June 15, 2005
The difficulties in maintaining your own blog site!
I wanted to write about the difference between logic & belief. Then I thought I would write about how to handle money & fame. In the meantime someone calls me over the phone & the first question he asks me is - if I recognised him. As if he was on some kinda television and not telephone. That prompted me to write a blog on telephone etiquette. Uff…and I finally ended up writing about how difficult it is to maintain your blog site!
All that starts well might end abruptly
As any other Internet feature, the blog sites are very easy to start & very difficult to maintain. Getting started doesn’t take much time. You think about an interesting & cranky nick that describes you the best, and get registered. The problem starts from there.
You never understand what you should blog about? You start off with a profile page, then some interesting events that took place in your life, and then? There is a HUGE mind block – you either stop blogging or you start finding a new focus in your life as a blogger.
Selecting a topic can give you sleepless nights
One of the most difficult things to keep your blogs running is selecting a topic. Your worries start from the time you get up in the morning – what should you blog today?
You go through your daily newspapers to see if you get any tip. Then you start staying alert & observant the whole day – you never know where you would get a topic from. If the auto guy takes you for a ride – you think you should blog about it, if you have a fight with your wife – you think that is a better topic, if you have water problems – you think what else can be more interesting than this. And, finally when you end up writing your blog your worry about the next blog already starts haunting you.
Is the attempt to keep your blog interesting worth it?
Bloggers try really hard to keep their blogs interesting. They know that they aren’t celebrity writers & that none cares about what they think about life. In an attempt to keep their blogsites live they add humour, they add colour, & they keep changing the design. It of course is a good sign but then it makes one wonders if the pain is really worth it – life can of course go smoothly without having a blog site. Thanks to Google – it at least gives some hope to the bloggers that you COULD make some money in future.
How we hate to read others’ blog & how we love others reading our blog
Most bloggers think – ‘They are the best.’ As if others are cranky nuts and are born just to read your blog and also leave a comment. The feeling of going to others blog is the most boring experience, and leaving a comment – My God. But then it is always orgasmic to keep a watch on our own page views & reply to people who have taken the pain to leave a comment. Also out of generosity we visit the blog of the person who has left a comment – so that he doesn’t feel bad, and he doesn’t stop coming to our blog.
The technical difficulties
You have less technical problems if you use some blog sites which provide blog interfaces – like that of blogspot.com and rediff. Maintaining your own site with your own domain like that of mine (askenni.com) or kiruba.com (I am not giving his hyper link, because I don’t want you guys to click on it and leave my blog midway) is a real head ache. You will never know what went wrong when & where. And there are only few people who help you in repairing yours site – I am yet to find those few people.
Attitudes thrown in Cross linking
Few bloggers have already started assuming that they are the best bloggers, and they are very choosy in cross linking others blog from their sites. Come on guys grow up – you are as deep in shit as the newcomers are! And it is still long way to go becoming a celebrity!
Need help in starting your own blog? Mail me at kennedig@yahoo.com
Posted by Kenni at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2004
Life without the Internet!
By God’s grace since the very first day at my job I have been blessed with 24-hour Internet connection. Since 1997 it has never happened that I was disconnected from the net without my own choice. Last 3 days have been really difficult, as my sister’s connection (She uses Iqara – a new broadband connection, and I strongly suggest please DON’T go for it. The customer service sucks. They are new and it shows) got over and I had to do a lot of running around from home to Reliance cyber café and back, carrying my work on a floppy. Take my word Reliance Web World is an amazing place to surf, the speed is great, and the service is superb. Don’t miss to read the dos and don’ts list, which they have displayed there.
I feel handicapped for not coming online on Yahoo Messenger, and also feel damn isolated without chatting to my 50 odd friends everyday. I strongly feel I have lost my identity without uploading my blog for the past 3 days!
Internet I think is a new addiction for the modern crowd and the real sanyas for anyone would be getting off completely from it. Pray for me that I should be connected very soon!
Till Then Happy Blogging!
Posted by Kenni at 11:20 AM | Comments (3)
November 03, 2004
Google Ads on askenni.com
Hi Friends,
At last I managed to pull in google ads into my site. I was just getting a bit greedy. Kiruba said he is already making money through google ads, and Rajan said he has made $1 so far, hence thought I would also try my luck. Thankfully, this time I didn’t take anybody’s help in managing the codes to be pasted in the HTML page. If you need any help in how to incorporate google ads into your site, you can always buzz me! I would love to share the process with you. Meanwhile DON’T forget to click on few ad links - I can at least make some money to keep my site up and alive!
