The best music gadget on your desktop!

When Google does things, they do it in such a way that you will instantly love it. Google Desktop is one good example. It makes life easier by enabling your PC to perform the way you want it to perform. Of course there are several issues about Google Desktop, including the space it takes on your C Drive when it index your files. But that is some space I am willing to give Google Desktop for making search on my desktop easier.

As I was searching for Google Gadgets that would enable me to make my PC more useful, i stumbled upon their music gadget. It is a plugin that indexes music files and bring them together on your desktop so that it is easy for you to search and play songs as you are on the move.

There are several limitations to many of the music players that are available today. One thing is that they are incapable of searching your files out and bring it for you when you need them. If you have too many files on your system and that too in different places, it is difficult for you to locate them. The Music Player by Google Desktop automatically adds all your music files to the library and all that you got to do is type in the song you want and presto, it is there for you.

As you see in the image, it categorizes songs Artist, Album and Track wise. You can add the song of your choice to the play list. Or the album of your choice to your playlist. Or the artist of your choice to your playlist.

What I like the most about this gadget is that you have one button less on your taskbar!

Windows Live Writer: Blogging made easier!

I always used to wish if I could take my own sweet time offline to write a post and publish it once I am done. That was not possible till I found Windows Live Writer.

To me blogging was always something I did online. From typing a post to proof reading it to publishing it. Typos used to creep in and I always had to go back and edit a post even after I published it. I tried a few Offline Blogging Applications. But none of them was worth the bargain. They were very basic and I don’t think any of they really understood what a blogger wants. I think Windows Live Writer understands a blogger better than many of the blogging platforms available today.

Live Writer provides a blogger with many options, options that many blogging platforms, including blogger can not give you. The best thing about Live Writer is the Preview Option. Live Writer downloads your log template so that it can show you the post as it is going to appear in the blog. From hyperlinking to inserting pictures to embedding maps to you name it and it is like Live Writer has it. Following the Google and Firefox steps, Microsoft has also allowed others to develop plugins and addons for Live Writer.

It makes blogging easier is one thing.It also makes blogging much more interesting than it was!

Adsense on You Tube: How is it going to help?

Google is finally opening up Adsense for You Tube Users. So far, monetizing content was the privilege of a few. From now on, Google will let the owners of popular videos join the Adsense Programme and make some money out of it. What are the implications of such a move?

People say Google is struggling to make good money out of You Tube, though it is a very popular web service. People watch You Tube Videos a lot more times than any other video site in the world, to the extend of forcing Microsoft host their Jingle Video Contest on it. Yet, it seems, You Tube fails to deliver in terms of dollars.

I can understand why people want to watch videos on You Tube - it is entertaining. But it is not enough that the videos are entertaining to make some good bucks out of it. Let me tell you why I think so! There are only two reasons as I can see why people would want to upload content on You Tube. Let me explain - there are only two kinds of videos on You Tube. One, personal videos that you want your friends and family to watch. Two, promotional videos or videos that are advertisements themselves. So people upload videos only for personal reasons or because they want to promote their brand. What does this lead to? This is a serious limitation.

Pay-per-click Advertising survives only if people have reasons to click on the links. The most legitimate reason to click an advertisement is the interest of the person who clicks, in the product. Now, imagine that you are watching a home video that I produced because you are my friend. Let us say, the video is on how my dog eats food. And Contextual Advertising would probably put an advertisement on Dog Food along with the video. I am damn sure no one would click that advertisement. Because people who watch that video are going to watch it not because they want to know more about Dog Food, but because they know me and they are curious to know what I'm up to. If I am lucky, the video will become viral and a few more people would watch it. They too would watch it not because they are interested in Dog Food, but because they are curious to know what is happening. No wonder Google makes no money out of You Tube.

Talk about promotional video content. Watching such stuff usually takes us to other sites, if I am interested in what I am watching. And there again Google loses out in the game as in the You Tube Model, Video is much more important than anything else on the site.

And here comes Google with this cool idea - let users monetize their videos. Probably the JK Wedding Dance inspired the idea. Which ever way, all of us are going to gain from this decision. How? Look at the key to this idea - Google is going to let only the publishers of popular content monetize their videos. Some people say Google is doing this because they are worried they can not monetize all the content on You Tube. Some are so worried about how advertisers will have to put up with sponsoring things they do not want to sponsor. But I am not worried about anything. I look at this decision as an opportunity for publishers to make good money out of what they post. I am sure in the days to come You Tube is going to be more than just personal videos and promotional videos. I'm sure You Tube is going to see more quality content as publishers compete to make videos that make people watch. I am sure people are going to come back and watch videos and click on the advertisements because they are interested in what they are watching and advertisements will hopefully cater to their interests. And I'm sure slowly You Tube will become another research tool as more quality content is going to show up.

After Thought: Now we know one reason why Google bought ON2. I'm waiting for the rest of the reasons to surface.

Synonym finding made easy!

There are hundreds of on-line dictionaries and most of them are worth the bargain. Asking Google to define a word for you is the easiest thing to do when you are hunting for meanings. Otherwise you have a choice of dictionaries from where you can glean the meanings. But when you want to find synonyms and antonyms of a particular word, things can be hard on you if you are using any of them. I find most of the online dictionaries sufficiently incapable in that area. And I found Synonym.com can do that job easily for us.

Synonym.com comes with three features as you can see. It has a synonym finder that helps you find similar words. It has an antonym finder that helps you find the opposite words. It also has a definition tool so that you can also go find the meaning if you want.

One thing I liked about Synonym.com: They categorize the synonyms that they find for you and give you a list of words in different sense of the search word. This is one feature I haven't found in any of the Online Dictionaries. Most of them may give you a list of similar words. But they never tell you in what sense the given words are the synonyms of the search word.

Net Leeches: How good or bad is phenomenon dependence?

There are hundreds of companies that build their business model around the most popular IT Phenomenons of the time. You must have come across Web Services that claim to enhance your Twitter Experience. You must have come across websites and blogs, including techedIN, that run only 'Ads by Google' There are developers who develop only for Facebook. I would like to call them Net Leeches and I would like to call what they do 'phenomenon dependence'

Over the years, all of us have come to understand that trends on Internet are like water bubbles. They can burst any time. And if they don't burst, like Google haven't, these trends can suddenly change their policies not to suit what you are doing.

Very recently, I hope you have heard about a URL Shortening company going down the drains because they have built their entire business model around Twitter. Of course, on Popular Demand, it is back again. But I'm sure they are running it with out any economic gain. They are just running it because they don't want the URL to get into the hands of 'bad' people. It is sad that such a popular web service had to think of closing down because of their phenomenon dependence. It is interesting to note that their decision to close made people who use their services panic.

I have come across many blogs talking about search engine optimization and the way Google blacklist websites and services that they don't like. I have read their ever growing rant about how 'evil is Google' because they don't show up in the first page of search result. Why do Google usually blacklist sites? Do they have the right to blacklist sites? I think they do because they make it clear when and how they blacklist a site. It is the fault of the leech sites that they decided to depend on the phenomenon.

