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Orkut takes on Facebook with a New, Cool design

admin — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:20:00 +0000

Orkut has got a cool, blue redesign to take on facebook. Rounded corners, cute little icons and shaded headers and with much more – the new design looks awesome.

Click on the image to see it bigger.

The footer now contains the links to Orkut blog, Help forums, and the ways to interact with Orkut management.

The Friends page looks very pleasing to eyes.

Orkut releases the new design in phases, some may get their home page upgraded to new design where as others may need to wait for few more days.

Do you like the new design?

The official press post here:
orkut Blog: Redesign Preview: It’s the little things…

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7 reasons why I bought the new “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”

admin — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:58:00 +0000

I have not read the other six Harry Potter books, but I bought the 7th book. I am inclined towards reading non-fiction. Occasionally, if anyone recommends with a stick, I will read fiction such as ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and ‘Life of Pi’. But, I went and bought the ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ only after a thought.

I chose to buy “Harry Potter” because,

1) It is a legendary marketing success story
Have you heard of the Bloomsbury – the publishing company – before? Who would have ever thought in this Internet age, a series of books could rewrite and revive the publishing industry? All credits to the writer, J K Rowling, who single-handedly achieved this feat and took the world by a storm. This is also an example of a remarkable marketing success story which proved its stronghold against all odds of piracy. How many times a book hits the bestseller list shortly after the title was announced? Harry Potter introduced the technique of ‘pre-ordering’ of books to combat book piracy.

2) I love mystery, magic and fantasy
I am a Scorpio – a dreamer – who keeps his head in the sky and dreams all possibilities. Fantasy stories, magical journeys and solving mystery are my likes. I have enjoyed tales and stories from Indian mythology and other mythological literature. I always like to listen to a good story, from my childhood, I was naturally attracted to the ‘Harry Potter’ story when I saw it first on the big screen.

3) Just I can show off to other kids and make friends
I have moved to a new town to work for a new company. At the workplace or in the neighbourhood, I can walk with the Harry Potter book and easily strike up a conversation and make new friends (a great networking tool, you know?).

4) I plan to read and watch at least one Harry Potter movie
I like to watch movies. If a book is being made as movie, then I would wait for the movie rather than reading the original book. Many readers of a book complain (why?) that the movie is only half good as the book. So far, I have watched all the five Harry Potter movies, the most favourite of mine is “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”. I would like to read at least one book and then watch the movie, this seventh stands a good chance (I have to wait and watch the sixth movie though).

5) I love collecting memorabilia
Whether it is a special edition booklet published by a local newspaper or an elaborate memorabilia from a National Museum, I love memorabilia. I like to collect such precious things and in my opinion it reminds the success of an ordinary boy wizard who pursues a dream and succeeds in executing it to real against all hardships and obstacles. What more you need, huh?

6) I love books
Naturally, I am an avid reader who would read anything from A to Z. I have already collected and kept few hundreds of books at my home. This is a valuable addition to my book collection.

7) Now, I am part of the Harry phenomenon
Whenever, a big thing comes the world is divided into three groups. The first group jumps in and becomes part of it (Wow, let me try Harry Potter!). The second group are rebels who think the crowd as mad and crazy and stay away from it (Potter, you losers stink). And the third group is unaware of such big thing (Harry Potter? What is it?). You would have put me in the first group, which is right in a sense. But, I started in the third group before the first movie got released, moved to second group after it and then joined with the first group, completely embracing the ‘Harry Potter’ phenomenon.

What do yo think on ‘Harry Potter madness’?

Which side you are on?

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Google TV is coming. Are you ready?

admin — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 05:34:00 +0000

“I do not want to watch 100 channels for my favourite tv shows. I want one channel that could provide me with all my favourite shows”.

I am agreeing to the words spoken by Nicholas Negroponte, the founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit association, in a conference a few months ago.

You call it a personal television or a customizable tv or whatever fancy name you like.

This is the future of tv, I guess.

We spend most of our time in front of our PCs and on the web. Make that as a personal, internet tv. You have understood the concept what Google is talking about.

Already, the success of social video sharing sites such as YouTube and MetCafe shows that we no longer would rush home to watch our evening favourite tv shows. We can afford miss them because, most probably we can find them online and we can watch them whenever we wish.

Google has much grander plans for Internet TV. For instance, the relevancy of ads specific to the users. Say, the advertisers can specifically show relevant ads to the viewers of a specific show, specific to a geographic region and time of viewing. The viewers of ‘The Simpsons’ will watch different ads compared to the viewers of “LOST”.

