Freelance writing is being a specialist

Today the demand is for good 'niche writers'. Restrictive though it is, like everything else, even here, the need for specialization is at an all time high. Travel writers, Creative writers, Copywriters, Resume writers, Content writers, Technical writers, Essay writers, you name it, and there is a market for it. If you are slowly able to, after a few initial experiments, carve out a niche for yourself by specializing in any one such field and you get published (usually without payment first!) you are almost there. Once you manage to sell your ideas, you are home and running.

Freelance writer - How to get started

Your best bet is to email/call up editors and constantly surf the net for opportunities. Make Search Engines (google, yahoo) your trusted lieutenants and use them to help you seek, search and finally apply to advertised or possible opportunities.

If you find good websites you could write for, look for submission guidelines or send in your query. A query letter is not a waste of time. On an average three out of every five will elicit some kind of a response that will take you forward.

Though it is usual practice in established writing circles not to start writing till an understanding is reached, you the newbie can take no chances. So, till you have sufficient work, give them what they've asked for, quickly, whatever the subject, or send them something you have already written. Odds are that they will use it and pay you with a nice "Thank you for your submission' letter or not at all, but if rejected or if you don't hear from them ever again, which is highly likely, don't lose heart. Move on. Just keep those articles as ready-reckoner samples for later use. Stockpile them in a folder for the future, to be sent on to other editors who may seek samples of your written work.

If they are freelance writing markets, narrow in on the popular ones. Subscribe to their newsletters. Most of them are free. It will give you a fair idea of their reliability. Generally avoid those that promise you the moon. Look for those that seem sincere. But do not subscribe or pay for anything till you are sure of a website's credentials. Also, remember to check out the various published lists of dishonest and fly-by-night operators often. Soon you will be able to sift the wheat from the chaff.

Emails or SPAMS?

When trying to sell on the net what is most necessary is a good healthy active database. If you meet this requirement then you can send your emails easily. If you send to the right people you have almost made it across half the battle.

Normally when your emails go to wrong people, or when your email message on the subject line and withing the internals of emails are not so good be prepared to face with the below:

Are YOU faced with these challenges...?
1. Almost NOBODY subscribes to your email list... You've posted a web form on your site, but no one ever seems to enter their name and email address like they're supposed to... and you have no idea why!

2. You get hardly any response to your email offers... You send out promotions that you think are pretty good -- but you never see more than a handful of sales or leads... Frequently, your subscribers don't even OPEN your messages!

3. Your subscribers don't receive the email you send them... As far as you can tell, hardly any of your subscribers are even getting the emails you're sending them. You think it has something to do with spam filters, but you have no idea what to do...

4. People are complaining, asking to be taken off your list... And you're getting frustrated because people who ASKED to be subscribed are sending you angry, threatening messages, demanding to be removed! What's their problem, anyway?

5. Your list-management chores are "out of control"... You know you need to remove people who request to be "unsubscribed"... and you know you shouldn't mail the same subscribers twice with the same promotion... or send customers ANOTHER offer for a product they already own. But you have no idea how to "automate" these time-consuming tasks!

6. You want to send email -- WITHOUT looking like a spammer! You're confused about what's acceptable and what's not when it comes to mailing to your list. After all, once you've mailed them ONCE, you can't just send them the same offer again, can you? So then what?

7. You haven't even TRIED sending email campaigns yet... Sure, you know you're missing out on massive income and profits, but where should you even begin?

Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.

Whilst digital marketing does include many of the techniques and practices contained within the category of Internet Marketing, it extends beyond this by including other channels with which to reach people that do not require the use of The Internet. As a result of this non-reliance on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes a whole host of elements such as mobile phones, SMS/MMS, display / banner ads and digital outdoor.

Previously seen as a stand-alone service in its own right, it is frequently being seen as a domain that can and does cover most, if not all, of the more traditional marketing areas such as Direct Marketing by providing the same method of communicating with an audience but via a digital touchpoint.

Your web and blog simple analytics

You take special care to develop your blog and web. Especially when you are interested in monetizing it. You may wish to earn from this, or giveaway information etc. What you would require to know is how is your blog or your website interacting and relating to your visitors. For this you may want to track the site / blog.

The aim is to use your website traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is interacting with its visitors, and then take the actions to improve your website's performance.

What you need to do:
1. Study your statistics, those that are important for your particular site.
2. Set your goals.
3. Formulate a strategy, based on your goals and current website's statistics.
4. Implement your strategy, making the necessary changes on your site.
5. Measure the effects of your implementation, comparing current statistics with previous ones, after a given period of at least 1 week.
6. Start again at step 2.

This process is ongoing and continuous.

What will your web / blog counter give you?

