The Blogs are Here: Umair Naeem
March 27, 2008
The advent of the Internet and digital media as an information gathering tool is something that has been mentioned time and time again; and their importance only increases as Pakistanis move forward and become more internet savvy. I wrote about Viral Marketing and its implication as a marketing tool in an earlier column, and this week I’ll focus on how Blogs can be a powerful tool for external communication and marketing a brand. On the surface, Blogs are simply Web Logs, or online diaries that help a person project his or her ideas and wishes to the global community through the Internet.
Dig a little deeper, and you will be amazed to find a world where popular Blogs are read and referred to as if they were opinion pieces from the New York Times. Users access Blogs for reviews of gadgets, brands, books, websites and what not! It can be argued that Blogs are not that much of a phenomenon in Pakistan, but that is a misconception.
Firstly, in this age of global brands and international marketing, if a popular Blog is written in Australia lambasting a technology that is being brought into Pakistan, then the company bringing in that technology is already on the back foot.
All consumers making an investment more often than not scour the internet to gain a better understanding of the service or technology that they are investing on, and that is where popular opinion Blogs come into their own. Secondly, Pakistan is not as far behind the world in Blogging as you may consider; on the contrary, it is active and growing at a rapid rate. [Read more]
Give me Web2.0, and I’ll give you everything [plus the Kitchen Sink]
February 13, 2008
The internet was meant to be an interactive platform. Even in the days of the DarpaNet, the classical versions of the online medium, were all about allowing people to exchange ideas with one another. Ignore the fact that the most people considered Java to be a great cup of coffee, or the fact that we were hooked one expensive connectivity to get online on a copper wire, only to browse through the likes of Text-based PINE, Telnet and mIRC.
I made my first website on Geocities back in 1996. It was a blue-colored, paw print background tiled and horrific yellow-colored text on top of it. But even after linking the pages, it still took me a while to figure out how to FTP into their free community server and upload the pages. And then it took a while to figure out that people would only visit the site if I had the incredibly difficult-to-remember link up on my ICQ list. I didn’t want to send the link out to people because I only knew a few addresses, and well, forcing people to see how smart I was, really wasn’t my thing. Yes… ego is a bad, bad thing!
Google Announces $10 Million Android Developer Challenge
November 13, 2007
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (November 12, 2007) – Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million to developers who build mobile applications for Android™, the first complete, open, and free mobile platform. The Challenge is designed to support the developer community and spark innovation on the Android platform by awarding cash prizes ranging from $25,000 to $275,000 to developers whose applications are picked by a panel of judges.
“We’ve built some interesting applications for Android but the best applications are not here yet and that’s because they’re going to be written by developers,” said Sergey Brin, Co-founder and President, Technology, Google. “We’d like to reward these developers and recognize them as much as possible.”
“We believe that the Android platform offers developers a unique opportunity to create truly innovative mobile software,” said Andy Rubin, Google’s director of mobile platforms. “We’re challenging developers to stretch their imaginations and skills to leverage the full capabilities of this new platform and to create something amazing.”
Android was announced on November 5 by the Open Handset AllianceTM, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile industry leaders committed to fostering innovation on mobile phones and offering a better consumer experience. The
The $10 million total in the Android Developer Challenge will be distributed equally between the Android Developer Challenge I and II. Submissions for Challenge I will be accepted from January 2 through March 3, 2008, and the 50 most promising entries will be recognized by end of March with each receiving $25,000 awards to fund further development. These 50 entries will then be eligible for even greater recognition by applying by May 1, 2008 for ten awards worth $275,000 each and another ten worth $100,000 each. Recognition for the top apps among those entries will be announced by end of May 2008. Challenge II will launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008.
A panel of technology and mobile experts selected from the Open Handset Alliance member organizations and the industry in general will judge all qualifying entries. Awards will be given to the developers whose applications leverage all that the Android platform has to offer in order to provide consumers with the most compelling experiences. Developers retain all intellectual property and other rights to their applications. Interested developers should: 1. Download the SDK at http://code.google.com/android/download.html 2. Build a great app. 3. Submit an application between January 2 and March 3, 2008.
