Where’s the Passion?

Over the past few months, i have been trying to answer a question for myself but haven’t been able to until recently I stumbled upon an excellent blog. The question was – What is that I am passionate about? The question haunted me so much that I gave up my job and a quite a bit of employee stock options but did I find out what is that I am passionate about and did i start following my passion. Not really.

Research on workplace satisfaction tells that people like their jobs for more nuanced reason than simply it matches some innate interest. And for people like me who do not really like their jobs, the “What is my passion” question would have popped-up frequently. When you discuss this with well-wishers then you get some serious advice, “Please follow your passion“. This is a very appealing advice for two reasons – a. It tells you to break away from a routine and do something daring and b. It is a very powerful but simple advice.

So, if we are to break down the “Follow your passion” advice then you discover the passion in advance then go match it to a job. What if people don’t have preexisting passions? How do you discover something that doesn’t exist? After putting my mind through months of acid test, it finally dawned upon me maybe I don’t have a preexisting passion. I like a lot of things. For example – I like to drive around, watch movies, watch T.V. but these are things that I like but not passionate about. So, how do you differentiate between fondness and passion? How does passion feel like? The sensation of excitement about a particular idea is often a different sensation than the type of deep passion that drives people into a fulfilling career.

Did all successful people have a preexisting passion? If you were to read Steve Job’s biography, you will realize that when he stumbled upon Apple Computers he just saw it as a means to make $1000 and this was around the time when he was deeply passionate about eastern mysticism. Indian Cricketer, Yuvraj Singh was a national level skating champion until his teens when his dad forced him to take up Cricket as a career and at 19 he helped the Indian national team win the Cricket Under-19 World Cup. We can look around for dozen other examples but I think you get the point. These hugely successful people did not follow their passion then how did they become so successful.

Don’t follow. Cultivate your passion. Steve jobs was open to opportunity. When he sensed that his scheme was bigger than he imagined, he pivoted and poured a lot of energy into building a company around selling computers. He cultivated passion. He didn’t follow it. Passion comes with experience. In a recent survey of Office Assistants, more than a third of them considered it their calling or an integral part of their life and identity. Incidentally these were the people who were in that job for more than 25 years. Passion is something that is to be cultivated. Instead of thinking, I will do what I love, try thinking, I will learn to love what I do.

Be Craftsman’s like. True passion arises after you’ve put in the long hours to really become a craftsman in your field and can then leverage this value to really have an impact, to gain autonomy and respect, to control your occupational destiny. People with the passion mindset ask “What do I really want?” which breeds an obsession whether the job is right for them or not.  By contrast, the craftsman’s mindset acknowledges that no matter what field you’re in, success is always about quality. Once you’re focused on the quality of the work you’re doing now rather than whether or not it’s right for you, you won’t hesitate to do what is necessary to improve it.

No Comfort Zone. You don’t really know who you are until you get out of your comfort zone. Although deliberate practice is often strenuous and uncomfortable, it’s the only path to true mastery. The craftsman mindset drives you to acquire and refine special skills. People with rare skills are more likely to get great jobs in which they’re allowed creativity and control. If a company hires two programmers – Mr.A who is a newbie to the domain but it really good with cutting edge technologies and Mr.B who has come up through the ranks and understands the domain well and a master of the technology that he is working on. If the company hits a rough patch and someone needs to go; its Mr.A who gets let go. Why? Mr.B had a rare and valuable skill.

Though following your passion is today’s ideal, it often won’t get you anywhere but frustrated. Focus instead on acquiring unique skills and refining the quality of what you do with the focus of a devoted craftsman. You’ll be well on your way to cultivating not only a satisfying career but a new, rarer kind of practical passion built on commitment, mastery, and pride.

