Blogs

Coupon clippers put your scissors aside, because Twitter is the 'it' way to save money. Here's how: go to http://search.twitter.com and type in the product you would like to buy. I typed in "Oral-B Triumph 9400", which the internet tells me is the best toothbrush man has ever created. The search results will be a list of the last few tweets (tweet=a short message from a Twitter user) that mention the product (in my case, the toothbrush). Toward the top right of the page will be a link to create a feed for the search result.

Normally I don't like email forwards. But a few of them I find valuable because they are quite funny, or they teach me something important. This story is one of those few.

A disappointed salesman of Coca Cola returns from his Middle East assignment. A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"

A question put to all internet businesses starting now is whether to offer their product free. In the present economy slump, free and freemium are more than buzzwords. They are fast becoming business models meant for speeding entry into frozen markets. The dilemma is that in offering the product for free, the new company must bear the cost of development and maintenance until revenue starts from other channels. This must be fueled by a massive growth of users, otherwise the profit remains zero and the profitability remains zero as well.

Bret and Jemaine form Flight of the Conchords, a band with a show on HBO by the same name. A friend introduced me to the show and I loved it. But, I also learned from it. The show would have never worked with a more popular band. Flight of the Conchords are an emergent group, but remain obscure enough that the show can gather a campy following. I saw in this the power of small. Why do people look to follow lesser known bands? Why do they look for coffee shops other than Starbucks? Why do they read books that are written by less popular authors than Grisham?

Seth Godin wrote fourteen points on how to write a personal email (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/how-to-send-a-p.html). Point number eight reads,

"Don't send an email only when you really need something. That's not personal, that's selfish."

They way it is at the moment, PoP Project may have a memory leak. Since it is my baby, I can't let it out to the world unless I know the leak is either not present, or properly resolved. So I and my team have begun profiling the code heavily, trying different profilers. So far I have tried JBoss Profiler and Profiler4j (open source), and Murali, a senior member of my team, has tried YourKit's java profiler (commercial).

Today Paradigm PoP hosted a small party for the employees of our partner company where PoP Project is being developed. Two heavy cakes and a few bottles of pop to commemorate the release of PoP Project into private beta. Well, almost. We are still a memory leak and a few IE 7 visual annoyances away from a private beta.

I would estimate Monday we will be ready for a private beta. SCRUM says my estimates are off by three. So I expect it will be ready a week after Monday. I am beyond excited at having people start using PoP Project, and I can hardly wait.

My team knows to have scratch paper handy when I am around. At home I have stored the back (empty) ends of used notebooks from friends and family. This is because I draw a lot. I think when I draw. On good days, I am able to put my emotions into pictures. On other good days, I can put my thoughts into pictures. And these thoughts are those best communicated with others. I believe the reason for this is because many people think in pictures, as I do.

Welcome to Paradigm PoP's blog. I am currently CEO Paradigm PoP, and I plan to post here about updates to our tools as well as interesting things I learn while making them. You can also find me on twitter at http://twitter.com/diwant

I hope you enjoy what we will write.