tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81585662024-03-13T01:33:49.994+01:00Random Bytes...Now moved to www.raghucs.comRaghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.comBlogger101125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-36146280990416118382007-01-30T14:43:00.000+01:002007-01-30T14:46:01.396+01:00Moving my blog to a new address...Folks,<br /><br />I have moved my blog to a new address - <a href="http://www.raghucs.com">http://www.raghucs.com</a><br /><br />I have *not* moved all the posts from here but only moved the ones which had a reasonable number of hits.<br /><br />From now onwards I will not be making any further postings here.<br /><br />-RaghuRaghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-71457531302989348242007-01-25T13:58:00.000+01:002007-01-25T14:01:00.235+01:00UpdateI am in the process of moving my blog here onto my domain and am busy working out where to host it to, to use wordpress or stick with blogspot etc.<br /><br />Amidst all this I have not been able to make my regular quota of postings on my blog. Please bear with me for another week.<br /><br />ThanksRaghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-77657575157386103952007-01-19T13:54:00.000+01:002007-01-19T13:58:11.310+01:005 Stages on the 'S' Curve as a Blogger<span style="font-size:85%;">I think that there are 5 important stages that a blogger passes through as he establishes and drives his blog up the popularity curve,<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Stage 1 - Starting the 'S' curve</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Almost every average blogger who starts blogging starts here. Key characteristics at this stage,<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Minimal focus on the content itself (assuming that you are an average starter like me)<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Drive is to post rather than worry too much about the niche / quality etc of the posting</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Low to Medium exposure to other blogs in areas that you broadly want to cover</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Getting people to read your blog is the only focus - monetizing your blog is hopefully low on the list.<br /></span></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Stage 2 - Beginning the Climb up the curve</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />As you make some postings and hopefully get some people reading your blog there are quite a few changes that one can see in the characteristics above,<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">You feel your have some people reading your postings and start feeling the pressure of living up to what ever expectations that you have created in their minds.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Meeting expectations means that you don't want to blog every idea that comes to your mind - some focus on content and quality starts coming in</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">As you have started blogging the exposure to other blogs in increasing - you pick ideas on how and what to blog - this some what conditions the mind</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Getting more traffic and starting to monetize your blog become objectives for you.</span></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Stage 3 - Climb past the tough incline on the curve</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />As you traffic and postings increase you are starting to both benefit and face the challenges from the increased readership<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">You have more people reading and hopefully contributing on your blog which makes idea generation for content easier</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Network effects start kicking in and your avenues for monetizing the revenue increase - well of course more options means more complications too !<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">More people means more expectations - time that you might need to spend would increase and that makes it tougher</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">You chose your niche in Stage 2 and now your increasing set of reader condition and narrow it down a little further - you are somewhat forced to restrain yourself to what your readers want. Of course you can take the approach that you keep your niche and lose some readers on the way !<br /></span></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Stage 4 - Reap the benefits of the tough climb</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Further down the road and its time to reap the benefits of the tough climb up the curve<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Your network is so strong that it can sustain with minimal contribution from you - the day you probably stop spending time in building the network your simply slip back to the earlier stages<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">People look up to you as a thought leader in your chosen niche and you again get the chance to widen your scope - you are leading your network in addition to their guiding you</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Monetizing your blog is much simpler now - any option you choose would mostly work with a little tweaking may be</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">You abilities in being able to network with the other thought leaders is put to a thorough test<br /></span></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Stage 5</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Having been in Stage 4 for a while I guess the blogger needs to realize that it is time for him to either innovate or saturate. Some of the options that come to my mind at athis point for a blogger are,<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Sell off and restart the journey on a new S curve</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Get your users to graduate on a new S curve - could be a different focus (albeit related), an entirely new way of taking your network along</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:85%;">Of the millions of blogs that enter the S curve hardly a handful of them graduate through the various stages. Irrespective of the stage of your blogging career that you are in the following <a title="exhaustive list of resources" href="http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/01/23/blogging-tips-hundreds-of-resources-for-finding-content-for-your-blog/">exhaustive list of resources</a> should be of great great help to help you move further or at least not slip backwards !<br /><br /></span><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogging+tips" rel="tag">blogging tips</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-13974914651283171392007-01-18T14:28:00.000+01:002007-01-18T14:29:30.525+01:00Commenting on my blog - a request !<span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;">I was reading </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: Georgia;" title="Dion's blog" href="http://web2.wsj2.com/">Dion's blog</a></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;"> today at the end of his posting I read his request for comment which read "Web 2.0 is about participation! Visitors are strongly encouraged to leave comments...".<br /><br />The key point that stuck me was Web 2.0 is all about communication, interaction and collective wisdom. On my blog however, although on an average I get about 100+ visitors which is good news for me, but my readers hardly leave any comments for me which is not :-(<br /><br />I honestly urge you to leave comments on my blog (anonymously at least) which will go a long way in,</span> <ol><li><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Improve the quality of my posting</span> - I am sure that I must have a long way to go before I can be confident and comfortable about the quality of the postings that I am making.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Improve the relevance of postings </span>- If I get some comments on my blog I get a handle to work towards improving the relevance of my postings to my readers. It will help me not waste time on irrelevant posting that is not required.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ideas for content </span>- I must have read that comments are a source for blog posting ideas on almost all sites which provide some tips on this area. So folks please help me out !</span></li></ol><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;"> </span><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/comments" rel="tag">comments</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogging" rel="tag">blogging</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-23635122517346012342007-01-18T14:06:00.000+01:002007-01-18T14:08:01.706+01:00Product Development 2.0<span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" >Any blog that you visit on technology is talking about the extremely powerful Web 2.0 concepts such as harnessing the collective intelligence, focusing on end users/customers as co-creators, and turning the applications into platforms.