Month: April 2007

Are you fighting with yourself? This is a sample where site is paying for a free lunch. A search at overture shows that a variation of NaturallySpeaking can cost the company a good amount of money. Can this be avoided? Is there any advantage of doing it?

(Google SERP for NaturallySpeaking)

Economics of abundance? Then what happened to the economics of scarcity (real and virtual)? Demand Vs Supply graphs? Things are changing, even google embraced it for a longer innings when they redefined gmail marketing (“by invitation only” to “open for all”).

Go through http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2006/10/the_economics_o.html for economics of abundance. You can also go through the PPT, http://www.longtail.com/poptech.ppt.

This is certainly a change in perspective. Around 2 years back we had integrated the virtual scarcity with many marketing campaigns successfully, now what works is the freedom. Does this change reflecting at Human resource level as well? a point of discussion for sure.

Now Google is showing the link visited time. This will help me understand that I have visited these pages. How will this help user? I haven’t seen any announcement by google guys yet. I did some tests to understand more about Google visited link time option. Some of the queries I had, Is it cookie based (then it is not better than the visited link color change)? Is it user based? Is it query based? Is it computer or browser based? I found following answers to my queries

Summary of observation

1. Observation 0: I saw the time with the search results
2. Observation 1: Once I logged out I was not able to see it, user based
3. Observation 2: When I logged back I was able to see it. Also I tried it from a different browser from the same machine. Also from a different machine and it showed.
4. Observation 3: It is not query based, I searched with a different query and it still worked.

Is this a replacement for the browser based visited link color?

(Description with screenshots below)

1. Observation 0: I saw the time with the search results
   
   (Example see the time with the first and second link)

2. Observation 1: Once I logged out I was not able to see it
   
   (The visited link color tells me that I have visited these links earlier)

3. Observation 2: When I logged back I was able to see it. Also I tried it from a different browser from the same machine. Also from a different machine and it showed.
   
   (The visited link color does not tell me that I have visited these links earlier, google is able to tell me that now, VERY HELPFUL here)

4. Observation 3: It is not query based, I searched with a different query and it still worked.
   

Enjoy Google, Enjoy innovation

I am deep in work with the AGM lined up, last Sunday had meetings to approve the financial report but due to some confusion could not approve the reports. It is rescheduled for 29th of this month and AGM on 6th May (for ICPF, Kolkata Chapter). I need to send personal letters to all the shareholders before this Sunday as per rules. On 22 we have our church AGM. With all these work I am enjoying the wink team mails and comments.

Some more feedback before heading to work. After a serious scrutiny I got another mail from their team (Highly appreciated, very professional approach). Also I got permission to publish it on blog, here it is

Hi Aji,

I read your posts. You raised some good points! Thanks so much for all the feedback.

Oh and I have no problem with you posting my email on the blog. I’m glad that you took the time to try out Wink again and I’d be glad to talk with you about Wink any time you have questions.

If you want to do a post in future about trying to get the Wink Widget and setting it up somewhere (like on your blog) I’d be thrilled to hear your feedback about how that process works as well. As you already know, there’s nothing more valuable than the feedback of users.

Thanks again!

Also I got another mail which said,

Greetings Aji Issac

Matthew Stotts has posted a comment about you!

Click here to check out the comment: http://wink.com/AjiNIMC–profile

Thanks!
Wink
http://wink.com/winksearch–profile

Scrutiny 1: Why a link to http://wink.com/winksearch–profile, instead there be a link to Matthew Stotts profile (adding only the link that is needed, visitors brain cycles are expensive events).

I then visited my own profile to read my comments
Scrutiny 2: If you want the message section to grow and used frequently then it should be a separate page which less of module calls. Speed is important says Google (and Aji). Also I want to see what I want to see, I wanted to see my messages not my complete profile this time. In orkut people participate because they see what they want to see, the messages. It will be a good idea to separate the message from profile page. You may end having more participation on message pages than profile pages. I liked profile page as I can forward it to my friends to show my Internet presence points. You need to separate the pages as per the purpose. Very important marketing lesson, “Pages should define its purpose and should be structured accordingly”.

