Product Development, Startup and Product Management News

Shaadi.com is being biased for communities

2010-07-27T10:13:00.000+05:30

Matchmaking has always been a big business in India and matrimonial portals are exploiting its commercial potential. All the online matrimonial portals are facilitating same-caste/ community profile search. Now, shaadi.com has also get into this war and announced to launch 15 sites on various communities, some are already live like BengaliShaadi, AssameseShaadi, KashmiriShaadi, TamilShaadi, ParsiShaadi

People Interactive has been moved on to this way on the basis of their site’s user behavior, people use to search for a partner in same community. According to Gaurav Rakshit, same database will be used across all the verticals but any member registered on these verticals can’t access main Shaadi.com website. User can migrate their account anytime. He further added that this verticalization is basically a customer acquisition strategy.

Community based verticalization is merely a process of risk-elimination and offering made-to-order package, you can pick and choose from is indicative of the perpetuation of caste as a gene-pool patrol. It is just a function on a demand-supply basis, but our unquestioning acceptance of this division is a call for attention.

Aporv.com innovate the way of Indian handicratfs shopping

2010-07-24T22:23:00.001+05:30

Indian handicraft is well acclaimed in domestic and international market and Aprov.com has brought up a new business model to promote Indian handicraft and offering livelihood to Indian craftsmen. Aporv is an online platform focusing on searching of handicrafts and buying them online.

Aprov has been conceptualized by Sudip Dutta and Subhra Banerjee> They have strong education background and professional experiences. They have also covers the premier design institution – BITS Pilani.

How Aporv is different from other shopping portals

• Unlike other shopping portal, they not only sell handicraft products, Aporv sells products as a story.

• Take care of product customization as well

• Bring products direct from artisans / craftsmen through network of NGOs.

• Generating livelihood opportunities

• Price of product is being decided by artisan not the Aporv

• Strong return policy

Key Challenges

• Language barrier

• Lack of creativity in craftsmen, as most of them have learned the techniques from father, grand-fathers

• Logistics

Future Plans

• DO more tie-ups with NGOs, SGHs

• Expand to international horizons

• Minimize urban migration and make the model more robust

Successfully cleared rain test

2010-07-13T10:58:00.003+05:30

Today I want to share a lifetime experience of mine. Few of you may know that I use to commute on my own scooty (my lovely Honda Activa). It has been just 15 days of driving and yesterday was like god has decided to take test of my driving skills (though Delhi Government has not taken). I left my office on usual time and coming back to home from Noida to Delhi by crossing huge traffic and enjoying music. All of sudden few rain drops fall on me near mayur vihar, initially I enjoyed and giving many thanks to god for making the weather so pleasant but god has decided something else. In just 5 minutes, my happiness vanishes because it was start raining heavily with thunder. I could not understand what to do coz I was on akshardham flyover (cant go back and rain is so harsh and pushing me back). Then I recall that few days back I have putin raincoat un-heartedly in the diki of scooty. I instantly wear that and convinced myself ALL IZZ WELL ALL IZZ WELL and start driving again with confidence. Even i was unable to see the road, opposite side lights are trying to distract me and rain looks like someone throwing lots n lots of stone on me to stop but I have not stopped and keep on driving slowly slowly, try to flow some car. Water logging was also a distracting factor. Luckily, I have reached home safely.

After reaching home I felt that I have win a big war and feel so happy that I have cleared the driving test. After been relaxed, I have switch on the TV and all the news channel are flashing the news that I way which I passed over is jam packed will took 2 hours to comeout of that.

Thanks to my darling Activa for saving and surviving with me.

Simplify Your Stock Market Investment Decision

2010-07-12T22:17:00.000+05:30

Recently, I was browsing about stock exchanges (NSE, BSE) for investment purpose. I came upon an interesting online stock market research tool – Bigpaisa.com launched recently by group of some traders & technical experts.

Bigpaisa has interesting graphical representation of stocks. One can find brief market activity like VIX, FII & DII activity and graph of Nifty Open Interest which is updated every 30 minutes during market hours.

Key catchy points of site

• Daily & weekly pivot points are interesting to watch.

• Sign in with gmail account

• Entirely free to use

Site Features

Site is well complied and components are well placed but can be bit better. As site is free to use, key revenue generation source is google adsense.

Competition

Stockezy – Stockezy is also free to use website focusing on stock market. It is more of social networking vertical targeting finance like-minded people.

FourStocks – FourStocks is online stock picking & stock rating platform. This website is very helpful for investors & traders to take stock decisions.

Stock market is very booming industry and many firms are trying to encash it but this domain still has lot of potential which is yet untouched.

Only women centric shopping destination

2010-07-10T22:50:00.000+05:30

After itimes & naukriforwomen..here comes one more portal exclusive for LADIES – Oyegirl.com. Its an exclusive shopping store for women, offering apparels, jewellery, footwear, saree etc… which any women would rarely buy online without touch & feel, fitting, size etc.. (right ladies?). This has been founded by Bijoy Nair & Abhishek Chipra to fulfill the desire of shopaholic ladies to shop anytime anywhere online. They are using CCAvenue payment gateway to receive payments online.

Products

Oyegirl has few brands only and rest non-branded products are priced high which a shopaholic lady would rarely buy (as they know the market price of these products). Product range is also very limited, less options to choose for. Discounts are already provided with every product which is available on all shopping portals. A lot more women centric products are missing like cosmetics, health & fitness products, kitchen items, home furnishing etc…which are majorly purchased by ladies.

Site Design

Homepage is attractive, missing the feel of shopping portal. Search result page & product display page could be better. Design is not new to watchout for.

