A Twitter Bug with snipped URL

I am someone who is not a big fan of retweet functionality of Twitter. I still prefer the old RT style. So I mostly copy paste the tweet and prefix them with "RT @....".

Yesterday, I discovered some problem with twitter. I happened to like a message and wanted to retweet it. On the right pan of NewTwitter, I selected the message and out of sheer habit, pressed Ctrl+C 3-4 times (I know it is weird but I mostly press Ctrl+C multiple times. Thankfully, I don't do so with Ctrl+V ;)). Alas, the link part of the tweet spit null. Check the screenshot to see what I mean.

I tried it with a few other messages, there was no problem. Only difference between this tweet and others was that this tweet had a snipped link nybooks.com/articles/archi.... I tried this with other tweets having snipped links, the bug was reproducible on Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13 on Ubuntu. However, this issue wasn't found when I tried it on Google Chrome. I haven't been able to try it on other platforms/browsers.

As far as I can guess, the problem is with the Twitter's URL shortner API. I know of no serious consequences of this vulnerability, but I hope Twitter fixes it soon.

Update: The image in the post is not clearly readable. Here is the direct link of the image.

Helping solve few problems in Nepal with Technology

I have been working on a research titled "Innovation Ecosystem for Development of Nepal" for past few months. Since, I started working on this research and after having gone through several literature, I have realized there is much more youths and individuals can do for Nepal than I earlier assumed.

I have been musing a lot over the ideas where technology, particularly ICT, could be used in improving the economic status of the country or living standard of marginalized group. There exists immense possibilities even the ones with great economic returns. However, here I am sharing two ideas from more of social entrepreneur perspective rather than business entrepreneur perspective. The ideas still need refinement where your inputs might help.

Build a portal with reasons and information to help people invest in Nepal. Something like http://www.investmentcommission.in/

• The portal can be used to highlight quality work being done and potential growth sectors
• Since the govt. support is unlikely to come (at least at the earlier stage), getting an endorsement by successful Nepalese with International branding like Prabal Gurung, Kiran Joshi and the Nepali diaspora will help
• It would be great if the site could be community owned and developed collaboratively on github or similar platform
• If ever, government agencies come forward, the ownership should be transferred to them
• I know many of us who are familiar with Nepal's present situation would be laughing at this idea and find it ludicrous. but believe me if we start to explore positive sides, we will definitely find some. We already have low wages, huge concentration of population in youth age-growth (see I found a few!). We don't necessarily have to eye for an investment from Google here today or a supply-chain business from Wal-mart. Nepal would begin growing even if we, say for example, manage to get car-seat cover factories (that is so trivial, isn't it but Nepal doesn't make them yet), electrical switch making companies, some hydro-power solutions.

Helping pregnant women get customized advice through mobile phone

• The idea is inspired (or you can say copied) from the following news story: http://www.iadb.org/news-releases/2010-08/english/pregnant-women-in-peru-will-improve-their-health-via-cell-phones--7708.html
• It can easily be implemented by a startup IT company in Kathmandu
• Would be a great service to do in a country where maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rates are very high
• The idea need to have major focus for rural areas
• Since reducing maternal and infant mortality rates are critical MDGs (Millenium Development Goal) for Nepal, getting some INGO to fund the cost shouldn't be difficult
• Can be easily done in partnership with a hospital
• This will be very useful as several rural women don't have access to hospital and the cases of teen age pregnancy are high
• The implementing organization can still make profit through SMS charges (though margin can be a bit low). However, I believe the social capital through such project would produce good returns in long run. And, moreover, it will help develop a market for SMS based services at the bottom of the pyramid (it is virtually non-existent in rural area at present and has great potential. One has to only connect to the kinds of services that would matter to rural population).

Although, I would like to work on these ideas, I am not quite sure if I would be able to work on either of them because of my other engagements. I would be more than happy to extend any help if someone wants to implement them.

Google Bots are looking at you!!

We all know of the enormous amount of data Google stores about so many things. But today I ran across something that I hadn't imagined Google bots were stalking at.

A picture is worth thousand words.  Hence, lets see this screenshot of my Gmail account.

In the email thread (http://groups.google.com/group/foss-nepal/browse_thread/thread/2725fc8a421c90b8) I had proposed an IRC meeting on Tuesday at 8 PM. I was surprised to find "Add to Calendar" suggestion with those details (I have noticed this feature for the first time.) It is just so wonderful and genius of engineers at Google to suggest you to add the event to you calendar, isn't it? 

Even before, I add the event to calendar, Google still has an idea of the fact that I am having a meeting at the specified time and venue. 

Google bots might over period store so much of information about your meetings that it might be able to tell you when exactly you went on date with and when.

Is Google experimenting Video Ads in Youtube?

For sometime now, Google has been vigorously experimenting variety of ads on Youtube. Anyone who has used Youtube in past 3-4 months (I don't exactly remember when Google launced it and I am too lazy to search ;) ) must have at least noticed the text based ads that appear at the bottom of videos.

Today, while trying to follow the Google-China Saga, I clicked upon a video link to notice L'OREAL ad being bombarded at me.

For a moment, it seemed I clicked wrong link. And, in a while, the video I was looking for actually appeared. For a moment, I thought that it might have been uploaded that way by the video submitter. Hence, I refreshed the page to be greeted with PEPSI ad.

This seem to be a new advertising methodology Google is experimenting in its lab! I am not sure how people will react to it but for the time being, I am loving the idea.