The scenario has changed now.Our latest cellphone boasts of 600Mhz processor,384 MB RAM,upto 32 GB memory card and many more things….
Google Nexus One has a 1 Ghz processor.A speed i thought was just restricted to PC.
Why is the mobile becoming so smart ?
Mobile is no longer a phone its a companion and the mobile companies are ensuring that they provide you with the required features.
The buzz word these days is the ‘App’,short for applications.
After the integeration of a PDA and a phone,the ‘smartphone’ required nothing less than a revolution.

I remember that in 2005 these Apps started to come up with the symbian operating system where people around the world shared apps through the internet.
Games,basic applications,calculators etc were the favourites those days.We had a Nokia 3230 at that time and we really enjoyed putting a lot of softwares in it and that was the plus point of Nokia.No other brand was offering a similar experience.
Then came something which changed everything.The iPhone(or the iPod Touch to be precise) which changed the way world looked at smart phones.

A concept called App Store where you can download free or paid apps.Apps to do anything.From your social media to your monthly budget,there is an app for anything.Games to die for and softwares to make your life easier.
There are currently about 200000 apps for the iphone and the number is growing as this post is being written.
These apps are not just time pass stuff but has serios uses too.You can be online from anywhere,mail from anywhere.SMS might soon become a thing of past.You can browse internet through high end browsers or watch videos on YouTube.All through Apps.
Now even Google has jumped into the so called App Revolution with the new OS called Android.

Android is a very powerful OS .

Android too has a Android market (similar to Apple App Store).The total number of Apps on the market are just rising by the day.There are about 70K apps right now.
A person can mange everything through phone.Gmail,Gtalk,WordPress,FTP,Yahoo,Facebook,Twitter,Songs,Push Mail etc etc are just few apps.One can navigate through GPS and Google Maps from anywhere in the world with pin point precision.You can find information about any logo or picture in the world through Google Goggles or sail through constellations or galaxies using Google Sky Map.
There is an App for almost anything these days.On a show on Discovery Channel, a person demonstrated an App for driving a Car by just tilting your iPhone(using a Hardware interface in your car) .
Nokia as a company is facing a lot of heat for ignoring the App World.Even they have an App world of their own known as Ovi but freelance developers(the backbone of the Apps) are ignoring them due to old Symbian OS.
Nokia is a perfect example of how Apps can affect your bottom lines.
Still there is a long way to go before these Apps along with a good smartphone totally replace the need(or want) of a good laptop.TMSbee was still much comfortable writing this post on a PC rather than a ‘Smart Phone’ !

© 2010, TMSBee. All rights reserved.

The ads served the purpose,the buzz was created,people were curious to know what GoJiyo exactly was.Yesterday during the Mumbai Indians vs RCB match,i saw the complete ad for gojiyo.Have a look !

I was highly impressed with the ad and so was my friend.We started to speculate what it exactly was.The concept seemed similar to secondlife.com which was started a few years back and has now become internet’s largest 3D virtual world community.

The ad suggested that atleast.

Now like any normal netizen i just typed http://gojiyo.com/ on my browser.It didn’t open on chrome nor IE.It opened on Firefox.Then i used www.gojiyo.com,it opened on all 3 browsers.People are not used to enter WWW in start of websites these days.Ok no issues,normal technical glitch,it happens.

The second thing which i noticed is was its poor SEO(search engine optimization).I tried various keywords on google.Go Jiyo,gojiyo,gojiyo.com etc etc none gave the site as the first result.All the results talked about GoJiyo.com only but not the actual link.Some results talk about the TV show godrej once sponsored.

NOTE:This post has been written one day after the launch of the website.So  at the time of reading,the SEO and other technical glitches may have been resolved.

For a website launch of such stature and concept,initial SEO should have been much much better.I know and hope that it will become much better in days to come.

