Mexico Fighting A Bloody Battle With Drug Mafia Via Social Media!

Social media has helped the masses to enforce regime change (Like in Middle East), fuel anti corruption movement (Like in India) and is now being used in Mexico to take on the warlords of drug mafia. Only, this time the battle is becoming bloodier. Due to the information shared on social networking sites, the drug lords are getting caught, their profits are getting affected and in retaliation they are on a gruesome killing spree.

As per NYT reports, many people were shocked on tuesday morning when they saw two dead bodies hanging from a pedestrian bridge in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, along with a message. The message was - This will happen to those who share information about us on internet forums or elsewhere. Those who were dead were anti drug activists, spreading their messages via social media and bore the burnt of the drug mafia's ire. They were mercilessly killed and their bodies were hanged in full public glare.

If the drug mafia thought this would spread panic and desist Mexicans from speaking against them, they were highly mistaken. In the past, the Drug cartels, used to be successful in enforcing information blackouts by intimidating local level police and reporters, however with the advent of social media they are at their wits end, as, it is near impossible to control spread of information, unless they force an internet blackout.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/knightfoundation/

These days, Mexican students, teachers and journalists are creating awareness campaign among the citizens (of course via twitter, FB etc.) about 

• How to counter drug cartels 
• How to say no to protection fees 
• What to do when an extortion call is made? Etc.

Information like helpline numbers, which routes to avoid, how to report a suspect, what do to when in a crisis etc. is being shared like never before. This is creating uneasiness for Mexican drug mafia agents.

Quite understandably , the battle will be long, but every uprising needs a beginning. Social media is providing that deck for brainstorming of new ideas and is no doubt fuelling the desire of bringing a change.

Such activism strengthens my belief that Social media isn’t just for fun it is about bringing a change, it is about, what we as human race wants. Social media gives the power to every segment of the society to voice out their issues, opinions and help in initiating a change. A change which is required to create this world a better place to live in. Kudos to all those who use social media as a tools of revolution.

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New Delicious Looks Stunningly Beautiful But is Painfully Slow :(

Last year, after several days of dilly dallying, Yahoo! finally sold the social bookmarking site - Delicious to YouTube co founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Since, these two names carry a big reputation on their shoulders, moreover, Delicious too has its sizable fan following , the marriage of these two was expected to produce explosive results.

However, what we se now is something which is short on expectations. By the looks of it - it looks great, by ease of signing up etc. - it works like a charm, but just like any start up would have teething troubles, Delicious too is painfully slow at the moment.

Gigaom recently raised this question Would the NEW Delicious be able to solve the problem of Information Discovery? It seems the current focus is on making it user friendly and nothing path breaking in terms of information searchablity. Many experts are also asking - Will it be good enough to counter the likes of Digg, Reddit etc. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see an old war horse back in the battle filed studded with new armor. The million dollar question is - Will it good enough to win the battle?

When I tried to log into Delicious it got hanged twice :-( One possible reason could have be a sudden influx of visitors which could have choked its bandwidth. Nonetheless, I will give another try and keep you updated.

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Top 5 Reasons Why Your Website Isn’t Making Money Online?

Shoesmoney’s iconic photograph holding that big money cheque from Google Adsense, has motivated many a folks to start up their online ventures (usually blogs) in a hope to become the next millionaires. However, 99% fail. The reasons vary from - Lack of commitment, lack of hard work to lack of ideas .At the end of it, their dream run is crashed even before it gets started. I have advised in one of my earlier post that monetization of your website is important and advertisements can’t be the sole source of revenue. You need to have multiple revenue lines. However, out of those 99% online publishers who fail to make money, majority of them rely, only on advertisements and continue to fail.

Does that really mean you can’t earn decent money from advertisement alone?

You can, but it will take time and can be frustrating at times. For Most of the online publishers, the first choice of weapon, continues to remain - Google Adsense. However, the money earned by the beginners continues to remain significantly small because Google shares ad revenue in a slightly different manner. For big publishers, the share is more and for small publishers the share is less.

Source: http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/11/04/the-adsense-check-for-13299497/

So just because you are a small publisher, will you continue to earn peanuts? 

No there is more to the story. There are five other major factors because of which you are a noob at making money from your website. They are as follows:

1. You don’t produce high quality content on frequent basis – This means your websites doesn’t fulfill the first requirement of luring visitors to your site which to give them Fresh, Relevant and Interesting content at a Frequent Pace.

2. You don’t have quality backlinks – if less people link to you, then that becomes a testimony that not many people like, whatever you produce. Depute a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) who can artificially create a few backlinks and also develop a long term promotion strategy for your website.

** Above two factors are required to give you better ranking in Google, Bing etc. Higher Ranking brings more visitors on your site and more visitors means better probability of making money.

