Go Google!!!

I noticed that my beloved blog was not opening at all. It seemed that the page was not available due to internal server problem or something. I got scared!!! What happened to my blog? Or blogger has been banned in India again? It was around 4.50 p.m. yesterday.

Today, when I started my lovely PC and tried to access orkut, I got a message that orkut is under maintenance. All it says “orkut is under construction. please check back soon (=”

It looks that Google has been renovating all its features, so we can expect more useful and reliable service from them in future.

Wait…if Google goes under construction for an hour, what will happen then?

Content is the King

Ask this question to yourself: “Why would people come to my website?” Obviously they will come to your page looking for some information. Whether your product is tangible or intangible, visitors would like to read something first. And the words should have that power to convince people. Hence developing good and reliable content is the key of building a good website.

Have you noticed that I used two adjectives for web-content? Good and Reliable: what do I actually mean by that? I interpret it this way:

Good Content: easy to understand, written in simple language, grammatically correct, an easy flow through out the article.

Reliable Content: it must speak the truth and offer the right information.

So far I have been politically correct! Believe me or not, to attain publicity, you have to write something controversial sometimes. And forums and blogs are the best platform for this. You can have a better participation in environments like forums and blogs. That is the reason most websites have a blogging environment and forums as well.

Also read my previous post: Difference between Writing and Content Writing. You can find some good tips on content development there.

Why Blog?

Since I am receiving more queries on blogging nowadays there are reasons to think that blogging is getting more and more popular among the mass. If someone asks me what is a blog all about? I usually reply that “Blog is your own webpage that you can use as you want”. I think that is a good definition! But if someone continues to inquire then I must unfold the layers…

Purpose of blogging: earlier people used to say that a blog is a personal diary or journal that is available online. Probably that was the objective of blogging at that time. But as Change is the only Constant in this universe, the concept of blogging has been also changed with time.

Business Houses now maintain their own blogs to reach to more people nowadays. Even Google has its own blog where Google personnel discuss various services. The term Blog is attaining a larger shape day by day and I guess it will replace terms like web portal, webpage or even website in future.

So one reason to have a blog is doing business. Another good reason to have a blog is earning money independently. Google AdSense is a good concept that helps webmasters and bloggers earn revenue by displaying Ads on their websites and blogs. The AdSense works very nicely. In my opinion, the AdSense-AdWords service is a million dollar concept of Google. (Keep watching my blog, I will be posting more on this within a week)

People also maintain blogs to publish online magazines, news items and all. The magic of such blogs are once they are popular, the owner might earn huge money through space selling and advertisements. So blogs are good tools to earn money, no argument right?

Any other purpose of blogging? Yes definitely. I blog to write down whatever I learn (I am not writing the details of my music classes here, perhaps I will be creating a new blog for that). So I need not take classes when to teach something new. All I will do is post the topic in my blog and ask people to read it. If they have any queries, they can comment here and can email me as well.

So my blog is my identity. Why do you blog?

What I Know Is...

I did not want to start this article saying “United we stand divided we fall” but I could not find a better phrase to describe the strength of unity. The day human beings understood the importance of working together, they formed society. In recent times, often big projects are supervised by a group of experts, then what about Collaborative Authoring, where many people join together to write a great novel and make up good stories?

Points behind functioning collectively are:

1. Power of the mass
2. Wisdom of crowd

Collaborative Authoring is not a new concept. It seems great Epics and Mythologies were written collectively. The beauty of Collaborative Authoring is it continues to grow recursively. The input of one author insists the others to put more on it.

With the arrival of web-technologies Collaborative Authoring has become easier and simpler as it is now too easy to communicate a person at the other corner of the world. Different web-based applications have enhanced the process. Relay Writing, International Writing Exchange, h2g2 are few good example of Online Collaborative Authoring.

Despite of being invented lately in the evolution process of Collaborative Authoring, wiki has become a strong and reliable supporter of it. The term wiki could be seen as the acronym of What I Know Is. People assemble at a place, select a topic and say what they know. Now the knowledge of each individual builds up a huge store of information.

Wikipedia, online free encyclopedia, is one good example of wiki-based applications. Wiki sites are easy to edit. The person need not be an expert to modify wiki pages and that is one of the reasons behind the huge popularity of wiki. People having vast knowledge are able to add their expertise to a topic through wiki from anywhere of the world.

Many online message boards and web communities have started interacting through wiki nowadays. One such example is the Community Knowledge Base of Debt Consolidation Care. This is a community that helps people solve their debt and credit related problems and offer responsible guidance to find the most reasonable solution for financial issues.

However, wiki is very much prone to vandalism because it cannot sense the mind of the person who edits it. But as long great minds are there behind it, no threat can damage its glory.

