Zool

first.day@zool.office

Zool — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:48:01 +0000

Nanao on his first day at the New Zool office.
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We have boxing gloves, punching bags, bean bags, 32 inch LCD TV, refrigerator, microwave ovens, computers, 6 balconies, conference room and loads of other stuffs.

Dude, I am talking about my new office. Located at Diamond District, Bangalore and said to be an auspicious start-up place you couldn’t ask for a better place to work.

I remember the first time when Rafi spoke to me about starting off a company and I had immediately developed a mental picture of the first office space. Well this is not exactly what I had in mind; it actually is a lot better. You may wanna say ‘quit bragging’ right now so I am gonna stop. But do come and have a look for yourself sometime. It’s open to all.

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Rewind

Hmmm, it’s a lazy day and it’s already past 12 noon, got loads of coding to do, let me just nap for another 15 mins before I start the day, okay just 15 mins . . . .

Buzzzzzzzzz Buzzzzzzzzzzz Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Is that my phone??? Oh COM’ON, I just buttered myself for another 15 mins of nap time. Oh it’s Rafi Sir.

Yes sir,
What are u guys doing this Saturday?
No plans sir
Okay then, we have taken a new office space in Diamond District. Come there this Saturday. Bring Dave, Rossi and Michael also.
Yes Sir.

Where is Dave? Got it.

Bhai Rafi called. We have got a new office space in Diamond District. We have to be there this Saturday.
Great news.
Tell the others also.

And there goes my 15 mins of nap time.

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It’s just Wednesday today. 2 more days in between for Saturday to come.

Usual noises, usual coding, normal days and there goes the 2 days I was worried about.

And finally came the Saturday I have been waiting for.

Dave we gotta go to Diamond District.
Yeah we will start at 1:30pm.
Alright I am coming to your place now. Let’s go together.
Alright

Within minutes, after a little search operation, we are ringing the bell in Diamond District and Ooops it doesn’t work, so knock knock knock. The door clicks open and the smell of fresh paint welcomes us to the cradle of our new future.

Looking around;
Reception hall is great.
CEO cabin is WOW. The TV is already up and the room is as clean as it could be.
Big conference room. Atleast 10 people can fit in here comfortably.
A hall and the cubicles are all in place.
Another hall (smaller). This can be the server room.
Have a look at the balcony. A round table already in place; Dave exclaims, ‘This is the place I love the most. I will be sitting here.’
The pantry is great.
There is a balcony here, there is a balcony there, there is a balcony attached with every room; 6 to be exact.

All we need is to do just a little dusting and we are good to go. So started with the pantry, then the conference hall, the reception hall, the server room and we are done and we have officially marked this day, the 19^th November 2011, as our first visit to our new office space.

Did I mention that I am the first person to get my laptop out and actually do coding in this new office space? Yes, I am the first person to do that. My first visit also marked the day when an individual of this company told the walls (yeah, even they have ears) that this is what we have been doing for the past so many years and this is what is going be done here; the development of softwares, web-applications; for that matter, anything to do with the web. . .

Well a little bit of coding, a little bit of shopping for office materials, a little bit of dusting and cleaning, some photo shoots and a whole lot of contentment, excitement and a self promise of building a mega-successful company out of this space marked my first day in the New Zool Office.

For the rest of the folks 28^th Nov 2011 or later is/was/will be your first working day at New Zool office. For me it is 19^th Nov 2011. Adios.

Creativity under pressure

Zool — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 07:14:55 +0000

Startups Exposed

Zool — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:27:29 +0000

Credits Focus.com | Data founderspeak

Our first ‘I heart Zool’ buttons.

Zool — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 01:42:46 +0000

We are indebted to everyone who have encouraged us over the past 6 months and we felt it was time to come out with our first series of ”I heart Zool” buttons.

So for everyone out there who heart Zool, we ask you to put up the “I heart Zool” logos on your website or blog pages and link back to www.zool.in. Size doesn’t matter, but every byte counts.

Small

Grab the code here
<a href="http://www.zool.in" target="_blank"></a>

Medium

Grab the code here
<a href="http://www.zool.in" target="_blank"></a>

Big

Grab the code here
<a href="http://www.zool.in" target="_blank"></a>
Biggest

Grab the code here
<a href="http://www.zool.in" target="_blank"></a>

Do show your patronage on facebook as well.

Zool Startup Story (first 60 days)

Zool — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 14:55:40 +0000

They say that the first 60 days in a company’s existence defines where it will go in the next 6 months, just like the first 60 sec of your presentation will define if you can hold the audience for the next 18 minutes. We had a great start and even more, fun telling you about it as and when things happened.