Our Review

Internet is an open space which should not be divided on gender basis. Anyone can have quest for shopping for anything and by targeting only ladies Oyegirl.com is limiting its revenue as men buys more as compared to ladies online.

Oyegirl.com Founders have to conceptulize and implement the concept very carefully, as existing women centric portals are still surviving for existence and Oyegirl should not join them.

One hour Life in a Metro (Delhi Metro)

2010-06-01T10:44:00.000+05:30

First day of June month was started a normal day, I wake at 6am in the morning and ready to leave for office by 8.30am, everything was moving preformatted. I reach to Lakshmi Nagar metro station and board the metro for office, I use to change metro at yamuna bank for Noida. As usual listening music on mobile while commuting, till the time, my day was going smooth. I have reached to yamuna bank station and waiting for Noida metro..it was 9am and display board was showing 8min for metro..i was waiting more and more people start gathering at station and we all was eagerly waiting for metro fromlast 15 min….then I start realizing that something is wrong today and suddenly display board start showing 40min for metro..and metro staff was announcing that due to some technical fault matro will delayed by half an hour or more…i was like what to do..there is no other way to go to office to be back home (coz yamuna bank metro station has 2-3 km distance from main road). Crowd was also increasing heavily…two things was running in my mind how to get out from this place or how can I board the metro if it arrives..

My mind was buzy in building such thoughts then thankfully metro arrives and I have prepared myself and stand first in a row so that I should not miss this. Luckily or unluckily I have board the metro and it was over over packed (cant explain in words). Once it starts running on track, somehow I was settled down and got a decent space to stand but this is not the end..at akshardham station it again stops and we all people was looking like millions of birds/ animals kept in a cage and there is no way to escape..people are looking out from metro window to other side..seems like asking for help , some are enjoying music, some are fighting for space, many of them are calling the their bosses and informing that they will be late (I have also done the same task), some are talking to their boyfriends and girlfriends and some eve teasers are taking advantage of this situation. Mine while, I got a call from my friend he was watching news and this news are flashing at all news channel, he called to know where I am, I was not in a position to pick the call but somehow I did and informed him that I’m also the victim of this situation. All of sudden, an uncle was start shouting..he was talking to metro authorities over the phone and asking about the problem and when it will be resolved, poor customer care people just saying one thing..Technical fault will be resolved soon. All seems so disappointed again, after 10 minutes again metro started and at afterwards at each station more and more people are boarding the train which is uncomfortable for all but all are in hurry and there is no other way around so bearing with it. Afterwards, metro runs smoothly and i have also get down at 9.50am by metro watch.

This one hour in a metro was an unforgetable ride and in future I never ever want to travel again like this. Hoping that rest of the day will go smooth.

Secure your Facebook Account

2010-05-17T10:00:00.000+05:30

If you are very much concerned about your privacy of your facebook account then must use this new in-built Facebook privacy tool to prevent hacking of your facebook account. You will get an email or SMS whenever someone else logged into to your facebook account from an unauthorized computer. So that, you can instantly take a prompt action by changing your account password or contact facebook team.
By activating this tool, you are just required to register your computer (from which you access Facebook regularly), and then you will receive an email and SMS notifications whenever your account being accessed from any other unregistered computer.

You can also check the list of all the computers from where your account has been accessed (by you or by hackers) which help you to identify your access and hackers access.

How to activate this tool

Step 1: Login to your account
Step 2: Go to Account Settings

Step 3: Click on Account Security Tab
Step 4: Change No to YES for “Would you like to receive notifications for logins from new devices?” Then “Save.” The feature is turned on.\

Step 5: Register your computer
The settings will be customizable only after registration of your computer. For that, logout from your account and then login again, then you get a screen a message to register your computer

Type the name of the computer which you can remember and choose whether you want Facebook to remember this computer or not. If you access your account through a cyber café or shared work station then don’t check the checkbox

After this facebook starts maintaining the log of your logins through registered and unregistered system and you can also check those logs in Account Security Section.
Whats the catch in this

Facebook is stored by your browser in a library of cookies and if cookies are deleted by any chance then you have to re-register your machine.

One More Security Feature:

In near future, facebook is also planning to introduce one more security feature which will ask some security questions to you like birth date or who was your first date whenever unrecognized and suspicious logins occur and hackers won’t be able to answer these questions.

Even after this good move towards security, it has some limitations:
• Unable to take advantage of this, if accessing facebook through mobile or smart phone
• Account access through cyber café or regular change of IPs will make this tool a useless weapon
• It’s a measure to stop people from clearing their cookies and opt for :Instant Personalization” feature.

Buy Books Online

2010-04-13T10:15:00.000+05:30

One more new online book store has joined the wagon – SimplyBooks.in. This portal has been developed by eMinds Knowledge Services.

Here, you can get books based on Art, Biography, Computers, Food, Craft, Drama and more. You can also order CDs and magazines here. They have stock of around 1000 books from leading publishers and sold more than 500 books in just 2 months. Online book ordering process is quite simple at SimplyBooks.in.

SimplyBooks majorly attract audience from South and West India. eMinds claims to offer good discounts and fastest delivery.

SimpylBooks.in is expecting Rs. 1 crore revenue in 2010-11 and looking forward for funding as well.

Portal Design:

• Site design is neat and clean. But I feel there is a room for improvement.
• Surprisingly, Facebook fan page is placed at book detail page instead of Homepage.

USP:

• Offering CDs & Magazines as well
• Search books by author, category, title, ISBN no, Publishers etc.
• Free book delivery across Indian in just four days.