Difference between Writing and Content Writing

Writing for web is something different from conventional commercial writings. When a professional writes for consumers she concentrates on consumer psychology and uses catchy headline, creative words (read my earlier post Whirl the World), images and colors to attract attention or create an impact on human mind.

Same is true for content writers also, but content of a website is not written for consumers only, it is the food of search engines as well. To bring the webpage at the top of the SERP, the writer must keep all the related keywords in mind. Keywords are the basic element of online marketing. People sometimes manage to optimize their webpage for targeted keyword(s), but when it comes to more than two or three keywords; the situation becomes worst.

I was writing for all the states of America few days back. The targeted keyword was $state name consumer. Hence I put the state name within the content maintaining optimum keyword density. Suddenly I thought, a person from California looking for information, might try a search with key phrase "CA consumer"! Using abbreviations for state names is a regular practice. So I inserted the code for each state within the content and I think it made the page more user friendly and search engine friendly as well.

But if I was writing it for a newspaper or magazine, I would not have reacted this way. And that is why I believe writing for web is different from conventional writing and experience teaches a lot to excel in content writing.

First Blogger

Blogger is the pioneer in the blogging world. They introduced the blogging concept and made it popular among mass. Have you ever thought who the first person was to create a blog with Blogger? I have thought and found him out. It’s very easy you know. Just see how I investigated:

My Profile in Blogger is available at-

http://www.blogger.com/profile/30338908

It’s quite easy to understand that the number "30338908" is assigned for me. Then who the number "1" has been assigned to? Hence I tried the link

http://www.blogger.com/profile/1

Yes, he is Evan Williams, founder of Blogger.com and perhaps the first Blogger.

A bad experience in Orkut

I came across a very bad incident in Orkut just few days back. I joined a community “What should Google do” months ago and used to visit the community frequently. I participated in various discussions and got quite a few “thank you” response from other members.

Suddenly I noticed that I cannot post comment there anymore because I have been banned from that community. I thought it might be some mistake on their part because I cannot remember doing anything bad there. So I contacted the owner of the community and asked the reason. And see how he responded.


I always try to keep people informed about my findings, especially when those are great. And the community has interpreted such activity as inappropriate ad posting. I really felt down and low. I left a message for him in his scrapbook and closed the chapter. It hurts you know...however, now I am feeling much better after telling you the entire whole story.

This is a funny one

Techy: "Do I need a bigger Hard Disk, if I want to download Internet?"
Expert: “Download Internet HERE”.

Tom and Jerry series - Flirty Birdy

Whirl the World

After reviewing several blogs, my understanding says most people do not blog for money. And now Pew, a research organization in America has showed it. According to a study conducted by Pew, 7% of bloggers blog for money. The main objective behind blogging is still story telling.

However, another blogging trend is emerging during the recent times. Magazines and Journals are being published in blog-formats nowadays. If we consider them as blogs, then obviously this is going to be a new phase of blogging where money matters. Corporate houses are maintaining such blogs to promote their products and services as well.

Blogs are going to be more popular in the coming days. So if you want a blog and wish to make it popular, I can give a non-tech tip. Try to think of new words that somehow explain your product or service.

Let’s compare two different approaches:

• Evangelistic Marketing – a concept
• Click-to-Call – a product

Both of the above are self-explanatory phrases – but the first one looks better due to a thoughtful usage of words. And that is what I am trying to say. While giving a title to your article, product, service or concept – think of something new that magnets human mind and move the world ;)

Google AdSense for Video

After Text and Image ads, now I can show Video AdSense on my sites and blogs. It’s a good stuff. People get more attracted to video clippings, so the chances of clicks are higher. Sometimes I wonder, what else Google has behind the sleeve?

However, Google still has limited resources for video ads; hence it cannot be shown all over the time. Hopefully more video ads will be available soon and the internet will become more colorful and musical.

Man proposes Boss disposes

Certainly I am not going to discuss about getting my leave application denied. I am going to talk something more serious and it disturbs your mental state highly.

You have planned a project, prepared the guidelines and made all documentations. Now you are energized to start working on it. Then comes your boss, she checks all that you have done, gave her own suggestions and ideas and as a result the project gets a completely different look than what you wanted.

This is more likely to happen when you plan something new or innovative. However, you get disappointed and start following what she said. Then all on a sudden you see someone else has started using your idea that your boss rejected and the project is a big hit! How would you feel then? I feel happy and sorry simultaneously.

Happy: I am able to innovate a million-dollar idea.
Sorry: No; I am not sorry for not being recognized; I am sorry because I could not implement it.

Internet – a better medium of marketing

Internet has emerged lately in the evolution process of marketing and advertisement. However, it has thrown a strong challenge to all the existing marketing mediums in such a short time. Here Saikat speculates the reason behind it.

