Return Of The Clients

If you been using twitter (and after reading my previous posts, I sincerely hope you are!), then you are definitely familiar with the twitter website and it's features or lack thereof!
Don't get me wrong, the web-site is very simple and clutter-free (unlike facebook and orkut), but reading tweets from multiple peeps becomes somewhat of a challenge. Also, you have to constantly refresh your page to check on different portions of your twitter page (read favorites, followers, mentions, etc.)

What if you could organize the people you follow, keep all your favorite tweets at easy reach and have a holistic view of your twitter experience?

Enter the twitter clients!


Table Top Wonders!
You've got Outlook (or ThunderBird if you're into open source!) to manage you mail offline. So why should your tweets be treated differently. Desktop clients are the key to tracking your tweeps and their tweets in an organized and fun manner. Here are some of the best desktop twitter clients -

TweetDeck

Managing your tweets couldn't get simpler than this! Built on the Adobe Air, TweetDeck offers integration with your twitter, facebook and myspace accounts.
TweetDeck is the complete package, upload media, shorten your URLs, maintain your hashtag history and even translate your tweet!
A prominent feature of TweetDeck (one which makes it my preferred desktop client) is the column. Create separate columns for different functions, i.e. one to track all your DMs, one for all your mentions, one for your list of followers and so on. This is great if you're interested in organizing all your tweets and focusing on specific aspects of your twitter timeline.
If you are serious about tweeting, TweetDeck is definitely the way to go!



Seesmic

Next to Tweetdeck, Seesmic is perhaps the most sought after twitter desktop client. And for good reason. The client has a web, desktop and mobile avatar and also supports integration with your facebook profile.
Although I've downloaded the seesmic desktop client, I don't really use it much, but those who have,swear by it. So do check it out before you zero in on a client.
Pssst...if you are really interested in a more detailed comparison between TweetDeck and Seesmic, check out this link


HootSuite

Although a web based client, HootSuite offers most, if not all the functions available in TweetDeck and Seesmic. Labeled as the twitter client for professionals, HootSuite is essentially targeted at those organizations who wish to leverage twitter for their social media presence.
But that doesn't mean that you need to be the CEO of a company to appreciate the features provided by this baby!
A few things that I liked, were the customized shrunk links that allow you to track the number of hits on the target web-page, provision for scheduled tweets and profile statistics summary.


Fun On The Run!
Tweeting is all about keeping your updates mobile. Let's face it, not all of us spend hours together in front of the PC, well not voluntarily at least. So if you need to keep feeding the twitter bird on an hourly basis with your tweets, how do you do that? Well thankfully there are a plethora of clients designed for every mobile phone platform (read OS). Some of the most popular ones are -


Gravity

Designed for Symbian smart phones (read Nokia N&E Series and the likes), this is by far the best in its class. Apart from supporting all the standard twitter functions (retweet, reply, favorite, Direct Message, etc), Gravity also features other cool features. These include forwarding a tweet as an SMS (super awesome!), uploading pictures to multiple media sharing sites (Mobypicture, posterous, twitpic, twitgoo, yfrog, img.ly), creating groups of your followers and even schedule your tweets.
Gravity also integrates with Google Reader. So if you have a RSS feeds synced with your Google Reader, then you can read them right off your phone!
Recently even a facebook integration has been introduced. Although it's still a little buggy, but nonetheless a great addition to an amazing mobile client.
Be warned, this application is not freeware and comes with a price tag of $9.95 (plus taxes). But it's worth every cent!


Tweets60

Tweets60 was the first free native twitter application for Nokia S60. Tweets60 lets you change your status, read the tweets of people you follow, re-tweet, and manage who you follow.
With a fairly simple interface and basic functions of twitter, this is the a great mobile client for those who don't want too many fancy features.


Tweetie

Tweetie is the twitter client for the oh so sought after iPhone and iTouch. Well to be fair, it is originally the twitter client for the Mac, and has a mobile version for Apple's touch products.
Needless to say that the features of this bad boy are at par with the other touch applications. And in true Apple style, Tweetie has seamless integration not only with your web profiles but also your phone address book.
Apart from that the client is fully loaded with features like one-touch media upload, group management, landscape support and much more.
If you own an iPhone (or the iTouch), this is the client you need on your device.


