Micro-blogging

Sometimes blogging applications like wordpress, blogger, typead etc. are too much for a post. Just imagine if we start updating our status or sharing a link to a friend on wordpress or blogger then what would happen. There will be thousands of posts on a single page without any comments or there even won’t be any followers. Its horrible to imagine such a thing.

Micro-blogging is the solution to all this. Micro-blogging refers to publishing very short status messages or updates generally would be of two or three sentences. There are several emerging startups in this area, most famous being twitter. Also a few big social networking players like Facebook and bebo have converted themselves into this area.

Lets start with definition of Micro-blogging from Wikipedia. Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia-blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web.

Let’s see some famous Micro-Blogging tools and the features and services they are offering to users.

Twitter: this famous Micro-blogging tool was launched publicly in August of 2006. The idea behind twitter was very simple; the co-founder (Jack Dorsey) was interested in the simple idea of being able to know what his friends were doing. Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter's success. Twitter asks one question, "What are you doing?" Answers must be under 140 characters in length and can be sent via mobile texting, instant message, or the web. Twitter accepts messages from sms, web, mobile web, instant message, or from third party, API projects like Tweetie, twitterfeed, DestroyTwitter etc. and makes it easy for folks to stay connected. You can also make money through twitter. Follow me on Twitter.

Mood Mill: While surfing different Micro-Blogging websites, Mood Mill impressed me the most. Mood Mill is a social mood management website. It's a personal mood management, a log, a quick 'n easy website for managing and sharing your short logs with your contacts.

Tumblr: The things here attracted me after signing in were it’s simplicity and elegance. Tumblr lets you share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme's HTML. Even use your own domain name. We can say that Tumblr is a combination of blogspot and twitter but in simpler form.

I Rate My Day: This site tries to understand one of the greatest mysteries of human being: feelings. IRateMyDay allows you to share your feelings with the rest of the World in total simplicity! Each time you rate your day, you bring your salt grain to a global vision of the human feeling.

There are many more micro-blogging websites like Emotionr, Hictu (video microblogging), Pacmee, Twingr, Socialtext, Blellow, Plinky … etc. This list will never end. That’s all for now. Very soon I will come with the comparisons and services provided by different Micro-Blogging websites as I have done in past.

Follow me on twitter.

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Caught in Wrong Job? Logon to JobeeHive.

GeekOnNet is entering into its eleventh month and it continues its tradition to providing news on the new companies and startups from India.

It is always advisable to look out for the company and the job profile offered before finally jumping itno it. In these dark economic times if eLitmus provides an entry into the job world then Jobeehive.com provides an insight to the working cultures of different companies.

JobeeHive.com is a unique platform that enables professionals and students to research employers and salaries across industry sectors and locations. JobeeHive enables users to rate/review companies (they have worked for), research on salaries or a prospective employer as well as get more info about a company - be it job offers, layoffs, announcements, business opportunities, etc. The site provides rare salary information that helps professionals understand salaries, benefits and pay hikes in different companies across job grades and locations. And in the backdrop, JobeeHive is a platform to build a career network and interact with diverse industry professionals to tap their knowledge/ contacts.

it is one of the biggest employer reviews sites in the world with 20,000+ reviews. JobeeHive.com was among the Top 30 innovative startups selected for HeadStart 2009 and was named in Top 10 Indian Technology Startups in February 2009 featured in DARE Magazine. JobeeHive.com has been shortlisted in the 1st round of Economic Times - The Power of Ideas contest. Even the GeekOnNet team was invited to cover the above event for its avid readers.

In an exclusive interview to the GeekOnNet team Vishwas Mudgal, founder of Jobeehive.com speaks about his company, its targets and future plans.

VENTURE NAME :- JobeeHive.com
FOUNDER(s) :-Vishwas Mudagal, CEO & Founder

FOUNDER’S BACKGROUND:-

Vishwas Mudagal brings with him a diverse experience in corporate and entrepreneurial arenas. A teenage entrepreneur, Vishwas started his first company InfoVision Academy, which successfully trained rural students in computers during 1999-2001. He graduated from RV College of Engineering in 2003 and later gained in depth management and technology experience by working with companies such as Huawei, Honeywell and Freescale Semiconductor.

We(the Geeks): How did you get the idea to start your business?