You must also have heard about the Netscape Founder funding a project that builds a browser that is specifically made to access Facebook. IT Experts are already wondering how it can help him? This is phenomenon dependence and may have only a short term success, even if it does succeed. And I wonder why the man who made Netscape wants to be a Net Leech!

This is what I think of phenomenon dependence and Net Leeches:

1. There is something popular online and the Net Leeches come up with quick solutions to make the maximum out of that phenomenon. But what if all of a sudden the phenomenon dies?
2. What if the company that created the phenomenon changes their policies and cuts off the Net Leech? Like Apple did to Google Voice? Or Twitter did to Trim?
3. What if all of a sudden there is another phenomenon on-line and the leech cannot quickly change directions to make the most out of the new wave as they have a phenomenon dependent audience.
4. What if the Phenomenon Company comes up with a product similar to what is floated by the Net Leech Company? 

I wish Net Leeches would find a way to stand on their own and let the phenomenon company take care of enhancing their own user experiences. This way, web can see a lot more innovation! Like Trim decided to kill their URL Shortening Service and go to greener pastures. That was a late decision of course. Better late than never, isn't it? I wish all Net Leeches would follow suit!

The thin line between IT love and hate!

I have no idea who said it! But I have heard that there is only a thin line between love and hate and I think it is true when I look at Information Technology!

There are a lot of people who say they hate Microsoft. There are a lot of people who say they hate Google Search and their Advertisement Practices. There are a lot of people who say they hate, especially Americans who say they hate, AT & T. There are a lot of people who say they hate Facebook. On Internet, the trend is, even with me, quite a few people hate what is popular. This is where the idea that there is only a thin line between love and hate becomes absolutely true!

I use almost all products Microsoft! But if you read my Blog you will feel that I'm someone who uses nothing Microsoft. The fact is I'm someone who can't survive without using Vista and MS Office. Then why do I go saying bad things about Microsoft? Because they make me pay for using their services. You do not find a similar objection against Google because they give me things free of cost. I don't have to pay them. The idea is, there is no rationale behind love and hate! We just try and find as many excuses as possible to say we hate!

There are people who don't show up in Google Search Results. They blame Google for making the search results editorial. Why do they do that? They are pissed off by the fact that they don't show up when some one searches for something on Google. What do they do? They try to teach Google how to run a Search Engine. They tell them that editing search results is a crime. The idea is, we say we hate if the person whom we want to notice us does not notice us! We just try and find as many excuses as possible to say we hate!

There are a lot of Americans who don't like AT & T! AT & T trends on Twitter quite often. Why? Because they rejected a Google App. Because they charge for calls per minute. They try and teach AT & T how to run their business. The truth is people still use AT & T in USA. And the idea is, we say we hate someone who makes us pay! We blame them for not helping to let technology grow! We blame them for not allowing us to use it for free! We just try and find as many excuses as possible to say we hate!

I was just wondering what would we have done if all those IT companies we hate ceased to exist. What would have happened? Nothing! Yes, absolutely nothing! We would have found other companies to love and hate at the same time! Till then, we'll continue using the services these companies provide and blame them for not making it easy for us. I think the thin line between IT love and hate will continue to exist as long as IT is going to be there!

Huffington going Facebook: Another lesson for News Sites!

The other day I wrote about how News Sites should think of innovative ideas to reach more people in stead of cribbing about Aggregators stealing their traffic and here is Huffington Post with one bright idea!

Huffington is going Facebook with Huffpost Social News! What are they upto? As we hear from Arianna Huffington:

When you sign up for it -- and I hope you will right now -- HuffPost Social News finds your Facebook friends who are also reading HuffPost and links you together on our site so you can dive deeper into the stories you like best. (But don't worry, you'll still have complete control over what stories and comments are shared with your friends, as well as what goes on your Facebook wall, and into your friends' news feeds. See details at end of post.)

The explosive growth of online social networking has fundamentally changed our relationship with news. It's no longer something we passively take in. We now engage with news, react to news, and share news. News has become an important element of community -- something around which we gather, connect, and converse. And we can all become part of the evolution of a story now -- expanding it with comments and links to relevant information, adding facts and differing points of view.

 Now, whoever said Links kill traffic should think again! Think of the amount space Huffington will get on Facebook if this idea clicks and people start clicking. There will be links to Huffington all over Facebook. Aren't News Aggregators doing a similar help to News Sites that give original content? Or are the News Sites one day going to stand up and say Search Engines should also pay for searching them out and showing them on the search page because Search Engines kill traffic? Bing already has a User Interface that permits users to bring up more content from the original site to help them decide if they want to go to the site or not. Google has already integrated Google News into its search results so that relevant news links come up when people search. If people only read headlines and are done with it why would experts say Google does that to subsidize people who create content? What do these tell us? Simple, where ever they are links matter and they don't kill traffic!

Image from Huffington Post

A battle of Links is on!

Arnon Mishkin wrote "The Falacy of the Link Economy" on PaidConetent.org, adding fuel to the fire that News Sites are already in. With Murdoch announcing his plans to turn all his News Sites into paid ones, the News Sites were severely criticized for not being capable of adapting to the changing needs of the Internet Era. And Arnon's post as a reaction to the demand by Associate Press and the likes for News Aggregation Sites to pay to link worsened the criticism further.

From Google News to Huffington Post, News Aggregation and Syndication Sites are aplenty. And Arnon claims to have done a study of these Aggregators. He claims he found out the following:

The vast majority of the value gets captured by aggregators linking and scraping rather than by the news organizations that get linked and scraped. We did a study of traffic on several sites that aggregate purely a menu of news stories. In all cases, there was at least twice as much traffic on the home page as there were clicks going to the stories that were on it. In other words, a very large share of the people who were visiting the site were merely browsing to read headlines rather than using the aggregation page to decide what they wanted to read in detail. Obviously, this has major ramifications for content creators’ ability to grow ad revenue, as the main benefit of added traffic is the potential for higher CPMs. (Disclosure: I have consulted for the AP and other content creators, though not on this particular issue.)

 If Arnon learned from his study that aggregators hinder the growth of News Sites, there is something seriously wrong with his method of study. I use Aggregators to keep in touch with the world as I do not have time to go and look at every News Site around. Aggregators bring the news to me and if I find something I'm interested in, I click on the link given and go read the full story. I repeat, 'if I'm interested in". Or if it is something that really matters to me. News Sites can't force me into reading any crap they write as they used to do when News Paper was the source of information. Remember those days when you had to buy the whole newspaper just to read on or two stories you were interested in. I don't buy newspapers any more. With  Aggregators around, I get to choose what I read. Contrary to what Arnon suggests, I click on the link and go to the site to read the whole story as I don't get the full picture from the Aggregator. Aggregators give me the headline and the first one or two lines of the story.

I think Agrregators add value to a link. But what that link leads to is for the News Sites to decide. If they don't have anything that will take me to their site, I won't go there for sure. I don't see the point in blaming the Aggregators for the incapability of News Sites to provide quality [interesting and worth reading!] content.