Yours truly,
G. Kennedi
Your Personal Astrologer
Posted by Kenni at 04:24 AM | Comments (5)
July 28, 2004
Walk-in interview for software professionals in Chennai
One of my close friends happens to work with MindTree in Bangalore and his company at present is looking out for software professionals urgently. They are conducting a walk-in interview in Chennai this weekend, hence thought this blog would help few people who read my blogs regularly. All the best!
The profiles they planning to recruit are:
(1) Role: Developer/Senior Developer
Skills: J2EE, Java, EJB, XML, Websphere, iPlanet, WebLogic, Oracle, Soalris, Unix,Windows NT
Experience: 2 - 4 yrs.
Qualification: M.Tech / B.E / MCA or M.Sc / B.Sc
(2) Role: Developer
Skills: Java, Swing
Experience: 2 - 3 yrs.
Qualification: M.Tech / B.E / MCA or M.Sc / B.Sc
(3) Role: Module Lead
Skills: Java, Swing
Experience: 4 - 6 yrs.
Qualification: M.Tech / B.E / MCA or M.Sc / B.Sc
If you or any of your friends or relatives suit the above profile in Chennai, and are interested in a good career with MindTree, please mail your resume to Anish Philip at anishp@mindtree.com before 30th Jul 2004 5:00 PM.
God Bless You
Posted by Kenni at 10:30 AM | Comments (1)
Yahoo messenger can put you in trouble!
Yahoo messenger has undoubtedly redefined the way people communicate today. You can keep in touch with old friends, create new friends instantly, disguise as a girl to fool DESPERADos, flirt, strip, fall in love, and also have a wholesome orgasm through cyber chat. It is easier to communicate on and maintain relationships through messengers, as there always is a backspace to edit what you want to say.
I am blessed to stay online on yahoo messenger half of my day, and once it so happened that I got a message from a girl named Surbhi (named changed). She thought I was into some programming thing, and she was asking me about the doubt she had. I had stopped lying on the yahoo messenger long back, as it didn’t serve any purpose. I made it clear that Java, C and C++ are Greek to me and that all I know is the Internet industry. She, I think, was impressed by my honesty and we continued chatting – about herself, her family, her aims, her goals, and my sexual fantasies!
We became good friends and we had chatted about most of the topics under the Sun. Once I had to stay late night in my office, and it was clear that I could not complete the work at least till 3 am. Surbhi stayed online for me, with her webcam ON! It was a nice virtual company I had that night.
It was almost 2 years now for our online relationship, and her parents wanted her to get married. Not to me, I was already married, but to another person of their own community. She got engaged and also got married in 2 months time.
These online relationships don’t have any shelf value – it breaks at the speed it is created. We didn’t have any hassles in breaking it too. It wasn’t a good idea to continue virtual relationships once a girl gets married. It can only bring troubles – and it did!
She chatted with me once or twice after she got married, and also called me up to discuss about the aversion she was having towards sex. It was a normal phenomenon for any woman in the initial days of married life and that is what I told her.
Things were perfectly all right till I got message from her ID once again. I was as normal and as usual I started flirting with her. I really don’t care much if a woman is married or unmarried when it comes to online conversations – the distance indeed breaks a lot of inhibitions. She was listening passively, and I shifted the chat topic to 3 some, 4 some and about orgies! She got offline, and I thought she got disconnected. I was sure she didn’t get mad at the topics, as we had already discussed about these kinky subjects before. She came online after 5 minutes, and said, YOU HAVE DONE THE BIGGEST MISTAKE IN YOUR LIFE! I asked what was it? And she said it was her husband who was chatting using her ID a couple of minutes back! I asked what next? She said, he is on his way to the house, and we probably will call you. I was a bit scared now, not about her husband but about her. I never would want her to have any problems in her married life.
They called me up, and for 15 minutes her husband spoke nothing but foul language. He abused right from the forefathers to my great grand children. I could understand his plight, but then it was his mistake to use her wife’s ID to spy around. I kept silent, didn’t wanted to reciprocate. He also wanted to give ‘supari’ to kill me – that really sounded funny, but then it was ok – he was angry. I apologized, and said that there was nothing wrong with Surbhi – it is me who always played prank and talked nasty things, she is a nice girl, and has always stopped me from being bad. Things pacified, and they have happily settled now – just that I don’t have her name on my friends’ list anymore.
Advice for guys
Never waste your time in knowing the history of any girl - it is going to be as dirty as yours.
Advice for girls
Never share your passwords with your husbands!!
Posted by Kenni at 04:39 AM | Comments (4)
June 30, 2004
Internet Usability - Make it easy for the surfers!
Sitting at a high-speed broadband office need not necessarily give you an idea about how difficult it is for the browser to check your websites from any cyber café or from home for that matter. In my personal experience, I have failed to browse few important Indian sites from home – and the only hindrance - the page being as heavy as an obese mammoth and the Internet speed as slow as an AIDS-stricken snail.