Now coming to the website,the site looks awesome and quite futuristic.In short its the indian version of secondlife.com.Virtual world as most would know isn’t a new concept. Secondlife which is run by Lindenlabs has been around since mid 2003. Infact since then it has had many competitors as well like Entropia Universe, IMVU, There, Active Worlds and Kaneva. India has always lagged behind when it came to virtual world adoption and the reasons range from the basic issue of bandwidth to the lack of concentrated effort by any international player to penetrate the Indian markets.

But are Indians laggards in social media technology ?

I dont think so.Trends of Facebook,twitter,orkut,buzz suggest otherwise,but Secondlife has not been very succesful here in India.

Coming back to GoJiyo,I went through the whole GoJiyo process and experience.You chose your avatar(male or female).After that you make it unique.Then as usual, you give your details and you are good to go.

After you log in,you enter a simple social networking page with the basic question,”What do you think ?”.A Simple Social Media Page like Facebook or Orkut.Friends,groups,invitations,requests again come to haunt you in it.But the things change when you press the button on the top called,”Enter the 3D world”.

Things changed for me as my browser Google Chrome crashed.It needs some plugin called unity player.

On a serious note,i tried it out in Firefox and it rocks ! Its a whole 3D world all set to be explored.It has game like controls where you control your avatar.You can make it run,walk and even fly.Its in nascent stage right now and needs a lot of work and more online users.It will be fun if many people roam around together in the 3D world.You can use many emotions with your avatar.Its fun.

Some Facts about GoJiyo

• Solaria, Noom,Mauryaprasth,Turqua,SnowFlash and Re-Janm are the parallel worlds where you can play
• Solaria is online at the moment
• Your digital avatars live a life and mingle with various Godrej properties
• An economy called ‘Karmic’ is going to run this world

The question that comes into my mind is why Godrej has entered such a field ? What was the need ? Godrej is diversifying a lot.They had rebranded themselves 2 years back with new values.They were entering new ventures like Godrej Properties,Space etc but now the new surprise(GoJiyo).

Read the third bullet point again.In the 3D world there is constant branding of Godrej.Its colors,its products etc.So may be its just a way to get closer to the customer.e.g.I saw a Cinthol Ad in the virtual cricket stadium.Advertising ?

The idea seems to be,get people to make avatar,then fall in love with it.Make avatar use Godrej products.Who knows people start doing it in the real life ?

Anyways its fun.And makes you feel good.So Go Jiyo.

What Say ?

© 2010, TMSBee. All rights reserved.

Both the actors in the ad were also not quite familiar.I somehow identified Dr Narottam Puri.I remember watching some of his sports shows on Doordarshan(DD).The other lady Mrs Komal G B Singh is also a DD veteran.

There are more in the series,you can watch them here.

The ad campaign is different and breaks away from the clutter.It has a retro look and feel.It reminds people of good old DD days with famous DD personalities.It also deliver the ebay message-Safety + Security+ Super Deals

But then at the same time i think why who and whom ?

I agree the ad is different but then such ad should have been funny or atleast should have made the viewer smile a bit.

This ad confuses the viewer.First of all people think who are the actors/models ? What are they saying ? Why is this ad black and white ?

This all questions actually make you watch the ad and take notice of it and the brand eBay too.So is this a good ad then ?

lets see who the target audience of eBay is ?

Its the same people who use e-transfers on their bank sites,pay their mobile bills online,spend most of their free time on Facebook or twitter,send greetings/gifts to their friends through net etc etc.And one more attribute is that they are young(mostly or tech savvy with money).

So now the main chunk of the target audience doesn’t seem to recognize Dr Narottam Puri or Mrs Komal G B Singh much. The ad seems to bank on their personalities and name.

An interesting point may be that ebay is a brand name that is already known to the above mentioned TG.May be company is trying to target a larger audience through the current campaign.

What ever the reason,the ad has been able to generate some interest and eyeballs too.