<br /><br /><a href="http://web2.wsj2.com/">Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog</a> that I track for write ups on this topic today had a posting titled <span style="text-decoration: underline;">"</span><a title="Product Development 2.0" href="http://web2.wsj2.com/product_development_20.htm">Product Development 2.0</a>" and there were some interesting points that were discussed there.<br /><br />For a young company which is launching itself into developing a product many of ideas / items listed in the note are probably ones which would not make a lot of sense.<br /><br />I categorize the points that are listed into 3 broad areas and try to address why young companies might 'resist' or take longer the need to make the transition if they have to survive,<br /></span><ol><li><span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" ><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Stakeholder Interaction and </span></span></strong></span><span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" ><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Transparency</span></span></strong></span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" ><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Product Development and Ownership </span></span></strong></span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" ><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Definition of Competitive Advantage</span></span></strong></span></li></ol><span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" ><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">Some of the points that I feel Dion has missed out in this transition into the Product 2.0 development approach are,<br /></span></strong></span><ol><li><span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" ><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Risk Reward Structure </span>- The 'firm' is taking most of the risk in terms of monetizing the product but with substantial support from its users etc. If users contribute at any stage - requirements definition, design, development, testing etc I am not sure if they would simply take the product and be happy ?</span></strong></span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Segmentation and Targeted Products </span>- If a firm wants to have multiple versions / tracks for different customer segments - how would we handle this in this model ?</span></span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Georgia;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Prioritisation and Sequencing Approach</span> - I agree that collecting a database of intentions is a good idea and would go a long way in interacting with end customers but I think this should also be backed up with a very good process to process that database and ensure that reverse communication is done with the co-creators.<br /></span></span></li></ol>Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/web+2.0" rel="tag">web 2.0</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/product+development+2.0" rel="tag">product development 2.0</a></span>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-4570806353491175282007-01-15T11:32:00.000+01:002007-01-15T11:33:19.672+01:00How to be creative - ChangeThis Manifestos<span style="font-size:85%;">Today I read about a manifesto titled <a target="_blank" href="http://www.changethis.com/6.HowToBeCreative">“How to be Creative”</a> on <a title="Guy's blog" href="http://blog.guykawasaki.com/">Guy's blog</a> and was very impressed at not only the specific manifesto but also with the idea. So I went to <a title="ChangeThis" href="http://www.changethis.com/">ChangeThis</a> and read up a few more manifesto's.<br /><br />So what is <a title="ChangeThis" href="http://www.changethis.com/">ChangeThis</a> - read on how they introduce themselves just read their <a title="manifesto here" href="http://changethis.com/files/CT-manifesto.pdf">manifesto here</a>.<br /><br />I went through the following 5 manifestos before writing out this post<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.changethis.com/6.HowToBeCreative">How to be Creative</a></span></li><li><span class="date" style="font-size:85%;"> </span> <span class="title-sm" style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.changethis.com/30.03.ReclaimYourLife">Reclaim Your Life: A Two-Week Challenge to Help You Regain Time</a></span></li><li><span class="title-sm" style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.changethis.com/30.05.CustomerActionHero">How to Become a Customer Action Hero in 10 Steps</a></span> </li><li> <span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.changethis.com/29.01.ElegantSolutions">Elegant Solutions: Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way</a><br /></span></li><li><span class="title-sm" style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.changethis.com/29.02.NoNeedFear">No Need to Fear: How Global Outsourcing Equals Opportunity</a></span></li></ol><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/changethis" rel="tag">changethis</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/manifestos" rel="tag">manifestos</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-19020480652422649692007-01-15T10:47:00.000+01:002007-01-15T10:48:20.432+01:006 Tips to make activity tracking mind maps more effective<span style="font-size:85%;">I have been using mind maps towards tracking my several activity threads for the last few months. I must say that it has been a great enriching experience and I have benefited a lot in by this effort. Some clear benefits that I have realized are,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Gives me a clear view of my tasks and activities. </span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Allows me to plan better and keep myself updated of all threads.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Far lesser number of activities seem to slip between the cracks</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">Some of the tips that I mention below might prove useful to you folks in case you are also using mind maps for the purpose of activity tracking,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Don't completely delete threads which are closed from the map </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Many a times tasks are closed but can open up and I would suggest to have a closed thread's branch under which all the activities closed (at least the important ones) can be placed month wise. </span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Load the mind map with information </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Most of times action thread have mails, documents, presentations, views, discussions, MoM's associated with them. Without this information the mind map is not a complete information base that it can be. So remember to link up you mind map nodes with the information on them.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Tag your mind map branches and nodes with icons </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- In my understanding a mind map should not only provide you with a single interface to all your activity threads it can and should also provide you an idea of when and what that goes with the activities. Tag the nodes with the relevant icons to the best extent possible.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Branch dedicated to 'recurring activities' </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Irrespective of the job you are doing you would always have a list of recurring activities that could occur daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly of yearly. It really pays off to organize all these recurring activities under one branch and review them as frequently as necessary</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Highlight dependencies </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- In many cases one of your activities are linked on other activities on your map. Make it a point to link these together. This provides you a very good view of how your threads are dependent on each other and helps you a lot in prioritization of your activities.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Spread the word </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Any project is team work and you getting more productive is only part of the success. The more and more people use this technique on your team the better it is for everybody. If you are convinced that mind mapping is a good technique, I would suggest that you use it for a few weeks and then take it on you to get at least 2/3 members in your project to get using it.</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/mindmaps" rel="tag">mindmaps</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/activity+tracking" rel="tag">activity tracking</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-39287051291413588052007-01-12T00:03:00.000+01:002007-01-12T00:05:54.614+01:00Top Trends at CES<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_1QhQwelxxbE/RabCr4rvbBI/AAAAAAAAAA8/mMgXUTIX6Gg/s1600-h/CES_40annivMain.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 151px; height: 99px;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_1QhQwelxxbE/RabCr4rvbBI/AAAAAAAAAA8/mMgXUTIX6Gg/s320/CES_40annivMain.