Ten videos on Ideas, Inovation and Marketing

Peter Hirshberg: The Web and TV, a sibling rivalry

Yochai Benkler: Open-source economics

Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide?

Alan Kay: A powerful idea about teaching ideas

Howard Rheingold: Way-new collaboration

William Kamkwamba on building a windmill

Jeff Bezos: After the gold rush, there’s innovation ahead

Seth Godin: Sliced bread and other marketing delights

Saul Griffith shares some innovative ideas

Ross Lovegrove

Need a Pair of Glasses

pinhole-glasses

You know about pinhole cameras. Now, let me introduce you to pinhole eyeglasses.

If you are suffering from refractive eye disorders, this can be a good solution for you. “The lenses of pinhole glasses are perforated with an array of equally spaced mipinhole glasses

nute holes” and this restricts the light rays from different angles to enter your eyes. You only receive as much light as necessary to get the perfect and clear vision.

Ok, on bright or low lights what do you do to see something clearly? According to your natural instincts, you squint your eyes to see things more clearly. The pinhole glasses follow the same principle to send you the perfect vision.

But I was wondering why someone should wear pinhole glasses rather than the traditional glasses prescribed by the doctors! They have enough reasons to support this alternative: Pinhole Glasses: The Popular Alternative to Prescription Eyeglasses. And if you spend more than 14 hours each day in front of computer like me, you can try it out…

Pushing innovations

What is the best innovation of all time?

You might be thinking of so many things. I think the best invention in human race is the ‘turn off button for washing machine’. But the story is different – we need more turn on buttons to get innovations marked.

There are hundreds of great universities and institutions in this whole world and there are thousands of great scholars and students who work out there. I really mean they work out there rather than saying that they study out there.

But I feel pity when in many cases their innovations are not marked or brought to the market. Most of these great universities are great in making things but I must say, in most of the cases they are not god enough in marketing those products – they are not good at technology transfer services [What is technology transfer?]. At the same time, I would like to say that not ever researchers or developers are good at actual marketing of their product.

It is not their fault; they only need some support, rather a platform to jump. If universities provided some support to these worthy researchers, they could have spent their life in a better way rather than working in some companies to earn their bread. It is too easy for universities than the researchers to develop a platform. Why don’t they come forward?

It is not good enough to develop a good product, it is also important to market them and I must say that I am quite happy to see the website of Yissum – (they work on technology transfer), it is a research development company established by Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) in 1964. And the best thing about Yissum is that it is an independent subsidiary of the HU.

And just take a look at their university technology transfer projects and their success stories. I was also very impressed to find out the way they supported the product developers.

The story should change faster for a better future of mankind.

Looking to open a Savings Account

I am looking forward to save some money for future (I am too poor at it) because I have no other options. I don’t want to spend my whole life working – there are so many other things to be done. Come on, we have just one life to live.

Its not that I want to retire early; but I want to be financially independent so that I can do whatever I wish (my GF says that I am a workaholic and I know that I cannot live idle) in my own way. I do not want to do a routine 10 to 7 job throughout my life and at the same time I do not want to get into some hardcore business.

I am earning enough to run a good life but if I do not start saving for the future, things will not be as I want. For some period I had been working with an online debt consolidation firm based in USA. I came to know so many things (being with a product based company helps) about saving that I never thought of earlier.

I was looking for some online solutions and opening a Savings Accounts online seemed to be the most important first step to start with. I don’t know, if I would be able to continue with it but there is no point at waiting for something outstanding to happen. WaMu seemed to be a good savings solution for USA, what do we have for India?

I must find out one soon. Any suggestion?

Did you Spock?

Do you sometimes Google to find a person, to know more about him or her, to find someone who can offer certain services? If your answer is yes, try using Spock.com – A Great Place for Search (people) (if you haven’t tried it already).