Social Media for Indian SMEs

Globally most businesses use social media marketing to build communities around their brands. These communities are then used as owned media to spark conversations, spread awareness, increase following, reward fans and on the whole have a better relationship with their online audience. These active and loyal communities fit right into companies online/offline marketing and communication campaigns. Some of the brands which adopted the Social Media in a big way in India are – Facebook, Nike, Pepsi, Vodafone, Nescafe, Tata Docomo, Nivea, Nokia and Mentos. Kingfisher and Aircel India were the only two Indian brands in the Top 20.

I have been speaking to a lot of Brand Managers, Marketers and Business Owners and most of them seem to provide a response which is quite contrary to the reports suggested by BIG consulting firms about the growth of Social Media in India. India as a nation is extremely conservative and we expect maximum bang for our buck. Business Owners want to see their marketing spend directly translate into a tangible return and believe in spending in Ads on Directory Listing Sites, Marketplaces and Google Ads than spending any money on Social Media or on Content Marketing. I was speaking to a restaurant owner the other day and he said he spends about a million rupees a year on Ad Spend on just Zomato and believes Facebook, Twitter and all other social channels are just a farce and can add no value to his business.

Ad Spend is like Virender Sehwag where you can get a quick fire knock where as Social Media Spend is like Rahul Dravid where you setup a solid base, work on your target audience and build a long innings. Ad Spend may or may not translate into direct returns but building communities, spreading awareness, increasing following, managing online reputation, rewarding fans and creating a base of Fanatics will very rarely fail.

The latest buzz word is “content marketing” which leads to the concept of “Publish or Perish”. If you aren’t bringing information of value to your target audience (whether written by you or curating content from other credible sources), they will find someone else who will. Some very interesting research has thrown up these figures –

• At least 50% of consumers will use 2 or more devices in their purchase process. ~ IBM
• 60% of mobile users expect a website to load in less than 3 seconds. ~ Gomez
• The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is 55-64 years old. ~ PEW Research
• LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook or Twitter. ~ TopDogSocialMedia
• 82% of Mobile Media Consumption is within apps and 18% from mobile browsers. ~ Nielsen

Marketers believe too much branded content may bore their audiences. Sharing branded content once a while is okay but bombarding your social audience with news, case studies, whitepapers, product specifications and company updates, not a very good idea. Compelling generic content which people like to consume and share with their friends is what marketers crave and love to post multiple times a day to keep their communities active, interesting and fun to hang out at.

To get started, here is list of questions you may want to ask yourself.

• Is my social presence compelling and does it provide value to my audience or am I just “checking the box” by having a static profile so that I can say I have a social media presence?
• What information does my audience expect from me and in what format must I deliver it to them? (Note – Facebook is not the only Social Platform out there, YouTube is almost always forgotten but remember it is a very powerful tool)
• Is my business adapting to the changing trends and communicating with clients in a manner that caters to their needs? (More than just e-mail newsletters and traditional mail)
• Do I have an Online Reputation Strategy or Do I just login into my Facebook Profile once a week and check whats going on? How do I handle negative conversations? Can I use the Social Channels as a platform to address customer grievances (Check how Emirates does this?)

With many affordable smartphones in the market and the mobile penetration rate of 71%, its likely that internet and social media will be accessible to many more in urban as well as rural India. The growth of social media is inevitable and early adopters are already driving profits and brand exposure from social relationships.

Social Media as a Branding Tool

The emergence of social media as an effective branding and sales tool is gaining in popularity in comparison to traditional advertising such as print ads, television ads and billboards. Because of this trend, a lot of brands that have been pioneers in conventional marketing plans for years and sometimes decades, often have difficulty wrapping their heads around how to begin crafting a powerful online strategy. Here are a few valuable steps that will make diving into digital more fluent.

Develop a Social Media Platform Strategy
Just because a new social media platform pops up in the news doesn’t mean a brand immediately needs to jump on the bandwagon. Instead, brands should identify which platforms their target audiences frequent most. For example, Pinterest has a predominantly female user base, and therefore, if a brand is trying to attract a male consumer, then a different platform should probably be prioritized. The choice of social channel also needs to be driven by the geography. For Example – In a country like India, Pinterest might not be a very effective tool for a market like India whereas Facebook and/or YouTube might be a better choice.