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5018912893957008402" border="0" /></a>Well CES is winding down and was reading today at GigaOM a posting titled <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/OmMalik/%7E3/73982013/">"Top 5 trends at CES"</a> which are, Content Everywhere, Mobile TV, Location Aware, High Def, Storage Jump<br /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />When I read the posting to me it appeared that there were just one word which stood out - "CONTENT".<br /><br />Well what is so unexpected about it after all a event usually makes an attempt to address the top of mind issue at that point in time, in the process further contributes to the trend itself.<br /><br />I dont think anybody today argue's if or not content is king - further with user generated content catching up in all forms of content focus on content only will increase. So what are the top issues that one would face in the coming year (s) around this word CONTENT<br /><br />1. Create, Store and Share Content both offline and online<br />2. Experience Content at each place in the most convenient way - Location aware content, Mobile TV, High Definition devices<br /><br />So as is expected this area is mostly evolving and products released this year in these areas would go some way in hastening this movement. Read some of the CES press releases <a href="http://www.cesweb.org/press/news/default.asp">here</a></span></p>Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/ces" rel="tag">ces</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/mobile+tv" rel="tag">mobile tv</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/content" rel="tag">content</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/user+generated+content" rel="tag">user generated content</a></span>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-5276962996540953462007-01-11T23:27:00.000+01:002007-01-11T23:36:54.599+01:00A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods<span style="font-size:85%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_1QhQwelxxbE/Raa71orvbAI/AAAAAAAAAAs/o962pYsFymw/s1600-h/periodic+table.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 306px; height: 146px;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_1QhQwelxxbE/Raa71orvbAI/AAAAAAAAAAs/o962pYsFymw/s320/periodic+table.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5018905364879338498" border="0" /></a>I came across this brilliant compilation of visualization methods that exist in a highly innovative periodic table arrangement. You can have a look here “<a href="http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html" target="_blank">A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods</a>.”<br /></span><p><span style="font-size:85%;">I have not yet gone through the table completely myself, but just looking at a couple of cells on the periodic table I am in highly impressed at the thinking behind the arrangement and the innovative approach.<br /><br />In case you are interested to read a little bit more about how the creators of this artifact Ralph Lengler & Martin J. Eppler worked on this, you can have a look at their short paper titled <a href="http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.pdf">"Towards A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods for Management"</a></span></p><div class="tag_list"><span style="font-size:85%;">Tags: </span><span class="tags" style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/periodic+table" rel="tag">periodic table</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/mindmaps" rel="tag">mindmaps</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/visualization" rel="tag">visualization</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-43226717336311629882007-01-11T17:03:00.000+01:002007-01-11T19:18:33.696+01:00Keeping my blog up to date - Monthly Review (Dec 2006)<span style="font-size:85%;">Was reading an interesting item today titled "<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Er/ProbloggerHelpingBloggersEarnMoney/%7E3/73811422/" target="_blank"><span>How To Market Your Blog in 2007</span></a>" at ProBlogger.net and it occurred to me that I have not reviewed my blog in Dec 2006. I did a quick review and here is a summary,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">I took a quick look at the nature of topics I was blogging on and coupled with a study of the type of content that people are coming to my blog for, and I decided to re-look on the blogging categories that I was focusing on. I decided to prune down the list based on the following considerations for every blog post of mine,<br /></span></li><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Attract new traffic to my blog</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Retain traffic on my blog<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Get personal 'satisfaction' from writing that blog entry</span></li></ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Keeping in mind the above factors, I have decided the following as my focus areas,<br /></span></li><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Blogging Topics </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Tips, Suggestions, Corporate Blogging</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Indian Business Scenario </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Indian Retail, Indian Telecom scenario</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Telecommunication </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Technology focus in this domain</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Web 2.0 </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Technologies, Business Models etc.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Mindmaps</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> - Tools, tips, techniques<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >News </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- What is current in today's scenario, but focused on technology, business</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Ramblings </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Some random brainwaves that come to my mind with my spin on that</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Others </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- a sudden surge to blog about something but does not fall into any of the above categories</span></li></ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Continue focus on 'commenting' on popular blogs and get traffic from them. Over the last few days/weeks I have been regularly commenting on <a title="JohnChow.com" href="http://www.johnchow.com/">JohnChow.com</a> the benefits are quite visible. Last month 35% of my visitors were courtesy <a title="JohnChow.com" href="http://www.johnchow.com/">JohnChow.com</a> . I propose to choose a set of 3 blogs this month to add to John's site to take this exercise forward. However, one point is that the traffic from <a title="JohnChow.com" href="http://www.johnchow.com/">JohnChow.com</a> increased substantially after he added the top commentators segment on his blog, and I was thinking of starting commenting on popular blogs which have this feature on.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Over the few 100 blogs that I have seen there are a few initiatives that I liked and I propose to implement them on mine too,</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Cover a blog a week. I will choose blogs which have a popularity and fall in my area of focus to start this exercise</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Will make a monthly posting of the blogs that I liked in all what I saw that month</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Target at least one interview to post on my blog per month.</span></li></ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">On the advertising front, I thought I was using too many options and I have removed things which don't seem to work at least for me. Starting today I have removed Text Link Ads and the Amazon Affliliates Program - I currently have the following streams, Google Adsense, Chitika Minimalls, BlogKits and Adbrite running on my network.</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">Some quick facts ...<br /><br />Daily Traffic (average in month of Dec) - 200 page views / day<br />Money Earned - Still not anything substantial, and I will keep it with me<br /><br />Targets for this month - Push the traffic to at least 300 page views / day.<br /></span><br /><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogtips" rel="tag">blogtips</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/adsense" rel="tag">adsense</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/chitika" rel="tag">chitika</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/categorising+blog+topics" rel="tag">categorising blog topics</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-70977364546738077432007-01-10T13:32:00.000+01:002007-01-10T13:52:17.676+01:00Apple Launches iPhone<a style="font-family: georgia;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_1QhQwelxxbE/RaTdu4rva-I/AAAAAAAAAAU/h-6gsCrd8bk/s1600-h/apple+iphone.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_1QhQwelxxbE/RaTdu4rva-I/AAAAAAAAAAU/h-6gsCrd8bk/s320/apple+iphone.