Indian online books market is expected to grow 35% each year and it has huge potential to attract more and more book lovers. Online bookstore is new and upcoming trend in India and to monetize this huge market potential, online bookstore owners start developing their strategies in right direction and offer some more products related to this industry, they can also start offering used books, Magazines or so.

What’s Next after Facebook and Twitter

2010-04-09T09:26:00.000+05:30

While suffering through my facebook & twitter account I feel like getting bored, routine status updating, chat with friends, commenting on other status etc….I was start thinking like what would come next after facebook and twitter. Recently, facebook has left behind google in terms of visits which is remarkable.

Wall Street Journal has also recently declared that Email is dead. Newyork times also declared that Facebook is going to die soon.

In the urge of finding what’s next, I have made search in google and see the results

In the same breath that we pronounce various types of e-communication media dead, dying, over, or expired, we try desperately to breathe life into "what's next."

Just check out the Google suggestions for the query "what's next after:" Nearly all the results involve tech tools (see screenshot below).

Internet has always been a space where innovation breeds regularly and incumbents are always insecure but hat doesn’t stop innovation. Surely, many people like me would love being wowed with the next thing.

Internet is a keep where nothing is stable and permanent it keep on changing frequently, In 1995-1996 websites came into existence and businesses start developing website for business expansions then in 2005 blogs came into existence any everyone start blogging…many celebs has been attracted towards blogging – Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Britney Spear and many more.

While juggling my mind to find the answer of What’s Next. Here is list of things which can give tough competition to facebook & twitter

- 12seconds.tv – As world is becoming tiny and we dont have much time to read long content and keep on writing. It’s a easy way to share what you're doing with your friends and family using short video clips.

- May be after facebook & twitter, people just share what’s in their mind with smiley. There could be smiley for every human action and intention.

What you have to say on this?

Do you also think that Myspace, Facebook and Twitter will die soon?

According to you, what’s next ?

Seen a person carrying gun in delhi metro

2010-04-06T10:07:00.000+05:30

Last week i was travelling in Delhi Metro from Noida to Moti Nagar. After getting into metro at noida station just at next station i got the seat. I feel very happy as metro is little crowded and i need to travel a long way. I put on the music and start enjoying after few minutes what i see a person is standing just in front of me. He has lean body structure, aged 30-35 wearing safari suit and has one disordered eye and he just raise his hand to hold the handle that time i was shocked to see what he was wearing on waist ....... a fully loaded gun with 6 extra bullets. I was shocked and could not understand what should i do n number of thoughts was rolling into my mind like What if i die, what if he is a human bomb, i have not written my vill [though i have no property :)] and some funny thoughts as well. Initially i thought to inform metro police but no metro police is into metro then realize if he is a terriort or so then i also required to been through lot of invetigation, or he may be a police person in casuals then also i need to been through lot of things.

After thinking a lot, i have made a decision and get down at Yamuna Bank station and taken another metro....thought this is the easiest and safest way.

But this incident forced to think how safe is our delhi metro...we use to proud on our metro but is it really safe ?

New Icon of the Country

2009-12-29T10:20:00.000+05:30

Though m not interested in politics much but some time read some news or articles in newspaper or watch political news on TV channels... These days m reading about Rahul Gandhi. He is the New face of India who has the potential to change the face of country. Though he is quiet young but determined to bring revolution in Indian political industry.

He has made an atempt to reach to the bottom line and tried to connect to poor Indians without hesitation whereas other politicians just finish their work by their words or speeches only never tried to come closer to the rural India. However, Rahul Gandhi tried to do the same, may be real or artificial but he has made an attempt.

After Barak Obama, he came on Facebook and tried to get in touch with Indian youth.

Unfortgetable day of my life

2009-11-05T10:18:00.000+05:30

3-Nov 09 was unforgetable day of life. That day while going back to home from office, i was enjoying music on my phone all of sudden around 7'o clock my mobile start rinking i thought now who is disturbing me (bank loan, insurance people..) unheartidly i picked up the call,

guy on other side was saying mam are you using HDFC bank credit card
Me - yes
HDFC Bank Guy - tell me last four digit of your credit card
Me - why
HDFC Bank Guy - somebody is misusing your card and we want to trace him
Me - (i thought some old friend is making fun by such prank)
on a funny note, i said who is this yaar
HDFC Bank Guy - mam, m calling from HDFC bank & some one is misusing your card so tell me last four digit asap so that we could block the card
Me - thought for a while and said how can i rely on you
HDFC Bank Guy - told me my DOB, billing address etc..
Me - i instatly gave him last four digits of my card
HDFC Bank Guy - checked in system & told me that person has already made transaction of rs 400 & now he is again using it
Me- (without lossing a moment) block my card now
HDFC Bank Guy - Mam, you have to call customer care guys for blocking the card..

Immediately i made a call to customer care and after waiting for few minutes get connected to CCE & they blocked my card.

Now, my worry is who has stolen my card & misusing it.

Again, my mobile rang up & same HDFC Bank Guy said mam that we have traped the culprit & he is at Arorasons Jewellers. You rush there and catch him. I have taken the jewellers no. from him & call the jeweller to hold that guy. Parallely dailled 100 & called Delhi Police to reach that place & arrest the culprit.

In few minutes, i successfully reached the jewellers place and suprised to see that someone known to me was standing their & start appologies instantly Please Forgive Please Forgive.

I was shocked & unable to believe this for few seconds then i scold him a lot and crowd was start gathering there. So to sum it up, i have collected my card from him & Rs. 400( old transaction made by him) then Delhi Police came and start enquiring him (in their own style) and i leave for home.

Well i'm a softhearted person..not lodged FIR against him. In all, after 3 hours of hardship, i got my card & traped the culprit..

HDFC Bank, Arorasons Jewellers & Delhi Police Rocks !!!

