Bollywood Twitter - What the stars are tweeting about?
 | With the Twitter craze hitting the world for the last few months, I thought I would dig in to see what the Bollywood stars are tweeting about and who the popular Bollywood Twits (is that what they are called in Twiterminology ;-)). To begin with all of Bollywood is not yet on Twitter though it has its fair share of celebrities on it. After some digging around and following their tweets, here is my opinion of the popular Bollywood stars on Twitter as of Aug 2009. |
Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) - By far the most popular Bollywood celebrity on Twitter (no surprises there), Priyanka has about 38K followers and growing rapidly. She is a frequent tweeter, posting multiple tweets during the day. She keeps a good mix of personal opinions and about her ongoing projects and appearances. When she finds time, she does respond to her fans. I like how she manages herself on Twitter. Quite the role model I would say. Hum bhi Priyanka ke Bhakt hai.
Karan Johar (@kjohar25) - With about 11K followers, Karan Johar would come a distant second. Karan too is a regular poster and also keeps a good mix about his personal opinion and his work. You can see that he is tweeting himself. He just kicked off a project with SRK and Kajol.
Aamir Khan (@Aamir_khan) - For some reason, he does not have a great following on Twitter. Given his personal situation with the wife having a miscarriage, he is not very active on Twitter.
Riteishd (@Riteishd) - New to Twitter, Riteish (at school I was taught, i before an e, except after c..never mind) is getting a good following. Riteish too provides a regular update and replies to his fans. Generally funny too.
Genelia D'Souza - Probably the worst from the Bollywood list, she barely has any posts and anything that I have seen seems like it was to promote her appearance and not done by her.
Others who are regular are Lara Dutta, Dino Morea, Uday Chopra, Ram Gopal Varma, Ayesha Takia.
Notably missing from the Twiiter world are the Bachchan's (Amitabh, Abhishek and Aishwarya), the King (SRK).
Find their Twitter pages in our Bollywood Twitter Directory.
Read more: Bollywood Twitter - What the stars are tweeting about?
Twitter India Directory
With Twitter being on fire for the last few months and with more and more Indian celebrities, business, organizations etc tweeting, I thought it was time to add an Indian Twitter Directory to my website. This directory will contain the links of all India related Twitter pages. I have started with the following categories and there are a few entries already which will be updated over the next few weeks.
- Bollywood and Indian Celebrities
- Entertainment
- Humour
- Jobs and Careers
- News and Media
- Non-Profit Organizations
- Science and Technology
- Shopping
- Sports
- Television and Radio
- Travel and Tourism
If you have a Twiitter page, you can submit it to the Twitter India directory.
Outsourcing Manhole Covers
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Everyone has probably heard of IT and Call Center operations being outsourced to India, but did you know that a large number of manhole covers in the United States actually get manufactured in India. A few weeks ago, I was walking in Los Angeles and saw a drain cover manufactured in India. |
Apparently over 600,000 manhole covers in the city of New York are manufactured in India, specially from West Bengal. This practice is not new but has been in existence for over 4 decades. Also, it looks like India is the world leader in manhole cover manufacturing, a little known fact. So the next time you walk over a drain cover in the US, it may have come from India.
Time Warner Digital VOIP Phone - International Calling Plan
 | I have been a fairly early adopter of VOIP offerings in the marketplace
having signed up with Vonage back in 2002. Most of my experience with
them has been good with the occaisional echo problems. I recently moved
to a new location and was very surprised with the International calling
plan that Time Warner cable offered me if I signed up for their Digital
phone service. I was spending over $50 making calls to India and with
Reliance, I would get about 500 minutes of talk time. Time Warner was
offering 3000, yes THREE THOUSAND minutes of calling time to India for
only $20. Of course I had to pay a higher cost for the unlimited long
distance calling ($40/month) but overall it works out cheaper. |
This was not a promotional offer or anything of that nature. So far the experience has been very good. I get through to Indian on the very first try. I have not head issues with echo or packet loss. There are no separate rates for land lines vs cell phones. At this point, I have nothing to complain. The cable modem/VOIP adapter has a built inbattery backup whichis great should you lose power or want to move things around.
Cancelling my service with Vonage was another challenge. They threw all kinds of freebies at my, 1 month free, 2 months free, 3 months free, 1 year unlimited at 14.95 a month.
Does anyone have any experiences with this?
Commercials in Bollywood DVDs
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I watch a lot of Hindi movies on DVDs and I am forced to see the commercials, trailors etc before I can watch the movie. These companies include Eros Entertainment, DEI, WEG, SPARK among others. Most of the DVDs have been programmed so that its not even possible to use the next or fast-forward button. As a consumer who has paid full-price for the DVD, it should be against the law to force us to watch these commercials. If you look at some of the channels on cable like HBO and Showtime, they do not show any commercials. Even the Hollywood DVDs only force us to see the FBI warning. Does anyone out there know if there are specific laws against forcing us to watch these ads? |
Sound Logo or Sound Branding
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I am personally intrigued by logos and as you can see, a large part of my site is dedicated to discovering the design and history of logos. To me, logos were always a visual thing and I guess I never paid attention to the concept of sound logos (though sound branding seems more appropriate). Looking back, my first recollection of a sound logo was the little piece of music that accompanied the Intel Logo. Whenever you see any commerical for a computer, it would always be accompanied by the Intel logo and a little sound theme at the end. |
Starting November 1st, 2007, Mercedes-Benz will be introducing a new sound logo that will accompany its commercials. The Mercedes-Benz sound logo is based on an original recording of an English boys choir from the 1990s. Sound engineers extracted a choir boy€™s solo vocal from the recording and adapted it for use in the sound logo. The logo was developed in cooperation with Jung von Matt, Mercedes-Benz€™ lead agency.
Benz Sound Logo - You can listen to the Benz sound logo at the end of the commerical on YouTube.
Intel Sound Logo - You can listen to the Intel sound logo here on YouTube.
Sound branding is also called audio branding, sonic branding, acoustic branding or sonic mnemonics.
Philosopher's Page Article Count: 6
Site News Article Count: 10
My Travel Adventures Article Count: 7
I feel quite blessed to have had the opportunity to travel and live in many countries around the world. Meeting people from other countries is a wonderful experiences as it opens your mind to how different, yet how similar the rest of the world is and I think that has made me a better person. I have traveled alone, with my friends and then with my wife. Now I have a son who also loves to travel and I will cherish those moments with him. In this section of my blog, I write about some of my experiences traveling around the world and things that I liked about visiting those places. I hope my experiences are entertaining as well as englightening.