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5018379682357144546" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >One of the most interesting and most Digged items in the web world yesterday was <a href="http://www.apple.com/iphone/">Apple’s Launch of the iPhone</a>. I will not aim to give you any pointers to people covering this launch, simply proceed to any site that you like and am reasonably sure that you will find a mention of the iPhone. Well come on guys Apple is always known for its innovation and ability to come out with products which are strikingly different from what ever exists in the market at that point of time. Just think of the Mac, iPod and now the iPhone.</span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >In today’s already over crowded mobile device market what were the drivers that Apple thought it can capitalize on to launch ‘another’ mobile phone. <span style=""> </span>To me I see the following as the top factors</span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><ul style="font-family:georgia;"><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The rate at which people change their mobile is much faster than any product before – in fact it’s even faster than the PC’s also. Apparently people change mobile phones every 15-18 months and that gives Apple two benefits,<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><ul style="font-family:georgia;"><ul><li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">It’s target addressable market does not run the risk of saturating at least in the near future - new mobile users are increasing in some markets (BRIC countries for example) where as people are changing mobiles in some of the mature markets.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><ul><li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:85%;">When a consumer keeps changing his or her mobile phone every 15-18 months who better than an innovative company like Apple to take benefit from this.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul></ul><ul style="font-family:georgia;"><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Although Apple has sold over 40 Million iPod’s and has been a hugely successful product for Apple – it needs to realize that the media is converging and users might move on to other products which support multimedia (voice, internet, audio, and video). <o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >Below is how Apple describes its new kid of the block<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" ><i style=""><span style="">“iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a wide screen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight hand-held device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone”</span></i></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" ><o:p></o:p></span> <span style="font-size:85%;">What I like about the iPhone,</span><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">As you can always expect from an Apple device the iPhone has an excellent design.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">One of the most interesting features for me is the ‘touch sensor’ which in some sense removes the distinction between a portrait and landscape mode – this is great. Have not seen it in any ‘mobile device’ till date.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Supports convergence to a good extent – telephony, internet and features of its iPod all rolled into one device</span></span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">What I don't like about the product,</span><br /> <ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The device is a quad band GSM Phone – In today’s scenario where 3G is the upcoming technology can’t understand the reasoning for this. <span style=""> </span>Well yes the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> in general is way behind on ‘mobile technology adoption’ and I guess this product suits most there<o:p></o:p></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Touch screen – This is good for a low interaction device such as the iPod, but for something like a convergence device I think it might cause some problems to users<o:p></o:p></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Cost – I sure think that it’s a costly device. But for such a product which company does not think of milking the market anyways</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">What does memory cost – why should at all anybody differentiate in price on a 4GB memory device and a 8 GB memory device.</span></span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">What I would like in the coming versions,</span><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">GPRS, EDGE, and 3G support for sure<o:p></o:p></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Lower Price :-) </span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">More memory on the device – for the converged device I think 4/8 GB might be very less</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Don’t know if it already has a USB port – if not having it might be good</span><o:p></o:p></span></li></ol> <div class="tag_list" style="font-family:georgia;">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/apple" rel="tag">apple</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/iPod" rel="tag">iPod</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/iPhone" rel="tag">iPhone</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-76528451908122845792007-01-09T13:11:00.000+01:002007-01-09T13:16:19.107+01:00Rise of blog culture - Top 3 concerns<span style="font-size:85%;">A few days back my wife was searching for something on the web and most of the top results were from the blogosphere. She was frustrated and told me that with the rise of blog culture was making her life on the web tougher. Triggered by that comment we started discussing if that was true and yes like always with the lot of positives that go with rise of blog culture there are quite a few 'negatives' too.<br /><br />We could come up with the following 3 observations<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Facts vs. Opinions</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Most blogs in an effort to make 'content' original tend to give a spin to the event that they would have heard or read about. The spin could be in the form of a value addition, analysis or opinion or simply more data etc. Whatever be the spin, any event that occurs is covered by innumerable blogs and the search engines (including Google) rank them on the top of the heap which sometimes causes problems.<br /><br />For example try searching for "Walmart Bharti JV" on Google and the posting I made covering the news (with my own assessment of course) comes as the first page. Is this good - definitely for my blog yes, but for somebody who simply wants to read the news item its bad news, because he has to strive that much harder before he reaches there.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Ranking News vs. Ranking Opinions<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">In today's era where user generated content is king I probably still want to be able to distinguish between top ranking news items and top ranking opinions. For example Digg offers me no such distinction where they separate the top of the heap data vs. top of the heap blog posts which makes my life tougher.<br /><br />But looks like people are thinking in this direction already. In fact just today I came across this new site <a title="Blogg-Buzz" href="http://www.blogg-buzz.com/">Blogg-Buzz</a> which seems to be offering a Digg alternative specifically targeted towards blog posts.<br /><br />The idea is that people looking for facts should go to a different place than people who are looking for highly ranked 'opinions'<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Signal/Noise Ratio<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">Any event that occurs in the world in the blogosphere get multiplied many many times creating a lot of related content. Although some percentage of that might be very useful there would also be a lot of which that is not very useful and this only decreases the signal to noise ratio on the web which makes it tougher to catch signals amidst the noise. If one were to count the comments and discussion on blogs it would only further degrade the S/N ratio.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/digg" rel="tag">digg</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogosphere" rel="tag">blogosphere</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogg-buzz" rel="tag">blogg-buzz</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/page+ranking" rel="tag">page ranking</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-13589540049376777342007-01-09T07:23:00.000+01:002007-01-09T07:28:39.323+01:00Blogg-Buzz - Digg alternative for bloggers<span style="font-size:85%;">When I started blogging a few months back obviously one of my top most areas of concern was that what can I do to increase my traffic. I tried many options,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Blogging on topics which interest me</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Focus on a set of interesting blogs - comment and discuss my thoughts on those blogs </span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Take a shot at trying to post articles on <a title="Digg" href="http://www.digg.com/">Digg</a> - yes a great option to have traffic on your blog</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">Traffic has no doubt increased, and coupled with some improvement in my blogging quality things are looking up. However, I started reading at <a title="John's blog" href="http://www.johnchow.com/">John's blog</a> a few other places that <a title="Digg" href="http://www.digg.com/">Digg</a> </span><span style="font-size:85%;">could be quite undemocratic in banning sites etc and was on the lookout for other options and good to see that you have started one on those lines.