MouthShut.com is your voice. In the form of reviews, opinions and ratings, YOU, the gentle reader and reviewers of MouthShut are helping others make an informed choice.

The other day, The Hindu newspaper published an extensive story on how your reviews- especially restaurant reviews, are helping others decide. Check it out for yourself.
The Hindu Newspaper's
http://bit.ly/HQpjw Good Guide to Bad Food

Love,

--Faisal

We all love MouthShut.com and for those who are not in love with me ooops with MouthShut, they send me suggestions on what we should do, upon which they'll start to love us. Such feedback helps us improve a lot.

We want more people to fall in love with MouthShut.com so watch out this space for some big announcement in few days!

Yes, if you've been following my status updates, you'll be able to guess...

Until then,

I LOVE YOU.

--Faisal

Nobody loves heavy traffic as much as I do ... especially when the traffic is on our web servers. It simply thrills me. Last weekend was an intense one for all of us at MouthShut.com and we worked overnight to manage the traffic.

Past Sunday morning, our engineers noticed a huge spike in the traffic on our websites. They tried to resolve the issue, but the CPU load would just not come down. We added more servers overnight and decided to restart the core firewalls. Believe it or not, the firewall crashed just when the servers were load balanced.

I'm not going to tax you with the details of the ‘hows’ and ‘whats’, but there's one thing that I want to re-affirm - our promise to keep working harder for all of you. Our entire team loves the fact that you love MouthShut.com and trust me there is nothing more addictive, nothing more motivating to keep us on our toes all day and at times (as in this case) all night also.

We've faced outage only three times in our nearly nine years of being on board. I promise you that we will set new benchmarks for higher-uptimes. So no worries and only smiles.

Long live MouthShut.com and long live your love for MouthShut.com. Continue loving us and continue providing us your support and feedback.

--Faisal

PS- As of now, all our systems are running smoothly. FEW users may experience slow loading of WRITE REVIEW pages. We're working on it!

If you don't vote, you can only keep your MouthShut for next five years!

I want to talk and therefore I voted at 10:02 AM at St. Theresa's High School Polling Booth No. 150 in Bandra West, part of Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha Constituency.

If you are yet to vote in your upcoming elections, be ready and go out and vote on that day!

--Faisal

We've received hundreds of requests from members asking us to change their MS ID. In principle, we were opposed to that idea. Barring few exceptions, we rejected such requests (it's fairly complicated request anyway).

This past few weeks, after much deliberation with the tech team, support team and senior managers in MouthShut.com,we've decided to accept change of MS ID requests, subject to certain guidelines.

Sometimes in the first week of April 2009, you will see a special link to Request for MS ID Change in the Account Settings tab in your profile. It will lead to a simple form, which you can complete and then press submit. Once we receive your MS ID change request, and if approved, your MS ID will be changed to the new one after 48 hours.

Additionally, a list of OLD MS ID and the corresponding NEW MS ID will be published for the benefit of the entire MouthShut community.

I am sure many of you will come closer to your true self with your NEW MS ID.

Your love for MouthShut.com is what keeps us motivated.

Love you all,

--Faisal

Can there be music in any heart when my city has been ripped apart? My heart sank the moment I returned from the gym around 10:15 PM on Wednesday evening. No sooner had I settled myself in my bedroom, I received an SMS from another MouthShut employee informing me of "...some blast at the Taj".

Our company was preparing to host a delegation of twenty-five American educationists and they were to stay at the Taj from Saturday, November 29. To finalize all arrangements for the delegation one of my staff and I were to meet a Sr. Manager at Taj over dinner at 9:30 PM. Due to a personal issue (read below) the meeting was postponed for the next morning.

Then reports started pouring in about gun-fires and blasts from across the city. The brazen attack at CST (Formerly VT station) convinced me that what was unfolding is a systematic and barbaric terror attack on my beloved city.

I then called up my wife (who was recuperating in a hospital in Bandra) and asked her to follow the news.

I will post more thoughts and personal opinions in separate posts, but one immediate thought that has been hounding me was the need for our government to equip our police and other forces with modern weapons, sophisticated life-protection gear and better training to deal with challenges that are destroying our cities.

I hope and pray that we all join the efforts in defeating these terrorists in our own little ways.

With prayers and deep sorrow,

--Faisal

It seems like just yesterday. Like I clearly remember when I held him for the first time in the hospital ward when he was born. My little baby boy Shiraz sent me an email. His first email. The moment I read his email, I knew he has become a big boy.

Checkout his email to me. It reflects the innocence of his mind. And the spirit of sharing with his baby brothers.

Give me your thoughts? How did you first react when you discovered your baby has grown...and how would you react if you found that a baby is now a big boy?

Click here to view a snapshot of the original email which Shiraz sent me.

Verbatim, it said:
" Salaams daddy. daddy bring me any game u want. And for kashif,basit. "

(notice the absent space after the comma for kashif)

I'm sure you've all noticed the huge amount of coverage MouthShut.com receives from the media. Almost every week, some newspaper, magazine or TV channel features your favorite--MouthShut.com

While I get to take all the credit, I know in reality, the credit belongs to you- my dear members who love MouthShut.com and who refer it to friends and family.

