Business and Technology

Google PageRank Update January 2008

2008-01-15T12:31:00.000-08:00

Looks like there's yet another PageRank update happening at Google! This Gpogle PageRank update has been reported by some other bloggers as well in January 2008.

A couple of my sites have jumped from PR3 to PR4 sometime within last fortnight. Google shows more backlinks to these sites than it used to show earlier.

Should I consider this as my new year gift? :-)

Let's say cheers to the latest Google PR update as it is kind of reward for the hard work we put into promoting our sites! :-D

Tags: Google, Gifts, New Year, New Year Gift, PageRank, Google PageRank, PR, Google PageRank Update, PageRank Update, Google PR, Business, Technology

Google PageRank Update August 2007

2007-08-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

This interesting post by Garett Rogers at ZDNet talks about the possibility of the a link between the forthcoming Google PageRank update (slated for late July but is imminent now in August 2007) and the outage that many Google Analytics users reported late last week.

He refers to a comment at seoroundtable.com that triggered this thought

When I was reading some of the commentary on this latest problem, I came accross this comment on seroundtable.com:

I would almost swear this happened last time right before they had the last PR update. I think they use that data in the algorithm if a webmaster has it. Either that or they defer the resources used to power it.

What does this mean to us lesser mortals waiting for the latest PageRank update?

Well, it seems like the update is almost upon us and will be very visible across Google's various datacenters in form of fluctuating PageRank of people's websites before the next week is up!

Three cheers to the Google PR update as it enables many of us to rate our own efforts at making our website really count amongst the deluge of millions others in our category!

Tags: Google, Analytics, Google Analytics, Outage, PageRank, Google PageRank, PR, Google PageRank Update, PageRank Update, Google PR, Garett Rogers, ZDNet, SEO Roundtable, Datacenters, Algorithm, Business, Technology

MSN LIVE Gaming Searchers?

2007-07-30T02:26:00.000-07:00

I just read this great piece at GigaOm that explains how MSN LIVE has been able to register the gains that it has reported in its search volumes recently. Looks like some executives at Microsoft have come up with some nifty strategies to shoot automated queries based on user actions in their newly launched LIVE Search Club.

According to Hitwise, Microsoft’s share of US searches shot up from 8.46% to 9.85%. That’s a nice little jump. The big question is if these gains are legitimate or this a case akin to Barry Bonds’ pending claim to the home run record, where a promotional offer may have juiced up the search share. The answer is the latter.

We checked with Hitwise, and they explained that June gains include “searches automatically generated from a promotion on club.live.com,” up to June 9, 2007. After that they stopped counting the data.

Seems like MSN LIVE is throwing up search results just to boost up its search volumes. A further research of the LIVE Search Club by Om confirmed his theory!

I spent sometime on club.live.com and realized that Hitwise was being kind. I ended up playing Chicktionary, a word game, which is “powered by Live Search.” Every time you put together a word, the bottom half of the screen produced a page of search results related to that word. I didn’t ask for them – they just showed up. It wasn’t bots that were throwing up those pages. Instead, it was Microsoft showing them to me. When you hit hint, you get some search results that are supposed to be clues.

Shame on MSN!

They can't fight a fair war with Google so they resort to trickery! Too bad.
Google is indeed the king amongst the search engines. No number of Yahoo and MSN put together can even come closer.

What do you say, guys? :-)

Tags: Google, MSN LIVE, Search Engine, LIVE Search Club, MSN, Yahoo, Technology, Business, GigaOm

Holograms to fight counterfeiting

2007-07-22T00:25:00.000-07:00

Since time immemorial, industries have been fighting the menace of counterfeit products.

The rampant piracy prevalent worldwide eats into manufacturers' profit margins and also erodes away their brand equity as the consumers inadvertently attribute the bad quality of the fake products to the original manufacturer.

However, hologram manufacturers have continuously been innovating to strengthen the manufacturing industry against a joint anti-counterfeiting movement. These hologram manufacturers produce hard to copy holograms that have become an ever present anti-piracy feature of the products being manufactured in a plethora of industries.

This is just one of the examples how technological innovations help the business and industry.

Tags: Hologram, Holograms, Counterfeit, Counterfeiting, Piracy, Anti Piracy, Anti Counterfeiting, Hologram Manufacturers, Business, Technology

Search Attention - Yahoo loses, MSN & Google Gain

2007-07-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

This article reports that since December 2006, Yahoo's share of user attention has declined 22%, while Google's attention share has risen 10%, which doesn't include YouTube's performance. The article further states that MSN has registered a major gain of 57% more attention between December 2006 and June 2007.