And with that, the Twitter Critter series comes to an end. Through this series I have tried to cover as much area as possible to make your twitter experience as simple and hassle-free as possible.

I hope that these posts have been helpful in demystifying the twitter universe, oops I mean Twitterverse.
Do let me know if there are any other aspects of Twitter that you'd like more gyann on. Till then...


Happy Tweeting!


Previously in the series:
The Twitter Critter Strikes Back!
Attack Of The Apps

Thanksgiving...One Year Ago

Last year I was lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving in the motherland of the holiday, USA. I was in Denver, Colorado on a client assignment. To celebrate the long weekend, my colleagues and I decided to take a trip to Las Vegas. Being our first trip to the gambling capital of the world, it was highly anticipated by us.

We were to leave early morning on 27th November, a Thursday. The day before, we were at work, making final presentations and getting sign-offs from the client. The general mood across the team and in the office was of joyous celebration. We had managed to meet the project deadlines and deliver satisfying results to the client and were all set to celebrate the results of our hard work with a terrific weekend getaway.

Then I got a message from a friend back home in Bombay. His conversation stated that portions of the city's downtown were under siege by some terrorist outfit.

The date was November 26th, 2008. The siege he referred to was the terrorist attack on the metropolis that began at approximately 9:30 PM and lasted for a gut-wrenching sixty hours.

We immediately scoured the internet to obtain some sort of video footage of the attacks. News Channels were broadcasting the grotesque incident live via their web channels. What we saw, we could not believe. Glimpses of men dressed in casual attire wielding Ak-47s and hand grenades at the Taj Mahal hotel. The five-star hotel had been turned into a battle-ground.

Elsewhere other members of the terrorist group had taken siege of various locations across the southern tip of Bombay. Restaurants, hospitals, train stations, schools, these men had not shown any remorse of mercy in their choice of targets and victims. Their motive was plain and simple. Death to all!. All of it seemed surreal, almost unimaginable.

What seemed like an eternity was in fact 60 hours. Almost three days, the city was held captive on in its own turf by terrorists. The outcome? Over 148 civilians died, 14 police officers and 2 Commandos lost their lives, several were badly injured and the city that everyone thought was indestructible was brought to its knees.

Bombay has had its share of disasters, natural or otherwise. As a citizen of the bustling metropolis, I have witnessed most of them. The communal riots of 92, the tragic bomb blasts that ensued the year after, the deluge of 26/7 in 2005, the local train blasts in 2006. These are some of them many events that have been etched in my memory. But there was something different about the attacks on 26/11. Something that made the entire episode seem not only tragic but alarming.

Although I was not in the city, when the tragedy occurred, my family and friends were. My father and brother work at office complexes in the Nariman Point area, which is close to Colaba. My grandmother lives at Vile Parle, where a taxi cab exploded . Many of my friends live near the CST station area, where one terrorist was on a shooting rampage with his rifle. Thankfully none of them were harmed, this time.

Flash forward to one year later, today. A lot has happened since that fateful day. But the memory of the tragedy still haunts us. For most they are only images that we saw on the television, articles we read in the newspapers. But for those who were caught in the middle of the maelstrom, the day is a grim reminder of the tragedy that befell them and a date that will be forever etched in their memories.

And the media is not helping in easing the pain either. Barely a week before the first anniversary of the terrorist attack, electronic and print media have been capitalizing on the event. With "Special Reports", "Exclusive Footage" and purple prose editorials, the media moguls are leaving no stone unturned to cash in on this tragedy. Even a cellular network operator is riding the wave with its own "tribute" to the heroes who sacrificed their lives to end the tragedy.

Noble as their intentions may be, one can't help but wonder, if all of this is but another way to publicize their own brands under the guise of nobility. But hey, that's just the pessimist in me talking. Who knows? Perhaps we are witnessing a strong social sensibility among the corporates.