The ads communicate the message – shopping on eBay gives you discounts, is safe and offers variety. But are they engaging, funny and convert the fence sitters into shoppers?

What Say ?

© 2010, TMSBee. All rights reserved.

In US Europe etc  this had already started 2 3 years back.MySpace,Facebook etc were already super popular.

India also caught on well with all these trends.Orkut become a passe soon Facebook took over for Personal and social networks.LinkedIn for professional and MySpace just for timepass.( am talking India)

Then suddenly new words started to make some noise twitter,tweets and this noise took the world by surprise and shook it.They intoduced the concept of microblogging  and SMS type social networking.

Twitter has changed a lot of things.When i first heard about it and saw it,i thought,”one more in the crowd but interesting name !”

But then this word kept on creeping on the Internet,magazines.When i was at HP for my summer internship,i read about it on company’s website.I thought boy,this is serious stuff.

I made my profile and started to TWEET.

Sites like MySpace,Orkut and facebook had already changed the way the world communicated(at least a lot did),but twitter has changed world works.

• Twitter has made marketers rethink the way they market.You can follow(twitter term) any company and get their tweets on your twitter profile.(On twitter you can find more companies than users.All have their twitter accounts and send tweets to their followers.The new age marketing.)
• New product launch,new ad,relaunch,any news about company,results anything,they send you tweets instantly the thing happens.Viral marketing has a whole new dimension and medium to grow.
• Bloggers like me use Twitter to announce the new posts instantly as the post is published.(you can follow me here)
• Celebrities use tweets to keep the fan following.
• Friends use it just to keep in touch
• People can share things,links,news.
• It helps you say things qucikly and simply.
• Ministers use it to keep in touch with people.Shashi Tharoor,MP, twitters regularly.Even Obama does.I dont know  about Osama.
• All news networks like CNN,BBC have their tweets going on.People can follow them for instant news.

Many of the things above are also possible on Facebook and are done on too but then why twitter is what it is?

Nobody knows why twitter has become so successful.Some say lucky,some say chance,Some say it was good and others say who cares why ?

But when you see the data you think why is this SMS type site 25th ranked site in the world with 26 M monthly users(just in the US).In Social networking ranks its 3rd after Facebook and MySpace.You can have more info on Twitter data and demographics here.

So Why Twitter is so successful ?

The reasons i gathered from different websites are listed below.

1. It’s an extremely easy concept to pick up for anyone without any training whatsoever
2. It’s highly usable through all types of web enabled devices
3. It leverages existing, globally adopted content generation practices such as text messaging which is already incredibly popular
4. It brings a novelty factor and a new arena within which marketeers and tech enthusiast can experiment in and inevitably end up viral marketing it due to their initial enthusiasm about the tool
5. Most users today find blogging or web authoring cumbersome, but will happily Twitter away as it’s easy and quick
6. Most users don’t posses serious writing skills and Twitter does not require serious writing skills
7. Users don’t have time to write and read anymore and Twitter messages are well within the threshold of average user’s attention span
8. Internet suffers from a massive problem of information overload and Twitter seems to offer a way out of it to some extent
9. It is still virtually impossible to do more serious work (blogging and authoring) on modern portable devices today, even Net Books. The most that can really be done is an odd Twitter message here and there, so most users then spend time doing what they can with the tools that are available to them today
10. Internet just wasn’t designed for big, lengthy, hard to read articles and books, so users are much more likely to read tweets and stick to reading them over longer period of time
11. It’s a fairly immediate way of communicating and can be very personal, which beats most other forms of communication
12. Users like trivia and nonsense as we live in the world of entertainment today and Twitter offers much light information, non-stop at every one’s easy disposal
13. The curiosity and celebrity backing which has surrounded Twitter drives users towards experimenting with it and trying to work out what the hype is really all about.

Oops ! A Tweet is just 140 characters long and my post about it is about 740 words long ! oops again!

Leaving with an interesting cartoon

Comments Please !