<br /><br />As I was looking for different options I came across a new option called </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a title="Blogg-Buzz" href="http://www.blogg-buzz.com/">Blogg-Buzz</a> today which looks like a specific site targeted at providing a Digg like service to blogs.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">What I like about <a title="Blogg-Buzz" href="http://www.blogg-buzz.com/">Blogg-Buzz</a><br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Simple and clean interface</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Focus on blogs - but how do you propose to control submissions ?</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Willingness to accept that its like Digg - at least that itself can give you a lot of publicity to start with</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">What I don't like about <a title="Blogg-Buzz" href="http://www.blogg-buzz.com/">Blogg-Buzz</a><br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Web Page Design - Definitely can improve. The fonts at some places are not matching with their status on the page. For example the fonts on the tabs at the top of the page are too small</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">If the intent of having the Top Buzzers section is to grow your network and hence grow yourself, then I think it has to come out cleaner. The page in my information is too information heavy.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Many of the things are a little bit from what you might expect from a professional site - but I guess that will simply evolve.</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">I just became a member on the site and am hoping to use it in the coming days. Let me see how it works out.<br /><br /></span><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/digg" rel="tag">digg</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blog+buzz" rel="tag">blog buzz</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-453411001026627582007-01-08T20:25:00.000+01:002007-01-08T20:26:15.235+01:00101 Management Tips - Do these lists work ?<span style="font-size:85%;">A couple of days back I was reading an article titled <a title="" 101="" management="" tips="" href="http://www.businessintelligencelowdown.com/2007/01/lessons_from_th.html">"101 Management Tips"</a> and liked the simplicity of some of the tips. I will not go into each of the tips but the tips were organized into the following categories<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Self before Service is the Key - Manage Self first</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Time and Tide wait for no one - Manage Time</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The Human side of managing people - Manage People</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Make every penny count - Managing money pays off</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Just do it - Managing Tasks takes talent</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Sourcing Sources - Manage resources resourcefully</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">They are the reason why you exist - Manage your Customers confidently</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Change is inevitable - Manage critical and chaotic crisis</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Aims and aspirations - Manage objectives objectively</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:85%;">Well after I read it I was really stuck by the simplicity of the rules themselves then why is it that this common sense tips are not commonly found.<br /><br />Could think of the following reasons,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">After all the everything is in the details and if that is the case the simpler you make the rules - this higher the chances of misinterpreting it</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The interaction of person to person makes the environment so complex that applying these rules is a herculean task</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">On some rules the result simply depends on the tools you use - so you might be simply be unable to achieve a level of success irrespective of how well you might be doing things if you are using the wrong tools<br /></span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span> <div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/management+tips" rel="tag">management tips</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/101" rel="tag">101</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-27200240396641065762007-01-05T14:21:00.000+01:002007-01-05T14:27:40.933+01:0010 Ways to Use LinkedIn<span style="font-size:85%;">I came across a nice article titled <a title="" ten="" ways="" to="" use="" linkedin="" href="http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html">"Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn"</a> and below are the 10 ways that he lists down of how one could use <a title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a><br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Improve your visibility</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Improve your connectability</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Improve your Google Page Rank</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Enhance your search engine results</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Increase the relevancy of your job search</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Make your interview go smoother</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Gauge the health of a company</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Gauge the health of an industry</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Ask for advice</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:85%;">I definitely agree to most of the points that are listed above so to a higher extent than the others.<br /><br />Some of the important situations in which <a title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> would help much more than many other sites on the web world are,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Looking for a job yourself or for your firm</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Planning to build a start up - No better place than get to know about your contacts and what they are doing right now than <a title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a></span> </li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Do you have a product focused on the job market - <a title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> is a great place to market it !<br /></span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">Although <a title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> is one of the foremost 'networking' sites it has really maintained its focus and niche to remain centered around the "job area" which in my personal opinion is a great idea. In today's world obviously there is no dearth of networking sites and I would really want to be part of a niche rather than catch all site.<br /><br /></span><div class="tag_list"><span style="font-size:85%;">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/linkedin" rel="tag">linkedin</a></span></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-11536060983333102772007-01-04T10:39:00.000+01:002007-01-04T10:42:40.090+01:00Making blog content 'effective'<span style="font-size:85%;"><a title="John Chow" href="http://www.johnchow.com/">John Chow</a> has made a posting titled <a title="" the="" art="" of="" creating="" content="" href="http://www.johnchow.com/the-art-of-creating-content/">"The Art of Creating Content"</a> where he captures some ideas about how content on a blog site is all important and I agree with most of the ideas in his post.<br /><br />Assuming that you have arrived at what to blog about let me try to present a simple questionnaire that I usually employ to assess if the content that I am generating is useful or not both to my readers and me.<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Is this content original - as John says does it have my spin and a hint of personalization ?<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Is this content meeting one of the two objectives - attract more visitors / retain a higher percentage of my existing visitors ?</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Is the content current - Not always necessary but is your spin / personalization current ?