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Archive for February 28, 2010

bikram | February 28, 2010
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Google Number 1 in terms of Reach and Facebook in terms of Customer Engagement

In a study conducted by the Nielsen Company of the Internet activities of the United States users it was found that Google still is number one site in terms of unique visitors, whereas, Facebook is number one in terms of time spent by the US users on the website.

In January, 16.5 million unique visitors used Google sites and spent 2:05:19 hours each on the website making it number one in terms of reach. At number two was Microsoft sites where 143.9 million visitors spent 1:57:58 hours each. In terms of unique visitors, Facebook stood on number four with 116.3 million visitors, even behind Yahoo that occupied number 3 slot with 138.9 million unique visitors.

But in terms of customer engagement (time spent by users), Facebook surpassed everyone including Google. On an average, a Facebook user spent 7:01:41 hours each on the website. At number two was Yahoo where users spent 2:28:33 hours each. Number three slot belonged to Google where users spent 2:05:19 hours each. (See image for complete detail).

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | February 28, 2010
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Ad Spending Dropped by 9% in 2009

In a report released recently, the Nielsen Company has concluded that recession has caused a 9% aggregate drop in ad spending throughout the sectors in the United States in 2009 compared to what various industries spent on advertisement in 2008. In total, the advertisers spent $117 billion on the US media, which is 9% lower than the previous year data.

The automotive sector (factor and dealer associations) followed by local automotive dealership advertisers were the top two groups to cut on ad spending in 2009. The former group cut the ad expenditure by 23.4%, and following suit the later group cut expenditure by 23%. Wireless telephone services provider were at number three with a total cut of 8.2% ad expenditure in 2009. (see image for detail).

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | February 28, 2010
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Is Marketing Really Necessary for the Success of Your Business?

No. It is not, if your all your audience knows who you are, what you do, and what you stand for, which I think is not possible. And till the time it is not possible, you need to use Marketing to inform them.

Marketing is nothing just a medium for-profit and not-for-profit organization uses to inform its stake holders —customers, employees, and investors—about the product, services, decisions, and actions of an organization.

What marketing cannot do?

In the above definition, we saw what marketing can do. Now, we will see what it cannot do. Marketing cannot do the following:

  • It cannot sell products. Yes, no one and nothing can sell a crappy product. Marketing, at best, can create demand for your product by building interest, but it cannot sell your product, not at least for long.
  • It cannot create need. This is another thing that marketing cannot do. It may influence decision, but it cannot sell any product, no matter how great it is, to someone who doesn’t need it. If I do not need a pair of sports shoes then no matter how hard Nike tries, it cannot make me buy.
  • Marketing cannot create need. Marketing cannot create need. At best, it can fuel the latent need and bring it on surface (in consciousness) but it cannot create a need which has never been there.

And no marketer tries to do that. When I say this I mean ethical marketer. For dupers, no rule applies. A marketer only tries to convince you that his product can meet your need more effectively than the one you are using it, or it can make you realize your latent need.

When all consumers all all-knowing, and have reached the level of self-actualization then marketing will become useless, but we need marketing till the time this doesn’t happen, which I am afraid never will happen.

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | February 27, 2010
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Blog with a Friendly Face – Part 10

This is the tenth part of the series in which we are learning ways to make our blogs look friendly to the visitors. So far, we have talked about various on-blog elements that we can reorganize to make it friendly. In this post, I will focus on capitalizing web 2 forces and we will see how we can use it to stay connected with our fans, friends, and wannabes.

Get a Facebook fan page

MySpace is passé, and Facebook is the new Google. You have to leverage this media to stay in touch with your target audience. You must roll out a Facebook fan page which you can use to communicate with your audience. Take benefit of this powerful Web 2.0 media. You can also have profiles and fan pages (if allowed) on other social networking sites

Digg it, and Stumble it Upon

Social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and reditt, etc. are as powerful as social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and Orkut, etc. You should judiciously use this tool to make your presence felt. Tell the world that you have arrived.

Tweet it

Twitter is no more an absurd word, nor is tweeting. This micro-blogging site has stirred the marketing world with its sheer power by using just 140 characters (including spaces between words). There are other similar sites like Plurk, identi.ca, etc., and each one of them could be a powerful magnet to convey your blog’s value to the world.

These three Web 2.0 tools will help you put the word out about your blog. The more you will use them the more people will flock towards you. You just need to use it judiciously.

What else do you think could be done using these tools? Come up with unique suggestions. I am waiting for your answer.

Category: blogging | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | February 26, 2010
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Blog with a Friendly Face – Part 9

A blog is considered a friend not only because it shares information with us, but because it shares it in a way that touches us personally. Like a friend, a good blog entertains us while telling us things that matter. It also cares for what we think and how we want it to behave with us. This is the theme for today’s post. Let’s begin exploring it.

Consistency is the key

Be consistent with what you write and what you support. Very few people can stand talking to a person who keeps on hopping from here to there, saying this and that, supporting him as well as him, and you will not like those very few people be part of your audience. Be consistence. Be true to your core, and say only what you mean.

Be the beacon and guide people

Do not hesitate in sharing your expertise with your audience. Share with them the knowledge you have acquired on the way to reaching here. They are going to like it. Write insightful posts, share things that matters to all. Be prolific. Write with grit. Write with gusto. Write for fun, and write to teach.

Picture gives the cue

Why a novel has a cover image or a blog post has a theme picture? Well to explain what the post is all about. Do not just use any picture, use the one that goes with the message you want to convey in the blog post. This will help you build rapport with your audience.

As they say it, picture speaks a thousand words.

I hope you have started to give shape to your blog in the light of what is being taught here. Share your link here, let’s see what you got. Waiting to hear from you.

Category: blogging | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Gossimer | February 26, 2010
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Scheduled maintenance – Email server

A hardware upgrade has been scheduled on one of our Email hosting servers.
On account of this, packages hosted on this server are expected to face interruption in services, during the maintenance.

Maintenance Window

  • Date: 27-02-2010 (Sunday)
  • Start Time: 00:30 AM IST
  • Estimated Duration: 30 mins

Following services will be affected during this downtime:

*  Control panel & Webmail for all the Mailbox Servers will not work for the specified duration.

Rest assured, all new incoming mails will queue up for delivery and shall be available in the Inbox as soon as the server is up and operational.
We regret the interruption in services. For any additional information, feel free to contact our support desk.

Category: LogicBoxes, TechSupport Notifications | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | February 21, 2010
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Blog with a Friendly Face – Part 8

Be honest, if you want people to talk to you, and befriend with you. This is an age-old advice given by people. This works for blogging as well, and that is the theme of today’s blog post.

Stand firm, so what it means creating controversy

If you reasonably think something said on the Internet is against what you and your friends (readers) believed in then stand as a wall to fend for your believe system, so what it means starting a controversy. Never give up fearing of controversy.

Help others and they will recognize it

We have been told this every day, and we even adhered to that, then why do not we take that principle and apply that to the online world? Help people solve their problems using your expertise. Go to the forums where you can add value and find problems and show the solution. This will establish you as an expert in the field, and your blog as an authoritative source. You will be highly rewarded for helping people out.

Talk to people commenting on your blog

I know quite a few bloggers who ask users to post a comment, but when it is done they do not reciprocate. This is not a good thing. It is like a guest is coming to your house, and instead of entertaining your guest, you are busy playing Facebook games. How good a host will you be, if you do so? Be a good host and reply all the revenant comments and carry the discussion on.

These are some of the things you need to do regularly. These by no stretch of imagination are a one-time activities. Make a calendar and follow the schedule. In time, you will see the return on the investment.

Category: blogging | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | February 21, 2010
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iPhone is My Phone – Touch-Screen Smartphone Market Stat

For the first time in the Smartphone’s history, touchscreen Smartphones have exceed 50% mark of a global shipment volume of smart phones. It happened in 2009. In percentage terms touchscreen Smartphones have increased by 108.9% over 2008, and in volume terms touchscreen Smartphone market achieved a global shipment volume of 75.8 million, which was mere 36.3 million units in 2008.

Touchscreen Smartphones made 55% of total global Smartphone shipment volume that was 166.3 million.

This is not the market Symbian OS leads. Apple is king here, despite the fall in its market share from 37.8% to 33.1%. However, the shipment volume grew by 82.9% to reach 25.1 million units from 13.7 million units in 2008.

Nokia touchscreen Smartphone shipment volume grew the most in 2009. It grew by astounding 4070.8% to capture 29.5% market share of touchscreen Smartphone market. In 2008, Nokia’s share was mere 1.5% of the total market.

At number three in terms of shipment volume was HTC that lost its 10% market share to Nokia. HTC was slowest growing touchscreen Smartphones brand in terms of global shipment volume in 2009. It grew just by 6%. (See image for complete picture).

Category: Technology | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | February 20, 2010
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Blog with a Friendly Face – Part 7

The issues we are going to talk in this part are slightly more technical compared to what we have discussed so far. Do not get alarmed, I will keep it simple—at least will try. If you think there is nothing technical about looking or sounding friendly then think again deeper until you come up with answers like your body language, personal space, routine calls, and occasional Hellooos and Hiiis, etc. It was about friendliness of a person, but when it comes to blogging we need to look for things like accessibility, soberness, etc. Read further to see what I mean.

Self-hosted not free platform

Web hosting is cheaper and having a blog self-hosted is a big plus. No one likes a friend that piggyback on the benefits of others. One want a friend that can stand on his own and your self-hosted blog will give you that only. A self-hosted blog with a friendly name will make your blog more accessible

Note: (Gossimer offers the Ultimate web hosting with unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited database, unlimited database space, unlimited email accounts, unlimited FTP users, and 99.9% uptime for just $5 a month only). Click here and get $50 in Yahoo Ad Credits as well to promote your website!

Optimize your blog for search engines

A person who has the maximum numbers of friend is the one who is found at all the hottest party. If you consider Google SERP (search engine result page) a party then being star of the party (the number one spot in organic result) will get you the maximum number of friends. A top-page ranking in Google and other search engines will make your instantly popular among people on the net.

No Flash please

I know you are a big fan of whoosh and swoosh of flash contents, but too many of them just distract because no one came to meet you to see how dazzling you are. Flash contents can be seen as showing off in the real life. How many real friends or would-be real friends got sold for your show offs?

Avoid Flash. No one likes show offs!

As I told you I may get a bit technical in this issue, but as I promised, I kept it as much non-technical as I could. Let me know what you think about you. Shed your inhibition and write whatever you feel like using the comment box below.

Category: blogging | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | February 20, 2010
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Symbian On Top of the Global Smartphone OS Vendors List

Despite dropping market share of Symbian-based Smartphone in the global market, the global shipment volume of Symbian Smartphone OS grew by 4.8% to 78.5 million from 74.9 million units in 2009, which made Symbian the number one Smartphone OS by shipment volume. In last one year, the global market share of Symbian Smartphone has dropped from 52.4% in 2008 to 47.2% in 2009.

RIM maintained its last year standing and finished 2009 at number two position in terms of global shipment as well as market share. The number of unit shipped rose by 46.6% from 23.6 million to 34.5 million, and its market share increased by 4.3% from 16.5% to 20.8%.

In terms of growth rate, Google’s Android has churned out a mammoth number. Google Android grew by 1073.5%. In volume terms, it increased from 663,500 units in 2008 to 7.8 million units in 2009, and its global market share grew from 0.5% to 4.7%.

The main loser in 2009 was Microsoft’s Smartphone OS. It has lost 26.4% of its volume compared to Smartphone OS volume in 2008— from 19.9 million units to 14.7 million units. Its market share also decline by 5.1% point from 13.9% to 8.8 %. (See image for complete data)

Category: Technology | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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