I had an opportunity to attend a presentation given by Usability Expert Muthu, and it was indeed an eye opener.
There are few important factors most people love to ignore before they create their websites….
Elementary Factors
Content
Design
Size of the page
Size of the images
Navigation
Bit Serious Factors
Time consumed by the browser to register
Time consumed to browse the sight
Time taken to find the information the user is seeking for
Time spent on the keyboard and mouse
Time spent on understanding the feature
The Most Serious factors
The good/bad memory the user takes with him/her
Will he/she come back to your site?
ELEMENTARY FACTORS
Content – is, was and will remain the KING
Content rules the Internet and the scenario will remain the same in the future too. So, take time to decide on what you want to be known to the world – a news site, a car site, a net access site, a shopping site or a community site. If you are a portal that has it all, try knowing your strength and weakness and concentrate on them rather focusing on everything your competitor has to offer.
Design
Presentation matters a lot in the modern world, but then there is no point in serving foul food with carrot and cucumber all around. You can bring the user to your site once based on the design, but next time design won’t matter him much – it will be the quality of content that will pull him, and keep him busy. Design should be based on the content you are projecting, hence better to brief your designer about what the content is about.
Size of the page
‘Size does matter’ but it isn’t true on the Internet. There are two ways a person can land on your page - one by typing the URL on the address bar directly and secondly by referrals (reference could be by ad banners, links or search).
If he reaches your homepage by typing the URL, needless to say, he knows where he is coming and what he is coming for. So no point in impressing him through colorful links & images rather you can help him get what he wants at the earliest. Most people BROWSE in leisure time, rest come to the Internet with a purpose - let him finish the purpose first.
For instance if you are a portal who ALSO provide a mail service, and you also know that most people come to your site to check mails (and you want it to remain that way) then don’t try to load your page with a woman in a bikini. It will only irritate the customer, and infuse him to go for another mail service.
Size of the images
Normally people presume that the webpages fly from the server to your computer, and each time you click on a link a new page flies across. The truth is it is only the HTML code that flies from the server to your PC, and the page is CREATED in YOUR machine for you to view. Codes reach faster than pictures hence if you notice it takes more time for the image to load. So try to use more of HTML codes to create colours on the webpage than images. And use images only where it is absolutely necessary. Of course you cannot create a Vajpayee’s pic in HTML code but of course the buttons can be created using HTML.
Navigation
Surfing a new site is like finding a new address. Life becomes easier if you guide the surfer visually at every step and nowhere should he feel that he has missed the way. People when lost tend to come to the page where they started from, and that basically remains your homepage. Remember when your site breaks into tertiary links, see to it the primary links are still accessible.
BIT SERIOUS FACTORS
Time taken to register
No user is fanatic about your site. He spends both time and money to come to your website, so respect him for that. Don’t throw a registration form like a school application form asking him about his father’s name, mother’s name, native place, nationality all that. Keep it simple with some basic information you need at present. You can get other information later when you can ask him to update his profile.
I have been to site where I wanted to post my view on a particular topic. And I just wanted to type YES. I panicked and closed the window seeing a huge registration form, which would take at least 5-10 minutes. I kept my view to myself.
Time consumed to browse the site
On an average a person won’t be there on your site for more than 30 mns…that is the MAXIMUM (5-10 minutes is ideal)! That is true even with porn sites. So try to give what he seeks upright, and don’t try to snatch his attention by throwing few useless ad banners.
Ever veteran users don’t remember the 5 top ads they have seen as pop-ups!
Don’t keep changing the position of sections and features. This will adversely affect the people who are your regular users. Compare your website with a shopping mall. There could only be confusion and chaos left if you keep changing the positions of each store every week.
Time taken to find the information the user is seeking for
As a website, you should know who your target audience is. Don’t try to make all those strangers who bump into your side accidentally through search engines. They might bookmark your site but would never come back. Concentrate on the users who are dedicated to your site, and try to keep them happy – a bird in hand is always worth two in bush.
See to it that it doesn’t take more than 5 seconds for a user to find what he wants on your site. If you are a sports site, and if the latest event happening is Euro Cup, the user should be able to spot Euro 2004 on your home page in 5 seconds. If not, then forget him he is gone forever.
Time spent on the keyboard and mouse
This is yet another interesting factor that puts enough light on the surfing behaviour of a user. As far as possible, incorporate functional features in the webpage itself. Don’t presume that the user is adept at using all the browsers.
Once in one of the leading mail services, I saw the cursor missing in the text box where you type your user ID. This of course is a small error, but then it takes few seconds more for the user to bring the cursor there, click, and then type the user ID.