One area where Yahoo continues to lead Google is in user attention. But Yahoo is losing ground and Google is gaining it, according to Internet metrics company Compete.

The recently updated Compete Attention 200 shows Yahoo with roughly three times the share of user attention than Google received in June, 6.5% vs. 2.3%. These percentages represent the fraction of time Internet users spent at a given site out of the entire amount of time they spent online.

It's debatable how relevant Compete's attention metric is to Google, which measures the success of its search engine mostly by the speed with which users find relevant links and move on.

Still, as Google continues to develop as a service ecosystem, offering online applications, tools, and other diversions, many of its properties are aiming for greater user engagement.

The top 10 sites in terms of attention in June were MySpace (12.7%), Yahoo (6.5%), MSN (5.8%), eBay (2.3%), Google (2.3%), Facebook (1.5%), Pogo (1.4%), YouTube (1.4%), AOL (1%), and Craigslist (0.8%).

YouTube, owned by Google, showed the largest gain between December and June, with a 148% increase. This may reflect both an increase in popularity and the time-intensive nature of video viewing.

And as it is turning out... I do not think that Google can be called just a search engine anymore... it is in fact moving towards becoming the biggest advertising agency in not too distant a future if I am not wrong!

Any which way... Yahoo and MSN must be getting worried and who knows, may be already finalising their own sweet deal after Yahoo's attempt at acquiring FaceBook has resulted in a naught!

Very plausible, no? ;-)

It will be better for these two to sleep together rather than having nightmares alone! ;-)

What do you say guys? :-D

Tags: Google, DoubleClick, Search Engine, Advertising Agency, MSN, Yahoo, Sleep, Nightmares, Technology, Business, Advertising, Myspace, FaceBook, YouTube, eBay, Pogp, AOL, Craiglist

iPhone breaks sales records

2007-07-06T04:19:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobbs must be very satisfied at the moment with confirmed reports that Apple has broken sales records (dollar value) in consumer electronics with its iPhone launch! Over 500,000 units within a week and people still trying to get hold of one for themselves with all but two Apple stores in USA running out of the first lot!

Whew... that's some success! :-)

I wonder what will the detractors of iPhone who predicted that it will be a failure now have to say! ;-)

Apple has rewritten the rules in the audio equipment industry time and again. Here is yet another example!

Tags: Apple, Steve Jobbs, iPhone, Audio, Audio Equipment, USA, Consumer Electronics, Business, Technology

Jewelry is a woman's best friend!

2007-07-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

Jewelry is a woman's best friend! Now, who can argue with that? ;-)

With news stories like the ones below doing the rounds, one can only marvel at the innovative marketing ideas that jewelry manufacturers worldwide are experimenting with and achieving success at!

A Diamond Is Forever noticed the women's fine jewelry self purchase trend and launched the "Right Hand Ring" marketing campaign. - PRNewswire

Saudi Women to Push Sale of Diamonds
A massive promotional drive involving the opening of 80 showrooms will be launched here under a phased plan to boost the sale of diamond jewelry whose sales have registered a double-digit growth in the Kingdom.

WGC Debuts Consumer Campaign
The new promotion aims to stimulate consumer demand for gold jewelry by increasing its relevance and desirability.--May Is Gold Month Promotion Open to Independents.

What do you say, guys? :-)

Tags: Jewelry, Friend, Woman, Gold, Gold Jewelry, Diamonds, Diamond Jewelry, Marketing, Manufacturers, Jewelry Manufacturers

Aha! Google's Another Acquisition - Feedburner

2007-06-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

Wow... not too long a time since the last one... and Google has its engines revved up once again!

Two major acquisitions , DoubleClick and Feedburner in last 30 days... whew!

Now, is it a wonder that Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo? There is literally no other way for these two to fight Google alone. It has to happen sooner or later... the question is, how soon...?

I would like to suggect two more acquisitions to Google... Wordpress and Technorati!
Wouldn't these two strengthen Google's position even more, guys?

Wordpress has some of the best writers writing on wordpress.com and Technorati tags the whole blogosphere. I feel this combination will prove to be very beneficial for Google.

And as it is turning out... I do not think that Google can be called just a search engine anymore... it is in fact moving towards becoming the biggest advertising agency in not too distant a future if I am not wrong!

Any which way... Yahoo and MSN must be getting worried and who knows, may be already finalising their own sweet deal!