Vishwas: Lack of transparency in the corporate world and lack of a platform to access valuable insider information about employers and salaries has always been a pain point for professionals and students. We hit upon an idea to solve this through anonymous company reviews submitted by employees themselves. After conducting a market research we found out that there was a need for such kind of a service, where employees come on a common platform to share their experiences which would benefit others. JobeeHive.com was born with this simple idea to enable professionals to make smarter career decisions.
This information is useful to employers as well, because they get to understand what employees are really going through in their organization and also compare themselves with competition. We now see a growing demand from employers for JobeeHive.com services.

We(the Geeks): How long have you been in business?
Vishwas: We launched our public BETA in September 2008 and since then we have grown rapidly. Today, with 20,000+ reviews and nearly 50,000 users, we are one of the biggest and most trusted sources of employer and salary information.

We(the Geeks): Description of good or service provided.
Vishwas: JobeeHive.com is a unique platform that enables professionals and students to research employers and salaries across industry sectors and locations.

JobeeHive enables users to rate/review companies (they have worked for), research on salaries or a prospective employer as well as get more info about a company - be it job offers, layoffs, announcements, business opportunities, etc. The site provides rare salary information that helps professionals understand salaries, benefits and pay hikes in different companies across job grades and locations. And in the backdrop, JobeeHive is a platform to build a career network and interact with diverse industry professionals to tap their knowledge/ contacts.

We(the Geeks): What is your niche market?
Vishwas: We have positioned JobeeHive.com is such a way that it is a win-win for both employees and employers. The market for employer reviews, job satisfaction surveys and salary comparison tools is as big as the job market itself – because everyone who intends to take up a job would want to understand the employer and the work, culture, satisfaction, salary packages, etc.

JobeeHive.com is a web 2.0 platform where services are built around information on companies and salaries. We complement both job portals (such as Monster.com, Naukri.com) and professional networks (such as LinkedIn.com, Xing.com). Internal surveys of our visitors and users show that they are happy with our service and intend to use it increasing given the current business climate. They use the information on JobeeHive.com to compare between the prospective employers and refer salary information to negotiate for a better pay package.

We(the Geeks): How JobeeHive is different from other social networking websites?
Vishwas: Every successful social network has something unique to offer to its users. JobeeHive.com is a very unique professional network that is built around career information (employer reviews, salary reviews, etc.). We offer something that is very useful for professionals and something which other social networks do not offer. This is precisely why we have generated so much interest in the market today.

Company reviews and salary reports on JobeeHive.com get tens of thousands of hits every week and the content keeps growing. As the content grows it becomes more valuable for everyone. Depending on the market demand, we add a few features – just like our Layoff Tracker where employees can report and keep track of industry layoffs.

We(the Geeks): How many users are using JobeeHive and how many company reviews are present currently?
Vishwas: Most of the content of JobeeHive.com is free for everyone to see. So, only if you need very specific and deep information you need to register on the site. There has been a steady growth of users on JobeeHive.com and we will be crossing 50k users soon. But the number of visitors has grown much more than users.

We do not force users to give reviews and many of them come on JobeeHive.com to network with diverse industry professionals. We currently have 20,000+ reviews and its growing at a pace where we need to ramp up our staff to moderate the content.

We(the Geeks):Who are your competitors?
Vishwas: We have Glassdoor.com and Vault.com, who have similar services.

We(the Geeks): How do you differentiate your service from that of others eg. LinkedIn or glassdoor?

Vishwas: As discussed earlier, we complement LinkedIn because Linkedin is a very generic professional network. We are very focused towards providing valuable employer information.

Glassdoor is not a professional network but JobeeHive.com is. People on JobeeHive.com have real identities and profiles and their advice means a lot to other users. Moreover, the differentiation will soon happen as we release a couple of features in the near future. We are not here to compete with Glassdoor, but to provide valuable/trustworthy information and tools for professionals. Also, the market is big enough for a few serious players.

We(the Geeks): What obstacles have you overcome?
Vishwas: The most difficult one was to convince people that such kind of a service would actually work, and today we have proven our critics wrong. Our users have liked our service and have been our brand ambassadors. Without spending a penny on marketing, we have received great traction and we thank our users and visitors for this.
Another obstacle that we are yet to overcome is that we can build a good revenue model around it. We are working on many ways to monetize our content and we are sure that JobeeHive.com is here to stay and help professionals for a long time to come.