Complete and easy to understand statistical information. Tracking multiple Web sites (With one account you can have independent statistics for an unlimited number of Web sites/projects.) Summary with Page loads, Unique visitors, First time visitors and Returning visitors. Referring URL's. Search engine keywords used to reach your website. Popular pages. Most active countries. Visitor browser, screen resolution. And more...

So Happy tracking!

Social Networking Sites

Online networking and online social bookmarking are more popular now than ever. But its hard to know which social network is right for you if you haven't tried all of them. This is why many Internet users find social network reviews valuable.

When reading the reviews, however, you may find vastly different judgments about their content. Many folks fight for their choice of online social networking sites vehemently. That may be due, however, to being unaware of all the available options, so they invested all their time without further investigation. Some people defend their choice without even knowing the differences Online social networks , like LibraryThing have book reviews and other features created just for people who love to read.

Many social media users arent aware of the difference between one form of social networking and another because there is a tremendous amount of cross-over in the platforms. Sites such as MySpace can be used just for fun or for serious business networking, or both! And there are literally tens of thousands of Ning sites, such as bookmarket.ning , which specialize in narrow niches. These type of [online social networking] sites are significant because theyre completely user-driven and allow focused conversations surrounding peoples interests. Interests can be as specific as book aficionados, who now have many online communities geared just to them. social networking is social bookmarking, which has become very popular. Sites that feature social bookmarking, such as Mister Wong, allow logged-in users to save their online bookmarks for free. Social bookmarking sites also are a great help to Web searchers, because keyword tags that allow for easy searching can be assigned to each bookmark. Keyword tagging also makes social bookmarking sites of great interest to online marketers, because they know they will lead to backlinks for their sites. One social bookmark doesnt really mean anything in terms of backlinks but when you add them all together, they become influential in search engine rankings. Also, like with Digg, if a blog post is entered on one of these sites, it can often achieve high search engine rankings if the keywords were researched and the listing was entered correctly.

Be A Guest Writer Here

Hi,

Am sure when you read this blog there would be your idea that you may want to express as well. If this is the case then why not be a guest writer. Submit your article here related to this blog and who knows you will have people reading and following you. So go on write and share your article with me. If it is good i will publish it here mentioning your name. Go on be a guest writer here.

When you send me your article ofcourse mention "authorized to publish in your blogs" . I will publish if i have this mentioned from your end.

Happy writing.

If at all you want to be furnished with more information on other topics then do visit the sites given here on your right hand. Check the two sites under the head "

Check this!".

Are you a Shopaholic?

Do you often wonder who would be a typical Shopaholic? What is it that drives them? And why are they so stuck onto it? Well, for few of us the bug would be within us as well!

You Know You're a Shopaholic When You or lets put it midly shall we we say others.....
• See shopping as a hobby, activity, and sport.
• Spend every last penny in your coin purse, go over your overdraft and max out all your credit cards. Well almost do.
• Buy something just for the free gift.
• Make up excuses so you feel less guilty buying your 8th pair of blue jeans.
• Do not feel satisfied unless you're carrying 2 bags in each hand.
• Have items in your closet that you dont remember purchasing and have been out of date for quite a while.
• Secretly like and can't avoid perfumes.
The uses of being a Shopaholic!
• You have something to do for hours during the purchasing time – you can look around past time and no compulsion / obligation to buy – most of the time
• You have something to tell the next day!
• You have grabbed the right offer and discount at the right time
• Stress buster
Well there is use to most of the evil

Happy shopping!

Email and Mobile - what blasts better?

The recent understanding goes that email blasts are obsolete - when you compare this with mobile SMS.

Naturally mobile is more on the move. It goes wherever one takes it. BUT how much can you feed into the mobile? How much colourful can you make it? How much easy on the eye can you really bring it?

And then does email really work inspite of it rating above than mobile on certain parameters.

The truth is that the possibilities of what mobile can offer are only growing, and rapidly. The channel offers direct marketing at its best: reach to a mass or targeted audience virtually anywhere, a remarkably high "open-rate," and the ability to drive specific, instant action. It is unfiltered. It is intimate. It is relevant. And it is quite understandable why marketers who so often turn to email are uncomfortable. Instead of shunning it and living in denial, a better approach is to add mobile as a weapon to your consumer interaction arsenal, and make both avenues collectively stronger.

Mobile and email: Complementary, not competitive.
Mobile offers what marketers have long wanted: direct access to the consumer any time. It acts a strong ally to the email channel, which will continue to be a primary digital communication mechanism, with a richer interaction. Combining the two paths can give a brand a cohesive strategy that naturally deepens awareness, drives stronger engagement, and in the process, delivers increased value to the consumer.