“With a little Internet know-how, the TV industry can enjoy a brighter future, says the search giant. Google style.”

Now on, users will have the option of searching for their favourite episodes and view them on pay-per-view basis. You pay only for the episodes that you view.

Detailed Post on ‘Google wants to do for TV what it did for the Web‘ from Daniel on last100.com

New Weapon of Destruction: A Cellphone Battery

admin — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:57:00 +0000

Can you believe this? A cell phone battery has exploded and claimed the life of a Chinese welder.

“Reportedly, a 22-year old Chinese welder actually perished after a cellphone battery residing in his pocket exploded. The eruption was so violent, in fact, that it “broke a rib and drove the remnants of the pack into his heart,” and while rescue crews were able to get him to a hospital, he passed away shortly thereafter.”

via Engadget

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Now, Orkut has an Easy photo edit feature and an official Blog

admin — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:55:00 +0000

Orkut has introduced a minor feature that allows you to easily edit (or completely remove) your profile picture when you click on your profile picture.

You can browse and add a new picture with just 2 clicks.

Also, check out the new official orkut blog from the founder Orkut Buyukkokten. Read the orkut blog’s welcome message

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9 Tips to become Popular with Youtube Videos

admin — Mon, 28 May 2007 04:00:00 +0000

If you are wise, you can generate a massive viral campaign (personal or business motive) with Youtube. We are fully aware that there are plenty of video hosting sites such as metacafe, blip.tv, google videos etc. Find below a list of 9 tips to develop a video campaign with any video sharing site.

Beginner’s Guide to become popular with Youtube, Metacafe and Google videos:

1.Honey, I love good content: You love videos and favourite it when it has good content. Be it funny, sexy or entertaining , choose your content wisely. Look for the current news, and build your idea from it. Check for latest or upcoming movies – fans would love to sneak what you say about them. Do not pitch your sales until the last scene – make it an entertaining video – if not users will avoid your video like a plague.

2. Shoot them short: The attention span of general web audience is very short. You have just few seconds, to grab the attention – do not waste in presenting credits at the beginning of the movie. You can create a one minute video series.

3. Last scene is the most important: We see how the commercials work, right? Your call for the reader’s action at the last frame (few seconds) – web address (blog) to visit or asking them to bookmark you on youtube or whatever. Never finish a video without telling the viewers, what to do next?

4. Catchy title: Think a minute or two for getting the title right. A title saying “how to get a girl’s attention in 1 minute” works better than a lame title “dating tips”. This is the most important element after the video content.

5. Announce through emails: Your friends are your marketers and advertisers. They will always rave about you and your video (if it is even half-good!). So, just forward an email whenever you post a new video. Include a title and short summary of the video.

Add your youtube profile page in the Email signature.

6. Publish on social network sites: Now, Orkut, MySpace and every social websites offer ways to promote your videos. Put your best videos forward. Always include the one-line story of your video.

7. Choose your tags wisely: Tags are the baits that attract viewers. Watch similar youtube and learn how they have used the tags and expand on your tags.

8. Engage with your viewers: Follow your readers, reply to each comments. Ask questions and develop a conversation. Youtube lets you post a video response, how good.

9. Watermark: You developed this video, right – so by all means include a watermark that do not interrupt the viewing pleasure.

Also, a bonus tip – watch top videos – just the top 10 videos . Use metatube, you can browse 100 video sharing sites at once and discover what works with each video sharing site.

Good luck, become a celebrity with Youtube!

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Why Digg is a failure (as of now) and how it can be improved?

admin — Sun, 27 May 2007 07:08:00 +0000

Digg – the social news network experienced a trouble earlier this month, when it went to censor some ‘unwanted codes’. But soon, it learnt and apologized that it is doing injustice to the very own thing that makes Digg, a special over other news sites.

When you give the power to users (based on which social web is built), you are bound to expect such problems as we have seen with youtube, flickr and lately Digg. But, the problem for Digg creators come in a different way.

Heard of this story? You can buy digg votes and you can make a lame story to the front page of Digg. It will cost just $100. There are lot of such “Gangs of Digg” popping up.

Now, what is the solution?

One: Secret Ballot
The voting of stories can be based on a “secret ballot” system. That is , the news stories will not show up the name of the submitter for certain period of time or till a certain count votes is reached. This will reduce the “you-digg-mine-i-will-digg-yours” menace.

