Testing a poll from Polldaddy...

Jambool's alexa graphs now online...

Posted on Jambool blog... here.

Aside from that, we happened to get the Shyam Benegal movie Suraj ka Satwan ghoda from Netflix this week. I had seen this a long time ago -- and it came out much before the multi-threaded stories were all the rage. This is pre-Tarantino, pre-Amorres Perros. It makes a great watch, and definitely one of the smarter movies to come out from India. It's a pity it is not as well known.

I've been collecting Anthony Lane movie reviews on Jambool here -- they make an absolutely fabulous read every time. What's your favorite Anthony Lane review?

Update..

It has been a gruelling time, trying to get Jambool to the next stage. The best advice I ever got for my startup was to find a co-founder. And Reza's the best. Those who knew us at Amazon probably remember our April fool emails and announcements.

The best part of working with someone you enjoy working with is that however hard your job is, in the end it's heck of a lot of fun.

Jambool's Alexa rank is on the rise. It's moved to within the top 150K for the last two weeks' averages. 3 months is still low, but we'll get there!

I saw Bourne Ultimatum -- and I think the second one was better, though people claim this one tops that. What the movie did interestingly was to quietly spoof the deeds of the current administration -- from wiretapping and refusing to answer to reason and so on -- but did so without making it too farcical.

I saw another movie called "Once" -- an Irish movie with good soul and music (pun unintended). Recommended when you can find it. It's playing in a few art house theaters in San Francisco these days.

P.S. I just happened to press "Ctrl-E" when editing this blog. And it worked. Blogger editor support Emacs keys? Or maybe it is Safari? Something feels better in this world already. The geek in me awakens. :-)

Amazon 'Flexible' Payments launches...

Amazon.com launched Flexible Payments web service this week.

It's already on Reddit -- with plenty of people welcoming it. Like people say over there, Amazon's track record of extremely easy to use web services API should definitely give Google and Paypal worries with this launch.

Why am I blogging about it? And is it really that cool?

Well -- the primary reason I am blogging about it is that this was some of the best things I was involved with at Amazon. Over a period of about a year and a half that I was involved with Amazon FPS, we conceived the product and built a truly solid team in India to develop this product.

And yes, it is really that cool. The Payment Instructions component of the API give you, the developer, unparalleled control over the transactions that follow. Using these instructions you can describe a whole negotiation between multiple parties. Each participant in the transaction can have their own set of instructions -- these are rules that have to match against each other in order for the transaction to go through. Can you imagine the possibilities? You can choose who not to do business with, what payment methods to accept (only accept direct debit, get the fees down), set minimum amounts, etc., etc.

Among all the services Amazon's rolled out, this one is probably the most complex in its interface to the developers. The world's been raving about and using S3 (and so does Jambool). Amazon FPS is the other service that I am sure is going to get lots of positive buzz. And deservedly so, even if it is a somewhat biased view.

Kudos to a lot of people and dear friends at Amazon who've brought FPS to light.