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Email is still the most popular way of sharing articles from a blog / websi
2008-06-06 14:33:00
While carrying out routine admin tasks of my blog today I came across some very interesting statistics that I thought of sharing with my readers. Nearly a month back I installed a plugin called ishare that helps readers to share articles published on trak.in blog. Now-a-days, having social bookmarking buttons on your blog is commonplace. It helps to bring in traffic to your blog. ishare is a neat plugin that not only allows you to share the articles through social bookmarking sites but also allows you to email the post, convert it to pdf or word document and even print it. When I installed this plugin, I thought more than 3/4th of users will use it for sharing articles on social bookmarking sites. But I was wrong ! The traditional way of sharing articles via Email still rules ! Here is the snapshot of how readers have shared articles using button.
More About: Articles , Blog , Popular , Sharing

The No.1 brand in India comes to Second Life
2008-06-05 14:26:00
Amul is planning to buy eight-10 islands, equal to 160 acres of virtual land, in Second Life to set up a simulation of its production and distribution facility. The objective behind launching a virtual setup is to demonstrate its functioning to the consumers, and experiment with any change in the production or distribution system virtually before executing it in the real world. [source]
More About: India , Second Life , Brand

Reliance Retail winning battle against Bharti- Walmart !
2008-06-05 13:56:00
Last year I had written about interesting Test match between 2 retail giants who had announced their plans to open hundreds of stores across India . Bharti Wal-Mart had announced their wholesale cash-and-carry and back-end supply chain management operations in India. Close to their heels, Reliance Retail has announced their plan of entering the same business segment with plans of supplying to kirana stores and institutional buyers.
More About: Business , Battle

kwippy: Close network nano-blogging through Instant Messenger
2008-06-05 09:00:00
Microblogging as name suggests is extremely condensed form of no-frills-blogging. Best example of this is tumbleblog, where a user shares his content, videos etc...etc within minutes without spending time on going through routine of writing a whole post. Nano blogging is even more condensed form where the content shared is in form of short messages. This has been hugely popular thanks to Twitter. Now an Indian startup - kwippy - brings you nanoblogging with couple of interesting twists. Users can actually send messages via their favourite Instant messengers like Gtalk or Yahoo. The messages send through IMs are stored on your personal page or nanoblog in threaded discussion format. The user just needs to add kwippy as a friend in his/her Instant messenger. All messages and status updates will reflect on the personal page.
More About: Blogging , Network , Messenger , Close

Trak.in May Roundup: Statistics and more?.
2008-06-02 17:43:00
May was the anniversary month for Trak.in blog and it was a bumper month from stats point of view as well. Trak.in registered high level of traffic this month. Here is a look at stats for May: Trak.in blog saw close to 115,000 unique visitors and 336,000 pageviews, a record of sorts. This kind of pageviews were really unexpected. The factor that has surprised me over last couple of months is the increase in pageviews per visit which stood at nearly 2.94. Trak.in has always been clocking close to 2 pageviews per visit, but this time it has jumped to nearly 3. I am really not sure of the reason for this jump.
More About: India , Traffic , Roundup , Statistics

The best management lesson
2008-06-02 13:39:00
This excerpt is taken from the speech of Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam given at Wharton India Economic forum in Philadelphia on March 22,2008. A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure? Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India's "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal. By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that nee...
More About: Management , Lesson

Buzzar.tv: Virtual Exhibition space for Brands
2008-05-31 16:09:00
Last November I had written about Indibiz.tv, which was an online directory for brands showcasing their ad commercials on the net. Now, Pixelkraft Media solutions, company behind indibiz have launched another site - Buzzar.tv - which is again very similar to what indibiz.tv is offering. Here is how Pixelkraft differentiates Buzzar from Indibiz:
More About: Space , Branding , Virtual , Exhibition , Brands

Trak.in popular post digest
2008-05-29 16:34:00
I really don't have much to write today and I am also not in a mood to really hunt for stuff, so here are some of the popular posts in last few weeks published on trak.in.
More About: Post , Popular , Digest

