Wow Ron Paul did it!

Wow,This is awesome, it's a pre-win kind of thing for Ron Paul! He grossed $1m a day before he targeted it!

People always support "a man with a mission",may be that's the reason for the success of this fund raising campaign.

CoolHotmail ?

Microsoft India has launched a new website www.coolhotmail.com offering unique domain names for email id's,have a look at the domain names

yourname@apunkaid.com
yourname@clickass.in
yourname@coolmail.co.in
yourname@samepinch.in
yourname@samepinch.co.in

and there's a huge list including fan club domain names.
I guess it's targeted at Indian Youth who's becoming increasingly conscious about its unique Identity,but I'm quite skeptical if it's really going to be a hit because these "unique Domain names" are ubiquitous from the very advent of web based email and I don't see anybody using them.

The Ron Paul Phenomenon

I'm completely amazed with the whole Ron Paul phenomenon and how people are actively contributing for the campaign,Ron Paul has grossed over $500,000 and now he is aiming at raising $1m by midnight, September 30th.

More News on Ron paul

Who is Ron Paul?
(Source:www.ronpaul2008.com)
Congressman Ron Paul is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital and is seeking the 2008 Republican nomination for President of the United States. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.

Stardoll

Virtual world's are becoming increasingly important for people,after SecondLife now it's stardoll. Stardoll,the virtual paper doll social network has a whopping 10.64 million registered users,Comscore reported it as being the number one site for girls of age 9 to 17.

The recent development in the stardoll world is DKNY and Sephora have signed up with Stardoll to become the first major brands to launch shops at stardoll,now the stardoll members will be able to buy DKNY fashions and Sephora makeup using the "Stardollars" virtual currency.

You don't know stuff?

There's nothing wrong in not knowing stuff,I see some people trying to intimidate other's because they know,I think they are just being fatuous becuase I beleive there's nothing wrong in not knowing stuff,but it's wrong when you don't try to know stuff,I tell this to people all the time.If you think you are intimidated with that "smart aleck" in your office? Let me help you out.

Now you have to promise me that you are not going to use it in a wrong way,Ok?

It's called Fundamental attribution error,

From the very moment you start interacting ,people kind of start building a character around you,they see you from their own perception,Wikipedia says

In attribution theory, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or overattribution effect) is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional, or personality-based, explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations. In other words, people have an unjustified tendency to assume that a person's actions depend on what "kind" of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces influencing the person.

So what has that gotta do with this?
Ask questions!Yes,Fundamental attribution error,People asking questions are perceived as being "smart",now the next time someone tries to intimidate you, you just ask questions and also I sincerely advice you to learn things,because learning things will make you smart for real.

photo:freefoto.com

Book Giveaway

This months book giveaway is for Harish B and Deepz

Harish is a Marketing Evangelist in a Business School in India,I'm a great fan of his blog,Marketing Practice,where in he analyses the marketing practices in India.

Deepz,I remember I got to meet him because both of us have same name Pradeep n he had a domain name www.pradeep.tk ,Deepz is a web designer and blogs at http://blog.pradeep.net.in

n people if you want a book too,suggest me,drop in great comments,mail me or teach me stuff and I'll give a great book to read.

Facebook Openness

The exuberance of Facebook is still on,the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 is now valued $10 billion,The thing that is so unique about Facebook is ,contrary to other social media it's Open,Facebook offers an open platform that allows other's to develop applications for Facebook,and now the advent of Facebook Javascript(FBJS) has increased the ease to develop richer interactivity,the leverage the "Openness" has given to Facebook can be construed from the fact that 80% of Facebook users have installed third party application.

The Facebook user base is so huge(42 million active users) that every marketer has an eye on it,when marketers are involved obviously there are going to be some malicious ones too and recent development of Facebook opening up the user profiles for search has increased the concerns for user privacy,here the more serious concern is sexual predators accessing private info,previously a user had a choice to control his privacy information,but now it seems to have changed for worse,yesterday one Lisa Barone has reported the spottyness of Facebook,she reported that people can now ferret user's private information,exasperating this situation for the company,Newyork Attorney General has announced that his office is going to investigate Facebook over the companies negligence in responding to the loop holes.

republishing my first post

I've got no idea why I'm into this Kirk's blogging project,but It feels so good to republish my first post,I had a roomie who was blogging ardently on rediff about stuff(after sometime into blogging he dropped it) and I thought may be I should blog too,I created an account with blogger and started writing just coz I was very bored with the mundane work I was assigned.