3. You are getting lots of Returning Visitors - Its great to have a loyal fan following however, most of the returning visitors turn to become Ad blind (as they get usedto to the ad spots) and refrain from clicking them. So, if you want more visitors to click on your ads, you need to develop strategy to attract a regular stream of New Visitors.

4. You are getting lots of traffic from social media and not from Search Engines - It has been observed that visitors or traffic generated via social media tend to click less on the ads as compared to those who come to your site while searching for a product/service via search engine. As they are in the “search mode” and continue to click on those links which may match their requirement, the possibility of them clicking on your ads becomes huge. Nonetheless, don’t shun your social media optimization strategy as you still need it to help you improve your ranking in the search engines.

Last but not the least – 

5. You are using more of image ads and less of text based ads - Text links ads look boring but they pay you more. Image ads looks attractive but they pay you less. Many studies have suggested that - Users tend to click on text links more than image based ads. 

Conclusion- Now that you have got some idea about - why your site isn’t making the kind of money your would have expected it to, start working on it. I don’t say something magical will happen soon, however, gradual improvement will improve your prospects of making money through your site. Wish you the very best and happy money making :-)

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How Can Any One Justify Using Duplicate Content As SEO Strategy? Outrageous!

The other night I had a long argument with someone who kept on justifying his strategy of using copied content for his blog. To say that I had an argument is wrong; to be honest I was outraged by his audacity of justifying his copied content posts on the pretext of sharing it with his readers.

His arguments were
• Google webmasters guidelines are for websites and not for BLOGS

His blog is only about republishing entire blog feeds of other blogs , citing them as source. Please note, not  even one original post.  Yet he says, it is not in violation of Google’s guideline

His stand was –
• He is merely sharing information with his readers (copy pasting others entire posts)
• If he would have violated any terms then Google would not have awarded him any Page Rank


Let’s analyze his blog as a case study which will help many of you, who think that such a tactic will help you make money and escape from Google wrath on duplicate content. Before we move further, lets be clear about this - Google webmasters guidelines are applicable to all the sites including blogs.

Now comes the dissection part :)

First  – All duplicate content and No original Post, will invite trouble

Google stand is - "Some webmasters attempt to improve their page's ranking and attract visitors by creating pages with many words but little or no authentic content. Google will take action against domains that try to rank more highly by just showing scraped or other auto-generated pages that don't add any value to users."
Source: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66361


Second - He is using someone else’s content for monetary gains
He monetizes his blogs via adsense and some affiliate program too.
He usually copies posts from Engadget (an Aol Group blog) and Aol clearly says - Their content can only be used for personal, noncommercial, and informational purposes. They may not be posted or distributed. He is clearly violating their norms too.
Source: http://legal.aol.com/copyright-permission/

Third – Google’s PR is fickle and cant be used as Google’s endorsement of your strategy
To say that Google has awarded him any PR and that is proof enough that it is not in violation of Google's stand is an outragrous comment. Google‘s policy on duplicate content remains intact - "There are some penalties that are related to the idea of having the same content as another site—for example, if you're scraping content from other sites and republishing it, or if you republish content without adding any additional value, in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic."

For more clarification, Read the following links
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66359
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html

He also claimed that only the original site owners can make claim to Google and not others.
Please be clear any one can report any malicious activity on any site to Google via filing a DMCA request
Here is the link : http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=ts.cs&ts=1114905

The sole intention of this post, is to clear some of the misconceptions which many people have and not to target some one (had it been the case I would have disclosed the url, reported it to google etc). Many bloggers think they can outsmart Google by finding loop holes within its system. However in our bid to interpret Google’s policies, we try to understand it the way it suits us and not the way it has been stated.

If you wish to attract traffic and want to rank high in search engine

• Use original and high quality fresh content
• Keep on building backlinks in an ethical manner.
• Have a strong social presence.
• Optimize your site well


Please doesn’t use duplicate content unless you are citing it as some reference
Please understand using Duplicate content will NOT work and can only get your site penalized in the search engines. The next panda update is for scrappers and such content violators, now don’t say that you were not warned ;-)

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Facebook To Offer $10 Million Of Free Advertisement To Small Businesses In America

In its bid to build a positive image around its brand, Facebook has announced to provide tools, resources and up to $10 million in Facebook Ad to help small U.S. businesses in association with U.S. Chamber of Commerce . The joint effort is designed to help small businesses acquire and retain customers, build a community around their business, and reach new customers among Facebook's 800 million users.

Following is an extract from their joint press release :

"In the U.S., small businesses employ more than half of all private sector workers and have generated more than 64% of new jobs over the past 15 years, making them a critical component of the economy. Facebook has emerged as an important marketing tool for these businesses with more than half of the 800 million people active on Facebook making a connection to a small business. The result is more than 700 millions connections between customers and potential customers to local businesses. That's why Facebook, NFIB and U.S. Chamber are combining resources, expertise and reach to help small businesses use social media to grow."

