We thought that a neat way to deal with these questions would be to have a live video feed of our office on the web! However it turns out that there are some technical difficulties in bringing that idea to reality! So we figured that a new website would be a good start!

Of course its hard to put in everything we have done over the last year into a single website – but it has a fair bit of what we have been up-to

So check out the new 4am Website and let us know what you think!

Always good to go to Ahmedabad -There is a pervading entrepreneurial energy in that city.

Met with a couple of companies that have been speaking to us and it was time to meet in person. Meetings went well. We are looking forward to working with them.

Our past work in the products for the Education space inclines us to try and work with a company in Ahmedabad that is creating interesting products.

Had a fantastic meeting with Prof M.P.Ranjan. He is one of the sharpest minds around and a super person. His thoughts on Vamooz have stimulated us and we will keep working to make Vamooz what it can be. We hope to have Prof Ranjan visit our office, speak to  our small team and see a larger spread of our work.

Well… we are now just over a year old ! It’s been a crazy fun ride the past one year. Starting straight into a major recession was no fun – but as they say: “the show must go on”!

We are really close to releasing a open beta of Vamooz. We would really like to thank all our closed beta users for providing us with so much data and extensive feedback. Hang in there people… the open beta version of Vamooz is just round the corner.

Over a year back we started from scratch, putting the ingredients that we knew were required into the big idea of ’starting-up’. The only thing that can be said about the last one year is that it was crazier than our wildest dreams, and we have loved every moment of it.

During this time 4am Design and Technology Labs has grown from an idea to a Private Limited company with seven people and our own product – Vamooz. As we look back at the year gone by we are excited by the possibilities that lie ahead.

Have a blast!!

The 4am Team.

We recently took some time off from doing whatever it is that we do ( such as this and this ) and decided to see what the media is actually talking about. Some of the trends we found were as expected and others were not! Here is a quick look into what we found just so the impatient have something to play with before we add this to Vamooz itself!

First off, the Google story:

Google VS Yahoo VS Microsoft - the media glare

Notice that between the 30th of November and the 5th of December Google dropped its advertising partnership with Yahoo and decided against any possibility of an acquisition – This left Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang with no option but to step down and re-opened the possibility of a previously canned acquisition by Microsoft. Its interesting that the same events have given Google almost twice the publicity as Microsoft or Yahoo. Granted Google could have been up to other things but the significant difference is indeed noteworthy.

Moving on to some politics:

Obama VS Mccain VS Hilary - News stories over time

Most spikes in this graph are expected – however its quite unexpected that the number of news stories related to Hilary Clinton when she was announced as a possible candidate for the post of ’secretary of state’ is more than six times that of when she was actually made the secretary of state.

And finally some cricket:

Dhoni VS Sachin VS Yuvraj

Almost as expected execpt that it would have been nice to know which got more publicity – Dhoni applying for a gun licence or him threatening to quit.

It must be noted that the number of sources grew over the given time period.. Although this should not affect the comparisons, it might have some effect on the overall number of stories related to a topic over time.

DISCLAIMER: This article displays some preliminary data from Vamooz, which despite our best efforts might have errors. The author of this article has, in some places, given his interpretation of this data. These opinions are in no way the official views of 4am Design and Technology Labs. This post should be seen more as an exploration into improving the functionality of Vamooz rather than one that analyses the media.