Very plausible, no? ;-)

It will be better for these two to sleep together rather than having nightmares alone! ;-)

What do you say guys? :-D

Tags: Google, DoubleClick, Search Engine, Advertising Agency, MSN, Yahoo, Sleep, Nightmares, Technology, Business, Advertising, Technorati, Wordpress

Artificial Plastic Blood to help save lives

2007-05-13T02:59:00.000-07:00

Scientists in Britain claim to have developed artificial plastic blood. They claim that the artificial blood could act as a substitute to real blood, is easier to store and could be a huge advantage in war zones.

Injured soldiers and crash victims could have their lives saved with plastic blood, the researchers have claimed. The artificial blood is sterile, easily stored and could be given to any patient via transfusion regardless of their blood type.

The synthetic blood is not a long-term substitute for the real thing but can keep patients alive until a transfusion can be carried out. It is most likely to be used where real blood is not available.

Whereas real blood must be refrigerated and has a shelf life of a little over a month and care has to be taken to ensure any used for transfusion is the same type as a patient's blood group, the artificial version is free of such problems. It can be stored at room temperature for months.

The blood, which has the composition of runny honey, was created by experts at Sheffield University of the UK.

Tags: Blood, Artificial Blood, Plastic Blood, Britain, UK, Sheffield University, Health, Healthcare, Scientists, Business, Technology

Yahoo Homepage Goof Up

2007-04-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Goofs Up On Katherine Zeta Jones and American Idol Contestant Katherine McPhee Pictures!

I just logged out from my Yahoo mail account and noticed a small goof up on the Yahoo homepage in the Yahoo Search - What's Happening Now section and was able to capture a screenshot.

Check it out!

Apparently, Yahoo's system or designers mixed up the pics of my favorite Katherine Zeta Jones and former American Idol contestant, Katherine McPhee and have displayed Jones' photograph and linked it to McPhee's image search results!

Am sure that they'll fix it soon... till that time, I'd like you guys to check out the Yahoo homepage and leave a comment if you could see it before they made a correction.

Now, I really like it if someone like Yahoo goofs up! ;-)

Know why? Because, it makes me feel a li'l less embarrassed on my innumerable ones and also tells me that they guys at Yahoo are humans after all! :-D

Cheers! :-)

Tags: Yahoo, Goof ups, Katherine Zeta Jones, American Idol, Katherine McPhee, Business, Technology

Gmail Paper - April Fool Spoof

2007-03-31T23:28:00.000-07:00

Gmail Paper

I swear, these guys are REAL nuts :-)

If you haven't yet read about Gmail Paper as yet, it's time you did!

Is it free?

Yes. The cost of postage is offset with the help of relevant, targeted, unobtrusive advertisements, which will appear on the back of your Gmail Paper prints in red, bold, 36 pt Helvetica. No pop-ups, no flashy animations—these are physically impossible in the paper medium.

Just notice the font siz and color for the supposed Ads, and of course, the emphasis on "no pop-ups, no flashy animations"... LOL :-)

How about attachments?

All part of the deal. Photo attachments are printed on high-quality, glossy photo paper, and secured to your Gmail Paper with a paper clip. MP3 and WAV files will not be printed. We recommend maintaining copies of your non-paper Gmail in these cases.

Wow... wow... wow.. only if it were true! :-D
Would have been great if Google could deliver the music files on a CD as well... would have made the life of music companies all the more happier... LOL :-D

Is there a limit?

You can make us print one, one thousand, or one hundred thousand of your emails. It’s whatever seems reasonable to you.

But what about the environment?

Not a problem. Gmail Paper is made out of 96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum, and thus, actually helps the environment. For every Gmail Paper we produce, the environment gets incrementally healthier.

This is the best! If this were to be true, Gmail would no more be an email service provider but a physical junk generator! And talk about the environment getting healthier... environmentalists... take a bow!

I just can't stop laughing... the guy who came up with the spoof must get a Nobel Prize or something!

Wad'ya say guys? ;-)

Tags: Gmail Paper, Google, Gmail, Spoof, Email, Environment, Junk, Nobel Prize, Music, Business, Technology

Microsoft takes A Bow To Google Adwords?

2007-03-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Advertising On Google

Just noticed a very interesting thing while I was surfing the net looking for some CSS templates and tutorials.

Looks like Microsoft wants to tap on the vast reach of Google search base by advertising its Embedded Systems products, in the paid-for Google Ads.

And the most interesting part is that it seems like Microsoft doesn't seem to be playing by the Google rules! The title of the ad is not representing truly what the product is - Embedded Systems!