Also provide next, back and close buttons wherever necessary. Don’t make the user drag his mouse to the browser buttons.
Time spent on understanding the feature
Most Indian sites are direct replica of foreign sites without a credit line. Right from music to movies, and from blogs to messenger services all are copied. Foreign sites are created keeping their locales in mind, which might not necessarily work for Indian audience. Most Indians are highly talented, but are a bit bad at communication when it comes to using a foreign language like English!
Before creating a website or any other interactive feature, keep the Indian audience in mind and use the language accordingly. Internet isn’t the place to prove your vocabulary skills – it is the place for people to interact and communicate - so keep your language simple and lucid.
Even today, most people scan the information on the Internet and they don’t read. Avoid explaining your features with lengthy compositions. Keep it short, and sweet.
THE MOST SERIOUS FACTORS
The good/bad memory the user takes with him/her
Internet audiences are the most disloyal of the lot. If Doordarshan showed ‘Sorry for the interruption’ message for some 15 minutes at a stretch in 1980, there was none who would shut down his TV and decide not to watch DD again. He kept gazing at the idiot box, and kept praying the God that the TV station should be all right soon so that he doesn’t miss the movie. The scenario isn’t the same today. A customer gone once is gone forever. So keep your site clean, see to it your functionalities works perfectly, and inform the users in case of discrepancy.
Will he/she come back to your site?
This is one area, which creates fright among all the top guys of a dot com. You put up ad banners, you insert a TV ad, you invest crores in promotions and you follow all the Philip Kotler’s marketing fundas to get people on to your site – for the first time. What about bringing them the second time?
Nothing other than classy content will pull your users back to your site. So try having something new on your site everyday, don’t fool your users with an old content with a new heading, and don’t keep changing your design every fortnight.
Posted by Kenni at 03:28 AM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2004
Rediff joins the 1 GB space war!
Google started the space war and others have started reacting. Google embarrassed other mail services by providing 1 GB mail space, while Yahoo had to control themselves by giving 100 MB. And before other Indian mail services could think about their next strategy, rediff came with a bang to save its millions of mail users – 1 GB space!
Where is the war heading? Is the late 90s scenario of the dot com boom and bust going to repeat? Or Google has something else on its mind for the near future.
This is my analysis of the situation…
First of all on the Internet everything is at your fingertips. You cannot hide things nor fool the browser for long with your paid mail services, and the communication today is so fast that people understand things before you even think.
The 2 main fundas of the Internet business are –
1) Community
2) Interactivity
for rest of the content people always have other media…nothing to beat the TV of course.
Yahoo was a search engine when started. They build their community first, then came on to give a service to the already existing community. It is simple to make your community to use your mail service than trying to build a community through mail service.
With the community it had build on mail service, it extended it horizon by introducing Yahoo Messenger - till date the BEST messenger on the Internet. The advent of Yahoo Messenger was of course a serious jolt to services like ICQ and IRC chats. Again Yahoo tried to make its community to use Yahoo messenger, than trying to build a community through messenger service.
Yahoo is in the Internet industry for decade now, and things are going perfectly, till Google launched its 1 GB mail space. What could be the logic?
Google knows it that building a new community, which Yahoo has built in a decade isn’t easy. And they also know that the Internet customers are the most disloyal beings on the planet. The only thing they could do is to bring the whole of already built yahoo community to their site. There is no point for Google to start a mail service with 5 MB or 10 MB space, when people are kinda happy with yahoo or hotmail. The best thing they could think about is to do something, which is beyond imagination - I GB mail space. It of course is mouth watering, so much so that people refuse to think whether they need so much space on the first place. It is people’s choice end of the day – and for me SIZE DOES MATTER. This Google would get at least get 50 per of the yahoo community in 3 months – that really is a BIG number.
What about the money part?
Let us take the next 2 years for now. Google surely will be having enough money to sustain for the next years, but in that time would have forced most of the other mail services to close down and end of 2006 – Google will emerge as a monopoly.
What would be Google’s next move?
May be a BETTER messenger than YAHOO! Once they get their community in place it won’t take much time for Google make their customers use their messenger. May be Google would say you can send MOVIES via GOOGLE in 5 mns!
Now the questions that would be running top of the minds for other mail services would be –
1) Should they continue with 5 MB – 10 MB space for the next 2 years, slowly and gradually lose their existing customers and die.
2) Should they invest more money and upgrade themselves to 1GB
3) And lastly should they shut down their services and sleep peacefully
According to me, I think the last option is the best one.
