Google search / how do they do it?

It’s not so easy. I was watching a lot of training sessions to understand how they do their search so efficiently and effectively.

It turns out, there is quite a logic that runs at the backend and none of it is fluke. They hire PhD’s to do stuff and even here, they try to understand the context of the user’s abstract search query in real world terms and usage and application. ex: a simple “Dr.” can be used in multiple contexts. One could be the real doctor. Or it could be “Drive” that form a part of some US addresses. Or it could be “denominator”. Or it could be “Dr.” and coupled with its other search terms. The permutations and combinations are just mind boggling and yet Google almost always gets it right – doesn’t it? HOW DO THEY DO IT? 

It is only after their built-in artificial intelligence kicks in to give users’ not just a sorted relevant search result list but one that makes sense to them as well. This is no easy ask and hats off to the folks at Google for getting this right.

I listened to a lot of presentations and keynotes from:

Marissa Mayer Vice President, Search Products & User Experience

who is a workoholic and most of her presentations gave me a new dimension to understand GUI, usability and user experience.

http://www.google.com/corporate/execs.html#marissa

Google truly is a world-class company and I have blogged about them about an year and a half ago as well on the book – The Google story which I found enthralling as well.

Why am I crazy about Wall Street/US monetary policies?

Simply because, it has a huge impact - no matter where you are in this world!

What happens out there impacts every single country in this world. It impacts you you and you. It impacts the decision making we make on our jobs etc. It impacts our local domestic economy. No matter how much we claim of ourselves being insulated from Wall Street, the truth is its just an eyewash. We will all get affected by the mayhem on Wall Street and the effects take at least 6 months to trickle into economies such as India and China. This is what happened in 2001 and I was a very close observer of what happened then and used to take very conservative decisions that paid off on multiple fronts and hence it is imperative I do the same again.

Ecofinglobe.com and its statistics from an year ago

I was chancing to look upon my blog’s readership and it has skyrocketed in last few months. To give you an idea of how much the readership for http://www.ecofin.wordpress.com has gone up by, Alexa rating has shown a consistent rise in my webpage ranking (it currently stands at 755139 worldwide and its India ranking is better at 58137. Furthermore, my year old blog stats shows my blog to have averaged 9999 hits way in May 2007. The current count stands at 77791.

Above means nothing if people don’t read posts. Simple page views/hits serve no value absolutely. The most important indicator that indicates the health status of a blog is its post:comment ratio. My blog’s average post:comment ratio is at about 1:2. This means, for every post I put up, I get double the # of comments. This ratio was about 2:1 last year at about the same time and it had not even reached breakeven. So, it is a satisfaction that my blog is a success in terms of these critical metrics.

Thank you, all for making this blog readable! Its only my readers who can turnaround this blog and I hope to keep you as repeat readers so the value of this blog is enhanced further!

Keep visiting back – you know where to look for me: http://www.ecofinglobe.com!

Texas Instruments – BA II Plus Professional Financial calculator acquired!

I bought this advanced financial calculator (the Texas Instruments BA II PLUS Professional) for all my complicated calculations and to manage my portfolio of assets. Actually, this is primarily used only by CFA’s and CPA’s as its one of the only two authorized calculators for their examinations etc. Its cool!

Blogging guidelines – my two cents

What are the important factors one needs to consider before one begins to blog:

1. First, get over this obsession of Google adsense. 99/100 bloggers I meet first think of making a quick buck on adsense rather than focus on quality of their blogs and its relevance towards the topic(s) chosen! This is really very disturbing statistics.

Research reports to come shortly – aka McKinseyQuarterly style

All our research reports would be in PDF format and we are going to do comprehensive consulting analysis for our readers on myriad topics especially on the business sectors.

All research reports would be made available at http://www.acc101.com

Watch that space for more.

Will Infosys acquire Capgemini

Yesterday at the dinner table at Tandoor – a posh restaurant on MG Road, this rather interesting topic sprung up at our dinner table conversation.

I stayed mum giving non-commital responses as I myself wasn’t sure if it was ever going to happen.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to examine if there is any merit in this acquisition and I don’t make any attempt at fuelling further speculations. I am merely expressing my freedom of thought and expression in an analytical perspective. My analysis will be filled with numbers – First of all, I am no M&A expert and will be trying my hand at something new here and secondly, I am an MBA (wildcard characters pun not intended!) and cannot speak casually about number driven things like these - I need to put figures to analysis reports so it makes sense else why have this blog in the first place? Let me look at their annual reports and compare notes with people working at both organizations before commenting on this interesting development – even if it was just a rumour.

Watch this space for more as they unfold.

Retail opportunities in India

India is witnessing a revolution in the retail sector. The demand is great, public consumption has never been higher, disposable incomes are shooting through the roof, the economy is motoring ahead, GDP growth is touching double digits, people are becoming health conscious leading to demand for health foods – so where is the catch?

India Post – the road to recovery

Image source: http://www.indiapost.gov.in/

India Post is a jewel in the crown of the Government office provided it can be managed well and steered in the right direction.

How to sell anything to anybody – book review

This is a book written by the world’s greatest salesman who sold close to 13001 Chevrolet cars in his career and has been recognized by the Guiness book of world records as the world’s greatest salesperson – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Girard