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Bhopu / Archives /
August 2007
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Posted On
Aug 30, 2007
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Social Networking and Visibility
Just imagine being able to find a mutual contact you never knew existed who might be able to introduce you to a sales prospect, sounds like finding needle in a haystack, isn’t it.
With all that’s going on with social networking these days, we’re seeing a lot of figures leverage the popularity of social networks to gain visibility for them. We’ve seen it a lot with musicians, films, and especially politicians, who recognize the potential of reaching out to the people.
Sites like MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook are just a few of the popular social networks out there that are visited by millions of people daily. They are some of the most popular sites on the web, which is why people and companies use them to help brand themselves.
Advertising and Social Networking
As we all know that teens and young adults have always been popular targets for interactive marketers. In the past they looked to IM and email marketing to connect with the demographic, but it’s not an easy task with social networking sites, as their users require an entirely different understanding.
Social networks have been a new way to connect with friends and family. For marketers, these sites open up a whole new world of advertising opportunities. Completely based on and around communication SN are very effective at engaging consumers and offer them interactive initiatives as contests, quizzes, games, and branded content.
Today social networking websites appear to be a very promising place to advertise on. But are they aware of it?
Are Social Networking sites caving advertisements?
It is clear that users are not willing to pay for social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster. If any of these sites started charging they would be replaced with a free option. That leaves advertising as the only business model.
There are a number of social networking sites that are still ignorant to their full potential as advertising media, experts report.
They are only beginning to realize how to monetize their services, they know that if they include few offerings, it can help them generate a sum of money in proportion to the media attention they receive. They might eventually translate their popularity in revenues, but as of now, they are not.
However, if you ask me, I don’t think social networking sites will be or can be a hub for advertisers. One big issue with these sites is the business model. They have a completely different genre of users. Their users are people interacting with friends and family or their to find a date. It is less likely for them to check the adverts.
And this leaves the advertisers with less opportunity to come in contact with users.
My suggestion to Social networking sites?
As we all know that no social networking site can guarantee a brand safe environment. Advertisers do not want to see their ads displayed alongside illicit content. The dilemma for social networks is that, if they start to control what content users can post, they will lose the popularity that attracted advertisers in the first place. Realizing the fact that only advertising scales well enough to make social networks interesting for portals and major media companies. They should try and work on the same.
However, this takes nothing away from social networks and their amazing traffic. The fact is social networking can be bust for advertisers today. We've seen this before with chat rooms, message boards, and email clients. They are amazing for traffic, and they are not appropriate for advertising.
If social networks are going to work for marketers they are going to have to nuke the current model for advertising and do something much more creative.
I will be glad if the social networking sites don’t compromise on their basic models to attract more advertisers, as they can do best without them.
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Posted On
Aug 29, 2007
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Skype took Internet Communication ahead
As the world’s largest Internet communication community, Skype has been giving its users the ability to set their conversations free at home, at work and on the move. It is developed its ecosystem of more than 50 hardware partners and more than 150 Skype-certified devices to broaden the appeal of Skype to a wider base of users who want to use Skype away from the PC, no matter where they happen to be.
Why did Ebay purchase Skype?
Ebay buying Skype has been a bold move for a company, that from last so many years was just revolving around its e-commerce knitting services. Although It was not very easy to draw parallels between the Skype acquisition and eBay’s purchase of PayPal, buying Skype is clearly a big departure from eBay’s previous expansions, all related to e-commerce in one way or another.
 Ebay might try to use Skype to expand its moves into new markets, such as new cars, travel, real estate, and personal and business services. Those markets already are accustomed to both paying for leads and talking directly to customers throughout the purchase process. Indeed, this new business model would be ideal for some of eBay’s new forays, such as its recent purchase of the shopping comparison site Shopping.com.
There is no denying that eBay and Skype do share some similarities despite inhabiting entirely different markets. Mainly, they both share the coveted quality of becoming more valuable the more members they have. Indeed, along with PayPal, which had the same characteristics, this would be eBay’s third business that has grown from these so-called network effects.
Is Skype turning into a mere telephone service now?
In my perspective its just about the importance of human voice communication. For a very long time people have failed to understand the significance of Internet in their lives and conversations.
We all know that Skype cannot be used for emergency calling. It cannot be used the same way as a telephone. It basically depends more on the Internet and all the occasional frailties that brings. But for many of us it has become a fundamental means of voice communications. In our minds it became inseparable from phone service. Not in fact, but in our perception which, of course, equals reality. If you are Skype, that is a strong position to hold. –A remarkable position to hold considering what it is built on.
Even more remarkably many who are not users of Skype speak of it as a phone service. Maybe that is because it is easy to talk about that way, but now we have not only a strong user community, but a much larger community that accepts Skype, not for what it is, but what we think it is. The criticism of Skype’s handling of the “service outage” seems in some part a result of Skype/eBay not knowing how to handle the role they had assumed.
There are plenty of lessons to go around here, an expert field day for sure. When it is all said and done, remember that Skype, and other similar services, are not the phone company. Internet communications offers more than any phone connection—and it also offers less. Let’s now enjoy each for what it is.
What does the future hold for Skype?
While most of the collaboration industries knows Skype voice quality, ease of use and unbeatable price (it's free), few have been paying close attention to the deeper revolution that Skype heralds, and the major transformations it is giving way too when it comes to disruptive, free, real-time communication.
Whichever way you want to look at this, it is hard to see how traditional telephone companies are going to counter Skype's incredible disruptive power as it already allows me to talk in real-time with anyone around the world on independently of the type of computers used while offering very cost-effective paid access to any land line and mobile number in the world.
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Posted On
Aug 29, 2007
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Have you ever wasted hours digging around the Internet looking for good content, till you find a rainbow in the end, you might want to look at something called Digg (Digg.com) It’s a site that helps you avoid the process of digging and instead get exactly what others have dug up so you can see some of the great sites/stories/things out there on the Internet.
