Me, the internet and the long tail...

A few days back, I came across THE LONG TAIL blog. I was much impressed by the concept and the thoughts of the author. Promptly, I went and ordered a copy of the book on landmark. As I read the book, I looked back at my own experience with the internet...

I had my first email account somewhere in the year 1999 when a friend of mine created one for me. I sent an email to his account and he replied back. And that account was forgotten. When I was doing my internship in AUKBC a center for internet technologies (then), my friends were telling me I should be proud of my 24 hour connection to internet. I told them I was coding AES in Java and that did not need internet connection. And ya I did not even connect to the net in those two months...

Then I entered the corporate world in 2002 and started coding in ASP. I was good enough to google for code bits and search how to fix apache and jrun when they did not seem to work... I learnt more of my HTML, Javascript, VBScript, ASP, etc from W3Schools than from the SSi course that I went to learn from. Ya I registered for classroom courses for Java - which I think I should have learnt from home with a book. I did that for linux programming though.

In 2003 I advanced enough to search for whatever would help me in cracking the CAT. I joined Pagalguy which took more than fairs hare of my days time but added more than fair share of my CAT knowledge as well. Had an online bank account... Ordered something from eBay.

Then came 2004 IIMA - 24 hours of internet and full use of the computer to get anything to complete assignments, chatting with long lost friends, blogging, orkut, gmail, etc. Big time online fund management (had to count every penny in every account to make ends meet then), online credit card bill payments, eBay shopper, etc...

Then started work in 2006... Keeping track of blogs became a difficult thing, hence switched to RSS reader... My friends who used to write diappeared from their online worlds... Suddenly all the information was there - but time became a premium... I became information overloaded... So cut back on internet time...

Today I use internet for work related searches, code syntax (I still code sometimes - ASP, VBA), bills payment, funds transfer, trading / investing / tracking stocks, reading blogs, shopping for books... the last one in particular comes handy in Hyderabad. Earlier in Bangalore, I will walk to landmark in forum and I know I will get the books that are in my list. Here, I am yet to find such a store which carries that amount of variety. Also driving back and forth in the traffic!!! The equation is all in favour of online order in landmark!!!

The book also brought to my notice, the field of self-publishing (Lulu) When I read the paragraph on that, I ran and grabbed the computer from the better half and started browsing on what it is... It struck me hard that I could write a book and get it published for under Rs.10,000. Till then I thought of writing a book as a dream that would never get fullfilled in my lifetime unless I improve my writing 10000%. Now I can just get it published for under.... God!!! I was so enlightened about this I couldn't go back to reading this book, but kept on dreaming when I would write and what I would about... (reminds me of calvin writing his autobiography in 2 sheets of paper)

So all in all I had a great time reading this book... and understood so much about web 2.0 (which might not have been the author's intention)

~*~ Bhars

P.S: Going by this book, this blog is in the loooooong end of the tail, but still useful enough for a few who come in here everyday... Thanks readers!