We all know US economy is in shambles and corporates are expected to make some generous announcements to help the law makers put the economy back on track. $10million is no doubt a small amount to pull back a failing economy, however, what is more important is the intent, which seems to garner goodwill for Facebook and help the nation when it needs you the most. So where is the next round of announcement coming from? Did some one say Google ;-)

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Data Never Lies and Theft Never Dies: Stealing Data Continues To Remain Favorite Business Strategy ;-)

It’s not the case of ignorance. It’s not the case of negligence. It’s the case of sheer disrespect for one’s Intellectual Privacy Rights (IPR). Those who steal data as a strategy in their bid to save, time and cost, usually end up paying more.

The first time such a case was reported was when JustDial sued Network 18’s Askme.in and got restraining orders from the court. Quite surprisingly, this time again, the defaulter is from network18’s family , a star performer – Burrp.com. Zomato has accused them of stealing data from their site.

Both the sites compete in the similar niche of providing information and user’s reviews in the food and lifestyle segment and no wonder Data is of prime importance to both. This is where the battle lines have been drawn. Zomato is claiming that burrp has copy pasted their data under the pretext of user generated content whereas, Burrp says it need not resort to such tactics as it already has far big data information pool as compared to zomato.

Now claims and counter claims will continue for the next few days. The main question is- why can’t we follow ethical business practices. Is it too tough to remain profitable by staying ethical that one has to compromise and indulge in shady practices. Its not just happening in India. Its happening even at the highest level. In the recent past, Google too accused Bing of copying its search results.

Another big question that comes to my mind is – can the data which is available in the public domain be protected under any IPR? What ask.in or burrp did was copying without brains however, there might be many other companies following a similar practice and not getting caught. The real question remains- how can one claim the ownership of a publicly available data.

As always looking to your inputs :)

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What Is The Basic Difference Between Adsense And Adwords?

This is a "back to the basics" post. I was discussing with an old client of mine about the use of Adwords to promote her site and all of a sudden she got confused between Adwords and Adsense. I presume there must be many beginners who may have similar confusion about the two terms and this post is my humble attempt to simplify the same.

Adwords is Google’s product which helps you advertise your site in its sponsored results section, either on its search result page or on Google’s publisher’s network. Google’s sponsored results appear usually on the right hand side on its result page and sometimes above the organic results too.

In easy terms, Google Adwords gives you an opportunity to appear as Google’s sponsored results, after you have choosen to “Pay Money” to Google for running your ads.

On the other hand, Adsense helps you to “Earn Money”. It is that program, where in you get to place Google sponsored results via some code and as and when they are clicked by your visitors, you get paid.

In short, In Adwords you PAY money to Google to advertise your site on it and In Adsense you Earn money from Google for showing its’ ads.

So which one should I use?

Either of them or both depending on your requirement.

• If you wish to Advertise about your site on Google and its network of publishers, go for – Adwords
• If you wish to make money from your site , go for Adsense. Once approved, you can create customized ads of various sizes and place them on your site. As and when, your visitors click on them, you get paid.

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Facebook – You Are Now Too Complicated! Why Couldn’t You Keep It Simple, Dammit?

When anyone meets me on facebook, usually, the first thing they ask me is – why my relationship status says , complicated? I counter this by saying that single was looking a tad boring so I picked up , complicated. Usually, that ends the story. Even through it’s not the correct answer, but that satisfies the curiosity bug of inquisitive souls and keeps my privacy intact. The point that I am trying to drive across is most of the times, we should learn to keep things simple as most people don’t understand the complexities ;- )

In all probability developers at Facebook don’t understand or appreciate the KISS (keep it simple stupid) concept and have hence, landed themselves in a self made mini crisis. There is no dearth of news reports claiming that most of the Facebook users are angry and upset with the current stream of changes. As reported earlier, Facebook has brought in a flurry of updates and most of them haven’t got the kind of acceptability or appreciation its developers would have desired.

Social Media pundits unanimously agree that in its bid to counter Google+, Facebook is committing a major fundamental error. What it has overlooked is, most of its users are noobs, non techie crowd and the changes are focused on the techie elite. So while, the geeks may rejoice, the noobs will fret.They want their old Facebook back and they want it soon.

The major sentiment among all the users is -they just want to get rid of goddamn news ticker or the news feed, which at times is irrelevant and often intrusive. The message is loud and clear, they just want to surf it, the way they want and not the way facebook wants them to.

We all know that human beings as a race are averse to changes . However, not every time such a resistance is unreasonable. When people take a stand, many a times there is strong emotional or logical aspect behind it. If a brand fails to realize it , then it is destined to be doomed.

