Unusual sale items at eBay

eBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. A majority of the sales take place through a set-time auction format, but subsequent methods include a substantial segment of listings in the "Buy It Now" category. In addition to its original U.S. website, eBay has established localized websites in thirty other countries. eBay Inc. also owns PayPal, Skype, StubHub, Kijiji, and other businesses.

Unusual sale items at eBay :

• In May 2006, the remains of U.S. Fort Montgomery, a stone fortification in upstate New York built in 1844, were put up for auction on eBay. The first auction ended on June 5, 2006, with a winning bid of $5,000,310. However, the sale was not completed, and the fort and lands surrounding it remain for sale and have been relisted on the site several times since.
• In February 2004, a scrapped F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet was listed on eBay by Mike Landa, of Landa and Associates, with a starting bid of $1,000,000. He was the legal owner of the plane after purchasing it from a scrap yard and also offered to have the plane restored for flying condition for a Buy It Now price of $9,000,000. Landa also told potential buyers that maintenance of the plane would cost roughly $40,000 a month for just 2 to 3 hours of flying time. The FBI told Landa that he could only sell the plane to an American citizen residing in the United States, and that the plane must not leave US airspace. The auction ended without a sale.
• In December 2005, a brussels sprout cooked on Christmas Day was listed by "crazypavingpreacher" (Andrew Henderson of Darlington, England). It sold for £99.50 on 4 January 2006. The sprout had been frozen and was sent by first class post in insulated packaging to the buyer, "5077phil". The listing was reported in the Daily Star, making the front page (and was followed by a series of "copycat" listings of various vegetables). The proceeds of the sale were donated to Tearfund, a major Christian relief and development agency working in the third world. This sprout was the first cooked brussels sprout to be sold on ebay.
• In January 2006, a British man named Leigh Knight sold an unwanted brussels sprout left over from his Christmas dinner for £1550 in aid of cancer research.
• In May 2006, a Chinese businessman named Zhang Cheng bought a former Czech Air Force MIG-21 fighter jet from a seller in the United States for $24,730. The seller, "inkgirle", refused to ship it. It is not known whether he was refunded.
• In June 2005, the wife of Tim Shaw, a British radio DJ on Kerrang! 105.2, sold Tim's Lotus Esprit sports car with a Buy It Now price of 50 pence after she heard him flirting with model Jodie Marsh on air. The car was sold within 5 minutes, and it was requested that the buyer pick it up the same day.
• In May 2005, a Volkswagen Golf that had previously been registered to Joseph Ratzinger (then a cardinal, who had since been elected pope and chose the regnal name Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005) was sold on eBay's German site for €188,938.88 ($277,171.12 USD). The winning bid was made by the GoldenPalace.com online casino, known for their outrageous eBay purchases.
• A seaworthy 16,000-ton aircraft carrier, formerly the British HMS Vengeance, was listed early in 2004. The auction was removed when eBay determined that the vessel qualified as ordnance, even though all weapons systems had been removed.
• Water that was said to have been left in a cup Elvis Presley once drank from was sold for $455. The few tablespoons came from a plastic cup Presley sipped at a concert in North Carolina in 1977.
• A Coventry University student got £1.20 for a single cornflake.
• A man from Brisbane, Australia, attempted to sell New Zealand at a starting price of $0.01AUD. The price had risen to $3,000 before eBay closed the auction.
• An Australian newspaper reported in December 2004 that a single piece of the Kellogg's breakfast cereal Nutri-Grain sold on eBay for AUD$1,035 because it happened to bear a slight resemblance to the character E.T. from the Steven Spielberg movie. Apparently the seller went on to make even more money in relation to the sale for his appearance on a nationally televised current affairs program.
• One of the tunnel boring machines involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel was auctioned on eBay in 2004.
• A group of four men from Australia auctioned themselves to spend the weekend with the promise of "beers, snacks, good conversation and a hell of a lot of laughs" for AU$1,300
• Disney sold a retired Monorail Red (Mark IV Monorail) for $20,000
• The German Language Association sold the German language to call attention to the growing influence of Pidgin English in modern German.
• In late November 2005, the original Hollywood Sign was sold on eBay for $450,400.
• In February 2007, after Britney Spears shaved all of her hair off in a Los Angeles salon, it was listed on eBay for $1million USD before it was taken down.
• In September 2004, the Indiana Firebirds arena football team was auctioned off, first in a regular auction that failed to reach the reserve price, and again as a "Buy it Now" item for $3.9 million.
• Bridgeville, California (pop. 25) was the first town to be sold on eBay in 2002, and has been up for sale 3 times since.
• In April 2005, American entrepreneur Matt Rouse sold the right to choose a new middle name for him. After receiving an $8,000 "Buy It Now" bid, the Utah courts refused to allow the name change. He currently still has his original middle name "Jean".
• In 2004, a partially eaten, 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary sold on eBay for $28,000.
• In January 2008, four golf balls were auctioned on eBay after being surgically removed from the carpet python which had inadvertently swallowed them whilst raiding eggs in a chicken enclosure. The story attracted considerable international attention and the balls eventually sold for more AUD$1,400. The python recovered and was released.
• In May 2008, Paul Osborn of the UK listed his wife Sharon for sale on eBay, alleging that she had an affair with a coworker.
• In June 2008, Ian Usher put up his "entire life" on auction. The auction included his house in Perth, belongings, introduction to his friends, and a trial at his job.^[105] When bidding closed, his "life" sold for $384,000.
• In August 2008, Dr Richard Harrington, Vice President of the UK Royal Entomological Society, announced that a fossilized aphid he bought for £20 from a seller in Lithuania, was a previously unknown species. It has been named Mindarus harringtoni after Dr Harrington. He had wanted to name it Mindarus ebayi, but this name was disallowed as being too flippant. The 45-million-year-old aphid, preserved in a piece of Baltic amber, is now housed in the Natural History Museum in London.
• In October 2008, amidst the 2008–2009 Icelandic financial crisis one seller had put up Iceland for sale. Auction started with 99 pence but had reached 10 million pounds (US $17.28 million). However, singer Björk was "not included" in the sale. The notice read Located in the mid-Atlantic ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean, Iceland will provide the winning bidder with — a habitable environment, Icelandic Horses and admittedly a somewhat sketchy financial situation. Bidders' questions included: "Do you offer volcano/earthquake insurance?"
• In November 2008, a Swedish man put a digitally hand-drawn picture of a 7-legged spider onto eBay. The picture stemmed from the email of an Adelaide man, David Thorne, who owed a utility company $233.95. Instead of paying the money back, he drew them a picture of a 7-legged spider, which he valued at $233.95. On eBay, the bidding price started at $233.95, and it was finally sold at US$10,000. Both the e-mail exchange and the picture have become internet hits.

