YouTube Awards 2007

YouTube awards is said to be the new Emmy's and the next Oscars-cum-People's choice awards put together. Take a look at nominees in each category - http://www.youtube.com/ytawards07 and decide for yourself whether YouTube awards is worth those words. The nominees and winners of You Tube awards are so astonishing that you would not believe that they are user generated content, produced with no profit motive in mind.

Second Annual YouTube awards for the year 2007 was announced 2 days ago. The winning videos show how simple people could produce amazing videos with innovation and a little luck.

The awards were first organized in 2007 to "call out some of the most popular videos and let the users choose which ones deserve some additional recognition". The 2007 awards comprised twelve categories: Adorable, Comedy, Commentary, Creative, Eyewitness, Inspirational, Instructional, Music, Politics, Series, Short Film and Sports

Notable Winners:

Best eyewitness video was the epic "Battle at Kruger," which has drawn more than 26 million views to its astonishing footage of a baby buffalo surviving an attack by lions — and 2 crocodiles! — in the African prairie. It was up against the news-making clip of a University of Florida student pleading "Don't tase me, bro!" as police removed him from a John Kerry forum.

A Kingston man’s mock-Harry Potter puppet show beat a mock-Paris Hilton music video and a power drink commercial spoof to win “Best Comedy Video”. “Laughing Baby” featuring 9-month-old Ethan won in the “Adorable” category. The video showed Ethan having fun by tearing paper. It reminded me everything good about my childhood.

Other winners include Nebraska high school senior Dan Brown, whose video "How to Solve a Rubik's Cube (Part One)" scored in the instructional category. Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain” won in the “Music” category.

For viewing the nominee videos visit http://www.youtube.com/ytawards07 and for viewing the winners of YouTube Awards 2007 visit http://www.youtube.com/ytawards07winners.

Tweetup : Chennai Twitter Meet-Up

Twitters in Chennai are meeting tomorrow at Amethyst Cafe for a casual meet up. If you twitter, don't miss this event since you can get to meet early tech adopters of India. Don't even need to make a guess with regard to organizer of the meet-up. It is Kiruba, who is behind Chennai's first Twitter Meet-Up. He was the one who organized Chennia's Blogger Meets in the earlier days, thus setting up a trend for other Indian cities to follow.

 

For more details visit http://tweetup.pbwiki.com/

 

Personally, I would have loved to attend the event. But Coming from Tirunelveli, just for the Twitter Meet-Up is next to impossible. So, I am missing the meet-up. :(

Goodbye IIM Indore

IIM Indore is one of the few places on earth where only a few could resist falling in love with the place. And a single post is surely not enough to share the fun and amazing experiences that one has in the hillock that never sleeps. In 2 years, there were few things that amazed me, a huge number of things that I am going to miss and an infinite number of things that i loved about the campus.

IIM Indore is a campus where things/people can never stop amazing you. Once I landed in IIM Indore, the first thing that amazed me was the wonderful, down-to-earth, intelligent people you get to meet in the campus. And the people never stopped amazing me in my 2 years there. And I can vouch that most of them is going to make big in their lives.

After living in IIM Indore for 2 years, everybody would have their unique hundreds of things that they are going to miss. My List would include Late night Maggis, Alive at 4am Work Style, Always 'Busy' GTalk Status,Thousands of movies and Hundreds of Serials on ODC, CPs, Late night walks, Heated Arguments on Ordinary Issues and Boring Professors. Hmm.... But the thing I most loved about this place is living in a planet pre-occupied with itself and totally disconnected from the world.

Now the time has come to move on. Good Bye! IIM Indore - Place where i came to know my love for Blogging and Place a boy Became a Man! Good Bye.

P.S: Can read 'Farewell Posts' of other IIM Indore Students here, here, here and here.

Beware of what you share online

What would be you reaction

on seeing the information from your social networking profile

printed on a newspaper article, without your permission?

There are a thousands of articles on the net advising us caution on sharing personal information on social networking websites like Orkut, Facebook, Myspace, etc. But still, today's New York Times article on Ashley Alexandra Dupre - Woman at the Center of NY Governor Eliot Spitzer's Downfall managed to surprise me on the amount of information that was used from Ashley's Myspace page.

With Ashley spending the last few days out of the public eye, the New York Times uses the myspace profile information as the basis for most of their article. A Sample below:

She left “a broken family” at age 17, having been abused, according to the MySpace page, and has used drugs and “been broke and homeless.”

I don't know whether it is legal to use information from the social networking profile page without the owner's permission but it is not surely ethical in my eyes. If the New York Times itself has no issues using information from social networking profile pages, think about others. Who knows who will read our Social Networking Profiles. So Always, Beware of what you share online.

D.Viswanathan, Thanks for the fun!!!