Whatever, the battle of linking is on! If News Sites are going to seriously consider the three suggestions Arnon makes in his post, then the present Aggregators are doomed. They either have to pay for the content and links they use or they may have to run advertisements from the original content developers on the Aggregator Sites.

All said and done, I still can't see Arnon's point. If his theory of Aggregators stealing traffic from News Sites holds water, then even if all the News Sites come together and create an Aggregator of their own, as he suggests, things will be pretty same. The new Aggregator will have all the traffic and News Sites will have none, unless they improve content.

I think the issue with the News Sites is about how the package information. On-line Versions of News Papers look pretty like the News Paper it self. Many News paper Sites have E-versions of their Printed Versions. I think that was such a bad idea to digitize the printed versions of news paper. If only they could spend that money to make locally relevant content available. If only they could use that money to allow users to set their preferences so that they get what they usually read. If only they could spent some money to make their headlines more catchy. If only they could use that money to promote citizen journalism. If only they could use that money to convert their News Sites into News Services. I wish!

FatSecret: For people who love food and diet!

Do you know what India searched most in 2008? Well, Google Zeitgeist 2008 tells us that people from India who searched how to do something, mostly searched for 'How to reduce weight?" That is not very  surprising when we consider that the 'Image of a Beautiful Woman' is portrayed as an 'Image of a Skinny Woman' by Indian Mainstream Mass Media. Why do I think our women must have searched for this? Simply because I have never come across a woman in India who is not bothered about her weight, even among the skinniest! Well, we can go on discussing about who did that search most, but that is not the purpose of my post! I just wanted to bring to your notice a curious Social Community Site I came across the other day, as I was surfing.

Fat Secret - the name tells you everything! It is a social community network dedicated to people who think about 'all things food and diet" Good idea, isn't it? People who hunt for information on Food and Diet get peer validated information here, that is what the site owners claim. And I think it is true. The site does not control any information that is there on the site and they claim that they have no affiliation to any company that offer medicines that help you reduce the 'mass' of your body. The information on the site are given by the members of the site and the site has tools to gather and compare information, enabling the best peer validated tips to reach users.

The site owners say:

FatSecret takes the feedback and collective experience of members to discover what really works.We are totally independent and try not to give recommendations but rather provide the tools and framework for everyone to achieve their goals as the community generates answers to all food, diet and exercise questions - united we fall(the weight that is).

Look at the graph provided. The graph gives you an idea about how a particular diet is successful based on the diet data collected from the users. It simply rates a diet beased on how much weight people who followed the diet could lose.

I think that is a cute idea you should try out if you are someone who is constantly worried about your weight, instead of spending your money on tablets and potions that ultimately make you end up in hormon imbalances and make you victims of cancer and sorts.

Images: Screen Shots taken from FatSecret

webfinger: Soon you could be using Gmail ID for more than emailing!

What do we use our Gmail Ids for? To send and receive emails, to log in to Google related services and sometimes, use other web services that require email IDs and not usernames. We use any email Id by any service provider, for that matter, to do similar things.

Try searching an email id to find out more about the owner of the ID! You will get absolutely no information about the person as there is no way a person can attach information to his or her email id. Email IDs are not linked to personal information the way social networking IDs are linked to personal information. For example, if you search for a long lost friend, it is quite likely that his or her social network profile pages like Twitter, Face Book or Linkedin would show up in the search. But not if you use an email ID instead of the name. Because as mentioned in the Google Code Summary Page on webfinger: "If I give you my email address today, you can't do anything with it except email me. I can't attach public metadata to my email address to give you more information." Now, through the "webfinger Project" launched on April 28, 2009, Google is trying to make it possible for people to attach personal information to their Email Ids. In other words, Google is on a project to make email Ids searchable!

What are the implications of this innovation? I don't know if you know, this is not a new idea. This was something tried during the initial Internet years. A finger programme was written by Les Earnest to help those users who wanted to find out information about other users using their emails. However, by 1990, websites and companies stopped using this service as it was a threat to security and privacy of individuals. Hackers used this service to carry out social engineering attacks on companies and individuals.

Why is Google bringing back a service that was tested and dropped, years ago? Why do they, all of a sudden, want to make an email id both 'writable' and 'readable' like a URL? Experts say that Google is trying to come up with an alternative to open ids! I understand the concern about the failure of Open ID System, as people don't use Open IDs often. It is perfectly fine if Google is only trying to make people use their email ids instead of Open ID URLs, to access all the web services. But I don't understand that part where Google says it is also thinking of making emails 'readable'.

I'm already thinking of taking off my profiles from the popular social networking sites. After Twitter and Face Book allowed me to customize my URL the way I want to, I am increasingly worried about the idea that I'm now more prone to social engineering attacks. [Thank God, I have an option to keep all my information closed to me and the people I know on Face Book and Twitter. But not on Linkedin!] Because every time you search my name, I show up in the search and it is not always good to leave trails online.

Google already collects information about what I search. They use my Gmail ID to keep track of what I search! Now, they are trying to get me attach personal information to the very same Gmail ID I use. If that is done, Google knows who I am and what I do online. That is a lot of information, I can give away, don't you think?

And if Google makes my email searchable or 'readable' as they calim they are going to do, it means people can dig out my Google Profile [Or my Face Book Profile or my Orkut Profile or my Linkedin Profile or my Twitter Profile] using my email as the key word. Now, they can do that only using my the Name. Where your online life is concerend, your email id is more credible than you name, as your email id is directly linked to you unlike your name. A name or username is not considred to be credible or authentic online. Emails Ids are legal today and emails are accepted as evidence for this reason. Doesn't Google understand the political implications of this move?

Browser War: Is Netscape Founder coming back with a vengence?

15 December 1994, Netscape Communications Corporation launched Netscape Navigator, the Web Browser that changed the way people approached Internet. Microsoft bought the licence of the source code of Mosaic, and with that they created Internet Explorer, which eventually killed Netscape. That browser war was somewhere in 1995. And Andreessen and his Netscape was history!

In July 2009, techedIN was launched, amidst another browser war booming! [Yes, the very same techedIN you are reading now!] Because of the success of Firefox, Google entered the browser market and now the war is between Google, Mozilla, Apple and Microsoft. And today New York Times reported the entry of another player  into the browser market! A man the Internet World always remembers with a lot of respect -Marc Andreessen!

New York Times reported that Marc is funding a Software Development firm called RockMelt, which is secretly into the business of developing a new generation browser. NYT reports:

But Mr. Andreessen suggested the new browser would be different, saying that most other browsers had not kept pace with the evolution of the Web, which had grown from an array of static Web pages into a network of complex Web sites and applications. “There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch,” Mr. Andreessen said.

So Marc is building a web browser from scratches, the one that will slowly kill the current ones? Like Microsoft took over his browser kingdom way back in 1995? And what is Marc and his team building? RockMelt does not give you much idea about what is happening with them, on their site. They just have a page that shows off their mysterious logo. [Believe me, the logo sticks! Great sense of logo selection!]