Do due diligence and carefully research each social platform you are interested in so you can clearly see which are priorities for your brand and why. Then lay out a game plan as to how you are going to proceed with populating each with content, including frequency of posts, content topics, and how you will handle community management (i.e. customer service questions, and complaints). Figure out how much of your budget is going towards paid media if that’s available, how much is going towards influencer campaigns, and whether or not you need to hire an agency or an in-house person to focus on managing all of your platforms and continuing to evolve the strategy. In social, a good strategy is an ever-evolving one.

Create Captivating Content with High Share Value
With so much competition out there, it’s important for brands to create attention grabbing content that users will be excited to share. Content with high share value is more likely to create a viral effect, exposing brands to wider audiences. Users tend to share content that is less promotional and more personal. Therefore, brands need to look for content inspiration beyond the products. They’re selling, and mix in content that is inspiring, beautiful, and useful. Sharing photos on platforms is one of the most common ways for users to communicate their interests and ideas, making it crucial for brands to participate in an effective way that portrays their brand identity. Users are more likely to engage with posts that showcase striking imagery. As an example, Twitter recently incorporated images into users’ timelines, and as a result, Tweets with images included now receive 18 percent more clicks.

Also, YouTube has one of the fastest growing user bases and reaches more U.S.-based adults, ages 18-34, than any cable network. It’s a great story-telling platform for brands, and one that should be utilized to reach big audiences. Instagram is another rapidly-growing platform that has embraced video content by allowing their users to create 15-second videos.

Optimize for Mobile
These days, people are glued to their devices, making it extremely important for brands to optimize their social efforts for mobile. This includes ensuring that all content looks great and is easy to share on small screen devices such as iPads and smart phones. The number of people accessing social platforms via mobile devices continues to increase rapidly. Since Q1 2011, the number of people who access the internet via a mobile phone has increased by 60.3 percent to 818.4 million across the 31 GWI markets.

Get Influencers and Users Involved
Influencers and bloggers tend to have a lot of social clout. Brands should partner with the ones who are on-brand for them, and create interesting content and initiatives, utilizing the influencers’ large audiences to create buzz, virality, and awareness. For example, an influencer’s involvement can be extremely helpful in the case of a brand hosting a contest or giveaway around a key sales period.

Hosting contests and giveaways (possibly promoted by a key influencer) is a great way for brands to increase exposure by incentivizing users to “like,” follow, and/or share information about the brand for a chance to win a prize. Choose a reward that will resonate with your target audience to ensure optimal engagement.

Perhaps most important of all is the willingness to take the time to explore the world of digital and all that it has to offer. Keep up with the new and exciting platforms that are constantly being released, along with the new features that established outlets like Facebook and Twitter keep rolling out. Be open to taking risks and chances on innovative initiatives. Think outside of the box, while always remaining true to your brand story. The digital space has a lot to offer your brand if you take the time to get to know it.

Our tryst with User Experience

In this blog post, I am going to share some of our experiences in one of my current projects where we had to develop a product from scratch. We had to work from conception to launch and this included defining the user experience. Due to confidentiality clauses, I cannot reveal the client or project details so I apologize for the element of secrecy. I would like to give out a disclaimer at the very beginning, we had no UX experts in the team. The User Experience design in the project was done by an HTML Developer, a Project Manager and a .Net Technical Architect. This post is our learning from this project and should not be treated as an UX Bible.

At the start of the project, the customer had a two sentence requirement about what they expected from this product (A Digital Marketing Platform) – users of this platform are not tech savvy people, the platform should be user friendly and responsive, the most important feature should be achieved in three clicks and our brand is known for its flamboyance and it should show on the product so nothing less than a world class user experience would be acceptable !!!