Posted by Kenni at 03:32 AM | Comments (4)
June 16, 2004
1 GB, 100 MB so where do we stand?
G Mail provides 1GB (1000 MB) space, Yahoo Mail provides 100 MB, and Indian Mail services provide 6 MB space and still think it is seriously big! This example not only talks about server space but also if given a closer look could question Indians’ space in the world in the coming years.
Of course after globalisation and the advent of Internet, Indians have started making more money and there has been a huge change in their lifestyle…but at what cost? Recently there was an article on Yahoo News about how BPOs have changed the way Indians deal with their lives. Late nightshifts, graveyard shifts, posh cars, huge houses are few boons of course but what about the family life and the kids? URLs, servers and BPOs won’t help you much in bringing up your kid.
I would be termed a fool if I say human values are more important than money in today’s world. But then we need to know where we have to draw the line, and should be surely able to distinguish between need and greed. And remember even a Billionaire feels that he needs a salary hike!
When it comes to Indian brands getting strangled by international players, here are few examples and my amateur insights…
Remember TV brands like Bush, Crown and ECTV? Where are they today? Shut down! What we have today are brands like Samsung, Sony & LG. In the coming days there won’t be any single BRAND that is Indian.
Pepsi got into the Indian market, and out of mere knee jerk Parle sold its brand to Coke which became a competitor for Pepsi. So where did Indian drinks like Thrill and Rush go? Vanished.
Then why are we wasting our energy in fighting the war on the Internet? Soon we will be taken over or we would get killed in the rat race. Our only job would be to slog for 14-15 hours daily so that the Americans can have a 5-day-week and can spend their weekend in a holiday resort.
We need to accept the truth that we have completely lost track about our uniqueness, and have ended up doing gadha majuri (ass’s job) for the westerner. So, what’s next?
Posted by Kenni at 05:47 AM | Comments (6)
May 27, 2004
My Mail to Yahoo.com
I am off to Mumbai (Bombay) for a week, and will be back next Thursday. Thanks for all the support rendered so far, and also for shying away from posting a comment. A special thanks to my readers at Polaris, ElementK, Philips and Infosys....my IP tracker keeps me updated ;).
Thankfully I had saved the mail I sent to YAHOO in 2000 AD. Here is the unedited version of the same. Excuse my grammatical errors, for I was like that only.
MY PERCEPTION AND ANALYSIS ABOUT THE INTERNET IN INDIA - by G. Kennedi
CACHE - A brief history
Internet in India is believed to be an innovation that bridged the gap of 100 years with countries like the US and the Europe, termed as the technological gurus. Its advent in India in the mid 1990s really didn’t bother the market as there was only one emperor providing the Internet service the ‘VSNL’, at of course an exorbitant price making it yet another luxurious entity. The net users were minimal in India, and any dot company launched during that toddling period targeted only the NRIs (non-residential Indians) who felt the need to know about the latest happenings in India and also a way to exhibit their love to the people they had left behind.
Only media companies, who had a sound backing of the brick-and-mortar-company to its rescue, took a plunge in the new medium of communication. Firstly it was expressindia.com, one of the first dot com companies unleashed by the media barons the Goenkas who had the tag of the Indian Express to pull traffic to its site. Secondly it was the ad agency rediffusion, who came up with a website called rediff.com with features exclusively targeted to Indian teenagers. The virtual ground of battle was all set to see a new beginning, when one fine morning the dictator VSNL got up with revolutionary idea of privatising the ISP. Satyam computers, who already had made their presence felt through their computer solutions, were the first to step ahead to take the challenge to become the first private Internet access provider with intelligent schemes at affordable prices making an average man to think about having net access at his home.
Then it was the portal of Satyam, www.satyamonline.com that came into the foray and the electrifying news of it buying India World, comprising of Khel, bawarchi et al, for Rs500 crore. The news shook the country and all those who really thought had a unique idea that would transform into quick money. Venture capitalists approached these young entrepreneurs with open hands, and financed any ideas that they thought would grow into a golden egg-laying duck. The boom lasted for a couple of months and as expected the bubble burst with many eating the mud and leaving a few big brands on the edge of collapse.
SYNTAX ERROR – What probably went wrong?
Firstly to understand the reason for the dot com’s failure in India, you need to understand the country and its countrymen. It might sound vague but it is the ultimate truth that is going to decide the future of any dot com company and also the internet as a whole.
According to the census 60 per cent of the population still lies under poverty line. Forget about them. The rest of the 40 per cent could really make to a major number. Out of them 10 per cent really are the rich people who really won’t mind splurging the money on the latest gadgets to keep pace with the modern age. But to succeed in the Indian market you need to collect the mass of middle class under one umbrella who has the real potential. It is a well-known fact that in India majority of the people who come to the net fall under the age group of 15 to 30, out of which 80 per cent come to check their mail and to chat, and rest come for educational purposes.
