Gauravonomics Blog

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Mail Today interviewed me recently for a story on the biggest technology trends of 2010s.

I think Augmented Reality will be the biggest digital technology trend over the next decade.

Augmented Reality applications add a data layer to physical objects, and augment our physical reality by making it interactive. Basically, you point your mobile phone camera at any physical object (a building, a book, a person) and get information about it, superimposed on the screen, in real time.

As an example, you will be able to point your cameraphone at the cute girl in the neighborhood cafe and see that she is single, likes super-achiever type men, and has three friends in common with you, but tends to complain about her ex-boyfriends in public. The app will achieve this feat by identifying her through face recognition technology, then quickly scanning her profile information and status messages on Facebook and Twitter. If you still fancy your chances with her, it will request your common friends to introduce you to her via Facebook Connect driven dating service Thread.  Read More

My article on why the internet is the perfect hunting ground for young entrepreneurs was published today in Mail Today. All entrepreneurship is about betting on the next big thing, and if you are a 20-something entrepreneur, your bet on the next big thing on the internet is as good as, or even better than, someone double your age and experience.

Mail Today published a slightly edited version of the article I had submitted. Here’s the original.

Almost two years back, a month after I turned 28, I was interviewed for a newspaper story on why IIM types were leaving behind their corporate careers and following their dreams, mixing work, pleasure and purpose, pursuing what the journalist called “lifestyle entrepreneurship”.

I wondered why I was quoted in the story. My blog about the intersection of business, society and technology was becoming prominent, both amongst bloggers and journalists. I hung out with entrepreneurs and sometimes wrote about startups. I had even blogged about launching my own internet startup before I turned thirty. Still, I hadn’t taken the plunge yet. In fact, I was on a fast track in the quintessential corporate career. I has joined the TAS cadre in the Tata Group from IIM Bangalore and stayed with them for almost six years. My friends believed that I had acquired the Tata gene, that I would never leave, that I would retire as the CEO of one of the iconic Tata companies.  Read More

I was quoted yesterday in a Mail Today story on the launch of the international version of Kindle.

I have the US version of the Kindle. It has more than 100 books on it and I totally love the paper-like reading experience.

When I was in Washington DC, I could download books from the Amazon Kindle Store directly to my Kindle, in seconds, through the wireless service. I remember a one-week Spring Break trip to Miami when I downloaded and read half a dozen books on my Kindle while I was sitting on the beach. When I moved back, the only books I carried with me were the ones on my Kindle.

Since I have moved back to India, I have been downloading the books to my laptop and transferring them to the Kindle. I have also realized that physical books in India are cheaper than books in the US, so the $5-10 savings from buying a $9.99 Kindle book instead of a $20 hardcover doesn’t always hold in India. Still, since I already have the Kindle, I continue to buy all my books from the Kindle store.  Read More

I was profiled yesterday in a Mail Today story on people whose lives were changed by blogging. The other bloggers profiled in the story included Amit Agarwal, Gautam Ghosh, Dina Mehta, and Nikhil Pahwa.

I started blogging in 2004. I saw myself as a writer and wanted to see if I can write in an engaging way on a sustained basis. I wrote stories, poetry, observations on life, marketing and technology. I met a lot of interesting people via my blog, made some good friends, some of whom became girlfriends in time.

In late 2006, I decided that I didn’t want to be a typical IIM MBA in a typical fast-track corporate career. I decided that I wanted to be the “next marketing guru” (I own the nextmarketingguru.com domain). I realized that internet and mobile, and especially social media, are not only changing how we connect with each other, but also how we connect with brands and organizations. So, I started writing about how social media is not only changing our lives, but also business and society.  Read More

I was quoted recently in Indian daily Mail Today in a story on internet addiction.

I think that “internet addiction” is a misnomer.

First, given that many of us use the internet for learning and working, to one extent or another, it’s impossible to define internet addiction in terms of the number of hours of internet usage.

Second, I do understand that spending too much time on the internet can be detrimental to one’s social life in some cases, but excessive internet use if almost always a result of some other underlying addiction: to porn, to shopping, to gaming, or even to work.

Third, the internet, in essence, is a social medium that enables conversations, communities and relationships, with both real-life and virtual friends (who often become real-life friends). So, it often has a net positive effect on one’s social life. Similarly, given how much of our social life with our “real world” friends is mediated by the internet, I don’t even think that the Internet really distorts reality. People who stay up late to watch TV worry me more than people who stay up late to talk to their friends.

I was quoted today in Indian daily Mail Today in a story on the increasing popularity of Twitter in India.

The story talks about how an engaged Twitter community has emerged in India since I organized India’s first tweetup two years back. A case in point in the tweetup with writer, UN diplomat, and member of parliament Shashi Tharoor organized by Twilight Fairy.

The article also chronicles the use of Twitter by Indian celebrities like Shashi Tharoor, Rahul Gandhi, Gul Panang and Mallika Sherawat.

Here’s the ful text of the story –

If you don’t tweet you haven’t arrived

By Neha Tara Mehta in New Delhi

Not only the geeks but glitterati too are hooked to the micro- blogging networking site

IT TOOK just 140 characters to change the way our celebrities talk to us. You no longer need Page 3 to know who Mallika Sherawat is flirting with, when Shashi Tharoor gets a haircut, and the kind of music that helps Rahul Gandhi unwind.

All you need is to follow their ‘ tweets’ — 140- character- long updates on what they think of life, the universe and everything.  Read More

I was quoted today in a really well-researched article on the low voter turnout in the 2009 Indian elections in Indian daily Mail Today (PDF).

The article seeks to answer the question I have been grappling with for the last 2-3 days: why have voter registration campaigns not increased voter turnout in the 2009 Indian Lok Sabha elections?

Here is the full text of the article –

Pappu shows the middle finger to a boring vote

Even after a publicity overdrive urging Middle India to exercise its vote, it has shown its disdain for our politicians

By Archana

Half of urban India has been caught napping in the middle of the biggest election process in the world taking place in its own courtyard. Three out of five phases of the general election 2009 are over and the Great Indian Middle Class — the driver of change that has powered the country’s recent economic successes — has shown how clearly uninterested it is in electing its own leaders. It’s shocking, especially because the run-up to the elections had seen unprecedented campaigning by NGOs, film stars (many of whom did not keep their promise to be at the polling station on the appointed day), citizen-activists and even a slew of companies, from Tata to McDonald’s, urging people to cast their ballot.  Read More

The ‘Age of Conversation’ collaborative book was featured in Indian daily Mail Today in a story on writing in the age of web 2.0.

Apart from myself, editors Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, authors Vandana Ahuja, Arun Rajagopalan and Rohit Bhargava and AOC Bum Rush coordinator Chris Wilson were also interviewed for the story.

Here’s a PDF of the story and here’s the full text –

WRITING IN THE TIME OF WEB 2.0
Mail Today
December 28, 2008
Neha Tara Mehta
neha.mehta@mailtoday.in

Nearly 1,500 authors from 83 countries and 63,200 words of text. Their writing medium? A website that was accessed six lakh times from March to July this year. The goal? Making it to the Limca Book of Records for being the largest number of co-authors writing a single book.

It was at 2.30 pm this January 21 that the yetuntitled book — which is now going through its final round of edits — was conceived by two IIM-Indore students over Maggi instant noodles and coffee. Dhruv Bhushan, 23, and Anubhav Jain, 24, while preparing for CAT in Delhi, had decided to launch their own venture one day. “We wanted to create employment and make money,” says Jain. As campus placements were underway, they still hadn’t finalised the business plan for the million-dollar baby of their dreams.  Read More