There are a few common myths about UX – Good UX means visually sexy, UX is something you just make up – it is an art, UX is too expensive and finally anyone can do UX. Our tryst with UX in the past four months taught us some very valuable lessons – UX is not only about being visually sexy but blending the sexiness with the interaction design. You can have an extremely pleasant looking website/web application but if it really sucks when it comes to usability then it is no good. Most of us know this but somehow usability almost always is an after thought while we think of User Experience. Thinking like the end customer who will use the application is the key to good user experience. Putting yourselves in the shoes of the end users is half the battle won. Getting the usability right is far more complex than getting the visual appeal right – if you don’t get the visual appeal right in 2 iterations you will get it right in 20 iterations but if you don’t build a very user friendly product, well, then you are not going to find any takers for your product. Since of one of our key business requirements was around usability, a lot of emphasis was laid on it during the design stages. We sought constant feedback from the customer – we had very little or no UX experience and had no ego about our designs and were always looking for feedback to improve the designs. We had a very active customer who was more than willing to give feedback. The end product has come out really well and we topped the customer’s expectations a little bit. They wanted the most important feature of the application to be achieved in 3 clicks, we have come up with a solution (a fairly sizeable product in terms of number of pages) where any functionality in the platform can be completed in 3 Clicks irrespective of where you are on the application.

Something which we hear very often is UX is common-sense, it is something you just made up or oh it is an art and you need a really good artist to come up with good UX. To me, UX is more of science than art, it is how people interact with artifacts and carry out tasks. UX is based on 200 years of scientific knowledge, 30 years of industry best practices and specifically applied research.

UX is too expensive. It surely is if you hire a top notch creative agency. I have worked on projects in the past where millions of dollars were spent on the creative designs and the end product was so bad that the customer had to go in for a re-design in less than an year’s time. In our current project, we were on a shoe string budget and there was very little leeway in terms of spending. We thought of hiring a creative agency to do the UX work but they were way too expensive for our liking. Our customer kept emphasizing on world class user experience and set expectations very clearly during the project kick-off – “We will not compromise on UX. The last time a creative agency did UX for us they took about 20 iterations to get the designs right. We know you are a technology company and not a digital agency but we want to challenge you”. We did not have the kind of budget to support 20 iterations. For the kind of budget we had, the agencies told us they would support 2 at best 3 iterations. We decided to take a huge gamble. We told ourselves – “Let’s do the designs ourselves”. Our 4th design variation was approved and we took a couple of more iterations to get a formal sign-off on the designs. How did we do it? Research. We researched a lot about the customer’s existing digital properties (for Visual elements) to understand what their earlier choices were, we asked them a lot of questions, we kept asking them for feedback constantly and a couple of rockstar HTML developers.

A few more things that we learnt – People’s taste varies. What you like might not be liked by your customer, what you don’t like might get approved. So, put everything that you have got infront your customer; finalizing the experience is an iterative and long process so don’t panic – you just need to make sure that you are going down the right path once you have established that its just a matter of time; think like a designer but don’t think only like a designer, you should think like your customer whats better is if you can think ahead of your customer (all the best with that), go the Bootstrap way if you want to build responsive stuff and finally a cheap trick – always set low expectations at the start and work towards exceeding those expectations.

We are just a few days away from launching the platform and I am hoping that we will have a smooth and successful launch. I will share the details once the platform has been launched.

Baby, I am back

It has been quite a while since I was away. I had to go work on “stuff” that puts food on the table…and it kept me busy for a little longer than I thought. To quickly catch-up on what had happened in the past couple of months – successfully closed a long running project, worked (working actually) on a project which is really close to the heart – a digital marketing platform for a leading food and beverages company (which actually kept me busy for the most part), helped build a sentiment analysis engine – remember my previous post about how most of the products in the market were below par, we thought what the hell, lets build our own engine. If things go as per plan we might end up putting it out on the internet, explored other career options, thought one more time about entrepreneurship, did a few interviews for the blog and managed to do a lot of research for all the above projects.

