Top 10 Corruption Scams in India

This is the season of scams and the biggest ever corruption cases in India have been unearthed more recently. So, we decided to dig deep to see which scams were the biggest and most damaging to the country and its citizens alike.
In our daily life, most of us must have been a witness to or a victim of the corruption thriving in some or the other part of the country. It could be in the form of a taxi-driver manipulating the meter to jack-up the reading or a government officer taking bribery to promptly transfer your file to the next department or even yourself offering bribe to a traffic police on breaking a signal.

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What is the Blogging scenario in India ?

Blogging is definitely catching up in India. It surely is not close compared to US and UK, however, if you compare it with what it was a year back- it has grown in at least couple of multiples. Every 5th or sixth blog I come across is run by an Indian.
Following are the top 5 observations about Indian people blogging, they are from my experiences alone, so other may not agree to it:
1) more than 90% of Indian bloggers are quite young- late twenties or early thirties.

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Now your blogs content generation can be outsourced.

One of the unanimous message that pro-bloggers give to upcoming bloggers is to have their own individuality in writing. I hear them saying all the time that don’t try to be someone else. Be yourself !
and I agree…
and then I come across the news that now you can outsource your blogging content. The whole point of blogging is being personal and distinctive, and I suppose 99% o

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5 Innovations that will change our lives in next 5 years !

The world is changing so fast ! Compare your lives 5 years ago and today. You will atleast find 10 innovations that has changed your life. Look at blogging itself, Just 4 years back no one knew what blogging was and now probably most time spent on the internet is by way of blogging, we currently have more than 75 million blogs and we are adding roughly 200,000 blogs daily.
Now that is a whole lot !
I have been trying to come up with a list of innovations in immediate future (next 4-5 years) that will change the way we work, play and live. These are the inputs of some 150,000 people from 104 countries who took part in “InnovationJam,” a recent online brainstorming session…
So, here are the “next five in five”:

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Past, present and future of Internet and How Google is changing the way we live

I came across one of the most engaging Youtube videos yesterday and thought that I should share it with my readers. This is a 8 minute journey through how things have changed since 1996 and takes us all the way through to 2014. The video gives us a glimpse of how Internet is changing the way we live with couple of examples. However, if you think about all the other areas of life that are goi

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Shortage of bloggers in India – Are Indians Blogging shy ?

I had bumped across this article in Foreign policy that mentioned the scarcity of bloggers India. I was really perplexed on reading that ! There are only 1.2 million bloggers in India, out of total 42 million Internet users. That means only 5 bloggers in 200 Internet users. That is shame, especially because the current generation of Indians do no leave any corners unturned when it comes to voicing their opinion. You can witness this by looking at sometimes aggressive and sometimes colorful comments by Indians on many blogs.

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Top 50 Web1.0 Web-Sites of India

We are moving into Web2.0 world. However, the list compiled below are the sites that till now are / were the most accessed sites on the net in India. They did not have social networking built into them, neither were they viral. They did not have shiny interfaces nor were they very user friendly. Many top Web1.0 sites have only adopted RSS very recently.
But now these sites are falling behind. If you browse the list, you will see very few of these sites are adopting Web2.0 culture. The one’s who are not are lagging behind.
Fortunately, India’s top portals are making a move to web2.0 culture with sites like Rediff getting into social networking in a big Way.

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Corporate Blogging: Should it be formal ?

However, Blog writing is completely creative, atleast that’s what it is in my case. It has not only allowed me to express myself creatively, but it has increased my knowledge many fold. I have always been fond of discussing current events in social circles and Trak has allowed me to do that with hundreds of readers without being physically present with them.

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Start Blogging and earn Rs. 10,000 every week.

Blogging is still in its infancy in India. According some of the recent surveys, very few percentage of Indians actually blog. I had written a couple of posts earlier on this blog regarding shortage of bloggers in India and perspective of a common man on blogging in India.
Now to promote quality blogging and to increase its popularity among Indians, popular Indian portal Sulekha has announced a new initiative in alliance with Penguin books where they are

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6 important tips for Corporate Bloggers

As you may know I am an ardent advocate of corporate blogging. As much as a Corporate blog program can work as a great marketing and image building tool, it can work exactly opposite if you do not give enough importance to certain aspects that I will put forth here.