Trak.in Poll Verdict: Indians prefer female bosses, only just
2008-05-28 14:29:00
I had written about ASSOCHAM survey couple of weeks back which concluded that more than 68% men and women prefer male bosses at their work. I did not really agree with this survey and decided to carry out my own small survey on Trak.in. There are about 202 trak.in readers who have participated (till this point) in the survey and it reflects exactly what I feel. Out of 202 poll voters, 42% prefer female bosses at workplace, 37% prefer male and 21% said they have no preference.
More About: Indians , Female , Poll , Verdict

twistory: What you love, hate, think, believe, feel and wish on Twitter
2008-05-27 16:05:00
Time for some fun, not the regular business/startup related stuff :) Now this is for all you twitter addicts out there. Twistory is a scrolling mashups of twits (messages) on what you love, hate, think, believe, feel and wish.
More About: Love , Hate , Twitter , Feel

India: Regaining the lost glory !
2008-05-26 12:42:00
I came across this slideshare presentation, that I think is a must watch for readers. This well researched presentation was presented during "Duke GEMBA'08 - India Panel Discussion". This presentation talk about where India stands currently and the key highlights of current and future growth of India. India: Regaining the lost glory... (Please view the presentation in full screen mode)
More About: Lost , Growth , Glory

The new mantra of PR: Marketing through blogging and Social Networking
2008-05-26 10:27:00
Indian blogging scene has grown quite a bit over last 12 to 18 months. Last year in May when I started blogging, there were hardly any blogs that one could name which were even remotely popular, other than Labnol and couple of others. However, over last year or so Indian blogging scene has grown and now we have number of blogs that command decent traffic. I see exponential growth in Indian bloggers in coming months  , thanks to Aamir, Amitabh and host of other celebrities (latest being Salman Khan ) embracing blogging quite seriously. Yes, it is may be money making source for some, but these celebrities are bringing "blogging" into Mainstream media. Not a single day passes by without some or the other blog content being quoted in our national dailies. With blogging becoming popular, most PR agencies are looking at bloggers as a serious marketing avenue. During early days of my blogging I used to get standard PR material mailed frequently, most of which could be termed...
More About: Marketing , Social , India , Social Networking , Indian

Top 25 great places to work
2008-05-23 10:26:00
It has been many days since I have published a top list. So here are the top 25 great companies to work for in India . This list has been published by Indian arm of Great place to work Institute. The list has been compiled based on the responses given by company employees' to a proprietary survey developed by the Great Place to Work ® Institute. In addition, materials submitted by the company are evaluated, including the company's response to the Great Place to Work® Culture Audit©, any accompanying materials submitted by the company for consideration, as well as information gathered from other reputable sources such as media stories about the company.  List of Top 25 great companies to work for in India (only top 25 companies are ranked and others are in alphabetical order) :
More About: Places

IndiaShines: Another Indian social network ! but why ?
2008-05-22 13:31:00
Yes, another social network ! What are we supposed to do with so many social networks? Okay fine, it is a city based network, but so what? How is it going to make any difference? Okay so you allow everything from making new friends, sharing photos, posting jobs, blogging, uploading videos, etc etc etc…. I have specialized popular ...
More About: Social , Community , Indian , Network , Social Network

GreenMango: Marketing platform for small entrepreneurs
2008-05-22 13:02:00
I had covered an Indian Startup few months back called Babajob and was thoroughly impressed with its idea and execution. I would call them "A startup with a noble cause". GreenMango is another Hyderabad based startup in similar mould. GreenMango is started by 2 women entrepreneurs - Nandini Narula and Yasmina Mccarty. It was born to cater to two challenges faced by the working poor: information paucity and market inaccessibility. GreenMango is designed to provide tailors, electricians, carpenters, domestic help and all other working poor labour in urban India with a platform to demonstrate the quality of their work and earn a fair price for their services. While babajob was more of a job site for poor working class, GreenMango is a platform to demonstrate their work through personalized storefronts for them.
More About: Marketing , Small , Entrepreneurs , Platform