Only later I got into reading Social psychology and marketing and I felt like I should express my views on similar kind of stuff,though I was quite skeptical If any body is going to read it,but now I think I've become an avid blogger,I've realised that blogging is just not a fad,its immensely powerful,I've learnt lot of things from people's blog's,Now I'm communicating with few and hope to communicate my thoughts and learn stuff from a wider ensemble.

Hey,read my very first post

what do I blog??I donno!!, for the job I'm doin now, I'm in the lower right portion of the graph 'n I'm pretty bored.(While this is mihaly's flow chart, which shows how you can maintain the flow in your life. )

There's a ritual in here, I've been tagged by nishu and I need to tag two,So I tag pradeep sabi and maneesh,I got to know them through web and they are really good guys,let's hear from 'em

Wanted: Asia's Best Entrepreneurs

BusinessWeek Asia is in search of "The Best Young Entrepreneurs",the announcement reads

Asia is home to the fastest-growing pack of economies on the planet, including China, India, and a resurgent Japan. Less appreciated is the growing and dynamic entrepreneurial class of young managers cropping up in the region, who are starting to make their presence felt. This new generation is globally aware, extremely Internet savvy, and willing to pounce on a smart idea even if it means grueling hours and financial risk early on in life.

We need your help in identifying these emerging leaders of tomorrow. Tell us who you think is worthy of consideration this year, and fill out the accompanying form. Remember: Nominees need to be 30 or under. Our editors will review the nominations and narrow the field to a group of 20 finalists. Then you will get a chance to vote. We will post the winners later this summer.

If you think you are one or if you want to nominate one click here.

johanna cardona?

Porn is one thing that sells like crazy,and yeah the self made "love" videos too,there's lot to learn from why porn sells and how could one liken its sales for their product.

Ok,but who is johanna cardona? A signaller who used to work with channel TB3 in Barranquilla Colombia until recently and the latest of the self-made sex video victims.

If you have a look at today's technorati top searches she appears twice!( Coz she is also joanna and johana)

Get a XO Laptop and Give One

After two-and-a-half years of wait,the $100 Laptop is finally going to get released,the XO Laptop is finally going into production in October,the only glitch in the way for the advent of $100 Laptop is that not a single government has signed a check yet and adding to adversity the cost of manufacturing a single laptop rose to $188.

Failing to get orders from governments,OLPC has modified their sales strategy and now they are going to sell them to USA through "Get 1 Give 1" program.

Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a brief window of time. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home.
-OLPC

Business week reports that Peru and Uruguay seem to be on the verge of placing orders and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú has already pledged to buy and donate 250,000 XO Laptops for Mexico's children.

If you want to gift one for your child for christmas, you can buy one on ebay as soon as they are available.

Trivia :Find out why India rejected XO Laptops?

Never deceive your customers

Now tricking your customers is worst of the things you could do to make money,it'd for sure create instant wealth for you,but you are going to loose your credibility,you know that the most important asset for a thriving business is "customer loyalty" and if you loose it once it's almost impossible to regain.

I've been using IDEA Cellular's Pre-paid service for the past one year,now the service is so poor in Gurgaon,I'm not sure about other places in India and I think recently they've deployed a new billing software and I don't know if its buggy or they are literally deceiving their customers,I see my account balance eaten up,I recharge my phone,I call my home and the next day I see my account balance is 0,this has happened for last three times I've recharged my phone,the worst thing is that everytime I callup the customer care center all I can hear is " All the IDEA Customer care executives are busy,please call us later",I'm so annoyed and irritated I'm going to change my mobile service.

Havells rinpoche ad

I love this ad, The ad kind of exaggeratingly touted CFLs brightness,but the agency has done a good job in creating this ad.

Wannabe Entrepreneur ?

I think everybody is a wannabe entrepreneur,I've talked to many people and I've found out that almost everybody wants to be an entrepreneur,they wanna have a company of their own and I'm no different,So what actually is the difference between people who are entrepreneur's and people who are wannabe entrepreneur's?

