via Abhi at Sepia Mutiny

Monsoon is pleased to announce our latest service offering. See below:

Our comic, Doubtsourcing, was recently featured in TechCrunch:

Something that you don’t often see a lot written about in new media is the strong trend by startups to outsource a lot of their work. Digg for example was originally designed by Kevin Rose outsourcing the job on elance, and sites such as Slideshare, illumobile.com have gone down a similar path.    

 This post lead to a 100+ comment debate about Indian IT.  Overall, the TechCrunch community had a lot of interesting things to say.   It’s clear that a significant percentage of Web 2.0 entrepreneurs have tried working with an Indian team.   While the results are mixed, most of the community agrees that, when managed well, the cost efficiencies and scale that a global team can bring are worth it. A few of my favorite comments from the post are below. 

Mr. Recycle tells people to get over the fear of getting their idea stolen: 

I’d say outsourcing (or offshoring) is more of a fortunate reality than an unfortunate one. And should you really care about the protection you get in third world countries? Do you think your idea is that original anyway? Guess what, it isn’t. It is your execution and vision as a business that matters, not your code base. You could hand Facebook’s codebase to 100 entrepreneurs today and you would probably get 100 failed start-ups.   

Fabio Rosati (CEO of eLance) talks about low bidders:

 A more appropriate generalization supported by our data, is that buyers who consistently hire the lowest bidders for a particular class of jobs tend to have lower success rates.   

Raza Imam stresses Fabio’s point about highvalue vs. low cost. 

Outsourcing is tricky, but it’s like anything else in life. It takes practice to get it right. Outsourcing is about high-value, not low cost. If you pay someone ten bucks an hour and expect great code, you’re kidding yourself.    

Assif Mandvi talks about the immigration bill, distinguishes his version of brown, and even delivers a shout-out.

a brilliantly funny and insightful video comparing sandcastles and web businesses

One of the more entertaining aspects of my nightly ritual is my Indian team’s use of English. Of course, after 5 years of phone and IM conversations, I am pretty comfortable with some of their more loosely translated phrases, to the point that I sometimes find myself asking my wife to “kindly do the needful.”

Depending on the context, she can find this funny (usually…ummm, nope).

Manish Vij posts an extensive list of these bastardized English phrases, which he calls Bombayisms. Here are a few of the ones I’m familiar with (okay, I’ve never heard anyone use “rape for a year”)

beat yourself (beat yourself up)
issues (children)
kindly (please)
land up (arrive)
passed out (graduated)
rape for a year (to date, promise to marry and dump)
bang behind (directly behind)
blow (blow up)
cent per cent (a hundred percent)
ironical (ironic)
do the needful (do what’s needed)
see the full list

The Duke of York is okay with outsourcing.   Finally, the approval I have been waiting for!  Somebody get me a phone, it’s time to find myself a team in India.

“I will be going back to the United Kingdom with a message that people should not be afraid of outsourcing; they should embrace it,” says Britain’s Prince Andrew, who is visiting Chennai for the first time.

Read the full story (via the Hindu)

An old clip, but still funny.  However, the episode would have been more timely if it showed Indians outsourcing their work to Springfield…I know Mr. Burns would be game.
[youtube lKI-GzlDRqw]

We usually like to stick to outsourcing fluff on this blog, but once in a while we’ll report on real news as well. You know, stuff about India that actually makes the US media (besides nuclear weapons).

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are going to adopt an Indian baby. You know what? I can put aside sarcastic hang-ups and live with that. Maybe even respect it.

Besides, they’ve already scored a Cambodian and an Ethiopian…this addition should round out the Benetton commercial nicely. Put ‘em in some brightly colored polo shirts and snap away some smiley pictures.
But, then I have to go and read this:

According to the source, whether they end up choosing a boy or a girl, “they’d like to name the child India to honour its homeland”.

India? India? You can’t even pick a state or something? Call it Tamil-Nadu, that has some hyphenated appeal! Or name the precious little thing Punjab…she’ll have a similarly named playmate. Maybe make the paparazzi check their spelling a few times and call the baby Thiruvananthapuram. But, India? If you really want to honor our homeland, name it this, this, or maybe even this.

Come on, Angelina. I know you haven’t been feeling too well, but you used to wear a vial of your husband’s blood around your neck. That was creepy, but definitely creative. What happened?

On the same subject, Manish Vij has a great Rushdie citation over at his blog.