It looks like Microsoft is trying to get the attention of the developer community by bidding for top slots on important keywords that us guys might be looking for.

Check this picture out.

For the record, the ad was spotted at 11.00 p.m. IST (i.e. India Standard Time) in New Delhi, India.

I'd like to know what do you guys have to say on this? Shouldn't Google kick Microsoft's butt on this one, as if it isn't doing that every now and then? ;-)

Now, would Microsoft push Windows Vista through this route as well?

Do let me have your comments, guys! :-)

Tags: Microsoft, Google, Vista, Adwords, Advertising, Developers, India, css, Templates, CSS Templates, Embedded Systems,Business, Technology

Spreading the Z-list blogs

2007-03-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Even after so many months of having put this up, I am disappointed to see no reponse from the network and no backlinks to my blog! Am taking down the links today! Sorry, guys!

It started with Mack Collier of The Viral Garden, who came up with the idea of giving a links boost to us smaller bloggers, the ‘Z List’.

I picked this up from Bhuvan's Wordpress Blog and taking this forward. Follow the steps below to join the gang!

1. Create a new post on your blog.
2. Copy and Paste the entire list of blog links below
3. Add any blogs that you want to include near the top of the list. (Optional)
4. Include the blog where you first got the list from, on the list in your post.
5. Do not include your own blog links on the list in your post.
6. Make sure that all links are copied intact (use the source, Luke).
7. Publish the Post.

Bhuvana Sundaramoorthy
SEO Blog
eJabs
DragonLady’s World
Rob’s Blog
Another Opinion Among Many
CAUTION: girl underway
Webgrrrl
Dr. Mercola
Daily Cup of Tech
Blog-Op
Carols Vault
Blog About Your Blog
Monetize Your Blog
Cosmin PTR
Make Money On The Net
Make$ Money$
Successful Online Money Making
Turn One Pound Into One Million$
Work at Home Blog
Blogging For Beginners
How to earn money online?
Dosh Dosh
Money Money Money
Money Making Quest
Connected Internet
Mike’s Money Making Mission
Time to Budget
Can I Make Big Money Online
Blogtrepreneur
Flee the Cube
Blogging Secret
Blogging to Fame
Million Dollar Experiment heads Down Under
Quest to make money on the internet
Kumiko’s Cash Quest
Calico Monkey
Internet Bazaar
Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Pow! Right Between The Eyes!
Billions With Zero Knowledge
Working at Home on the Internet
MapleLeaf 2.0
Two Hat Marketing
darrenbarefoot.com
The Emerging Brand
The Branding Blog
CrapHammer
Drew’s Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
Unconventional Thinking
Buzzoodle
NewsPaperGrl
The Copywriting Maven
Hee-Haw Marketing
Scott Burkett’s Pothole on the Infobahn
Multi-Cult Classics
Logic + Emotion
Branding & Marketing
Popcorn n Roses
On Influence & Automation
Bullshitobserver
Servant of Chaos
converstations
eSoup
Presentation Zen
Dmitry Linkov
aialone
John Wagner
Nick Rice
CKs Blog
Design Sojourn
Frozen Puck
The Sartorialist
Small Surfaces
Africa Unchained
Perspective
gDiapers
Marketing Nirvana
Bob Sutton
¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
Community Guy
Social Media on the fly
Ken Savage
confessions of a freeware junkie
Run PC Run
ScriptingLife
Off-Hook
Purely Technical

Google Patent Search

2006-12-16T06:51:00.000-08:00

Google Launches Patent Search

With Google's foray into patent search, the war amongst the search engines has hottened up. Though there are a few free patent search engines available, Google as usual intends to rule the roost.

You can access Google Paent Search.

There are FreePatentsOnline and PatentReader, as well as the venerable USPTO search that have the first mover advantage and good user base but then Google has the resources and the w...i...d...e...s...t reach!

It will be interesting to see how these patent search engines fare in the war with Google... or who knows, Google just might decide to acquire one of the existing patent search engines (the ones that do not belong to the governmet, of course) to supplement its database and get the user base!

Very plausible, no? ;-)

Any which way... Yahoo and MSN must be getting worried, with their management having nightmares and losing sleep over the new development!