Entrepreneur's:
1. They Do things
2. They always go for "Good Enough"
3. They wanna learn stuff by doing them.

Wannabe Entrepreneur's:
1.They wait for that one great Idea to magically strike
2.They believe that only "Perfect" things get sold
3. Above all they wait for thing's to happen and for most of them things never "happen"

How to brand a just an average joe

Coca-cola is a brand,may be the most valuable,the name alone worth billions of dollars,it's a product brand but what about a human brand?every Individual is a brand by herself,though a simple brand,coz every name is a brand,a simple brand.

Oprah is a major brand,know that products get sold just by associating them with the name Oprah,because it's the "trust" people have in the name,the trust that people have in her


So how would you create a Major brand of a person?
Now I think that's a really difficult thing to do though not impossible,branding is a process of creating positive associations with a name/product/person,so one has to create positive associations for that person.

This is lot easier to do for people in the glamour world like for example, Shahrukh Khan is BIG brand name in India,because people have seen him all the movies doing "good" things, some times unusually "great" things,though what he does in the movies isn't real, his deeds have certainly created a great mental image of Shahrukh Khan in our minds.



Companies pay great moolah just to get a share of a great brand image,coz people almost all the time look out for others on buying decisions,So they "feel" a great desire to follow somebody,so they follow somebody they "think" is dependable,they feel they can "trust",they follow a brand.

The other reason that brand sells is because a big brand personifies Success and people always like to associate themselves with success and thus people embrace the major brands.

Here now we narrow down to the main question.

How would you create a Brand of a Just another Joe?
Now this is what is really difficult,it will take a real hard work for joe to make a brand for himself,I mean not a simple brand but a brand of moderate size if not BIG.
Let's list out things Joe would need to do

1. Promote : Joe has to promote himself,that means to advertise so that people will get to know of his existence.Joe can do this by

I. Sensationalizing
II. Creating a great Social Network
III.Spending money on advertising
IV. Associating himself with an already established BIG Brand

2. Create Trust : This is little difficult,coz its not easy at all to create trust and it takes lot of positive interaction with people to gain trust and just one mistake to loose it.

3. Lead : A Leader is an ultimate brand,Coz people follow the Leader and there could be no bigger brand than a leader,so Joe needs to actually learn Leadership,you already know Leadership is an art and a science and that Leader's are not born but they are made.

summarizing it all, it takes lot of hard work,dedication and effective communcation for Joe to create a brand of himself

Where is my blog going?

I just wonder sometimes If I have this disease of talking to myself,prattling on things,scribbling stuff,I really donno and I want to cure this disease of mine,I see my blog traffic is very low approx 20/day and I want to increase this,so I'm defining a blogging goal too.

Goal II : Increase traffic : 100 visitors/day by the end of october

What am I gonna do to achieve it?
I think may be I'm writing stuff or writing in a way that I "think" I should write but not what people want to read/hear about.

I've got no knowledge of SEO and thus my blog isn't Search Engine Optmised,So I need to look into that.

I need to do something to promote my blog

and am I missing anything,please help!!

Monthly saving goals

I've been working for over two years now, my primary and sole source of income is my day time job,In these two years I got paid decently(according to Indian standards) and still I didn't save much,actually you can say I hardly saved some,mainly coz I'm extravagant,and also coz I don't really know how I spend my money,So I kinda thought I needed some stern resolutions and for now I'm making one for myself.

Goal I : Save at least Rs 30,000 by the end of october

Honda recalls .18m civic sedans!

Japanese auto giant Honda recalled 1,82,756 Civics manufactured between March 24, 2005 and February 8, 2007, the vehicles had a faulty wheel-bearing seal that may leak and cause malfunctioning of brake switch thereby preventing illumination of lights on braking,If they do a recall in India apparently it'd be a second instance in last three months as HSCI had recalled 2,310 Accords in July.Read the article on today's business standard

wordpress hosting

I'm planning to start a new blog(actually blog kinda blog, ;) you'll get to know soon) and I want to use wordpress and I'm very confused with these hosting plans,I really don't know which one to choose,I want to go for something cheap and secure,people any suggestions??