Over the next few weeks, I plan to share my findings on all the research that I had stumbled upon over the past couple of months. I would be covering topics ranging from Low Cost Digital Marketing Platforms, eCommerce in India – Opportunities and Saturation levels, eCommerce Platforms, some cool open source tools and platforms. It feels great to be back !!!

A joke called Sentiment Analysis

Before I dive into the details, here is what Wikipedia has to say about sentiment analysis –  use of natural language processing, text analysis and computational linguistics to identify and extract subjective information in source materials.

A lot of companies have mushroomed in the last couple of years which claim to have products which can perform sentiment analysis of your content. The offering is very simple – you give them a text and they will tell you if the content has Positive, Neutral or Negative sentiment. A lot of leading brands have employed these service providers who analyze user generated content on various digital properties of these brands such as their Brand Websites, Facebook, Twitter etc., The service providers claim to have “Advanced” natural language processing algorithms and “self learning” computation linguistics algorithms which can gauge the pulse of your audience.

We are working on a project where we are evaluating a few service providers who offer Sentiment Analysis APIs. We decided to dig deeper and analyze which was the best product in town and did a few tests. We did not take complex use cases, they were fairly straight forward use cases and the results left us dumb struck. I will list down some of the use cases and the corresponding results.

Use Case 1 – We picked a twitter comment which had a sarcastic tone to it “Price increase makes me really happy”

Result – Most of the APIs returned the result as “Positive” Sentiment. I might be asking for too much by expecting a program to gauge the tone of an user. So, we decided to take a simpler use case.

Use Case 2 – We picked another tweet “IRCTC site is down since morning”.

Result – Most of the APIs returned the result as “Neutral” sentiment where as some returned it as “Positive” sentiment. How? I don’t know. We thought of breaking it down further.

Use Case 3 – We tried the following –

“Your Brand is Good” Result – “Positive” Sentiment (Applause !!!)

“Your Brand is Bad” Result – “Neutral” Sentiment (We were surprised but gave the tools benefit of the doubt)

“Your Brand  is the worst” Result – “Negative” Sentiment

“Your Brand is the Worst. Cheers !” Result – “Neutral” Sentiment

“Your Brand is Bad. Cheers !” Result – “Positive” Sentiment

“Your Brand is screwed up” Result – “Neutral” Sentiment (Positive in some cases)

Similar to the above use cases, we tried a lot of other scenarios and found that the results were no different. Based on what we saw today, I think none of these service providers actually perform any natural language processing or computational linguistics truth be told their algorithms are not even self-learning. At best, these tools can be called as “Keyword filters”, they seem to have a two buckets of keywords (typically adjectives) – one for positive and another for negative. Your content is tagged as negative or positive based on which type of keyword resides in your content if it is not found in both of these buckets then its tagged as neutral (For example – Screwed Up) or positive in some cases (If no match found then it is defaulted to Positive they thought they will make the brand happy). What if there is one positive and one negative keyword in your content? Well, then the positive keyword is neutralized by the negative keyword and the sentiment is Neutral (For Example – “Your Brand is the worst. Cheers !”). I want to meet the genius who came up with the negative neutralizes the positive logic. It is not just one service provider who has adopted these revolutionary algorithms most of them have similar algorithms but slight variations.

I think there is a huge business opportunity for people to explore if they can put their heads together and come up with an honest product.

Note – The credit for carrying out this analysis goes to my team. I felt so strongly about this topic that I wanted a larger audience to know what we found out.

PostgreSQL on Amazon RDS

Ever since Oracle bought Sun Microsystems and took control of MySQL, PostgreSQL’s popularity as an open source relational database has increased by leaps and bounds and it has shown great strength in its market maturity.