Tags: Google, Google Patent Search, Patent, Patent Search, Research, Search Engine, Patent Search Engine, MSN, Yahoo, Sleep, Nightmares, Technology, Business, Freepatentsonline, Patent Reader, USPTO

Increase FireFox Speed 10x Faster

2006-12-15T14:52:00.000-08:00

Speed up Firefox 10x faster

1. Type "about:config" into the address bar of firefox and hit enter. Scroll down and look for the following entries and make the recommended alterations:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
Note: To set things to TRUE then you have to right click on the item listed and then click toggle
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

2. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

Tags: Firefox, Browser, Business, Technology

Dr. Google's Healthcare Plans

2006-12-08T06:02:00.000-08:00

Dr. Google's Healthcare Plans

In this interesting post at the official Google Blog, Adam Bosworth, the Vice President of Google, talks about his plans for Google's Health Services.

Fuelled by his personal experience with the American healthcare system and processes, and the tragic demise of her monther due to cancer, Bosworth says that Google's healthcare plans are his main focus now!

I have been interested in the issues of health care and health information for a while. It is now one of my main focuses here, and I've decided to start posting about it. I've been motivated in this field in part by my personal experiences helping to care for my mother, who recently died from cancer after a four-year battle. While the quality of the medical care my mother received was extraordinary, I saw firsthand how challenged the health care system was in supporting caregivers and communicating between different medical organizations.

Bosworth looks like he strongly believes that

If patients understand their diseases better -- the symptoms, the treatments, the drugs, and the side effects, they are likely to get better and quicker care -- before, during, and after treatment.

He further says,

Google and the health community have labeled sites and pages across the web making it easier for users to refine their health queries and locate the medical information they need.

The search example by Bosworth throws light at the future direction that Google search algorithm might take, at least with the healthcare search to begin with -

Do a search on Google about a medical issue or treatment like diabetes or Lipitor and you'll see some choices for refining your query, such as "symptoms," "treatments," and so on. If you click on "treatment," your search results are refined and reordered so that sites that have been labeled as being about treatment by trusted health community contributors are boosted in the rankings. Note that how trusted a contributor is -– and thus how much they affect your search results -– is dependent both on Google's algorithms and on who the user decides they trust. For example, if my doctor is a Google Co-op contributor and I indicate to Google that I trust her, then when I search, the sites she has labeled as relevant will show up higher in my search results.

In effect Google says it will allow human intervention to manipulate its search results at least for individuals to deliver more effective and relevant search results.

Whoa... must be another "first", once again by the search engine giant.

However, how much the Americans will believe in the worth of the new healthcare search is anybody's guess.

But one thing is for sure, the privacy issues involved in this must be a point of debate as the patients storing their healthcare related information on Google.

As it is currently with Google's most other offerings, will Google choose to be as off-hand with its privacy policy and how it stores and uses the data as it is now, or will it change its stance to win consumer confidence?

If Google chooses to follow the same privacy policy, it still can manage to net a large user base for its healthcare search services. I is very plausible considering its large base of users, many of whom do not bother themselves with reading the privacy poilcy and those few who do, do not understand the implications!

But one thing can not be denied. The data that Google might collect on patients and the user base of the Google Healthcare Services itself, are of immense marketing value being extremely targeted from the point of view of medica service establishments, individual medical practitioners, prescription drug companies, insurance companies etc.

Now the question is - Is Google really thinking about the welfare of the patients or does it have its eyes focussed on the revenue that this new service has the potential to bring in?!?!

Any which way... Yahoo and MSN must be getting worried, with their management having nightmares and losing sleep over the pace at which Google not only announces but comes out with revolutionay concepts.

Tags: Google, Google Healthcare, Health, Healthcare, Research, Search Engine, MSN, Yahoo, Sleep, Nightmares, Privacy, Doctors, Privacy Policy, Diagnosis, Medical, Medical Practitioners, Prescription Drugs, Privacy Issues, Insurance, Marketing

Web 3.0 Coming - Web 2.0 RIP?

2006-12-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

Web 3.0 Coming - Web 2.0 RIP?

So, you have heard it already and want to really believe our ears, right? :-)

Yes, my dear friend!

Web 3.0 is well on its way and it won't be too long before Web 2.0 will really RIP! Want some evidence, eh? You, unbelieving soul! ;-)

So, what is Web 3.0 anyways? How will Web 3.0 be better than Web 2.0? How does it affect us all?

For some answers, you may want to check out Phil Wainewright making a case of the online world's transition to Web 3.0 in his blog. Article 1, Article 2 and Article 3.

