Internet Too Will Have Censor in India

India too will be following the footsteps of China to restrict the access to certain websites mainly news and blogs. Such situation once aroused during the 26/11 attack and all the TV news channels were censored with the news and latest happenings about the attack. Now, this has been extended to the internet space and the censor will be beyond the emergency situations as well.

The censor central board will monitor the different websites, news portals and blogs and will block those materials which they find it as a threat to national security.

Note sure, if this will help a complete censor of the information the board wants to block. The internet is such a wide spread area that the news spreads much faster than light here that too with only a click on the mouse. And if such news is discussed on the social media sites then Facebook and Twitter will also have to be blocked? There is another news that Iranian government has blocked Facebook in the country to stop supporters of a candidate for the upcoming presidential elections from using the site for campaign. So, what's next?


Source: SiliconIndia

SiliconIndia StartUp City, Bangalore, India – June 6, 2009

It seems there are more than 800 startups in Bangalore alone. And many more start every year, not only in Bangalore but at every place on the earth. It really makes me anxious to know what made the young entrepreneurs to start the business. What is the novel and innovative thing they have or their business has which made them to start this venture? What is the cutting-edge technology they are using to snatch the market from the big players which are already there in the business arena?

On June 6, 2009, SiliconIndia is providing a great opportunity in Bangalore. They have a great event and exhibition of these startups. It will be a nice platform to connect with these folks and get the queries answered. It can also be a good one for the folks who want to start a business or just want to build the network. Ajit and Sanjeev, CEOs and founders of Rediff.com and Naukri.com respectively have assured to share their experiences.

So don’t miss it. Register here for free. Better hurry as it is only in limited invites.

10 Techniques to Optimize Images for Website

Here is the list of few techniques which can be used to optimize the image file size for the websites. This will not only help in loading the web page and image faster, but it is also a good practice for SEO.

1. Crop images contextually to show only the most relevant parts of the image. This will help in faster download and higher impact.
2. Resize the images to actual pixel size as required. And always use width and height attributes for the images apart from the ALT tag.
3. Try to use .png images where ever possible instead of .tiff, .gif or .jpeg. .png extension images are efficient and can be easily downloaded with much costing you the bandwidth.
4. Embed images into the web pages with data URLs. This will reduce http requests. This is a good technique if you do not have to change the image more frequently.
5. If you are using .jpeg image then try to blur the background. This will not only optimize the image but, gives a clean and simplified image appearance when the no-critical details are blurred.
6. Use CSS borders or backgrounds instead of embedding borders in images. Use a tightly cropped image combined with a coded background color. Ensure you do not leave blank background boarders.
7. Overlay text using CSS or by using a transparent .png or .gif instead of embedding text in the image. This will help in fewer http requests.
8. Minimize noise to maximize graphic and video compression.
9. Minimize dithering and bit depth for .gif and .png.
10. Reduce or eliminate drop shadows. Drop shadows make images appealing, but also increase the file size. Try adjusting the different layers of images in Photoshop to reduce the width and depth of drop shadows to make the image more compressible.

Do let me know if I have missed anything.

How to Grow Google Authority

Authority in a Search context takes into account all the elements of website and determines a grading system. The more authoritative and trusted website, the better it will rank in search engines. All this is on mere observation and is very unscientific. I just want the people who know here to do the talking.

1. Linking Neighborhood: It is believed that the important factor is about who is linking to your website. It is believed that Google has a list of Whitelist of trusted websites, a link or two from these trusted websites will boost the ranking. So, anyone has the list of these trusted websites? To name a few – Dmoz, Yahoo directory, Wikipedia, news website, social networking and bookmarking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx…more
2. Buying Links: The Big G is always watching. So, do not just go and buy as many links as you want in one single day. Google watches the trend of the no. of links you are getting and decides the authority score.
3. Bad Neighbors: If you do not buy links, and yet you are linked from websites using reciprocal link exchanges formula or having links on web pages which are link farms can make you lose the authority.
4. Comments: Putting the link in ‘Comments’ section of blogs will help in getting traffic. But, can lose the authority. If at all you want to do this, then do it cleverly. Don’t make it look like a spam.
5. Linking Websites: Google will check the IP of the website from which you are getting the links. Are the websites your own websites and/or hosted on the same server where your main site is? Or these links have grown up naturally?
6. Content is King: As always, content is always and will always remain the king. Visitors should trust your website content and should provide an organic link to your website because they value your website’s content.
7. Duplicate Content: Do not duplicate the content or reproduce the same content. You will lose trust.
8. Subscribing RSS: As visitors value the content and want to keep themselves updated always, they subscribe the RSS. Thus, trusting the website and the content.
9. Traffic Trend: Google also looks at the traffic trends. How the traffic is behaving? Does it spike at certain times and behaves normal on other times? If spikes then why? If it is growing, then is it growing organically?
10. Brand Search: If many people are searching for the brand name in Google, then it is a good sign. It adds a value to the authority.
11. Domain Extensions: Easy to get domain extensions will not be as important as .edu, .org, .gov.
12. Age of the Domain Name/Website: The older the website or the domain name, the better is the trust.
13. Expiry of Domain Name: The later the expiry date, the more trust one can have in your website.