There are people who claim that they got a chance to take a look at the 'thing' RockMelt is attempting to make. And as I understand, it is mostly designed as a browser that integrates Facebook into its build. In other words Marc seems to be targeting the millions who use Facebook like Google once targeted Firefox users, buying the rights to be the home page of every Firefox Browser.And Marc is on the Director Board of Facebook, which would probably make it easy for him to strike a deal with Facebook.

Does it have any other feature built into it other than Facebook integration? No one knows. If it is just about Face Book integration, then what is Flock for? Flock is a web browser launched by Mozilla, the makers of Firefox. Flock integrates Face Book and Twitter very well into its build. It also lets you keep in touch with your feeds real time. It permits you to access your mail, post your blog and all these features are built into the browser. This means once you have your account open you don't have to go directly to the website to access information. The browser brings you all that information by itself. Flock is much more powerful than any browser I have seen so far. Not even Chrome or Firefox can match it! [I'm not so sure about security though!]

If there is already a browser [Flock!] that fits the description of what Marc probably has in his mind, then why re-invent the wheel? Is he just trying to take his vengence on Microsoft for having him out of the game? Or is it about controling the web, because today owning a browser that people use is how on-line might of Software Companies is defined? Is the new browser to be created by the RockMelt Team going to be a powerful new generation one? Or is it going to be a Facebook Homepage thing that is going to die once another social networking site better than Face Book will take over the market? Only time will tell! [I have given my email address to the RockMelt team and am waiting for their updates. Till then, I'll try and use Flock for some time and see if it can get me out of my Chrome Addiction!]

Images from Wikipedia and RockMelt Official Site

wibiya: make your blog a bit more interactive!

It's toolbar time for blogs. I don't know if you have noticed the blue toolbar on techedIN. It is there because I wanted to make techedIN a bit more interactive than it was. This feature on techedIN is brought to you by Wibiya, an Israeli start-up that is specialized in creating 'customized web-based toolbars.'

What value does it add to your blog? Well, see for yourself how it adds value to techedIN.

1. One click and you can translate the page into 11 languages, one at a time. Wibiya uses the Translation Feature offered by Google to do this. When you click on the 'Translate' button, you are redirected to the tool that Google uses to translate a page. The user interface of techedIN remains as it is. Only the content gets translated. 
2. Another feature I liked is the option to view random posts. Click on the Random Post button and it will take you to one of the posts on techedIN which you would have otherwise missed out, as it is archived.
3. The toolbar can also give you a list of recent posts. One click and you get a list of recent posts. Click on the one you want to read and it will take you there.
4. The toolbar also has options to let readers subscribe to the RSS Feed or share a post with a community. 
5. Wibiya also gives you an option to share notifications with your readers. It is a flash pop-up that shows up as you load the blog. I toyed with the idea of using it as a pop-up always annoys readers. I thought I wouldn't use it. I changed my mind when I saw how effectively it can be used to interact with the readers. I have adapted the notification pop-up [I don't know if I should call it a pop up. It is a flash-object that shows up as the blog loads and goes off on its own in a few seconds.] I christened the pop-up as 'News @ techedIN' I thought it can be used to share IT related news that I find interesting with the readers. No harm in it, what do you think?

 Wibiya also gives you features like creating a Blog Community on Facebook and promoting it on your blog. I decided against using that feature for now, as I do not have enough time in my hand to promote a community.

You can also let readers tweet your posts. I decided against using it as I already have retweet option enabled for the posts on my blog.

What more? Wibiya has a community to help users tackle the toolbar management issues.

And I really liked the way it looks on my blog. I received my first compliment from a reader for making the blog look good, after I installed the toolbar.

I think you should go ahead and give it a shot. And don't forget to tell me what you felt about it!

Image from Wibiya's Site

Crisis Phobia and "The Top 100 Search Terms Queried by Kids"

I remember a Professor of mine who used to always call our attention to the 'crisis phobea' some writers try to spread. I don't know if you have ever noticed some writers going about their job as though the world is going to end if you don't listen to them. I remembered my Professor and his long lectures on the perpetrators of crisis phobia when I read OnlineFamily.Norton's list of  top 100 terms kids search on-line.

Top 100 Search Terms Queried by Kids? Do you know what they are? There is everything from YouTube to Google to Face Book to Michael Jackson to Pokemon to you name what you consider popular with kids on net and they are there! Take a look at it and at first it appears to be a very innocent list. But wait a second! Is it as innocent as Norton is trying to sound?

There are some search terms in the list  that can be very disturbing where parents are concerned. Sex is fourth in the list. Porn is sixth in the list. And at least four more 'taboo' words occur on the list. And the write up does not mention the age levels of the children who would have searched these words while they were surfing. It simply gives you a general list of 100 search terms and of course a note to many of them in case parents sat wondering what they were.

Norton claims that they tracked down 3.5 million searches and a search term had to be submitted at least 50 times to qualify as a 'kids' top search term.' See how they are trying to validate their findings in the best way possible. And Norton says [See the crisis words stressed using inverted comas]:

According to OnlineFamily.Norton, kids’ top 100 search terms include sites like YouTube, eBay and Craigslist, as well as social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. The words “sex” and “porn” also made it to the top, ranking number four and six respectively.

And one clearly understands that the post target parents as there are explanations to most of the search terms used. Why did they do it? Of course we know - they have this OneFamily Child Protection, Net Filtering Software to sell. Yah, the one like China's Green Dam. And this report shows us even they can keep track of what you are doing with your PC, like Green Dam.

Please don't get me wrong! I do not endorse children visiting pornographic sites. I do not endorse adults visiting pornographic sites even. Because most of these sites spread malware, viruses and spyware. It is not healthy for your computer if you visit them. And to make sure that your personal information like passwords and credit card number are safe, you need to make sure that spyware and malware do not infest your PC or MAC. And I know kids sometimes tend to visit such sites out of curiosity and in turn gets the computer affected. And perhaps, it is good to have a Site Filtering System on your computer.

However, that does not justify the the way Norton has tried to scare poor parents into buying their software. [Ya, it is free now! But what about later?] It does not justify their attempt to generalize search terms and make it look like 'kids are as pervert as adults' I would not have bothered if they gave a reference to the age level of children. But they have made the list look like every kid from a toddler to a teenager needs to be closely watched like police watches a suspect, every time they go on-line. I can not agree with the idea that they collect user data [which is personal] and publish it on-line and try to make that a selling point!

Print Screen Image from Norton's Site

Twibbon: Is it just about wearing a badge?

Now doubt Twitter is becoming a phenomenon on-line. And the number of sites that survive because of Twitter are increasing. Earlier I wrote about Twitterfeed, a service that allow you to post your feeds automatically to your Twitter Page. Another one I recently came across is Twibbon. Twibbon is about wearing a badge to show off your affiliation. But is Twibbon only about wearing a badge?

The habit of wearing an E-badge is becoming very popular these days. There are sites that force you to wear a badge to show your affiliation. There a badge is nothing more than a reciprocal link. You link me because I linked you is bad on-line attitude.



