Men, Women Use Facebook Differently

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology have found that while woman prefer applications which they can express themselves through, men chose ones they can compete against others with. So, your gender determines which Facebook application you would rather prefer.

According to the lead researcher Russell-Bennett, applications were also considered cool when they allowed self-categorization such as discovering which movie star you are applications which change daily, applications which allows high level of interactivity like scrabble or bowling and lastly applications which are special and novel. Facebook users use the applications and share them only to enhance their standings in their network of friends.

This study is important from a commercial point of view. This will help the organizations developing these applications as they can now identify which features encourage people to recommend the game to others. The more they recommend to others, the more people use it and this will attract a substitute to the traditional and/or viral advertising.

Top Paying Google Adsense Keywords

Google Adsense is a popular affiliate program to earn revenue from your website or blog. It usually allows you to paste their script and that will show ads on your website, with the relevant keywords which you have in your content. And any clicks on these ads will earn you a share of the CPC.

There are various ways to increase this revenue and Google Adsense will also provide you the details. Here is one simple way to increase the dollars. Below is the list of few of the TOP keywords which generate high CPC, means your share will also be at the higher side. So, the easier way is to have the content on the web page or blog around these high paying keywords. This will show the relevant ads and will help you to earn more.

This list of keywords is prepared only through my experience and the CPC may vary from time to time. This list is not complete and completely accurate. You need to frame related phrases around these main keywords and also check for the CPC before preparing the content for the web page.

Mortgage
Mortgage rates
Low cost loan
Fast loans
Loan payment calculator
Student loan
Credit cards
Second mortgage loan
Mortgage quote
Company insurance
Car insurance
Health insurance
Life insurance
Auto insurance
Refinancing cash out
Refinance mortgage
Loans after bankruptcy
Bankruptcy lawyers
Bad credit consolidation
Credit card processing
Credit cards rewards
Balance transfer credit card
Debt negotiation
Out of debt
Domain name registration
Cheap domain registration
Free domain name registration
Domain name renewal
Email hosting
Virtual hosting servers
Windows 2000 hosting
Linux hosting
Dedicated servers
Hosting reseller
DSL service
Internet modems
Conferencing internet
High speed internet
Broadband company
Computer rent
Computer hire
Notebook rentals
Car hire
Online college
Online degree
Online education
Laser hair removal
Hair removal laser surgery

A more detailed and almost complete list is available here.

Update your Facebook Status from Twitter

Yes. You can update your Facebook status right from Twitter now. And that too only for the tweets you want. Just end a tweet with #fb when you want it to update your Facebook status – It’s that simple.

Some more tips to take care –

1. Take care not to confuse your Facebook friends with different and frequent tweets
2. Leave certain updates on Facebook for longer time
3. Twitter is Twitter and Facebook is Facebook. One needs to treat them differently
4. There can be some time lag for the status to reflect on Facebook. Have patience.

5 Simple Tips to Make Your Resume Searchable

Recession has made it tough for the unemployed to find a suitable job for them. The best way is to make your resume easily searchable for the recruiters so that you can get more and relevant calls. Here are few simple tips which can make your profile or resume within the reach of such recruitment agencies.

1. Regularly edit your profile on the job sites like naukri.com, jobsahead.com, monster.com or careerbuilder.com. Let it be any job site, just edit your profile a bit and save it again. Here your edit is not that important, but this will reset the save date on the database making it a latest resume and a latest profile every time you save it. Thus, it boosts the ranking for your profile when recruiters search for candidates. Also, let your profile have all important keywords. Yes, optimize your profile as well.
2. Update your status on social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Let the people know that you are looking for a job. You can provide a link to your profile too in the status message. If you feel right, you can update your IM status messages as well.
3. Google launched the profile page. Update it with the most relevant keywords which you feel the recruiters use and you want them to find you or your profile.
4. Use Twitter search and try to find out users whom you feel will be helpful in finding you a job or they themselves are recruiters and follow them and read their updates. May be they can post a job ad or they may also follow you.
5. Join relevant groups in sites like LinkedIn and Facebook and participate in discussions. Just try to make your presence felt in such groups.

Let me know if these help. When you get a job, let us meet for a drink. Frobes provides the top 15 job sites. Check if they are useful.

Will Online Entertainment Industry Survive?

The emergence of MP3 and MP4 has shattered the business of music industry. Still the film industry is not touching the business it has to in the online market. Many P2P sites come-up and internet savvy folks want to download the audios and/or movies over to their desktop or iPod. I guess making the DVD rentals online has also not yielded much business online. I guess folks really do not want to carry the CD or DVD. They rather prefer a digital format which can be carried in their devices; more so can be easily transferred.