Another and a far more important question is this - Has justice been served? A year after the attacks, we have one terrorist under custody awaiting trial, The governments of India and Pakistan are playing ping-pong with dossiers, the "Super Powers" of the world have yet to take a firm stand and plenty of unanswered questions.

So what are we celebrating after one year? From what I can tell, we can celebrate this, the simple fact that we are here. that the city has bounced back and that you and I can celebrate this Thanksgiving without incident.

But wait, didn't we already do that after the bomb blasts of '93? And wasn't this the same attitude adopted by us in response to 11/6 local train bombings? Sensing a pattern?

It is nice to know that as a city we have repeatedly emerged from our darkest hours as victors. But after a certain point that should not all that we should aspire towards. Rising from the ashes like a phoenix is fine, but striking the enemy in the gut is better. We need our government to take decisive action not only against the terrorists themselves, but also against those who are guilty of supporting such terrorist outfits.

So people, let us celebrate Thanksgiving this year. But let us celebrate this Thanksgiving to honor and thank the souls who went beyond the call of duty to secure our freedom on this day, one year ago and even before that. Let us give thanks to the fact that you and I are still here to remember this day thanks to their actions.

But let us not just stop at giving thanks. Let this day remind us of something even more significant, that terrorism is very much an issue for all nations, developed or otherwise. We can no longer turn a blind eye towards the tyranny of a group of people and lead our lives in oblivion. Make no mistake, this is a war, one in which the enemy is prepared to strike innocent civilians like you and me.

Fighting this war on terror and winning it for our future generations will hopefully earn us our due thanks in the Thanksgivings to come.

Attack Of The Apps

Welcome to the second post in the Twitter Critter Series (third if you consider the original Twitter Critter Post!), focussing on the new social networking (soc-net for short) site, Twitter.  In the previous post, we saw the basics (and I mean real basic basics!) of using twitter. This week's post focuses on how you can leverage your twitter account to truly immerse in the soc-net experience.

Look Mommy I Shot That!
Networking on the web seldom involves mere textual updates of one's life. Today we can share our personal experiences with family and friends in full color, motion and sound. YouTube, Picasa, flickr and many others allow us to upload those candid moments to the web and share them with everyone.

Sharing pictures or videos on twitter can be as simple as posting the link of your photo album elsewhere (picasa, youtube, flickr, photobucket and the likes). But why resort to such 'prehistoric' methods? Twitter has spawned, or is at least supported, by many third party media upload websites. The seamless integration between your twitter account and these applications, enables, nay, empowers you with a one-touch upload and tweet functionality.

Here is the low-down on few of the third-party applications to enlighten you on the possibilities of your twitter presence.


Say Cheese!
A Picture, they say, is worth a thousand words, which is tremendously helpful when you're dealing with a 140 character limit! Some of the most popular photo upload and tweeting sites include -


twitpic
A simple no nonsense site which lets you upload photographs directly from the website or through supported phone applications. Apart from seeing the snaps that you uploaded, twitpic also lets you see what the world is uploading in real-time.



snaptweet
Snaptweet allows you to integrate your existing flickr account and tweet uploads to the Yahoo photo sharing service. You can send your latest photo or send tagged photos only or even send all emailed photos.





tweetphoto
Fairly similar to twitpic, this service allows you to tweet about your photos on twitter and facebook






Lights, Camera... Action!
If a photo is equivalent to a thousand words, one can only imagine the power of a video clip. Here are some of the top video sharing services for twitter -


twiddeo
Twiddeo lets you upload video files (mpg, wmv and avi file formats). The service also allows yout upload directly from your webcam and as well as your cellular phone (using an email based service).


vidly
Rated as the application of choice by many, this video sharing service also has an iphone application which lets you directly upload via your treasured apple phone.



12seconds
Fame may last for only 15 minutes, but it takes only 12 seconds to become famous. Record your emotions, thoughts or just what you're upto in a 12 second video clip and upload it to this site and watch it spread like wild fire across your twitter and facebook accounts!