Facebook isn’t known for roll backs. Even, In the midst of huge user unrest, it is highly unlikely that it will go back on its design. But the question every social media strategist asking, is - if your users aren’t happy with the changes then what good are they for? As always looking forward to hear from you in the comments below ;-)

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Does The Future Of Daily Deals Websites Lies In Getting Engaged With Classifieds Portals?

Recently, I had an informal conversation with one of the top guns of Getit.in which eventually led to an interesting observation.

First let me give you a brief about Getit. They pioneered the concept of yellow pages in India and has expanded its verticals to mobile media, classifieds media etc. My “oh, why no one ever thought about this before” moment came when he told me about freeads.in

Freeads.in is a classifieds portal and operates in a highly competitive segment. OLX and Quikr have invested heavily into TV commercials and as a side note, Justdial too has roped in Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachhan as its brand ambassador

Now what freeads has done inorder to differentiate it from the crowd, it has added a hotdeals section, which works on a similar concept of discount deal websites. In my humble opinion, this could be a brilliant idea. Marriage of classifieds sites with discount deal portals makes huge business sense. In the days we may see similar arrangement between the likes of Snapdeals and OLXs.

In one of my previous post, I made a passionate argument that the discount deal concept will not work in India and moreover it has become too crowded to drive profits. After watching what freeads.in has done, I am willing to stick my neck out and say - the future belongs to those sites which can get into any relationship of convenience with the classifieds portals or even business forums/social networks etc. The point is - to be present “where” and “when” your customer is searching for “you” gives a sure shot recipe to success.

Let’s see, how the daily deal market evolves and as the market saturates, how many are left - battered and bruised. My take is more than 90% of such ventures will struggle, unless they think anything path breaking to improve their reach.

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4 Most Important Factors of Successful Blogging!

It was around 6 pm IST when I started observing a certain spike in traffic on my blog. When I tried to figure out the source, I found out that It was coming from bloggers.com when I went to that site, to my surprise saw that my blog has been featured for the day.  I immediately checked my email and saw an email from them informing me about the same. 

Soon after , what followed was a stream of congratulatory messages from fellow bloggers and also some queries about the anatomy of a successful blog. That’s when I thought about writing this post. Without wasting your time about the trivia, let me take the bull by the horns and give you the 4 most important factors required for any blog to succeed. They are as follows

1. Content Creation
2. Content Distribution
3. Monetization
4. Periodic Review

Lets discuss them one by one ;-)

1. Content Creation

The most important of all. All of us know about the importance of creating quality content however few of know how to do it. The key to create quality content is - any thing readable, interesting, satiate the knowledge thirst of your readers and if possible make it rich in your targeted keywords.

Many SEO thought leaders have over emphasizes the use of keyword in your content. I beg to differ from them and my small advice is don’t sacrifice the quality of an article for a keyword. If you think a headline minus your keyword appears to be far more interesting or effective, just leave it as it is. Don’t try to stuff your keywords either in your content copy or headline just for the sake of SEO, do it only if it fits seamlessly.

2. Content Distribution

Now comes the next part. Now you need to figure out where  and how to spread your blogs.

• First go and claim it from blog directories like technorati, bloggers.com. ontoplist, networkblogs etc.
• Then, create your social media presence on all the major social media portals (facebook, twitter, linkedin etc. ) and increase your fans/followers/friends.
• Adopt the similar approach for  social bookmarking sites like (Digg, Delicous and so on)
• Actively  participate in your niche related blogs, forums and social groups.

3. Monetization 

Money is the root of all evils but anyhow we need it to pay our bills ;) if you are taking blogging as your fulltime profession then, you need to monetize it to make a living out of it. How to do that?

• Sell a service- I sell website promotion service. You can choose to sell anything you are good at and ask a reasonable price.
• Sell a Product – many use affiliate marketing or sell their in house books or course
• Sell an advertisement spot on your site- lure advertiser to directly advertise on your site
• Sign up ad networks and share the profits- use adsense, or chitika or adbrite and so on.

Monetization is sometimes the most frustrating part of blogging but once its gets working you will get the satisfaction of your life ;-)

4. Periodic Review

Last and the most important part. You need to periodically review your strategy of content creation, distribution and monetization. A periodic review will help you figure what is working and what is not. Tools like Google analytics, Getclicky will assist in deciding your future course of action

Conclusion

So, what I gave you above was a broad roadmap of what any upcoming blogger can use to create a successful blog. Hope you have found it useful. As usual looking forward to your comments and suggestion.

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Facebook All Set To Deliver Deadly Blows To Google Plus - But Is It Hurting Itself In The Process?

These days when you log in to facebook do you feel a bit uncomfortable? Well you are not the only one :-) Many users are complaining  about the current changes. It seems like our old simpleton facebook has been lost somewhere. Facebook in its efforts to counter the growing surge of Google plus has announced a flurry of changes, but forgot that users don’t accept such changes easily.