Gosh, again a confusion

(What will you think first? To reply to Matthew I can post my comments just below it).

I did the same, I posted the comments below it and it appeared just below my profile. I am not sure whether Mathew will come to know about this or not.

Scrutiny 3: “Add your comment: (No HTML please) ” does not make sense, either it should be “Add a message for AjiNIMC” or something similar. What is this comments meant for? It needs to be clearly stated. Also a reply button will be helpful.

Since I added a comment under my profile I got a mail as well (I am aware that I added a comment, so why this mail. Any task that is done extra will create complexity)

Greetings Aji Issac

Aji Issac has posted a comment about you!

Click here to check out the comment: http://wink.com/AjiNIMC–profile

Thanks!
Wink
http://wink.com/winksearch–profile

I am loving these feedback sessions, thanks to wink’s team for motivating me to take this step. Hope it helps (Please ignore spelling mistakes, I am writing in hurry). Good day.

I got this mail from one of our youth pastors, he is a big time orkut fan (I have mailed him to get a permission to publish his name with this post, but you are free to guess 🙂 ). Here he goes …………..

Dear friends
Welcome to the Orkut revolution…!
I marvel how this thing called Orkut could

• bring me back in touch with friends from school & college days
• keep me in touch with friends from church, chai shop, circus(lol!) etc…
• and of course help me meet new friends…

At one click of a mouse, I am updated about my friend in Tennessee or in Timbuctoo or Tatanagar…
Its a brand new world…its the 21st century Global village…
Oh yes…its great guys & gals like you who make it worthwhile to be on orkut!
But anything fantastic & friendly can also be fanatic & fiendish. I was thinking of the best way to keep this ORKUT revolution…really refreshing & real and not raw & ruthless.
Because of my passion for acronyms I tried to cook up one for ORKUT. Its not the best, but it explains best my personal guidelines, when I am on orkut. If it helps…its great.. .otherwise…forget about it…

O – Original Presentation of who I am(I enjoy the way God made me, I don’t have to try to become more presentable with more colorful words about myself(though it can be creative!)or a picture which is not me)
R – Respect others privacy & Scrap-Books(hmmm…its a tough one, but i generally avoid reading conversations on others scrap-book)
K – Kindness in my use of words, pictures etc(specially online – the words we use to scrap or write presents our public profile…and if we disagree with someone the scrap book is not the best place to present our views…as the whole world reads it..woah!)
U – Use of my personal information is selective (hmmm…I avoid giving the privilege to WTC Bombers or other terrorists or people with similar tendencies, to get in touch with me..lol)
T – Talk beyond the Orkut(this is a difficult one especially for introverts like me who find it easier to chat online than in chat in person. But I have to consciously have to remind myself that there is a real world beyond the WEB)

Its great, this thing called Orkut…its makes me feel good…it gives me privilege to make others feel good…and in general stay good!

Stay Orkutted,(sorry…connected , I mean!!!)

[Note: Some of my related popular posts are: 1) why mistakes are often mistaken – It talks about what are real mistakes. 2) Orkut used for crime, is orkut responsible for it anyway? ]

After doing a scrutiny on wink.com I got another invitation from another social networking site. Gosh! I am sure now we need a complete directory (Hedir guys do something, Help!) to list all these social networking sites. This time it is with a weird name lovehappens.com. Thats not all, in last 24 hrs I got another invitation, one from linkedzone.com. I haven’t even opened these sites to explore it. I am sure good rain has started causing bad flood. I have already tagged tagged.com for crossing the line.

I wish I could ask them following question?

• Why you exist?
• How are you better than orkut?
• Is there anything in you that orkut can’t copy or develop? If they can, I am sure they will, why should I shift my base then?

Do read my post “In social networking flies attract flied not honey“. Guys please answer the above questions that I can explore your site. Thanks keep spamming me.