World Series Hockey (or) WSH, as it is popularly called, is a league type hockey series organised by the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and Nimbus Sports, in a country where hockey never got the respect it is supposed to get.  The series was supposed to revive the lost glory of the National Game of India. But it has a lot of hurdles to face.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="316" caption="World Series Hockey"][/caption]

The primary concern for this tournament was the fight between the country's top governing bodies of the sport, The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and Hockey India (HI). While the Government of India haven't clearly stated which of these two will control the future of the game in the nation, the International body for governance of the game, FIH, has clearly mentioned Hockey India as India's sole controller of Hockey. There arises the problem. Since the tournament is organised by IHF, it was approved neither by Hockey India nor by the FIH. This brings us in relation with the most infamous sporting controversy in the country, the short-lived Indian Cricket League (ICL).

After India's early exit in the 2007 Cricket World Cup, Zee television network announced of organizing a private Twenty 20 league cricket tournament, almost similar to the WSH. The tournament as expected was not approved by the country's top cricketing body, the BCCI and virtually by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The players were threatened that if they took part in the league, they will not be picked for the International games. Despite the threatening, it had the likes of many top cricketers of the world such as India's world cup winning captain Kapil Dev (who also acted as the Chief mentor for the tournament), Pakistan's Inzamam-ul-haq and West Indies' Brain Lara, to name a few.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="330" caption="Kapil Dev, Chairman of ICL"][/caption]

The league, in fact took off, with its first edition, crowning the "Chennai Super Stars" as champions, was a partial hit. This forced BCCI to announce its own "Indian Premier League" (IPL). The cash-rich BCCI hit the right chords with IPL to make it a multi-billion dollar tournament.

WSH also shares most of the characters with ICL. The Pakistan and Indian Hockey Authorities already announced that the players of WSH will not be allowed to play for the national teams. Even FIH has issued notices citing that the players signed for WSH will be suspended from International matches. But the story of the World Series Hockey cannot be similar. Primarily because, Hockey doesn't have the craze that cricket has in this nation. Second, Hockey India is not as rich as the BCCI. Even if HI or FIH comes with similar league, as BCCI did, it is difficult to get the sponsors.

The experiment was already done a few years back, when ESPN Star, in association with the Hockey federation started the Premier Hockey League (PHL), which was shut down after 2 seasons, for the lack of sponsors. These private leagues, will however serve for the betterment of Hockey in the country, if it was approved by the sports' governing bodies. As it was proved time and again, that league based sports are the most attractive form to reach a wide audience.

One interesting difference between ICL and WSH cases are, the salary paid by the ICL and by BCCI are almost the same. So it was easy for players to pick nation over ICL. But the case of WSH is entirely different. Players of WSH are paid multiple times the amount they are getting for playing international games. So players with real talent from poor backgrounds might easily choose WSH over Hockey India. If that happens, it means India is losing its Hockey talent and we could never rise up again in this game.

Since Hockey India is designated as the official authority of Hockey in India, it need not fear about the rise of IHF. Instead, it should go on to recognize the WSH as an official domestic tournament for nothing else than the welfare of Hockey itself. This is the best tonic that could be given for the otherwise dying sport. Let sport be sport and leave the politics aside.

Yes! It's here...

The much much awaited product of the Google+ ecosystem has finally arrived. Yes! Starting right now you can follow brands or "Google+ Pages".

The Google+ pages logo

The G+ pages, for now, is half-baked. It neither offer good admin controls as Facebook does not it has the ability of a two way interaction. Fans or followers cannot post into the Page or even directly contact them in any means. But hours withing the launch Google's product manager of the Google+ project, Dennis Troper posted to his G+ profile that every feature will be up very soon.

There are a lot of pages to follow right now and every one can create a new page as well.

And it seems Google+ is changing its logo too. The official Google+ page on G+ shows "g with +" in red background which is also the favicon of profiles and pages. But still the favicon of the homepage is the "+ in black button"

[caption id="attachment_61" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="New logo of Google+"][/caption]

The one thing I love about Google is their creativity. And they have done it very well in making their pages. Google has used its scrapbook images to a greater extent in designing their pages. For example, Google's official page have G as the profile picture and the remaining letter are in each photos each taken from a different doodle. Google Maps page the scrapbook photos combined to give a complete map.

[caption id="attachment_62" align="aligncenter" width="530" caption="Google's page on Google+"][/caption]

Here are a few Google pages to add to circles on Google+:

• Google


• Google Maps


• Google Plus


• YouTube


• Android


• GMail


• Google Chrome


• Google+ Your Business a.k.a Google+ Pages

UPDATE:  Google totally changed the logo of Google+ in all its pages. Now Google+ is all red.

Good bye OVI

The only remaining product with Nokia's "ovi" identity was the Ovi Suite. But with the 3.2.1 update released today Nokia rebrands it as the "Nokia Suite" thus ending its once-a-dream Ovi trademark. :(

 

Counting down the last days of Snaptu

When Snaptu launched its revamped facebook application a year back, little was known that this is going to be the beginning of the end of one of the all-time favorite J2ME application.