Many critics have slammed Facebook that it has lost the emotional connect with its users and many use it out of necessity (as their friends are there) and less out their desire to visit it. On the other hand Facebook admirers argue that even though it has got the maximum number of users, it still can't let its guard down and has to keep reinventing itself to remain ahead in this highly competitive segment.

Let’s try and see what has changed? In all there have been three major changes -

1. The friend list has been revamped
2. Addition of subscription button
3. The news ticker

The friend list has been revamped to counter google+ circle’s concept. So if you wish to share any update only with close friends or a particular list it will remain with them and if you choose the option – public and then it will be shared with all.

Subscription is simple, it is like you can follow the public updates of anyone without having to add them as friends. It’s the same old twitter concept which Google plus too has put to use.

The news ticker box on the top most right side, gives you a real-time news feed of what are your friends doing and so on.

In addition to it, Facebook is also planning to announce the big daddy of all changes facebook music. Techcrunch reported, one of the exciting feature -  you can listen to the same song  what your friend is listening to - LIVE. Now that will be an incredible feature which will increase its interface’s addictiveness. If facebook ever wanted to counter Google+ hangout with any other killer feature, then it has got to be this one.

Coming back to users disgust. Many users are not happy with the changes and they want their old interface back. You don’t need rocket science to understand that human beings are repulsive to change. Moreover changing online usage pattern is a risky affair. Google+ is trying hard to do it, (in its bid to move users from facebook to its platform) however has found little success in that.

Many online companies including Digg.com lost significant traffic after their design restructuring . A preferable way out is -  you can give an option to the users to opt in and not impose a change or better do it - the twitter way, let the change settle down before making it mandatory for all. Nevertheless, as said before, no matter how much u dislike Facebook or find its new changes irritating, you and me  will continue to use it because our  friends are there. That’s the power of 750 million users with 50% active base. Can anyone beat that?

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Can Google Adsense Really Make You a Millionaire?

Recently, there was an article in economic times recently which caught the imagination of many upcoming bloggers. It talked about how a number of folks are using Google Adsense and are raking in millions just by writing blogs.

Since that day, whenever I get online on gmail chat etc. I am flooded with queries from budding bloggers if this is really possible and is yes then how to go about  it?Finally I decided to write a blog post that clears some of the doubts of these curious souls  and help them a get a clear picture

The first and most common question asked is - 
Can I really make money from blogs?
The answer is short and simple -YES. Decent enough to quit your day time job and take it as full time profession which pays your bills and loans ;)

The next most amusing question I am asked is - 
How much time will it take me to touch a million?
My reply to this one is - The more you think about it,  the longer it will take. Oh, Jesus, we are talking about million here and not any trivial amount!! Please be patient, stop wasting your time thinking about it and start working on it.

A usual extension to the previous questions is a creepy doubt –  Is it really possible to make a million just by blogging?
Yes. But for that, make blogging your full time profession.  You need to work like an ass (read every hard) and eat, drink and sleep your blog posts only. Point is be ready to work very very hard, only then you can touch that magical million figure.


Keep producing high quality content, keep building high quality backlinks and you will on your road to success. But remember, what I just said is easier said than done. Its damn tough.
Remember, Only the top 5% of the blogosphere earns it and they have others sources of revenue in addition to advertisements.

Then comes the expected disappointment
Work very hard, Uh ho.. so how you want me to start?

• Read a lot
• Book a domain name
• For hosting , either go for self hosted solution like blogger or go for paid ones
• Develop a strategy to create content
• Develop a strategy to create backlinks
• Develop a strategy to monetize it.

So , to all the budding bloggers, all the best and wish you happy money making from your blogs.If you have any queries feel free to ask it in the comments below.

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Five Top Reasons Why People Love to Chat on Facebook

No matter how much you hate the new design of facebook chat, it continues to remain one of the favorite features,  used by most  of its users across the globe. There is something about facebook chat, which makes it addictive and no wonder millions are hooked on to it, on a daily basis. If you are among those who do not know what to do with it or how to use it or why you should even use FB chat , here are the top five reasons why people love it and why you will fall in love too!

1. To Stay in touch with Friends, Office Colleagues  or College Peers

Let’s accept in the daily chores of taking care of our official “job responsibilities ” we are not able to catch up with our friends and colleagues. Facebook chat offers a nice and private way to get latest updates on inside gossip or rumor and helps you clear the air too. Did someone say, they can use it to plan the interviews schedules  too ;-)  Well, it entirely depends on you, to  derive the maximum mileage out of your private chat!

2. To promote your Business

Yes, however, first build your relationship with your  prospect. Don’t straight away bombard him with all your information. I recently had this very irritating experience where in someone who was dealing in some  MLM (multi-level-marketing) program , simply copy pasted his sales pitch into the chat box. The next thing I did was to unfriend him and block him forever.