We(the Geeks): What prospects are you visualizing for your company 5 years down the line?
Vishwas: I am not going to say much here but we want to be a clear market leader in the geographies we target. We are well set to achieve this goal.

We(the Geeks): Are you going to implement something new to your website or to your business?
Vishwas: We have many features in the pipeline and you will see them very soon. All the features will be aimed at helping professionals gain valuable insights into employers. Also, we will be going global with targeted platforms for few countries. Stay tuned to www.jobeehive.com

We(the Geeks): Any suggestions for future entrepreneurs?
Vishwas: Be passionate about your idea and never say DIE. Concentrate on the revenue model and execution. The one who executes well wins.

We hope that our posts and articles would help you all readers to make a good choice of the company in this recession time.

Hi all, this is Jimmie Tete, a new team member reporting for GeekOnNet. I hope I can live up to the challenge of all your expectations.Comments invited.

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The Power of Ideas

Date & time : April 8, 2009, 4:30 PM
Venue : St. Andrews Auditorium, St. Andrews College Campus, Bandra

The GeekOnNet team was overwhelmed by the invitation it got by The Economic Times to cover their event- The Power of Ideas. The event is an initiative taken by The Economic Times which provides a platform for the new emerging entrepreneurs. They have a tie up with a leading business network-Angel Networks, a group of accredited investors who review companies and entrepreneurs for potential investment.

The event is a platform where new business ideas could be presented to the Angel Network. The participants would have to go through four rounds of presentations and interviews before being declared as the winners. The winners would then be provided with both mentor ship and funding for their business ideas by the Angel Network team. The first phase consisted of sending the business ideas to the network team via email,online etc etc.12,000 entries were then shortlisted to 1000 for the second phase. Phase three is known as elevator pitch where one on one mentorship is provided to the shortlisted candidates. The final phase consists of presenting your business ideas to the potential Venture capitalists.

The introduction to the event was given by Vinod Mahanta,Editor, Corporate Dossier. The seven member Angel Network team was present to share their experiences and listen to the queries of the future entrepreneurs of India. Harish Mehta, Managing Director of Onward Novell Software (I) Pvt. Ltd. and one of the founder member of NASSCOM was the first speaker. His story of successful entrepreneurship did really set up the mood of the session.

But the QnA session was the main show stealer. The questions and doubts on opening up a new venture in the current grim economic situation were ably answered by the Angel Network team present. Reasons and facts were presented which showed that such economic lulls are the best times to invest and start a brand. Rehan Yaar Khan, another member and founder of Flora2000.com stressed on the point of mentorship where mentorship can be equated as having the same importance as someone investing funds on you. Krishna Jha, co-founder ITFinity, one of the first wireless data companies globally was always there to lighten up the mood with his perfect humorous one liners,but had a deep meaning associated with it. One of them being that "Now is the time to launch yourself,irrespective of situation .Never work single,always get a partner even if it means sharing your paycheck"."Most startups dont die because of starvation but due to indigestion". There was one very comic situation where a participant never knew which among the many business ideas submitted of his was selected.

We even interviewed some enthusiastic participants about their business ideas. The preparation and groundwork done by them was really appreciative. One of the guys we interviewed had submitted six business ideas and all of them were selected. This do speak volumes about the bright entrepreneurship brains young India posses. We caught up with the AGM-Brand team, Economic Times Priya Kapadia after the sessions and thanked her for all the faith she had shown on the GeekOnNet team.

Thank you Economic Times for providing us this opportunity to interact and learn from the successful and budding entrepreneurs of India. All the best to all the participants from GeekOnNet Team.

Some links: Pics taken by GeekOnNet.com , The Power of Ideas - blog, List of shortlisted candidates for 2nd round

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Is New FaceBook another Twitter??

It was 4^th feb. of 2004 when faceBook was released for the first time. A website that changed the definition of online social networking. This was not just a social networking website but also a new way to advertise products online. It integrated e-business, e-marketing with a social networking website. So, the results of this were not surprising. In 2008, it achieved the milestone of 100 million registered users, and hundreds of thousands of apps, communities etc. Currently facebook is the world’s 5^th most visited website. It gets more than a billion hits per month and each facebook user spends on an average 19 minutes per day. No doubt facebook has emerged as one of the best among the social networking websites.

