Internet – Networking Vs Not-working

Last week was quite nice and peaceful. It was nice because I had moved to a new flat which is bigger and better than my older one. It was peaceful because the flat did not have a TV and an internet connection too. Voila! Suddenly there was abundant time. I was transported back in time when there was no internet, no email, no forums and no telly. Life once again seemed very simple.

I had enough time to buy groceries and even make my own dinner. I had lost that habit a couple of months back when I was busier with the internet, doing nothing. I once again got back to Thomas Friedman’s “The world is flat”.

It felt great just reading about the forces (including technological) that made the world shrink and flat. I was not a part of that force any longer. I was not replying to some one’s posts, not on VOIP calls with friends half the world away nor tracking my modest investment portfolio. Here I was, lying on the couch with coffee on one hand and the paperback on the other and amazed at the wonderful things that new innovations have brought to our world. The simple joys of the world are easily missed as we are busy getting some where. I swim through hundreds of emails at work every day and had long since begun to take it for granted as a basic part of life so much so that I nearly missed the utility. It is like eating a great meal without the sense of taste. A great discovery it definitely was not. I just realized it when I read about the grandfather in England who was pleasantly happy reading an email from his 10 year old grandson. The child had just moved to Australia and earned himself new friends in the strange world down under conquering his skepticism and hesitation.

I am sharing my flat with 2 other colleagues now. It was great talking to them, knowing them and spending time making fun of each other. I now doubt if it would have happened had we had the luxury of internet from day 1 when we moved to the new flat. I am already back to my virtual life speaking with you through this blog. I wonder if the internet is making us better by helping us create new bonds which other wise would be near impossible or is making us worse by draining us of the necessary time and focus to nurture the more real bonds just around us. I wonder if there is any “Internet Surfers Anonymous”. The overwhelming desire to be online is nothing short of any other addiction. I guess it is a pretty picture as long as one balances their online and offline time presence.

I am off to make my picture pretty. Adios!

Web 2.0

It is hard to stay away from information technology. It is not as much about IT as much as it is about evolution per se. First came email (at least in my world of IT), soon followed by opportunists trying to capitalise the new medium to reach the masses. And it materialised in the form of spam trying to sell me everything from viagra to home jobs that guarantee to pay me $750-$1000 an hour. God, if only it were true every one in the world would make more money and some good samaritans can donate more money to the UNICEF and the WHO making the world a better place to live. I am sure Prof. Raja would intervene here and tell us that if only all of us make more money, the inflation rate would increase making everything around us costly leaving us at the same level of wealth where we are now and hence our world need not necessarily be a better place to live. We never debated about life on Mars being better though.

Back to spam, I now not only have to tolerate the spam mails but also have to tolerate the perfectly content related ads to totally irrelevant emails in my inbox. Boy, that's evolution. I still remember my younger days when I was glued to the telly watching some good content. Then came the ads in between the content which was revolting. Then came more channels, sadly no different from one another. Collectively the one thing they achieved was to turn me away from the telly. Did I hear some one say "customer is the king"? I guess I was wrong in thinking that I was the customer. I am sure the companies that buy the air time are the true customers for the telly channels.

I am writing this blog as I cannot just not be a part of this new medium. After quite some resistance I finally signed up with Orkut, Google's social networking site, few months ago. I found some long lost people and some people that I longed to lose. With every person I add to the friends list, the first couple of conversations are the same - where are you? what are you doing? how are you? what's up?. That's where it ends. I still keep adding or am requested to add old friends and in an uncanny manner see the same questions in the conversation.

Now I am hit with a string of emails each day claiming to be sent by a friend asking me join a new social/business networking site - facebook, myspace, linked-in, my adda, shelfari.....so on. More than half my contacts are common on each of those sites. Except for ther presentation, I don't see any difference in their core and the way they are exploring different ways to monetise based on their users. I hope these businesses with their potential to converge several conventional businesses on a single platform, don't turn me away like the telly business did.

I have only one message for all internet age businesses - there are thousands of websites out there and I have only 24 hours in a day and I get my paycheck only once a month. You want a piece of my money, sure you can have it. But it ain't coming cheap!