how was the Google Chrome logo built ??

Courtesy: http://ow.ly/gtqg

2 Most creative advertisements of 2009

VODAFONE ZOO ZOO
Adding more value to the tradition of exposing extraordinary intelligence in doing the ad, Vodafone has shifted to a realm of add. That is the Vodafone Zoo Zoo ad. There is no animation at all in deploying theses adds. Rather real character inside the masks. These are another milestone achieved by the ad agency Ogilvy Mather India. The characters are so realistically represented that it gives us intense amusement and touchy feelings. With our peaking a single word they expressed the human emotions and feelings very much. The characters are of Cape Town and the ad is shot at South Africa, mostly to popularise the IPL ads of Vodafone.

FEVICOL
If you have been intrigued by posters of a certain 'Moochwali' staring down at you, on your way to work or in print ads in the newspaper in the last few days, its all thanks to the team at O&M, which has put together the teaser campaign for Fevicol, as a lead up to the brand's new campaign to mark 50 years of Fevicol's existence. The commercial shows the life journey of a young girl, who is shown getting dressed up by her family for a skit in their courtyard. She is playing a male character, and is therefore, provided with the mandatory fake moustache to complete the look. From hereon, the girl is shown sporting the moustache, for the rest of her life. The inference, of course, is that the moustache was stuck on her face with the help of a little dab of Fevicol. So whether it is at her school, where her teacher is mildly shocked at her appearance, or at a distribution ceremony in her village, or even when she has grown older and poses in a studio for a picture with a cut-out male character (the photographer promptly interchanges the male cut-out with a female cut-out character, after seeing her moustache), she always sports the moustache. She is shown in various stages of her life; as a newly married bride, an eager mother, a middle aged woman, one nearing old age and the last, finally, on her death bed, all the while, sporting the moustache. Towards the end, as she breathes her last, the camera pans to show a nearby cubicle where a baby has just been born, albeit with a moustache, as a gesture towards the concept of reincarnation. The ad ends with the tagline of '50 saal se champion.' (a champion for 50 years)

lessons the business giants learnt from the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 - 2009

Recently came across this issue of the business magazine Business Today.A must read as it contains essays from eminent business leaders of our times on "What lessons did they learn from the Global Financial Downturn of 2007 - 2009"

cover page of the January 10, 2010 Business Today Magazine issue

the 4th ACE in Google's pack - NIKESH ARORA - President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development

Recently came across an article in the business magazine Business Today - "Google's 4th ace" It was about NIKESH ARORA - President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development, Google.

Here are excerpts from the article:

Sometime in 2008, Nikesh Arora, then the Head of Google European, Middle Eastern and African (EMEA) operations, ran into the famed marketing guru Philip Kotler at a seminar in Dubai. Kotler’s 4Ps of marketing — getting the product, pricing, placement and promotion right — is considered a gospel for modern business.

Arora asked him a very fundamental, if not irreverent, question: What happens to the 4Ps principle if three out of the four Ps are zero? Google’s products are free, the company doesn’t advertise (at least didn’t then) and there isn’t any specific placement of its products. The only P Google has is the Product. Kotler apparently brushed aside the query.