Vantagetrade.com: Simplified Technical Analysis for Stock Market trading
2008-05-22 11:48:00
2008 has not been too good for Indian stock Market s. Thousands of investors and traders have lost crores of rupees in recent bloodbath. What should investors do in such a volatile market? Should they stay away or take advantage of low stock prices? According to me, right now is the best time to put money into stock markets. The only important aspect is one has to be very careful and stock specific while investing. One needs to look at not only the fundamentals, but also do some amount of technical analysis. Most of the professional traders and investors use technical analysis to do their stock picking, but it seems to be too complex for part-time investors like you and me. Simply put, technical analysis is the examination of past price movements to forecast the future price movements based on number of factors and calculations. This is where Vantagetrade comes into picture. It does all the hard work for the investor and throws up exactly what he wants to know in a simple language...
More About: Stock Market , Technical , Analysis , Trading

Indian B-School teachers lack basic awareness
2008-05-21 11:26:00
This may come as a shocker to you, but nearly 90% of the faculties imparting business programs at India n B-School s are not aware of the basic facts about the national and the global economy such as GDP growth rate numbers. If this is what is the intellectual plight of MBA teachers, think about the level of knowledge our MBA students will have. While Indian business institutes are increasingly getting popular internationally, this revelation by ASSOCHAM Business Barometer (ABB) Survey comes as a shocker ! The ASSOCHAM Study on “Faculty Awareness ” surveyed 258 faculty members (except top 30 B-schools) of various institutes imparting Masters in Business Administration (MBA) across the country. Here are some of the highlights of the survey carried out by ASSOCHAM Business Barometer: As many as 89 per cent of the teachers were unable to tell the GDP growth rate scaled by the Indian economy in the financial year 2006-07. Hardly 6 per cent of the lecturers surveyed r...

Indian Mobile user?s Internet Usage
2008-05-20 14:59:00
Mini Opera is one of the best and most widely used mobile web browser available in the market today. Their latest update has been a big hit with users. Since its worldwide launch in 2006, more than 44 million people have downloaded and used Opera Mini. More than 11.9 million people used Opera Mini in March 2008. Opera mini has surveyed anonymous traffic of more than 44 million cumulative Opera Mini users worldwide to see where mobile users chose to spend their time when using the Web on their mobile devices. The figures released have India centric data as well, which throws up interesting numbers and sites.
More About: Internet , Mobile , Indian , User , Usage

Always be careful of what you write on the web !
2008-05-20 10:14:00
Orkut user Krishnakumar Vaid has learnt this the hard way ! He stands to to be imprisoned for nearly 5 years and fined upto 1 lakh rupees if found guilty. Here is the news: Google has issued a statement regarding sharing the user data and IP address of Krishnakumar Vaid (22), who posted vulgar content about Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The search engine major said that they complied with Indian Legal process and gave the information regarding the Orkut.com user to police. Google spokeswoman said in a statement that Google is committed to protect user privacy, but the company complies with local laws. As the information was required to trace the user for further investigation, Google helped the police to find the user from his IP. The accused user was using Bharti Airtel’s internet services.
More About: Write , Careful

myPOPKORN.com - Videos that cannot be seen !
2008-05-20 08:50:00
Thanks to bad broadband connections in India, watching streaming videos on the net can be one of the most frustrating things. But most of us beat the problem by pausing the video and seeing it after it is fully buffered. But how about a video site that presents with you hundreds of videos but they can never be streamed. Introducing myPOPKORN.com, a video site that launched recently and promises you lot of video goodies but never delivers anything. MyPopkorn.com is owned by Digital Media Convergence Ltd (DMCL), a part of the Essel Group, which also owns Zee Turner Ltd and DishTV. It is a website which showcases three minute videos of soap operas and other TV shows, news and movie clips. The idea and concept behind the site is actually quite good. If you have missed any of the Soap Operas or want to watch the latest news headlines it (supposedly) brings to you the content in condensed format enough for you to get the gist of the whole thing.
More About: Videos