I just added my name out there along with my location and my company name. The most interesting thing is that, I cannot simply write anything about me (chances of self PR goes down); in fact the “about me” section would be written by others, my friends or colleagues – those who actually know me. Cool huh? That’s not all, people can vote to say if the information I am providing out there (location, company) is right or wrong.

I just felt good about the site at the very first glance. They did not try to make things complicated unnecessarily.

And that’s not all; you can use natural tags to search for people associated with it. For example, I tried to search for SEO and it showed me some people who are somewhat associated with this Tag. Now if you use Google to search for SEO, what do you see?

The difference is very obvious – Spok.com is typically a people search engine where the primary emphasis is on people associated with those key phrases; and we can not expect similar result from Google as the key phrase (SEO) is too generic to offer any human being. So what would you use next time when you would be searching for someone?

Will people start optimizing for Spock too? No problem; to optimize someone for Spock, you would need a good network and a worthy network is possible only when you provide good service or a talk-able product.

And I must say, Spock.com – a Great Place for Search. And I say it without any bias.

I started my career as a sales man

I don’t believe that I am writing this. A few years back, when I was just a college student, I could not manage my pocket money. I never knew what Internet is or how it can change my life.

What I could do to earn some money?

I used to offer private tuitions, two or three days every week. I used to earn some money but that was not helping me at all. I knew very well that I do not want to do private tuitions for long, that was not my cup of tea and I was simply wasting my time out there.

Who looks for private tuition? I mostly came across those students who could not manage their studies well. I had nothing to take from them and none (yes, none) of them were willing to learn leave alone their interest to learn something new. They just wanted to pass the exam as easily as possible.

I remember, once I wanted to start a small business but I could not even manage 5 thousand. I wish we had something like these college student credit cards so that I could arrange some loan.  It is not that college students didn’t have credit cards at that moment. But the category was missing. I just could not have a credit card as a college student. (Now I have a few… lol)

I even tried a few banks but could not manage anything. At last, I started working as a sales man….

Believe me, those few months as a sales man just changed me and I rediscovered myself as a FIGHTER.

Do you want to know what I used to sell?

Newspaper.

Me and My Office

My friend Arin got married two years back and got a quite little baby. But it is not a solution for my two other friends. They want to get married and they want a baby. But they have a big problem. Both of them works in a MNC and both of them need to spend around 12 to 13 hours at office and in office preparation everyday. They can not even think about leaving the job not for financial reason alone but also for the reason that they are well established in their own career. If anyone of them leaves the job, it would be a sheer wastage of talent and an active and capable manpower.

It is really a big problem – when you do not get enough time for your family, you do not have enough time to see your baby grow in front of your eyes. You do not have enough time to listen to its ga ga. And to add to the whole problem, you got a nuclear family.

Do you think a governess is good enough to look after your new born kid like a mom? Why are you earning so much of money if you need a child GPS to track your child! Yupp, I know, it does not cost so much and keeps you free from all worries regarding your child’s safety. But do you think those extra hours you spend at office would earn you those beautiful moments? Yupp, I know you got a few half Sundays, that you want to pass with your family – but did you really make a family of your own? Do you know that family? Did you grow that family where a child needs a GPS tracking?

Is it all about security? What about love and growing together?

I want to get married someday, but how is it possible?

Giving thoughts a thought

Ok everyone, today I had been to Thoughts.com, I registered an account there just to check it out. It offers free blog but got some difference with other free blog platform providers.

What do we see at WordPress or Blogger or other similar platforms? They simply offer you a sub domain and their blog script to run it. You do what ever you want to do out there.

But somewhere Thoughts.com is different from them. What do I call it?

Hmmmm, can we call it a social journalism initiative where “just blogging” takes the side role! You might be wondering, why I am saying this!

They put a clear emphasis on news. For example, think about Yahoo or MSN homepage. If there had been blog section added to them rather than search engines, we could easily compare them with Thoughts.

Rather than being a blog platform, it is more like a community, where members got their own blogs. When WP runs for product development, they run for community development.

What I did not like about it?

• If you want to comment on any post out there, you would need to be a member of Thoughts.com (as soon as you click on the comment box, the login / register page opens up).
• When you signup, they ask you to invite your friends. Though it is optional and you can skip it, is it necessary?
• The design is somewhat poor. Why the Permalink section got such an out of the box black color?

What I liked about it?

• This is more of a community rather than a blog platform.
• They have a think tank section (I hope this post would reach them).
• Chances of less spam
• It is still in Beta

Welcome to OddSEO

I have an announcement to make today. I have started a new blog on seo and my thoughts on the web development. Please visit Odd SEO – my new web property.

I have been thinking for a long time to book my own domain for a blog. But I was worried that I would not be able to manage enough time to write. And seriously speaking, I have so many things to write but very few minutes to work on.

But I promise to make it big and help you with my understanding.

Anyways, what do you think about the domain name? I did some extensive research to select this domain name. And I have also written a post on “How to select a domain name” at OddSEO. Please let me know your views on that post.

But, the problem occurred, while I was trying to host that blog. I was really worried about where to host it. I read some web hosting news around to get a cheap deal but at the same time I wanted a 99.99% uptime.

At the end of the day I went for ASO. I have been using it for some of my other websites and they have a great customer support. [But I am not at all happy with Sify's service - they are simply poor.]

Ok, leave these things, I would continue writing here, but please do visit OddSEO and please write to me if you have any suggestion. Thanks a lot for staying with me.

Interviewing Saptarshi Roy Chaudhury – Blogger

Hello readers, Here is an Interview of Saptarshi Roy Choudhury from SEO Kolkata:

MrDoubts: Tell us something about your blog:

Saptarshi: I started my blog way back in October 2006. I used to read a lot of SEO blogs and participate in many forums but I felt that there is still some lack in providing the absolute basics of SEO to unsuspecting individuals – I planned to serve that purpose with this blog, however, in course of time, I must admit, that I couldn’t stick to that and written many articles which would actually be of interest to people who are already initiated to the concept of SEO and Internet marketing. Also, another reason for starting my blog was because I wanted to keep my articles together and organised in one place. Given the kind of person I am, I have lost loads of my good articles and research work before, so I thought putting them all on my blog would actually keep them in one place. Today this blog has got some real good articles on various aspects of SEO and Internet marketing.

MrDoubts: How long have you been blogging?

Saptarshi: Since October 2006.

MrDoubts: How do you make your blog different?

Saptarshi: Well, this was my prime concern while starting the blog. I found most blogs actually syndicate news and articles rather than writing something of their own. Definitely; that is the easy thing to do. But I decided to make my blog original and educative. I wanted my readers to feel that they actually had some take away from each of my articles. I have been following this throughout. In some of my recent posts you might find news type articles, which, I really don’t prefer to add but add them to keep my blog active as I don’t get much time to write good post regularly. Though I still try to put in good educative blog posts as often as I can.

MrDoubts: Any special occasion, story or achievement that you would like to share?

Saptarshi: We were discussing my blog, and to speak of special occasion or events… I must say this blog has given me a lot of recognitions. I remember visiting the SearchCamp 2007 in Chennai. I arrived there at the second day and was overwhelmed to see a large section of the crowd recognise me by my blog and they are regular readers. Also, in my present job, at the pre-recruitment stage when my boss (then interviewer) called to speak to me he was not really sure of my skills in the field of paid search. However, after reading one of my articles on Quality Score, he didn’t think twice to offer me the job. Also, it was nice when one of my posts was picked up and reposted at SearchEngineLand.com

MrDoubts: What are some of the common mistakes people make with their blogs (your pick)?

Saptarshi: Umm there are many and am guilty of some of them too. Here are some pointers…

1. Having their blogs as a sub-domain of their blog platform rather than having their own domain names.
2. Not making regular posts.
3. Not mentioning proper credits when a post is copied from some place. It can severely tarnish your credibility. Same thing applies for images and design elements.
4. Not providing a proper About Us statement or page. When people read you, they would definitely like to know who you are and what is your credibility.
5. Not providing easy options to subscribe to your blog.
6. Cluttering your blog with Adsense and other ads. I don’t mean ads should not be there but they should not be intrusive for the user experience.
7. Grammatically poor English. Can seriously affect your credibility and is often looked at as a disturbing experience by the native English speakers.

MrDoubts: What makes a successful blogger?

Saptarshi:

• Make Regular posts
• Make posts that adds value for your readers
• Connect with your readers. Reply to comments.
• Learn the basics of SEO and Internet marketing and apply them on your blog.

MrDoubts: What tools to you use to market your blog?

Saptarshi: Well, I am not a big fan of tools. I would say some basic tools that are often used for other Internet marketing ventures would be good enough.. If I am to list a few, I would say,

1. Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/ ) – not really a tool but use this platform effectively to get exposure for your blog
2. Use Google Trends and other research tools to figure out which are the most discussed topics and searched keyword in your niche. Make posts based on them. Keyword tools commonly used are Overture ( inventory.overture.com ), WordTracker ( wordtracker.com), Google Keywords tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal )
3. Use this Social Bookmark tool created by Lee Odden – http://www.toprankblog.com/tools/social-bookmarks/
4. An analytics tool is a must if you are serious about marketing. Google Analytics does the job pretty well. If you want to track the feed reader stats take help of FeedBurner (http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home ).

MrDoubts: What keeps you motivated to blog?

Saptarshi: My readers. I get at least 3-4 emails from my readers every month with various questions besides a few emails every month with offers for SEO consultation. Particularly, I feel greatly inspired when I get mails from newbies asking questions and clarifications – their urge to learn and the thought that I am able to help someone with the blog and am adding some value to the SEO society keeps me motivated.

MrDoubts: Do you earn from blogging?

Saptarshi: To be honest the direct income is not really worthy to mention. A trickling income from Adsense and a few more from one or two paid reviews; However, I do get a lot of consulting offers through my blog. In fact I have landed up one of my biggest Internet business consulting project with one of the leading real estate companies in USA through this blog after their MD read my blog and initiated a discussion with me.

MrDoubts: How many friends have you earned as a blogger?

Saptarshi: Definitely a good number, includes, fellow bloggers, general readers, entrepreneurs and various other people.

MrDoubts: What do you think of the Indian SEO Industry?

Saptarshi: Its growing very fast but unfortunately the growth is mostly caused by the mushrooming “SEO experts” across the country who hardly know anything about SEO. Indian SEO industry has some real good knowledgeable SEO, but this is often overshadowed by the snake oil sellers and people from other countries find it difficult to trust us with their projects. However, this problem is not just in India, SEO being an unorganised industry is full of such people and as it has always happened, empty vessels make the most of sound – so people often try to judge the standard of SEOs in a country by those newbies who tout themselves as “SEO experts”. Its good to see that people are taking increasing interest in SEO in India and it is well on its way to become a distinguished profession by itself, however, my only request to people would be to educate themselves and continue updating themselves with the required knowledge and let others decide their status in the industry rather than claiming themselves to be experts.

MrDoubts: What do you do when you’re not blogging?

Saptarshi: I hardly get time to blog these days as most of my time is consumed by my day job and my consulting projects. However, I prefer to listen to music or read good books whenever I get a little time for leisure.

MrDoubts: Please recommend some posts from your blog:

Saptarshi:

• SEO for Blogspot – Blogger Blogs,
• Characteristics of Good Website Content,
• 301 Redirect – Comprehensive Guide to URL Redirection
• How to Improve Your Google Adwords Quality Score
• Guide to Google Analytics Setup and Ecommerce Tracking