Get your mails in your Mobile – FREE, without GPRS & 3G

2009-08-25T17:56:00.000+05:30

Bitla Software – a Bangalore based company has launched Mobee.in through which you can send and receive the emails in mobile phone for FREE* and without GPRS.

To avail this service, you just need to register with them (FREE) through their website or SMSing SIGNUP to 09845498454. Instantly, your account will be created as @mobee.in. After account creation, setup an auto mail forward from your email account to your Mobee email address and Mobee server will forward your all the mails to your mobile phone upto 480 chars. Take a tour

You can perform following activities after signing up with Mobee.in
- Reply Mails
- Reply All
- Send Mails
- Read Mails
- Block sender
- Start & stop easily
- Filter emails
- Check your Outlook,Gmail,Yahoo accounts & on any type of mobile phone ..more
Mobee.in is offering this service in the form of three packages:

Sliver : 10 emails per day, Upto 5 mail filters, 5 document storage
Charges: Rs. 30 pm

Gold : 20 emails per day, Upto 10 mail filters, 10 document storage
Charges: Rs. 50 pm

Platinum : Unlimited emails per day, Upto 25 mail filters, 25 document storage
Charges: Rs. 79 pm

Common service features in all packages are:
- Upto 480 characters per email
- Custom email Signature
- SEND, READ, REPLY, REPLYALL
- Unlimited Whitelist/blacklist emails
- Attach documents to emails via SMS
- Unlimited SMS backup
- Upgrade/Downgrade Anytime

As of now, they are offering one month free Silver plan on sign-up, in which the user can access three emails per day. Mobee.in also provides separate corporate plans, with an admin console to manage all user accounts. Mobee.in was started in 2008 and today it has 269,031 Alexa Traffic Rank.

Now a days, email and mobile phone have become the most common mode of communication but peoples are still unable to make maximum out of it. After huge technological advancements only 9.3m urban Indian used their mobile phones to access Internet out of 400m mobile subscribers. Out of this, very few subscribers use the mobile phone to access email; infact 2.8% users prefer Internet over mobile phone to access mails which represents the bad figures of Indian telecom sector. This may be due to lack of awareness, high charges of mobile internet access or people feel that they need to have high-end phone mobile phone for accessing internet. Reasons can be more behind this but the initiative taken by Bitla Software is commendable need to see how far will it go and gain the subscribers and corporate tieups.

Michael Jackson Death collapses the Internet

2009-06-26T17:49:00.000+05:30

Everyone in the world is familiar with Michael Jackson name. He was a well known global personality. His sudden death collapses the world wide web. Many sites was down.

In twitter, thousands of tweets came in short span of time Peoples are roaming on internet to get actual and updated information about Jackson. It was not only twitter that was struggling. AOL-owned TMZ was down as it brings this breaking news first. Perez Hilton’s blog also failed as people rush there to confirm the news. LATimes was also down as they was saying Jackson was only in a coma rather than dead, so Jackson Fans start gathering there for confirmation. (Later LATimes confirmed that Jackson was passed). On other side, CNN was also down but due to some other reason. While, CNN firstly said that Jackson was revived before going to the hospital.

Refer below screenshots, how people are looking for updated information

Moreover, 9 of the 10 trending topics on Twitter are related to Jackson. This topic will be in top trend for atleast one week on twitter. Michael Jackson has so much power that he blocks the web. All these sites ensure about server capabilites but Jackson death news has collapsed the internet what happen if something major then this would happen.

Samsung Launched Low-cost Solar Powered Mobile Phone

2009-06-18T09:51:00.000+05:30

Someday you may trap in a situation where you mobile phone battery is low or null and you need to make an urgent call. That time you must have think that you should have separate charger or battery or mobile phone. Now, no such need to think like this. On last Wednesday, Samsung has launched low-cost mobile phone which will be charged through solar energy. Yes you heard it right, you can charge your mobile phone in sunlight.

Samsung has launched its new solar powered handset under “Guru” line of product range and priced at Rs.2,799, it has a solar panel on the backside, which can be used to charge the battery anywhere in the sunlight. By charging “Guru E1107″ for one hour in solar energy, you can have around 5-10 minutes of talk-time to make some urgent calls when there is no electricity or you are not close to a plug point. Battery can be fully charged with about 40 hours of solar charging. Initial batches of solar mobile phone will be imported from South Korea. They are also planning to introduce solar-powered touchscreen mobile handset, Blue Earth in India.

As per J.S. Shin, president & Chief Executive of Samsung, Southwest Asia, they have developed such kind of phone by considering the requirements of the consumers, especially for people where major power cut happens. Samsung is planning the launch 40 new models this year, around 20 models are already launched.

According the Mr. Dutt, Samsung will also include solar charging feature in its high-end mobile phone. They have invested around $44 million in developing its mobile manufacturing unit in Noida.

As per one of the company official said that Samsung market share is in the early double digits currently. They are planning to increase it by about 5-6 percent this year.

Solar powered mobile phone is truly a new and innovative concept.

Payin2 Made Cash Collection Easy

2009-06-14T20:21:00.000+05:30

Even after internet revolution and many mediums of payment collection, still many businesses are run on cash in India. Most SMEs and small companies run their business on cash but their major pain is cash collection from client which eatup their lots of time and energy.

Recently one company has understood their pain and launched a new payment services system named Payin2 to collect cash from your clients who don't have online access. This service will provide SMEs and companies a ready to use electronic distribution and cash collection service system. Payin2 has been developed by Paytronic Network – India's one of the leading electronic distributors of prepaid mobile vouchers. They already have more than 30000 merchants and covered 90 major cities and towns in India.