Additional information about the Android Developer Challenge can be found at http://code.google.com/android/adc.html
About Google Inc. Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top Web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall Web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com
Microsoft launches free enterprise search software
November 7, 2007
Microsoft is targeting the entry-level enterprise search market with its free Search Server Express 2008, a standalone version of SharePoint 2007’s enterprise search component. Search Server Express 2008 utilises the OpenSearch standard to collect results from sources including Live, Yahoo, Google or Wikipedia, as well as internal company resources, including blogs and knowledge centres. The software giant also plans to bundle free connectors that index content from EMC’s Documentum and IBM’s FileNet in early 2008.
Addressing the issue of relevancy, Microsoft says Search Server will automatically prioritise internal company resources like knowledge centres, though system managers will have the option to fine tune the search results Key to Microsoft’s hopes for Search Server Express is the simplicity of the interface, which employs a search box against a plain, white background and is clearly modelled on internet search.
“People love simplicity, and this is one of those problems even the high-end search products have,” says Rob Gray, SharePoint Product Manager at Microsoft UK. “They have all these features but queries still have to pretty specific, which most people really aren’t used to because they’ve been trained by internet search to expect simplicity - people don’t ever look at the second page of results anymore, they probably don’t look beyond the first two or three.”
Microsoft is keen to stress that its product is aimed at the entry-level market, where it will be competing with Google’s Enterprise Search Appliance and IBM’s OmniFind, as opposed to the high end market where Autonomy and FIND dominate. The free version can only be used on a single server. However, Gray did note that the product would be “driven by customer requirement over the next two or three years”, leaving the door open for a further push into the high-end market.
Android or G-Phone?
November 7, 2007
Google just keeps surprising the world with its exceptional visionary actions. Next time when it is Google make sure to expect the unexpected because just when you think you know what they are thinking…. they prove you wrong.
Before Monday (5th Nov 07), it felt as if Google would be launching a new phone (G-Phone) next year as they are looking forward to launch Android, (mobile operating system) which would be something like the infamous Symbian technology or even better than that.
So, why go for Android and not Symbian or iPhone? One can give you a better picture of once they have their hands on it. Till then let’s take the company’s own words for it. Up till now mobile applications had very limited features, for instance take WAP (internet on mobile phones); it’s a bogus version of the WWW (internet on your pc)
What if Android offers you the same contents on a mobile phone just as if you were browsing the web on your pc? Though this was just a small example, but Android is bound to do wonders once it hits the market because four manufacturers in the alliance - Motorola, Samsung, LG and HTC - are expected to begin selling phones featuring the new software during the second half of next year. If you haven’t got it yet, this is what is amazing about Google i.e. it’s not just one phone google was thinking of but thousands or even more…
Most mobile fanatics will definitely want to try out the new technology (Android) just for the fun of it on the other hand many won’t even know that Google is actually behind the kool features of the phone you’re carrying. Does that mean Google doesn’t get anything out of it and is it just the customer who’s benefiting from the application? Google thinks differently on this matter; as a matter of fact when they say you get to see all the contents of the web through Android, they mean it because Google advertises almost everywhere and every other site is related to Google in one way or the other. (Youtube, Gmail, Orkut)
This means google is still not losing on anything, nor are the phone manufacturers because they are free to incorporate Android in their phones. That way they can save 5-7 dollars per phone leaving the customer satisfied as well.
It all sounds so mesmerizing, but ‘what if Google fails to live up to expectations?’ no one is giving you you’re money back, at least in Pakistan.
Google spruces up corporate e-mail service
October 8, 2007
ISLAMABAD (October 08 2007): Google Inc is sprucing up its corporate e-mail service by adding new security tools and more than doubling the storage capacity of e-mail boxes.
Underscoring the online search leader’s ambition to enlarge its role in the business software market, BBC TV reported.
The changes, to be unveiled on Wednesday, mark Google’s first attempt to capitalise on the technology that it picked up in its recently completed 625 million dollars acquisition of e-mail security specialist Postini Inc Google also is courting Postini’s existing customers as it tries to drum up more interest in a suite of online software applications that costs each user 50 dollars annually.
The roughly 36,000 businesses already using Postini products can get the software bundle, which includes word processing, spreadsheet and other programs besides e-mail, free through June 2008.