The stories will be voted based only on its merit not based on the person who submitted it.

Two:Rate the users
You have to classify the users as expert, good and suspicious voters. Based on the stories submitted, stories dugg, give each user some karma points and classify them as good or bad (similar to the ‘popular story ratio’) behaviour people. This karma points should not be made public but, will be made use to detect suspicious spam stories.

And you can grant the reviewing permission to these valuable users who can eliminate the spam stories and the persons who submit them.

Three: Variable Vote
Flickr takes this approach in their ‘interestingness algorithm’, Digg can take a leaf too. Each digg or vote is now has the same value. Instead, the votes from the users with “good karma points” will rate higher than the votes of normal user. Similar way, the votes for burial can be variables.

We certainly know that the above 3 simple steps completely solve the problem in hand. But, lot of thinking needs to go to attempt to solve this.

What do you think?

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241 fun things to to online!

admin — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:51:00 +0000

A to Z listing of fun things (blog posts) published so far in this blog. Click on a topic to know more!

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101 fun things to do online

admin — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:02:00 +0000

We started a blog named, “1001 fun things to do online“, with an objective to post an activity to do online – linking to the best website, web service available to do that job. One activity, one web site, every day of the year until we reach the 1001 things.

Now, the count has crossed 240, but, here we present a first 100 things as a list of 101 fun things to do online for convenience. You can also find a web-page here.

Soon, we will post 250 fun things to do online!

0 How to live 99% on Internet?

1 Get Free Content

2 Save bookmarks

3 Organize photos

4 “No e-Mail, there?s only g-Mail”

5 Socialize with a purpose!

10 Break a weird music record..

11 Save Money

12 Learn to make a Balloon Toy

13 Track your Diet

14 Make a dumb photo (of your enemy!)

15 Ask a Question

16 Clone a website!

17 Create your Own Newspaper!

18 Cool photoshopped Pictures

19 Get inspired by a Logo

20 Become Photogenic!

21 Learn good English

22 Make a Drawing!

23 Babbly Gabbly Chat

24 Access Premium Websites

25 Everything for FREE

26 Cook (and eat too!) a new Dish

27 100 Words and 100 Images

28 Listen with Juice

29 Create a Map

30 Get a free book!

31 Know about a Religion

32 Open your shop

33 Whats on your Clipboard?

34 Audio and Video Mails

35 Limewire:Share Anything

36 Upcoming

37 Find a date!

38 Write anywhere!

39 Want some free photos?

40 Find source codes & projects

41 Life is a trip.Take it.

42 Showcase your design

43 Write your Autobiography

44 Create a content-ready Webpage

45 Decide which is Good News

46 Comment on others!

47 Let the interesting contents reach you

48 Share files with your Peers

49 Narrow your Search

50 Build a virtual Hotel

51 Build your Business Network

52 Listen Music with last.fm

53 News on a WorldMap

54 Find your Forebearers here!

55 Create a funny Notice

56 Advertise all over the world!

57 Cook with what you have..

58 “Create, Share your Videos”

59 Create a colourful ASCII image!

60 Find websites that match your ‘taste’

61 Send files or folders

62 Pickle it!

63 Search Jobs

65 Meet Geeks

69 Create Maps

70 Buy or Sell

71 Publish a book!

72 Advice for Parenting

73 Review a Product!

74 Play with words!

75 Record your Voice!

76 Personalize Internet

77 Get free articles!

78 Spotback News

79 Blogger Poker Tour

80 Start Page

81 Collect Miniature Landmarks

82 Advert:Promote your website!

83 Find and be found!

84 Get Help to win in Online Poker games!

85 One number for Life!

86 Resize Images

87 Compress your files Online

88 Advert:Pay your Credit

89 Discover GPS

90 Guess Bluff or True?

91 Claim your ID

92 Snap your Visitors!

93 How-to Guides

94 Make a Comic Strip!

95 Whats your weekend plans?

96 Create a Chat Room

97 Hello, World!

98 Search Videos

99 Get linked with Pros

100 Roll your own search engine!

101 Save your favourite websites

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clip marks

admin — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:42:00 +0000

Clipmarks is a web service that allows users to submit news or any media such as picture or video to share with others.

It works like any other social network site, and users rate on each item so only the best ones reach the front page.

Clipmarks, however, differs from other social network sites because, it extracts most interesting bits from the submitted news and presents them to viewers.

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