In the report, The State of Music Online: Ten Years After Napster, the Pew Internet Project traces the evolution of online music, and the changes that have been forced on musicians and the recording industry.

This is a period of innovation and survival for this online entertainment market. The popularity of social media networks may hamper the online sales of music. But, can these entertainment companies fight this out? I am just guessing good strategies to come out from these business guys. May be use of biometrics to listen or see these files? May be a tie-up with the ISP to have a cap on sharing such files? Do you have any ideas?

Social Media – Is It the Online Revolution?

Iranians both inside and outside the country are using social media networking sites to spread, to organize, and to make their voice heard. Iranians have shared online images, video, emails and tweets about the protests and spreading violence thus overtaking the local media. Efforts to control the populace of using internet is visible – limited internet bandwidth, blocking of networking sites, interrupted cell phone service and blocking SMSs and more.

And THAT is signal! This is what I guess. All these groupie networking sites Twitter, YouTube, Facebook – are heading the populace towards a new revolution - the online revolution? Is this just infatuation of the internet or the new technology? The revolution has just started in the gathering and sharing of information, of intention, of expression, of opinion and of connection.

The hierarchy is slowly reversing. Many people will control the few. Social media is a great weapon in the hands of the people. This isn't just an Iranian revolution - this is a bottom-up revolution impacting everything. Is it a boon or a bane?

5 Important Approaches for Social Networking for Companies

Many corporate are trying to jump the social networking band wagon. The social networking websites’ links, icons and/or logos are being shown on most of the corporate websites as they want to increase their reach to and want to easily communicate with the folks in their network – customers, prospects or anyone.

Here are the 5 important approaches that they need to be confident of performing prior to jumping in the networking band wagon.

1. Define Objectives: Companies first need to define the objectives and goals as to what they want to achieve by social networking. Defining them before will help the contribution and participation more interesting and productive.
2. Channel of Communication: Companies need to keep in mind that networking in this media is not to increase the sales. It is a channel to make your customers and prospects to communicate with the company in a simpler way. And the other way round, may be customers do not want to receive a phone call or an e-mail but, wants to read the corporate blog or tweet. And the customer may feel comfortable to respond back or ask questions through the same channel.
3. Listen to Customers: This is the most important thing that corporate companies need to be keeping in mind. The jump in social networking makes it easily accessible to their customers and prospects. Listen to them first. The more the knowledge is shared with the customers and prospects to solve the issues the more satisfied the customer gets. Thus, building a good reputation in the market.
4. Track Customers Talking: Search the online media frequently to find out what people are talking about the company. And companies need to immediately attend, communicate the updates to them immediately. This networking channel is to build the brand and not to start the sales cycle. There are tools available which can help to keep track of this - TweetScan, RSS feeds. Companies can also try Andy Beal’s trackur tool.
5. Be Real and Own: People like communicating through this channel as they feel they are talking to a responsible person from a corporate who listens to them. So, one who communicates from the company side needs to be a real person who can own the issue or problem being talked about and respond back with a solution to them.

Also read related posts -
The Four Important Steps to Start Social Networking for Business
6 Tips To Be Successful In Social Media Marketing

5 Easy Tips to Improve the CTR for Google Adwords

It really helps a lot in conversions and better ROI if you try to improve the CTR for your ads in Google Adwords. The better the CTR, the better the ad position with the lower CPC, which leads to quality clicks. And finally this leads to better conversions and better ROI.

Here are few easy tips which can help you to increase the CTR. Couple of them are the same old tips, but rest of them are new ones and are working well for my ads. You can test them out and let me know if it worked for you as well.

1. Spend money on keywords that work: Use exact match or phrase match for the keywords (use of square brackets or quotes like [keywords] or “keywords”). This helps in avoiding unwanted clicks. You will get the clicks which your ad is supposed to be clicked for. This way you get only potential customers to click the ad. Even the use of negative keywords will filter the unwanted clicks. Check for more details on Google Adwords.
2. Double Advantage: Have variable title for the ads like – {Keyword: Default Title} where you need to replace the default title with suitable text. Visitors tend to click if they find the keyword they are searching for in the ad. In addition to that, Google bolds the keyword which is being searched. So, you will have a double advantage to use the keywords in the title.
3. Create Urgency: Try to use good call-to-action lines in the ad copy. Let it create the sense of urgency to make the visitor click. Keep in mind that your ad is being shown among your competitors and you need to attract that click. Try testing these which suits the ad – Click now, Get it now, Download free trial, Try our trial today, Special Offer, only for today…
4. Specific Action: Direct the visitor in the ad the action he/she has to make after clicking. This will help them to make a quick decision to click or not. For example: Register now, Buy at a discount, Download the white paper, Read brochure…
5. Numberings: Numbers really help in attracting quality clicks. Try putting the prices in the copy. The visitor will decide prior to clicking the ad if he/she finds the price attractive. You can also put toll free numbers in the ad as it will avoid that click and the visitor will directly call you and will not click. Just give a unique phone number so that you can track the calls and calculate the conversions and ROI.

