Tech Ka Masala

I'll be the first one to admit that Tech Ka Masala took a back seat for a while but now we are reviving it once again and hope to keep serving you episodes as promised. Since this is a new begining, we have a new host as well. Saket will be joining me on TKM as the co-host. We have known each other and I can vouch for his tech cred. Please do drop in a word with comments and also hope that you tune in to TKM for your next week's tech dose.

The first TKM with as many as four participants discussing the latest arguements and happenings taking place on the internet. The participants leanding their voice in this episode include Gaurav Mishra , Aditya Mishra , and Veer Chand Bothra. I had more than 5 topics for this episodes but we managed to cover only 2 which is an indicastion how much these people have to contribute.

Andreas Kluth from The Economist joins me to talk about the big deal with Facebook. His articles are a result of research which includes interviewing people like Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. In this 20 odd minute chat, we talk about the $15 billion valuation of Facebook and what it means to the Silicon Valley. In this rather high octane topic on which almost everyone and their big brother have an opinion, Andreas lends a lot of rationality in explaining his take on it. He dismembers economic jargons like Call Options and Game Theory to reason out the bigger battle between Microsoft and Google in a very user friendly manner!

Who's afraid of Google? read the cover story of 'The Economist' on Sept 1. Andreas Kluth , the author of the story was kind enough to join us for a quick chat. Andreas thinks that Google is far from threatening. He compares Google to the banking industry which acts like the custodian of our money. While Google is not as regulated as the latter, it will soon be, but, the founders whom Andreas had a chance to interact with on a few occassions are innocently idealistic or they were to begin with...In this episode, we also talk about how Google is seeping in our DNA rather literally! (Image Source: The Economist)

This week Thilak who blogs at Tech Buzz joined us at short notice to fillin in for Anand. We talk about Wimax roll out in India, cross linking sites, google phone, Flickr videos and review of Twango. We also spend sometime on Bubble 2.0!

The sound quality is a bit choppy in this episode since we were both on cell phones but that didnt stop us from arguing about this week's tech stories. The stories includes Nokia's acquistion of Twango, Microsoft's ad based MS Office, China having only 244 MS Vista licenses and ended with yet another Google acquisition.

It was anniversary week this episode. The virus turned 25, blogs turned 10, and the Bra turned 100 The episode also covers the rumours about google and yahoo interested in buying rediff along with our product reviews about Google Gears and Webaroo.

iHype has been dominating the technology news for the past 6 months now and finally it was D-day for Stephen Jobs. We discuss how the phone lacks a few basic features so a few of us are waiting. Reliance is rummoured to be in talks with Apple to set up Apple Stores to in India. So they will be introducing the iPhone in India but no dates as yet.Google wants to help you browse the internet while offline with their new product Google Gears but Webarro was the first mover with this idea. how comes google didnt just buy them off? Allofmp3.com is shut down by kremlin but Mp3sparks has cropped up. Same face.. different name!! Tata has launched its chain of Technology stores called Croma having a very urban and professional feel to the whole store.

For our introductory episode we thought about getting someone who helps people realize their tech dream and so we have Avnish Bajaj, co-founder of Baazee.com and now with Matrix Partners. He agreed to have an informal conversation about enterpreneurship, VC funding and about his journey as an entrepreneur to a VC. The interview is a bit long (40 mins) but contains a lot of experiential thoughts.