If Kotler was flabbergasted at Arora’s question, he isn’t the only one. Google’s single P formula to achieve the two most elusive Ps of business — Popularity (75 per cent share of the Internet search) and Profits ($4.3 billion in 2008 at a margin of almost 30 per cent) — has confounded many.

Arora was perhaps the right person to tickle Kotler, for he is now the man in Google directly responsible for the mother of all Ps — profits. After his success in making Europe a cornerstone of Google’s business, Arora has recently been promoted as President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development. Incidentally, Google has only three “Presidents” — the other two are founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. And here is the surprising bit: Arora has not been a Googler all his working life.

Rather, Arora is more of a journeyman — unsurprising, given that he was brought up in an Indian Air Force family. He credits the Kendriya Vidyalaya system for his upbringing, even though he finished schooling at The Air Force School in New Delhi’s Subroto Park. Electrical engineering at Institute of Technology, Benaras Hindu University, came next, essentially because he followed his best friend there. After that, he took up his only sales job before joining Google— selling Wipro computers to the government. But that was only for a year, after which Arora went to the United States to study management and spent 10 years living in Boston as a student and a consultant.

Then, Arora says he got bored, quit his consultancy job and packed off to London where he set up his own firm offering advice to telecom companies— among them Deutsche Telekom (DT), Germany’s dominant telecom operator. His skills were appreciated and the management at DT asked him to help set up marketing for their newly formed T-Mobile division.

For six years, Arora commuted between London and Germany every week, transforming T-Mobile into Europe’s dominant carrier along the way. It was in this role that he first met Sunil Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Group, at an industry conference. Mittal used to ask for Arora’s counsel, and later, Arora would join the Bharti Airtel board.

In early 2004, Arora got bored yet again. He was on the verge of setting up a mobile value-added services company when a call came from a friend about an opening in Google. Arora seemed intrigued enough to visit Google’s London office, which was in the middle of an industrial park.

He was rather unimpressed, but a few days later, the founders Page and Brin wanted to meet him. Their meeting took place while walking around the British Museum. A few days later, Arora met Schmidt and was soon chosen over 25 others as the new chief of Google’s European operations. In four years, Arora took EMEA’s revenues from under $1 billion to $8 billion, spread Google’s business to over 15 new countries and took the employee count from 1,000 to 3,000.

Google was quick to recognise Arora’s contribution. “Nikesh very quickly brought order to our European sales organisation—hiring great people in many countries where we operate and building close relationships with our local partners. He’s always understood that one size can never fit all, and that you need different strategies in different countries to address local cultural and business nuances,” says Chairman & CEO Eric Schmidt.

Arora saw opportunities for Google that the company itself wasn’t able to spot. His first boss at Google, Omid Kordestani, who built the Google business model and is now senior adviser to the CEO and the founders, says: “When I first met Nikesh, he was impressed with Google’s success in Europe but had bigger aspirations for us. He wanted Google’s business success in the rest of the world to match what he saw at Google’s operations in Silicon Valley and the US. He focussed on building an impressive team of professionals and establishing operational excellence across all regions under his management. He is passionate, intelligent and hard working, with a tireless commitment to getting things right. He applies the same skills to his golf game, though he should not bank on that as a profession!”

A unique strength that Arora brings to the Operating Committee of Google is his global multi-business experience and his “out-of-Mountain View” thinking. This is particularly relevant at a time when Google’s growth has slowed down in mature markets such as the US and Europe and it needs more diversity and balance in its revenue mix (over 80 per cent of its revenue comes from the US and Europe).

Also, Google is entering new areas such as display advertising and developing whole new technologies to take on newcomers as well as continuing to battle away with Microsoft (not in the least by launching a new Operating System—Chrome). This means Arora will have to maintain Google’s tremendous money machine. Google generated $5.5 billion in revenues for the quarter ended June 30, 2009, with a net margin of 26.9 per cent and a market capitalisation of $138 billion.

Arora, therefore, isn’t all that bored anymore. After all, he has a new job. After finishing his India visit recently, during which he also attended the Airtel board meeting, Arora has moved to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, from London. Maybe, that is because there is some great golfing in Northern California.