I would like to hear your experiences too in this regard.

Related posts:

13 Easy Tips to Make Landing Pages More Effective
6 Basic Tips for a Perfect PPC Campaign

Grow Your Business with Google AdWords: 7 Quick and Easy Secrets for Reaching More Customers with the World's #1 Search Engine

The “REAL” Reasons Why One Has Followers on Twitter

With all the number of followers one has on Twitter, it is really important to know why those folks are following you. These are the few important and main reasons why they usually follow.

1. The major junk of the followers, follow you as they expect you to follow back.
2. Your tweets must be useful for them. They must be interesting for them to read it. You are the best judge. Do you really think so?
3. You can be a celebrity or a very important personality that folks want to follow you on twitter apart from just fan following. For example: Britney Spears, Obama and Oprah.
4. You must have registered in some Twitter follow website and you have got many followers then. Yes, it is of no use and this again will lead to #1 above.
5. It must be a company account and folks may want to know more about your company. They can be your customers, media or just persons who want updates about your company.
6. You must be an important person in #FollowFridays and folks seem to find you interesting.

Any other reasons you know as to why followers follow?

Tree Plantations Campaign by GHMC, Hyderabad

It is time we reflect on the implications of our actions. We use plastic, we cut trees, we waste paper, and we pollute the air and the list goes on. Let us stop this and try to mend our ways at least now.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation through their website proposed to plant one million plants during the planting season June to September 2008. They surely must have plans for this season as well. Let us also do it all over the world. Let us plant saplings and plants where ever possible as it is on-set of monsoon in many areas in southern India. Let us come out and make this place greener.

You can also do the following to save the earth:

1. Avoid using polythene bags. Instead use cloth or paper bags
2. Carry the cloth or paper bags from home while going to the super market. Request the sellers to put your things in your cloth bag and make them understand about the disadvantages of using plastic bags
3. Use re-usable containers where ever possible
4. Do not let plastic litter in environment
5. Replace all electric bulbs with CFL lights. They not help in saving power, but also generate less heat
6. Save electric power as much as possible
7. Not to say - Save water. Do not waste it
8. Consider car sharing – car pooling
9. When you can use your bicycle or bike to commute, use it. Do not use car when you want to go there alone. If you can walk/jog, then it is much better
10. Consider reading the daily newspaper online
11. Turn your vehicle engine off, if you have to keep it idle for more than a minute

There are lot more things you can do. I suggest just take one from the list and follow it strictly. You contribution to the world for this will at least start.

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.

Avoid Credit Card Thefts – Skimmers On Prowl

The most prominent places where you can lose the credit card information to these skimmers is when you want to give your credit card to pay your bill like hotel or food bills. The modus-operandi is, when you flash your debit or credit for your purchases, and if the shop keeper wants to steal the credit card or debit card info, he/she will just swipe your card on a small electronic device called skimmer. This device will copy all the information that is available in the magnetic strip of your card. And it is easy for the thief to make a duplicate card. Using this duplicate card now the thief is ready to make offline and online purchases – in case the thief notes the CVV no. as well.

The prominent places which have been categorized as notorious for such skimming are mostly the south-west countries like Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Hong Kong to name a few. You will be lured by attractive tour packages, amazing deals for the shopping festivals and go for a shopping spree without knowing how much risk you have it here to flash your credit card. Other places where this can happen are gas stations, restaurants, pubs where the cards are flashed and taken away from you to swipe for the transaction.

It is impossible to stop such kinds of thefts but, it is always better to take our own precautions. Few tips which can be followed to save you from such theft –

1. Memorize the CVV no. and erase it from the back side of the card. You can erase the CVV no. or blacken it out with a permanent marker. This way you can be spared by online thefts.
2. Activate mobile alert or email alerts for the transactions made from your card if it exceeds certain threshold amount.
3. If at all you have flashed the card in the above named countries and you doubt that you card has been copied, then immediately block the card and request for a new card.

Do let me know if there are any more tips or precautions need to be taken care for. It would be helpful to everyone.

Source: Deccan Chronicle