with actual, without such recognition be enforced upon the government/its bodies
Allows for bodies owned and/or controlled by the government to recognize filings/payments in electronic format for the purposes to grant a license/permit/approval/sanction etc
Puts publication of laws and bye laws in the electronic Gazatte of the government at par with the official gazette

Attribution, Acknowledgement and Dispatch of Electronic records

Lays down criteria to attribute an electronic record/communication to an originator
Defines what constitutes an acknowedgement to an electronic communication, and when or when not, the communication becomes binding
Defines the Time and place of dispatch and receipt of electronic communication

Secure Electronic Records and secure digital signatures

The government can prescribe a ’security procedure’ for digital records having regard to the commercial circumstances at the time when the procedure has to be prescribed
An electronic record will be called a secure electronic record till verification if a security procedure has been applied to it
Lays down conditions when digital signatures will be deemed as secure

Regulation of certifying authorities
(continued in Part 2)

What do people blog about?

admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:46:00 +0000

The number of bloggers and blogs is growing at a fantastic pace. According to a report by Universal McCann (March 2008) there are 184m internet users who write a blog, with China emerging as a leader, with 42m users, more than USA and western Europe combined. Individuals, and organizations are both adopting blogging as a means to express and reach out.

It is interesting to find out what these 184 million bloggers write about. Nielsen BuzzMetrics has a tracker online which is a real time snapshot of what are people blogging about. The tracker is updated every minute. To my surprise, technology is not the number one item that people are writing about. The myth that blogging has been a niche of the techno savvy, opinioned geeks seems to have been busted by this data. As per the report, 30% of all blog posts are diaries, which are personal entries on people’s own life, environment and interests. The diaries at 30% stand much taller than many other categories combined.

Entertainment (Movies/TV) stands at number two, the second most blogged topic, but a distant laggard at only around 5% of all blog posts. Sports and Politics closely follow.

Nielsen BuzzMetrics are created based on text mining of the blog posts and then assigning the post type to them.

Technorati follows a different methodology to identify post content, which is the tags associated with the post. The latest, state of the blogosphere report 2008 (technorati), report from technorati is pretty interesting. As per the report, three quarters of all bloggers blog about three or more topics. Personal/Lifestyle is the most written about topic, followed by technology. “Others”, News, Politics, Internet etc. Others has been treated as an aggregate of topics from the 2008 election, alternative energy, art, beauty, blogging, comics, communication, cooking/food, crafts, design, environment, internet/Web 2.0, Jamaica, and media/journalism.

Technorati’s report also has a classification of data by gender, and geography.