What say?

Lead generation is actually “bad lead elimination.”

Almost every lead generation program operates under the assumption “the more leads, the better.” Hey, want a lot of leads? Buy a booth at a trade show and run a raffle for a new iPhone. You’ll have business cards coming out your ears. But your cost of sales will go through the roof because the sales reps will be chasing geese. Effective lead generation only results in as many leads as the sales team can close, and only leads that are likely to close.

What is Freelance?

A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is a self-employed person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any particular employer. The term "freelance" was first coined by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) in his well-known historical romance Ivanhoe to describe a "medieval mercenary warrior" (or "free-lance"). The phrase later transitioned to a figurative noun around the 1860s and was then officially recognized as a verb in 1903 by various authorities in etymology such as the Oxford English Dictionary. Only in modern times has the term morphed from a noun (a freelance) into an adjective (a freelance journalist), various verb forms (a journalist who freelances) and an adverb (she worked freelance), and then from the verb into the derived, now commonly-used, noun form "freelancer".

You Too Can Tweet

Define Your Goals.
A marketing campaign's just alchemy until you know what your objectives are. Once you know what you hope to achieve on Twitter, you can better assess how to represent yourself, who to "follow," and what kind of content you want to share with the vast community of tweeters.

Target the Right People. Apart from its obvious SEO benefits, your Twitter stream's only as valuable as who's reading it. Run keyword searches on search.twitter.com for topics relevant to your brand or industry, then add influencers, evangelists, haters and interesting people that may not have heard of you to your cadre. Acknowledge them from time to time, and be sincere; they'll dig that.

Supplement blog posts by tweeting your topic du jour and promoting it with a tinyURL. Twitter marketing tool HootSuite also has a URL shorting feature that enables you to frame the page with a subtle ad.

The Po!nt: To tweet well is easier than you think. Once you match your brand and your goals to a little technology, and start linking to your current Web content, it soon becomes second nature to join the daily Twitter conversation.

As a writer be aware of words

1. Simplicity: use small words. The more simply an idea is presented, the easier it is to understand – and, therefore, the more credible it will be.

2. Brevity: use short sentences. This is less about self-restraint than it is a matter of finding exactly the right piece of the language jigsaw puzzle to fit the precise space you’re trying to fill.

3. Credibility is as important as philosophy. If your words lack sincerity, if they contradict accepted facts, circumstances or perceptions, they will lack impact. Tell people who you are or what you do. Then be that person, and do what you have said you would do.

4. Consistency matters. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Remember, you may be making yourself sick by saying the same exact thing for the umpteenth time, but many in your audience will be hearing it for the first time.
5But offer something new. If something doesn’t shock us or bores us, we move on to something else. If what you say generates an ‘I didn’t know that’ response, you have succeeded.

6. Sound and texture matter. The sounds and textures of words should be just as memorable as the words themselves. The rhythm of language is in itself musical.

7. Speak aspirationally. Messages need to say what people want to hear, to touch people at the most fundamental, primal level, by speaking to their deepest hopes, fears and dreams. The best speeches make idealists of us all.

8. Visualise. Paint a vivid picture. Take M&M’s: ‘Melts in your mouth, not in your hand’. The slogans we remember for a lifetime almost always have a strong visual component, something we can see and almost feel.

9. Ask a question. A customer complaining to the shop manager that her meat has too much fat in it is less effective than if she asked: ‘Does this look lean to you?’. Similarly, asking ‘What would you do if you were in my shoes?’, puts direct pressure on the recipient of your complaint to see things your way. Making a statement in the form of a rhetorical question makes the reaction personal.

10. Provide context. You have to give people the ‘why’ of a message before you tell them the ‘therefore’ and the ‘so that’.

Your words make the difference

1. Simplicity: use small words. The more simply an idea is presented, the easier it is to understand – and, therefore, the more credible it will be.

2. Brevity: use short sentences. This is less about self-restraint than it is a matter of finding exactly the right piece of the language jigsaw puzzle to fit the precise space you’re trying to fill.

3. Credibility is as important as philosophy. If your words lack sincerity, if they contradict accepted facts, circumstances or perceptions, they will lack impact. Tell people who you are or what you do. Then be that person, and do what you have said you would do.

4. Consistency matters. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Remember, you may be making yourself sick by saying the same exact thing for the umpteenth time, but many in your audience will be hearing it for the first time.
5But offer something new. If something doesn’t shock us or bores us, we move on to something else. If what you say generates an ‘I didn’t know that’ response, you have succeeded.

6. Sound and texture matter. The sounds and textures of words should be just as memorable as the words themselves. The rhythm of language is in itself musical.