Digg brings in the value of collective intelligence and community to Internet. In a way that it not only brings value to its users, but also to a number of businesses that have the ability to take advantage.
The company has also been expanding its personalization and social networking features. Digg users can now customize their site views based upon their interests and keep closer track of their friends' activities.
Digg gets a new look
After much behind the scenes fanfare, Digg has finally unveiled its revamped homepage.
The biggest change with the new look is the inclusion of video on the front page. Up until now, the videos were hidden off in their own section, so you'd only find funny/weird/interesting movies if you went looking for them. And really, where's the fun in that?
But now videos have a chance of showing up on the front page just like every other article submitted to Digg. Last time I checked, there was only one video on the front page, although there were plenty of other videos with a higher number of diggs. So it's not clear how it's determined whether a video will make the front page.
In addition, the site is attempting to capitalize on the longevity of a popular news piece, video, or podcast. While a traditional Digg page has pushed recently-voted (or "dugg") stories to the top of the front page, the site has added a "top ten" section to recognize stories that are still attracting attention, even though the initial appeal has worn off.
Other changes include tweaks to page and story summary layouts, streamlined navigation, and more customization options.
I think the new color combination, especially around the header, is delicate and appealing. I also liked the functional changes like:
- Videos back on the homepage.
- Videos in Top 10 feed (and other filters)
- Navigation and backend changes to support Digg Images
- ‘Friends Activity’ global on header-
- More stories above the fold
Will this new look make any difference to the Digg’s business?
Certainly, it will. With the new fluid design and a brand new video section, Digg has undoubtedly made some news.
Over the past few months Digg’s internal ranking system has been a source for a lot of interest and publicity. The front page carried a lot of interest as some top diggers dominated it.
Dig has really gone big making the marketers realize the potential the site carries. Marketers are now approaching people who have a better chance of influencing front-page stories and are huge money to influence these submissions. And there is no doubt digg will score here.
The new interface is the discovery of the most popular sites and top ranked stories. Digg will further increase the userbase as users who produces any sort of video online know that digg.com is an excellent way to promote it and create a huge viral effect and with the new dedicated video section Digg is an even more essential marketing tool.
Future
One of the great things about Digg is its simplicity. People submit stories and digg what they like to the front page. Since late 2004, this concept has taken Digg from being a small online website into an online giant that is still just beginning to take hold with the masses. As we notice Digg's progression from version to version, we hope that version 4 will probably have more social and community oriented features then previous versions.
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Posted On
Aug 29, 2007
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We all know how uneasy it can get transferring files between computers to a disk or CDR. Most computers these days have some kind of Internet connection and store their work in the personal disk drive. But as time passed technology took off and evolved online file storage system. Now users can expect a simple service where files can be easily uploaded and downloaded from a disk drive or a simple web based interface.
How can online file storage simplify management?
We cant deny that in this traditional infrastructure, data has to be fairly close to users. This became all the more difficult as the business became global. It's not uncommon, for instance, for work groups to span the world, with people on multiple continents collaborating on a project. However, the need to access data 24 hrs can be a problem with the companies. Online file storage system eliminates this issue. A long as the data is residing on a file storage site, users can access it from anywhere and everywhere.
Sometimes referred as “file hosting” file storage is often though of as a leased hard drive space. Web servers, after all, are nothing more than enormous hard drives filled with files. And many companies have found a revenue stream in partitioning off chunks of those hard drives and renting access to those chunks.
What makes online file storage so useful is the convenience. Virtually all commercial file hosting services use a Web-based interface, so you can upload and download programs right in your browser. Don’t have a floppy? Upload the files to your leased hard drive space through your browser, head home, and then download them onto your home computer.
How to choose your file storage application?
Pricing
Today some companies carry very aggressive pricing. But as the competition increases it will drive out these companies out of the market, as the price is likely to settle down a little.
The obvious way to look out for a perfect application is to check If they offer a unlimited storage for a normal sum. The cost should be covered only via one time sign up fee and through charges on download bandwidth. Once you need the files, you don’t mind paying to get them.
Application
As the amount of unprotected but hugely important media content out there on hard drives (music, movies, home movies, pictures), is growing every day. Look for a online storage that is packed with new computers and applications like Windows. All initial software would be auto stored, and users would have the option to continuously syncronize their hard drive with the virtual drive.
Site Reliability
This is the most important area, not to be overlooked while you pick your file storage application. Make sure that the site should have a built in method that allows access of files anywhere and everywhere. There are lot of sites I have come across that doesn’t allow the user to log in from different locations. If you’re concerned about security and use Windows, the NTFS (New technology file system) file system is faster and more efficient at storing data. Security in NTFS is based upon the key concept of assigning certain rights to specific users or groups of users.
Web 2.0 Features
Pick file storage sites that are the new players today and are more focused on key web 2.0 features. There are some best that have multiple folders (private, shared, group, public), RSS feeds for each folder, etc. There are websites that includes features that allow subscriptions for RSS enclosures (such as podcasts), so that those files are stored in the cloud instead of your hard drive.
Where is Online File Storage system heading?
Very soon offline storage will extinct for most of the Internet users. The cost and availability of network bandwidth, the cost of the “people” side of tape storage and handling, disk cost declines, multi-site DR, data de-duplication and many more factors will drive this change. It will be enough to say I think this one is happening now and will accelerate going into next year. Sure it will still take time to change but, just because it is a long trip, it doesn’t mean we don’t know where we are headed.
With the technology and power costs/limitations of moving to higher performance drives, I believe that we will achieve performance more effectively.
And at last as the concept of Web 2.0 moves ahead, the information will be separated from application.
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