The success of Snaptu lies in the fact that there was no good RSS reader or a twitter app for the s40 series of Nokia (which then covered almost 95% of mobile phone market) as well as other feature phones. Snaptu, powered by the superior interface quickly got into the gap.

It all began with their January 19 announcement, that they will launch a Facebook application for the feature phones in partnership with Facebook itself. Then it was called "Facebook by Snaptu". Still things were seemed to be well and good.

When rumors about Facebook's acquisition of Snaptu began in the late February, Snaptu replied by launching a LinkedIn application in partnership with LinkedIn. The voices were over and things became normal once again.

But that doesn't last long. 5 days later came this blog post from Snaptu, when no one expected.

The Snaptu team is excited to announce today that we recently agreed to be acquired by Facebook.

Right in the blog post, snaptu indicated that the app is counting down its last days.

The acquisition is expected to close within a few weeks.  We’ll have more updates on Snaptu soon, and we’ll be working hard to offer a richer and more advanced Facebook app on virtually every mobile phone. During this transition period, we expect Snaptu will continue to operate as it does today.

But facebook as they do as always, maintained that Snaptu as a product will not be affected by the acquisition. Yes, it was not affected until September. In September both Snaptu and Facebook by Snaptu is removed from distribution from its own servers to give way for "Facebook for every phone". It was then removed from app stores like GerJar and OVI store, a few weeks later.

The jar file, however was still available in the net and it did work. But with a banner reading "Upgrade to the new Facebook app!" linking to the "Facebook for every phone" application. A few apps were missing but the rest such as Twitter, Facebook, Cricinfo, TechCrunch and Masable! worked (and is still working) well.

This morning (1 Nov 2011), another banner below the previous one was seen on the app reading "Apps ending on 11/11/11". This was the news item pointed:

On 11/11/11 we'll end most of our apps, including Twitter, Cricinfo, LinkedIn. These apps will no longer be available. Snaptu is now a part of Facebook, and we strongly encourage you to upgrade to our latest Facebook app.

This is not new for Facebook. They have already done it with Divvyshot, Hot Potato and most recently Beluga.

For those who used snaptu as just an RSS reader, the same app along with Weather Forecast (powered by AccuWeather) and MyMovies are available on the "Facebook for every phone" itself. Yet the loss of Snaptu is great one who used them for Twitter and Cricinfo.



 

A few links:

• Snaptu on CrunchBase


• Facebook for every phone.

Google+ integration on about.me

As we all know Google+ has launched its public API keys weeks ago. But till now we haven't seen any good apps or integration with Google+ on any other site. Probably AOL owned about.me is the first service to offer such integration.

In its blog post launching the service about.me said

We’re pleased to announce our Google+ integration is here! As one of the first services with Google+ available, our entire team worked hard to design, develop, test and launch this brand new integration.

The design features your public posts as well as your public profile. Though the facebook design on about.me is better than the G+ thing, with the photo feed and recent friends feed, this integration is truly a forward step taken in the right direction, at least for the Google+ side. G+ will need a lot of such things to make sure that they exist in the competition.

Here is how the feature looks like..



 

View my about.me page here

Add me to your circles here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Google+ integration on about.me

A hearty welcome to Google+ Games!!

Yes!! The Google+ games is finally here with top game makers such as Zynga and Rovio. But as everything else this also will be rolled out slowly, Google's Vic wrote on the Official Blog.

So we need to be patient a still more so that we could go Gaming!!

Google+: Still a crawling baby...

Its a  month old. Yet its a new born baby. That has been the story of Google+ so far. One can be pretty sure that Google is not just designing Google+, instead it is carving the social network to its best. But how long should we wait to see it in full shape? It has been one month since the launch of private field test, and now with the invites springing up in every corner, its possible for almost anyone to enter the zone. But there has been only minor appearance tune ups and there is no big announcements coming till now.. Why is Google taking so much time in introducing the new features. What are they waiting for?

Pages:

The massive hit of Facebook also lies in their better integration with pages. And at the launch of Google+ everyone was looking forward for this feature. To the dissatisfaction of the brands, there is no pages still though Google still maintains that it is coming very soon. Though a few brands like mashable joined Google+ with a public profile, Google's terms strictly says that only individuals can have a Google+ account as of now. And that too funky names are prohibited and only the user's real name should be used.

Games:

Another upcoming feature of the Google+ is Games. Google is taking extra care in bringing out the games as this means a lot to them. Needless to say that Zynga will be the first partner of G+ in releasing the games feature, as Google invested a huge money in the popular facebook games producer. Games is one of the most attractive yet the most spammy feature of facebook. So Google has to hit the right tone to make it a success.

Search:

Its too odd to see a search feature not incorporated in the social network of the world's leading search engine. But this is one feature where Google has no option but to be perfect. So it might take some time before they could develop, test, test and test again as long as they can before they implement the feature.