7. Speak aspirationally. Messages need to say what people want to hear, to touch people at the most fundamental, primal level, by speaking to their deepest hopes, fears and dreams. The best speeches make idealists of us all.

8. Visualise. Paint a vivid picture. Take M&M’s: ‘Melts in your mouth, not in your hand’. The slogans we remember for a lifetime almost always have a strong visual component, something we can see and almost feel.

9. Ask a question. A customer complaining to the shop manager that her meat has too much fat in it is less effective than if she asked: ‘Does this look lean to you?’. Similarly, asking ‘What would you do if you were in my shoes?’, puts direct pressure on the recipient of your complaint to see things your way. Making a statement in the form of a rhetorical question makes the reaction personal.

10. Provide context. You have to give people the ‘why’ of a message before you tell them the ‘therefore’ and the ‘so that’.

Rejection - not a problem

To be successful at sales, you need to be able to cope with rejection — an even to turn it into a goad that creates more success. Rejection is essentially a subjective experience. Once you understand this, rejection loses is power over you, and your ability to sell.

According to masters, your experience of rejection depends entirely upon three qualitative, subjective measurements:

1. Frequency. Everyone can deal with some rejection, but how much rejection can you experience before you start taking the negative feedback to heart? How many times can you contact a qualified prospect and get a negative response before you begin to take it personally? Increase your tolerance, and rejection loses its hold over your future performance.

2. Emotional Involvement. How emotionally involved can you become with somebody before you feel that the other person might know you so well that criticism hurts? For example, you might be reluctant to close because you’re afraid that your customer might feel “buyer’s remorse” and stop liking you — a form of rejection.

3. Perceived Importance. As a sales rep, you’re likely to feel most comfortable contacting people who are of a similar (or lower) social class or educational background. However, you might find yourself avoiding people whom you feel are more important than yourself, because their rejection of you might seem to carry more weight or authority.

Each elements is easily changed, fortunately. Here’s how:

1. Frequency. To make yourself less vulnerable in this area, you must differentiate between valid and invalid rejection. If the rejection is based upon something valid (like your basic approach), then you blame your approach and then change it. If the rejection is invalid — as when a prospect “dumps” frustration — it has nothing to do with you, so you can easily ignore it.

2. Emotional involvement. The cure for this subjective ailment is to believe in yourself and in your product. If you truly believe in both, then there is absolutely NO reason why you shouldn’t want your true friends to be your customers. If it turns out that your friend doesn’t want or need your offering, it’s not a rejection of you, but of the product and firm. So it should have no power over you.

3. Perceived importance. Look: most bigwigs are exceedingly average people who’ve stumbled into their success. Their opinion means nothing in the long run, so don’t let it have any power over you.

What is Skype

Skype is a little piece of software that lets you make free calls to anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world. And even though the calls are free, they are really excellent quality. If you and your friends, family or business contacts are using webcams, you can also make free video calls. You can even call landlines and mobile phones at really cheap per minute rates.

Happy chatting!

Consumer complaint book

I have found this amazing website that actually helps consumers. It is called complaintbook.com.

If you have a complaint against an individual, an organization or a government, then this is where you should register it.

So go on and set you voice online

Status of complaints as of today.
Resolved 9%
No action required 1%
Forwarded 21%
Details requested 5%
Pending action 64%


What are people Complaining against?
An Individual 7%
A Community 2%
A Government 5%
A Service 68%
A Product 17%
Nobody in particular 1%

Elance.com or any other freelance site

To have an idea on how Elance works and what kind of projects people are posting. Visit this link:

Elance.com

There are plenty of great resources to hire a freelancer. These are:

• http://www.rentacoder.com/
• http://www.guru.com/
• http://www.ebookhelper.com/GhostWriting.html/
• http://thewritetouch.no-frills.net/
• http://www.theghostwriter.net/

To post your project on Elance.com or any other freelance site you should first open a free account with them, and then open a bid request. Your bid request should include:

• A clear description of your project without giving a lot of details.
• Maximum Bid. This is the highest bid offer you will accept. Freelancer can bid lower to gain your business, but not higher.
• Bidding Close Date. This is the date (in U.S format--mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss) you want to close bidding and not accept any more bids.
• The number of days the freelancer have to work on the project and deliver the final work. If you omit a deadline, then the he is under no time obligation to deliver!

Before accepting any bid you should verify that the person you are selecting is apt to handle the project effectively. You can do this by:

• Asking the ghostwriter for his references.
• Asking for a sample of his work.
• Visiting his profile page, where you can find more information about him and also what people who worked with him have to say about his work.