Mix It Up!

Don't want to be restricted to just images or videos? Well then try these sites that offer multiple media tweeting support -


tweetcube
TweetCube allows you to share files on Twitter, period! Upload your images, videos, music and more and your files are automatically posted on Twitter.


mobypicture
Not to be confused with twitter's own fail whale, this whale of a photo and video upload service allows integration not only with twitter, but also other sites like facebook, flickr, youtube, blogger, wordpress and typepad (Phew!).



There you go, some really cool web-applications to add media richness to your twittering experience. So what're you waiting for? Start sharing!

The next post (which is the final one in the series) will shed some light on some great twitter clients to help you tweet from anywhere!

Previously in this series: The Twitter Critter Strikes Back!

Next in this Series: Return Of The Clients

Why I Like Bal Thackeray

Let me begin by clarifying something. I dislike the Shiv Sena and it's illegitimate spawn, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Wait let me correct that, I do not like the agenda and beliefs that these political outfits and their like stand for and promote.

Unless you've been living under a rock or are not from India, you are no stranger to their brand of politics. Their stand on employment and welfare of the "Sons of The Soil" has caused much disharmony in the state. Off-late their agenda has taken a very brutal and ugly face in the form of public violence and blatant disregard for the laws of the land.

I guess by now you're probably confused about the title of this post. Well allow me to explain. The aging supremo of the SS (hmmm... why does that sound familiar?) attacked Sachin Tendulkar for saying that "Mumbai belonged to all Indians". In an editorial in the Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, Thackeray, warned Sachin to "keep off the political pitch" for his own well-being. Or else, he would have "run out" from Marathi minds.

In a country, where Cricket is a religion and Sachin its God, attacking the legend himself, is an open invitation for criticism. Political parties, intellectuals and civic society leaders have expressed extreme disgust towards the editorial by the 82-year old Sena chief. Some have even deemed the literary piece worthy of the dust-bin.

Thackeray's editorial has in a sense united Indians against his kind. His comments enraged the millions (dare I say hundreds of millions) of fans of Maharshtra's, scratch that, India's beloved son. This rage, ironically is turning out to be a strong catalyst for many to realize the truth about Thackeray and his kind.

Trust me, the men behind these political parties are merely capitalizing on the sentiment of the average Marathi Manoos. Given the opportunity, these Sainiks would gladly sell their "beliefs" to the highest bidder.

I sincerely hope fans of "The Little Master" and others as well, will see these men for what they truly are and ensure that they NEVER get in a position to wield power.

So, in conclusion, I must thank Bal Thackeray for his vociferous attack on Sachin Tendulkar. It has resulted in enough political backlash and public criticism to silence him for quite some time.

The Twitter Critter Strikes Back!

 I know I have already sung songs of high praise about twitter in an earlier post. But many of my friends, who are quite active on other social networks (facebook, orkut), don't seem to be very accepting of the latest entrant in the soc-net scene. So I decided to break the ice, so to speak, between these skeptics and twitter by spreading some 'gyaan' through my blog.

This post is the first of a three part series detailing (in a manner of speaking) various aspects of the Twitter Universe (or as we tweeps call it, the twitverse!). This post will talk about the basics of twitter and how to use it. The next post in the series will talk about third party applications that help you enrich your twitter presence and the final post in the series will discuss various twitter clients to help make your twitter experience simple yet effective.




So What is this twitter thingie?

Conventional Blogs tend to be lengthy and are usually topic/theme specific, periodic and well let's face it sometimes downright boring (qualities that this particular blog hopes never to live up to!). It's almost impossible to leverage your blog to stay in touch with your friends, family and colleagues, well not on a personal basis at least.

Enter the micro-blog. Same concept as a blog but with a size limit. You pen your thoughts, but since the length of your "post" is limited (with 140 characters, that's an understatement!) your thoughts are pretty short. This lets you get creative with your posts and lets you  update people about what's happening with you or as the tag line on your twitter page says it - What Are You Doing? Users 'tweet' their thoughts, rantings, comments, jokes and absolutely anything that can be put into words. Well within 140 characters to be more precise.

