Comments for Praval's Musings

Comment on What NOT to do with Bloggers! by Abhijeet Mukherjee

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:56:00 +0000

The folks at Indiblogger and Samsung have screwed up big time no doubt. Hope they learn some lessons from this debacle. And this wasn’t the only one; the contest prior to this, which was about the Intel PC App tool, was also misjudged and I have vented my anger about it on Twitter and Facebook. The Indiblogger guys seriously need to get their act together. The funny thing is that there has been absolutely no communication yet from both the parties on this matter. Really weird.

Bloggers too should keep in mind that jumping on every opportunity and participating in contests which demand things to be done just for the sake of getting links and posts (like here, the review units were not distributed to the participants beforehand) damages their own credibility and they should stay away from such contests and promotion drives.

Comment on What NOT to do with Bloggers! by Ankur

Ankur — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:44:00 +0000

I always knew that giveaway wont work out and company got what they needed. lot of publicity through famous blogs.

Comment on What NOT to do with Bloggers! by Rounak Jain

Rounak Jain — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:24:00 +0000

Although I’m a newbie, and could have fallen for the prize, I’m glad I didn’t. I know several Brand-exclusive blogs, not related to the company in question here, blogging about it. Such a sad world, this one.

And by the way, good post.

Comment on What NOT to do with Bloggers! by Angad Bhatia

Angad Bhatia — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:12:00 +0000

Hi Praval, i share your perspective.

Comment on What NOT to do with Bloggers! by Vamsi M

Vamsi M — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:05:00 +0000

Good one. It certainly is a lesson for all of us.
@Raj,
This is really a WTF moment?
Bang on target.

Comment on What NOT to do with Bloggers! by Vivek Parmar

Vivek Parmar — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:03:00 +0000

well that’s quite funny and that’s the reason why i hate tech blogging. Without having any knowledge you publish anything and that too without any proof…
For an example, if a popular tech blog publishes it, then the same story churned into another format and repubishes on other blogs in no time.
Now the question is there, whether we blame the company or the bloggers? Everyone has their point, company needs sale and bloggers like giveaways, review units, etc..

Comment on What NOT to do with Bloggers! by Raj

Raj — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:59:00 +0000

Half of the winners didn’t even what a Galaxy Tab is they are selected as the winners, if you allow me i need to use the F*** word.. This is really a WTF moment?

Comment on Compress Your 1 GB data to Just 10 MB ! by star

star — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 05:58:00 +0000

Sorry that software take lot of time i want fast

Comment on The Windows Phone 7 – How good? by nik

nik — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:36:00 +0000

I don’t know the exact reason, but I love windows . Its the best thing in technology. It has eased the lifes of thousands. I love their products for their simplicity and look forward to Windows 7 phone.

Comment on Dropping out? by Ravish

Ravish — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:29:00 +0000

I am glad I dropped out after high school to start my startup. I spent my teenage hacking stuff on internet and Indian education system didn’t have much to offer. It could not see what good use I could make out of 4 years in an Indian college, where most of the time is wasted in mass bunks and college politics instead of education.

It is very much clear that vast majority of graduates in India are unskilled / unemployable because the universities and colleges failed to provide education to them. Some of them do make up as employees of
body shops like TCS, Wipro and Infosys. But, hardly anyone of them has what it takes to solve hard problems.

I never wanted to work for an Indian services company. But back in the day, startups in India were unheard of. I worked with a US startup, contributed to open source projects and did freelance work. $2,000 was a lot of money for a teenager in 7 years ago. It was a huge motivating factor, which lead me to my startup.

May be I missed out on the social aspect of college, but then I did not want to socialize with aimless douchebags (Punjab colleges are full of them). I wanted to socialize with like-minded hackers, and
people smarter than me.

Initially, I felt embarrassed when anyone asked me what college I go to. But, now I am a proud dropout. I have no regrets, life is good and I get to work with really smart people. I would recommend taking a break after school for a year to give a shot at a startup. If it doesn’t work well, you can always go back to college.

Additionally, working for another startup can be a great learning experience. You can learn a lot more than what you would learn in a college, that too in shorter time.

At least, get a part time job while you go to college. Kids all over the world work part time while they go to school. Why can’t Indian kids do that? Many people do not start working till the age of 25 and keep hiding behind the walls of college while wasting parent’s money.