I just got an email from my mum about her firm unexpectedly adjusting their pay to reflect increased inflation in the UK (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=19).

Inflation becomes threatening when expectations in the economy change significantly. The big oil shocks of the 70s triggered huge wage price spirals (prices rise, salaries rise, prices then rise, salaries rise more) and all of a sudden we have runaway inflation which screws with a lot of things in the economy (that’s my technical explanation! I shudder to think what my old Econ tutors at Oxford would think if they read this).

Anyway, there’s (anecdotal) evidence this is now happening. Not really good times, high inflation really messes with the efficiency of the overall economy.

Incidentally, the pay rise was below the RPI rate, so this was a tad cheeky, they just reduced everyone’s real wage. Time for mum to move to Canada.

I’ve been experimenting with a tumblog (?) because it was so damn easy to set up (and easy to use with the bookmarklet), to track the stuff I find interesting online.

So here it is: Kul’s tumblr.

Cool article on the Indian Premier League in the NYT. Like the “billionaire vs. bollywood” bit. Can’t wait to go back out to Mumbai.

The Indian Premier League is killing it. Everyone had high hopes for the tournament, but there were many risks. It’s a first of its kind for cricket, and it was organised in just over six months, despite being a logistically bigger tournament than the cricket world cup. Added to that, India has never experienced city loyalty/rivalry before (the skeptics said Indian fans are too used to supporting only the national team), which makes the success to date all the more remarkable.

The reason for me being so bullish? Well, I have a lot of anecdotal evidence to the impact its having (it’s on all the Indian tv channels all the time at home), the games are all near sellouts despite it being in the first half of the tournament, the Facebook game is addictive and busy, and I just read this post by Adam Rabiner over on the Live Current blog.

To quote from the Economic Times:

“The ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) matches have virtually taken the life out of cinema theatres and television programmes….

Star Plus sources said the fresh Television Audience Measurement (TAM) ratings are expected in a day or two. However, till April 22, the IPL dominated the TAM ratings.”

And, I also just had the photo editor from the WSJ contact me for photos, you may even hear about it in the US!

And hey, the IPL has its very own Moneyball-esque Oakland Athletics: The Rajasthan Royals.

Read here for Cricinfo’s view.

An interesting look at (my) top friends by number of mutual facebook friends, courtesy of the fb app mutual friends.

Unsurprisingly, I share the most mutual friends on Facebook with Harjeet.

Harjeet does a really great job of thanking the people who helped us get to where we are.

I’ve talked about the power of our network before.

To echo Harjeet’s sentiment, we’re all very grateful for everyone who’s assisted along the way.

We’re also very appreciative of Live Current, who are taking a bet on our technology and people. I fully believe and we’ll realize the full potential of our combined team.

Also for Phil’s view, our first employee, read this.

there was any ever risk of us taking ourselves too seriously, Baz (Brian Collins) sent me this picture of our team to use for our latest BBC piece.

The response I got after forwarding it to the BBC was, “I’m not sure that would work without explaining who everyone is in the picture”. And so it lives here, on my blog.

From left to right, that’s Phil, Patrick, Brian, John, Harjeet and me, the Auctomatic team.

The Auctomatics are currently back in their respective homelands, which means we get fed. Harj’s observation below made me giggle, because that’s what the past few months have been like.

[13:32] harjeet: ok chaps, time for some lunch
[13:32] harjeet: mummy’s chicken
[13:32] harjeet: its not quite cereal
[13:32] Kulveer: lol
[13:33] harjeet: but close
[13:33] Kulveer: yeah i’ve turned into a fat b*****d
[13:33] Kulveer: was stuffed at 9am today
[13:33] Kulveer: still recovering
[13:33] Kulveer: the food is too tasty
[13:33] kastp: ha!
[13:33] kastp: the collison household is full of food.
[13:35] kastp: it is awesome to eat and not be thinking “oh, gotta go to the store and get more [x] now”
[13:46] harjeet: i still cant get used to this process of
[13:46] harjeet: hunger –> walk two steps –> eat –> sit back down
[13:46] harjeet: its bizarre
[13:46] harjeet: usually its
[13:47] harjeet: hunger –> ignore –> severe hunger –> walk around kitchen –> sit down –> chronic hunger –> ask if someone else is hungry –> indecision –> order pizza –> wait 40 mins –> eat pizza
[13:47] Kulveer: lol

Kastp is Phil Kast, who is currently staying with Patrick in Ireland and helping us out.

Another excellent successful summary from James at Trendcatching:

“Having a human being manifested in a social media site helps in a number of ways. It helps to “make meaning” - the site becomes more than just a load of code on a server designed to make money for VCs. It’s easier to create “social value” when there’s a real person involved, not just a shadowy bunch of employees. There’s also practical value in providing a focal point of the site in an individual node in the social network. Finally, the PR value of a human story continues to endure - journalists like writing about people, not technology.”

How to make your website cool pt 3 - get a personality.

When the news feed first launched, I thought it was a brilliant idea.

Now, not so much. I’ve noticed recently that some of the friends I really want to stay up to date with, have removed themselves from the feed via the privacy settings, which is understandable. Except, if you (like me, and I suspect most) begin to rely mainly on the newsfeed for information, this necessarily subtracts from the value/usefulness of the overall site, as there is less of what you want and proportionately more of what you don’t.

Technically, I should be no worse off than before the news feed, because I can still click on “My Friends” to see what’s happening. However, the news feed creates the illusion that it tells you all that you want/need to know, when that definitely isn’t the case.

Is there a solution? Well, if you want to stay in touch with those friends so much, why not try the real world?

Or, maybe FB could let you have different privacy settings for different groups of friends? Though, I’d doubt that they’d do that as it’s suggestive of hierarchy, not a norm they’d want to promote.

ps: Just heard about a/the German version of facebook, it’s doing quite well: