Tag: evolution

A relic in a new age

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

Another day, another James Bond rumour. Of all the great franchises out there, 007’s—perhaps appropriately—seems to play its cards the closest to its chest. Eon Productions always rations information about where their legendary character is going right up to the point they are ready to announce his destination, and for what looks to be Daniel […]

via What if killing off Daniel Craig’s James Bond makes sense? —

I love Bond flicks. As someone who has watched James Bond escape traps and defeat villains right from childhood days, it’s a treat to read this article.

Not only does the author know his Bond, but also he is able to tell apart the different Bonds from each other (Connery from Moore, Brosnan from Craig, etc). However, do read through the entire article that I have linked above. Perhaps, it is time for Mr. Bond to die.

What the author seems to suggest is that Bond being the immortal he is manages to still beat the odds, but is feeling the pressures of age. James Bond is a legacy system.

What is a legacy system?

In organizations, a legacy system is that system which has been running for quite some time. It is running because the organization does not feel the need to update the system and the system has been running satisfactorily.

By this I mean, the system has its fair share of problems, but its a known devil. People know the workarounds, they know how to work with the system and how to sometimes work around it. They live with it … but every year they do a calculation of what will it take to replace it. Since what the system does represent is technical debt.

Unless the system does not magically upgrade itself or reinvent itself, the technical debt would be carried over.

What can be done to technical debt?

It has to be paid back in full, and sometimes with interest

This debt has to be paid either in terms of loss in productivity or in terms of cost incurred in upgrading the system.

So, either you keep updating and patching the legacy system … so in Mr. Bond’s case, there’s a constant need to evolve and keep getting better.

Or you simply retire the system, or replace the system with a slightly modern version of the sytem. What we have been seeing when it comes to the casting of James Bond. Daniel Craig would now shoot his 5th Bond flick. This would be his last.

What do you want for Bond?

Being an ardent James Bond fan, I would love to see Bond re-invent himself into a mix of Q and M who is also on the field. If wishes could be horses, beggars would ride.

Futurebazaar

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

In December 2006, we were working on an e-commerce portal aimed for the B2C segment. It was supposed to rival Amazon in terms of features, experience, technology … a very ambitious project. When doing market research for that project, we tried out many Indian e-commerce sites, actually shopped on some of them, and literally choose from the best of them the features we want to build. That was the first time I came across Futurebazaar. I bought a book, (Shantaram) from the site, the book was delivered in a week or so. I soon forgot about the site, little did I know that I was one of the first customers on the portal. Within a month or so, I got a mail from them saying so and also an invitation to their public media launch. Wow! My first media launch invitation!! Wheee!!

I look at the site now, almost 40 months later, and I can see how well they have evolved. No more the tacky-looking nested menus, distinct spaces which map onto their physical presences, interesting sales promotions (Lucky Wheel thingy), only products which they stock in their physical stores, support offered through their physical stores, etc. The way they have evolved their business from being a pure play online shop to a click and brick model is to be applauded.

Kudos to you Futurebazaar!!

Web 4.0: The Enabling Web

Prasad Ajinkya5 Comments

Forgive me, this post is going to be a long one.

In the brief span of its existence, the web has evolved at such an alarming rate, that it outstrips evolution of any living organism. Even as Indian web users and web development companies are creating (and using) Web 2.0 platforms, the more developed nations are already talking about Web 3.0, the semantic web.

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Not so surprisingly, I have found to my chagrin that 80% or more of the Indian populace associate Web 2.0 with client side technologies instead of a collaborative technology. People associate it with all the wrong ideas … I do not blame them. Awareness has always been the bane of comprehension. Having said that, I decided that it would do some good if we can somehow capture the evolution of the internet in these already popular phrases, and somehow manage to extrapolate what the next stage could be – so that we are prepared when it comes ;-)

Or even better, a host of Indian companies could bring in the era of Web 4.0: The Enabling Web. So what are these evolutionary milestones?

Web 1.0: The Information Superhighway

This is the internet of yore. Those were the days when people would make separate HTML pages and upload it on the net. Content was written within these pages and uploaded. It was authoritative in nature, since most of these sites were a one way communication stream. People came to different sites with the sole aim of gathering information – hence the name, the Information Superhighway.

Web 2.0: A Collaborative Medium

This is the internet that we see around us these days. The web is more social now, its a place to meet interesting people – to collaboratively create content. Content is not written within pages, content is created by the users themselves. The more the users, the more the content. What the developers create is a platform which enables this co-creation between the users. A great example of this is Wikipedia or IMDB.

 

 

 

Web 3.0: A sense making layer

The new era of internet is coming, this can somehow make sense out of the user’s inputs and act accordingly. So when I say “Show me a blue lotus”, the internet should show me the image of a blue car instead of a blue flower. How does it do this? It already has my preferences for cars over flowers somewhere. This is where collaborative filtering mechanisms and business intelligence algorithms are used to correctly profile the user. The internet is capable of understanding what the user is speaking. It differentiates a Gandhi from a Hitler. Some examples of this would be WolframAlpha or Amazon.

Web 4.0: The Enabling Web

So what happens when the web begins the “understand” the user. The sole question is – “What’s the point?”. If it can understand the user, it can also understand the purpose with which the user is driven to visit a particular web application. And, if that can be done, then it won’t be too difficult to understand and provide what other resources would help the user reach his outcome. The web suddenly becomes a more intertwined place with each web application talking to others, so as to provide the best experience to its user. Not only experience, but to ensure that the user is enabled with the right set of resources to get his job done. The purpose of the user is kept at the center. That’s my vision for web 4.0 akin to a more evolved Ubiquity extension of Firefox.