Internet = Visual + Audio + Audio-Visual

Print media is the oldest tool that marketers used to promote their products. It was based on Visual effects only. Then came radio and marketers started using acoustic as a means of marketing. Television gave a big blow and came up as a Audio-Visual medium of marketing.

Now, Internet has grasped all the strategies. All the above mentioned effects are easily available in the internet. Hence business houses and manufacturers are leaning towards web world while marketing their products or services.

Festivals

Two countries located far apart from each other are celebrating festivals today. Some states of north east India are celebrating “Jagaddhatri Puja” today. Jagaddhatri is the Goddess who is assumed to hold the whole universe; hence she is the mother of this universe. People of Kolkata and Chandannagar participate most in this festival. I would also go for pandal-hopping this evening :)

And Americans are observing “Halloween” today. Children would be dressing up in fancy clothes, wearing masks, going door to door to collect foods. It’s a colorful festival on the eve of the “All Saints’ Day”.

Why another search engine?

No one has questioned about the searchability of Google. Most relevant and appropriate search result is the cause behind Google’s such a huge fame. Then why ‘SearchMash’? What could be there under the sleeves?

The features I have noticed in SearchMash are:

• Image search result appears along with web search simultaneously in 2 panels.
• It fetches result from web page, image and news simultaneously.
• There is a combo that helps you select your search territory (web page, image etc).
• The url of result page is user friendly.
• User can reorder the results by simply dragging them up and down.

I am sure the last option has been implemented to test if people are liking what Google displays. Suppose a web page appears at # 1. Now, if people start to drag it down, search engine would also push it down. Let’s see what more Google does with SearchMash…

Please comment here if you have some other thoughts.

Orkut Chat – the latest crush

According to me Orkut is the latest hit product of Google. They might have launched some other services or products too, but those are topic specific. But Orkut has been able to involve huge number of people in a short time.

People are happy to get this social network. Once Orkut is such a big hit, now Google is introducing Orkut Messenger. What an idea to hold the attraction!!!

How to make people participate

Participation is a brilliant way to make anything popular. Perhaps that is the reason all the producers arrange competitions and contest to introduce their product in market. And manufacturers of electronic goods to the producers of silly soap operas – no one is exception; the reason behind asking people to vote through sms or mail is nothing but tying them with the product.

Another new trend is being noticed in the recent talent search programs. The organizers are asking viewers to vote through sms and phone. General people are becoming judge of the program; obviously it makes them feel honored. And the producer of the program earns good revenue from the telecommunication companies too. No doubt it’s a good idea to involve people as per as marketing stuffs are concerned (I have doubts about the cultural sense of the voters).

Online marketing is the latest crush in the corporate world and Google has crossed all the levels of excellence in the field of online marketing, I must say. I think the urge to offer more and more flexible environment to interact has given Google such a success. They seem to be a follower of the mantra “Change is the only constant in the universe”. Google knows how to present things differently at different time. By offering a wide range of services, not only they are insisting people to participate whole-heartedly but securing a considerable presence on the internet.

Credit Card Freak

"Hey what’s your hobby?" – quite a common question....and the answers may range from collecting stamp, reading book to making friends. Has anyone ever heard of the hobby of buying credit cards?

In my office, there is a person addicted to credit cards. His cell phone remains busy all the day with the calls from Credit Card Companies. He meets dozen of reps everyday. He already has managed cards from some reputed creditors and banks. He maintains a documentation of all his cards in a separate file. (I cannot remember the info of a single debit card, then just think of him....huh)

His adventure does not end here. He has started helping others to get credit card too. With his help, many people have been successful to get a card, which seemed difficult otherwise.

Now we are waiting for the day when his name gets recorded in the Guinness Book World Records as a Credit Card Giant. All the best to him ;)

Anand's B'day party

Today we celebrated Anand’s Birthday in office. He is the youngest among all the employees. Moreover, he is very sweet, cute and sincere. As usual we had a birthday cake for him and all the cream was put on his face, he was looking like a cartoon. Ha haa.

We also presented a birthday card to him, but as I like him most, I painted a picture for him. He was very happy to receive it.

World Wide Web

World Wide Web is perhaps the greatest achievement of human mind. The world of www has wrapped the whole world and abolished territorial boundaries. People are becoming fan of www like anything and internet usage is increasing rapidly all over the world.

Sometimes I feel that it is hard to imagine the web-world that does not exist but exists. Its virtual presence is so much addictive that more and more people getting bonded with it. Online communities are becoming popular rapidly.

Companies that serve products or services, are now interested in building up online communities. And internet is a great place where you can involve people and make them participate in various online activities. I won’t wonder if someday I see a community of human beings to survive over computers.