Keep it simple "Sam"

A must watch video especially for all those NRIs who "Americanize" their Indian names.

Birds in my backyard

This time of the year, each morning (around 8.30 am onwards) a flock of birds land up to sun bathe in the "Adyar creek" area which forms our apartment's backyard.

The rich greenery after the recent rains dotted by these - mostly white, some brown - birds makes for a relaxing view. Watch a slide show of photos shot from my home office window (and a couple of them from our apartment's terrace) here.

"How RSS feeds are like magazine subscriptions"

A great post by Kaps comparing RSS feeds and magazine subscrptions:

RSS feed subscriptions are quite similar to magazine subscriptions. A subscription shows a commitment to read but there is no guarantee that the subscriber will read it. Both are delivered to you once the stuff is published.

A higher subscription base provides some comfort level to the writer / blogger as he/she knows that there is a committed readership.

Blog comments are like ‘Letters to the Editor’. Accolades are hard to come by.

People who visit the blog directly are similar to people who buy the magazine from the newsstand. This kind of readership is normally seasonal (usually Mon – Fri).

Promising Local Site: I Love Chennai

G.R.Krishna ("GRK") has launched I Love Chennai, a very neat looking web site and "campaign" for folks who are passionate about this cool (huh!) city.

The web site has some great photos, including as part of the Chennai Photoblog. A good example (of a couple of "machis" on their bikes):

ILC also has an online discussion forum and plans to soon launch "Its our City", "an online PDF ezine" to which "you can contribute articles, photos, writeups, ideas...etc".

A very promising start indeed! I hope ILC continues to keep up the initial momentum. They are absolutely on the right track by making it a community effort.

Long term, I think such a creative and community focused effort can give mainline papers - like The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle (that silly tabloid passing off as a newspaper with its horrible Sun TV ads ), TOI (if and when they eventually launch) - and even the neighbourhood papers a serious run for their money.

PS: Here's my 2-bit for GRK and co.: get the guys behind Bosey on to this platform.

An interesting SMS-revenue based UK Co.

Here's what their service - AQA - does:

We're called AQA, which stands for Any Question Answered. AQA was set up to get you answers to all of your questions - wherever you are, whenever you need them.

Simply text a question to 63336 and we'll get the answer back to you in a couple of minutes or so. It costs £1 and the best bit is all you'll get is the answer. No endless spam or junk mail.

Anyone on a major UK mobile phone network can use AQA, even travelling abroad. Save 63336 in your phone and you can get an answer in plain English wherever you are. Why not try a question here for free?

Just before you get carried away, a couple of words of warning. We won't answer questions that offend or invade privacy. And try to keep your questions under 160 characters otherwise your lovely network operator will charge you more than £1. (For further details on the AQA service please see the help section or our editorial policy.)

That's it. Now get texting. We update this web site daily with the best questions. You never know, yours could be up here tomorrow.

Check out AQA (if you are in the UK that is) at http://www.issuebits.com/