Dear GeoTV & ARY Digital

This morning I read an interesting article from ProPakistani, regarding the "Legal Status of Websites that Host Pakistani Talk Shows and Other TV Progrmmes". Now there are gazillions of website that are putting in the effort to convert the shows into digital media formats and offering them for download and even on-demand streaming. All of these ofcourse requires them to pay for the bandwidth, and clearly they are making enough to pay for this bandwidth.

So the question that ProPakistani (and others) raised was: How come no one from these TV channels taking a legal action against them?

Good question. There answer?

“Of course it’s illegal, we never allowed anyone copy our videos – they are doing so without rights”

Ah! So they do admit that these websites are taking content without their permission. Good, next step? They have no clue. How can they?!? Have you seen their current web presence?

Lets take a look at that. I am going to talk about the two major channels in Pakistan: Geo TV & ARY Digital.

ARY Digital:

I am not even sure where to start from. Lets look at it from a non-designer point-of-view first.

1. Who decided to use IFrames? Call him up and tell him that the world has moved on and then fire him.


2. Image swap on navigation menu? Are you kidding me? Seriously, I want to know.


3. What's up with all the flying-and-dashing Flash content?

That's my conservative list. I don't want to bore my non-technical friends.

From the design perspective:

1. Some colors appeal to certain demographics, some are trendy, some have universal appeal, some are boring; others invoke no reaction. The color that ARY Digital picked for their website is just simply horrible and unpleasant.


2. The layout has no structure to it.


3. Links open in a new window (or they just open within the IFrame and I can't bookmark them)


4. No social network integration. I am not even sure why am I saying this. I mean I didn't really expect them to have that understanding anyways.


5. No clear way to see how the TV programs are categorized.

Oh this list can be long, but I will stop here.

Now let's look at the other channel, Geo TV:

At least one thing that Geo did right was not to go with any weirdo color scheme.  But after that its all down hill.

Non design related issues:

1. No SEO optimization


2. Please give up on table based layouts


3. Hey, at least they are not using IFrames


4. Why do links to Geo ME, Geo Japan etc open in a new window?

Here are my biggest design issues:

1. No structure to the website.


2. What's up with a small font-size?


3. Ads by Google? Are you serious? What happened to your sales team?


4. The navigation on the left has everything but what the user is looking for. Which shows are aired on Geo?

So with these kind of online presence how can they even think about taking any legal action against those sites. They have no way to provide that service to their customers, if it weren't for these illegal streaming websites.

Solution?

Hire a design firm. Seriously, these guys have enough reason and responsibility to hire a design firm to work with them on their website to bring the content to the users. There is some really valuable and noteworthy content, but content without style goes unnoticed.

TV networks in Pakistan need to realize the potential that they are sitting on. Opportunity is with them to get the best solution out there so that their viewers can really enjoy their content. Its not hard, its very doable.

I would've provided my design thoughts on how these websites should look like but that is for another day. I would love to hear from someone at Geo and ARY on why is their site so badly designed. Its a long shot but hope never hurts.

Selling My Macbook Pro

After spending a good time with my Macbook, I have decided that its time to sell it.

This machine has the following:

- Specs are:

· 2.4GHz Processor

· 15" Glossy LCD (1440x900 maximum resolution)

· 4GB RAM (UPGRADED!!!!)

· 160GB Hard Drive

· NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 128mb

· Backlit Keyboard · Bluetooth 2.0

· Airport Extreme wireless

· Superdrive.

· FW 800 and 400.

· 2x USB ports

After spending a good time with my Macbook, I have decided that its time to sell it.  I am selling it for $1250 CDN + shipping. If you are in Ottawa or GTA area than we can arrange a pickup/dropoff location and save on shipping.

This machine has the following:

- Specs are:

• 2.4GHz Processor


• 15" Glossy LCD (1440x900 maximum resolution)


• 4GB RAM (UPGRADED!!!!)


• 160GB Hard Drive


• NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 128mb


• Backlit Keyboard · Bluetooth 2.0


• Airport Extreme wireless


• Superdrive.


• FW 800 and 400.


• 2x USB ports

This laptop was bought in Sept 2007. Never had any issues with the laptop. This machine also comes with a plastic transparent case (www.macbook-case.com).

If you have any question please feel free to contact me.

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Coke Vs Pepsi

Enough said. Your brand needs to be consistent.

Twitter & Facebook = Fake Relationships?

Does it really matter how popular you are in these social networks?

I always found that I share my best ideas and find great pleasure in having discussions with real life friends. Even from these social networks, I have friends that I know in person. These are the people that I have exchanged thoughts and ideas and done business with. These are the people whom I can tweet or poke to get opinions from. I don't need 1,000 followers on Twitter to be productive, I just need true friends on these networks. Whenever someone contacts me through Twitter or Facebook, I end up having a quick phone chat with them, ensuring that we both connect not just via keyboards. I always found that this quick phone call goes a long way in creating a long term relationships.

So remember all those friends that you have on Facebook and Twitter are those who were too embarrased to click on the ignore button on your "add me" request. The real friends are those whom you have a working relationships with.

So how many real life friends do you have?

Do You Belong To A Tribe?

Build a business, don't try to get rich.

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.

The path to wealth is not the love of money. If you want to be rich one day fall in love with a business that you own. Be passionate about its success and love it like you would a child. Don't worry about getting rich, that is something that happens while you are not watching.

A nice reminder for myself on why I am interested in startups.