<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Does blogging about this content satisfy me - after all people see me via my blog ?</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">For a blog post anything above a few hundred words in my opinion is counter productive - so keep a check on the size<br /></span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />If the answer to any of or all questions is negative you might still chose to blog about it - but remember to ensure that at least a good percentage of your posts answer the questions above in the affirmative.<br /><br />Now does the job of a blogger end after you blog about something - hardly the case. After you actually generate the content remember to ensure the following,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Content is clean and to the point - there are just too much on the web today and lucid and elegant writing will go a long way in keeping your visitors locked to your blog<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">If your content was generated as a result of an idea you saw on one or more blogs - remember to let readers on those sites know about your posting</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">If you think it might be worth of submitting to a Digg / Del.ico.us do it - you will get some traffic. As a beginner I want traffic be it from anywhere.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Follow up on the comments on your posting and ensure that you 'address' them in a effective and timely manner - always look for further blogging ideas there.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Keep a track of the ratio of posts at least on a weekly basis if it was targeted towards new visitors or retaining visitors - ensure you maintain a balance<br /></span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogging+tips" rel="tag">blogging tips</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/content" rel="tag">content</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/checklist" rel="tag">checklist</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-38946575872356204832007-01-04T00:11:00.000+01:002007-01-04T00:19:36.134+01:00100 AGLOCO members by the ViewBar Release<span style="font-size:85%;">Every time I think about the simple fact if or not I should push my network harder to add more member's on my AGLOCO network (currently at 18 members) - I always come up with a single argument my common sense simply says if you don't have to pay for it they why not give it a try.<br /><br />I have taken it on me as a challenge to say that I will have at least 100 members on my network before the ViewBar gets released and for this I need help from you folks ...<br /><br />So my readers if you are not already on AGLOCO get registered right now - <a href="http://www.agloco.com/r/BBBB1216">follow this link to register</a><br /><br />Have not heard of AGLOCO yet - read my posts <a href="http://raghucs.blogspot.com/search/label/agloco">here</a><br /><br /></span><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/agloco" rel="tag">agloco</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-38594681449071804642006-12-31T16:41:00.000+01:002006-12-31T16:49:17.155+01:00Happy and Prosperous New Year 2007 !<span style="font-size:85%;">Best wishes to all my readers for a happy and prosperous new year 2007.<br /><br />If you did visit my BLOG in the last week you might have noticed that there has not been a single posting since 22/12 - reason was that we were traveling and I did not want to let blogging come in way of that :-)<br /><br />We visited Aachen in Germany and Paris during last week and came back tired and exhausted late last night.<br /><br />I have almost completed my travelogue for our visit to Amsterdam last weekend and will post it soon. I propose to utilize some time tomorrow for writing down a little about our trips last week and from Tuesday onwards it back to work and regular blogging :-)<br /><br />I should have probably put up a note before I went off on vacation but apologies for not having done that.<br /><br />Wishing a great new year ahead for all of you.</span>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-62848436077399810492006-12-22T14:29:00.000+01:002007-01-11T15:38:19.044+01:00Analysis on PayPerPost<span style="font-size:85%;">When I read about <a title="PayPerPost" href="http://www.payperpost.com/">PayPerPost</a>, it appeared to me to be a good idea simply because it gave me one approach to earn money (yes guys I dint start blogging for the sheer fun or anything like that). One of the blogs that I visit regularly is <a title="John Chow Dot Com" href="http://www.johnchow.com/">John Chow Dot Com</a> and I saw that he had gotten active about PayPerPost and had even requested for a review of his site there. As is usually the case with me I started analyzing a little more about the concept of PayPerPost.<br /><br />I think that PayPerPost has done a great job to identify a new 'breed' of advertisers - the bloggers. Every product in the market is trying to advertise to the visitors to a blog, but PayPerPost is trying to address the bloggers itself. Don't have any data but I think the blogging community is a reasonably closed community (more on this thought sometime later) - If you simply analyze a set of visitors to a blog the chance that the visitor is a blogger himself is very high.<br /><br />So what does PayPerPost offer - If you look at a blogger who has his site running he is definitely looking at options of monetizing his blog by carrying advertisements of others. But the important observation which I think might have led to the PayPerPost business model is the discovery of the need / opportunity of bloggers using each other's blogs to drive up traffic for their co-bloggers.<br /><br />But I think that there are some possible problems in the business model of PayPerPost which I highlight below. Feel free to contradict !<br /><br />Top 5 problems that I see are,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Risk of having your blog become a parasite - </span><span style="font-size:85%;">After the initial hype bloggers will not use this simply because it might be easier to just get linked on high traffic site rather than write stuff about other blogs in the blogosphere - At least I might not want to simply write about other blogs on my blog !<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >To trust or not ? </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- There would always be a shadow of doubt in the mind of the reader of a PayPerPost posting. Surely the fact that the posting has been written for a fee will weigh on the mind, irrespective of the writer saying that it is his/her real view</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >More Traffic means more revenue </span><span style="font-size:85%;">? - To the best of my knowledge there have been many items that I have read about the fact that traffic to a site from some sources do not translate into revenue for the Blog owner. For example I remember reading about how Digg traffic was not very useful for John (read the post <a title="here" href="http://www.johnchow.com/the-digg-coup/">here</a>) - I also read a few comments on some blogs about the same being true for traffic from PayPerPost postings</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Polarize the haves and have-not's further in the blog world</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> - If you have a casual look at the criteria that people are setting in the opportunities that are being posted on PayPerPost its clear that it will be a good option only for blogs which have 'some' stature. I am at a loss to think such blogs might carry posts on other blogs - firmly believe that every blog has an identity and simply writing about other blogs clearly demeans that !</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Fill the blog's with a lot of junk</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> - If this model takes off and people start writing about each other I am terrified at the amount of junk that will fill the blogosphere. Already I feel getting at anything useful on Digg or any of the other page ranking systems is a little difficult and with the addition of a new type of useless content it will become tougher !<br /></span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">Top 3 changes which I think will work towards making PayPerPost a useful thing to have<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Paid Comments -</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> Have some control on what type of opportunities are posted - I would rather see people asking for reviews of specific posts rather than blogs in general. More on the lines of 'paid comments' for example might be useful</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Targeted Opportunities </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Post opportunities for specific 'blogs' - for example a opportunity for a set of 10 blogs to carry a PayPerPost posting</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Innovative Pricing Schemes </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- Usually the first few PayPerPost postings on my opportunity are the most relevant. I feel the next ones will simply rehash the content in the first few and post it. Some options to avoid this - possibly a stepped posting fee model ?. I am sure one can think of many more ones like this</span></li></ol>Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/payperpost" rel="tag">payperpost</a></span>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-78177663756366257102006-12-21T21:42:00.000+01:002006-12-21T21:45:35.307+01:00John Chow Dot Com - Whats Good / Whats not ?