In this scenario splurging money on feature like news and live web casts would really prove fatal when there is this medium of TV and radio predominant in India that is much cheaper and less troublesome.
And talking about e-commerce portals, building it spending crores and crores of money without making a note of the fact that only 3 per cent of the Indians possess Credit Cards, and only very few of them possessing it do come to the internet and again a very few of them do really come out of the hitch to make a online purchase.
According to a BBC research it is not only the product that attracts people, it is also the crowd and the visual effect of the real products and feel of it that makes a person to make the final purchase. So, precisely if the dot com sells only those products that are easily available at the nearest store, and only to those who have a Credit Card then probably it is going to be a failure.
One of the examples of dot coms that failed in e-commerce
www.jaldi.com - It is estimated that this portal that sold home appliances at a fascinating rate spent some 18 crores on advertising and made a total revenue of just Rs80 lakh. What probably went wrong is that they really missed the above facts and were henpecked in making quick money.
THE SUCCESS STORY OF YAHOO
Getting into the Internet arena as a search engine, which would find all the related sites depending upon the word typed in the search box, YAHOO has come a long way. YAHOO did understand the 2 major crowd pullers, one the e-mail and the second, chat. I hope that even today most of the page views for YAHOO come through e-mail. And after this it was YAHOO messenger that created a new addiction in all the offices that had round-the-clock net connections.
At present there is none to beat YAHOO as far as community building and the simplicity to use the website are concerned. But what could make YAHOO become a hit in India is something that needs serious considerations.
REGIONALISING YAHOO!
There is nothing powerful than regionalising the services. Whether it is a TV channel or the print medium people tend to like more about the events that takes place near them or those that affect them directly. And also as far as shopping is concerned they tend to buy from their nearest shop as it guarantees the after-sale services.
To flourish on the Internet YAHOO needs to get into conventional business too.
· Offline promotions do play a major role in making the people know about what the Internet has to offer. This simply doesn’t mean to splurge money on the hoardings and painting the buses.
· Some intelligent investments and tie-ups that would solve both the purposes, getting top of the mind and also increasing the users.
· Contests undoubtedly bring in floods of users, but at present there seems to be very few contests on YAHOO. Corporate contests can be run on YAHOO to get benefited both ways.
· Today the Internet is flooded with static huge contents in spite of the fact that people never come to read on the net they just scan. And the Internet has never been used to its full potential using its unique point the Interactivity.
· The more you add interactive features the more will u get hits and more the page views and more the money.
· Change the payment mode apart from payment through credit cards.
· For gifts opening a franchise outlet would really work out, even if there were few companies who failed in carrying out this successfully.
· A one-to-one personalised feature can be added depending upon the age, demography, and educational background of a browser.
· Steps to increase the Netizens and making the people to come to the Internet will be an ideal decision. Tying up with local cyber cafes and with some ISPs can do this.
Personalised contents specific to a browser can be provided like educational content to students, romantic stuff to the teenagers and family topics to the household people. The more you personalise the more you tend to keep the browsers happy.
Posted by Kenni at 06:06 AM | Comments (1)
May 13, 2004
Popularizing your website through search engines a BAD idea!
My friends and I had a discussion about how to popularize my website – www.askenni.com among netizens, and Rajan (also called Chota Rajan) came up with an idea of making it visible on the search engines using meta tags and also by understanding how search engines really works. Vamsee (a designer cum lover boy) supported his views mmm but I wasn’t happy with the idea!
My friends and I had a discussion about how to popularize my website – www.askenni.com among netizens, and Rajan (also called Chota Rajan) came up with an idea of making it visible on the search engines using meta tags and also by understanding how search engines really works. Vamsee (a designer cum lover boy) supported his views mmm but I wasn’t happy with the idea!
My opinion about popularizing a website doesn’t come under making it searchable on search engines like google or yahoo or lycos. All the sites I personally know or all the sites I personally visit on an everyday basis are not the one, which I got through search engines.
The sites I visit regularly are rediff, yahoo, indiainfo, indya and few porn sites. And none of these sites came to my understanding through search engines. It was word of mouth and also the promotions that they ran on various media that dragged me onto their websites.
Of course SOMETIMES search engines helps you to get people onto your websites, but in that case your site should be thrown in the first 3 pages of the results thrown. Google might claim to throw some 25 search-result pages, but then who on earth is so jobless to go through all the 25 pages!
And when it comes to meta tagging, you should think about keywords that are searched by most of the people around the world and also it should not be used by other veterans on the web. Forget it. Search engines won’t help you in the long run.
What brings traffic to your site?
