Anybody who surfs online has, at some point or the other, used Wikipedia. And maybe you use it several times a week. But how much do you really know about the world’s leading online encyclopedia?

I have used Wikipedia first at college and later at work and consider myself quite an expert on how to work with and around the website. Here are some of my suggestions to get the most from your favorite encyclopedia:

1. Google Maps and Wikipedia: Did you know that Google Maps comes with a Wikipedia layer? Try this out by clicking on the menu on the top right of your Google Maps page and selecting Wikipedia.
2. Better search results: In addition to the usual search shortcuts such as double quotes and hyphens, Wikipedia offers a few more tricks. Add an asterisk (*) to a search term to pull up all results containing the word. Use a tilde (~) to access “fuzzy” search results – useful when you don’t know the exact spelling (happens when you’re dreaming in class).
3. Publish your very own Wikipedia book: Arrange Wikipedia articles into a book by selecting ‘Create a book’ under the Print tab on the left side of the page. Add appropriate Wikipedia articles into a book and then download it as a pdf.
4. 4. Mobile Wiki: Go mobile by using the ‘lite’ version of Wikipedia. Use http://en.m.wikipedia.org/ for a better reference option when you are on the go.
5. Leave out distractions: Dozens of links in a Wikipedia page may make it too distracting to read. Simply make the page a printable version by clicking on the option under the Print tab on the left menu.

Have fun trying out these new tricks and let me know if you have anymore.

Popularity: 35% [?]

While reading up on BYOD and consumerization of IT, I came across some interesting statistics as well as ideas. For starters, do you know that 10 million iPads are expected to be sold this year? Amazing isn’t it? While talking to people in the industry, I also realize that this trend is becoming more and more mainstream. Am sure you would have seen a few ipads being used in meetings! Few companies have even started running BYOD campaigns internally. For the company, yes, this means lesser investments in devices and also potentially improving productivity and employee satisfaction.

However, while this is all exciting, as always, there are a few challenges that need to be overcome by IT teams. One of the biggest challenges would be the security angle. With a multitude of devices to service, it is a veritable nightmare for IT teams. Imagine having to upgrade business apps across different kinds of devices, OS’ etc. Also, allowing employees to bring in their own devices leaves IT teams with very less control and company sensitive data  could be compromised easily. So, what are some ways in which security can be enforced on this trend?

Typically, security was enforced at the end point or at the device end – your laptops have anti-virus software for instance. However, this is not really practical in the new scenario. So, companies such as Cisco are moving security to a cloud server in the back end. So, your device does not have any security software and instead when you connect to the office network, scanning happens from a cloud server. So, both consumerization of IT and cloud computing have been effectively married to provide employees with a much better work experience while taking care of company interests as well. Wonder what other technology advances we have in store for us next!

Popularity: 29% [?]

While in the midst of an interesting debate on whether social media has any use for B2B tech companies, I chanced upon this analysis during my morning’s browsings I found so apt and “linkedin” with the topic of contention!
For its special feature on CEO Guide to Sentiment analysis, Businessweek had asked Netbase, a company that analyzes online sentiment, to compare what users felt about leading tech companies. The results, complied through an analysis of conversations on facebook, tweets and product review forums, are mostly predictable, but did have some surprise element as well.
That Apple and Google are the most “loved” brands comes as no surprise. Likewise, Twitter and Apple are also among the most talked about brands. I however found it interesting that HP and Linkedin have managed to create a passionate fan following and move into the “love” quadrant- HP has managed this with its printers and laptops! I also found facebook’s position in the “hate” quadrant intriguing (given all the drama around it’s half a billion users) though not entirely unsurprising. That Microsoft is discussed far, far less than, say, a twitter or an Apple or a Google, did take me by surprise, though its positioning in the passion index map did not.
Another observation (related to my debate too) is that leading B2B brands including Cisco, Oracle and Intel feature in the “like” quadrant- though, of course, they are far less discussed than B2C players. Still, isn’t it worth monitoring what users say about their brands? Example- Cisco, a company that is currently doing some soul searching of its own, is the most liked brand- and the company would be happy to note that! It scores high on reliability and that is something the company would factor into its ongoing re-focusing exercise.
In conclusion, unsolicited opinions from end users are an important input for any company, big or small. They are probably more honest than formal efforts, at times and need to be judiciously interwoven into a company’s market tracking mechanisms. I believe that we are past the stage where we can ignore online conversations, whatever be the area your business operates in. Do you agree?
Netbase incidentally uses an NLP based engine to do sentiment analysis. Their site claims that its analysis is more than 80% accurate, which is a tall claim in an area which is still evolving. More on that in another post.