Elance.com or any other freelance site

To have an idea on how Elance works and what kind of projects people are posting. Visit this link:

Elance.com

There are plenty of great resources to hire a freelancer. These are:

• http://www.rentacoder.com/
• http://www.guru.com/
• http://www.ebookhelper.com/GhostWriting.html/
• http://thewritetouch.no-frills.net/
• http://www.theghostwriter.net/

To post your project on Elance.com or any other freelance site you should first open a free account with them, and then open a bid request. Your bid request should include:

• A clear description of your project without giving a lot of details.
• Maximum Bid. This is the highest bid offer you will accept. Freelancer can bid lower to gain your business, but not higher.
• Bidding Close Date. This is the date (in U.S format--mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss) you want to close bidding and not accept any more bids.
• The number of days the freelancer have to work on the project and deliver the final work. If you omit a deadline, then the he is under no time obligation to deliver!

Before accepting any bid you should verify that the person you are selecting is apt to handle the project effectively. You can do this by:

• Asking the ghostwriter for his references.
• Asking for a sample of his work.
• Visiting his profile page, where you can find more information about him and also what people who worked with him have to say about his work.

Freelance Ghost Writers

Who could be a Ghost Writer?. Well anyone who likes and has a passion to write. Those who may have the flair to bring across the text wold alive into the mind of the reader.

There are various categories for a Ghost Writer. It could be blog writing, novel writing, autobiography etc.

Here is what a ghostwriter / freelancer can do for you:

• Research on the internet and other sources
• Compilation of all the information you provide them
• Professional writing that makes your ideas sound really great
• Write a compelling book that rivets a reader's interest
• Usage of language that is apt according to the topic
• Delivering the complete packaged product version ready to sell.

All you have to do is provide them with your ideas, research, and information about your ebook then let them do the work for you.

Here are some of the advantages of letting a ghostwriter write for you:

• All the writing work and designing is easily outsourced to ghostwriters. They do all the work you get the benefit (and the profits)!
• Save time and energy that could be used efficiently in other directions.
• You keep 100% of the copyright.
• They can do the research for you.

The procedure is as follows. You have to post your project on the website. The freelancer who is interested in your project will place a bid. The cost of this work depends on the expertise required, the nature of the project and the volume of work. You are free to negotiate. Ghostwriters work mostly for themselves. If you generate repeat business for them a business relationship gets established. The ghostwriters or freelancer may then charge a lower fee for the returning client as it helps generate higher business volumes. The investment you make in hiring a ghostwriter is returned many times over and gives beneficial results. You get an excellent product made and the readers get their value for money through high quality material. This is definitely a win-win situation where you, the freelancer and the client, all are benefited.

So, happy being a Ghost!

Social Media - an open book

Everything you tweet is searchable on the web. This can be good and bad. Good if you're strategically using key words for which you want to be found; and bad if you aren't mindful that if you're not nice, it can come back to bite you.

And that bite came back hard recently for a PR agency.

An employee working for the firm landed in Memphis to deliver a presentation to more than 150 people at a potential Client. On arrival, he wrote the following on Twitter, "True confession, but I'm in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, 'I would die if I had to live here!'"

It just so happened that the potential client staffer saw the message and forwarded it to numerous company executives. And that is not all, the potential Client drafted a response. The last line of the letter says it all, "True confession: many of my peers and I don't see much relevance between your presentation this morning and the work we do." The story rapidly quickly spread across the Internet.

This hard lesson is also a wake-up call for many businesses. Twitter is a public communication medium. Everything said is permanently etched in Twitter's digital fabric.

"While Twitter can be effective as a marketing tool, if you are not careful, it can become a viral tool for negative press. Anything typed in Twitter is 'ON THE RECORD,'.

"Treat all your conversations like your grandmother was listening," social-media consultants suggests,

"Your company should be clear in its expectations on your employees' Twitter communication," .

Surgeons send 'tweets' from operating room

It's potentially a risky surgery, but everything's ready: The doctors and nurses are in the operating room, the surgical instruments are sterilized and ready to go, and the chief resident is furiously Twittering on his laptop.

That's right -- last week, for the second known time, surgeons Twittered a surgery by using social-networking site Twitter to give short real-time updates about the procedure.

Following the February 9 operation online were other doctors, medical students and the merely curious.

Observers say Twittering about a procedure is a natural outgrowth of the social networking media revolution.
Doing this removes a real communication barrier. It helps make something scary much more comprehendable.

monstercrawler.com

Search all major search engines with just one click

Google tracking your every move

On Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2009, Google launched Latitude, a location-tracking service that uses GPS hardware found in smart phones to pinpoint your position on a map and share that information with friends.

When The Police wrote the stalker-classic song "Every Breath you Take" they probably weren't thinking that a Google application for your cellphone would make their promise "I'll be watching you" so easy.