He insists that like Microsoft's Windows, the Web 2.0 phenomeon will also see its peak in the form of evolution into Web 3.0

Windows was a classic example. 1.0 was so buggy it was hardly worth using. 2.0 fixed some serious problems but still had a lot of shortcomings. 3.0, launched in May 1990, was an instant success, and the rest of the story, as they say, is history. Don’t be surprised, then, if Web 2.0 also turns out to be just a staging post on the way to a much more mature and durable Web 3.0 era.

He makes a case study of the stalwarts of the online economy today including Google, Amazon and eBay and some not so well known but case studies in themselves - WebEx, WebSideStory, NetSuite, Jamcracker, Rearden Commerce and Salesforce.com.

He is also quick to make it a point to his readers that just because these companies find a mention in his analysis of the Web 3.0 story, the reader shouldn’t assume these companies will emerge to be the dominant players of Web 3.0.

He also professes that Web 3.0 will revolutionize delivery of on-demand business applications like never before.

Web 3.0 isn’t just about shopping, entertainment and search. It’s also going to deliver a new generation of business applications that will see business computing converge on the same fundamental on-demand architecture as consumer applications.

He has a very interesting concept of three and a half layered topology for Web 3.0. These are - API services (the foundation layer), Aggregation services (the middle layer), Application services (the top layer) and the Serviced clients (the half-layer).

The series of articles on Web 3.0 are a must read for anyone who's fascinated with the evolution of Web 2.0

As far as I can surmise, there seems to be extremely exciting times ahead!

Tags: Web 3.0, Web 2.0, Microsoft, Windows, Google, Amazon, Ebay, Webex, WebSideStory, JamCracker, NetSuite, Rearden Commerce, Salesforce, Business Applications, API Services, Aggregation services, Application services, Business, Technology

TCS & Bank of China sign deal

2006-12-04T02:03:00.000-08:00

India's information technology (IT) major, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been reported to have signed a $100 million outsourcing deal with the Bank of China.

Industry sources dubbed TCS’ win in China as one of the major IT deal signed by a Chinese bank ahead of the opening up of that country's banking sector to foreign competition by December 11 under Beijing's commitment to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

This deal came close on the heels of TCS' seven-year, $65 million agreement with Somerfield, a Britain based food retailer, to provide a full range of managed IT services. TCS had announced this deal last week.

Tags: Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, China, Banking, Finance, Information Technology, Outsourcing, India, TCS, Beijing, Bank of China, TCS, World Trade Organization, WTO, Somerfiled, Britain, Business, Technology

ABN Amro buys stake in Infosys

2006-12-02T18:43:00.000-08:00

Another piece of news on Infosys!

London based ABN AMRO bank NV has picked up 0.02 per cent stake in India's IT major - Infosys Technologies (INFY) by acquiring 1.21 lakh shares of Infosys at a price of Rs 2,179.71 per share in a block deal on the Bomnbay Stock Exchange (BSE) from Merrill Lynch capital markets.

So, it looks like investors worldwide are more and more convinced that the outsourcing wave to India will only get stronger and players like Infosys, TCS and Wipro are good places to invest in!

What do you say guys? :-)

Tags: ABN Amro, Infosys, Bombay Stock Exchange, Merill Lynch, Infy, BSE, Outsourcing, India, TCS, Wipro, Business, Technology

Infosys amongst Nasdaq 100?

2006-12-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

Infosys (INFY) amongst Nasdaq 100?

Yeah, very much possible according to this interesting story!

Leading Indian software firm Infosys Technologies could probably be rubbing shoulders with other corporate giants listed on the coveted Nasdaq 100 as a direct consequence of its secondary offering of 30 million American Depository Shares (ADS).

TCS and Wipro must be getting nervous now... nah? ;-)

The story further talks about Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, who has been named as ‘Businessman of the Year’ for 2006 by Forbes Asia for his contribution towards keeping Infosys ahead of global competition in the outsourcig arena.

Tags: Infosys, Infy, Outsourcing, India, TCS,Nasdaq,Forbes,Nandan Nilekani, Wipro, Business, Technology

Infosys Beats Google

2006-11-24T04:16:00.000-08:00

According to this very interesting story, the performance of the top Indian company in the Technology domain, Infosys (INFY), has outperformed Google, the king kong amongst search engines.

Check this interesting story out that takes into acount the finances, appreciation in stock value and more to deduce what it does.

I wonder how Yahoo and Microsoft (MSN) fare in comparison... ;-)

Tags: Search Engine, Google, King Kong, Finance, Stocks, Yahoo, Business, Technology, Microsoft, MSN

JotSpot Alternative - Webpaint - Cyn.in

2006-11-19T22:49:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Looking for JotSpot memberships? Those who are, must have noticed that JotSpot isn't offering new memberships till further notice!