I feel it is still the content that will pull traffic to your site, so keep it as exciting or humorous or I should say as controversial as possible.
Think about content that will kindle interest among your readers.
Make your site a daily habit.
Let your close friends know about your site, and let them do the marketing part. You need not ask them promote your site just provide content that will keep them busy. They will spread the message on their own.
And see to it if a person comes to your site once - by word of mouth or by accident - he should not miss your next edition!
So what should you concentrate on?
What else? Brand Building. Concentrate on getting your brand name on top of readers’ mind. This could be done by word of mouth, offline promotions, building community on the net, chats, discussions and now blogs. Try not to waste time on search engines - it might get you one person everyday that too accidentally but then that is not your motto.
Build a brand like yahoo.com, google.com, rediff.com, and now askenni.com. But see to it people spell your URL or address correctly!
Your comments are welcome…
Next Article…
I am contemplating on a new term called P-40 IT syndrome…(Post Forty Information Technology Syndrome) that would discuss about the pain and mental anguish the present IT crowd will face when they reach the age of 40.
Posted by Kenni at 04:38 AM | Comments (8)
How I made a fool of myself speaking the TRUTH at Loyola College!
Based on our Internet experience, three of us were called for a Hindi seminar conducted at Loyola College, Chennai. It was one of my predictions coming true for myself. Just 10 years back when I was a college student, I used to stare at our special guests and think I should be called to present a seminar few years later AND IT HAPPENED!
Based on our Internet experience, three of us were called for a Hindi seminar conducted at Loyola College, Chennai. It was one of my predictions coming true for myself. Just 10 years back when I was a college student, I used to stare at our special guests and think I should be called to present a seminar few years later AND IT HAPPENED!
Not that I lack confidence, but I hate addressing a group of people. I am damn conscious about myself, and love to stay aloof until and unless people provoke me. I am happy the way I am, and have no idea of becoming an orator.
Two of my colleagues had enough experience addressing people. Both of them had a MBA on their hat, while I am a journalist – who loves to work secretively most of the time ;).
For anonymity sake, I will call them Mr K and Mr P.
Mr P was damn good on the stage. I should say his Hindi was fluent, and he got the audience’s attention in no time. He spoke about the potential Hindi portals holds in the near future, and how it will be useful for people who still use vernacular language for communication.
Mr K had some 10 years experience in public speech, and had been addressing a lot of students for a couple of years. I admire him for his confidence, and also the way he handles people - one Mr Jim Carrey he is. His hilarious intro, and sensible logic gained him all the applause.
Now it was my turn. I am basically from Mumbai, and can’t speak shudh Hindi for God sake. So thought, would talk in Hinglish, and I did succeed in that. I tried keeping my views to myself about what I feel about the future of language portals in India. But could not resist myself. I thought about what my teacher told me – always speak the TRUTH, no matter how bitter it is. And I started to talk my mind out. I asked few basic questions to prove a point that Indian languages will die in the coming days, and there will only be ONE language universally accepted and that could be English.
My questions and the response…
Q1) How many of you have browsed a Hindi portal?
Response – Out of some 200, one raised his hand. And he said he has gone to aajtak.com, which incidentally is not a COMPLETE Hindi site.
Q2) How many of you know to type in Hindi?
Response – None raised their hands. Remember I was addressing a seminar, which was attended by Hindi students, Hindi teachers, and Hindi HODs.
Q3) How many of you will spend money, go to a cyber café to browse Hindi sites?
Response – None raised their hands.
Q4) I was told that Sanskrit is the most adapted language for Computers. How many of you know Sanskrit?
Response – Only 2 out of 200 raised their hands.
Mr P panicked at the way I addressed the seminar, and came to my rescue. In fact the whole crowd was kind of disappointed by my pessimistic approach but then that is what was I felt was the TRUTH. As the world grows, old things fail to exist like which happened to languages like Hebrew, Sanskrit and Greek.
I knew it could be the last time I am called for any seminar. And that prediction came true too. Mr K is busy with other colleges, and Mr P got a call from Stella Mary’s college!
Posted by Kenni at 04:36 AM | Comments (4)
When I was banned from blogging!
It all started when my Internet Company started BLOG as their new feature. I was damn excited about the whole concept, and started blogging on all topics that interested me the most viz sex, astrology, spirituality, religion, corporate hypocrisy, and my male chauvinistic thoughts. I never thought being a male chauvinist was a sin - just that other men don’t accept it, and I do. My blogs instantly got me into controversy from the yang side of the office, and the yin joined them.