Everything was fine till March 12^th 2009, when they launched the new user interface. It was horrible for facebook users. If we observe carefully we find that facebook is going to be the next twitter. But why the hell? I think one twitter is enough for us.

Vote here : --->

Do you like new FaceBook?

I believe the response from the users of facebook must have been very frustrating for the facebook’s interface development team. When I read the official post about the new layout, I got shocked. There are more than 7,000 comments, I went through initial 5-6 pages of comments. Believe me, I didn’t find any comment in the favor of new layout. Every one was shouting “Give me back my old facebook !!” or “new layout sucks !!”.

So, what are the problems with the new layout?

I think, the first mistake by facebook is that they were unable to understand the mentality of users. Users of faceBook were not mentally prepared to adopt the changes which happened all of a sudden. See the basic mantra behind the success of any social networking website is to create addiction for the website in the heart of users. People were addicted to using old facebook. They could not digest the unwanted changes. If the changes would have been gradual they might have adjusted well.

The second mistake which I noticed is the presentation of the new faceBook. They tried to put more and more stuffs in a single page. It makes faceBook more confusing. See, providing more and more fun stuff and apps is nothing without good presentation. If you see facebook carefully now it has only 3 columns, left (The feed), Middle (The updates) and right which have the information about publishers and rest of the page is blank. Why are they not optimizing the blank space in the page?

This new interface is a killer from the apps developers prospective. In old layout new app had high probability of spreading over the network. In the new Facebook, apps have been almost completely killed off. They’re still there, but now users have to look for them in individual profiles. So In new facebook layout apps have low spread rate. This will also affect the development of faceBook.

GeekOnNet is conducting a poll as shown above whether you like or not the new layout of the facebook. Please give your opinion as Yes or No or I don't care. If you have any suggestion, write as comment to this post.

At the end I would say, please don’t make facebook another twitter. One twitter is good for us. Follow me on twitter.

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100 Blog Tips, I Learnt in 2008 Part-II

You have already seen 50 blog tips which I mentioned in 100 blog tips part-I. Here are the rest of 50 tips. Believe me making a list of 100 tips was not easy at all. But still I managed to complete it.

• 51. use meta tags wisely


• 52. learn the basics of SEO


• 53. use pictures whenever possible


• 54. create value for your readers


• 55. place ads wisely


• 56. be patient


• 57. consider getting a co-blogger


• 58. submit your articles to directories


• 59. share what has worked for you


• 60. share what has not worked for you


• 61. read world’s top blogs.


• 62. experiment with Google Adsense


• 63. make it easy for visitors to contact you


• 64. use titles effectively, search engine optimized


• 65. offer email subscriptions


• 66. always answer to questions


• 67. always answer to comments


• 68. use Technorati


• 69. write with a personal touch


• 70. become an expert in your niche


• 71. always give your own opinion


• 72. participate in blogging competition


• 73. get to know other bloggers personally


• 74. organize your categories


• 75. talk directly to your readers


• 76. put functional links on your footer


• 77. put social bookmarks at the start of post


• 78. Use EntreCard


• 79. Use shoutbox


• 80. Do blog hopping


• 81. Use ReddIt


• 82. Learn basic of CSS


• 83. Teach others about blogging


• 84. Twitter


• 85. Learn about backlinks


• 86. Write article for others article directory


• 87. Bold your keywords


• 88. DO keywords research


• 89. Keep watching total no. of backlinks


• 90. Don’t be a jerk


• 91. Respect your audience


• 92. Be real


• 93. Write for the readers not for the search engines


• 94. Interlink the blogs within the contents.


• 95. our blog should be easy to subscribe


• 96. Speed in downloading


• 97. Never attempt Black Hat SEO techniques


• 98. Learn and make improvements from previous mistakes


• 99. ................


• 100. create a “100 list” like this

Dear reader if still I am missing any tips, you can write as comments to this post.
PS: Thanks for voting :)

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eLitmus: Jump Start Your Career

Geekonnet successfully walks, a step forward on the way to popularise Indian startups over the internet. This time we had a long interactive session with a visionary in the recruitment field. With a vision to make everybody find his right job. Elitmus is moving ahead on the principle of "Let the thirsty meet the well ". The days of 'Dream Job' is now over. It's the time when you start looking the Right Job for you. Similarly companies around the globe are now looking for Right person for them. Elitmus serves as a medium which helps the company end and the job seekers end, find each other through their innovative and appropriate techniques.

eLitmus is a first-of-its-kind service in the world. Since it was launched in 2005, eLitmus has been redefining how fresher and entry-level recruitment is done in India. Their proprietary pH Test evaluates job seekers based on a variety of parameters, and grades them nationwide using an advanced statistical model, resulting in a pH Score for each candidate. An extensive range of online tools that they provide help recruiters to easily screen and select candidates based on this and dozens of other parameters.