Finally some respite for Real Estate buyers
2008-05-16 14:58:00
The real estate prices have been touching the skies for sometime now. ET now reports that things are cooling down. The real estate prices in some regions have come down as much as 25%. Land prices in the national capital region (NCR), Mumbai suburbs, Bangalore and Hyderabad have corrected by up to 25% as property developers slow down their land purchases. Poor sales and lower availability of credit at higher cost have prompted property developers to end the mad rush to acquire land. Some of the developers have even backed out of land deals which were agreed upon as the slowdown hit the sector. Prices have come down by up to 25% in Mumbai’s distant suburbs, including Thane and Belapur, and pockets of Hyderabad and Bangalore, according to property consultancy firm Knight Frank India. This is really a very good news for average middle class Indians who have been sitting on fence for a very long time in hope of property prices coming down. I hope this situation replicates in other cit...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Real , Finally , Buyers

Event: Ideacamp Pune
2008-05-16 14:37:00
Collaborative thinking and collective intelligence can lead to great solutions and innovations. And thats what is the basis of Ideacamp, Pune . Ideacamp is a self-organized gathering to share ideas and see them shape by applying divergent thinking. The objective of the camp is to get people from different roles like designers, entrepreneurs, financiers, creative minds, technology evangelists, product managers and marketers together to bandy ideas from everyone’s viewpoint. Ideally by end of the gathering we should have ‘proof of potential’ for our ideas. Details What: Ideacamp Where: PERSISTENT SYSTEMS LIMITED Pingala - Aryabhata, 12A/12, off Karve Road, Erandwane, Pune 411004. When: 17th May 2008 (9:00am to 7:00pm) Potential Ideas There is no restriction to what ideas you come up with except that it should make business sense and is useful to at least a group of people. You can share with the community how your idea solves an identified problem or serve any observed need. You ...
More About: Event

Is Amitabh the highest paid blogger in the world?
2008-05-16 13:40:00
Just came across this news - Amitabh Bachchan is being paid Rs. 100 crore for writing on his blog - that is nearly 25 million dollars ! Now thats a HUGE sum to be paid to write a few paragraphs daily, even if it is from an iconic figure like Amitabh Bachchan. I have been an ardent admirer of Amitabh not only for his acting skills, but more so in the way he has conducted himself off-screen through-out his illustrious career. It is tough being in public eye constantly for more than 35 years and he has handled the media glare exceptionally well. Never has he stirred up controversy, always keeping mum and never really criticizing or putting down his fellow actors. However, since he has started blogging, things seem to have taken a total U turn. Nearly every post he has written have been controversial and widely covered by Indian media. I have read some of his posts and I can’t believe that Amitabh can write this controversial stuff. Take an example of this post where he compares t...
More About: Blogger , World , Paid , The World

The Five Most Important Things About Growth in India
2008-05-14 13:16:00
This post has been written by Bruce Greenwald and reproduced here with his permission India n growth is going to depend overwhelmingly on what happens locally in India. The reason India and China went from being peripheral players in the world market in 1980 to the powerful forces they are today didn’t have to do with changes in the global market. It had to do with local changes in India and China. In places where these changes haven’t taken place — in Russia for example — you see their participation in the global economy is what it always has been: just as a supplier of raw materials. The reason so many Chinese goods now sell around the world is not because the demand for those goods has suddenly materialized, but because productivity growth in China — and it’s the same in India — enabled it to provide goods and compete successfully in global markets. This trend is going to get more — not less — important in the future. I...
More About: Business , Indian , Growth , Things

Outsourcing gone too far !
2008-05-14 12:30:00
Now this one will make you laugh till you cry ! Yes, outsourcing stuff works really well in most cases and I am all for outsourcing, but this is probably the extreme if outsourcing. See it to believe it... Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas Hope you had a good laugh :)

