Aji Issac Mathew

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.

I spend many hours infront of my computer with online world and every site that becomes a part of my daily life needs to go through a close scrutiny. Today I decided to do a scrutiny for “The People Search Engine – Wink”.

My First Impression
(Call it my first 30 sec impression) My First Impression based on the mail from Wink Staff and an example profile of David Beach (Director of Product Management at Wink).

• Wink can be the much awaited platform to consolidate one’s online activities.
• I might use wink only for consolidating my online activities.
• It will allow people to search with my name and using my profile they can find my other web presence point. Kind of better lens than squidoo.

Surface level Scrutiny
Someone once said, “What matters to the visitor is what they see”. I was surprised when I saw the unusual options for few fields. Look at the Gender, “Undecided”????? (Haven’t seen something like this, I would rather have put optional radio button. Also I had to click on the status to understand that it is about “Marital Status”, it is ok to put status but better to have marital status. As the book says, “Do not make me think“)

I was impressed with this section (It was fast and impressive)

Oh, why this happened (I am sure Wink team can find a better error message, I was happy to see Kolkata on my Map, a smaller message, sorry unable to track deeper would have been better. I am impressed here though, good work).

Next Step is scary one (sorry its not a bug but a perception problem, thanks to all the poping social networking sites), so I decided to skip this. I did not want to send the mails to our alumni groups and other common groups, have you guys taken care of it? At least the famous groups account (like googlegroups, yahoo groups and other famous ones) should be taken care of.

After skipping the above steps I came to the page which attracted me the most, the consolidation of all my social activities.

I filed a lot of my accounts where only the url was needed. I did not put the username and password (just to give it a test first) for some of the social networks. Also all the sections were pending an approval (I did not get this approval part, an explanation would have been appreciated more).

Bugs
The mybloglog section is not working properly, it is taking the url wrong (it is taking it as myblog, did I do something wrong?). Rest of the sections are working fine. Atleast faster than Squidoo lens.

Final words from the marketing dimension

• I am still not sure, how will I use it on a day to day basis. I have consolidated some of my online activities there. I can only use it as my web lens, or the starting page for reference. Here you made my life a little troublesome, why not have a url like http://wink.com/ajinimc? Current URL is http://wink.com/ajinimc–profile (oh my God two hypens, you failed the telephonic test for urls). If this feature is the strength then you need to make the urls more simpler, I do not want people to search for me before getting to my profile. Look at other social networking sites, everywhere I have a url like /ajinimc and it works.
• As I said in one of my previous posts that in social networking, it is the flies that attracts other flies not the honey. With orkut’s simplicity, myspace, youtube and other social networking site you need to define your area of service precisely, else no one will invite others.
• I am doing some research on search, Google is not the solution, Adsense and Adwords not the ultimate products. There is more to come with a human intelligence layer but not completely human based like wink. Such searches will not work enough.
• Each page is taking too much about too many things. Same problem as that of myspace.

Best of luck to the wink team, I hope to spend some more time next weekend with all the social networking sites as a part of my research, “Online Social behaviour”. Visit my profile at wink.

I am a member of Wink for many months but I have hardly used it. Then one day I got an email for their staff and I decided to know a little more about it.

Wink is a people search engine. Under the scheme “Spam the Spammers“, I decided to add another level “Selling to the marketers”.

I got a mail form the Wink Staff

Welcome to the New Wink!
The Biggest People Search Engine

Who Do you Want To Find Today?
Now you can find yourself, find your friends, and search for other interesting people online with Wink, the most comprehensive People Search Engine in the world!

Wink searches over 150 million online profiles worldwide. Wink searches people the major social networks and communities, and we’re adding more all the time.

Now you can find someone’s online profile across these communities, and many more!

The new Wink helps you find people immediately by:

* First and last name
* Online profile / nicknames
* Location
* Age, schools, gender
* Shared interests

How to get the most out of Wink:
1. Go to wink.com and search for your friends, co-workers, old classmates, etc.
You may find people you haven’t connected with in years. You may also find that they have on-line profiles you didn’t know about.

2. Fill in your Wink profile and take control of your online life.
With a Wink profile you can manage and organize what other see about you on-line. It’s also easier for your friends to find you – what’s the fun of posting things on-line if people can’t find it?

Also:
Your user name is: blogtintin
If you’ve forgotten your password, just click “sign in” and then “forgot your password?” and follow the instructions.

3. Make a Wink Widget!
Get the Wink Widget and put it on your blog, MySpace, Flickr, wherever you can. It helps you promote all the great stuff you do on-line.

Thanks we really appreciate your time!
– The Wink Team

I then decided to throw them a query

looks good, how is it better than orkut?

Regards,
Aji

—
http://www.idealwebtools.com/blog/ – My blog

I was VERY VERY glad to get a response from their team

Hi Aji,

Thanks for taking the time to write to us. We’re always happy to talk about Wink. 🙂

Wink is actually quite a bit different than Orkut. As you know, Orkut is a closed community of users who are all interacting with each other based on common interests or personal friendship. Wink is a very open and public tool that you can use to find people across several different communities – and a way for you to control your online identity using our profiles and widget.

For example, you can use Wink people search to find people near to you geographically, or with common interests such as “World of Warcraft” – and connect with their profiles on MySpace, Friendster, etc. You can also create a Wink profile to share your online identity with your friends or to build your own personal online brand. David Beach has done just that on his profile: http://wink.com/beach–profile . Here you can see that he has quite a few online identities and he is using Wink to claim all these and display them to help others keep up to date with what he is doing online. You can see more examples of the widget in action by visiting our widget page at http://wink.com/winkwidget/.

So you can see that Orkut is complementary to Wink, in that you can use Wink to claim and promote your Orkut identity to friends (new and old).

Does this answer your question? If you would like additional information, please let me know and I’d be happy to talk with you further.

Have a good weekend!

(I have sent them an email requesting their permission to blog about Wink and to publish their response).

I was a little impressed with this email and decided to do a further scrutiny. Let me post the scrutiny in next post. Looks good, happy weekend.