Twibbon takes E-badges to a new level. People wear a badge to support a cause. IE6 Must Die was a cause that many Twitter users supported and made popular that it trended on Twitter for a long time. When the King of Pop passed away, people who mourned the sad demise wore a black badge on their profile and Jackson trended on Twitter like never before. Along with the Badge, Twibbon sends out a tweet on the person wearing the badge. It is actually a link to the location of the badge so that other people can come and claim a badge for their profile if they care. It is viral, viral and viral all the way.

I am always of the opinion that Internet is more about marketing than 'information' Of course it is a good way to gather and process information. But it is more about companies gathering information about what people are looking for when. No wonder why most of the services online, like search and social networking, come free of cost to the users.

Twibbon is another way of finding out what people are interested in, when. Twibbon lets you take a closer look at 'what people want', a degree higher than search engines, because people wear a badge usually because they are emotionally attached to something. And I am happy that they don't keep that information to themselves like most of the search engine companies do.

In short, Twibbon, like What the Trend is a great market research tool. I think it can go a long way by helping marketing wiz kids to formulate their strategies. Internet is mostly about Attention Economy now. And Twibbon is only about that.

Photo from Twibbon

The USAA Example: Online Banking takes another step forward!

It has been a while now since banking moved on-line and went almost mobile. Most of the banks in India give us options to do on-line transactions and use our mobile phones to keep track of what is happening with the accounts. With a bank in USA moving ahead and permitting customers to deposit their checks on-line, using their iPhones, I think it is another step forward. I feel, since banks are trying everything they can to make banking a more comfortable experience for account holders, this is soon going to come to India too. So if it comes to Indian Banks, it means you don't have to apply for a casual leave to go to the bank and sit in the queue to deposit a check.

How is this on-line check depositing done? Here, I have got this video from the bank in question, as posted on YouTube and it explains how it is done:


I am happy that core banking services are moving more on-line. And economics experts are right, in a way the global economic melt down is for good reasons. We are going to see a lot of customer centric innovations happening at every level.

But I am not happy with the fact that it is first launched on iPhone. Why? Because, lately Apple is acting very strange and stifling innovations. It took Google Voice away from its store and thus denied American users an opportunity to save a few pennies on phone calls. I know that businesses are not run for charity. But my point is, denying an opportunity to save something during this huge economic meltdown is an economic crime and Apple has done that. Now,I feel, nothing innovative should be first launched on Apple  here after. Apple should be the last one to get a taste of the innovations by other people because of their stone age policies about promoting innovations on-line.

How does Rainlendar help me?

I some times think that my brain is like a laptop that runs Windows Vista on a 512 MB RAM. Simply because, I keep forgetting things! Important things!

I tried many things to keep my 'brain' in the loop of what is happening. Initially I tired writing things to remember in a diary, different colours for different things. I stopped doing that when I started forgetting where I left the diary. Then I tried post it notes. They really proved to be expensive.

Google Calendar came to my rescue for some time. They have this option to send you an e-mail or sms alarm, which worked really fine. The only problem with Google Calendar was that my scheduling got messed up if there was no internet around. And Google gives an Offline Option that doesn't work when there is no Internet.

Microsoft Outlook became my companion for sometime. The problem with Outlook is that I have to manually open it every time I switched my computer on and there are days when I forget to do that.

I tried the gadgets Google Desktop offered. There was a Gadget called 'To do List' The only problem with this Gadget was that it could never tell me when to do what. And as the list kept growing every day, it added to my frustrations.

I was always hunting for a Calendar that offered me the following:

• I needed a calendar that will open on it's own as soon as I switched my computer on.
• I needed a preview of the calendar on my desktop
• It must have an alarm going off every time I am supposed to do something
• It must not scare me with a long list of tasks to do. Yet. I need to look at the immediate tasks any time I want to with a quick glance at my desktop
• It must allow me to prioritize and categorize so that sometimes one look at the icon assigned to a task and I must be able to know what I am supposed to do.
• It must be intelligent enough to differentiate between events and tasks.
• When I bring my mouse over a date, it must tell me everything about the date. I need every little information about the date.

And I spotted Rainlendar. Rainlendar is a desktop calendar. But I would say it is more than a desktop calnedar to me now. Because it somehow meets all my standards. And to my joy, it lets me link to my Google Calendar. I am talking about the Rainlendar Pro Version. Linking to Google Calendar helps me avoid duplication of entry. What ever I enter on my Google Calendar is good enough for Rainlendar, once I synchronize.

What more do I need. Yeh, I didn't like the way it looked. That is not a problem. Rainlendar got skins that I can use. If I am still not happy with the skins that I have by default, I can go to Custiomize.org and pick the skins I like. I tried a couple of them and found that the one that I have by default suited my taste better than any other skin.

The best thing I liked about Rainlendar is the Mouse Over Feature. If I bring my mouse pointer over a scheduled date it tells me everything I keyed in as I was blocking the date. Every bit of details. If I roll my mouse pointer over a date on Outlook or Google Calendar date, they'll just tell me the title of the event. I need to click to go see details about the event. I think some one as lazy as me about clicking the mouse created Rainlendar. Which ever way, I like my new Desktop Calendar.

The Cyxymu Lesson: Forwarding Emails is E-Sin!

I have many friends who keep in touch only by forwarding emails. There are people from whom I receive forwarded emails on a day to day basis. Many of them do it very innocently, I know, knowing little that they are possibly making themselves and the receiver vulnerable to potential internet misuse by hackers and spammers.

We have a live example in front of us: Twitter. It is quiet possible that when you click on this link you get an error message and the site does not load as Twitter is under a Denial of Service Attack. I am told that the Denial of Service attack on Twitter has increased ten times on the second day of the attack. I am not going into the 'geopolitical nature' of the attack. I am not going to make assumptions about who did this. I am not so much worried about if the Russian Government did it or some Criminal Outfit is behind this attack. That is Twitter's job to find out and tell the world. I am more bothered about how this could happen!

How could this happen? Wikipedia tells me that a Denial of Service Attack happens when the number of requests for a particular site increases beyond the capacity of the servers on which a site is hosted. They also call it Distributed Denial of Service Attack. Hackers target popular sites and prevent them from functioning through a Denial of Service Attack. And this is what happened to Twitter.

DoS on Twitter seems to have happened as an individual or an organization was targeting a blogger named Cyxymu. When repeated requests for his page on Twitter, LiveJournal et al happened on August 6, 2009, the servers where the sites are hosted could not handle it and as a result the whole Twitter Site stopped functioning.

People have different opinion about how it happened. Some say that Russian Hackers hacked Cyxymu's Gmail Account and started sending links to his accounts to people. And when people started clicking on these links to know what exactly it was, DoS began! I don't think so because an attack of this sort cannot survive on email links alone, though it is true that a Joe Job Email Campaign happened from Cyxymu's Gmail Account.

There is another theory, which is more plausible. Experts say that the attack was managed using botnets. Botnets are, in simple words a network of computers which runs software robots. The hackes who drowned Twitter seem to have a huge network of computers they could use to send repeated requests for the site. Where did they get all these computers from, because you need millions of computers to organize an attack at this level of ferocity?