NIKESH ARORA's professional summary:
* President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development, Google
* Finished schooling at The Air Force School, Subroto Park, New Delhi; did engineering at IT-BHU
* For a year sold Wipro Computers in Delhi, riding on a two-wheeler
* Studied management at Boston’s North Eastern University
* Worked as a telecom analyst before shifting to Europe as a consultant to Deutsche Telekom and finally marketing head of T-Mobile
* Was setting up his own mobile value-added services firm when Google came knocking
* In his interview with Larry Page and Sergey Brin at the British Museum, instead of talking shop, ended up discussing the Rosetta Stone - a stone that allowed archaeologists to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
* Made Google Europe the fastest growing operation in the Google universe
* In his new role, is responsible for all of Google’s revenue and customer operations as well as marketing and partnerships
* Also sits on the board of Bharti Airtel

Current Google TOP 4:

1. Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Board and CEO


2. Larry Page, Co-Founder & President, Products

3. Sergey Brin,Co-Founder & President, Technology,
4. Nikesh Arora, President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development

Google Inc. is an American public corporation specializing in Internet search. It also generates profits from advertising bought on its similarly free-to-user e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking and video-sharing services. Its headquarters, often referred to as the Googleplex, are in Mountain View, California. As of March 31, 2009 (2009 -03-31), the company had 19,786 full-time employees. It runs thousands of servers across the world, processing millions of search requests each day and about one petabyte of user-generated data each hour. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while students at Stanford University. It was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. The initial public offering was on August 19, 2004. It raised $1.67 billion, implying a total value of $23 billion. Google's rapid growth has sparked a sequence of new products, acquisitions and partnerships beyond its core search engine. Environmentalism, philanthropy and positive employee relations were from the start assigned an important role in establishing brand image. Google has been repeatedly named Fortune Magazine's Number One Best Place to Work and most powerful brand in the world. Alexa lists Google as the Internet's most visited website.

Height of Imagination in Advertising. 5th INSTALLMENT

Following is the 5th INSTALLMENT of the good ads which did not use any celebrity in them but then too were a huge HIT in the industry.

To view 4th INSTALLMENT click here

In the following assignment I showcase 2 most brilliant ads; one titled "Definitely Male" & the other one titled "Fastest Indian" of "Bajaj Pulsar DTS-i motorcycle" by Bajaj Auto, India.

This first advertisement shows a motorcycle flirting with a young girl. hence the tag line : Definitely male. this indirectly makes any "Real Man" synonymous to "this motorcycle" and as soon as a male starts identifying himself with the motorcycle he'll also get mentally compelled to have (buy) one.

This advertisement shows a "Totally CARE-FREE criminal". the criminal is kool in attitude and doesn't bothers about the police that is after him just because of one reason : that he has this bike via which he can fly off and thus escape any danger !! hence the tag line: "The Fastest Indian" - again trying the same strategy as used in previous ad.

Height of Imagination in Advertising. 4th INSTALLMENT

Following is the 4th INSTALLMENT of the good ads which did not use any celebrity in them but then too were a huge HIT in the industry.

To view 3rd INSTALLMENT click here

In the following assignment I showcase 3 of the most brilliant ads; all titled "Speak India Speak" or "Bol India Bol" in hindi; of reliance communication company of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

1) Bollywood version - says that usually many questions questions in Bollywood movie scenes remained un-answered. the way out that the company suggests for the celebs is using a mobile phone & talk as much as you want to relieve your frustrations :)

2) Advice version - says that usually many people want to give advices & many people need advices. But this is sometimes not possible because the mobile calling rates are too high. Company thus offered a less-pay & more-talk mobile phones' schemes



3) Question - says that usually many questions in our real lives remain un-answered just because the mobile calling rates are too high. Company thus offered a less-pay & more-talk mobile phones' schemes.

Reliance Communications (formerly Reliance Infocomm), along with Reliance Telecom and Flag Telecom, is part of Reliance Communications Ventures (RCoVL). It is an Indian telecommunications company.

Height of Imagination in Advertising. 3rd INSTALLMENT

Following is the 3rd INSTALLMENT of the good ads which did not use any celebrity in them but then too were a huge HIT in the industry.

To view 2nd INSTALLMENT click here

1) Walk when you talk - is an ad from a Sim-card company in India called Idea. It says that if people should walk while talking & hence improve their health - an indirect way of saying that the more one uses a phone the more healthier he will become because otherwise people don't have time in today's hectic life to think about their health.

2) Mobile Education Centers - is again an ad from a Sim-card company in India called Idea. It says that if people can't go to schools the schools should reach them via mobile phones. If this funda gets implemented in any form the mobile companies will automatically play in diamonds :)

3) Implementing Democracy via Mobile phones - is again an ad from a Sim-card company in India called Idea. It says that people should vote via mobiles & for each decision that government takes they should go for a public mobile voting.

National Consumer Helpline advises consumers on dealing with problems related to defective products, deficiency in services & unfair trade practices

What is National Consumer Helpline ?

“National Consumer Helpline” has been set in the University of Delhi with support from the Department of Consumer Affairs, Govt. of India and with financial assistance from Consumer Welfare Fund.

What do they do ?

It advises consumers on dealing with problems related to defective products, deficiency in services and unfair trade practices.

The project recognizes the need of consumers for a Telephone Helpline to deal with a host of problems arising in their day-to-day dealings with business and service providers.