Do not despair! I have located a couple of alternatives to your favourite JotSpot.

Try the following two - Webpaint and Cyn.in

I have just created an account in both and the functionality offered by the two looks good. So the me-too campaign has picked up with Google buying JotSpot. All of a sudden, services are spiringing up offering what JotSpot used to.

The effort seems to be directed towards getting the share of the proverbial pie that seems to be getting bigger by the minute.

Why ain't Yahoo and Microsoft stepping in is what I'd like to know? Search Engine wars are getting hotter with Google trying to prove time and again that it is much more than just a search engine :-D

Tags: Search Engine, Google, JotSpot, Microsoft, Yahoo, Business, Technology

Google Buys iRows

2006-11-18T22:48:00.000-08:00

The King Kong amongst search engines just got fatter.
Yes, Google has done it yet again!

After having completed the acquisition of Writely, YouTube and JotSpot, Google has gone out and added another interesting acquisition to its kitty, iRows.

The founders of iRows have joined google and announced on the website and blog that they are shutting down iRows.com.

With this new takeover, Google has strengthened its portfolio yet again and has magnified the headaches for Yahoo and Microsoft (MSN)! What do you say, fellas? ;-)

Tags: King Kong, Writely, Search Engine, iRows, Google, YouTube, JotSpot, Microsoft, Yahoo, MSN, Business, Technology

HP to dethrone IBM

2006-11-18T22:45:00.000-08:00

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is all set to dethrone IBM from being the world's biggest technology company.

HP has reported fourth-quarter earnings that, thanks to all its business units performing well, exceed the annual sales. However, this wasn't good enough for the share market and its shares have slipped by almost 36% in market value.

Sales for the fiscal fourth quarter increased 7 percent to $24.6 billion, compared with $22.9 billion last year.

HP also cracked $90 billion in annual revenue for the first time, accelerating the competition with IBM Corp. for the distinction of being the world's largest technology vendor in terms of sales.

For the year, the company earned $6.2 billion, or $2.18 per share, compared with $2.4 billion, or 82 cents per share. Sales for the year were $91.7 billion, compared with last year's total of $86.7 billion.

Tags: HP, Hewlett Packard, IBM

Google Health Diagnosis Helps Doctors

2006-11-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

In an extremely interesting study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) recently, a team of Australian doctors of Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane tested the effectiveness and accuracy of the search engine Google in diagnosing illnesses.

The doctors 'Googled' the symptoms of 26 cases for this study and were pleasantly surprised when in 15 of the cases, the results came up with the right diagnosis!

The researchers are of the opinion that Google can be an extremely "useful aid" in diagnosing illnesses.

Doctors have to carry a huge amount of medical information in their heads, almost two million facts in their memory to assist in diagnosing illnesses. As such, the search engine may offer useful help in diagnosing an unusual case.

Google is the most popular search engine on the web, and offers access to more than three billion medical articles; searching for health information on the web is one of the most common uses.

In each of the 26 cases hard-to-diagnose cases which had been published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the researchers selected three to five search terms from each case and did a Google search without knowing the correct diagnoses.

They then recorded the three diagnoses that were ranked most prominently and selected the one which seemed most relevant to the signs and then compared the results with the correct diagnoses as published in the journal.

They found that Google found the correct diagnosis in just over half of the cases and among these were Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the hormonal condition Cushing's syndrome and the auto-immune disorder Churg-Strauss syndrome.

The team was led by Dr. Hangwi Tang, a respiratory and sleep physician, who says Google could be a "useful aid" in diagnosing conditions with unique symptoms and signs that can easily be used as search terms.

But Dr. Tang also says a successful search needed a "human expert" user, and therefore patients would have less success trying to diagnose themselves on the internet.

Once again, Google has done it yet again! MSN and Yahoo must again be getting nightmares and sleepless nights ;-)

Tags: Google, Googled, Health, Research, Search Engine, MSN, Yahoo, Sleep, Nightmares, Brisbane, Doctors, Australia, Diagnosis, Medical, Illness, syndrome,

Google launches Gmail Mobile

2006-11-08T20:20:00.000-08:00

Google has recently introduced its Java based mobile application to check mails on your mobile phone. This was something which came quite as a surprise to many a search engine market analysts and google fans like me.

