My Views on AdCenter 3.0, GooglePages, and MS’s Orgami Project

Alright let’s start with Google Pages.

 “Google Does it again?”  i DO NOT think so. 

Here are my reasons why GooglePages is crappy:

1)  Google Pages is reinventing the wheel.  Use Geocities for crying out loud to create simple html pages.

2)  It will become so easy to spam, since URL is going to look like: gmailemail.googlepages.com (wow that’s a long URL).  Now a spammer can just search for all the googlepages and get all the email addresses.  Google just made spamming lot easier.

3)  People could not sign up for the service after few hours of launching it.  Have you heard of limited beta testing?  This is not the first time Google has launched a product and had to shut it off after few hours, b/c of heavy load on its servers.  Do they not plan things out?

4)  I think it is desparate mesaure to stay in news.

Now, AdCenter 3.0.  I am pretty happy with 3.0 features and i am so glad they put conversion, clicks, and CTR info along with the keywords, that was so needed.  However, i think keyword takes long time to get approved, but i think that’s what makes MSN better than others.  It wants to maintain its quality of Ads and plus its only in Beta, so by the time they go 100% it should be much faster.  I have heard of some features for 3.1 and it sounds exciting 🙂  Also, AdCenter is going to increase their traffic starting Monday so advertisers should see increase in their quality traffic starting next week.

Now with MS’s Origami project: http://www.origamiproject.com/1/.  I have no idea what it is, i have some idea, i have heard some rumors but no idea what it is.  I will find out along with others on March 2nd.

I just wanted to say that, opinions on this blog are only mine and it does not reflect those of Microsoft.

Now with my life at Microsoft.  I enjoy it, work environment is fun.  Except i get bored on the weekends, because i don’t know that many people in this town, but oh well.  Hopefully that will change with time.  I finally got wireless connection at home, i just have to make it secured so others won’t have access to my connection.  Besides that nothing else is going on, will start getting more work starting next week.  Oh, i just remembered, i went to this presentation yesterday about Windows Vista and i got to see Vista in action and it was pretty exciting.  Interface looks cool, the way you browse the windows also looks good.  Alright that’s it. 

Tejas

 

Meeting

Last week, i had pleasure of meeting Yusuf Mehndi, VP of MSN.  In fact, i met him 3 times in time frame of one week.  Two times i heard him speak and he is a great speaker, he knows what he is talking about, and most importantly he is passionate about his job.  Third time i had great opportunity to meet with him face to face.  I even shook his hand and asked him couple of questions.  It was an amazing experience, especially for someone who has just joined this organization (me).  One thing that did surprise me about Yusuf, was that he is young dude.  I and others who saw him for the first time, expected him to be older.  Well there you go, i still have to meet BillG and Steve Ballmer 🙂

Superbowl is tomorrow (today), i think Seattle has good chance of winning it.  If i were to pick, i’d pick hmmmm, its tough, Seattle.  Not because i just moved here, but because i think they have good chance of taking it all.  Steelers also have very good defense, so should be a good game.  (this is just my opinion, don’t hold me to it.)

Tejas

I got a speeding ticket

Thursday morning, i was driving to work. Usually roads are pretty small here due to geography of the city. So when i got to drive on two lanes, i increased my speed. I was driving at 57 in 35 miles speed zone. Before you know it, there was a police car behind me and there you go, there was my ticket. It was 8:30 in the morning, come on now.

I miss driving on roads with 3-4 lanes (Texas :)) Plus in Washington you can’t even take defensive driving course like you could in Texas 😦

Tejas

First days at Microsoft

Sorry for the late post, but i don’t have internet connection at temp housing.  So here it goes… 

First day at Microsoft:First day and half were orientation, today was the first of three days of NERD (New Employee Rapid Development) program

Let’s start with Orientation:  Orientation was on Monday and I could not get good sleep at night.  I kept waking up every hour and checking the time, making sure I did not oversleep.

Orientation started at 8:30, of course I got there early.  Took care of the paperwork and then presentations started.  And let me tell you, those were good presentations.  Usually day long presentations will make you sleepy, but there was lot of information to be learned and lot of new people to meet.  It was amazing how people from all walks for life are gathered at one place, some people good at some things some at others.  Also, met a girl who graduated from Harvard and my manager has MBA from Vanderbilt, talk about working with bright people.

Second day, got the badges and holding that badge that said, Tejas Shah Employee, Microsoft.  That was an amazing feeling, it is great to be part of a wonderful organization.  An organization that has changed the world in the past and continues to do that on almost daily basis.  Imagine, what would happen if there was no Office, you would have to deal with crappy word prefect everyday.  But being part of Microsoft is an amazing feeling.  From presentations, i was surprised by the level of transparency at the organization.  Microsoft knows where they stand and they are not their position in the marketplace.  Its great to be a part of an organization that knows where they want to go and everyone is on board to achieve that goal, its just matter of time.  But I was just amazed by the level of transparency.

We were allowed to go meet our teams during lunch time.  So I went to RTC (Redmond Town Center) to meet my manager and my team.  And first thing we did was, we went to nearby restaurant for lunch.  I met my mentor, my manager and my fellow team members.  We had great conversation at lunch and after we came back from lunch my mentor showed me around the office and assisted me in setting up my computer.  Here’s an amazing thing:  I logged onto my computer for the first time and I already had 25 emails J  At 4:30pm, went to CSO Mix and Mingle and again I was shocked by openness and niceness (is that a word?) of the people.

The next day (today), NERD started.  Again, full day of presentations and again, none of them were boring, believe it or not.  It was impressive how director and top level managers of the department takes time out of their busy schedules to come speak to new employees and gives an overview of the organization and how we, the new employees, are going to play an important role in the success of the organization.  While checking email during the break, received an email from the Steve Ballmer, inviting all the employees for town hall meeting on Friday with BillG.  Now, first thing:  received an email from Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, how insane is that?  Second, I sooo would have likeed to attend that town hall meeting, but I will at the NERD training, else I would definitely attend that meeting.  I have seen Steve Ballmer on Channel9, he is an amazing guy.  In fact, all the top level managers that came for presentation today, brought some kind of energy with them.  They lightened up the room when they entered and were more than happy to answer any and all of our questions.

Well that was day one of NERD and day three at Microsoft.  Lot more to come, in fact, the real work is yet to come.  Oh finally, my car has arrived from Dallas, so I will get that on Friday, if things go according to the plan.

I am glad people actually read my blog and I hope it gives them the answer they are looking for.  Of course I am not going to tell you, what kind of questions they are going to ask you at the interview or other information.  For interview tips, go to the Microsoft recruiter links on the right side.

Tejas Shah