<span style="font-size:85%;">Over the last few weeks <a title="John Chow Dot Com">John Chow Dot Com</a> has been one of the sites that I have visited regularly. When I visited a few days back I saw that John has posted about his tryst with Pay Per Post <a title="here" href="http://www.johnchow.com/my-payperpost-experience-so-far/">here</a> and <a title="here" href="http://www.johnchow.com/the-reviews-are-coming-in/">here</a> and that got me thinking a little more seriously of why I was visiting his site. When he asked for a review of what I think about his site I thought it would be a good idea to capture my thoughts.<br /><br />Plus points of <a title="John Chow Dot Com" href="http://www.johnchow.com/">John Chow Dot Com</a><br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Nice and elegant design - particularly liked the change that he has made to blue color recently which makes site look more professional<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Writing Style</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Simple and Elegant style of writing - posts are usually of 'right' size<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Great mix of matter, photos, advertisements</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Particularly appreciate his update post style<br /></span></li></ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">John is a very responsive blogger - whenever I have made a posting on his site, more often than not the comment is addressed very soon</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Minus points of <a title="John Chow Dot Com" href="http://www.johnchow.com/">John Chow Dot Com</a><br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Sometimes John gets very carried away with his topics and over blogs about them - for example, AGLOCO is something that John has taken up now. So what ?</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Think his main theme of 'making money from a blog' usually takes a back seat too often in all this<br /></span></li></ul></ul> <ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Don't like the photos of his dinner visits at all - I still fail to understand why anybody would be interested in what he ate for dinner. I despise some of the photos considering I am a vegetarian !</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Despite it being a 'paid post' I have tried my best to be candid about what I like and what I don't like about <a href="http://www.johnchow.com/">John Chow dot Com</a><br /><img src="http://www.counttrackula.com/tracker/images/3968/12439.gif" /><br /></span>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-540409374279491082006-12-20T15:34:00.000+01:002006-12-20T15:37:05.374+01:00AGLOCO - Aiming for the Tipping Point - 3 Things to keep in mind<span style="font-size:85%;">The first thought that came to my mind when I saw a mail from AGLOCO in my mail box today about their target to reach 10 Mn users on their network by end June 2007 was the 'Netork Effect'.<br /><br /><a title="Wikipedia" href="http://www.wikipedia.com/">Wikipedia</a> defines Network Effect as,<br /><blockquote><br />The <b>network effect</b> is a characteristic that causes a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_%28accounting%29" title="Good (accounting)">good</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service" title="Service">service</a> to have a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_%28economics%29" title="Value (economics)">value</a> to a potential <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer" title="Customer">customer</a> dependent on the number of customers already owning that good or using that service. One consequence of a network effect is that the purchase of a good by one <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual" title="Individual">individual</a> indirectly benefits others who own the good - for example by purchasing a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone" title="Telephone">telephone</a> a person makes other telephones more useful. This type of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequence" title="Unintended consequence">side-effect</a> in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction" title="Transaction">transaction</a> is known as an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality" title="Externality">externality</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics" title="Economics">economics</a>, and externalities arising from network effects are known as <b>network externalities</b>. The resulting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect" title="Bandwagon effect">bandwagon effect</a> is an example of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback" title="Positive feedback">positive feedback</a><br />loop.</blockquote><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">If I were to summarize the key points of Network Effects, they would be<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The service or product that the members of the network use must be dependent on each other for the effect to be most pronounced. For example a person entering a network of mobile users will be benefited (possibly by lower call rates) if his network is large enough.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">In some instances the effect is true is not visible very clearly. For example if you consider a software product/platform like say Linux, the more the number of users enter the system the better the products and more the value to the entire network - which is probably the reason for it to lag behind Windows.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">In any case one of the important drivers of the network effect is the entry of a new subscriber into a network inherently adding to the 'value' of the network. This is probably also one of the main motivators for a new entrant into the network.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">If the network grows it would reach a point where the sheer size of the network (proxy for the value of the network elements) will influence decisions of both persons on and off the network one can say it has probably reached its tipping point<br /></span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Now if you try to apply this theory to AGLOCO it appears to me that the value of the network today is purely notional. The 'n' number of users of AGLOCO literally dont have any value to offer to me as a new entrant. Yes when the ViewBar is ready, the 'advertisers' would see it as an opportunity to reach out to these 'n' users. Once this happens the users start seeing a value in joining the network as they can make money out of it.<br /><br />With the ViewBar taking 7-10 weeks to come out, I believe that it might be very difficult for AGLOCO to reach its aggressive target unless they keep an eye on the following,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">There might be a initial rush of subscribers into the network, which is normal in any new offering but I firmly believe that AGLOCO should not forget to retain the enthusiasm and momentum going of the people who are already on the network.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The network in its initial stages (with a lot of silent subscribers - AGLOCO could only list 2 in its entire list in its email !) and no amount of external marketing is equivalent to coupling it with marketing the growth story to the current subscribers.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Give me something different for supporting you in your Beta efforts - getting the first million is always the toughest - be it hard cash or subscribers</span></li></ol><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/agloco" rel="tag">agloco</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/network+effect" rel="tag">network effect</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/tipping+point" rel="tag">tipping point</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-64694110319414971272006-12-20T12:20:00.000+01:002006-12-20T12:22:48.422+01:00Update #1 from AGLOCO - finally !<span style="font-size:85%;">Before you go any further - if you have not already signed up sign up today - <a title="signed up" href="http://www.agloco.com/r/BBBB1216">sign up here</a><br /><br />It has been over 3/4 weeks since I <a title="signed up" href="http://www.agloco.com/r/BBBB1216">signed up</a> and I get a thank you mail today from <a title="AGLOCO" href="http://www.agloco.com/">AGLOCO</a> - the first thought that came to my mind was that the ViewBar must have been released, but no....