It provides a Toll - Free number 1800-11-4000 (from MTNL & BSNL lines) where a citizen can call to seek information, advice or guidance for dealing with his consumer problems in the following sectors/products:
Service Sector: LPG, Electricity, Telecom, Banking, Insurance, Credit cards, Automobiles, Postal, Courier, water, Transport, Education and Medical etc.
Products: Domestic Home Appliances in the range of computers, handycam, Acs, Microwave, Television, Coolers, Fans, Washing Machines, Gas burner, Water Purifier, Mobile Phone, VCD/DVD/CD Player, Food Processor, Invertors and Shoes etc.

How do they function & what is their approach?

They do 4 things:
* Guiding consumers in finding solution to problem related to Products and Services.
* Providing consumers with all the desired information related to companies and Regulatory Authorities.
* Facilitating Consumers with all the steps involved in filing complaints against defaulting service provider.
* Empowering consumers to use Consumer Grievances redressal mechanism available to them.
* Developing the awareness among Consumers about their Rights and Responsibilities.

Their approach:
1. First the consumer is informed of his rights in a particular consumer problem and who s/he should approach in the concerned company or the organization.
2. If the problem remains unresolved s/he would be directed to take up the matter with industry level bodies or chambers of commerce, industry regulators (as they exist in sectors like insurance and banking) or Govt. officials who are in charge of the relevant industrial sector.
3. As a last resort, the consumers will be advised to take their case to consumer courts under the Consumers Protection Act. This helpline is designed to promote avenues of out of court settlement of consumer disputes and resultantly helps to reduce the burden on consumer courts.

TIPS for Consumers:
* Check all the details on the receipt
* Fill up the details properly when depositing cheques
* Look for ISI, Hallmark, Agmark, FPO logos
* Read Terms & Conditions carefully before applying for any scheme.
* Guarantee : A promise by one party to pay a debt or perform an obligation contracted by another if the original party fails to pay or perform according to a contract.
* Warranty: A promise, either written or implied, that the material and workmanship of a product are without defect or will meet a specified level of performance over a specified period of time. Written warranties on new homes are either backed by insurance companies or by the builders.
* Green Mark: Every package of Vegetarian Food shall bear the symbol in green colour on the principal display just close in proximity to name or brand name of the Food
* Brown Mark: Every package of Non-Vegetarian Food shall bear the following symbol on the principal display panel just close in proximity to the name of brand name of food
* BIS: The Bureau of Indian Standards, empowered through a legislative Act of the Indian Parliament, known as the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986, operates a product certification scheme, and has till date granted more than 30 000 licences to manufacturers covering practically every industrial discipline from Agriculture to Textiles to Electronics. The certification allows the licensees to use the popular ISI Mark, which has become synonymous with Quality products for the Indian and neighbouring markets over the past more than 40 years. The Bureau's predecessor, the Indian Standards Institution began operating the product certification Scheme in 1955. Presently more than 17000 licences are in operation covering about 1100 products.

S.No.	Video Advertisements	Click to Download
1)	Television
2)	Dhani Ram
3)	Consumer Court
4)	Grahak
5)	Post Paid
6)	Weight
7)	Jago Grahak Jago
8)	Rental
9)	Engg College
10)	HallMark

to seek more information, advice and guidance on consumer problems Contact from Mon to Sat, 09.30 AM to 05.30 PM on the given numbers:
011-27662955-58 (normal charges applied)
1800-11-4000 (National Toll Free Numbaer for BSNL & MTNL users)

Website ?
http://www.consumerhelpline.in/

at FmyLife.com, in a few sentences, users can tell everyone the shitty moment which ruined their day

French website VieDeMerde.fr (which translates as bad life), where the people are encouraged to wallow in self-pity, has become one of the top ten most visited sites in France since its launch in January 2008 by two young French entrepreneurs. A host of similar sites for losers are doing a roaring trade, including RaterSaVie.com (FailYourLife), which has become a hot topic in France ever since Jacques Séguéla, an advertising guru and close friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy, claimed last month that those who did not have a Rolex watch by the age of 50 had "failed" their life. Other spin-offs include Jaipasdechance.com (I've no luck) and jobdemerde.com (sh*tty job). In January the creators exported the concept to the US with a version called FmyLife.com (F*ck My Life) with incredible results.

"F*ck My Life" logo

Apparently going against the grain of the famous American "can do" optimism, a million people visit the US site every day to read about other people's hard-luck stories or recount their own, with the highest hits in New York and Los Angeles. In what has been dubbed "Twitter for losers", both VDM and FML, the American version, invite users to vent their misfortunes in a few words, the bleaker the better.

FMyLife serves as "a recollection of everyday anecdotes likely to happen to anyone." Posts on the site are short, user-submitted stories of unfortunate happenings that begin with "Today" and end with "FML," an acronym short for "F*ck my life."

an example of the post:

Today, I received my passport in the mail. They got my birthdate wrong. Then I picked up my birth certificate that I had sent in with the application. Turns out my parents have been celebrating my birthday on the wrong day for 16 years. FML

another example of the post:

Today, I had sex with this guy who I like very much. As he went to leave I decided to give him one last thrill. So I reached down his pants and started to rub and stroke him. He abruptly pulled my hand out, when I asked why, he points behind me, my mom watched the whole thing. FML

The slogan of the site is: "My life sucks but I don't give a f*ck".

As per Alexa the web rank of FML is 1024 in web traffic statistics.

The posts in FML are rated and there is a hall of Fame of all time F*cked up stories. Click here to read them.

FML founders have also published a book having a collection of all this.

Categories in the FML (click on any of these to visit subsequent FML posts):

• Love

• Money

• Kids

• Work

• Health

• Sex

• Miscellaneous

Satyam Computer Services gets profitable again - witness the numbers

Satyam Computer Services, in a disclosure of information to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday, reported a net profit of Rs. 181 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2008.

Total income during the period was Rs. 2,206 crore with exports contributing a lion’s share of Rs. 2,194 crore.

The company posted an income of Rs. 681 crore during January this year and Rs. 676 crore in February with a net profit of Rs. 4 crore and Rs. 52 crore, respectively in the two months.

For the first time after the domestic IT giant ran into controversies following the disclosure by its chairman B. Ramalinga Raju, the company released information pertaining to its performance to select bidders including its acquirer Venturbay Consultants Pvt Ltd and Person Acting in Concert, Tech Mahindra Limited. The disclosure of certain non-public information was to facilitate price discovery as the “publicly available information about the company was tainted,” according to information available with the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The company reported a bank balance of Rs. 373 crore against an outstanding balance of Rs. 469 crore in addition to Rs. 169-crore corporate guarantee from BNP Paribas for Satyam BPO.

The company lost 23 customers accounting for $70 million business during the quarter ended December 31, 2008, and 19 customers accounting for $22 million withdrew business while 24 others withdrew purchase orders valued at $91 million, spread over the next 12 months.

It had, however, received new business orders from 215 mostly existing customers with contract values totalling to $380 million.

The company had an undrawn loan of Rs. 316 crore and outstanding forward/options contracts of about $164 million with marked-to-market losses estimated at Rs. 110 crore.

PS: The company claimed that the information was not audited and there could be no assurance that any such information was accurate. “The actual results may be materially higher or lower than projected”. The company said, in its filing, that the information was prepared with data collected using the internal management information system and the estimations, assumptions and approximations used were the best efforts of the management.

*Courtsey: The Hindu

2007 – 2009 Financial Crisis' list of Companies Bailouts and Failures

2007–2009 Financial crisis

Company bailouts

• AIG (150B USD)
• Citigroup
• Bank of America
• GM
• Chrysler (4B)
• Bailout

Company failures

• New Century Financial Corporation
• American Freedom Mortgage
• American Home Mortgage
• Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC
• Charter Communications
• Lehman Brothers
• Linens 'n Things
• Mervyns
• NetBank
• Terra Securities
• Sentinel Management Group
• Washington Mutual
• Icesave
• Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander
• Yamato Life
• Circuit City
• Allco Finance Group
• Waterford Wedgwood
• Saab Automobile
• BearingPoint
• Tweeter

The financial crisis of 2007–2009 began in July 2007 when a loss of confidence by investors in the value of securitized mortgages in the United States resulted in a liquidity crisis that prompted a substantial injection of capital into financial markets by the United States Federal Reserve, Bank of England and the European Central Bank. The TED spread, an indicator of perceived credit risk in the general economy, spiked up in July 2007, remained volatile for a year, then spiked even higher in September 2008, reaching a record 4.65% on October 10, 2008. In September 2008, the crisis deepened, as stock markets worldwide crashed and entered a period of high volatility, and a considerable number of banks, mortgage lenders and insurance companies failed in the following weeks. Although America's housing collapse is often cited as having caused the crisis, the financial system was vulnerable because of intricate and highly-leveraged financial contracts and operations, a U.S. monetary policy making the cost of credit negligible therefore encouraging such high levels of leverage, and generally a "hypertrophy of the financial sector" (financialization).

Satyam Scandal - event line summary

The Satyam Computer Services scandal was publicly announced on 7 January 2009, when Chairman Ramalinga Raju confessed that Satyam's accounts had been falsified notifying board members and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) & resigned from his seat.

Download here the statement of
Satyam Computer Services's Chairman Ramalinga Raju
** courtsey: The Hindu

Raju confessed that Satyam's balance sheet of 30 September 2008 contained:

* inflated figures for cash and bank balances of INR 5,040 crore (as against INR 5,361 crore reflected in the books).
* an accrued interest of INR 376 crore which was non-existent.
* an understated liability of INR 1,230 crore on account of funds was arranged by himself.
* an overstated debtors' position of INR 490 crore (as against INR 2,651 crore in the books).

Raju claimed in the same letter that neither he nor the managing director had benefited financially from the inflated revenues. He claimed that none of the board members had any knowledge of the situation in which the company was placed.

He stated that

"What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has attained unmanageable proportions as the size of company operations grew significantly (annualised revenue run rate of Rs 11,276 crore in the September quarter of 2008 and official reserves of Rs 8,392 crore). As the promoters held a small percentage of equity, the concern was that poor performance would result in a takeover, thereby exposing the gap. The aborted Maytas acquisition deal was the last attempt to fill the fictitious assets with real ones. It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.”

Satyam logo

Aftermath:

Raju had appointed a task force to address the Maytas situation in the last few days before revealing the news of the accounting fraud. After the scandal broke, the then-board members elected Ram Mynampati to be Satyam's interim CEO. Mynampati's statement on Satyam's website said:

"We are obviously shocked by the contents of the letter. The senior leaders of Satyam stand united in their commitment to customers, associates, suppliers and all shareholders. We have gathered together at Hyderabad to strategize the way forward in light of this startling revelation."

On 10 January 2009, the Company Law Board decided to bar the current board of Satyam from functioning and appoint 10 nominal directors. "The current board has failed to do what they are supposed to do. The credibility of the IT industry should not be allowed to suffer." said Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta. Chartered accountants regulator ICAI issued show-cause notice to Satyam's auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on the accounts fudging. "We have asked PwC to reply within 21 days," ICAI President Ved Jain said.

On the same day, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) team picked up Vadlamani Srinivas, Satyam's then-CFO, for questioning. He was arrested later and kept in judicial custody.

On 11 January 2009, the government nominated noted banker Deepak Parekh, former NASSCOM chief Kiran Karnik and former SEBI member C Achuthan to Satyam's board.

Immediately following the news, Merrill Lynch (Now with Bank of America) terminated its engagement with the company.

Also, Credit Suisse suspended its coverage of Satyam.[citation needed]. It was also reported that Satyam's auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers will be scrutinized for complicity in this scandal.

SEBI, the stock market regulator, also said that, if found guilty, its license to work in India may be revoked.

Satyam was the 2008 winner of the coveted Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Governance under Risk Management and Compliance Issues, which was stripped from them in the aftermath of the scandal.

The New York Stock Exchange has halted trading in Satyam stock as of 7 January 2009.

India's National Stock Exchange has announced that it will remove Satyam from its S&P CNX Nifty 50-share index on January 12.

The founder of Satyam Ramalinga Raju was arrested two days after he admitted to falsifying the firm's accounts. Ramalinga Raju is charged with several offences, including criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, and forgery.

Ramalinga Raju

Satyam's shares fell to 11.50 rupees on 10 January 2009, their lowest level since March 1998, compared to a high of 544 rupees in 2008. In New York Stock Exchange Satyam shares peaked in 2008 at US$ 29.10; by March 2009 they were trading around US $1.80.

The Indian Government has stated that it may provide temporary direct or indirect liquidity support to the company. However, whether employment will continue at pre-crisis levels, particularly for new recruits, is questionable.

On 14 January 2009, Price Waterhouse, the Indian division of PricewaterhouseCoopers, announced that its reliance on potentially false information provided by the management of Satyam may have rendered its audit reports "inaccurate and unreliable".

On 22 January 2009, CID told in court that the actual number of employees is only 40,000 and not 53,000 as reported earlier and that Mr. Raju had been allegedly withdrawing INR 20 crore rupees every month for paying these 13,000 non-existent employees.

On 5th February 2009, the six-member board appointed by the Government of India named A. S. Murthy as the new CEO of the firm with immediate effect. Murthy, an electrical engineer, has been with Satyam since January 1994 and was heading the Global Delivery Section before being appointed as CEO of the company. The two-day-long board meeting also appointed Homi Khusrokhan (formerly with Tata Chemicals) and Partho Datta, a Chartered Accountant as special advisors.

In March 2009 the company announced it would begin soliciting bids from potential buyers.

On April 13, 2009, Kiran Karnik, the MD at Satyam announced that IT services provider Tech Mahindra had offered the highest bid at Rs 58 per share.

Tech Mahindra logo

Tech Mahindra will have to pay a total of Rs 2890 crore for 51% stake in Satyam. and the IT company will have a market cap of Rs 5,666 crore on expanded equity. A US-based investment firm owned by billionaire Wilbur Ross and an Indian construction and IT services firm, Larsen and Toubro were the other bidders. Cognizant Technology Solutions had expressed its interest in a joint bid with Wilbur Ross but backed out at the end.

Anand Mahindra, Chairperson Mahindra group

WHAT was SATYAM ??