But for many young people and technophiles, there's no worry about Big Brother or other nosy eyes -- they want you to know exactly where they are.

Called Latitude, a new Google application allows users to track the physical location of friends and family from their mobile phone or computer. Already, frightened parents and privacy groups are thinking about the safety implications.

The basic technology, called geomapping, has been available for years in other products like Loopt and there's been nary a worry. But once Google touches something, it instantly becomes part of the mainstream.

The way Google promotes Latitude, the new tool certainly has some significant upsides. Already, a number of enthusiasts lay out a multiplicity of benefits for the application.

"I do like the idea of seeing where my friends are: I live in a medium sized town that's (45 kilometres) away from a city ... (so) if I'm killing time in there I'd like to know if any of my friends are around so we could hook up," Alex Martindale, a member of the Facebook group "I am using Google Latitude" told CTV.ca in an email.

"However, I think the most exciting part of Google Latitude is providing location-based services to people's mobile phones: imagine if you looked up train or bus times from your phone, the website could know where you are and instantly provide you with the relevant information."

Latitude can track a person's location down to a few metres by GPS, or to a few kilometres using a cell tower. The person's location can then be broadcasted using the uber-popular Google Maps.

Good Conference

Provide reliable Internet access, and plenty of power outlets. Operate on the assumption that each attendee has a laptop and that everyone will join the wifi network simultaneously. Make sure the conference center or other venue you contact has the capability to handle this.

Schedule generous breaks between sessions. Recommend at least 15 minutes to a half-hour ideal. Audience members almost always go to ask the speaker(s) questions, Usually audience goes to speakers during break to ask questions. If they know they only have a few minutes till the next session starts, they might not ask those questions, and move on to the next session.

Give everyone the space to schmooze. Wide passageways and open public spaces encourage attendees to interact with each other.

Get Wired and Get Hired

The news isn't good: Fidelity Investments this week announced its second round of job cuts, NEC is cutting 20,000 jobs and Motorola just shed 4,000 workers. But despite the doom and gloom, some companies are indeed hiring. As the optimists say, the sun is always shining somewhere.
Here are a few ways you can use online tools and social media to find a position that suits your needs, and puts a few bucks in your wallet.
Get networked. Take the time to build your online networks, both social and professional, using tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, suggests LinkedIn's own Mario Sundar.
Use social-media megaphones. There's no shame in looking for work. Let folks in your networks know that you are looking for a job, says Sundar. Write about your job search on your blog, if you have one, and Twitter about your search.
Research smarter. Check out specific companies to target via research tools like this one from LinkedIn, which allows you to network with specific people at the companies you might want to work for, Sundar says.
Solicit LinkedIn recommendations. "A strong recommendation from your manager highlights your strengths and shows that you were a valued employee," writes entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki, adding, "If you were a manager yourself, recommendations from your employees can also highlight leadership qualities."
Hit the boards. In addition to the typical job boards, try Rafe Needleman's Spreadsheet of Sunshine: Who's Hiring, PR News Online and Indeed.com, the latter of which sports a simple Google-like interface and handy RSS feed.

The Po!nt: Be sure you take full advantage of online tools and include a heavy dose of social media in your hunt for a new and promising gig.

How many inbound links does your site have?

If you have an old site with no links, this will add to the time you need to wait. If you have a number of links already, Google will probably be in to check out things within a week or so of updating.

How optimized is your site before SEO?

If your established site has no optimization in place at all, and has navigation that is blocking search engine spiders, sometimes opening the site up can result in a rather quick turn-around for results.

Consumers have different goals and expectations while on the go

Mobile consumers are generally either looking for ways to save time or ways to kill time. Because a mobile phone is such a personal device, consumers’ mindsets are completely different on the mobile Web than they are on the wired Web. While consumers accessing the wired Web at home or in their office often browse for extended periods of time, on mobile they tend to seek snack-size information or entertainment content such as:
Breaking news headlines•
Weather updates•
Sports scores•
Image galleries•
Television and movie schedules•
Alerts•
Database references•
Short-form video content•
Interestingly, it appears that for several content categories, such as dining, entertainment and sports scores, the mobile Web is becoming the preferred channel to access this information, as opposed to the wired Web. Consumers tend to access the mobile Web with a more task-oriented mindset; they expect the mobile Web to accommodate their on-the-go lifestyle. Examples of these tasks include researching and buying an airline, train or concert ticket and using navigation applications to get directions to a specific business or other destination. Consumers also want mobile-friendly ways to send and receive email, access bank and credit card accounts, and share information via social networks.