How to avail Payin2 Services

To avail their services, firstly you need to register online and enter the few unique keywords which will be used for payment at any of the merchant on their network.
Then customer can make make cash payment to nearest Recharge Point outlets to merchant.
Once payment made, the merchant has been informed about the syntax and keyword for the SMS.
Merchant then sends SMS to the local paytronic number (which is known to the merchant) in the specified format.
The request then reaches to Payin2 Server which in turn communicates to the client server with the customer details.

For more details, click here

User can find merchant logos or banner at "Payin2 Recharge Point" and client companies can also update the merchants list on their website which will help their customers in finding out the nearest Recharge point.

How much it cost?

They are charging 10% per transactions for the first month i.e., till 1^st Sep 09. Out of which 5% will be given to shopkeeper and rest 5% will be shared between company and its distributors.

The company is asking from users about commission structure for their services. After analyzing the user feedback, they will define the commission chart till 1^st Aug 09.

Concept of outsourcing payment collection sounds promising. But i have some doubt - Will SMEs/Companies prefer this above direct bank deposit or online transfer which is much safe and easier. 10% charges is bit higher, infact its more wicked than service tax levied by government of India. One more thing, they have also not made it clear that from whom they charge 10% merchant or customer or both.

Google Finance is no more in Beta

2009-06-06T11:43:00.000+05:30

In my previous post, i have mentioned about beta label on Google products. May be google has gone through that post :) and start removing Beta label from its products after many years.

Just open Google Finance in another browser and check the logo of google finance. You must notice that “Beta” word has been removed. Initially i feel google is just doing this with Gmail and Google Docs because he wants to sell these products to enterprise customers. But Google Finance beat them to it.

Google has launched Google Finance around 3 years back and in these three years of Beta years, it has become a complete product.

According to ComScore data, Google's (Finance) biggest competitor Yahoo (Finance) has attracted 21.7 million much higher that Google Finance 1.4 million unique U.S. visitors in April. Last year, Yahoo Finance has added 2.2 million monthly unique users in the U.S more than total google total visitors. The worldwide numbers show a similar disparity, with Yahoo Finance at 43.5 million uniques vs. 2.4 million for Google Finance.

MentorPolis.com - Connects Mentors and Mentees

2009-05-30T15:02:00.000+05:30

Recently, I came across a new and innovative web portal Mentorpolis. The idea that drives mentorpolis is to connect mentors and mentees. This will bridge the gap between the mentees who are looking for academic and professional advice from suitable mentors. This portal has been started by Delhi IITians.

At Mentorpolis, mentees can directly gain access to mentors and take guidance from them on various topics related to professional career, higher education etc. Currently, Mentorpolis is concentrating on six major verticals
• Engineering India
• Engineering Abroad
• MBA India
• MBA Abroad
• Entrepreneurship
• Job Preparation

Mentees traffic includes school students, undergraduates, young professionals, whereas mentors are senior students and working professionals providing assistance in choosing right career path, where to study etc.
Taking guidance from mentors is not free; mentees needs to pay the amount charged by mentors around Rs. 500. Mentees can take advice by Telephonic Consultations and In-person Meetings (charges as set by mentors). Mentorpolis team arranges meeting between mentor & mentee. Mentorpolis also organize Web Seminars & online conversation by Mentors which mentees can attend free of cost.
Alexa Traffic Details
Heads Average Change
3 month 1 month 3 Month(+/-)
Website Reach* 0.000080% 0.000060% --
Traffic Rank** 973941 1335454
Page Views/ User*** 4.5 2.5 --

* Website Reach - Percent of global Internet users who visit this site
** Page Views/ User - The number of unique pages viewed per user per day for this site
*** Traffic Rank - Alexa traffic rank based on a combined measure of page views and users (reach)

My opinion is that Mentorpolis is a nice startup and site also looks clear. In short span of time, they have associate many contributors with them. Online chat facility should also be added for real-time chatting between mentor & mentees. Promoters should also focus on some more verticals such as IAS, Defense etc. and they can approach various universities and colleges seniors/ex-students to associate with them and provide their advice which would be helpful for mentees. As they are building their presence on various social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook etc., should also focus on offline mode to approach mentors and mentees and do advertising on TV, Radio, and Print Media etc.

Google join hands with Reliance Energy

2009-05-26T10:02:00.000+05:30

Google has now join hands with Reliance Energy for its Google Power Meter to allow the user to track its own electricity consumption information on iGoogle.

How it works?
According to Google.org, PowerMeter receives the information from utility smart meters & energy management devices and the electricity consumption is tracked on the user’s personal iGoogle. Data partners connect to Google PowerMeter via secure HTTP (HTTPS), and upload energy usage information to Google PowerMeter in an XML format based on Google Data API Specification.

Why Power Meter Required?

Most of us actually don’t know how much is the electricity our appliances are using, where is the wastage of electricity or how to manage the electricity bill. A study reveals that knowledge of home energy consumption results in 5-15% saving in electricity bill.

Power Meter Reach

Currently, all the users can’t have access to PowerMeter only limited group of people can have access to PowerMeter in India. Google is planning to expand in near future.

Google other associations

In initial stages, google will offer this facility in US, Canada and India. In US, google tied up with San Diego Gas & Electric for California partnership, TXU Energy for Texas, JEA for Florida and Wisconsin Public Service Corporation for Wisconsin. In Missouri, the White River Valley Electric Cooperative will work and Glasgow EPB in Kentucky.

