[Reader-list] Reader-list] INDIA'S FIRST LOCAL INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE

[Aman Sethi]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Aman Sethi <aman.am at gmail.com>
Date: Oct 14, 2006 1:06 AM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] INDIA'S FIRST LOCAL INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE
To: "t.ray at vsnl.com" <t.ray at vsnl.com>

Well,
as a frequent user of the "pages from india" section of google, i must
confess that i do find it useful - especially when hunting for things like
the "73 rd parliamentary amendment" or "national child literacy programme"
etc .. as it cuts out similar constitutional amendments / schemes that have
been implemented in other countries .. so if ure looking for anything that
has "national" in the search string - and there is a particular country u
have in mind - it does help ... so yes it is "utilitarian" in the narrowest
sense - ie it is of great utility ..

ofcourse the internet - its like so cosomopolitan, and open and
supra-national and stuff , so to tie oneself down to like just one like
nation when ure like looking for like information is like so totally uncool
... but yeah .. sometimes it helps.

on the otherhand - the guruji "about" section is poorly written - but who
cares ...and the company that owns it is   "Sequoia Capital India is a
Mauritius based Indian venture capital" fund - which means that the taxes in
mauritius are probably lower- so i dont think we need to get worried abt
wether this is a jingoistic tool to promote a "parochial" idea of india
...its  a business venture - and yeah so the india tag is an advertising
gimmick .. i dont think it deserves much heartburn ...

and the local search on guruji is not bad - i played google india against
guruji local for delhi and guruji worked better .. atleast it did for the
search string "delhi dentist"

Best
A.


On 10/13/06, t.ray at vsnl.com <t.ray at vsnl.com> wrote:
>
> Shivam,
>
> I am an IIT-an, among other things. I say "other things" to stress the
> point that I have not confined myself to being an IIT-an and all that it
> entails in the popular imagination. For many years now, I have not even been
> an engineer ... and no, not a management guy either.
>
> That said, let me ask you what exactly is objectionable in trying to find
> India-related content on the web. Why exactly is it parochial? I suppose you
> have used Google. Have you noticed that the home page of Google India has an
> option up front that says "pages from India"? Is that parochial? If not,
> why? Because Google is an American company?
>
> Maybe I am missing something here. Could you help me understand the logic?
>
> Also, could you please explain what you mean by "another IITan publicity
> stunt"?
>
> Tapas Ray
>
>
> > Identifying the 'national' is both utilitarian and parochial in the
> > context of the web. Yet, what i this gobbledygook about the web
> > algorithms - how exactly do they identify a web page as Indian? Indian
> > server? The word 'India'? An article about America on an Indian site -
> > is that Indian? An article about India on an American site - is that
> > Indian? Except for some nauseating gyaan about India being the world's
> > spiritual guru, their About section doesn't tell us much. It's just
> > another IITian publicity stunt.
> >
> > best
> > s
> >
> >
>
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