Mobile web v/s wired web

While there are parallels, the characteristics of the mobile Web are different from the characteristics of the wired Web. Mobile phones are very personal devices, and they must be treated as such by marketers. For example, some ads that work well on computers are not as successful on mobile, and likewise, some mobile ads would never work on a PC. Generic ads may be construed as spam, while targeted ads that provide relevancy and value to consumers at the point of interest are quite effective on mobile devices.

Mobile is more focussed targeting

Mobile’s ability to provide superior targeting by age, gender, location, time of day and day of week, and to facilitate two-way communication between advertisers and consumers, make it one of the main reasons that mobile is now—particularly for reaching Generation Y. It’s their lifeline.

ESSENTIALl FfACT

Data seems to indicate that, in some cases, consumers are choosing advanced device data devices, particularly the Apple iPhone, as a replacement to their home Internet service. In this case, the mobile Web becomes the preferred mode of access for all content categories.

The air we breathe

The sealed-air construction of many contemporary office buildings contributes to a variety of health problems. Respiratory illness, throat irritation, headaches and exhaustion are common reactions to stale, dry air. Bacteria and viruses can also develop in air that's passed through cooling towers. These conditions can have a negative impact on workers' performance.

Ozone-free air purifiers and carbon air filters clean the ambient air in enclosed air spaces. Water fountains offer benefits above beautification. They aid in stress relief and relaxation, act as a natural humidifier, and improve air quality by releasing negative ions, with a soothing sound to form a buffer against external noise.

Internet in India

The Indian advertising market is currently at the nascent stage. It will take some more years
before this market reaches maturity. Till then, wider reach and penetration of traditional
media would continue to make television and print as the basic media in most advertising
campaigns. The maximum amount of the advertising budget will be taken away by these
media while Internet advertising would continue to thrive as an offshoot. Advertisers with
bigger budgets will continue to spend more on this media. Others will follow soon as this
medium matures. BFSI and ITES would be the major spenders on this medium while the
others will follow the suit. Further with convergence between media on the rise, the
distinction between online and offline media is expected to blur. All advertisers would be
forced to adopt this new media in order to exist and to stay relevant.
As broadband penetration increase in the Indian homes, Internet permeates into the
hinterlands of the country; web publishing companies would develop more content on the
Internet. With the growing possibilities of rich media we expect that more and more creative
content would flood the online space. This would make online advertising more relevant,
more creative, more informative and above all in tune with the customers. .
In conclusion, we believe that we are at the threshold of this change. The result of all the
trends outlined in the report foretells that great and exciting things are yet to happen in the
online advertising space. Till then we could wait and watch for the Indian advertising industry
to start off its journey into the cyberspace.

Is it the Mobile time?

The Internet was labelled new media 10 years ago. Even today, it is sometimes called that. With 300 million mobile subscribers, 47 million active users and advertising revenue of Rs 600 crore, - how mobile could be called new media.

An ultimate Swiss knife in mobiles. “Nobody needs a watch, a separate music player, an Internet browser, gaming device, search device, camera, pen drive, GPS, map or cricket and stock updates if they have a mobile,” .

Leveraging these in the market through services such as SMS, voice, mobile Internet and applications in accordance to every subscriber’s taste makes the difference.

Sending SMS alerts is the commonest mobile advertising method, where supply outstrips demand. “Using mobile responses by way of SMS for evaluating the offline media mix is a good idea,” citing the example of Intel. For Intel, Interactive Avenues tried to gauge which of three print ads was most effective, by way of the number of responses garnered via SMS.

While advertising on the mobile Internet, he said, one must focus on the relevance of the ad for the customer and maintain smaller formats and crisp messages. On the applications front, he said that the advent of 3G would bring about a sea change.

A good picture of the future of the medium. It is said that the mobile industry was growing at 60 per cent year on year, and today, there were 15 million GPRS users in the country.

“In the next five years, people will read their newspapers in the bathroom,” was recently stated, implying the ease of mobile use with the advent of technology. According to a worldwide study, only 7 per cent of the time spent on the iPhone is for conversing.

“Five to six per cent of the marketing budget should go to mobile marketing. Advertisers need to do more than just creating banner ads or WAP sites,” .

Mobile is not ‘new’ media any more

If the joke that people engage more with their mobile phones than they do with their spouses is indeed true, then it’s good news for the medium, especially where advertising is concerned.

The mobile medium has been striving to find a place in media plans, and with more awareness of its numerous attributes, it stands a chance of becoming the most sought-after medium in the times to come.

An interesting observation is that more than 50 per cent people keep their mobiles within a distance of five feet while sleeping. A person looks at his mobile screen every 11-15 minutes. It's not just a personal medium that engages, but also an in-home and out-of-home medium.