Another breed that I come across is – Please like my page. Yes, even before you say anything, they will simply paste the url and ask you to like it along with thanks. Guys, it understandable that we all need more likes on our page but please don’t sound desperate. At least , be courteous enough to ask if the person you are talking to will be interested in doing that.

One of the creative alternative, one of my friend offers is , when he asks others to like his page, he gives them a backlink from  his PR-2 Blog free. Nice thinking, no wonder his likes are jumping like anything.

3. To Flirt – Dating

Yeah… this is one thing which many of us have indulged in but would not accept it in public domain. When they see decent looking profile online, they start with their often tried yet unsuccessful pitch- are you single, looking to mingle etc. etc.. Guys, again, try to know the person and please remain courteous. Once you see any positive signs from your prospect, only  then you get the license to get a bit naughty, but please remain within your limits and please don’t stalk that person if he /she doesn’t show any interest in your conversation.

4. To make new friends

 We all try to make friends, build contacts. We are specially inclined towards  those person, who are high up in the social pecking order or someone who has a considerable fan following. You can for sure, initiate interaction with that person, however,  if you are really keen to make a long term contact, see what you have to offer them  in terms of professional services, contacts etc. before you expect any kind of favors from them.

5. To discuss about any anything under the sun

Yes, there are million of active profiles on facebook which gives us the privilege to talk to any stranger  for hours provided we share any topic of common interest which could be either politics, religion or sports. The idea is to build a conversation around a certain topic and from there on build a relation.

Conclusion

 Facebook or for that matter any other social networking site gives ample opportunities to make new contact, re build old ones and promote your services or business. The key is - first find the right person, then the right approach -  which is to build a relationship, before you pitch your product/ service or any other legitimate request ;-)

Looking forward to your comments below and if you like it, share this post :)

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Does Google Abuses Its Dominance In Search?

Recent reports confirm that European Union regulators are investigating whether Google abuses its dominance in search engine in its own favor and tries to kill off the competition. EU Competition Commissioner remarked "Google is the browser of choice for very many of us; but dominance is not the same as abuse of dominance. Abuse is a conduct that protects or extends dominance by illegitimate means, and we still have to conclude whether this is the case for Google?”


SEO Book recently came with a series of blog posts highlighting such a practice where in Google isn’t playing fair in SERPs (search engine result pages) and favors its own results over others. In a special post  titled Google Eats Their Organic Search Results, Aaron Wall highlighted how Google stuffs its own subsidiaries for various highly competitive keywords 

Aaron even mocked Google's Fair Play stand by adding  that – “If an SEO gets half of the search results (for anything other than his own brand) he is an overt spammer. If Google eats half of the search results with duplicating nepotism across their own house "brands" then it is legitimate.”


The uncomfortable questions that many internet marketers would like to know are

• Does Google really plays fair?
• If Google competes against rest of the web for highly competitive KW, then isn’t it possible that its algorithm gives it an edge over others?

Google would stick to its bureaucratic response, that, they are up for complete transparency however, the the proof of the matter lies in the pudding (i.e. SERPs) and that’s where it seems fishy. Eager to know your point of view on the same :)

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Beautiful Bing Continues To Improve Its Market Share!

As per the latest results publish by Experian hitwise, bing continues to chip away Google ‘s search market share - bit by bit. Google saw 1% decline in its market share since last month and the obvious beneficiary was Bing powered search and yahoo. In my personal capacity, I often wonder, who are those folks who search on yahoo, as in it delivers some of the most pathetic results and why would anyone continue to use it? Below is the search market share chart released by Hitwise.

I find Bing as a  beautiful and fast search engine (not a decision engine), as it isn’t  that effective while delivering quality results.  Nonetheless, its presence is important to keep Google on its toes and keep improving in the wake of competition.

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Does Social Media Sends Useless Traffic Resulting In High Bounce Rate?

The other day while I was busy sipping my all time favorite cappuccino with a friend of mine, he suddenly popped up a question - What good is social media traffic? 95% of the posts don’t go beyond few friendly clicks and the ones that make up to the first page (be it reddit or digg) don’t receive very stable traffic.  The first page posts do receive tons of visitors but they disappear even before you get notified about their arrival - resulting in a high bounce rate? In short why would one need such a crappy traffic?

He was right to a certain extent. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or Stumble upon (which is now one of the top most traffic referral source in US) can send a flurry of visitors (resulting in a huge spike of visitors) however, in the end what they leave you with is - a very high bounce rate.

Image source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/choconancy/

So does that really mean that whatever traffic you receive from social media sites is bullcrap?

No, not at all. Any traffic that you receive your way isn’t crap unless and until you don’t know how to utilize it. Going by the numbers, yes the conversions will be low , the leads will be low, however, that’s only when you study it in context of traffic received .When you see those numbers in isolation, that would still be the conversion you will go for at any given point of day.

