Now book your Yatra on Mobile

Good news for all the the travel-lovers, now not only you can Make Your Trip on Mobile, but you can also now plan a Yatra on mobile. Seriously www.yatra.com another big travel portal from India, follows MakeMyTrip in launching mobile application to book flights, hotels, cars etc.

Its also a java application like in case of MakeMyTrip so it will run on many mobile phones available in India, you can check out list of compatible mobile handsets here. So if you have a GPRS enabled handset with Java support you can YATRA to 2622 and they will send you link for download.

Mobile advertising platform from mobile-worx

On June 21 I wrote about 160by2.com, an advertisement supported free sms service from smscountry.com. Just came to know about zestadz which is a complete mobile advertising platform and it allows advertisers to advertise on SMS, WAP sites and even mobile games.

Interestingly they are inviting game and content developers to join them and embed their ad-displaying code in their mobile games/content. They will share revenue with them as well, which I think can prove to be an attractive proposition for many developers and content developers.

They claim 1 million impressions per month on SMS traffic, however they don't reveal if they have some tie-up with carriers to send such sms or have some users signed up, who have opted for letting them embed ads in their sms in return for free sms or other goodies.

Anyway a good mobile advertising option, I must say.

Make your Trip on Mobile

MakeMyTrip, a very famous Indian travel portal has launched a mobile application in association with Nokia which allows users to make travel bookings on their mobile. As part of promotion they are offering 50 weekend getaways everyday, cash-backs and airline bookings at half price and a grand prize of dream holiday to Bali.

I saw an advertisement in Economic Times which mentions site - http://nokia.co.in/nseries, but I didn't find any mention of this mobile application on the site, later I visited the MakeMyTrip website and came to know that correct URL to download the application and for details regarding participating in the contest is - http://www.nseriesindia.com/makeMyTrip/mmtHome.htm

They say that its for Nokia Nseries phones only, but I think many other java enabled phones should be able to run it as well, however you won't be eligible for contest if you are not a Nseries owner.

Scrum and Gandhigiri

It was interesting to know about discussions Pete Deemer had with would be CSMs in his recent certification class. It was both inspiring and matter of feeling proud as he beautifully described how relevant Gandhism (Gandhigiri in lighter sense) is to the role of ScrumMaster.

Below text is what Pete posted in scrumdevelopment yahoogroup:

For those who weren't in the class, the question was asked "How can the ScrumMaster have any power or influence, since the team doesn't report to them, and they don't have the authority to give orders?"

We talked about how in the absence of "managerial" authority, a ScrumMaster can still have enormous influence. But it's earned influence, and it comes from gaining the trust and the respect of the team, by serving them zealously, and protecting them courageously. This isn't the cheap authority that comes with an fancy job title; it takes time and work to grow, but it's a lot more hardy and deep-rooted. And we talked about models for this out there in the world – starting with Mahatma Gandhi, a man who through courage and a spirit of selfless service changed the course of history, all without ever having a high title or powerful position.

Virus Hoax

Everybody is afraid of computer viruses now a days, so whenever we come to know about a new virus, we want to let everybody know about it. A hoax really thrives on this urge, so whenever you receive a mail which talks about a virus and tells you to forward to your contacts so that they can be aware about it too. Stop and first try to find if mail talks about a real virus or its just a hoax.

These hoaxes have become so frequent these days that major anti-virus companies now maintain a database of hoaxes beside viruses. I recently received an email talking about an Olympic Torch Virus. I did a quick search and found that its a hoax.

You can read about the hoax at websites of McAfee and Symantac

So in the future please do not pass on such messages. Passing on messages about the hoax only serves to further propagate it.