If you're familiar with facebook, twitter is essentially the 'What's on your mind' section of your facebook page. At the core, Twitter is all about letting the world know what you are upto, plain and simple! To start off, simply go to the twitter website, register yourself and you are ready to be part of the twiterrati!


What do I tweet about?
Most newbie tweeters get intimidated by this thought (I know I was!). Well it's simple. Tweet about what ever catches your fancy. What are you doing, or going to do, or have already done! Start with a simple "Hello World" (programmers you can dig this one right!), talk about the weather, the news, latest movies, music, food, pets or even  the color of your boss's secretary's eyes! Yes tweeting is all about being who you really are and what goes on in that head of yours!

But you can only hold up a conversation with yourself for so long. Being on twitter (or any other soc-net site) is about building your network. So start following other tweeters. Start by finding your personal friends who are already on twitter. Invite a few from your mail address book if they aren't already users. You can even use twitter's own Recommended Users list. But don't go overboard and follow every tweep you see. Gradually build up your twitter network. Then start tweeting with them, about them, or just at them!

Follow The Leader

In twitter lingo, following someone is equivalent to adding that person to your twitter network. Following someone automatically lets you see their tweets. Conversely if someone follows you, they get to see all your tweets. Following someone results in their tweets being displayed on your twitter page. The list of tweets you see is commonly known as a time-line.

And don't be surprised if you find random tweeple (twitter people a.k.a peeps) following you. If you don't like that kind of thing, don't sweat it. you can keep your tweets private and allow only people whom you authorize to follow you and in effect your tweets.

Apart from your own network and other random people, there are many celebrity tweeters out there who are worth following, start with them. Since following anyone on a twitter is fairly unrestricted, you can follow your favorite celeb tweeters and stay in the loop about the latest gossip and happenings in their lives.

Do keep in mind, just because you are following them doesn't mean they are following you as well. With twitter, the follow could be one-way. But don't worry,if your tweets are interesting, they'll soon turn around and start following you!

Give And Ye Shall Receive

Want to mention your fellow tweeter in your tweet? Simply send out a tweet by prefixing his/her user name with a @. You'll see that the peep's name is now a link redirecting to their profile. Neat nah? This is a great way for you to mention your friends on twitter and encourage others to mingle with them.

Another way to mention your fellow peeps is by retweeting. Retweeting is similar to the concept of forwarding messages or emails. Retweets are prefixed with a RT followed by the fellow tweeter whose tweet you are retweeting. Its a fun way of spreading jokes, news articles or any interesting material across the twitverse. Retweeting is equivalent to flattery in the Twitter World (hmmm shouldn't that be Tworld?)

Like something a fellow peep tweeted? You can save it for quick reference by simply making it a favorite. Keep in mind that your favorites, like your tweets, are public.

Talk Back

Want to answer a question someone tweeted? Have some advise for another tweeter? Then reply to their tweets. Replies are similar to mentions. The difference is that a reply begins with the user-name mention and continues with your message.

A reply only appears to those for whom it is meant. However if someone were to visit you profile page, these replies along with the intended recipients are visible to them. So a more secure way of communicating with a fellow tweeter is using the Direct Message (DM) feature. Simply start your tweet with a D followed by the reply message.

Keep It Relevant

A feature of twitter which I find personally very useful is the hash tag. Prefix any word with a # and it becomes a keyword with a hyperlink which can be easily searched. Any and all tweets in the twitverse that contain that particular word can be found by simply clicking on that word in any tweet. This feature is particularly helpful when you are tweeting (either randomly or to fellow tweeters) about a particular topic and want to review all past tweets containing that word.

The hash tag is also used to start trending topics which can be followed and continued by other fellow tweeters. This is very useful when you want to track what people are talking about and keeps you updated on the latest news and trends across the globe.




Voila, it's as simple as that! Hope this hs been helpful in understanding the way twitter works and has cleared most of the queries that you have about the soc-net site.