<br /><br />I was really unhappy at what I got from them - nothing useful at all ! The theme of the mail was to support them to in their campaign to sign up 10 Mn customers by end of June 2007. Sure if I did not want to grow their network, why would I ever get on to the network in the first place.<br /><br />But AGLOCO needs to realize two things - my route to make money needs two steps<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The ViewBar needs to be released - a small note somewhere in the mail from them says that it will take them 7-10 weeks , which means they will take away 2.5 months of the 6 months they have to reach that target. </span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Get my people on the network to install and use ViewBar - the longer the delay in releasing a ViewBar the tougher my job as a member becomes,</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">I have to first work towards building the network without a 'real' story - but I don't get anything 'different'. What is the benefit of adding users today or after 6 months ?<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Trying to add members today means I have to work twice as hard - once to get members on my network and then after that when they might have already forgotten about the registration, to get them install and use the ViewBar !</span></li></ul></ol><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/agloco" rel="tag">agloco</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/viewbar" rel="tag">viewbar</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-34256226524178030322006-12-20T00:11:00.000+01:002006-12-20T00:12:16.317+01:00Is BlogKits working ?<span style="font-size:85%;">Read about BlogKits at several places and myself was looking forward to an alternative to Google Adsense which made me start using it a couple weeks back. Probably the jury is still out in deciding if or not BlogKits has been useful to the 99% of the users that Jim Kukral said it would. I definitely agree that it is probably a little too early to decide if or not BlogKits has made a difference but in my case it still has to bring in the first $$<br /><br />If somebody who is reading this has answers to my questions below please help me out,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Can somebody tell me if you have really made money with BlogKits - would be more interested in hearing from people who were not making any money from Google Adsense. If yes please have a look at my site and tell me what am I doing wrong. </span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Is there any way in which I can control the ads or target the ads to a specific domain / segment - say for example I am writing quite a few wireless related posts and I want to restrict the ads to that domain / area - Is it possible at all ?<br /></span></li></ol>Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogkits" rel="tag">blogkits</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/adsense" rel="tag">adsense</a></span>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-34893531169469270392006-12-18T18:41:00.000+01:002006-12-18T18:43:21.671+01:00Digg 2.0 - What's new ?<span style="font-size:85%;">A couple of weeks ago I made a posting to the Digg site and as most of you would expect failed to log even a single Digg. Nothing too bad about it, probably almost everybody starts this way. I simply reasoned that my content was not good enough to receive any Digg's and thought of writing more interesting and relevant content. Made a few more postings and still had absolutely no luck and started thinking why this was happening.<br /><br />As may be a few other's was easily able to find a few holes in the way Digg works in ranking the pages that get submitted to Digg. At that point the sole thought that came to my mind was that Digg's way of page ranking as solely dependent on only one factor - 'how fast does a posting get its first few votes'. If you can log the first few votes, the rest is simply herd mentality after that. In more cases than not, its only a matter of time before such a posting moves up the ranking.<br /><br />Did not really delve too much into that topic, but today as I saw that Digg was getting revamped was curious to know what changes one could expect. During this search exercise, I came across two more interesting posts titled <a title="" the="" digg="" economy="" href="http://avanoo.wordpress.com/2006/12/17/the-digg-economy/">"The Digg Economy"</a> and <a title="" will="" digg="" get="" flanked="" href="http://avanoo.wordpress.com/2006/12/13/will-digg-get-flanked/">"Will Digg get flanked?"</a> today which I thought covered relevant points.<br /><br />In the posting <a title="" will="" digg="" get="" flanked="" href="http://avanoo.wordpress.com/2006/12/13/will-digg-get-flanked/">"Will Digg get flanked?"</a> suggestions that are made out to Digg are,<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Do not reveal the number of “diggs” accumulated by a story until after the story reaches the front page</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Enable Diggers to make and/or see comments only after voting or declining to ever vote on a story.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Reward those who make constructive comments on stories, and penalize those who make disruptive and unconstructive ones - Although I agree with the 'rationale' that comments should be categorized as constructive or not, it would be extremely difficult to implement this and I feel this suggestion is not worthwhile.</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">In addition to not agreeing to the last point, let me add a couple of other suggestion possibilities -<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">How about having special voting rights for some classified experts - something similar to the special voting rights on company shares. One vote from these identified set can count for say 10 or 100 normal votes. If some body wants to complicate things the multiplier on any identified expert depends on how many of his voted posts in fact makes it to the top of the heap</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">How about having it necessary to get a few votes say 10 or 20 from identified experts before the post gets opened out to everybody else. A ranking system can be put in place to identify and dismantle experts on a regular basis ?</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:85%;">May be my suggestions are not easily implementable but I don't see a reason why it cant be tried. Digg is hugely successful and I would look towards Digg to make the great concept that it started off or at least popularized a better one too.<br /><br />Two things that I look forward to a site like Digg - anybody else looking for something different - pls comment !<br /></span><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Dont want economies of scale (# of controlled votes being the unit of measurement) become a barrier for my opinion to be heard</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Whatever be the logic / approach that is adopted, so long as I as a user of the site is able to vouch for the 'relevance' and 'usefulness' of the content I find at the top of the Digg heap I am happy !</span></li></ol>Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/digg" rel="tag">digg</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/page+ranking" rel="tag">page ranking</a></span>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158566.post-90966359709531879362006-12-18T17:23:00.000+01:002006-12-18T17:25:00.160+01:00India secure historic win against South Africa<span style="font-size:85%;">India stormed to one of their most memorable wins of all time amid historic scenes at the Wanderers, wrapping up a comprehensive 123-run victory on the fourth day of the first Test. This was a feat that not anybody really believed the Indian team could pull off particularly in its current form !<br /><br />I din't watch the match so don't really know what happened on the ground but some comments !<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Ganguly seems to be finally applying his mind to the game - guess that is the only thing that can enable him play longer in the Indian team.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">If there is one player in the Indian team who is performing in almost every test match in the recent past it should definitely be Kumble. Kumble once again for the umpteenth time in his long career led an efficient mop-up operation and assisted in putting to rest a 14-year history of never winning a Test in South Africa. Good for Kumble and the team.<br /></span></li></ul><span style="font-size:85%;">I don't think that this would change the fortunes of the team too much and the next test is as unpredictable as this one was before it started, but at least this win gives the team a thread of hope to play the remaining one day matches.<br /><br /></span><div class="tag_list">Tags: <span class="tags"><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/cricket" rel="tag">cricket</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/kumble" rel="tag">kumble</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/ganguly" rel="tag">ganguly</a></span></div>Raghavendra Prasadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18440582709391846294noreply@blogger.com0