Burning Brijjes?

It has been a while since we went over the entire social networking fracas vis-a-vis Brijj, which is Infoedge’s social networking product. At that point in time the contention was that it will pick up traction either organically or through Naukri, but the available metrics (I know that Techtribe.com is a bad one to compare it with, but there is really no other player out there) says something else altogether.

On a related note, a search for “Infoedge” on Brijj returns me about 43 results, while the same query on Linkedin with the filter for current employees set to on gives me 66 users. I guess that says a story by itself.

Now, I am not trying to jump all over Brijj when it is not doing all that great, but at the same time we have to start questioning the logic of pushing out “me-too” products out into the Indian market, after looking at what has worked in the west.

I can understand that at some point you need to do all of this to show some action on the investor front, but, eventually, the question remains: is it worthwhile to launch a product just for those reasons?

p.s: I am using the Alexa grab since WordPress.com does not allow me to embed Javascript within posts.

Opinion: Kafka on the shore

The first feeling you get after finishing Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the shore is akin to stepping out of being in a deep and delicious trance. Beyond the intricate detailing of events and characters, when you step out of the often-crazy world that Murakami sets up, you feel wrung inside-out, having been dragged along with the characters on their respective amazing journeys.

The most distinct thing about Kafka on the shore is that judgment is flung firmly out of the window from the first page. If you are the types who work overtime to make moral or any other type of judgments, this book is certainly not for you. On the other hand, if you love your fiction like if it were the best Tiramisu you have ever had in your life — multi-layered and mutli-flavoured — this is certainly the book for you.

The story has a pace that is quite unexpected and does not let off till the end and it covers grounds and cultures that is very obviously beyond what the Japanese isles — where the story is set — can account for. At the same time, it does not shut you out, even if you are not the average ‘intellectual’ and keeps you firmly interested and involved till the end.

The best thing about the book is that there are so many different ways in which it can be interpreted, but the overbearing theme is of a constant search for the self, which is the thread that joins together everyone involved in the book.

I guess that is what makes the book so special, that there is a little bit of yourself in every character, without it being entirely about you. The work stands equally tall, even when you don’t identify with it.

The only question that remains is if anyone would dare to make a movie. Rest assured, it will never be a commercial hit, but writing a screenplay for it and later translating it with a camera should be an adventure that very few would dare to start on.

You know that you live in interesting times when:

1. A bunch of cats and dogs speaking silly English gets more traction on a regular basis than the political blog of a mainstream television network on WordPress.com
2. The most read story on latimes.com is about a transsexual sportswriter coming out in the publication that he she writes for.
3. OJR’s “Five lessons from 2007” amount to pretty much no lesson at all. Seriously, if getting a breaking news blog, copying sports style and trying to dig the facts out is all that it would take to ‘fix’ media in 2008, I am at a loss for what can be said about the situation.