So go ahead and create your twitter profiles. Start following interesting tweeps. By the way, my twitter profile name is Aaragorn1984, in case you were considering to follow me!

The next post in the series (may not be the very next post!) will shed some light on the different third party applications that will enrich your twitter experience via media sharing.

Happy Tweeting!

Next in this series - Attack Of the Apps

Ajab Movie Ka Ghazab Review

What was touted as the romantic comedy of the year turned out to be yet another average flick. Raj Kumar Santoshi's Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani disappoints cinema-goers with a lackluster plot and very predictable story.

Boy meets girl. Boy loves Girl. Boy becomes Girl's best friend. Girl in love with Someone else. Boy willing to sacrifice love for Girl's Happiness. Someone else not perfect match for Girl. Girl Realizes that Boy is true love. Boy and Girl confess heir love to each other and live happily ever after. That is APKGK in a nutshell. Okay maybe I'm being a little harsh. But the story is pretty ordinary with nothing terribly fresh to offer.

The movie is essentially a romantic comedy focusing on Prem (Ranbir Kapoor) and his love interest, Jenny (Katrina Kaif). The first half focuses on the attempts by Prem to express his love for Jenny. Barring a few scenes, this portion of the movie is a bore and makes you wonder where is it all heading? Post interval the pace picks up and so does the humor, but marginally. The movie does have its moments where the audience will crack up. My personal favorites were the dialogues between characters of Ranbir and that of his father (Darshan Zariwala).

The USP of the movie, apart from the director, is of course the lead pair. Both Ranbir and Katrina are part of the new generation of actors and are youth icons in their own right. Their appeal to the respective sexes (or whatever sex!) will definitely bring in the initial crowds. But alas eye-candy is not enough to fill the theater seats.

The young Kapoor is as dashing and as suave as can be, even when he plays a small town dreamy-eyed lad. Katrina, well her appeal lies on multiple levels, unfortunately none of them are related to "Good Acting". This is yet another movie where the sexy lass fails to emote beyond a few scenes. However her performance seems Oscar worthy when compared with that of Upen Patel. Dude, seriously you were doing so good as a model!

If there is someone who manages to keep you from walking out of the theater, it is Ranbir Kapoor. The New Kapoor on the block proves his mettle with this movie as he manages to carry the rom-com almost single handed all the way through till the end.

Some may argue that the disappointment arises due to the inevitable comparison between APKGK and Santoshi's comic masterpiece Andaz Apna Apna. True as that maybe, it doesn't overshadow the fact that APKGK isn't a very GREAT movie to begin with. One can't even say that the story had great potential, since it isn't a very original script. Santoshi has attempted to pull off a Jab We Met mixed with a little Namastey London garnished with a dash of his own Andaz Apna Apna. The result is one not very memorable romantic comedy.

One of the few things, that I liked, was the song and dance sequences. Most of the songs (well at least the ones that are doing the rounds of the radio chart toppers), have been beautifully shot. They have a very music video feel to them. I especially liked the number 'Tera Hone Laga Hoo'. Although I still don't understand why Santoshi insists on filming his naach-gaana outside India?

Surprisingly many newspaper critics have given rave reviews for the movie. I guess that just goes to show that everything is up for sale these days! Frankly, I'd say don't waste your money to catch this movie with an overly priced multiplex ticket. Instead watch it as a matinee in a few weeks. Or better yet, wait for a month or two and some desperate satellite channel is bound to showcase this as their "Super hit" of the month.

TED - Ideas Worth Spreading

Recently I came across a Website that really changed the way I look at my profession. For that matter, it really transformed my perception about the nature of different professions and how they are in fact related to one another, no matter how diverse. But before I go into the details of the website, a little background about what the web-site is promoting.

TED or technology Entertainment Design started as a conference, held in Long Beach, California way back in 1984, which brought together people from the fields of, well you guessed it, technology entertainment and design. At the face of it this combination seems odd. But this odd mix of people sharing their own stories about their work and their experiences snowballed and today the conference, which is an annual affair is sold out a year in advance, has speakers from many other backgrounds and has inspired millions.

The premise for the conference is simple. Innovators, leaders, experts from each field share their ideas. These 'stories' are aimed at not any specific audience or a privileged few, but at all of us, you, me, and everybody. At the core of TED is the belief that an idea can come anywhere at any time and from anyone. Also that idea can spread at the speed of light and has the potential to move mountains. The TED conference is a medium for those who wish to share their ideas with the world in an effort to improve society as a whole.

The TED philosophy -

• An idea can be created out of nothing except an inspired imagination.
• An idea weighs nothing.
• It can be transferred across the world at the speed of light for virtually zero cost.
• And yet an idea, when received by a prepared mind, can have extraordinary impact.
• It can reshape that mind's view of the world.
• It can dramatically alter the behavior of the mind's owner.
• It can cause the mind to pass on the idea to others.

Many of the ideas are in the form of stories or anecdotes. Speakers come from different walks of life. To give you an idea of the range of topics, here is a list of recent speakers at the TED conferences held in the last few years:

• Eve Ensler -Creator of the Vagina Monologues
• Peter Diamandis - Runs the X-Prize foundation
• Abhay Deol - Bollywood Actor/Producer
• Bill Clinton - Former US President
• Jane Goodall - Renowned anthropologist
• Nandan Nilekani - Founding member, Infosys
• Al Gore - Former US Vice President, Nobel Laurette
  
• Bono - Singer, Activist
• JJ Abrams - Hollywood Producer/Director
  

It is quite apparent that the spectrum of speakers at the TED conferences is pretty colossal. But these are just a few of the speakers that have contributed in the last two and a half decades of TED.And each speaker brings to the floor his or her unique story.

The beauty of TED lies in its simple format. Over a course of 4 days, 50 Speakers get a fixed time slot of 18 minutes each to share their stories. The stories range from the hilarious to the inspirational. But each story is enriching in its own way.

TED is now a global phenomenon, not restricted to the conferences at Long Beach, California. In fact, the latest TED conference is being held right here in India at the Mysore Campus of Infosys and is playing host to many national and international personalities.

This brings me to the website that I mentioned earlier. In an effort to ensure that the stories/ideas of the many speakers don't get lost in the annals of time, TED launched TED.com, a 'clearinghouse' of knowledge, where ordinary people like you and I can view the inspirational videos of the speakers from past TED conferences.

I am sure that most of you watch some of the many many inane (albeit funny) viral videos that are ubiquitous on the net. Every other day someone is posting a link to some funny or ''Awesome' video file on YouTube or the likes. While these videos are a great stress-buster, they're more likely to be forgotten or have little value-addition to our lives or to the society as a whole.

On the other hand watching a video of any of the speakers from past TED conferences on TED.com is an enriching experience. Not only does it introduce us to new stories of people from across the globe and across industries, but also provides a new perspective on many global and local issues. Do yourself a favor, watch at least one TED video in a day (it takes not more than 20 minutes). I guarantee, within a week, you will start looking at the world in a new light.

You can go to the TED website and start viewing these videos instantly. Or you could fill out a simple registration form and become part of the TED community. Advantages of being part of the Community include being able to interact with other TED community members, mark you favorite TED videos and themes, share your idea with others and much more.

To get a taste of what TED is all about, view the video below:



But why? Why go into all this trouble of getting people from disparate backgrounds to come and speak about random topics and experiences?
Well each experience, each story, each idea is random in isolation. But when you rise above the boundaries of individual backgrounds, these ideas are connected. Every idea is the result of someone's imagination. That someone may be limited in his or her thought process and may not see the impact or the reach of his/her idea. But when you throw your idea out their in the open, it starts taking a life of its own, it starts breathing, it grows and it germinates many more ideas. No matter how different our professional and personal backgrounds may be, we are still connected as a human race and hence so are our problems and as a consequence the solutions to those problems. The TED conference, in my view, is a wonderful testament to that notion and thus is great legacy that we can leave for future generations to carry on.

For further information on TED visit the following links
http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/5
http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/42