Custom Profile URLs:

The profile URL of a Google+ user (or just a Google Profile) has a numerous numerals in it which it too absurd to remember. Facebook had the same couple of years back and now they have realized to have the custom profile ids. The fear of Google is that these custom ids might leak out the email ids of the users. And leaving the email ids such open are a gift for the spammers. But still Google need to make an alternate to this feature. If you want a custom url even before Google gives you, try gplus.to

Google is known for rapid updates of its products such as Chrome, which hits version 14 while the all-time favorites Firefox is still at 6. But with Google+, they did not want to take any risk. They did not want even a single negative comment on their most ambitious project. Usually Apple is known for keeping things at the dark. Google tried the same with Google+ without leaving even a speck of doubt. And that went well in fact. G+ hit the right people at the right time. But taking too much of time to implement new features will leave the early adopters of Google+ to go back to Facebook. And this is something that Google would never want..

Need a Google+ invite?

Still can't find a way to get into Google+? Let me share you what i have got. Let me know who want to have an invite. I will send you an invite, as you cannot sign up directly trough the Google Plus page. Just drop in with your email id and i will send you an invite.

 

Just want to reshare what Khaja Moinuddin Mohammed has given me.. :)

Yet to be fixed in Google+

The first few bugs/fixes as i found in Google+

SMS : Its great that Google+ comes with SMS updates and SMS posts for India (considering that i'm addicted to FB SMS updates). But it doesn't work for updates (or atleast from Docomo).

Web app: Though they have got a web app for Symbian mobiles, you can access these web apps only via the native browser. Which means NO Opera Mini, UC Browser and not even Ovi Browser (which will be the default browser in upcoming Nokia mobiles). Ofcourse, the web app works very well in the native browser, it is tough luck for those who don't have the native browser. Most phones shipped now contain Opera Mini as the default.

Will update more as i explore the All new social network..

 

 

Champions League T20 - CSK Schedule

Here is the schedule for Chennai Super Kings in Champions League T20 2011..



Each team plays 4 matches in the group stage. Q2 depends upon the qualifier tournament that is played before the actual tournament. Q2 may be Trinidad & Tobago, Champions of FriendsLife T20 England or Champions of SriLanka Premier League . All matches for CSK will be at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk.

If Chennai qualifies for the Semi Final, the match will be played at Chennai irrespective of their finishing position. Also the final will be at Chepauk. So its all home game for the Super Kings.. What else? Cheer up and get ready to WHISTLE PODU!!

Google+ : What's in and what's up?

Less than 48 hours since the Google+ launch. What does really Google+ targets? Though Google+ is a mixture of a lot of content and Google says there is yet to come, it is all tied with the main concept, the Circles. And this circles, much hyped as the future of social networking haven't been picked up by the other two major players. Facebook have the Lists option which allows you filter your friends by category, it is almost hidden. It could be seen only on the options in the Chat pop-up. While twitter created the lists, but that failed to make up to what it was actually designed for. Can Google get the things straight?

The Right Cord:

Secrecy:

Google+ was a top-secret within the company until it revealed itself. And that was a very right start for them. They did not want any real hype on launching such a big project. Indeed if it lacks even a single bit, then they fail because of the tremendous amount of hype that it had generated before launch. The one that happened with the Google wave and Google +1. So, they got the start right.

Pick-up:

Another reason for the failure of Google wave is the very slow rolling out process. It means though you have got the invite and all ready to go waving, there would be none to accompany you. And you have to wave all alone. Google plus did the things right. Though they are still in the field test, they now offer invites ( and probably unlimited, as opposed to the initial 20 in Wave) to add all your friends.

Circles:

And yes, the big thing - the Circles. This is not something new for Google. They have already tried this group sharing in the sinking ship, Orkut. But eventually it failed as it was integrated with the Scraps, and in course there were no news feeds - only scraps in Orkut. But as a concept Circles did well even there. And it will do here too.

Visual appeal:

Yuk.. The one thing where Google never won a battle. It had tried a lot on the visual thing and it seems they have got it this time. Adding and removing a friend to a circle is a pleasure. Hats off Google!

Take a note Google:

So far, all good for Google. But this is not the end. One thing i have seen is that you can add a friend/follower to just one circle. That is there is no intersecting circles. For example, if i have a friend, who is my schoolmate as well as collegemate, i can add him to any one of the circles only. This limits him from seeing what i share in the other circle. There is a way for it to create a new circle for School & College mates, and post the same for both but that's not a better idea.We need this Google!"

And finally though they have got fairly unlimited invites to give out, they put up this on the site..

"Already invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon."

I haven't got my hands to the Google+ yet, though i have got a invite. Meanwhile if you need an invite visit affiliatemoin.com/2011/06/30/google-plus-invite/ or let your e-mail id in the comments and i will send you an invite as soon as i get access to Google+. After all social is all about sharing..