Woot

I got to know about this website www.woot.com through Seth Godin's All Marketers are liars,woot sells products online at discounted rates and no it's not another wannabe amazon,coz it sell's only one product a day and woot already has overe 800,000 registered members sold over 1,000,000 item's.

This is how the company describe's itself

Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. It started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor, but it's taken on a life of its own. We anticipate profitability by 2043 – by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices. Until then, we're still the lovable scamps we've always been. But don't take our word for it

While everything looks awesome,there is some criticism on woot's customer service as it doesn't provide any,woot's info page on wikipedia says

Woot does not have a satisfaction guaranteed return policy, they only accept returns of defective products. "If you buy something you don't end up liking or you have what marketing people call 'buyer's remorse,' sell it on eBay. It's likely you'll make money doing this and save everyone a hassle. If the item doesn't work, find out what you're doing wrong. Yes, we know you think the item is bad, but it's probably your fault. Google your problem, or come back to that product discussion in our community and ask other people if they know. Try to call the manufacturer and ask if they know

Declined Music sales

People thought that declined CD sales will actually be compensated by the digital download's,though the digital downloads(sales) have increased significantly,the e-marketer figure's reveal that the average price per purchase has dropped,the main reason behind the plummet being the large number of consumers buying only single MP3 downloads and the decrease in CD sales,30% from 2000 to 2005 is too steep for the digital downloads to alleviate.

With growing music piracy I wonder Music Sales in India might have plummeted more!

Are you blogging Like it's 1999?

Here's a really good article by Jon Symons on making money by blogging,He pointed out that people are diving into blogging for money similar to how people started investing online in 1999 just because of the ease it provided.Blogging consumes a great amount of time and If you are blogging for money I'd suggest you to seriously contemplate other options as you could do loads of other things which could give you decent returns for the time you invest.

Here's an excerpt from the post

How Would an Investor See The Current Blogging for Dollars Landscape?

Hard to say. I don’t consider myself an expert investor. I don’t think that the the crash has come yet. With the benefit of hindsight, I’m sure many people who had money in the stock markets wished they were sellers and not buyers during 1999 / 2000.

* this may be the time to sell or get out of blogging rather than jumping into the game.
* consider other options before beginning to blog for money. Especially if you aren’t dead certain you can own your topic (and how you’ll accomplish it).
* learn business skills to enable you to work smarter than others. Remember that even a successful blog require a lot of work.
* track your time spent on blogging and measure your return. Be prepared to cut your losses and get out, if the money doesn’t flow fast enough. If after a year you’d be better off working at McDonald’s…

People are still confused about "What is a brand?"

I was little confused too about What actually a brand is, a quick search on Wikipedia gives the definition of brand,

A brand includes a name, logo, slogan, and/or design scheme associated with a product or service. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the use of the product or service and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to the product and serves to create associations and expectations around it. A brand often includes a logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, and sound, which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality.

Dannielle Blumenthal,makes a distinction between Simple and major brand,she writes

A simple brand is just a name. A MAJOR BRAND is a name with a set of mental associations to it. And branding is the art and science of creating a set of associations around a name

Branding the Unbrandable

I got this Silky Kumar thing wrong, I thought it's a viral thing,yeah,but here it was not intended to be one,but now I get to write this post :),thanks to this guy nikhil.
Branding a person,is I guess what HUL is doing,but branding the Unbrandable is quite difficult,and I guess that's what they eventually got into,one thing they could have done is branding a real talented "Brandable" underdog kinda artist and it could have really leveraged their brand image.

Ideas are for free

If you think Ideas are difficult to find and you need a really great idea to start something of your own,here's a site www.idea-a-day.com which mails you a idea a day,check the archive of the site and you'll find some of them are stupid but some are really good,so now you can't procrastinate venturing out whining "dude,Ideas are hard to find", :).

Silky Kumar a viral attempt??

I was gonna write this post "Branding the Unbrandable" after watching this really stupid video featuring a guy called Silky Kumar, I thought he's some dud using his dad's money and trying to create a brand of himself but I became little skeptical when he was touting AXE,I googled for Silky Kumar and found that it is a viral marketing campaign created by HUL for their AXE brand of products.The video "Scent of Desire" is very poorly made and it has no viral characteristics.

Rating : Stinks