This is for those who had enjoyed the Zool doodles and have been asking us to put the Zool startup story back up, which we put up during our initial days in the run up to the webby awards and Microsoft design challenge which we won thanks to all your support and encouragement ofcourse.

Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Day 6Day 7Day 8Day 9Day 11Day 14Day 24Day 35Day 40Day 44Day 52Day 58

A cup of Web 2.0 please!

Zool — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:32:14 +0000

So are you going to add some Web 2.0 into our products, they asked as we were discussing our involvement with a potential client over coffee at a nearby cafe. We really don’t know how to answer that when someone quizzes us on our Web 2.0 platter for them since they want to tell everyone that they have a Web 2.0 product. Well, cant blame them Web 2.0 is still such a difficult thing to comprehend for a lot of people. Of course you can always give examples of what Web 2.0 is as you see them; on the technology side things like Ajax, Rich Internet Application (RIA) and their supporting frameworks, JSON, Web Services, Open APIs and data sharing; on the collaborative side wikis, blogs, forums and social networking. Web 2.0 is also about clear, simple design with a purpose than to decorate approach, which often means very little designer job and a lot of information architecture influence on the final look and feel of the product or site.

If you really think about it, a lot of these things have existed since the beginning of the web in one way or the other. The XMLhttpRequest object which brought us AJAX (where X stands for XML because someone named it that and it still holds that identity even when most have moved away from XML to JSON and other light weight data transfer models) was not added newly to browsers and was shipped with Internet Explorer 5 as in March 1999 and was used by Outlook Web Access, even before Google came out with its Gmail app and created its mark on the Web 2.0 hemisphere. To put perspective to that, the host of technology that exist today that lend shoulder to this new web have been there since Web 1.0. The only language that the web understands across all computers, browsers and countries even today is HTML 4.0. The new age web browsers are quickly adopting HTML 5.0 but it will be a while before this comes to play.

In a way Web 2.0 is really about a change in attitude and not about technology at all, its about a shift from the traditional publisher vs consumer model to a more dynamic publishing model where the consumer is also a publisher of content for other consumers. The perfect example of this is the collaborative nature of Wikipedia and its ability to generate tons of content which are verifiable across domains by other users. It literally put to rest the models followed by Encyclopedia and MSN Encarta which would aggregate content by hiring specialists in various domains to provide write ups and which would only get updated once in a couple of years. Wikipedia on the contrary is ever expanding as well as an up to-date encyclopedia of everything, so nothing has really changed right, only the approach, the support system and the collaborative knowledge sharing really helped build Wikipedia.

When we work on ideas for application design to see where Web 2.0 techniques (not technology) can be applied, we feel it has to be carefully addressed keeping in mind the nature of the product and the people accessing it. Many times the same people who want to sugar coat their product in Web 2.0 want nothing to do with wikis, networking, blogging build into it but want only the technology side like Ajax enabled, RIA application, access to open data access whereas they themselves build their applications around closed walls. Only if they themselves support API access and allow others to collaborate will it really see much value add. Google maps allows you to call its API to plot maps of your own, facebook allows you access to its APIs to find the users social circle and so on helping build smarter and collaborative applications.

So is just RIA any good without the collaborative part? Is there a need to strike a right balance here. The concepts or principles of Web 2.0 are simple to comprehend but very difficult to design if the change in attitude is not there, not wanting to let go of the control as a publisher or owner of certain pieces of data. If used strategically it can revolutionize your product beyond what you hoped for. For one, a lot of people are scared about opening up their products for access feeling that it would be misused. The take away from all products worthy of use, is that they have been abused before they are used. So till the attitudes really change when it comes to product development for a large majority of domains that can still benefit from the social networking effect or collaborative content generation along with RIA utilities to fully use Web 2.0 concepts we may only end up making pseudo web 2.0 or maybe just pure Rich Internet Applications.

So to answer the question, we will serve a cup of Web 2.0, with cookies on the side.

Whats next for Zool

Zool — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 22:40:34 +0000

In the pipeline are many things, but there is so many more things to do and get done before we can settle back and take the dive into the things we really want to do. Ok, enough of philosophy but on a serious note, in the coming months you are going to see us become a lot more open and share some of the interesting stuff we are working on or at least some short previews.

When we started, we had several ideas and we are finally ready to open up and will announce our list of top 10 projects on 10/10/10. So catch you then.