Aseem Marwaha   

Director, Corporate Business

Aseem did his undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. After a brief stint in the paper industry, he moved to IT. He worked with Infosys and iFlex, where he developed custom software in the banking and enterprise domains. After that, he served as an advisor in recruitment strategy to companies like Synectics (now Logica), eCredit and Quidnunc. Last, he founded Browse Consulting, a highly successful recruitment firm in the software industry.

Today eLitmus is the largest independent evaluation body in Indian IT industry.

We(the Geeks): Do share your journey of last 3 years with our readers.

Aseem: When we started out, the existing players were operating on time & material model. The primary reason of outsourcing was logistics management rather than good evaluation. For example if anemployer needed to do recruitment at entry level, it could easily expect applications in thousands. It requires very low­end skills to process applications and administer tests on short­listed candidates. This was the key driver for companies to outsource.

The evaluation piece being outsourced was incidental, which came bundled with core need of logistics management. The other reason why a relevant and researched evaluation was never sought was talent crunch. A right evaluation would disqualify most of the job seekers and the companies would end up not meeting their target number of hires.

       In such a situation we took a very difficult call. We decided to focus on evaluation and bid time. We were confident that once the party was over in the economy, companies would look for smaller number of candidates and the ones who can perform. So we are suddenly in a sweet spot where in none of our competitors tests are as predictive as ours. In slow down companies are jumping for this value. 

We(the Geeks): So tell us more about your evaluation. What is the pH Test about? 
Aseem: Unlike time & material based solution providers in evaluation industry, we have a standardised test. This standardised test is called the pH Test that is potential to hire test. All our customers use this test as a first level filter.

        The good thing of pH Test is that the interpretation of this test is customer dependent. To explain lets take an example of CAT (common aptitude test of IIMs). At the end of the test you get a score. It does not tell you what kind of questions you answered. I could have answered more out of box thinking questions and scored lower marks than a person who has solved more perseverance questions. This is a problem. To understand the problem, lets say we need to hire domestic helps – driver, cooks and cleaning staff. Lets assume drivers earn more than cook who in turn earn more than cleaning staff. We give them a common test. Lets say the candidate scoring highest marks has scored very well in cooking and cleaning questions but poor in driving questions. As an employer if I only see overall marks, I will obviously hire the highest scorer. Needless to say that is a wrong choice. Hence our interpretation of score is dependent on skills being sought by customers rather than absolute.

         This company based customisation has helped us reduce percentage of under performers by more than 90% with most of our customers.

We(the Geeks): Do you visit individual colleges to administer pH Test? 

Aseem: Yes we do visit colleges when invited. Besides students take test outside of college as well. pH Test is conducted in various cities once every 3 weeks. The students can come to a location convenient to them and take the test. 

We(the Geeks): When and why should students take the pH Test? 

Aseem: Ideal time for students to take pH Test is 7th semester of their engineering. In case their college is a partner college of eLitmus, then they should take the pH Test in 6th semester. Customers of eLitmus visit partner colleges for campus recruitment. We keep churning the list of our partner colleges based on performance of their students with our customers in previous year.

The biggest reason why a student should take pH Test is to determine if s/he should make a career in IT industry. IT industry will keep undergoing recessions every few years. The average performers even with lot of experience will be laid off in such situations. Our significant focus is on testing raw ability of a student. If the student fares poorly in the test, s/he should look beyond IT industry rather than live with threat of being fired every few years.

The next reason why students should take our test is that over 100 employers today ask for pH Scores. So a single test opens the doors to multiple employers.

If you have any queries for eLitmus please do mail us. We will forward your questions to the company. Also we value your feedbacks regarding how to make these interviews more useful for our readers. Please feel free to comment or mail us at:

ranjeet@geekonnet.com
deepak@geekonnet.com

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