From the Cola Ad War involving Bollywood bigwigs such as Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor to Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai and Akshay Kumar; a some-what similar trend has now been embraced by leading Cell Phone brands.

Couple of months back Abhishek Bachchan was seen on the tele-box trying to impress the opposite sex with his charm but instead they were more impressed with his stylish MotoSlvr. The MotoSlvr ad was mainly focused on Abhishek’s starry attitude and unconventional looks with a little bit of humor throw in.

And then we had the MotoRokr commercial. Unlike the previous commercials this one is out-n-out hilarious. Since MotoRockr’s main feature is its superior music quality, the Rokr ad shows Abhishek swinging his head from one side to another, singing a rap song, wacky dance moves (all side-effects of using MotoRokr) even when at film shoots and thereby causing nuisance to his director and fellow artistes. Bachchan Jr. and Motorola enjoyed full attention with these publicity stunts without much effort, considering the absence of star-power association with competing mobile brands.

Continue Reading, ‘War Of The Cell Phones : Abhishek Vs. Hrithik’.

They say all good things in life do come to an end, someday. And here is a perfect example from my life. Barely 270 days old, my dearest Pandu was found ‘dead’ in the back pocket of my Mont Blanc office bag.

The killer and its motive are yet unknown.

Pandu and I had gotten real close, one can say he was an extended part of me. He took care of my musical needs, while traveling from US to the beautiful Rivera Coast, from one Blog party to another, helped me with my bathroom singing lessons and most important of all, stuck with me through countless hours stuck in awful Mumbai traffic jams.

Now it seems I would have to rely on the crappy radio stations to comply my daily sing-a-long quota, something I had given up a decade ago.

Ah! Such is life.

Dearest Pandu, you will be sorely missed.

Ps…the purpose of this post is also to let you know, what’s ‘most-wanted’ on my wish-list at present. Thank you…in advance.

Mobile Phone with Camera

Now most of us get hooked on to the World Wide Web for various different reasons – be it for YouTube, searching for lonely singles, porn, blog rants, music and the list can go on and on. But to actually come online to watch an English Cheddar Cheese as it slowly ripens is quite hard to digest, literally.

First placed in front of a webcam in late December, the Westcombe cheddar from West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers leaped to public attention in early February and has since attracted viewers from 119 countries.

"The hits went over 1 million this morning. It has been a real challenge keeping the cheese up and running with all the interest it has generated," a spokesman for the company running the website, http://www.cheddarvision.tv, said on Wednesday.

"The whole idea was to show people how real food is made - and it seems to be working," cheesemaker Tom Calver said. "It takes a year for the cheese to mature. This is not fast food. It is slow food."

Do check out the website, damn neat, I say.

Yesterday I took my 13 year old nephew for the recently released ‘A’ certificate film – 300. Yup, this is what we called strict scrutiny at Mumbai’s multiplexes.

Anyway without spilling too many beans here, I would say if you love reading graphic novels and were completely floored by films like Lord of the Rings, Sin City and Gladiator – then 300 should be a must watch for you.

Not that I am a graphic novel kind-da person but I was really impressed with the way Gladiator was filmed; the mixing of orange and black with sparkling red, a bluescreen film is the correct technical term. 300 is basically an imaginary war flick based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel, which tells us about the battle fought between 300 Spartans under the kingship of King Leonidas against the power-obsessed Persian King Xerxes and his army of more than a million men.

The film is brilliantly shot and involves many un-conventional characters such as goat creatures, a hunchback, giant sized elephants and the so called Persian Immortals.

Click here to continue reading ‘Review Film 300 : Me Wanna Be A Spartan’

Well if you are a regular here than you should be aware that I do quite indulge in the Advertising quotient when it comes to blogging. There is a famous Hindi line which goes something like this “Ghar aati hui Laxmi ko khabi na nahi kehate”….in English words meaning “Never say no to easy money”.

Since I do spend more than required time on my blogs, I believe it’s perfectly alright if rake in a few bucks while at it. The rule is simple - don’t shove your ads in the readers face, keep them subtle but visible.

Over the past few months, I have worked a bit around quite a few Ad Networks and while some did wonders there were many more which ended up being just a waste of blog space.

Here is a look at some of the Publisher programs offered by Internet Advertising firms in India and across borders along with my two bits on them.

Google AdSense - In other words, the big daddy of virtual advertising world. If you have decent blog traffic (around 300+ unique hits a day) then you can expect regular earning via Google Ads. I get on an average around 700 hits and earn around $2.00 per day. And this is purely from “AdSense for content” alone. Its best feature ofcourse is that you can easily change ad codes to go with the color theme of your blog, plus the ads displayed are mostly in sync with the content of your personal space. The only drawback I see is in the payment system - since your earnings comes directly from Uncle Sam’s pocket (USA); it takes good 3-4 weeks for your cheque to arrive via normal airmail. Unless you have subscribed for courier service, which takes just a week but burns your pocket by $25 every month.

Click here to continue reading ‘Show Me the Money’