It all started when my Internet Company started BLOG as their new feature. I was damn excited about the whole concept, and started blogging on all topics that interested me the most viz sex, astrology, spirituality, religion, corporate hypocrisy, and my male chauvinistic thoughts. I never thought being a male chauvinist was a sin - just that other men don’t accept it, and I do. My blogs instantly got me into controversy from the yang side of the office, and the yin joined them. It was funny for various reasons –
*It was my OWN personal diary, and none was forced to read it. I never spammed their mailbox, nor held a gun on their head to read my blogs.
*I am not Salman Rushdie, who could influence human thoughts to a very large extent, and could sell his books in India in spite of naming a dog Jawahar in his novel.
*Reading all my blogs and then blowing the issue out of proportion showed how jobless they were.
*And lastly I had displayed a warning on the top of my BLOG which said “You are here out of your choice, and not by force, and please leave if you are not matured enough to take it”.
The argument went on for a week, and my superiors got into the issue asking me to remove my blogs immediately. I refused, and kept arguing that, “it is my diary, and it is my own personal space, and none asked you to read it”. They refused to use their logic, and finally when they failed to convince me, they used the most powerful tool they had – THEIR POWER - and I stopped blogging!
I still have my arguments – if weblogs are personal diaries, where in the user writes about his/her day-to-day activities - what if a sex worker or a sex counselor starts blogging from tomorrow? I am sure, you can’t expect a sex worker to write about her experiences with saints, nor you can expect the sex counselor to write about Sanjeev Kapoor’s recipe. If that is the case, will they be banned from blogging?
Post your comments people, just need to know whether I am RIGHT!
A beautiful disclaimer I got from the NET -
"BLOG is a place that encourages free and creative expression, and as in any environment where people are given this freedom, conflict may arise. If an author uses language or materials that offend you, LEAVE. Contacting the person or their isp, demanding they remove the content or change their ways is absurd because you are viewing their content of your own free will by visiting their site. Simply stop going there and you won't have to see whatever it is you don't like about the site."
Posted by Kenni at 04:33 AM | Comments (2)
Stop begging, start blogging!
Web Logs is the newest craze among the netizens, and more and more people have started trying their luck at blogging to share their experiences and thoughts! The main funda of blogging is to get more and more people to read your blog, and to build a community of you own. Of course, there are people who are least bothered about getting people on to their site. They blog, just like that, because all else do, and also because they don’t have anything else to do.
Web Logs is the newest craze among the netizens, and more and more people have started trying their luck at blogging to share their experiences and thoughts!
The main funda of blogging is to get more and more people to read your blog, and to build a community of you own. Of course, there are people who are least bothered about getting people on to their site. They blog, just like that, because all else do, and also because they don’t have anything else to do.
If you are one of those serious bloggers who indeed want to make it BIG, then keep reading…my tips will surely help you in building your community slowly and steadily….
Tip 1 – Touch base with the fact - you are not Amitabh Bachchan!
People have a wrong notion that they are already famous, and that people are dying to read their blog. The truth is no one cares a hair for what you write. The last thing I will be interested to know is your experiences about YOUR life and YOUR travel experiences!
Chant this mantra 108 times everyday to understand what you are and what people think about you….“Views are like ass*****, everyone has got one”.
So the moral is…your aim should be to become somebody from NOBODY.
Tip 2 – Decide on the content - don’t bug your readers
As I mentioned earlier, NONE will come to your blog (except for your closest friends whom you nag everyday to read your blog - remember they will do it not out interest but out of obligation) to read what you did last summer in Kodaikanal and what you are going to do in Ooty next winter. People don’t care, until and unless your blog is going to benefit them.
See to it that your blog entertains the reader or at least informs them something interesting.
(I am sure you understand one thing now that, your views on Schumy or L K Advani is of no use to me until and unless I am your disciple or you are Mr Larry King)
Tip 3 – Market your blog – make sure people acknowledge your presence
*Print your blog URL on your visiting card
*Add your blog URL in your mail signature, and if possible give a small intro about your latest blog in all the mails you send on a particular day
*Add your blog URL on Yahoo Profile Page
If you think people should spend money and time and come to read your SHIT religiously and post their messages everyday, and that you won’t visit any blogs, because you think you are smartest ass around! Then take my word you will end up being the BIGGEST fool in the world of bloggers!
Dedicate at least 1 hour on blogs everyday, 30 mns on your blog, and 30 mns on other’s blogs. And also make a point that you compromise on your EGO and leave some message in their comment box.
This is simple Bhagwat Geeta rule – “If you want something, you should give something”.
Tip 5 – Have patience – You won’t get the BEST BLOGGER award the very first year
Building your own community isn’t an easy task. There are veteran bloggers who have been blogging for years now, and have succeeded in getting only 100 people on to their sites everyday.
Patience pays!
Happy Blogging!
Posted by Kenni at 04:31 AM | Comments (3)