Number of Corporate blogs

But before going there, Do you know what is the number of corporate bloggers in India ? I would say less than 1% of Indian companies have blogs that are public.

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Are Bloggers powerful sneezers ?

Yes, Bloggers are powerful sneezers, no doubt !
Suhail Farooqui of Mouthshut uses this analogy in an article appeared on AgencyFAQ. Here is a short excerpt from it.

He mentions that of bloggers are ?powerful sneezers?, as anything they post on the web passes on like ?viral fever?. ?They go online and start sneezing, and everyone catches it,? joked Farooqui. This is particularly alarming in the case of negative reviews. ?Google makes the dirt easy to find,? he quipped.
The web also allows for a unique phenomenon: Anyone can be a publisher in five minutes. ?UGC is breaking the walls between a publisher and the public,? Farooqui said. ?Compare this to the age of mass media monopoly, where things were controlled by editors.?

What Suhail mentions is exactly the scenario currently. I have earlier given example on power of blogging and how the new media (blogging and social networking) is taking everyone by storm. The internet is not same anymore.
Anything and everything is analyzed, scrutinized and torn apart. The quality stuff gets overwhelming recognition, whereas an average product gets buried for ever.
Internet users are expressing themselves in a way they have never done before, thanks to blogging and social networking. I am excited at the very thought of how this phenomenon is changing the our lives for good.
Take this example Silky Kumar Video (Actually a prelude to long run ad campaign for AXE Deo). Here a blogger figured out something that he was not supposed to and it spread like fire. This may have cost the agency involved quite a bit.
Like I have mentioned innumerable times before, Blogging is going to be bigger form of communication than what email is today.
Bloggers are having significant influence on the future of start-ups. They have the power to make or break them.
Love them or hate them- you surely cannot ignore them !

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Online Videos + Blogging : The winds of change?

Online Videos are getting bigger and better. According to a recent report released by ComScore, US viewers watched an average of 3 hours of online videos in July. It is estimated to grow at even faster rate in coming years.
Although, India is far behind in online video consumption due to extremely low broadband penetration, but as with everything, it is changing. Telecom department in India is aggressively pushing the broadband in Indian households.
Here is a quick look at ComScore figures.

Although, I have my reservations on growth of paid video sites, I have no doubt that socially driven free videos like Youtube, Veoh and Metacafe are going to take the lions share of our time on Internet in coming years.
Why do I say that?
Imagine this, you are in a new place and want to visit a restaurant, you go on the internet and check out the video of that restaurant to see the ambience, setting, seating arrangements etc. You are traveling out of country and living in an unknown city and hotel. You go on the net and check out the videos of various places in that unknown city and see the video of hotel and rooms you will be staying to ensure that it is upto your expectation.
This concept has been quite old, however, it is starting to get feasible only in recent times. Companies like Geobeats and Trivop have travel, city and hotel video guides. It is literally like you visit the place before you make the decision to actually move there.
This same concept can be applied to real estate buying, Candidates video resumes and hundreds of such other areas.
Some skeptics may say that videos may hide negatives and show only positives. This may defeat the whole purpose. However, in this age of blogging and social journalism nothing remains hidden.
Blogging is even bigger than online videos. Total number of online blogs are close to 100 million. That number is bigger that even the total number of websites on the internet. I have mentioned this several times earlier on my blog, but in future, Blogging will be as important as email is today to us.
Blogging and Online videos together form a lethal informative force.

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Business and Personal Blogging: How are they different?

Blogging and Social Networking are currently the buzzwords on Indian Internet scene. They are no more limited to individuals. Small and large businesses alike are understanding the power and importance of these trends. They have now become an integral part of business strategies.
So what are the fundamental differences between a personal blog and a business or corporate blog?
Although they use the same technology, they are completely different in their focus, reasoning, style and presentation.
Blogging phenomenon started with individuals, who kind of maintained their Internet diary and made them public. Slowly, people started voicing their
opinions and expressing themselves freely, which was a hit amongst Internet

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Is Amitabh the highest paid blogger in the world?