Two such coverages I thought were noteworthy.
1. I wrote a column for Moneylife magazine. You can read the article here:
mouthshut
.com/help/pres-11sept-08.php>
2. Yours truly was featured on the cover page of the June 2008 issue of Winning Edge Magazine.
This article can be found here

The reason, I'm personally asking you to check our media coverage is simple. I want all of you to take pride in the fact that MouthShut.com has YOU reflected in some form or other.

You are mouthshut.com

Love,
--Faisal

PS- I would love to hear from you- send me an M2M

If you're a regular on MouthShut.com I'm sure you caught the surprise festive discount that we introduced for two days, from Sept.2 thru Sept 4, 2008. During this period, prices for many gift items that you were always dreaming to buy but could not afford, were reduced. Infact many items were being sold at more than 70% discount
(check http://www.mouthshut.com/diary
/jhcgnspu/Ganesh-Chaturthi-Disc
ount)

Some of you have voiced your concerns at the recent increase in the prices of few items. Yes, we're aware of that and we're trying our best to control it. Remember, inflation is also a product of demand greater than available supply. If too many people want the same gift, prices may go up. We need to diversify our purchases. You too can help control inflation by purchasing items that are not bought by many.

In the meanwhile, MouthShut.com's Gift team and I are working hard to reduce some of the prices.

The response to our 2 day festive discount was exciting. Many airplanes and beach villas were bought. We're thrilled that you are enjoying them. Keep your eyes and ears open for more discounts in the future. You never know when the next discount scheme starts again.

As always, it pays to be alert on mouthshut.com

Love you all,

--Faisal

Earlier this year we decided to explore potential partnership opportunities with some of India's major Internet players including Google.

Saif Hasan, our Director of Communications Extraordinaire, was assigned the task of initiating contact with these companies. Things started to move forward with several within a matter of days. “What’s the status with Google?” I asked. Saif scratched his head and said "Trying to locate a contact there."

A few weeks later and we were ready to ink partnership agreement with seveal of these companies including one which has an exclamation mark in its name. At every juncture I would inquire: “What’s the status with Google?” Saif’s frustrating response reminded me of Birbal’s khichri: "Still trying to locate a contact there, Sir."

When two full months had passed and Saif was still trying to locate the right person at Google, I decided to take the matter into my own hands. Saif revealed that the contact numbers on Google’s website were wrong. When he did uncover a number, receptionists who answered had no clue as to who was in charge of what. The irony that the company that catalogs the World’s Information was clueless about its own body parts was not lost on me.

With a little hesitation I decided I would call Shailesh Rao, head of Google India. I had met Shailesh at an event a few months prior. In addition to exploring the partnership, I thought I would also bring to his attention the chaos any caller into Google India office faces. I doubt it is intended to be that way. It was entirely possible that the big chiefs were so busy solving the big problems that no one bothered to attend to the “simple and obvious” issues.

I started with Google India’s Mumbai office and asked to be connected to Mr. Shailesh Rao. The gentleman who answered spoke only Hindi (kaun mangta hai aap ko?). Sadly, I do not know the Hindi terms for a lot of business departments such as Business Development so I struggled. He ordered me to call Google Hyderabad office. I informed him that the Hyderabad office numbers are wrong on their website. After several frustrating attempts with the Mumbai office, I was finally able to obtain the (correct!) numbers to the Hyderabad office.

That’s when things got really frustrating.

On my eighth attempt a human voice answered the phone. Greeting me with a hurried “hello”, she put me on an indefinite hold. When she did finally return I had finished several lengthy tasks and consumed several cups of tea. I politely asked her to connect me to “Mr. Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India”. “Wait, wait, wait, that’s too fast” her tone implied. “Can you repeat the name?” I did…four more times. Then she informed me she had what amounted to good news-bad news for me.

Running a search that took a lot longer than Google’s Search Engine would ever take, she found the name Shailesh Rao in her directory. That was the good news. The bad news was: “ Now, which Shailesh Rao do you want?” Obviously, there’s more than one person with the same name. I was tired. Very tired. Which Shailesh Rao? “The Big Boss, the Sensei, the Sultan, the Chief, the Don” I wanted to scream out. “Head of Google India” I managed to say. "Please call the Gurgaon India office ," she said and gave me their "Gurgaon number." Except, the number had a Delhi area code!

To make a long, tiring story short, I finally reached Google’s Gurgaon office. The phone was answered by a security guard. Look, is there a trend I am missing? Did the phone receptionist and security guard roles merge while I was busy doing other things? If so, will someone attend to cross-training security guards to have the skills of answering calls? Obviously, security guards spend time in the gym building muscles, not polishing their greeting skills.

Anyway, since Shailesh (the right Shailesh) was busy, I spoke with his executive assistant Aditi Dhingra. She was kind and patient as she heard me out.

I get very nervous when I have such experiences. Chaos of this variety is RARELY benign. It is often the signature of bigger problems inside. I am shocked that a company like Google which has executed flawlessly on some of technology's most difficult problems is struggling with such basic issues here in India. Yes, I am daring to criticize Google's Interface today - not the Web interface, the more critical interface it has with us here in India. Wrong phone numbers published on their website? Missing/untrained receptionists? Stone age employee directories? Yeh kya ho raha hai???

A highly successful CEO and a mentor once told me: “Your company’s phone number is like the front of your house. Pay attention to details because people will judge you by their experience at your doorsteps.” I hope Shailesh Rao gets the same message – no, not THAT Shailesh Rao, the other one, the one.