As already said, these are just on observations, so to summarize everything stated above that will convey the same results are:

1. Have a natural and organic growth always with a sound promotional behavior
2. Good, unique and valuable content presented specifically for visitors to read and not for search engine robots. And the content needs to be refreshed regularly
3. Have a trusted infrastructure. By this I mean, good life for the domain name, quality hosting service providers, good neighbors…

Use Google SMS Search for IPL Scores, Local Time, Commodity Prices and Train Info

You are in office or you are traveling and want to know the latest scores, then just send an SMS from your mobile phone to Google and get the latest numbers and details. Get cricket scores, Indian Railways train schedules & ticket status, horoscopes, movie show timings, restaurant information and more...all through SMS on your phone.

The enhanced SMS service from Google comes with good and additional features. A simple SMS to 97733 00000 will give an instant access to Google SMS Search that too at the cost of simple SMS.

• SMS cri to 97733 00000 to get cricket scores. To be specific SMS cri ipl or cri ipl deccan chargers
• Apart from stock prices, you can know the prices for gold, cotton and other commodities. SMS price cotton. For more info or help SMS help commodity
• To know the local time in other cities or countries – SMS time new delhi or time new York to know the time of that country
• Google SMS Search is also providing richer info for railways apart from PNR status and train schedule. To know the berth availability for May 6, on train number 1081 from Bangalore to Mumbai, simply SMS train avail 1018 Bangalore to Mumbai on 06-05

To read about more features visit visit http://www.google.co.in/sms or SMS 'help' to 97733 00000.

What surprised me that, when I wanted to test this out using my mobile phone, I did not receive any response for the SMS I sent to check IPL scores. Do let me know if this worked for you. I am sure it should - as after all it is Google.

PS: Are we getting Lok Sabha Elections 2009 results on SMS from Google?

Twitter Makes You Immoral?

Brian Hartzer, CEO of ANZ's Australian operations has just announced his resignation - on Twitter – ANZozCEO.

Brain has become the first major bank CEO in Australia to use Twitter. The main intention of Brian to be on Twitter was to listen to customers and provide better customer service, providing a channel for easy and fast communication. And now, Twitter has become a good channel to submit resignations as well. So, an executive using corporate handle will not only have to resign from the organization, but also has to convey the same to his fellow friends and followers in the social media. During the course of the building the network with customers or followers in the social media sites, one builds an emotional bond that makes the person to do so and share their opinions, thoughts or decisions.

And in UK, something else happened. A magistrate had to resign after posting messages about the cases on Twitter. This person intends that he just wanted to make the judiciary more transparent.

But, scientists claim that twitter can make a person immoral. This study says that the speed with which the news updates and interactions are happening, are too fast for the brain to process. The danger is that regular users of Twitter and Facebook may become indifferent to human sufferings because they never get time to reflect and fully experience the emotions of other people feelings. The impact can be more dangerous for young generations whose brains are still developing. I was unable to read anywhere in this article about the news websites or news channels which update the news every hour. I guess these channels should also have the same impact. You need to note that this was the study of just 13 users.

My opinion is that Twitter, Facebook or any other social media should be used in a certain way to get the benefits out of this. It all depends the way you use it and take the full advantage of these tools. You do not have to become addicted or spend whole time on these and make your life depended on this. There are other social things also important in life that you need to attend. Is it necessary to read every tweet posted by a celebrity? Is it necessary to post every action of yours – say every minute or hour on such channels? You don’t have to make your whole life public on these sites? Or want to read about the whole life of others?

What Can Be The Search Algorithm for Twitter Search?

I was searching for a post using Twitter search and it just came to my mind, what algorithm the search can use to give quality results. As of now, Twitter finds keywords in the text of the most recent Tweet. Often, the search results are repetitive or duplicate and not much relevant to the keywords. Jayaram, VP, Operations for Twitter (an ex-Googler) hopes to change all that by taking Twitter search beyond this, by looking at the pages people are linking to within their Tweets. A Twitter crawler will visit the links, index the page and then correlate that 3rd-party content with the Tweet itself. This should help make for more relevant Twitter search results.

This also made me think of more ways the algorithm can be set and I started comparing the organic search engine algorithms with Twitter search, and I have come up with these few assumptions.