Over the past few years, PostgreSQL has become the preferred open source relational database for many enterprise developers and start-ups, powering leading geospatial and mobile applications. PostgreSQL received a shot in the arm yesterday when Amazon’s Relational Database Service decided to include PostgreSQL as one of the offerings in its cloud service, the Amazon RDS. The other relational databases available on RDS are MySQL, Oracle and SQL Server.

With Amazon RDS, you can deploy scalable PostgreSQL deployments in minutes with cost-efficient and resizable hardware capacity. Amazon RDS manages complex and time-consuming administrative tasks such as PostgreSQL software installation and upgrades, storage management, replication for high availability and back-ups for disaster recovery. Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL is designed for developers or businesses who require the full features and capabilities of a PostgreSQL database, or who wish to migrate existing applications and tools that utilize a PostgreSQL database.

You find more details about PostgreSQL on RDS here.

After all Google is immortal !!!

Recently, Google updated its terms of use and privacy policy. The goal was to allow Google to use your name and public photo in “Shared Endorsements.” In plain English, it wants to use you in ads.

So, if you like or “+1” something on Google+, for example, Google can show your friends that you recommend it if it pops up their searches. I’m sure Google can expand that in the future to the channels you subscribe to on YouTube or music and apps you buy in Google Play. To Google’s credit, you can opt out.

Until recently, I was of the impression that Google is GOD but not after I found out some alternatives which do a far better job of “specific tasks” and here’s the list –

DuckDuckGo – Though it’s similar to Google, it doesn’t collect any information about you when you search. It matches Google Search in features and performance with a similar simple layout. Its “Goodies” features offer geographic search, calculators and more. You could literally spend hours checking out DuckDuckGo’s cool features. Maybe there’s just one feature about Google’s search you really can’t live without, though. In most cases, you can find search sites tailored to that feature.

Wolfram Alpha, for example, runs circles around Google when it comes to research and calculations. Just type in a question and it can usually figure out what you mean. You can even upload images to get more information about them.

Blekko is usually easier to use than Google for quick answers. Instead of returning advertisers and other iffy results first, it sends you links that actually answer your question. The links are even broken down into categories, such as Top results, Shopping and Latest. You can expand a category to see more of just what you want. Blekko is more private than Google in normal mode. However, I recommend you use its “SuperPrivacy” mode for maximum privacy. This blocks ads and takes you to secure, encrypted sites by default. You can turn it on by clicking “Prefs” in the right corner of the site.

If you like how quickly Blekko gives results, you can try IxQuick, too. It encrypts your search for privacy while giving you pre-approved results from other top search sites for a faster answer. You can rate results to help other searchers find what they’re looking for faster, too.

Are you concerned about search results showing up with inappropriate content? It happens quite a bit, and — thanks to Murphy’s Law — usually when a child is present. Yippy detects adult content and blocks it automatically. That makes it great for the family computer.

Google is a popular search provider on tablets and smartphones, but it isn’t the only option. Instead, try Mazoom on smartphones and Izik on tablets. Both give you mobile-friendly results first. This helps you save on your data plan and makes pages load faster.

Of course, search isn’t the only thing Google does. Between YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Google+, Google Play, Google Drive and its many other services, it could run your whole life.

Finding alternatives for these services means some serious work and often inconvenience. Plus, most of the alternatives are run by other major companies that aren’t big on privacy either.

Instead, find alternatives for one or two services. Try using some Google services without logging in to your Google account. While Google, and other companies, will still record your information, no one company will have all of it.

Has Apple changed since Steve Jobs

Apple has been going through the litmus test ever since Steve Jobs passed away. Every move of theirs has been watched closely and they have come in for some sharp criticism from investors, media and the public in general for failing to innovate.

Critics claim the company has lost its edge, merely updating existing products and are not innovating enough to launch new product categories. They seem to have got into the shell like their competitor “Microsoft”. CEO Tim Cook has also been criticized as lacking vision for Apple and blamed for the company’s fallen stock price.