© 2009 – 2010, TMSBee. All rights reserved.

When you blog on a free blog,many things dont matter, but shifting to your own blog changes a lot of things.

Its like your own thing.Its just like your product which you want to show to the world.You want to reach out to as many people as possible.Same is the case with me.

During past month,a good chunk of my time has gone doing the same.There are a lot of tools available on net,free of cost,which can be used in your blog to make it up and running,rather much more than that.

I have spent lot of time on  many sites and blogs to get and learn a lot new things.I will summarize many things whcih i learnt over the course.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR BLOG NOTICED THE STEPS :

1) First and foremost,write good and relevant content : This is the main requirement.Write original articles.Write your own views,dont copy past from some sites(RSS feeds would work better in that).

Try to write on new and relevant topics.Think about targetting people before writing the blog.Think whom are you writing this blog or article for.Remeber your blog can be your online personaliy similar to a brand personality in Marketing.So try to be keep it clean and good.

Sometimes excellent blogs dont get hits and simple blogs get a lot of hits.

e.g. I wrote some blogs which pleased me ,i got normal hits,then one night i wrote a simple blog about my college.The admission season is on and i expected lot of juniors to read it.I wrote the blog and made a reference in admission forums.I got a lot of hits much more than when i wanted hits.

But once you start getting hits and people know you ,your other blogs will also get their due.So The content of your blog or website is the soul,all other tools,plugins themes and other tantrums are just auxilary(but important) tools.So focus the most on content.

2) Give a good Look and Feel:Your blog(or site) should have a pleasing look.So when you design(or apply a theme)  always remember that many people have to see it (just not you).So make it clean,crsip in which your content gets a lot of attention and focus.Think about pleaseing colors and combinations

3) Inform all Search Engines that you have arrived : There is a way to inform all search engines that your blog has arrived and also whenever you update it ,they would be informed.

The method is that you make Sitemap of your site.Almost all blogging engines have their XML-Sitemap plugin.If you are using WordPress based blog,use the Plugin XML Sitemap Generator for WordPress 3.1.2 ,for other engines like Blogger,TypePad etc plugins are available.The plugin informs Google,Live!,Ask.com and all other search engines when you update your blog.

If you dont use it,Just create a file in your root directory named Sitemap.xml and goto Google Webmasters and submit your sitemap after creating it through any of the free sites available on net which create your Sitemap from your url for free.This will enable Google Searchbots to crawl through your blog easily and your blog would be indexed and you will feature in google searches faster and quicker.

4) Regularly monitor your Site(or Blog) traffic : Monitoring the site traffic is very important.If you are using a wordpress hosted free blog(or Blogger etc) use inbuilt blog stats plugins.If you have a self hosted blog or site.I have used two tools for it.Either can be used.

a) Google Analytics : Use Analytics for monitoring traffic to your site.Google Analytics not only tells you the number of visitors,its a complete marketing tool.It can give you any stat about your site.Traffic,Visitor,Loyalty,location etc.

You just need to make a google analytics account and paste the unique code they give you in your site.In case of wordpress,paste it in footer.php file.For more options and info about google analytics visit their site.

b) StatCounter : StatCounter.com gives you similar reports as google analytics.Its little more simpler and good for starting.It gives more simpler and direct reports.You can also install StatCounter Plugin for WordPress.You just need to create a project for your URL on statcounter.com and then just paste the code in your site for monitoring to begin.

5) Integrate all your Social networking profiles to your site :

a) Facebook: You can make a badge of your Facebook Account and paste it on the site.Follow the link to create one if you have facebook account.You will get code from facebook,just paste it in sidebar through text widget in WordPress.In other blogs also paste it on your sidebar.

e.g.

b) Twitter: If you use twitter,there are many plugins available on net which integerate twitter to your blogs.You can follow updates(tweets) or post a tweet.One such plugin is TwitterTools , You can embed the code in your sidebar(or whereever you want) and twitter comes on your site.

c) LinkedIn: Give a link to your LinkedIn profile.Use this simple code

CODE: <a href=”Your_Public_URL_Here“TARGET=”_blank”><img src=”http://www.linkedin.com/img/webpromo/btn_viewmy_160x33.gif” width=”160″ height=”33″ border=”0″ alt=”View YOUR_NAME_HERE‘s profile on LinkedIn”></a>

e.g.