Just came across this news – Amitabh Bachchan is being paid Rs. 100 crore for writing on his blog – that is nearly 25 million dollars ! Now thats a HUGE sum to be paid to write a few paragraphs daily, even if it is from an iconic figure like Amitabh Bachchan.
I have been an ardent admirer of Amitabh not only for his acting skills, but more so in the way he has conducted himself off-screen through-out his illustrious career. It is tough being in public eye constantly for more than 35 years and he has handled the media glare exceptionally well. Never has he stirred up controversy, always keeping mum and never really criticizing or putting down his fellow actors. However, since he has started blogging, things seem to have taken a total U turn. Nearly every post he has written have been controversial and widely covered by Indian media.
I have read some of his posts and I can’t believe that Amitabh can write this controversial stuff. Take an example of this post where he compares the TV ratings of KBC show hosted by him with others like Panchvi Paas and KBC hosted by Shahrukh Khan.
Does Amitabh need do all this to stamp his supremacy?
Having said this I am not sure if this “100 crore payment” is true or just a rumor, but if it is true, he sure has to write controversial stuff to give Bigadda maximum mileage for the buck they have paid.
What say?

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The new mantra of PR: Marketing through blogging and Social Networking

Indian blogging scene has grown quite a bit over last 12 to 18 months. Last year in May when I started blogging, there were hardly any blogs that one could name which were even remotely popular, other than Labnol and couple of others. However, over last year or so Indian blogging scene has grown and now we have number of blogs that command decent traffic.
I see exponential growth in Indian bloggers in coming months  , thanks to Aamir, Amitabh and host of other celebrities (latest being Salman Khan ) embracing blogging quite seriously. Yes, it is may be money making source for some, but these celebrities are bringing “blogging” into Mainstream media. Not a single day passes by without some or the other blog content being quoted in our national dailies.
With blogging becoming popular, most PR agencies are looking at bloggers as a serious marketing avenue. During early days of my blogging I used to get standard PR material mailed frequently, most of which could be termed as spam mails, as little consideration was given to who the blogger was, what subject does he write about and so on.
However, times have changed, now PR agencies ensure that the mails are not only personalized, but also provide tailor made content that would add value to its readers, sometimes going to an extent offering incentives to the readers of the blog. A win-win situation for blogger as well as the PR agency.
One of the very recent example of this is the Proto.in. This event is happening on July 18-19th in Delhi. Folks behind proto.in event have mailed probably 15 -20 bloggers who write about startups and offered their readers few passes (priced at Rs. 500 each). In last couple of weeks, I have seen atleast 10 different Indian bloggers announcing contest for their readers to win these passes through some kind of contest. Not only does proto.in get coverage with their targeted audience, even the blogger is happy as he is able to offer some good stuff his readers.
Proto.in guys have been kind enough to offer 5 free passes for Trak.in readers. I will shortly announce how Trak.in readers can avail those passes, so stay tuned !
Like blogging, even social networking also has grown tremendously. Just to give you and idea, head straight to your nearest cybercafe and have a glimpse of what other people are doing. You will see majority of them either on Orkut, Facebook or some other Indian social networking site happily scraping and leaving messages.
And this is the reason why even Shobhaa De is promoting her book on Facebook. Infact her site shobhaade.in directly points to her facebook profile. Rajiv Dingra has cited couple of other examples on how authors are taking social media route to promote their books.
Another interesting thing I have noted is the importance that Google gives to blogs in its search engine. Try any keyword search and you will see that out of top 10 majority of the top results go to blogs. Another reason why blogs are increasingly becoming important to PR agencies to market their client’s product/services.
If you have not embraced blogging or social networking, I suggest you jump into it NOW !
It would be interesting to know readers’ views on this.

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Email is still the most popular way of sharing articles from a blog / website.