Satyam Computer Services Ltd was founded in 1987 by B.Ramalinga Raju. Satyam's network covers 67 countries across six continents. The company employs IT professionals across development centers in India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Hungary, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan, Egypt and Australia. It serves over 654 global companies, 185 of which are Fortune 500 corporations. Satyam has strategic technology and marketing alliances with over 50 companies. Apart from Hyderabad, it has development centers in India at Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Delhi, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, and Visakhapatnam.

strike by bollywood producers against the money backlog & huge prices of multiplexes ENDS

Mukesh Bhatt,
chairman of the United Forum for Bollywood Producers and Distributors

India's Bollywood film producers have called off a two-month strike staged amid differences over sharing revenue with multi-screen cinemas. Producer Mukesh Bhatt, who represented the producers during the stand-off, confirmed that the strike was over. The two parties settled their differences at a 14-hour meeting, Mr Bhatt said, and both emerged happy.

Producers wanted a 50% share in the revenues generated by the multiplex owners , while owners said that the producers' share should be lower if a film performed poorly.

The deal was settled at 50, 42, 35 and 30 percent for the first, second, third and fourth week respectively for all movies and 52, 45, 38 and 30 percent respectively for all blockbuster movies.

Bollywood producers went on strike in early April after failing to settle differences with multi-screen cinemas. During the strike many multiplexes showed old films, but audiences were poor and many cinemas reported major losses. Last year nearly 20 films were released during April and May, almost half of them big budget, star-studded productions - and many hits were delivered.

Multiplex cinemas have boomed in India in recent years, especially in the cities, and now account for almost 70% of the $2bn (£1.4bn)-a-year Hindi film industry. Many producers now make films for release only at multiplex cinemas. India’s filmed entertainment sector, estimated at about $2.2 billion, is forecast to grow by more than 9% every year over the next five years, according to consultants KPMG.

India contests to get a symbol for it's Rupee

The Indian finance ministry has begun a public competition to select a design for the symbol of the rupee.

Unlike the major currencies of the world like the dollar, the pound, the yen and the euro, the rupee does not have a globally recognised symbol.

The new symbol would be the "identity of the Indian currency," says a finance ministry official.

The contest, which closed on 15 April, is open only to resident Indians, a release on the ministry website says.

The rupee is generally shortened to Rs or sometimes the currency is described as INR (Indian rupee).

But, the government says, these are not symbols, they are mere abbreviations for rupee.

To get an internationally-accepted symbol, the finance ministry has invited entries from the public.

the INDIAn Rupee notes

"The symbol should represent the historical and cultural ethos of India," says the deputy secretary in the finance ministry's coin and currency department, BS Rawat,.

"The entries can be in any of the Indian languages. They can even be in English which is also an accepted language of use by the government," Mr Rawat said.

Each entry has to be accompanied by a fee of 500 rupees ($10) and a participant can send a maximum of two entries.

The rules also say that the "symbol should be applicable to the standard [computer] keyboard".

Officials say the winning entry will be chosen by a seven-member jury of experts drawn from various art institutes, the government and India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India.

Five shortlisted entries for the final selection were to be awarded a prize of 25,000 rupees ($500) and the winner will take 250,000 rupees ($5,000).

"The final selected symbol were to become the property of the government and the designer will have no rights over it any more," Mr Rawat said.

Experts say implementing a new currency symbol can be an expensive exercise.

According to one estimate, when the euro was introduced in 1999 it cost Europe's biggest companies more than $50bn to update their computer systems to deal with the changeover.

"We have not thought about the costs yet," Mr Rawat said. "First, we'll select a symbol and then we'll do the costing," he added.

The contest closed on 15 April at 1300 local time (0730G).

Detailed guidelines on how to prepare the entries have been put up on the Indian finance ministry's website.

Height of Imagination in Advertising. 2nd INSTALLMENT

Following is the 2nd INSTALLMENT of the good ads which did not use any celebrity in them but then too were a huge HIT in the industry.

To view 1st INSTALLMENT click here

1) The high on Madness & youthfulness quotient: Frooti Ad with the best tag line ever: "Why Grow Up". Frooti, or Mango Frooti, as it is popularly called, is the largest-selling mango drink in India. It is the flagship product of and the most successful drink offered by Parle Agro India Pvt. Ltd.

2) The Mentos ad with the tag line : "the missing link" uncovers the mentos mint as the missing link between the monkey and the man. In a way trying to indirectly say that those who don't take mentos remain mentally animal(donkeys)-like while those take mentos get man-like brains. Mentos is a brand of mints, of the "scotch mint" type, sold in many markets across the world by the Perfetti Van Melle corporation.




3) The Cadbury's Éclair ad featuring a bomb like burst in mouth after one eats an eclair sweet trying to portray the intensity of seetness one feels when one eats the same. Cadbury plc (LSE: CBRY, NYSE: CBY) is a confectionery and beverage company with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom, and is the world's largest confectionery manufacturer. Cadbury Heroes (formerly Cadbury's Miniature Heroes) is a boxed selection of sweets available in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In Australia and New Zealand they are known as Cadbury Favourites. They comprise miniature versions of many Cadbury favourites; Cadbury's Éclair being one of them.