In Canada, Google’s partner is Toronto Hydro and Today Reliance announces partnership with Reliance Energy. Reliance power distribution is more than 5,000 MW in India. Reliance and its associates has 5m consumers in Mumbai, Delhi and Orissa.
Google Ventures has also invested in a flush smart metering company Silver Spring Networks that will manufacture networking boards for power meters which will be used to monitor and curb electricity consumption.

PowerMeter is very innovation and powerful initiative from Google but need to see how this will be successful in India. Urban population can take advantage out of this, but what about rural population who don’t know how to access PowerMeter. As well as, google should also reveal information about power cuts so that government should take initiative in this front as well and provide power to check the consumption.

Nowadays, google is very active in promoting iGoogle through various means. Google is already promoting iGoogle through Airtel and Sify by showing it as starting page to Airtel broadband users and Sify Wi-fi consumers.

When Google Products will recover from BETA ?

2009-05-22T10:06:00.000+05:30

After reaching office, you may be checking your mails on gmail (most users have gmail account), or using some other Google product, just check the Google product logo on Top of the page, small beta text will be written just below the logo. Most of the Google products are still in their BETA version. Beta tag is now becoming part of Google product logos. Since its launch in April 2004, GMAIL is still in beta version irrespective of having 146 m global users (Comscore, April 2009). Almost half of the Google products are still not grown up and running in beta version.

I was trying to count down Google Beta products but someone else has down this work for him. Pingdom's count (Sep 08 report) reveals that almost half of the Google's products are running with beta logo. No other big internet giant is doing this to the extent that Google does.

Generally, beta label is used for the products that are not fully tested or that still lack important functionality or not fully baked product. I assume, Google is redefining the word “Beta” for itself. By releasing products in beta version, Google is playing safe and limit its liability with certain products. For example, you are using Gmail and move your all the important contacts and mails into it then due to some technical reason, many of your e-mail / contacts disappears. Then to whom you would blame? Google has protective shield named Beta label.

Recently, Google took out Chrome from its beta version. But still four of the five core Google products are still in Beta i.e., Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk and Google Calendar and Google Sites.

Now, news is coming from Google house that they are planning to remove beta label from its products which are for enterprise customers. They may remove Beta label from its number of products which are aimed at enterprise customers and to even consider shifting from MS Office to Google.

Google is earning million dollar money through beta label products. Amazon is also doing the same thing; its Mechanical Turk has been in beta for 3 years. When these companies will make fully functional product and stop making fool to users.

Who’s making maximum profit per head count?

2009-05-19T14:53:00.000+05:30

Have you ever imagined how much money companies use to make per head count. Let’s analyze what kind of money the well known global tech companies are making such as Apple, HP, IBM, eBay, Dell, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc., in total we will analyze 15 companies. These companies have sheer size of workforces.

Some interesting facts about the employee size:

IBM head count is around 400k. Its employee strength is more than total workforce of Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Cisco, pple, Amazon and Google.

HP employees are more than four times the employees of Dell.

Amazon stands almost parallel to Google in terms of workforce count.

Analyze profit and revenue per employee

General perception is that larger the company, larger the overhead and costs. But tech companies are breaking this perception by earning more and more profit per employee.

Refer the table below for deep understanding:

Revenue and profit per employee in 2008 (in USD)
Company	Employees	Revenue per employee	Profit per employee
Google	20,164	1,080,914	209,624
Microsoft	91,000	663,956	194,297
Baidu	6,397	499,961	163,844
Apple	32,000	1,014,969	151,063
Cisco	66,129	597,922	121,762
Adobe	7,335	488,056	118,856
eBay	16,200	527,238	109,844
Intel	82,500	455,588	64,145
Oracle	86,657	258,837	63,711
Dell	76,500	798,706	32,392
Amazon	20,600	930,388	31,311
Yahoo	13,600	530,037	31,199
IBM	398,455	260,080	30,957
HP	321,000	368,735	25,947
Sun	33,556	413,637	12,010

Some more interesting facts

Google is clear winner by making maximum profit per employee than the other tech companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and Intel. HP and IBM in spite of sheer employee size making relatively low profit per employee. Microsoft is doing great job and very closes to Google irrespective of having 4.5 times as many employees.

Let’s simplify the above table

IBM, Yahoo, Amazon and Dell have over $30k profit per employee
Oracle and Intel’s profit margin is more than $64k
Adobe and Cisco have around $120k

I’m not a financial analyst or HR research person but this makes me feel that Google is working very strategically by making good balance between profit and employee. Above figures may change soon as most of the companies are saying TATA – BYE BYE to their employees by giving pink slips.

Companies included in the survey are publicly traded on NYSE/NASDAQ. Although Sun was recently bought by Oracle.

Forbes World’s most reputed companies list

2009-05-12T14:46:00.000+05:30

Forbes is regularly conducting research on companies and come with new findings. Recently, Forbes has released the list of World's most reputed companies. Research was conducted on 600 companies of various sectors.

Now Indian Companies are making their mark on the Globe, in forbes list 17 Indian compnaies are listed in Top 200 list. TATA has gained 11th rank and SBI is at 29th position.

Google which was recently ranked as No. 1 brand by Fourth Annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking published by Millward Brown Optimor. Ironically, in Forbes list google is at No. 23

Good part is Indian companies which are ranked as reputed companies are from various sectors like Bank, Computer, Automotive, Energy, Telecom etc. India is spreading its wings in various areas.

Track your each Website visitor and convert into buyer

2009-05-10T16:13:00.000+05:30

Does thousands and millions of people land up on your site on daily basis and leave it by just browsing & enquiring about all the products or left the payment process in middle. Only 10% - 20% visitors are converting into genuine buyers/customers. Then you just think about what's going wrong. In today's Internet world, website abandonment measurement and management are the major concerns of companies selling products/services on internet directly or indirectly. Regular monitoring of user navigation behavior, buying behavior etc is being done by companies to convert the visitor into buyer and it's desirable to know why people leave the cycle in middle.