Probably they got all these computers linked up through emails. People send you hundreds of forwarded emails. Have you ever wondered where they come from? Who would take such struggles to create information and send it to you for free? Who made the original message?

I have no idea who sends them. But I know one thing. The original messages are sent using automated services available online. There are sites that let you send bulk emails for free and keep a track of them. [I am not giving you a link to an example site for an obvious reason - I don't want to be a party to the prorogation of such sites] Usually these emails, though they may sound very innocent, contain malware that plant robots in your system. They link up with each other and create a network after they are in your system. This way hackers get to use your system even without your knowledge.

I think we should stop forwarding emails and opening emails that are forwarded. Forwarded emails compromise the security of personal information as well as personal computers. Forwarding E-mails should be considered as E-sin. Why?

1. Forwarded emails are an easy way for hackers to spread their bots on systems across the world. 
2. Forwarded emails may contain viruses that are harmful to your system.
3. Because there are systems that can easily track forwarded mails, you should know that your are compromising the email addresses of the friends to whom you send the email. Hackers who keep track of the mails add the new addresses to their mailing list and harvest.
4. Forwarding E-mails is a waste of other people's time. They may not be interested in the mail you have forwarded. 

After Thought: I also have another doubt. There are many companies today that allow you to use Remote PC Support for free. They permit you to use software that allows you to access and use computers from anywhere. Have you ever thought why they do it for free? If I can use that software to control computers in my network remotely, they companies who give them to me can do it too. And what if these companies used the computers that use their Remote PC Support Software and turn them into a botnet? I am told that there are companies who sell such networks to third parties for campaigns and other internet related activities. There are people who sell botnets and make good money out of it. What if the attackers bought one such botnet to attack Twitter?

PayScale: Get to know what you are worth!

Ever sat during a job interview wondering what exactly to say when the million dollar question about pay package came up? Ever wondered how much you are worth, with the skill sets you have? The other day I wandered Google to find out how a particular career I had in mind is placed in India, in terms of the pay scale. That was when Google gave me a link to PayScale.

PayScale is a web service that allows you to dig into the 'salary' side of different careers. It allows you to compare your salary with your peers. It allows you to see how a particular career pays. For example, see the following graph that allows you to see how much different jobs are worth in India right now:

Median Salary by Job - Country: India (India)

CAREER TOOLS: Salary Calculator, Career Path Tool, Cost of Living Calculator, Meeting Miser

Also see an example that shows you how a male or a female is paid in India:

Median Salary by Gender - Country: India (India)

CAREER TOOLS: Salary Calculator, Career Path Tool, Cost of Living Calculator, Meeting Miser

Now, that is interesting. Even after so much of women's lib, a female is still paid lesser in India when compared to her male counterpart. Don't you worry. So is the case in United States, Canada, France, UK, you name it. Women are paid lesser than men in most of the countries that I tried. Women, you need to wake up!

PayScale was launched in 2002 by PayScale, Inc, an American Company.  It works gathering data from users, employers and employees who take PageScale Surveys. It has an option which lets you compare your pay scale with your peers. It is a tedious job, as PayScale asks you many questions over and over again. It asks you to answer same questions again and again. When you are answering those questions, PayScale is actually gathering data to update its database. It uses the data to generate reports and graphs that tell us who is worth what. They say they report only actual data to avoid erroneous assumptions.

Here is one thing I really liked about PayScale. When they give you a graph or a report, they tell you how many people contributed information to make that graph or report. Now, this helps me decide whether to take the report seriously or not. Especially because they are doing actual reporting and they are not telling me their assumptions.

I hunted down many graphs and reports on PayScale that gave me an idea about the career trends. As I was doing that, I found that there is lesser participation from people in India. I think, at least for the sake of building a usable database that helps people keep track of pay scale trends, Indians should participate in PayScale. The more number of people participating in PayScale, the more authentic it is going to be. I hope that in a few months or years from now PayScale will have more authentic information about pay scales so that we know where we are going when the million dollar question about pay package comes up during an interview.

Happy News Bloggers: Mr. Murdoch will charge for online content from next year!

Rupert Murdoch is an old man now. 78 years old. As an old man, may be he has lost that spark which saw him rise to the position of the media emperor he is today. Perhaps, that is the reason why he has announced the most uncharming business decision of his career the day before yesterday- a decision to make all his news sites available only to users who pay, from next year.

He said, :"Quality journalism is not cheap,..The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites."

You should read people's reaction to that. Many reacted as though, it is not a big deal and they consider News Corps news sites as crap. Most of them said they don't care as they are not going to pay to read his sites anyway. News Analysers sounded very disappointed that a person like Murdoch took such a naive decision. Stories ran on blogs and technology review sites on how this decision is all about News Corps digging its own grave. Journalists are wondering how and why this is too risky for nothing. One reviewer even went to the extent of saying only Apple can save newspapers.

Is Murdoch serious about what he said or was he just testing the waters? True, his business ventures reported a net loss of $ 3.4 Billion this fiscal year. True, recession is at its best and on-line advertisement revenue is dipping. True, Wall Street Journal, a paid news site from Murdoch is doing relatively well and has users paying to read news. But, is he serious? Or was he, as I said, just testing the waters? Or, was it just a sudden outburst of frustration? May be, it was all the three put together.

Why do I say that? I think Murdoch is missing a key point here. On-line content is just a tool. I don't believe that Internet is all about Information. Internet is about advertisements. Certain products are just tools to sell certain other products. Why do Google let me search for free? Why does Google or Wordpress permit me to upload content on my blog for free? Why do social communities allow me in for free? Why are there many sites that give me many of their services for free? Why are open source applications free? Why is the news free, after all? I think these things are free because they want me to stick around as long as possible. You stick around so that you buy something, sooner or later.

 This is not a new business model. In India we have temples and churches organizing festivals around their theme of worship. They spend a lot of money, organizing a fare, staging plays or other performances by professional artists etc. These religious festivals last for five to ten days. The plays or other performances go well into midnights. You don't pay anything to watch a play during the festival. Why do they do it for free? Because, they know that people who come to the festival will visit the temple or church to pray. But the few coins they offer when they pray is not the target! People come to these festivals to set up stalls that sell from glass bangles to kitchenware. They pay lovely loads of cash to people who run the temple or church as rent for these five to ten days. In fact, there are groups of people in India, who travel from one festival spot to another and make a decent living!

To me, Internet sounds like a temple or church festival. And people who make content available or provide spaces for people to meet are like the Temple or Church Committee Members. They run the show. Sites like Murdoch's or Google's or Facebook's or Twitter's are these plays or performances staged during this Big Bang Festival called Internet. People come to the festival, because these performances are for free. And as they come, some of them, sooner or later most of them, will buy from the people who set up stalls in Google's or Murdoch's or Facebook's or Twitter's premises.

What happens if Murdoch makes his sites 'pay-per-click' as he says? May be there are going to be people who are willing to pay like there are people to read Wall Street Journal. But imagine the number of people who would have read Wall Street Journal, if it was available for free?