Hindu reports that the two campuses of Anna University in the city – MIT Chromepet and Guindy campus – will be declared “tobacco-free” zones today. Sorry for my Deja-Vu! But there has been a ban on sale and use of tobacco products, including cigarettes, beedis, and chewable tobacco products such as pan masala and guthka, even before I entered the campus on June, 2002. In my four years in the campus, I have never seen any body selling or using tobacco products in public. [Thanks to the punishment that was swift and tough]

And D. Viswanathan, who likes his photo on the front page of newspapers, uses No-Smoking Day(March 12) to get his name on the front page. He has proudly announced to the press that Anna University is the first educational institution in the State to give effect to such a ban, when it has been there for ages. But what he fails to mention is that Anna University is the only campus where cell phones are banned and students are not allowed to wear t-shirts in campus - both classes and hostels. [100% ridiculous rules born in the creative mind of D. Viswanthan]

But the killer comment was

"Emphasis would not be on punishing, but on ‘reforming’ students."

Viswanathan, If you want to really reform something, reform the teaching methodologies that belong to the last centurey, reform the age-old bureaucracy in the campus that hinders students' innovation and creativity, reform the teaching community, etc...


But anyway, thanks for the fun you provide. Hope to see more of these killer comments in the front page.

5 reasons for Supporting Hillary Clinton

In India, you rarely vote for a person because you like him. Rather the vote is decided on the basis of whom you hate the most. So, Seeing the plethora of eligible and likable Presidential nominees that an American voter has, makes me jealous. This kicked off an keen interest in nomination elections especially in the close contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for Democratic Party Presidential Nomination.

Right from the early days of the nomination process, i developed a liking for Hillary Clinton and would have signed myself as a volunteer in her campaign if i was in US. Since i belong to 2 groups - Youth and Techie that forms a key supporter base of Obama, I thought i would reason out my logic for being different.

1. Obama Will win the Democratic Presidential nomination

For both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Becoming the U.S. President is not only a dream but an obsession. But with the relative young age of Obama(46 years), this obsession would not end even if he loses 2008 Democratic Presidential Nomination. But that is not the case with Hillary Clinton. If she loses this nomination, her dreams of becoming the US president would come crashing down.

When you have 2 eligible candidates, whom do you choose?

• Option of having only one of them as a Presidential nominee
• Option of having one now and another later

2. Known Devil is better than Unknown Angel

It is always better to choose a known person who delivers rather than an unknown person who promises the sky. With the relatively lesser time that Barack Obama has spent before the scrutiny of the public and media, I tend to favor Hillary Clinton. Yeah! Barack Obama inspires hope... But Does he really believe in the message? Or Is He using it only as a means to attract voters?

3. Economy

For rest of the world, key issue of the Presidential elections is economy and how the new President is going to ensure that the U.S. economy rebounds from the sub prime crisis and the upcoming recession. Obama if elected, could be expected to push for policies that are populist rather than those that would solve the problem. But from Clinton, you could expect Solutions and not populist measures.

4. Indian Connections:

My Indian Connections means that i prefer Clinton because

• Obama might send troops to Pakistan which would not only destabilize Pakistan but the entire South Asia
• Obama has already opposed outsourcing once and he could be expected to do the same once more if the situation warrants it. Read TOI's editorial on the issue.

5. Underdog

The world loves underdog victories in sports, movies and even in politics. And I am no exception. At present, Hillary Clinton is a underdog in Democratic Presidential nomination where her odds are stacked against her. And How lovely it would be to see her triumph!!!

Placement '08 @ IIM Indore

Campus Placements are always a great experience in anyone's lives. It is the time when you are unsure of your future and have a thousand of questions in your heart - whether I will be placed? If so, where? What will be my salary?, etc.. Studying in an elite institute like IIM Indore has an advantage that you can be sure about getting a job offer. Only Question would be whether you will get your dream profile in the dream company with a dream salary.

But this time, the situation was different. With Sub Prime Crisis and precarious state of US Economy, rumors were flying around that a huge number of Investment Banks & foreign companies(Day Zero Companies) were not going to turn up in IIM - Ahmedabad, IIM - Bangalore and IIM - Calcutta. So we were worried whether this would have any cascading effect on IIM Indore. But thanks to an awesome work done by IIM Indore Placement committee, most of the students were happy with the offers they received.

Highlight of the Placement '08 in IIM Indore:

• 42% growth in the number of participating companies (Batch Size increased by 50% this year)
• 20% growth in Average Domestic Salary over Last year [Driven by the huge increase in Average salary of Marketing Offers - Highest Ever in the Campus]
• Highest Domestic Salary offered - 26 Lakhs p.a. [44% Increase compared to last year]
• About 50% of the batch accepted offers from the Banking and Financial Services.
• Among the different sectors, Average Salary of IT companies was the lowest [With US Recession looming around, all the IT companies were pretty cautious]
• Top 50 offers had an average salary of INR 18 Lakhs per annum [International offers may have been included in calculating this]
• Average Salary of accepted offers - INR 13.07 Lakhs per annum [Here too, International offers may have been included]

To read the complete report, Click IIM Indore - Final Placement Report 2008.

IIM Indore in its 10 years of existence has surely achieved some stupendous growth and recognition in the Indian Corporate. This year's Placement stands testament to the fact that IIM Indore can attract top notch placement not only during the boom years but also when things are not going its way.

Disclaimer: All the facts and numbers are taken from IIM Indore's Placement report. Hope you know that the placement report of all the B-Schools have to be taken with a pinch of salt.