Popularity: 27% [?]

You may have read a news item yesterday on Google introducing Google Cloud Connect – a plug in for MS Office whereby an user can synch up directly with Google Office. There is no need to press Ctrl S every few minutes as the data you are typing has already been saved by Google. What more – other users can start working on this saved version and collaboratively edit making sure you do not have to go through the trouble of sending and opening attachments. Two thoughts occurred to me – one is the power of cloud computing. Google has called this as a tectonic shift from the desktop to the “Webtop” – cool!

The second thought was more sobering – now, Google is threatening Microsoft’s monopoly in the Office suite segment – something which MS has dominated for years now. The question is do you want to allow Google to access your MS office documents? Already, Google seems to know a lot about us (courtesy Gmail, google search engine etc). One wonders what this implies? And also, while Microsoft has always been accused of monopoly, don’t Google’s tactics suggest the same strategy? What do you think?

Popularity: 13% [?]

By the end of 2012, South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to the Internet at one gigabit per second. That would be a tenfold increase from the already blazing national standard and more than 200 times as fast as the average household setup in the United States. A lot of Koreans are early adopters and the govt is getting prepared for things like 3-D TV, Internet protocol TV, high-definition multimedia, gaming and videoconferencing, ultra-high-definition TV, cloud computing.

Japan has launched a satellite to improve bandwidth for its citizens. A telecom revolution is brewing again in the US. http://gigaom.com/broadband/we-will-soon-live-in-a-100-gbps-world/

And we are still grappling with a 2G scam and a 2 hour download for a 36 mb file….. we deserve our politicians!

Popularity: 14% [?]

A couple of years back, I was listening to the late CK Prahalad at a NASSCOM event. He said that, with mobile phones becoming ubiquitous, in some years the wrist watch will become obsolete or be used only for ornamental purposes- it was hard to imagine such a scenario then but when I see the millennial generation, it does appear to be coming true already. Take a step forward. With technologies like NFC being seriously contemplated, the mobile phone is poised to become a true “one stop” for you and me- So, what is NFC and how does it make a smartphone “smarter”?

NFC is the acronym for Near Field Communication- a set of wireless technologies that operate within a range of 4 cm or thereabouts that makes the concept of the mobile wallet a reality. NFC was one of the topics of discussion at the recently concluded Mobile World Congress at Barcelona. Numerous operators as well as Google, RIM and Visa have incorporated NFC enablement into their roadmaps.

To understand the true import of NFC, consider this- you can now with a mere swipe of your phone make payments at super markets, access buildings and get information. You would be able to simply touch your NFC smartphone at gas stations, ticketing kiosks andeventually maybe at ATMs to transact without having to open your wallet or keying in numbers.   BMW has indicated their plans on making their next generation cars come equipped with NFC enabled keys. Taking it one step further, if you are on a holiday and driving your BMW to the vacation spot, simply use your car keys to get access to your hotel room, charge for your meals and pool side drinks to your room by  tapping your NFC enabled key against the reader.

The possibilities are tremendous and exciting. Incidentally, I had written a post about the mobile wallet recently after reading Sam Piroda’s The March of Mobile Money. Interestingly, Pitroda filed his first patent on this idea as early as 1994- talking of tech soothsaying, that one is up there! What do you think?

Popularity: 13% [?]