Kolaveri indeed!!

Its been an amazing last 3 weeks to say the least and the long weekend hasn’t even started. I say that because i have just finished “Steve Jobs”, by Walter Isaacson. And NO, i am not going to review the book here … (go read it if you are curious … well worth your time!).. or affirm him being a narcissist, or speculate the aftermath of an over stimulated social media phenomenon making him look God-like!

But there are insights into his personality, style of thinking , way of leading a life and values that will immortalize him for the foreseeable future. And some of his quotes leave an impression on you… especially something like .. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

This quote.. very obvious that it may seem now, back when i first read it .. was enlightening..atleast personally. It was like discovering the right arrangement of words to describe a thought or an emotion you were trying to articulate all along.
Somehow it couldn’t make more sense, because looking back at everything i have held dear (emotional value apart) so far, i now realize … was because it was a result of great design.

Beyond technology, Its true in art as well…. I mean that in a way of an artist relentlessly agonizing over the tiny details, stripping down the unnecessary bits until the only thing left is what truly serves the purpose of art .. which is … itself! Christopher Nolan comes to mind. Before going any further, i should say I am huge Nolan fan! His work like Memento , Prestige, The Dark Knight …Inception .. they are just amazing. There is attention to everything … what each character is doing, how each one is supposed to look in every scene … I am yet to find a scene that each of these movies could have done without … they are perfect is so many ways.

While wrapping my head around the “idea” of “Design” … something strange happened. An invite from a friend to view an album she had shared on picasa. Excited at how well the pics had turned out, i was all eager to leave a comment. But then it turns out that i had to be on Google + to comment on them…. UNCOOL!!!…

I had a few questions …

Q : Why do i need to be G+ to be able to comment ? These are on picasa .. wait,have i logged into picasa ?
A : Ofcouse i had! Oh .. right , because it was shared on G+ and not picasa directly.

Q : No, that still doesn’t makes sense. Because G+ uses picasa to host images… and i am already on picasa ?
A : Hmm…. ( …i begin to a draw blank at this point … )

Q : Does G+ needs to know who i am, to better manage the comments on these pics in G+ because they were shared from G+?… in which case, should someone outside G+ even be able to see these pics ?
A : Hmm…

Q : Picasa is now the photo management tool for G+. Will this mean in its new found role, its own existing users need to jump more hoops… just to belong?
A : Hmm…

Q : Does this behave differently if i were paying to use picasa ? What about people who have upgraded their storage ?
A : Hmm…

There were many more… and no matter how i tried to rephrase the question to see if i was even seeing it right… the answers were no different.
Now many things present themselves while i ponder further … amidst them, services being free, worrying about digital footprint or privacy is certainly not the ones i consider important.

Here’s why … I am not sure if my digital footprint worry’s me anymore…( if there is such a thing as being inconspicuous online at all these days … u shud tell me how)… because there will always be this incessantly obsessed person u don’t like , a foe, a stalker, your ex, or someone u annoyed when u were three .… out there lurking… no point fighting it.

And about it being free… I won’t agree to the “Beggars are not choosers” philosophy in this case. The success of these online products or services is infact driven by the “free-loaders” … the user adoption of these services is a measure for a business to validate what they are doing. You build something nice and are not sure if people will like it .. so u put it out there for free, people think its cool and make it really famous by talking about it and adopting it. You then see if you can make it really cool enough to put a price tag on it .. Its a two way street… BUT, you always have to walk it first to entice the customer in.

Lets look at it another way …for the sake of this argument, if you were paying to use picasa and then you realized you need to pay to be on G+ to be able to use what is otherwise a picasa feature, just because picasa now found a new role … wud you ? unless the value add is important or relevant to you, you would ask them to get lost!!! Got a flickr pro account ?? makes sense ??

So do i think integrating picasa with G+ is wrong. No .. i don’t think so ..not even for a minute. Its right for Google to look into their own kitty to find what they already have and use it , rather than building something afresh or worse.. buying out someone. But then , have they really thought this through ? And if they have, what is the relevance of picasa users in this integration ? If this seems right ( .. help me understand how .. ), then every time i share an album to someone not on Google ( oh .. trust me there are …), i would need them to first get a google-id/ and then get on G+ just so he/she can leave a comment ??

 

Music : Why This Kolaveri Di.. ( Yes!! Totally lame yet freakishly catchy .. (: … )