And if Murdoch is going to hide his content behind the 'paywalls', what about those people who hit the search engines for anything and everything? Google, Bing and Yahoo! If they won't have traces of Murdoch's Sites, won't he disappear from the minds of people gradually? This is why I said, Murdoch's announcement is happy news to Bloggers.

I am sure he will not hide all his content behind the paywalls. He will float enough summary of news stories around to make sure that he is on search engines. May be he will enter into deals with Search Engines to make sure that he is there, when people search. But even then,, it is happy news for bloggers!

Experts say that about 90% of his traffic will die because of this decision. Let Murdoch take his ten percent! Where will the rest go? The rest will trun to sites that make content available for free. I think, if Murdoch will implement his decision, there is going to be an increase in traffic to blogs we have around. Is this not happy news bloggers?

Image from Wikipedia

Google buying On2: What difference does it make?

Yesterday, in a Press Release Google and On2 announced that Google is finally acquiring On2 Technologies Inc., a leading developer of video compression technology. On2 is about 'creating and delivering high quality video over IP networks." Google is also about Youtube, we know. And it is a $ 106. 5 million deal they say. 'Each outstanding share of On2 common stock will be converted into $0.60 worth of Google class A common stock in a stock-for-stock transaction,' according to the Press Release. What difference is it going to make, if Google acquires On2?

Now, experts say the game is all about video codecs. Video codes enable video compression and On2 makes them. VP6, VP 7 etc are high defenition, high quality video codecs, developed by On2, used in Adobe Flash Player, Web2.0, VoIP, mobile video and other embedded devices.. But at present, VP6 and VP7 are losing out in the game to H.264, which comes under GNU General Public License. That means H.264 comes under free licence and people have the freedom to modify and distribute it. VP6 is a licensed codec and expects companies to pay a licence fee every year. VP6 of course is about quality videos. And people hope and pray that Google makes it open source.

What happens if Google makes VP6 open source?

1. Companies like Adobe,AOL, Skype, Nokia, XM Satellite Radio, Sony, Yamaha, TI, LSI Logic, Analog Devices, VideoEgg, Brightcove, Cox, Naver.com (Korea), Daum (Korea), Tencent(China) etc, who are already using VP6 will continue using it and building on it for free, without having to pay licence fee to On2. This means they come back to use the more superior VP6 and we can forget H.264. Quality of videos across platforms will improve.
2. HTML5 is on the way and it will enable browsers to handle videos without the help of plugins like Flash Player or Silverlight. This will help developers stop bothering about a lot of software compatiability issues. It will also help users save a lot of hard drive space, as plugins need not be downloaded.  
3. Mobile phone users will be able to send their MMS Videos to other mobile phones, without the fear of losing quality.   
4. People who do Video Conferencing using Webcams can then start thinking about videos that are viewable and not distorted as they are these days. 

Google can go ahead and not open source On2 video codecs at all. What happens then? Apple has its QuickTime. Microsoft has its Silverlight. Adobe has its Flash. And Google has what it takes to give them the foundation - VP6 and VP7. This means, at one point or the other, these biggies will end up paying licence fees to Google. This sale was a smart move, wasn't it?

What did I learn selling my friend's cell phone!

Cell phones are good things. But sometimes they can turn out to be a pain in the neck. My friend's Sony Ericson Z555i turned out to be one such disaster. It had a fascinating look, as though it was made out of crystals. But my friend realized looks can deceive. The phone was never loud or clear, the way Sony Ericson Phones are usually expected to be. It behaved in different ways at different times. Sometimes it was loud and sometimes it never made a noise even if some one called you. It had an option where you could just wave your hand on the phone and make it silent when it rang. But that rarely worked. I used to see my friend waving his hand on the phone in desperation when it rang and it just wouldn't listen. And my friend decided to sell the thing off and get a new one.

Sell the cell phone! And I joined in. That was when we learned a few things about the 'second-hand' phone market out there. Let me share a few of the things we have learned with you:

1. After you start using a phone, don't throw the box it came in away. Phones with the packages they come in, with all the bits and pieces of paper that came along with it, can fetch you a lot more than a phone with no box.
2. Keep the bill. Phones with bills are easy to sell.
3. Don't buy phones that you can flap shut or slide open. They look good and stylish, I agree. But 'second-hand' phone dealers look at them like a piece of good for nothing crap. If your phone is one piece, people will buy.
4. When you buy a phone in India and you want to sell it later, buy a Nokia Phone. No, I am not campaigning for Nokia here. I know many of the Nokia phones suck equally when it comes to performance. But in the Indian 'second-hand' market, Noika Cell Phones are revered than any one. So are some of the Sony Ericson models, only if they are in single piece.
5. Go to at least five or six 'second-hand' dealers, before you get rid of 'that-bloody-thing'. You will gain a sense of how much you can ask for your piece of trash.
6. Make sure that your phone is working, at least for the time the 'dealer guy' is going to check it and certify it. If the phone malfunctions, as the guy is checking, you are doomed. The price can come down drastically. 
7. Make sure that you know the model number of your phone and when it was thrown into the market. Sometimes, these people can tell you that it is an old and useless model and will not fetch you much. The more you know about your phone, the better.

After all the hardships we had to go through to sell off the Z555i, my friend decided one thing. He is not going after the look and style any more. Before buying a new phone for him, we went and saw many models. Talked to people who knows about mobile phones. We identified a few good models, came back to look at reviews on them in different 'product review sites'. Once we went back and decided which phone to buy, we checked when and where the phone was made. [Made in China is strictly a 'no no' and Manufactured four or five months ago is again a 'no no' ] Made sure that we have a warranty or guarantee for all the bits and pieces of the phone, including the battery, the charger and the ear phone, at least for a year. [Now remember, the dealer would say there is Guarantee for all the stuff in the cell phone box. But sometimes he may not put his seal on all the papers related to Guarantee. Make sure that you have the dealer's seal and signature on the guarantee cards.] We insisted that the sales guy gave us a live demo of the phone. Made sure that it had all the features we wanted. And then bought the new one. 

Worth the trouble. A few minutes ago, my friend called me and said that 'the phone is good'. By the way, it is another Sony Ericson. I wish it would remain so for as long as he wants.

Google Launches Google Calendar Labs

Google Calendar is one good application so far from the Google Guys. It has always helped me organize my time and space, officially and unofficially. Features like email reminders and sms reminders, calendar sharing and the possibility of managing multiple calenders are all useful.

Nothing is ever enough for people at Google and they proved it yet again by introducing Google Calendar Labs. Gmail has Labs. So does Google Docs. And now they have Google Calendar Labs. Right now they have six new features running in the Google Calendar Labs and I hope many more are on the way.

Of the six features, I liked Attach Google Docs, Next Meeting and Free or Busy.

Attach Google Docs: This feature allows you to attach documents to an event. Guests can automatically view the presentation, spreadsheet or word processing document you attach to an event. I hope Google will soon come up with a way to attach documents saved on my system and will start supporting any format.