While carrying out routine admin tasks of my blog today I came across some very interesting statistics that I thought of sharing with my readers.
Nearly a month back I installed a plugin called ishare that helps readers to share articles published on trak.in blog. Now-a-days, having social bookmarking buttons on your blog is commonplace. It helps to bring in traffic to your blog. ishare is a neat plugin that not only allows you to share the articles through social bookmarking sites but also allows you to email the post, convert it to pdf or word document and even print it.
When I installed this plugin, I thought more than 3/4th of users will use it for sharing articles on social bookmarking sites. But I was wrong !
The traditional way of sharing articles via Email still rules !
Here is the snapshot of how readers have shared articles using button.

Out of total 244 times, readers shared articles 86 times via email, 73 times via social bookmarks. 71 users saved it to either PDF or word document and 14 of them sent the articles directly to printer.

Here is the breakup of how users shared it via Social Bookmarking sites. Here too, I was wrong. I had thought Digg or stumbleupon would be at top. But the top social bookmarking site was Facebook, followed by Google, Delicious and Yahoo. Interesting !

One conclusion that I can draw is that these stats will be different for different blogs/sites. Sites like Digg and Stumbleupon are popular with Tech blogs / sites as the users are more tech savvy.
I would be interested in knowing the experience of other blog owners.

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Bloggers do not trash your company, either you already are trash or you are doing it yourself!

I read this really disturbing news. Companies are employing agencies to clean-up negative feedback online. Their target is “crazy blogs”. The definition of crazy is at best undefined. Who will be defining crazy? If I narrate my experiences about some product or service which I bought or experienced and if that helps someone to make a better decision, what’s wrong with that.
This is a direct stab at our democracy and freedom of speech. India is more becoming like China. A police state. Through official and sometimes not so official channels, India slowly but surely is becoming a police state. Yesterday was the ban on smoking in public places where the definition of public place is debatable.
Now this is underground Internet Mafia Style Company !
Companies who are offering these services are eBrandz, Communicate2, Value Pitch, and Id8lab.
Their main targets are the websites like mouthshut, complaintboard and customercomplaint.
Other blogs and bloggers are next in line. Their strategy is to either pull the ‘problem’ site down or produce more content to confuse the search engines and the pull the problem site’s ranking down. Wow. I think these companies should be commended for creating a disruptive business model. This they would be doing for a charge. Imagine if this strategy should be employed by the angry bloggers whose site would otherwise enjoy a good Google page rank. That would just be the start of a vicious circle.
Companies are spending crores to clean up the ‘negativity’ on the web. It is already a 200 crore industry. This really amazes me. Why not spend the same amount in taking the feedback seriously and work on it. Why not invest in training your personnel and ask them to smile at the customer.
This tirade is not because I am a blogger. But because the premise of the argument that bloggers are trashing a company’s reputation is just stupid. Funny thing is based on the feedback (or negative feedback), the companies are not considering about improving their products. Instead they chose to play cops online.
Now, let me narrate a personal experience. I have subscribed to Reliance Broadband back in 2006 and paid 500/- via cheque in favour of Reliance. The cheque was duly submitted and the amount was deducted. It’s almost 2 years and I am still waiting for Reliance Broadband connection. Should this experience help you or should I just keep my fingers shut? Would this qualify as negative feedback and am I a crazy blogger? This is at best Indian consumer sharing his/her experience so that other Indians can benefit from it before putting their hard earned money on any particular service and only to find that its crap. Have a look at some of the comments that have come on one of our posts earlier by fed-up Reliance Big TV customers.
I can understand this if the reason was genuine. If someone was purposefully vilifying your company’s reputation, please go ahead and do this. If you were targeting the whole web to resurrect your image then it would be like downloading the Internet. Only difference is Google became a company by starting with a crazy idea of downloading the Internet and your company will become just another company hidden deep inside the google’s page ranks.
I wish I were living in China. At least I don’t have to worry about blogging and expressing my opinion and just enjoy the excellent progress and keep my mouth shut.
Is expressing honest opinions about bad services crime or what? What do you think?

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Are bloggers entrepreneurs?

