Our Blog

Bryan wrote an interesting post today about his conversation with a cab driver in Boston. He notes it as Web 2.0 Quotes from a cab driver, but almost all quotes rave about iPhone (and Apple ofcourse):

Web 2.0 Quotes from a Boston Cab Driver

• I got a new 3G iPhone because I am in my cab all day and it is like a laptop for my cab.
• I use Classmates.com a lot to catch up with people from school and find old friends.
• I forgot my phone today and I am going crazy without it.  Usually I am chatting on MSN with my friends all day.

Isn’t this unbelievable? The iPhone is probably going to be the computer that may be most widely used by all types of users all over the world and perhaps for more time then non-technical users ever users their laptops and desktops. If a cab driver who is busy driving all day is addicted to it, think about everyone else. This is going to have a profound effect on what becomes popular on the iPhone Web, which I would classify as web usage by iPhone users anytime, anywhere. Ultimately, if users spend more time on the iPhone Web, then companies will rush to re-purpose their offerings for ease of use on the iPhone platform. The winners, however, will be the ones who figure this out early…like now. This may explain Facebook’s new design (Facebook Readies iPhone-Inspired Redesign) and its rush to make Facebook work flawlessly and natively on the iPhone. iPhone developers and iphone development firms will definitely bubble up rapidly in this landscape and we are bound to see the iPhone emerge as the killer-connected-usable handheld that we have longed for.

Google Insights graphs have been all over the blogosphere after Andrew Chen posted thoughts about popular websites which may be driven largely by Silicon Valley early adopters. I played with Google Insights a couple of months back, and recently have been looking at it more closely to analyze a bunch of different thing, including where do we look for good Ruby on Rails developers in India, to hire at our Pune office. Its funny how the data from Google Insights (see below) matches closely to our own recruitment efforts as well as that of our head hunters.

I restricted the search by “Computers & Electronics” category to take out any unrelated matching terms. I also tested with “ruby on rails” search term with and without quotes. Karnataka state ranked the highest which was expected with Bangalore being the largest software hub in India, followed by Kerala, Gujrat and Maharastra. I was surprised to see Kerala and Gujrat rank above Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu (Chennai has a pretty large Ruby group, or atleast it had in the past) rank lower in the list. But if we assume search keywords being indicative of skills or people cultivating those skills (for software/language keywords) then this is insight from Insights is a pretty good insight for everyone who is looking for Ruby on Rails developers in India. It helps you understand which areas in the country has talent that is upto speed with the latest in open source.

I pulled up a chart for python and that came up as expected as well with a few new insights that I didn’t know. Looking at python and ruby on rails charts, helps find areas in the country where you can find early adopters of new technology, who can potentially also be a good fit for startup founders looking to hire or outsource product development to India.

.NET is pretty widespread in the country Andhra Pradesh leading the list, and so is Java with Karantaka leading the list. I think this can be a great resource for companies and recruiters in India to leverage to figure out where they can find what kind of talent and plan accordingly.