After the free trial expires, Mountain View-based Google hopes to retain many of those businesses, which include more than 11 million individual users as customers.
To make its corporate e-mail product even more enticing, Google has boosted the storage capacity of each individual mailbox to 25 gigabytes, up from 10 gigabytes previously.
The storage capacity of individual accounts with Google’s free e-mail service, known as “Gmail,” will remain at just under three gigabytes.Without providing a breakdown, Google says hundreds of thousands of businesses, government agencies and schools already use its software applications.
That includes users relying on a free bundle of programs that are less sophisticated than the ones in the subscription version.
Global Web Privacy Rules Needed in 5 Years
October 1, 2007
OTTAWA: National regulators need to agree on a basic set of global privacy protection for the internet within the next five years, a senior official with web searcher Google said on Monday.
Peter Fleischer, the firms global privacy counsel, said three quarters of countries had no internet at a time when the amount of sensitive personal and financial data on the web was soaring.
Google – itself criticized for the threat it pose to personal privacy say the firm’s business agenda, the world economic and the internet could suffer unless more is done to ensure basic privacy on the web.
“what we’re saying is that the internet is making this particularly urgent and that the internet develops at the different speed than the speed at which traditional law making and policy making discussion take place,” Fleischer said.
“I thing this is something that needs to happen within five years. That’s us just saying what we thing is realistic as an urgent action,” he told Reuters in the interview. Google unhappy with what it calls a patchwork of conflicting privacy rules in some countries and a complete lack in many others, is pressing for action amid criticism about the enormous access to personal information on the web.
“I thing every body has acknowledged that the status quo is not good enough any more,” said Fleischer.
Google wants countries to adopt privacy principles agreed by several Asia Pacific countries. Fleischer said some backed this idea while others wanted to focus on what the organization for economic corporation and development is doing. “that’s fin.
The important thing in google’s perspective is that there is a focus and debate around moving forward on global privacy standards,” he said. “ if we can the improve the standards in three quarters of the county of the world, regardless of which model they follow that is a huge step forward.” He said the perfect harmonization was unlikely, but the basic model could combine laws, cods of conduct and based practices.
Even if nation said not agree on standards within five years, google would consider it progress if some countries without internet privacy rules took action, said Fleischer.
“we’re plying a very long game here. We believe we’re working for the success of google service over a very long period of time … and one of the things that every body needs to improve is an understanding of privacy,” he said
Online Communities: The Good, Bad & Ugly!
December 9, 2006
Humans are social animals, and the said aspect has become a part and parcel of their daily lives. As they go on through life, they tend to stick within communities, relate themselves to their peers, create friendships and form various cliques. It is with these communities, cliques, peers and friends that they interact and communicate, and drive a sense of satisfaction and completion. This sense of contentment is driven by the acceptance that individuals derive from those that surround them, and this acceptance even forms an important part of the famous Maslow pyramid of human self-actualization. It hence becomes a little surprising that as technology and the Internet tighten their grip over the world; the level of human interactions continues to decrease. Online Virtual Communities are now the rage, and seem to be slowly but surely creating an ever growing niche for themselves.
It is not surprising that technology has given us the freedom to sit on our PCs and still be able to interact with someone possibly in
The What!
The most definitive description of an online or a virtual community revolves around an online, Internet or Intranet based community, existing through the interactions of the individuals within that community, all of whom communicate solely through the internet. These online communications attempt to simulate all of the intricacies of a face-to-face physical interaction, and allow for an exchange of conversations, ideas and opinion without any constraint with regards to geographical location. As a result of the said freedom, online communities are able to take on a number of personas. They can be development oriented, as showcased by the massive online communities that collaboratively produce open source code, or they can be based on the need for social networking, such as Orkut and its likes. Online communities can even be entire virtual cities, such as the Warcraft Universe.
Just as they can be utilized for a number of areas, a virtual community can be structured to allow for different degrees of social interactions. The participation of the individuals within the community can range from simply adding comments to forums and blogs, to having interactive conversations in chat rooms, to competing with players from all over the world in simulated gaming environments such as Warcraft or X-Box Live.
Typical to human psychology, some of these communities further break up to form cliques and communities within communities. Some of the newer more popular communities are [Read more]