Dictionary.com has this definition for entrepreneur : a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
I think business is something which produces something and in return generates some money. Blogging fits that. Post is the product and the advertising money is the revenue.
Now, for us to separate out what we are talking about, let us restrict our discussion to bloggers who has registered a domain, and paid money for hosting. This would obviously eliminate the WordPress and blogger blogs. Because there is no money input element.
Since the blogger has put in an initial amount of money in terms of domain registration and hosting he or she should be qualified as entrepreneur. Now he will be investing his time in reading and researching the relevant material to post on the blog. He will also invest time in search engine optimization to drive traffic and wait for the advertising money to trickle in.
There is an input, process and the output.
Input: Time and money
Process: Reading, researching, re-reading, writing, re-writing, proof reading and commenting.
Output: brand recognition and money (if lucky)
With this whole process my question to you is Is blogger an entrepreneur?
There is also a lurking feeling that they might not be as entrepreneurial like a person who has started up. That feeling comes from the fact that bloggers do not take any risk (like me) to become a full-fledged blogger or take blogging as a career. The only risk they take is the money invested in.
Am I missing something here?
PS : I know there is something called blogtrepreneur but how many of you believe in that?
PPS : The heavy use of He is only understandable. If you are a she then forgive this he. And please don’t say that I am not inclusive because that’s not what inclusiveness means.

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Can blogging land you a job?

I read this really un-interesting  piece from BS. The title read : Blogging could ‘even’ land you a job. First thing which caught my attention is the word ‘even’. I found that word condescending. It sounds like among other fun and silly things, blogging can do something serious like landing you a job.
I overcame my anguish over the title and made my way through the rest of the article. My intention was to find if it can really land a job. I was looking for a story of sorts where a potential employer hired a blogger by following his blog. Instead, what I found was a

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It’s Time to transform your marketing!

The rules of marketing are changing rapidly – Social Media is now becoming  an important aspect of marketing for every small & large business – Be it offline or online.

Take a look at this following presentation created by Social Media Marketing agency Hubspot. Although, the numbers given are more for US consumers, it holds true for all globally.
In India, Internet penetration is still at the growth stage and Social Media is just catching up. However, we are at an advantage given the fact that we can see & replicate how western companies are effectively using Internet & Social Media for successes of their businesses.
Some of the numbers given in this presentation are literally mind-boggling.

It is Time to transform your marketing

The presentation is 64 slides long, but I urge you to go through it – Its high time you transform your marketing now !

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Why every technology conference must come to Pune! [The Pune Effect]

It probably started in Sept, 2008, when PHPCamp got 1200+ online registrations, and 700+ people actually turned up, making it the largest unconference in India.
The following year, we organized an “Internship Mela” for students looking for internships amongst Pune’s startups, and we had to turn away 100s of students from the gates after we somehow managed to accommodate 800+.
Over the years, this trend has continued…
When DocType HTML5 came to Pune, the organizers had to shut down registrations after getting more than 600 registrations.
When we organized PyCon Pune, the International Python Conference, we were expecting it to be much smaller than the first two PyCon’s that were held in Bangalore, since the Python community in Bangalore is much stronger. However, once again, we had to close registrations after the number of paid registrations hit 650, since the venue wouldn’t take any more.
Raymond Hettinger tweeted that this was probably the biggest PyCon outside the US.

The same was the case with startup events like Pune edition of Proto.in in 2009, which witnessed its maximum attendance compared to all other 5 cities it was organized earlier!
Once is happenstance. Twice is co-incidence. More than that, and it needs to be given a name and a webpage of its own. Amit Kumar Singh called it “The Pune Effect” in a tweet in response to PyCon Pune becoming the biggest PyCon outside the US.
So, this post is dedicated to “The Pune Effect”, and the amazing tech community in Pune.
And it comes with a challenge.

A question to all organizers of tech events in India – Why are you not in Pune? I’m looking at you, NASSCOM Product Conclave, and DrupalCamp, and Amazon AWSCamp. If you’re an organizing a tech event in India, remember that if you skip Pune, you are missing out on your largest event.