Imagine, if someone would be there to bring back the visitors (who left the registration process or payment process in middle) to come back and complete the process not in 24 hours but practically in real-time.

Who can resolve this problem ?

Now, SeeWhy has listened and understands your problem and launched a software-as-a-service called Abandonment Tracker. It can convert your ôlost clicksö into revenue by re-marketing your products or services with real-time follow up mails & calls.

How to avail this?

SeeWhy is offering two types of product - one is Abandonment Tracker (Its FREE) and second is Abandonment Tracker PRO.

How It works ?

Abandonment Tracker captures a unique ID for each visitor and mail the abandonment IDs to website owner to bring back those visitors to complete the online form registration, payment or shopping process.

After registering for Abandonment Tracker, SeeWhy sends you Javascript code via email for tracking the visitor; you just need to add the code on your webpages. After this, SeeWhy tag the every visitor with a unique ID and the details of visitors are captured by Tracker with the help of Tag. SeeWhy then sends a mail to website owner on daily basis with the details of Website Abandors which can be used in follow-up campaigns to bring back those abandors and convert them into buyers. Later, when visitor again lands on the webpage, an event is sent to SeeWhy's data center. If the visitor doesn't convert, Abandonment Tracker records the abandonment details such as email address, shopping cart items, amount etc, and stage in the conversion process at which the visitor abandoned. The main purpose is to recapture abandoned revenue.

For more details, read this

Get IMEI number from COAI outlet

2009-05-09T11:09:00.000+05:30

Recently, somebody has stolen my friend’s mobile and she had doubt on one of our colleague. But problem is that how can she take her phone back. Then she has done brainstorming, internet surfing and through some sources came to know that every mobile number has unique 15-digit code and this IMEI number helps her to get her lovely phone back from her colleague. This may happen with many of us but now this problem will resolve soon, as DoT has approved the cellular industry IMEI number proposal through which IMEI number will be transplanted on the mobile phones with the help of a software.

IMEI is basically a unique 15-digit code that identifies a mobile and prevents the illegal use of stolen handsets and allows security agencies to track down a specific user. Every mobile phone has a unique IMEI number, which is printed under the battery on the phone. Check IMEI number of your phone by dialing *#06#. Currently, around 20 million users are having handsets without IMEI number. Mobile phones sold in grey market don’t have IMEI numbers which is the major security concern.

Is it True - Network Performance is important than price for choosing mobile operator

2009-05-09T11:08:00.001+05:30

Recently, Nielsen Research states that Price is not the key driver for choosing mobile operator, its network quality which is top in mind of consumers while opting for mobile operator.

Nielsen research was conducted in top 20 Indian cities which reveal some unique facts such as 42% of Indian subscribers’ rate network performance as most important factor for choosing mobile operator over the price factor. The research was conducted on 100 million people across the country for all national & regional carriers in the mobile market for wireless network performance. It has measured metrics such as reason behind operator selection, satisfaction, willingness to recommend and reason for churn. According to the research, more than 50% variation in switching operator is the network performance.

Telugu Bride, Groom & Marriage

2009-02-25T11:05:00.000+05:30

In Telugu marriage, various ceremonies and rituals use to take place which starts few days before marriage day. According to Telugu people, marriage is not an agreement but in telugu culture bride/wife is considered to be ardhangini which means a part of husband. Wedding for Telugu means lots of customs, traditions, rituals and full of enjoyment for both bride & groom family and relatives.

As per telugu tradition, some elder person bring rishta or match in the family for the eligible telugu boy or telugu girl. Telugu people choose their life partners within their community and caste, love marriage is an exception. In a Telugu wedding or marriage, costumes and jewelry are often selected with great care. Brides mostly wear saree, usually red or maroon color or some other bright colors which is accompanied by a lot of heavy jewelry as she is the center of attraction on the d day. Telugu grooms wear some traditional south Indian dress like dhoti and some shirt or shervani.

Telugu Wedding Rituals and Customs consists of following:

- Muhurtam
- Pendlikoothru
- Gauri Pooja
- Kanyadaan
- Manglasutra Manglasutra
- Saptapadi

There are number of customs and rituals are performed a day after the wedding. After the wedding ceremony, groom takes his bride to his home and she steps into a whole new world of love and responsibilities (towards her husband and his family both).

Telugu wedding comprises of pachadi made from neem leaves, banana, jaggery, sugar cane and tamarind. The telugu wedding feast includes all varieties of rice, sambar, curry and sweets.

In India significant Telugu population is found in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

Enjoy Telugu Marriage

Online Matrimony Sites

2009-02-25T11:03:00.000+05:30

Online Matrimony seems to be familiar to all who are of marriageable age. Matrimony means choosing your life partner one can either go right or wrong in their choice. A person makes choice while talking about matrimony from the feathers of ostrich or choosing the right from various odds while choosing the right partner. In most cases, matrimonial is a difficult task to choose the right life partner that may suit for the life. Today, numerous online matrimony sites are helping an individual to make the right choice in choosing the right soul mate in the process of matrimony. Few well known online matrimony sites are SimplyMarry etc.. having huge databank of the brides and grooms on net for making a choice.

In ancient times, searching for a life partner for their wards was done by parents or grandparents or the local matrimonial channel (relatives and advisers). However same would not be the case today. Now days, prospective bride or groom register themselves on various online matrimonial sites or their parents register their ward profile on these sites for searching a right partner for them. These matrimonial sites provide choices in all aspects (religion, caste, community, location etc.) which can be a right choice or just a matter of miss for anyone, therefore it is always advisable to gain access to all that you have in hand and evaluate all before taking any decision. The matrimonial sites are the basic land to any choice made for the proposal of marriage. Matrimonial sites provide a platform to search either the bride or the groom however the ultimate responsibility lies on an individual.

