The new age a move from "Physical to Virtual "

According to this press release, last Saturday, Don became the first Bollywood movie whose music has been released on iTunes even before its CD’s hit the stores.

Hungama Mobile, which focuses on marketing Bollywood content in the form of images, videos, games and applications, has made the Don music available on iTunes.

The Don soundtrack has been featured on the ‘World’ music page of iTunes. Six reviews so far, and a rating of 4.5 out of five. Not bad, over four days.

Though this has been quoted as an example of the expanding reach of Bollywood in the global music landscape, I see this as another case in the move to "virtual" which is a norm in the new digital age. Today most of the music is heard in "virtual" format. I dont remember the last time i bought a CD including a MP3 Cd. Most music I have heard or owned by me and people around me is virtual. BY virtual i mean that its not purchased in the "physical" form of CDs. It is either downloaded on a cellphone or on an iPod or downloaded from the net (either P2P or purchased) or perhaps obtained from a peer from one device to another via bluetooth.

This points to the increasing trend of virtualisation catching up with the Indian pschye. However not long ago I remember people rubbishing the concept of "pay-per-download' for music in India. The general logic was why would someone pay when the net offered tools for piracy to any soul who could use Google search. However the early piracy and non-copyright sites like Napster have infact laid the foundation for the "Pay" concept. They accustomed the user to listening to music on "downloadable" devices. And now the iTunes and other pay sites of the world enable the users to move to the next level of "customising" the music to be played on their download compatible devices. You no longer need to download or buy the entire album ut can download a single song and make your own CD's. And are we ready to pay 10 Rs for it.....Yes of course !!!!!!!!! After all, you would have spend 4 times that just to get a good quality song from a CD.

The move to virtual shall have a bigger impact on the current Microsoft models of the world. With Google office informal tie-up with Apple we could gradullay see people downloading replacements to the CD's of Microsoft office. And knowing gGoogle they would cookup an Advertisement based model to make the downloadable software free or extremely cheap for users. Also this "virtual' world could lend to an open source nature of softwares open to upgrades and useful additions by users. An exampleof this is the Zimbra mail which is an open source email platform. Its as good as the microsoft office and has a far better GUI than any of the existing biggies of the mail world like Yahoo and Gmail. And being open source, it just keeps on improving...... I am not sure if they have a commercial arrangement but the new Rediffmail Beta seems to be based on Zimbra.

Well maybe one day people would be downloading "Orgasms" tooo to get rid of the physical wife/husbands :-) ......!!!!!

Long live the New Age of "Virtualisation"