1. Follower counts: I guess follower counts do not really matter as an important factor to be considered in the search algorithm. It really does not prove, if you have thousands of followers, you contribute quality tweets. And, if I have very few followers, it is not that my tweets are quality tweets.
2. Synergy of Tweets: I think the synergy of your tweets and that of your followers and that of your followers’ followers, should be considered as a factor. (In organic SEO - To have links on websites which have similar content and the link building strategy).
3. Groupies: Say, most of the employees of a corporate are on Tweeter and they follow one another, then this really forms a closed group with known people together exchange good, informative and quality tweets.
4. Tweet and URL Synergy: The synergy between the tweet and the web page that is linked in the tweet should matter. Just the case in PPC ads – the text ad and the landing page should talk the same thing.
5. Frequency of Tweets: You already know the more you tweet, the lower the tweet goes on your follower’s account and the lesser the visibility it gets. And the tweet gets diluted in the number of tweets you have.
6. Age of Tweet: The latest the tweet, the important is the update. But, how the tweet-bot will identify the spammy tweet to the original tweet is a big question.
7. Tweet Favorite: It will really add value to the tweet, if the tweet has been marked as favorite by other folks. Bookmarking?
8. Subscribing RSS: Yes, your tweets will be really important if you people subscribe them through RSS. People really will like you to know your updates instantaneously.
9. Keyword Density: The density of the keyword among all the tweets over a period of time can be considered as a factor. You may know a lot of information about the keyword and are tweeting about the same and the updates can be informative. Or should it consider the density of the keyword in that particular tweet?
10. Age of Tweet account: It does not matter when you created an account in twitter and when you have started tweeting. There can be many accounts which have been created and yet no tweets but, the handle can have followers. Tweets from such handles can’t be quality ones.
11. Re-tweets: Just to spam and get more clicks, there will be people who just re-tweet the same thing again and again. So, this has to be take care of and should not be considered for ranking. Rather it should be considered as spam. Also, linking the same url to different tweets should be spamming.
12. IP Address: It should note the no. of handles or IDs being logged in from the same IP address. People may have multiple IDs and would be using to promote their website using them. Such IDs need to be penalized.
13. Geo-targeted: Track the IPs of the users they are tweeting from or logging from. And show the results to the members who are searching from that geo areas. This way the results are geo-targeted.
14. Demographic profile: Twitter can have an advantage here over Google. They can target the ads or websites as per the demographic profile – age, gender, place, income etc.

These are just my assumptions and thinking. And I would like you to come up with your points and opinion as well to make this post very informative.

But one thing that is most important is, Twitter can be an enormous source of traffic to a website if it is handled well in the social media more so in Twitter.

ZooZoo: The New Special Brand Character for Vodafone

This series of ads from Vodafone are awesome. Not only me, I guess many of the viewers; do not change the channel when they see this ad. Vodafone has come up with this special campaign for TV ads during the IPL matches. Even in IPL 2008, Vodafone used the ‘Happy To Help’ campaign, and now in 2009, it has come up with these special characters called ZooZoo. These ads particularly convey the value added services provided by Vodafone. The complete series of these ads have been created by O&M.

Now, the question is – Is it animated? Even, I thought the same and was admiring the way they animated the series. But, this is not at all animated. They have used slim woman and girls from the Mumbai theaters, stuffed with cushion to get the alien or egghead like shapes. Really, a marvelous piece of commercial and I like it for the following reasons –

1. They used simple design for the character – eggheads, white color body, black for eyes and lips – using emoticons shapes to show the feelings. They kept all this very simple.
2. No language for communication only sounds which communicate what they want to convey.
3. They used different ads and story to convey each value added service. Thus, not making the viewer bore to see the same ad every time.

You will also be surprised to know that these ads have become very popular and are most watched on YouTube and there are about 50,000 fans on Facebook. They also have a special microsite for IPL and they have used these ZooZoos there too and you can download the ZooZoos wallpapers, screensavers and more.So, this Vodafone campaign is not only popular during the IPL ad-breaks, but it is also picking up popularity in the online community.

Zo, what do zoo think?

Will the ZooZoos become bigger than the brand or the message?

Should ZooZoos be used beyond the VAS too?

Did O&M try to give much hype using the media to make this concept popular?

Will this campaign increase the sales of VAS for Vodafone?

Only time can answer all these questions. But, the bottom line is Vodafone is now clearly jumped out of the ‘Pug’ campaign.

Source: Afaqs

Google Hires 200 Goats to Eat Their Grass

Yeah! Google now hires 200 goats to mow the fields outside their office in Mountain View, CA, USA. They have rented the goats from California Grazing and the goats will replace the noisy mowing machines that run on gas, which leads to air and noise pollution. Instead of the machines, the goats will eat the grass and weeds off the fields and will also fertilize at the same time. How? With the droppings ofcourse.

Google’s Dan Hoffman, Director Real Estate and Workplace Services, adds on the Google Blog -“It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.” Really, an awesome move to go green and at the same time cut the grass and cost too. So, I guess next month we will have Google Milk.. oops Goat’s Milk too from the Google’s Office.