And this is also a challenge to all the techies in Pune. We have to work to maintain this reputation. Follow the PuneTech Calendar where all the tech events happening in Pune are listed (you can subscribe to get all PuneTech events sent to you via email or via RSS), and the make it a point to attend. This will definitely help your career – you become more knowledgeable, and more importantly, you get to know lots of interesting and knowledgeable people. Not only should you attend tech events, but also drag some of your shy friends with you.

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Top 5 reasons to become a Social Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs are many, but social entrepreneurs are quite rare. Who wants to take the risk of investing monies that are not only expected to yield profits, but also advance a social cause? Entrepreneurs have enough tensions of their own. Why care about seeing how your business is synergized with the needs of your community? Here’s why.

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5 Golden Rules for Your Business Email !

"One shit deal…" This phrase got one of the largest investment companies in the world in a messy soup during the Global Financial Crisis. One of their employees wrote this to another in an email, which was used against them in the court of law. Well, that’s that…
Read on to know how you can avoid such blunders and a few rules that you should follow for your business email.

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Top 5 mistakes to avoid while writing your resume!

Your resume, is you on a paper. Do you realize that?
It is basically your whole professional life summarized in a page or two. So it is vital that you write the most appropriate and effective resume. Here are the top 5 mistakes that most of us making while writing the oh-so-important resume.

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8 Reasons to have flexible hours at your workplace!

Since the last decade, many employers have been trying new work practices and work environments to boost productivity in their organizations. The 21^st century is the day and age of entrepreneurship and reforms in the perception of a ‘work environment’.
Flexible working hours seem to be the choice of many employees and entrepreneurs who rave about its benefits. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of having flexible hours at your workplace and whether you should

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Top 5 things that make India a great tourist destination!

There’s something about India as a tourist destination that makes is exotic, exciting, mysterious, enchanting, exhilarating, incredible, humbling – call it what you will. India has become an increasingly popular destination for all kinds of travelers from across lengths and breadths of the world – from shoestring backpackers, spa enthusiasts, avid photographers to leisure holiday seekers.
Here are top 5 things that make India a great tourist destination.

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Top 10 disasters of the year in India!

2010 has had its own share of disasters. Despite the fact that we have advanced so much in preventing and predicting disasters, it is something we haven’t been able to stop happening. From political to technical to even natural disasters, there was a lot which brought a lot of misery to people.
There were also certain disasters which benefited a lot of people, like Reliance’s failed acquisition of LyondellBasell much to the delight of its competitors :)

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Top 7 Myths of Personal financial Investment!

Call it the magic of positive sentiment in the year 2010. Almost all asset classes gained significantly in the year that just passed by. Most remarkable among them was commodities which outperformed all asset classes on the back of supply constraints and weak dollar.
Going into the New Year, there is a strong desire for the investors to latch on to the new investment avenues based on changing dynamics of various asset classes. Moreover, as the perceptions change with time, with time also evolves new principles and money landscape. The global recession has forced investors to re-evaluate how they utilize their personal finance

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Top Innovative Companies List [World & India]

Fast Company recently compiled a list of most innovative companies in the World and it is no surprise that Apple, makers of iPad & iPhone, top the list. World does not anticipate any other product launch as much as it does about Apple. Top most reason for that is – Innovation in Business.
Twitter is named as the second most innovative company in the world – Although, I personally believe that Google and Facebook are more innovative than Twitter, Fast Company has ranked them second on the basis five years of explosive growth that have redefined communication.
Facebook comes in at 3rd position – With 600

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Top 5 hot careers of 2011-12 !

The First decade of new millennium was dominated by one career stream and everyone was after that – The Software / IT jobs. But with time, other streams have cropped up and now are getting favour of many.
Ignoring the last few months, all sectors of the economy and industries have boomed.
Here are the 5 hot careers of 2011.

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5 things about the Indian education system that we hope changes

Every established system in the country always attracts severe criticism. The Indian Education system especially has been the target of many allegations from students, parents and teachers. Students think they are overburdened, teachers think they are not paid enough and parents want their children to get 99.99 percentage. Where does the buck stop?
Yes, in recent times there have been some steps taken on education reforms, but it needs lot more than that

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