Mumbai/Delhi - Cheap Cities or Cheap Expectations

There has been recent UBS survey on Mumbai and Delhi being the "cheapest" cities in the world. OK OK dont fall off your seats yet.
Rashmi Bansal in her guest column in Business Standard proves that if we consider Purchasing power vs prices, this may not be true. The numbers speak the truth, however I believe that Mumbai, Delhi are still cheap cities. They are not cheap because of the purchasing power and cost of goods but cheap because of Peoples expectations.
Rashmi rightly points out "cheap" is a relative term --- but I would take a slightly different approach to "Relative". In Mumbai and Delhi its relative to the "Percieved value" and "expected benefit"....
I agree that the purchasing power is less in Mumbai but then there is something for everyone irrespective of his purchasing power. A daily wage worker can have a "Wada pav", a middle class guy" a pav bhaji/Chinese food" and the upmarket can gorge on the "Five-course meal"---- All of them equally tasty
The inference- everyone can gorge on tasty food irrespective of his purchasing power.
The daily worker can drink "cutting chai", Middle class can have his "cuppa" in a hotel and Upmarket have the "Coffee days/Baristas"
The inference - everyone gets an affordable cuppa through different channels.
The daily worker can have free water at road side stalls, Middle class "The Bisleri/Aquafina" and Upmarkets "Evian".
Again everyone of this fulfils thirst.
The daily wage guy when he falls sick (maybe due to the free water) has the municipal hospitals for treatment, the middle class the mid-sized general wards of pvt Nursing homes and the upmarket the Speacial rooms of Lilavati.
The inference- Everyone can get treated, how effectively and efficeintly is the trouble. But again the daily wage worker "percieved value and expected benefits" are satisfied by the Muncipal hospitals as are the upmarkets by the Lilavatis
The "percieved value"(taste) of the wadapav for the price one pays and the "expected benefit" of (filling the stomach) to the daily wage earner is the same as the five course meal to the upmarket. On the other hand in some of the countries I have visited the options are limited. Water needs to be purchased and downmarket food options are too limited.
A city becomes costly when peoples "Expectations" soar beyond their current "perceived and expected value". If the dail wage earner feels that the "wada pav" is not what he deserves and desires for a five course meal then the city becomes costly. If Bisleri is the only water desired by people then the water becomes costly, else its free. But this does not hapen in India.
Over the years we Indians are conditioned to live within our means, have low expectations and be Happy.
We dont expect good roads to be good hence even a single strech of non-potholed road (barring the ups and downs of gutter covers) makes us happy--- "Perceived value"
We dont expect good public transport, hence the 4th seat in the Mumbai local gives us a feeling of having achieved the "expected benefit" and "perceived value' of the ticket.
We dont expect to have good Public health systems for masses hence the perceived value of the floor in the Municipal hospital and whatever free medicines given seems high.
Hence Yes Mumbai Is cheap, Yes Delhi is cheap, depending on wether we "Expect" people to survive on the Wada Pav, cutting chai and potholed roads or Expect them to a have decent meal, clean water and public health benefits.
It shall remain cheap as long as we dont "Expect" more from the administration, we dont "Expect" parity in basic necessities for the masses and the classes.
YES WE ARE CHEAP NOT IN PRICES BUT IN EXPECTATIONS AND THATs NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF ......

Pest"In"Side Cola

"I dont know which side to take but the govt must do something about it....." Ended Barkha Dutt on "we the people" talk show on NDTV yesterday featuring the "Pesticide in Cola" controversy.
I think most people would echo her words in this controversy. Its too complicated for the common man to comment anyway - what with technical standards who themsleves are challenged, talks about Carcinogens and Water impurities......

I generally dont drink Cola by itself. I am a fitness fanatic and prefer my cuppa of tea or the carcinogenic Coffee. (Term i picked from this controversy). Now they tell me the cola has pesticides but the coffee is much more dangerous. Now dont tell me I should quit coffee tooo??? Well just day before someone also told me that Paneer is dangerous for the heart.... bad cholestrol or something... so I told my Punjabi wife about it and she said "well good, from now on You shall not get It...." Its only a day later did I realise that the "IT" in the sentence meant "any food".......
Anyway I dont want to drag my personal problems in this already hot controversy. Now i wonder why does it have to be Cola?... If I understand it properly the cola war is about cola's having pesticides in quantams higher than "Some" Standard (which by the way is itself controversial).... However the excess is itself in PPM (parts per million) why not oppose the cigarrates of these world. which are harmful as a whole? Why not ban them as promptly as the govt. of MP and Gujarat banned Colas? I am sure more poison sticks are sold than Colas and they have a faster effect than colas?
I remember someone asking a similar question on the NDTV show but he was silenced by Barkha dutt by saying that "Just because bigger evils are not banned cannot be a justification for not banning smaller evils". DO You agree?? I dont. I smell a rat here. WHy go behind Cola companies who would want to guard their image and pay compensations vs going for Smoke companies who would agree readily to their ill effects? Why I say?
Anyway... I think all this boils down to one question.. the question of choice. I as an indiviual should be made aware of what the world thinks to be right and wrong.. but the choice of what I want to do must be left to me.. as long as I dont harm anyone else in the process.
Colas are bad for health.. You dont need a Nutritionist to tell u that, But so is Liquor, Paneer, Ghee, Or for that matter 80% of anything and everything that tastes good. So what.... I always have a choice to go for them.....why force everyone to be a fitness freak?

Anyway, You shall find enough blogs with diff opinions on this all I want to ask as a layman is a simple question. I generally drink cola in some form only to mix my drinks. All i want to know is does mixing pesticide ridden cola make my Vodka and Rum dangerous tooo or does the bad effect sof alcohol negate them?.....;-) hic hic