Why am I still Bullish on #Twitter

Though stock has taken a plunge , I am still very bullish on $TWTR. Here is my sentimental logic

• Twitter is actually very big. Lot bigger than FB. That may surprise you. Here is the reason. A network should NOT be measured by number of users or number of eyeballs on a specific ad. The true measure of network is the number of meaningful connections. Number of meaningful connections determine “How quickly can information move from one place to another”. #Facebook tries to achieve information dissemination thru intelligent maneuvering of your newsfeed. But this is temporary in nature cuz people understand the tinkering pretty quickly. Twitter doesn’t have to do it cuz people automatically choose what they want to follow.
• The model “Leader to Follower” has unlimited growth potential. If a leader has a million followers that means a million connections. On the other hand ; Facebook’s “Friend to Friend” model is very limiting. Twitter, by design, is a place where a leader wants to grow his network. Facebook on the other hand is a place where privacy is the key. Facebook has tried to change its DNA in recent years and there are people with million followers on FB but thats like “a right person in a wrong place”.
• Twitter has no privacy concerns cuz everything is open by design. All other networks have privacy issues. As the social media becomes main stream , the privacy issues are going to exponentially increase.
• Youth is finally moving to Twitter. I can see this in my teenage kids and their friend circles. FB is there but Twitter is cool. Something to do with brand. It feels like Facebook is in a hurry to get old whereas Twitter is still stuck in its boyhood.
• Leaders identify themselves with their Twitter handle. A true transfer of public ID from email to Twitter handle. Have you ever seen someone giving you his phone number or email address anymore on TV ?
• Facebook has recently launched “FB for Work”. This is a sure way to make some short term money (and further please bean counters) but once you identify a brand with Work, its going Staples route. Work is Dell, Mac is life.. As a consumer brand, last thing you want to do is identify yourself as a workplace tool.

Originally published on Medium by me 

Office is finally shaping up on web

 I stumbled on the web version of outlook few days back cuz my laptop client wasn't responding. I purposefully logged Internet Explorer assuming IE would be most tested browser for Outlook though later I discovered its equally powerful on Chrome.  

As a background  , I have used Outlook ( and most other office apps )  on every possible platform .. Windows , Mac, iOS, Android and on devices of every shape and form. it might sound crazy but I sync my work outlook on as many 13 different clients :-) While each of the office apps is a great individual one, Office in itself always remained a bundle of apps . This is changing with office on Web ; its more like a productivity platform now. Its a big deal,  for bringing the whole Office and Share Point experience to web is no mean task and shows new Microsoft is as committed to open web as its to Windows

The best part is -  it works. For example, I am not missing my desktop outlook app any more. Online Word , Excel, Power Point and One Note are still not enterprise grade but its a matter of time only ..  direction is right. The biggest surprise was Peoples app on the web. Its way more powerful as now we can create collaboration groups on the fly .. search for company wide distribution lists and actually see who all are there in those lists. And its easy !
I think Microsoft deserves credit for building such superior office experience on web when everything else is getting Appified . And doing this in parallel (and with equal focus) on iOS, Mac and Windows mobile platform is even more praise worthy. A true spirit of word "365". 

Originally published on Linkedin by me

Master of None

My first reaction to my daughter’s message on our family thread was ‘huh’. This is going to be another Aziz Ansari typical. In your face, fast chanting of vernacular English, intelligent but well past the limits of vulgarity. I thought I will pass .. Discussion ‘however’ continued and things go into subconscious. And then become actions ..

The first episode was pretty hopeless. I was looking for a story. It was not forthcoming. Then I started looking for things to at the very least take a shape. Nope ..
I was sure that I was not going back. I still have episodes pending from ‘Game of Thrones’ and I want to catch up ‘House of Cards’ again. There was something though in ‘Master of None’. I ended up watching two episodes day before yesterday and binged three last night.
That made me think as to what is it ? The work is actually more than a comedy. It sincerely reflected an inner city American single. And there are different vantage points with each episode. Kids , parents , old people , flings, friendship , sex and so on. It brings out the sensitivities of this generation however shallow they may be. And the laugh is intelligently woven into the fabric of plot. Not something imposed as an after thought.

Aziz and Alan actually pulled off quite a piece of art in the sense the work appears honest. Not any unreal climax. Charming but very grounded. Intelligent (as expected of Aziz) but not overtly complicated (for the sake of it) . Master of none crafts a dilemma of choice that makes millennials move too fast from one option to another. Leaving them little time to master one but as an audience it leaves you hydrated and filled. It doesn’t bloat anywhere. At the same time it invokes a very inquisitive discussion across generations. Not to resolve any gaps, but just to lay them out there for everyone to read and understand.
As for Aziz , it was a long jump from a stand up actor to a writer director. A slippery winding road.... very well traversed. 

First published by me on Medium ...Check out