For example: Let’s say one good high quality post which makes up to the first page on digg/reddit, receives 100,000 visitors in a day. Let’s assume, out which only 0.1% gets converted, that leaves you with 100 leads/conversion in a day. So, if you see 0.1 % conversion, it is way too low however if you look at 100 new subscribers or leads that is just too good a number to be ignored. Would you still call it useless, I wouldn't :)

Apart from conversion, traffic generated via social media can help you in many other ways

• It helps you improve your Alexa ranking significantly
• Increase your RSS subscriber base
• Improves your Technorati rank
• Gives you up to 8 times increase in traffic when the post is submitted and may eventually settle for 2-3 times

Another key point - Does social media traffic helps you in improving your keyword ranking?
 It’s a 50-50 chance. Google has off late started taking social signals into consideration to improve its search results, so if your post is tweeted a lot or shared a lot and then yes it does increases the probability of outsmarting your competitors  for that keyword

Conclusion : Social Media sites have the potential to send you a flurry of visitors which can help you acquire new customers and build your brand. So, Keep producing high quality content, keep increasing your social media network , be interactive, share useful posts  and walk you way to higher rankings in Google.

As always - Looking forward to your comments below and if you like it, kindly share this post with your friends:)

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Yahoo Could Be Up For Sale!! Is Microsoft Listening?

Yahoo’s Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz was fired on Tuesday (unceremoniously over the phone) and since then, rumor mills have started working overtime, claiming that, the giant itself could be up for immediate sale! Could that be true? If yes, then, that would be an end of an era and also an end to the agonizing pain its stake holders are currently going through :)

Yahoo has not much to appease the advertisers/visitors except from its path breaking email service and some content rich entities, however, its core appeal search is obsolete, out of date and doesn’t have many takers. The Microsoft deal has been largely unsatisfactory. Many key executives have already left and the burden of carrying an under-performing giant is getting too cumbersome. Industry experts insist, even though yahoo is on a down slide, it still remains a profitable entity. As of now, Microsoft appears to be the only suitable bidder for a giant like yahoo but then you never know, who may spring up a surprise?

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Can You Game Google By Manipulating Social Media Signals?

Social signals have begun to influence search results the way page rank used to do in its early days. Though Google, always strive to give you the best of results for your search query - relevant + popular + fresh, it has now publicly stated that it will use social signals to give you more personalized and better performance. The Big question is - Can Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) manipulate them for improving the rankings of their website in Google or elsewhere?


What are Social Signals?

Social Signals are those recommendations or the votes which your friends make on social networking or social bookmarking sites by liking or sharing your post. The more a post is liked  or shared or commented upon, the stronger that signal becomes, which later on leverages its weight in the search engine results.

Popular social signals  comes from

• Google +1
• Facebook Like + share
• LinkedIn Share
• Twitter Retweets

Many experts have echoed this opinion that – if your website link is being retweeted, liked, and or shared or +1ed, Google (and to some extent Bing ) will surely take these recommendations into count while delivering  SERPs.

However many SEOs are guilty of trying to game these signals in their effort to improve their keyword rankings. Few easy way outs are  -

• Ask their loyal friends and followers to do it (like it or retweet it or share it) irrespective of the fact if they like it or not
• Actively participate in online groups/ communities made solely for this purpose  where in people can post their fanpage like request
• Ask agencies to it for a certain amount of money. They charge for a certain number of followers/likes/fans and so on

What they don’t understand it Google isn’t so naïve that it wouldn't be able to identify a pattern in the same. In order to resolve this Google has moved a step further. It just doesn’t count the basic stats like number of likes or retweets , it tries to see end user engagement. It tries to see if a use interacts with your site or your social  entity like group or fanpage etc beyond a like.

E.g. if your fan page is regularly frequented or  if there is flurry of comments on your post then it gives a more strong and genuine signal as compared to  a mere like  which can be easily acquired. Moreover just as backlinks when acquired in huge numbers arouse suspicion, the same suspicion arises when a brand sees a huge influx of likes or shares. Google and other search engines  gets easily alarmed with such activities and take their due course of time to study if the activity was natural only then the benefit is passed on otherwise  penalized all within the search engine result pages.

In short, instead of trying to game Google by gaining artificial social signals, search engine optimizers must  try to improve your visitors engagement , strive to produce link worthy content and have active and spontaneous social community mangers

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When Alibaba Met Scandal – B2B World was Rocked!

It was the third week of February 2011, when something fishy was observed in alibaba.com’s trusted client list which eventually turned out to be - one of the biggest scandals in the history of b2b portals. Reports suggested as many as 2,300 sellers registered on their site committed fraud to the tune of $6.6 million, sometimes with the help of Alibaba sales staff. 