By integerating all these into your site,people can easily access you and remeber you for coming back next time.It will also help in networking.All will come back as quality hits for your blog(site).

6) Create RSS feeds for Your Blog : Many Blogs give RSS feeds url for your blog in advance.If you see   or similar icon in your blog hopefull it has a RSS feed in place.If you dont have it(or even if you have it) go to Feedburner(Google) and create a feed URL for your Site and enjoy.Visit the Feedburner site for all the details.

You can also add feeds of famous sites and blogs in your webpage using installed RSS readers(or install it).On my blog there are two feeds running one for Irrational Ayush ‘s Blog and other for Marketing Practice. You can add news,sports and waht not through feeds right into your page.

Also add a Google Reader Button(trust me it helps).

7) Market your blog well :Dont hesitate in telling about your blog to your friends and other people.Keep your google talk as status as the link for your blog(trust me it helps).

Update your twitter and Facebook accounts with the feeds from your blog.But again remember DOnt overdo it.It can lead to people getting irritated from you.

As i wrote before before writing a new Post think about the Target Group in advance,A little thought process can lead to difference of 100′s of hits.Thats the beauty of Marketing.

Think innovative ways to market your blog.

8 ) Give a way to people to share your blog and articles : Give a way to the visitors to share your story to the world(the cascading effect).The visitors should be able to share your blog through Digg , StumbleUpon ,Twitter and Delicious etc.

The easiest way to do it is to add a AddThis button .

A simple Digg Button with number of Diggs can also be added through this simple code placed in your site

CODE : <script src=”http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

Also for wordpress user a plugin named Sociable is available.You can use it.I am using it currently.

9 ) Comments are very important Dont Ignore them:If Possible Explicitely ask for comments.Whenever you visit other blogs,leave comments with your reference and your website’s URL for sure(dont forget it,all this fuss is for getting hits dude!).Its a fact that if more people comment on your blogs,more better rank it reaches in indexing.

10) Ads : Here comes the point which many have in their mind when they even think of buying a URL,How do i earn money?I have kept it right in the end of my blog because Money has to come as a byproduct of the blog .If your blog is good and popular money would automatically flow.

There are many websites which offer ads on your blog free of cost.You get money for clicks on ads placed on your site.

a) Google Adsense : Google Adsense is the most popular and well known Ad Engine.I need explain its importance for a blogger.Google Adsense is the best advertising platform on web.It can take time for a new blogger to get approved by Google.But if you are a legitimate blogger,you will easily get through in max 5 6 months.

b) Adbrite : This is the second best Ad system.This is one stop solution.It gives you text ads,banner ads,full page ads and inline ads.You can earn some good money through it.Go to Adbrite.com and get going.For results check out Ads on my sidebar and top of the page.

c ) Kontera In Line Ads: This is the Ad Engine only for inline ads.Kontera offers in line word Ads.I cant tell more details about the ads(against my commitments to Kontera).Visit the site to know more.Its simple to implement.Just insert code in your site and its done.You will start recieving ads within 24 Hrs.

d) Infolinks Text Ads : This is very similar to Kontera.

There are many other plugins and ways to make yourself known and popular as Bloggist and for networking.I have covered what all i know and have implemented my self on my blog.

If anyone needs a domain and hosting space just give your reference in Comments below.

Any Query or help just mail me or talk to me on the Chat window on the sidebar.

Comments Please

© 2009 – 2010, TMSBee. All rights reserved.