Google Street View is Cool – Bing Street Slide is Wow!!!

Zool — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:22:30 +0000

Everyone remembers what a revolution Google Maps brought as an online free tool where people could zoom right into their street without any additional browser plugins. What Google Maps did was really bring out the potential of ajax and was a huge leap from the mapping softwares from Yahoo, Microsoft and MapQuest had at that time. Microsoft’s Virtual earthly quickly caught on and along with ajax based maps, it also released a compelling Bird’s Eye view, a feature that Google maps didn’t at that time (or even now) have and took the awe away from Google’s just ajax maps.

I still remember, coincidently we at Move Labs were working on a prototype of Street View using Javascript and image tiles (in partnership with a florida based data provider) and building it using Microsoft Virtual earth API’s Geo Coding for Realtor.com in the US in mid 2007. It was around this time that Google released its sleek Adobe Flash powered street view and we had to shelve our prototype mid way, coz what Google put out was years ahead of us in terms of image data. Google Street View took the crown away from Virtual Earths Bird’s eye view.

Of Course Google kept growing its lead in maps with open APIs and letting the developer community build on innovate application of Maps. Google kept the lead, till Microsoft released its Bing Maps on Silverlight (http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/) which integrates Maps, 3D, Street View, Photosynth, World Wide Telescope and Walk Inside views and many more cool features all in a smooth rendering Silverlight environment.

Bing Maps (research) just upped the aces, with Street Slide view, which we may be available soon on Bing Maps. All I can say is wow!!! Check out the details here in the video below.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/kopf/street_slide/index.html

Ta-da Moment in Design

Zool — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:04:46 +0000

I have always started working on something with just a basic idea of the project. I would yet have to go through the rest of the documents, the requirements. It just helps to have a base to start on, knowing that if it doesn’t work, you can throw it out and turn the failure around without much time being lost, coz you are still at the beginning phase. Dangerously close, is this quote from Jim…

“People always ask, ‘What is your greatest failure?’ I always have the same answer – We’re working on it right now” - Jim Coudal, Coudal Partners

I’m sure, if we use that as a pitch for our clients, it wouldn’t sell well. Oh but just to be sure that everyone understands, we always have a 4-step process when we work with products: 1. Define 2. Design 3. Develop 4. Deploy. But, IMHO the definition itself is in the design and you can’t separate the ‘define’ and ‘design’ phase and they must happen in parallel. Early prototyping has always helped us find the mistakes we were going to make later on, to build-on the knowledge of blind corners in our definition of the project.

Recently i saw this video of TED, which some how helped me relate to our own internal thought process and thought it was worth sharing with you all.

Wacky Wacky World Cup

Zool — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:42:32 +0000

The world cup is one of the reasons we stopped blogging over the last couple of weeks, so many matches to follow and so little time to blog here. We must share some bits of our world cup experience here as we supported Brazil and even put up a World Cup Zoodle (or zool + doodle) in support of our favorite team Brazil. Of course many of us supported Argentina, Germany and Spain too, but Brazil had our hearts. Well after Brazil’s shocking defeat against Netherlands, we even took off our World Cup zoodle dedicated to our support for Brazil that we have had here since the start of the world cup.

Second choice of team was of course Argentina but wait, if they won, we would have to see Maradonna in the buff. Naah, not a sight to look forward to or cheer Argentina for fans like me who have watched his great strides in the 1986 world cup, and who became so to say the Michael Jackson of football. I did follow his career after that in his games for Napoli and Barcelona, and enjoyed his game. But then do Argentina have a chance, since Brazil is already out, well Germany’s Paul (the Oracle Octopus) predicts otherwise. So we will have to wait and watch the upcoming match.

For the second match of the day, we were full on support for Ghana – the only African nation left to win it for Africa, but got their waka waka taken out right from under them for no fault of their own. They played a brilliant game, and had the match ended in a 2-1 or only in the shootout, it would’t have hurt the African nation so bad. Lets not take credit away from Forlan’s brilliant free kick to rescue Urugay and give them a fighting chance. But then to miss out on a last minute (extra time) penalty and then go on to loose in the shootout is really heart breaking. The final goal by the Uruguan was really cheeky given the tensed moment and Ghana deserved a save, but keepers can’t be blamed. The real hero and man of the match got red carded for playing handball. Unfortunately – the world cup is not “this time for Africa“.

With all the other favorites except Spain out, its either Spain or Netherlands this time. No more favorites, but best of luck Argentina and Spain.