bangalorebeats

Bangalore Malls – Total Mall at Madiwala

A new mall named Total has come up in an old government style building with few modifications. The building is huge in floor space and I think it was under utilized before. I used to see that under renovation for quite sometime but dint took for a mall comming up there. A mall at that area was not very likely given the location. However, it can be a good change for that area, if we are go by the developments took place where ever malls have emerged in bangalore. The most striking example can be Bcentral and Garuda mall. The whole face of commisariat road changed since then. Now walking on that is pleasure.

Total claims the mall to be a addiction — time will give its verdict. They have opened the door however it is not fully operation now. I dont see much activity there as of now. I expect them to have some good eating places as there desires a lot in that regard. Bottomline is it may take sometime to pick up, however it has good scope given its proximity to the IT companies. Could be a good addition to Bangalore though apprehensions can be raised over increased traffic to that area which is already reeling under traffic bottelnecks…..lets wait and watch.

I happened to be there one weekday afternoon and took a tour of entire mall. As of now only 3 floors are operational. They seems to have everything under the same floor – stationary materials, grocery, cloths, food including meat and fish etc. They claimed to be selling cheap so tried to check the rate of sona moosuri rice – but that is higher than what big bazaar sells. They have a snacks stall on the first floor which sells puffs, I tried one chicken puff priced Rs 15. It was ok but my concern is, are they fresh as I felt it was little hard though one of the staff made it hot in an microven. If the sell is low then the chances of serving same stuffs the next day increases. I dont think footfall is very high there now.

I felt the Mall as a whole is very cold in terms of customer response and a lot is desired from them. Few distracting things like the black dress guards moving with walkie talkie – may make you feel like you are in a high security zone. Besides the escalator the view is a put off…they may have coloured the glass. However, the escalator is of a new design and you wont find escalator of this kind in any other mall, probably no other place in Bangalore. Its a plain sheet moving up or down and does not bend like a stair case.

However, coffee day which is already operating I think is a good addition. Also, Mcdonalad which is slated to open there shortly can be a good thing for the guys working in companies nearby. That area hardly has any good place to eat with big guns like Infosys and Wipro operating from there. May be a good addition for the people of Btm layout, hosur road, Sarjapur road, madiwala and adjoining areas. However, people staying in the other parts of the city may not be too keen to visit unless some huge attractions are added.

you can see its still not complete

Work still on

Front view opposite Madiwala police station

This is what they claim

Update: A few more Total Malls has opened. The address and phone number are available below.

1. Market Road
Madiwala
Bangalore
Phone – 25520790

2. 148, Gopalan Legacy
Mysore Road
Bangalore
Phone – 26741399

3. Kaikondana Halli
Sarajapur Road
Bangalore
Phone: 25740224

4. Total mall(corporate office)
148, Mysore Road
Bangalore
Phone – 26741408/9900591612

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Flickr, now a Yahoo company

Yes, Flickr has been acquired by Yahoo – the internet giant. This now is a kind of trend for the big fishes to prowl on the smaller ones if some smaller companies started to do exceptionally well. Most companies today looks for faster growth and the easiest way to achive this is by choosing the inorganic way of growth – that is by acquisition. Flickr claims all things going to be the same and Flickr will grow with the same management and same team. You can read some questions they have answered here. However, I think most of the time these days most mergers and acquisitions do good to both the companies if the over all synergy exists between the two companies.

Flickr is quite a good technology and as they claim – Flickr is a revolution in photo storage, sharing and organization, making photo management an easy, natural and collaborative process. Get comments, notes, and tags on your photos, post to any blog, share and more! So pumping of cash from Yahoo can be a very healthy thing to happen for Flickr.

I focused Flickr as MSN spaces or Windows live spaces as it is known now is not working for me for sometime. I use this feature to upload my pictures – they provide 30 mb of free space. I needed a online system or site where in can store my images immediately. I tried imageshack and others but they do not give me the flexibility I was looking for. At last I turned my attention to Flickr. It not have I have not seen Flickr before but may be little lazy to try it. While signing for Flickr came the eye opener that now we can open a Flickr account with Yahoo ID too. So as you all have understood by now, Flickr, now is a Yahoo company.

Note: You can log into Flickr using your Yahoo account, but you can continue logging on as before using your earlier Flickr ID.

I like open source or community work in software and am really happy to see so many people associated with Flickr. You can visit The Great Flickr Tools Collection to check the different kind of platform it can be implemented on. To check Flickr tools in web application, Mobile phone applications, plugins/extentions and various other types of tool associated with it visit here.

Note: If you are going use Flickr for storing images and then using the link in your website or free blogs, check their terms and conditions. They claim to terminate your account after one working if their terms and conditions are not honoured. Flickr is only for your personal use.

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