It might not be accurate to state that Apple has stopped innovating, but it has slowed down since Jobs death. If Jobs were still running the company, it’s likely that Apple would have two new product categories by now. Innovation drives the value of the company, and the time has come for Apple to prove itself, once again. It’s not enough that they can come up with one product after 10 years or five years, but they need one every year if they want to regain their old charm. If they do not heed to some of their warning signals – falling stock price, losing market share to Samsung then they might become the next Microsoft.

Even though Apple’s innovation cycle has been disappointing, the company’s latest products have exceeded market expectations. The technical innovation in the iPhone 5S demonstrates that the company’s innovation talent still beats the competition by a long shot. For all we know, 2014 might be Apple’s big product year and may be the much-rumoured iTV might hit the shelves.

Cook has often been criticized by media and investors for not having the design prowess and leadership capabilities that his predecessor possessed. During the short period that he has been leading the company, some critics have even called for him to be ousted.

Tim Cook recognizes he is not the product visionary Steve Jobs was and with the promotion of Jony Ive to lead both hardware and software and how they interact, Cook is basically letting Jony Ive be the face of design at Apple.

In some ways, by letting Ive become the lead of design, Cook has mitigated the street’s fear that there is no innovation and no vision. Ive and Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, have essentially become the “cool factor” for Apple, while Cook does what he is great at, which is global operations.

Ive worked closely with Federighi, in designing the latest version of Apple’s operating system, iOS 7, which was the biggest overhaul of the OS ever. The redesign of the software marked the end of an era of sorts. Jobs was always a fan of designing software that mirrored real life. But the new OS features a flat interface that is void of any life-imitating graphics. Under Cook, Apple has also been more open in its relationship with Wall Street.

During Jobs’ tenure as CEO, the company had a notorious reputation for giving very low guidance and then beating expectations by a mile. This caused a lot of confusion on the street. The company has also become increasingly more shareholder friendly since Cook took the reins.

Likely because Jobs had witnessed Apple on its deathbed more than once, he was extraordinarily wary of debt. But Cook has been more willing to take on debt to return capital to shareholders.

So far, the company has said it will return $100 billion to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends by the end of 2015. And there’s speculation they may continue to increase the stock buyback.

Steve Jobs’ Apple would never ever do a share buyback but Steve Jobs’ time is over.

Runnable – The YouTube of Code

In most of my blogs, I typically refrain from making overarching generalizations and tend to use phrases such as “in most cases”, “majority of the” and so on but I am going to make an exception in this post. All software developers would have Googled the web looking for some sample piece of code atleast once in their careers. In the world of software development, it is common for people to look up the net for code.

Though developers look for code ever so often, there has never been a single source which has been the one stop source for developers for source code. Runnable, a silicon valley based start-up is trying to plug this gap, they are a company which is on a mission to empower anyone to build amazing things with software. They would like to be known as the “YouTube of Code” – a site that allows users to discover code snippets and edit and run the code right on their sites.

The team at Runnable believes developers spend most of their time looking up for code and tweaking existing code to suite their needs than to write their own code. Even seasoned developers find it difficult to keep up with the barrage of new technologies and Runnable wants to capitalize on this use case of discovering code snippets easy. They have a fairly decent repository of code snippets ranging from ASP.Net to PHP to Ruby on Rails from a wide range of reputable sources.

Besides maintaining a repository of code snippets, Runnable also would be launching a few APIs on how to use products like MySQL, MongoDB and other such services. The best feature of Runnable though is that you can edit the code and test it right on the site. Besides providing you a Repository of trusted code snippets, they also intend to provide you a sandboxed environment to test your tweaks.

It remains to be seen if Runnable would be a success in the long run if they do then it sure will bring down the time taken to develop a software. You can learn more about Runnable here.