"These reasons answer the question 'why mobile'. Even television, which commands the biggest chunk of the ad pie, doesn't offer these benefits. Advertisers have tried WAP and push SMSes, but are looking at better ways to reach targeted consumers,".

Advertisers are looking for solutions that are non-intrusive, targeted, contextual, integrated, transparent and interactive. Citing the example of Google, which features ads relevant to the search criteria.

Many forces were working to make available inventory that could work across platforms – voice, SMS, WAP and video can be contextually targeted with simple interactive tools.

The biggest opportunity for an advertiser is SMS and voice. While there are only 14-20 per cent users for mobile content, the penetration of SMS is 90 per cent and that of voice, 100 per cent.

The “always there” medium has the capability to reach the consumers at a personal level and serve the right ad at the right time. Like the Toyota Yaris was the first successful product launch on mobile – it used a highly engaging mobisode of the television series, Prison Break.

“Someday, mobile will rule the ad world,” is what is guessed, adding that it would be the measurability of the medium that would make it happen. “No readership survey or audience measurement survey can effectively gauge the effectiveness of an ad. They only talk about the effectiveness of the medium. But mobile will be able to address that,” .

Advertisers have an equally important role to play in this. “It is imperative to have great content to hold user interest and get customer eyeballs. Ads need to be subtle, contextually relevant and viral in nature," .

Plagiarism Checker

Here's a resource for you. Ever wonder if that non-paying client took your words and ran? The Plagiarism Checker, a project of the University of Maryland, will search for your article, for free. Copyscape is another low-cost option. Of course, you could also just plug a unique phrase from your article into Google, and see what comes up!

Plagiarism Checker

Here's a resource for you. Ever wonder if that non-paying client took your words and ran? The Plagiarism Checker, a project of the University of Maryland, will search for your article, for free. Copyscape is another low-cost option. Of course, you could also just plug a unique phrase from your article into Google, and see what comes up!

Why Won't Mobile Marketing Learn From Online's Lessons?

Mobile advertising is deemed complex for the same reason online used to be: Standards are murky at best.

Online advertising evolved because online dashboards allowed agencies to monitor and optimize their digital campaigns in real time. Why doesn't mobile do this?

Online publishers integrate one ad server across their sites, and it acts as a master ad server and manages multiple networks and sales teams. Why doesn't mobile do this?

Answering these questions and applying lessons from the online arena to the mobile movement will make mobile advertising easier to navigate—and allow it to take its rightful place in the digital-advertising world.

Let's talk about devices

Most of today's viable mobile ad servers have detection systems, allowing the publisher or network to target campaigns by device and carrier.

This means that the ad platform needs to have an up-to-date device library that can be referenced in real time in order to serve the correct ad size back to the site. While this doesn't create standardization in the mobile space, detection systems provide a positive ad serving experience.

Now think about agency dashboards

Interactive agencies use dashboard systems (e.g., Atlas or DoubleClick) to manage, optimize, and report on their online campaigns across sites and networks. This works in the online world because of third-party ad servers.

What is Netvibes?

Netvibes is a the modern version of the "portals" of the dot-com era, but this time, they can be completely custom and individual to each user. It is a service that allows users to set up their own customized start page composed of "modules" which can contain a wide variety of information from dozens and dozens of other sites. One of the most obviously useful things to include in a module is an RSS or ATOM feed of a popular blog or news service. Since RSS updates in almost real time, this allows users to, at a glance, arrange a customized list of news from a wide variety of sites all on one page.

But Netvibes offers far more than just simple RSS feeds, something which is already common to services known as blog aggregators. There are also weather modules, e-mail including Gmail from Google
, a calendar, an events list and even custom bookmark lists. Groups of modules can be categorized with tabs very similar to the way they work in tabbed web browsers like Firefox. This is actually one of Netvibes more popular features, as it adds even more flexibility to a system that is already nearly completely customizable.

Netvibes is essentially a desktop
in a web page, which offers much the same benefit as Writely for users: customized services which can be accessed remotely from a number of different computers or the same computer at multiple locations.

As more and more web services become "feed-based" and accessible via RSS in real-time, services like Netvibes and others like it will only become more popular.

Journal Writing: A Prescription for Good Health

When your body is sick or injured, you probably seek medical attention and follow a regimen of prescriptions, bed rest, and even physical therapy. But did you know that keeping a journal might aid in your recovery?

There's also some evidence that healthy people who keep journals report a greater well-being and fewer medical problems. The reason is very clear. All that clutter in your mind is poured out. It is like de-stressing yourself.

Many a times people think that writing may get into wrong person's hand. Well then destroy / shred what you write. But yes make it a point to write.