Earlier it used to take a helluva lot of time to load gmail in my mobile. And it was kinda lengthy procedure to reply to or forward mails but the new app has made my life REAL easy. :-)

I downloaded the 113KB application from my mobile, installed it and lo... a sleek cool interface appeared on my mobile's screen... I could easily access all the options (reply, delete, forward, report as spam etc..) for my mails and that too with shortcut keys.

Earlier I think only few options were available and it used to take ages to load the inbox but now it’s like, Zap!! way too fast... :-)

Kudos to the Google team for coming up with this handy tool for guys like us who are always on the move :-)

With all the recent moves of Google that include acquisition of YouTube and JotSpot, launch of this new mobile application, the executives working for its arch competitors Yahoo and MSN must surely be getting jitters and sleepless nights!

Wad'ya say, guys? ;-)

Tags: Google, Gmail, Mobile, Mobile Application, Search Engine, MSN, Yahoo, Sleep, Java,

Google buys JotSpot

2006-11-05T03:29:00.000-08:00

Google has done it yet once again!

After having completed the acquisition of YouTube, Google has gone out and added another interesting acquisition to its kitty encroaching a territory dominated by Microsoft Corp till now.

The new acquisition is JotSpot, a Silicon Valley start-up that has virtually pioneered the market for collaborative business software like online spreadsheets.

Three-year-old JotSpot had developed a series of online productivity software programs that offer many of the functions of Microsoft Office programs like Microsoft Word or Excel spreadsheets. But instead of running on individual computers, JotSpot applications are delivered as Web-based services.

Following the lead of companies like JotSpot, Mountain View, California-based Google entered the market this year by acquiring the Writely word processor and introducing other Web-based applications such as Google Spreadsheets and Google Calendar.

JotSpot's programs run on collaborative wiki software, a flexible form of Web publishing for groups that allows any approved user to edit or change individual documents. The idea for JotSpot grew out of using a wiki to brainstorm about potential ideas for founding a company, Kraus recalled.

JotSpot has attracted 2,000 companies to use its software. It counts 30,000 paying customers and about 300,000 free users of its Web software tools. Kraus said his company would continue to support existing customers during the transition.

With this new acquisition, Google has strengthened its portfolio yet again and has dded to the headaches to Yahoo and MSN! What do you say, fellas? ;-)

Tags: Google, YouTube, JotSpot, Wiki, Microsoft, Yahoo, MSN, Business, Technology

Google cleaning up YouTube

2006-10-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

Google's gone berserk and hurting its own after having spent USD 1.6 billion on buying up YouTube for its vast pirated library of videos and the community.

What is it thinking by removing most of the videos that the community is loves YouTube for. I can understand Google being finicky about copyrights issues with it becoming their responsibility after having taken over, but then, what the heck is the whole point of buying up YouTube in the first place if cleaning up what the YouTube community loves is what they wanted to do?

It is over 30,000 videos that have been deleted from YouTube's database. That's one huge loss for YouTube enthusiasts and I'm sure there are more deletions lined up for near future.

How's the community gonna take it is the question that Google must think about, and fast!

Tags:Google, YouTube, Business, Technology

Google Personal Search

2006-10-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

So, the big daddy of 'em all, Google, is at it once again!

Google Custom Search Engine, the tool unveiled by Google, is a custom search engine that allows users to choose which web pages to search.

Users can also customise the look of results to suit their web pages layout, how web content is prioritised or can also include paid ads from the Adsense network with the results.

The new product is to be free for Google's users.

The Search Engine indystry analysts are of the opinion that the new offering from Google makes sense as traditional Google results were often too varied and carried results from too many sites to be relevant enough to an average searcher.

Tags: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Search Engines, Business, Technology

Technorati Profile

2006-09-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

Technorati Profile

Google Checkout makes its debut!

2006-09-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Google Checkout

The much anticipated Google Checkout finally made its debut today! The launch was announced just a day after Google celebrated its eighth anniversary.

There has been much anticipation about Google's this particular offering. Google Checkout will literally initiate a war in the domain of online payments, a market that is dominated by the online payment giant, PayPal, an eBay company.

For once, Google might find it difficult to emulate the advantages that its main competitor in this domain, PayPal, obviously enjoys - the recognition, acceptance and vast user database.

Whatever may be the result, the battle will sure be exciting and of course, us users are expected to benefit from it ;-)

I'd personally would like to see PayPal become more empathetic to its users, something it has been lacking for quite some time. The proof of it is well documented by the harangued customers at www.paypalsucks.com

Let's first analyse Google Checkout's features and then we shall discuss this further :-)

Tags: Google, PayPal, eBay, Google Checkout