Trust among the buyers and the sellers was blown away to pieces and Alibaba.com’s reputation took quite a beating. The ramifications were - CEOs were made to resign, an internal investigation was set up and many lower to middle level employees got fired.

At that point of time, I did a survey, at my company (to gauge the current mood of the B2B community) which unfortunately did not see the light of the day. However, it did throw some interesting observations which made us delve deep into the mind of those who deal in wholesale transactions across the globe.

The survey focused primarily on four points

1. Safety Concerns over online transaction.
2. User Satisfaction level  while dealing with a B2b Portal
3. Concern over verified users
4. Overall feel good factor

Below is the sneak peek about the observations from its executive summary

• Majority of the respondents were not unduly concerned about the safety issues over online transaction as most of them used b2b marketplaces for lead generation.
• User Satisfaction level while dealing with B2b Portals was considerably low
• Most of the respondents were not overtly concerned over verified users as most of them resorted to an inhouse double check from their end.
• Majority of the respondents were comfortable and happy with the concept of conducting business online, however remained unsatisfied with the results.

As I said before the survey report was never made public for reasons unknown, however it did give an insight into the then skeptical state of mind of the B2B marketers. The almost unanimous feeling among the respondents was that it high time for B2B portals to take a giant leap in their overall approach towards conducting business online. The warcry was - serious business generation for the clients and live up to their expectations as far as possible.

A lot of water had flown down the drain after that episode, however, I don’t think if Indian b2b portals have learnt any lessons from it. The clients continue to stay disappointed and unsatisfied with most of the portals and the portals continue to overcharge them for sub standard services. B2b is a huge business segment and holds lots of promise of revenue generation but sloppy services could spoil the game even for the serious players. The Big question is - would the Indian b2b portals need a similar crisis to wake up from their deep slumber?

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Is Twitter Destroying Careers Of Indian Politicians?

Politicians across the globe have a foot in the mouth disease and their Indian fraternity is not a pariah. The irresistible urge to speak on almost every topic   without caring about the ramifications is proving too costly for them. Recent example is Jammu and Kashmir’s Chief Minister – Omar Abdullah who tweeted his opinion about passing a resolution for accepting mercy petition of Afzal Guru (accused and sentenced by Indian courts for terrorist attack on Indian parliament.)

 
Omar Abdullah may have tweeted about the general perception prevailing in his state however the current hue and cry about his remarks being anti India could cost him his chair.


If we go a few months down the memory lane, Shashi Tharoor’s (ex Minister of State - External Affairs, India) had a habit of remaining in news, courtesy his controversial tweets.

No wonder, his career got sabotaged by a tweet too.  Lalit Modi (Indian cricket most extravagant face) tweeted about Shashi tharoor’s profit oriented stake in an Indian cricket club (Kochi tuskers) via his proxy and consequently both the bigwigs lost their jobs. Tharoor was forced to resign and a witch hunt got started for Modi, who is as last known - absconding.



Politicians in India are always advised not to air their personal point of views and just make diplomatically correct statements. Unfortunately, twitter gives an - irresistible outlet to voice out their opinion which is often not politically correct.

I guess our leaders desperately need some one who can mange their online reputations and social media   profiles and thus save them from the blues of being politically incorrect. Wish them - Happy Tweeting ;)

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What The Hell Is Going Wrong with Google Plus?

There is something going fundamentally haywire with Google Plus growth trajectory. There seems to be a big mismatch between ground reality and what their engineers thought about users reaction and stickiness.  The initial euphoria is dying down and most of its users are busy doing, what they were good at doing before - socializing with their friends on facebook.

Earlier they were reports from every quarter how fast Google plus is growing and how many members have joined it, however, what everyone forgot was facebook's strength isn’t just its number of members, its strength is - its number of active members.

First Lesson Learnt – Social networks succeed due to their active memberbase. Collecting Dead wood is of no use

So did Google plus had a false start? Many of us thought it was ahead of facebook and has the potential to beat it down pretty soon. However, now it seems, it shouldn’t have been positioned against facebook and should have been projected as some other kind of online social entity.

Recent reports suggest that 80% of Google plus users are inactive and its overall traffic is going down. Even we too speculated if Google Plus is a success or a failure? Experts believe It surely does provide a good alternative hub for market gurus, intellectuals and thought leaders, however, that’s what it was not made for. It was made for Average Joe like you and me and we continue to spend more time on facebook instead  of  Google plus.

Second Lesson Learnt : Changing online site surfing behavior takes considerable time unless you have something revolutionary different.

Make no mistake, Facebook’s strength is its active user base - no matter how average intelligent they may be. Marketers and advertisers prefer those who are comfortable shelling out money and have average intelligence. Beyond an iota of doubt, facebook scores high on this front. Undoubtedly, Strategists and Engineers at Google Plus surely have a lot of job to do!

As always,  Looking forward to your comments and if you like it, please share this post :)

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