Do you prefer a male boss over female at your workplace?
2008-05-14 11:36:00
More than 68% men and women prefer male bosses at their work. This is the conclusion of recently concluded survey - "Preference of Boss es in Emerging Corporate Culture" - held by ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India ). I am not sure whether to agree or disagree. In my 12 years of experience I have had only one female boss and I would rate her as one of my top bosses I have ever worked with. Although, it may not be the yardstick with which one can come to a conclusion, I was always under the impression that women make better bosses. Contrary to my belief, 68% of the survey respondents expressed that "males are faster in taking decisions, quicker in disposing off their assigned jobs and much more focused and straight towards their work and at the same time passionate in awarding their subordinates with functional autonomy to completely let them enjoy their work".
More About: Business , Female , Workplace

Internet Poll Verdict: Indian Broadband connections are expensive?but why ?
2008-05-13 09:13:00
I had set up a poll a fortnight back on this to understand why India n Internet penetration is lagging behind so much so that a country of size of Hong Kong beats India, even when we out number them in population by over a billion people. Obviously, one of the basic reason is that more than 70% of Indian still live in villages and are dependent on farming with no need of internet as yet what so ever. But what about urban Indians? India has more than 250 million people living in cities, then why is it that we have only 3.5 million broadband connections to show? Here is the Poll Verdict: Out of total of 156 poll participants around 44% felt that Internet connections are expensive. I feel so too.
More About: Broadband , Analysis

TasksEveryDay.com: On demand virtual assistants for busy professionals and
2008-05-12 15:43:00
Most of us have heard about Elance, getafreelancer or guru where users can outsource work to freelancers on project to project basis. These services are quite popular number of individuals and small business earn their livelihood through these sites. One of the main drawback of this service is that while quite a few do a good job and leave their clients satisfied, equal number of people perform their work quite unsatisfactorily. One can frequently see complaints and disputes between the freelancer and client. Now a new India based start-up called TasksEveryDay.com gives a new twist to this freelancing and targets a particular niche of people. They provide busy professionals and Business people in U.S, Canada, U.K and Australia with virtual assistant service at a fixed low rate of $6.98 per hour.
More About: Indian , Doing business , Virtual

Advocatekhoj: Present your case, get a lawyer, Win your case
2008-05-10 11:21:00
No, the last part of the title is stretching it up a bit too much. But this new startup AdvocateKhoj helps users to find well qualified lawyers to fight out your case. A good lawyer is half battle won ! Legal system in India is overloaded will millions of cases and more than 3 million cases are still pending in Indian High courts. This gives Advocate Khoj a readymade market to target. AdvocateKhoj communication platform bridges the gap between clients and advocates by providing an avenue for talk. Anyone who needs legal assistance can present a case (answer some simple questions about their legal situation) "free of cost" on the AdvocateKhoj website without revealing his or her identity. Then, member advocates by AdvocateKhoj decide whether to respond to your legal issue after reviewing your presented case. Once you get a reply from an advocate, you are able to view the advocate's qualification and experience so that you can make an informed decision on which advocate to hire. W...
More About: Lawyer , Case , Present

Dollar winning the battle against the rupee
2008-05-09 15:24:00
I have been following the rupee dollar battle since I started this blog last year. It had been one sided battle through out last year. Last year was won by Rupee hands down. Rupee was valued at nearly 45 rupee at the start of last year and by December 07, it had reached the highs of nearly 38.5 against dollar. Importers were rejoicing and exporters were crying. The trend seems to have reversed since start of this year. From highs of 38.5 against dollar, the rupee has had a big slide and has touched the lows of 41.77. The rupee is hitting this level for the first time since May last year. Experts have largely blamed this slide to the sky-high global oil prices which touched a record $122 per barrel yesterday. Last year around same time when I was in US, I had filled up gas for around $1.80/1.90 per gallon whereas today the gallon prices are nearly touching four dollars.
More About: Dollar , Battle , Winning