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Net Gains (Nov 27, 98) |
It's finally happened - privatisation is here to stay! Satyam
Infoway launched the country's first private Internet service
in Hyderabad on Sunday, making them India's first private Internet
Service Provider (ISP), and ending VSNLs monopoly as an ISP. As
the maxim goes, "bhagwan ke ghar mein daer hain, andhaer
nahin". Though Satyam charges slightly more than VSNL
rates, what will ultimately drive customers to private ISPs like
Satyam will be value added customer services and better customer
service and helpdesk (both of which are VSNLs stumbling blocks).
Satyam is looking at logging at least a lakh subscribers by 2000.
Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune are among
other cities where Satyam will be starting their services soon.
Log on to SatyamOnline.com for more details.
While ISPs in India are just arriving on the scene, one particular
ISP that's made the news again is AOL. On the Internet, the number
of eyeballs are what matter to a website, AOL, like hundreds of
others, is trying to maximise the number of eyeballs they can
capture. Earlier this year, they acquired ICQ and now they're
reportedly planning to buy Netscape. All with the aim of being
the numero uno website on the Internet that most people visit
daily. But then, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Excite, and Lycos among others
have the same goal too. May the best site win …
While websites struggle to capture eyeballs, Channel [V]'s artist
of the month manages the same with ease. If you've seen Alanis
Nadine Morissette strutting around in her birthday suit in her
latest video singing, "Thank you India…" you'll
know what I'm talking about. E! Online has a feature on 50
Alanis Things You Oughta Know
(http://www.eonline.com/Hot/Features/Alanis/index.html).
Incidentally, while she considers the Net the antichrist, she
still maintains an official website at AlanisMorissette.com.
Confession time: I don't know driving. Driving vehicles I mean, because I have friends who'll attest that driving people up the wall is one of my talents. The best part about not knowing driving is that others have to take turns at the wheel when you're out in a group, while you sit back and avoid the frustration and tension of driving in and out of our potholes and trying to knock down pedestrians. I've come across the occasional person who doesn't get frazzled while driving, but there's a cure for that. Here are a few tried and tested tricks to get them pulling their hair out in no time:
- Every few minutes tell the person driving to slow down or speed up.
- At a signal, inform the person driving the millisecond it turns green.
- Point to the left and tell the driver to make a right.
- When giving directions, tell the driver to turn after you pass the junction.
- Pretend you have your own steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedal.
While these are all certified lycerejo originals, there are many
more things to do as a backseat driver, and you can find them
on the Net. How to Drive Like a Moron (http://members.aol.com/doggiesnot/)
is full of moronic skills you need to be a "better"
driver - whether you're the guy in control, or you're the backseat
driver! This homepage has over a dozen tutorials to improve your
driving skills, right from the general rules ("if you
get lost while driving, the best place to stop and get your bearings
is at a green light") to maintenance tips ("Adjust
your window washers so that they squirt over the windshield, above
the car, and onto the vehicle behind you").
How to Drive Like a Moron is a good example of a mini-site
where you can spend your online time enjoyably. Have a hearty
laugh at some of the real rules of the road, the ones followed
by those morons who you come across in your daily commute. However,
if you do decide to implement any of the driving "lessons"
you learnt on these webpages, please put a bumper sticker saying
"I drive this way just to piss you off" or "I
may be slow but I'm ahead of you", so that the rest of
us are warned in advance, and can even pay you back with some
other tricks.
Till next week, happy cruising… on the information superhighway
as well as on the tar or cement one …