Next Meeting: I would say this is one cool feature that can come in handy, in case you are a person who has the habit of working it out backwards. The feature shows up on one side of your calendar. I hope Google will enable this feature in their Google Calendar Desktop Gadget too.

Free or Busy: This feature comes in handy if you have a calendar shared and needs to coordinate with people a lot. All that you got to do is enter the email address of the person concerned. If the person uses Google Calendar, you can keep track of their availability and plan your schedules accordingly. I think this is one feature that should stay.

Of course, these features are still in Lab and I know it will take a while for it to be a part of the actual Google Calendar. But I don't mind using them, even if they may act smarter than me sometimes and don't work at all. From my experience with Google for the last five or six years I have found, even their Lab Versions are reliable and work perfectly fine most of the time. And Google has certain features in Lab longer than any software company does so that by the time it comes out we have an almost perfect application. Please try these features and tell me what you think.

Images from Google Calendar

JK Wedding Entrance Dance: How a wedding video helped to sell a forgotten song!

"I now pronounce you monetized." The Official Google Blog ran a post on 30 July 2009 on the Wedding Video posted by TheKheinz  on 19 July 2009. Why did they do so? Apparantly, the video had more than a million views on YouTube. The right holder of the Video claimed it and started selling the track through ITunes and Amazon. They started running Click-to-Buy Advertisements on the Video which helped the viewers to opt to buy the track. And the track got listed on the top five downloads of both the sites overnight.

There are people who are bothered about the fact that the owner of the song is not paying anything to Jill and Kevin for making the song "Forever" by Chris Brown popular. I do agree with them. Jill and Kevin are the reasons why the song became popular and earned dollars for the 'monetizer'. A percentage of the profit should have gone to Jill and Kevin.

However, I don't see Jill and Kevin is bothered about that. They are smarter people. They launched a website  and are using that website to raise funds for a Charity. They write on their site:

We hope to direct this positivity to a good cause. Due to the circumstances surrounding the song in our wedding video, we have chosen the Sheila Wellstone Institute. 

I don't know how much they got selling Chris Brown's song. I don't know how much the JK Site could raise for Shelia Wellstone Institute. But I would like to say, this is phenomenal.

Blog-a-Ton: A Blogathon is on!

Here I am, writing a post for the second time in a day, because, again, I couldn't resist. I thought I must share this with you right now:

Search Engine Optimization and Backlinks are very common terms among Bloggers these days and almost every blogger worries about them. More backlinks mean higher Search Engine Optimization [SEO] or in other words chances are high that you are placed on the first page of a Google Search Result. And Vipul Grover is right - Blog-a-Ton is one way Bloggers can enhance their SEO, gaining enough backlinks by participating in it.

What is Blog-a-Ton? It is a very simple idea, adapted from Blogathon. Let's hear what Vipul himself says about Blog-a-Ton:

The idea was simple as I posted on the forum:
We'll choose a day and a topic to blog on. On that day we all will write a post on our blog on the given topic.
After the write-up, we will include the links to the write-ups of fellow blogathon participants.
This will not only help us in making new friends in blogging world but also give us a lot of backlinks.

More than Baclinks and SEO, what I liked about Blog-a-Ton is the people participation. Vipul Grover posted the idea of a Blogathon on IndiBlogger a  month ago. It slowly caught up with people and they launched a blog to take the idea forward in July 2009. The first leg of Blog-a-Ton was on August 1, 2009. The topic was announced on July 12, 2009. About 12 Bloggers participated and wrote on the topic "The Cream and Scum of Blogging"

I know 12 people are nothing compared to the number of Bloggers on the Blogosphere. But Blog-a-Ton has a long way to go and I think they will achieve their target of making it an event where 100 people participate regularly.

As I am writing this post, the 12 posts are placed for review and voting. I have read almost all the posts and all of them are really good, I would say. You gain an insight into how different people can interpret a given idea in different ways. I think the socio-cultural implications of the difference is worth a research.

The votes are kept confidential and the way it is, will be out only on August 4, 2009. I don't really care who wins. I am really happy about the fact that people are participating. And I hope more Bloggers are going to join the Blog-a-Ton Bandwagon soon.

One Billion + You: The Firefox Magic!

Mozilla launched www.onebillionplusyou.com on 1 August 2009 to mark the day its Browser Download Crossed 1000000000 +

I don't use Firefox anymore, as I am adicted to Google Chrome. But I don't use Firefox not because I hate using it, like I hate using Internet Explorer. I used to be in love with Firefox, before Google Chrome ever happened. And I used to love the fact that it allowed me to fashion my browser any way I wanted to. I used to be addicted to the idea of  'add-ons' and used to spend a lot of time hunting for them. And perhaps, adding 'add-ons' to the browser slowed it down, especially at loading. It used to take more than ten minutes for the browser to load and that was when Chrome happened. And the browser looking for updates as it was loading was another pain. Google offering a simple, clean and faster browser with independent tabs lured me into it and I stopped using Firefox all together.

This doesn't mean that the browser was good for nothing. It was great while it lasted. Every add-on I used added to the charm of using it as my default browser. I could somehow make sense of the idea of Browser as an OS because I have used Firefox and their 'add-ons'. In my Firefox Browser I used to have 'add-ons'like Lipikar, Google Notebook, Weird Marker, Speed Dial, ChatZilla, Gspace, Fox Tab, Quick Note and many more. Each allowed me to do different things using the browser, which I would have otherwise done using a software application specially made for that purpose. Firefox allowed me to download the application as code, add it to the browser and use it. This helps the computer save a lot of memory for other things good. Now, when Google talks about Browser as an OS, I perfectly understand how it is going to be because Mozilla has shown us how the rudimentary form of a Browser-as-an-OS would be using their add-ons. 

I think Mozilla Developer Community has a lot to contribute in this regard. I don't know if Firefox is thinking about an OS like Google does. I am sure if they think about one, Google is going to find it very difficult to beat them in market share. 

When Yahoo gives in to Microsoft!

This was the talk of the town for the last six months - the Yahoo! Microsoft Deal! And finally it is done. Yahoo sells its user share in search to Microsoft for 88% of commission on advertisements sold on search results through Yahoo! Together they make 28% of market share in search, way lower than Google 65%.

In a few days from now, after the US Government approves the deal, you will see Bing on Yahoo! Both Steve Ballmer and Carol Bartz seem to be very happy about the deal and the notion of taking on the Search Giant, Google. I read the Bio of Carol and found that she was the lady who turned Autodesk around and made it into a profit making company. And I also understand that Steve lived Microsoft his entire career. Both are capable people. But I am wondering, what good can come out of Microsoft Yahoo Alliance!

28% in user share is not good enough to beat Google right now. But Yahoo and Microsoft can now focus more on their core competencies. Microsoft can focus on Improving Search. Yahoo can focus on their Social Networking Ideas. I think we are going to see a new era of Internet Search and Social Networking, as this alliance grows for the next ten years.

And I also think we are going to hear more from Google. In an attempt to strengthen their hold on the market, I hope they are going to come up with more search features.