Product Development & Management

2008-07-02T11:38:00.000+05:30

Product development and management generally sounds very easy but its very big task. It includes documentation, technical knowledge, knowledge of market, target audience and many things. A person should be very well versed with internet industry to be a product manager. Product management includes:

• Planning – Firstly, you should understand your product well. Unless you donot know ur product, u can’t make it a successful one. Think and plan everything related to your product. Wide your horizon for making a successful product.

• Documentation – After planning, print your idea onto papers. This helps you to analyze every aspect of your product. Think every if, then, else, but, how, when etc..of your product.

• Execution – Now start working on your product development. Convert your product concept into real one. It involves, coding, tie-ups, joint ventures etc.. Before launching any product, donot forget to test this. Testing is very much required. It protects any product from failure.

• Launch – After successful execution and testing, its time to launch your product into market. Use all the mediums to reach to your target audience.

• Monitor – Product development doesnot ends at launching. You need to monitor your product success or failure at every step.

Dynamic URL vs. Static URL

2008-06-04T16:53:00.000+05:30

Many websites utilize databases which picks data from backend and display on the website by using dynamic script like PHP or javascript. These type of sites are considered as dynamic websites.
Now a days, many websites choose dynamic content over static content. This is because a website has thousands or lakhs of products or pages, creating, maintianing and updating each static manually is a task. In this case, when data is picked from backend on the basis of search criteria then a dynamic URL is generated for that page. The URL of a web site runs a script. While in case of static website, the content of the web page stay the same unless the changes are hard-coded into the HTM or HTML.
Dynamic URLs are generated from the specific queries based to a site's database. The dynamic page is just a template in which to display the results of the database query. Instead of changing information in the HTML code, the data is changed in the database. But there is a risk in optimization of dynamic URLs, search engines don't like them. The big risk is of search engine due to dynamic URLs are e-commerce stores, forums or any other database-driven website. Many times, the URL that is generated for the content in a dynamic site looks something like: http://www.mysite.com/forums/thread.php?thread_id=12345&sort=date On the other hand, static URL doesnot change and doesn't have variable strings. It looks : http://www.mysite.com/forums.htmlStatic URLs are typically ranked quickly in SERP and they are indexed more quickly than dynamic URLs, if dynamic URLs get indexed at all. Static URLs are easy to view and understand what the page is about. If a user sees a URL in a search engine query that matches the title and description, they are more likely to click on that URL than one that doesn't make sense to them.
Search engines resolve this issue by cutting off the URLs after a specific number of variable strings (e.g.: ? & =). For example, http://www.mysite.com/forums/thread.php?thread_id=12345&sort=date http://www.mysite.com/forums/thread.php?thread_id=67890&sort=date http://www.mysite.com/forums/thread.php?thread_id=13579&sort=date
All tha above URLs point to three different pages. But if search engine purges the information after the first offending character, the question mark (?), now all three pages look the same: http://www.mysite.com/forums/thread.php http://www.mysite.com/forums/thread.php http://www.mysite.com/forums/thread.phpNow in the eyes of search engine or crawler, you don't have unique pages and consequently, the duplicate URLs won't be indexed.
Another important issue is that dynamic pages generally do not have any keywords in the URL. It is very important to have keyword rich URLs for getting the ranking and indexing. Highly relevant keywords should appear in the domain name or the page URL. This became clear in recent study on how the top three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, rank websites.

The study involved taking many highly competitive keyword queries, like travel, cars, and computer software, and comparing factors involving the top ten results. The statistics show that of those top ten, Google has 40-50% of those with the keyword either in the URL or the domain; Yahoo shows 60%; and MSN has an astonishing 85%! What that means is that to these search engines, having your keywords in your URL or domain name could mean the difference between a top ten ranking, and a ranking far down in the results pages.

The Solution, is if your site is hosted on a Linux server, then you will want to make the most of the Apache Mod Rewrite Rule, which provides the ability to redirect one URL to another URL, without the user's (or a search engine's) knowledge. You need to install this module in Apache. This module saves you from rewriting your static URLs manually.

How does this module work?
When a request comes into a server for the new static URL, the Apache module redirects the URL internally to the old dynamic URL, while still looking like the new static URL. The web server compares the URL requested by the client with the search pattern in the individual rules.
For example, when someone requests this URL: http://www.mysite.com/forums.html The server looks for and compares this static-looking URL to what information is listed in the .htaccess file, such as: RewriteEngine on RewriteRule thread-threadid-(.*)\.htm$ thread.php?threadid=$1It then converts the static URL to the old dynamic URL that looks like this, with no one the wiser: http://www.mysite.com/forums/thread.php?thread_id=12345
You now have a URL that only will rank better in the search engines, but your end-users can definitely understand by glancing at the URL what the page will be about, while allowing Apache's Mod Rewrite Rule to handle to conversion and still keeping the dynamic URL. With the help of URL Rewriting Tool, you can rewrite single pages or entire directories. Simply enter the URL into the box, press submit, and copy and paste the generated code into your .htaccess file on the root of your website. You must remember to place any additional rewrite commands in your .htaccess file for each dynamic URL you want Apache to rewrite. Now,
One more importatn thing, add your dynamic URLs to your Robots Exclusion Standard File (robots.txt) to keep the search engines from spidering the duplicate URLs.

Enjoy, High ranking and indexing !!