Phplist and Phpbb integration

I am not well and having some fever so can’t outside home. Some soft music and programming in my pajamas is no less programming heaven for a part time programmer like me.

You too can join me, the latest documentation is available at http://beta.idealwebtools.com. You can put you suggestion as comments under this thread. Jesse Heap has already helped me with wordpress and phplist integration.

Few of requirements,

  • Need to understand how the rss feed based subscriptions work.
  • Integrating means nothing is repeated and thus phpbb and phplist sharing the login system.
  • The documentation will help me work in phases.

Join me, add a comment and I will contact you. Also if you are interested add a comment that I can keep you updated with the progress.

Idealwebtools launches its beta

Today I was not well and was down with fever. So I tried my hands on few new things like phpwiki. I spent some time with phplist and phpbb integration, it is a pain for last few months. PhpBB is the best forum application and phplist the best mailing application, the integration will surely empower both. My previous work of making single user wordpress a multi user is working very fine.

To do proper testing and documentation I have create a beta version of idealwebtools.com, http://beta.idealwebtools.com. It has all the documentation, anyone who wants to offer a helping hand is welcome and will be highly appreciated.

Some good sections for the day: Matt cutts wishing everyone a very happy diwali (He is the interface between webmasters and Google). It is so nice of him.

If you are interested in such a integration please add a comment that I can speed up the work. This integration is very important for myblogplanner.

Orkut no more requires an invitation – Marketing challenge

Here is another post to my orkut series before I go to sleep. I am sure I am going to have bad dreams as I just saw few more Matt Cutts videos where he was speaking about supplement results and usual 301 redirection stuffs. To avoid bad dreams I am going to read first few chapters of Esther (Bible) before I go to sleep. Just joking. I just read that Orkut doesn’t require invitation.

Google’s social network, Orkut, doesn’t need an invitation anymore. You can sign in using your Google Account.

The invitation was one of the reasons behind Orkut’s failure to compete with MySpace. Now that Facebook is also public, the competition will start to become interesting.

from googlesystem.blogspot.com

The reason of failure caught my attention, the invitation. Almost 60% of the users are from Brazil and I think India comes third (I am missing the Orkut link which showed me the exact stats). I think it is a typical case of “cultural marketing”. In India and Brazil people are very much connected with each other and want to do so, Orkut just made it simpler. Invitation was never a problem in India. Is invitation the reason for orkut’s failure then is Gmail a success in US? I think its the culture and the broken complexity that mattered. In India many who found Internet complex found Orkut comparatively very simple.

Recently when we had our choir practice at our house many asked me to send them an Orkut request and I did that that very moment. Does some culture find the invitation stuff a little difficult? I think I have something new to study tomorrow (Sad that I only know about Indian culture, I never been to any other country but have met many evangelists and missionaries from various countries. I think web forums will make it happen).

http://www.orkut.com/JoinCreate.aspx, this is where you can create a new account for orkut.

Do you think invitation can be a reason behind Orkut’s failure in some part of the world? Did you find invitation a barrier?

MSN launches linkfromdomain operator

I know I am little slow to offer the info but here are some indepth to it as a compensation for the delay.

What is linkfromdomain operator?
Check this MSN page (click here), it tells you about the outbound links or outgoing links or external links from a domain. In simpler words, “to how many external (other domains) webpages are your domain linking to”. The above mentioned link will tell you that idealwebtools.com links to slashdot.com , digg.com and many more domains.

Is it important?
Yes, it is important. Some 3 years back people use to feel uncomfortable with outgoing links and some even called it a PR leakage. That was the era when PR was everything but now things have changed. And with Blog the outgoing links are very much a part of our culture. If you do not link to any external website then your domain will be called the dead corner of Internet. Internet defines link as the way of communication among various entities of web and it is advised not to have a dead end site.

Does it help in good ranking?
There has been many debate on this issues across various forums. IMO it does help, link to good and relevant neighborhood. Linking to expert webpages also help. I am not the one whom you can catch for tidbits of SEO, so that’s all to this paragraph.

Here are some more tips with operators

  1. link: Are you aware of link:www.idealwebtools.com? This will tell you the total webpages linking to http://www.idealwebtools.com or http://www.idealwebtools.com/index.html .
  2. linkdomain: Here is another operator which will tell you total inbound or incoming links to all the pages of your domain linkdomain:idealwebtools.com (I do not think this is documented anywhere).
  3. linkdomain: -site: This will tell you how many external incoming links do you have for your site. See the result (works in yahoo only, MSN is not giving me the right results)

Using these combinations you can do a few experiments. Even though MSN is offering something new but IMO MSN is still sick

Orkut’s misinterpreted strength is finally interpreted

I wrote about “Is Orkut’s Memetic strength a misinterpretation?“. Now finally Orkut has accepted it as a part of its service. In short,

  • Orkut developed a feature for use A (for adding tidbits of information to your profile).
  • Market misinterpreted it and used it for B (for chatting).
  • use B became its strength.
  • I blogged about it and many people read about it :).
  • Now use B is accepted as a part of Orkut. It remains no more a misinterpretation.
  • Lesson learned – The dumbest customer is smarter than your smartest developer, let them define it. (Also read “Marketers should be dumber than customer” and “Why programmers are Lazy and Dumb” ) 

Now this reply button which is recently added explains the acceptance of use B. Also it tells you that initially Orkut scrapbook was not made for chatting.

Is this a good move?
In my honest opinion (IMHO) this (adding the reply button) is a bad move. Why so? As it will stop people (few if not many) from visiting other’s scrapbook, which will dilute it’s memetic strength. When I visit others scrapbook to add a scrap I can generally notice,

  • a new common friend who is not added to my list scrapping there.
  • Some of my friends changing their avatars and people discussing about it.
  • Some other tidbits.

All the above bulleted points kept Orkut live and viral. IMO Orkut should remove it, I used to get dozens of scraps by changing avatars and people used to find me from other’s scrapbook.

Exclusive SEO advices for Hedir members

I hate to explain people what SEO means as in my opinion SEO is waste of time unless you know what’s next. Reading what is there in public and then applying it is a big risk. I always said (and will continue to say) that best SEO is no SEO.

Hedir has impressed me with its latest Friday 13th releases. Before I get into my offer to Hedir members, let me tell you that Hedir is challenging and threatening digg.com, reddit and similar sites as it has multiple diggs and multiple reddits now. I loved to shill for Hedir and will continue to do so till the world accept it as the best directory.

Do read http://www.hedir.com/cafe/13-thefriday.html, I always knew that Hedir is born of character not of personality, they knew what they were doing. Great work.

Going back to my special SEO section for Hedir. I may (no guarantee but) offer some real secrets for hedir members. I am no expert else I would have been hired by yahoo to make yahoo #1 for keyphrase “search engine” in yahoo :). There are no experts in SEO field only good observants, I am happy to be one but do not want to force you to believe it. Here are some advices you may want to adopt.

Exclusive Hedir Advice : Do not check yahoo backlinks when you are logged in to yahoo account, same for Google. Also do not check backlinks regularly. Do SEO activities and then restart your dialup connection to get a new IP. Uninstall all the toolbars. Clear cookies after every SEO activities. I generally do not offer such depths. This is only for Hedir members.

Complete discussion available at http://www.hedir.com/marketing/about17278.html#47251 and ask questions

MSN is really sick – See the result yourself

Do Google do SEO or manipulate results? Find it yourself. I asked the same question to 4 search engines, “What is a better search engine?”,

Google says, “Ofcourse I am the best, even my UK version is 3rd. AltaVista is 2nd as they promised me a better ranking. MSN is fourth. Yahoo is 7th. Ask is 8th”. (see the results).

Yahoo says, “Google made me 7th and I made them 8th. I am still behind Google and planning to hire a SEO expert for a better ranking. Something like, ‘ Yahoo looking for a SEO expert who can make Yahoo #1 for ‘ search engine’ keyphrase in Yahoo’. Ask did not give me a top 10 listing so I am going to throw them at #10. MSN is really sick and I do not consider it a search engine so no top 10 ranking”. (see the results)

MSN says, “I am really sick as according to me neither yahoo not Google is a search engine. For me submitexpress, a SEO company, is a search engine. I love spamming and most of my results say that. I know that I am not a good search engine so I have not given myself a ranking. Everyone is giving ask a rank in top 10 so I will give them 2 positions, one at # 3 and another at # 10.” (see the results)

ASK says, “If everyone says I am #1 let myself me #1, ask is #1. Google, yahoo and msn are no search engines as they do a lot of other activities. I have reciprocal linking so I have not given them a place in top 10.” (see the results)

I do not know why I did this post, may be to say that MSN is really sick.

A good experiment – Do not forget to read my post on the GYM experiment for a low valued keyphrase to understand various algorithm.

A paradox here – Is google a good search engine? It says yes, it ranks #1 for “search engine”. The worst search engine as proved above is msn and many will agree with me. If google is a good search engine then why is it ranking msn as fourth.

Land laws vs Google (GYM) laws

Laws make you behave accordingly. I was reading a topic at webproworld where ignorance (some trick without purpose) could have attracted some penalty. Google (in general GYM, Google Yahoo MSN) laws differ from Land laws.

Land Laws : Let no innocent person be punished. Leave 5 criminals to save one innocent person. Every life is important.

Google Laws : Let no spammer (WWW criminal) go unpunished (or rank in SERPs). Let 5 innocent sites die while punishing a spammer. One site makes no difference.

Understand GYM laws and be careful with any spamming techniques. Ignorance is not innocence here. In case you are about to get a punishment please refer to this document http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/reinclusion-request-howto/

Marketers should be dumber than customer

While writing my previous post about programmers being lazy and dumb I realized that marketer needs to be dumber than customer.

Recently while designing a mortgage calculator I learned a good lesson as a marketer. Our initial calculator had money in hand, rate, principle amount e.t.c, the very best calculator with print option, syndication features, export and almost the best in the industry. One of our own member who was going through mortgage found another calculator simpler as it asked few questions like “how much money do you need?”, “how much money do you have now?” e.t.c. He could fill it up and get the desired result. The simple calculator he used did not had print option or smart and intelligent calculations, it was dumb and offered the simplicity.

I think one of the ability a marketer should have is to think like a customer, really dumb customer (do read my experiences about blood test and Internet browser with customers).  We will be requiring some 5 to 10 marketers in next month and I think I am going to design a paper to test their ability to think as a dumber. I am seriously going to work with our HR on this test before I go for next campus recruitment.

I want to repeat what I learned as a good lesson.

“Never underestimate the ingenuity of stupidity”