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Megaupload shut down by US FBI/Justice Dept., Anonymous retaliates!

Arun Prabhudesai — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:14:54 +0000

Update: Looks like a new site has cropped up and has exact look & feel of Megaupload, but does not have a domain name… just the IP address – http://109.236.83.66/ . Not sure if it is someone from original Megaupload team, or an imitator… But it did not take much time…did it!

Hugely popular file sharing site – Megaupload.com – is dead. It was bought down by US FBI yesterday after a Grand Jury in Eastern District of Virginia charged the Megaupload owners of racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.

This action by FBI is among the largest copyright infringement cases in the world which has purportedly cost more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners.

Megaupload.com is a hugely popular file sharing site in India and across the globe having more than a billion visits to the site, more than 150 million registered users, 50 million daily visitors and accounting for four percent of the total traffic on the Internet.

Hong Kong & New Zealand based owner, Kim Schmitz, along with 7 other employees of Megaupload are charged & arrested in the indictment released by US Justice Department.

According to a Venturebeat article, Megaupload came into limelight due to a recent release of a music video where Megaupload CEO Swiss Beatz got some very popular singers to participate and popularize its service. See the following video.

Hacker Group Anonymous Retaliates with Largest Ever Attack

With Department of Justice bringing down Megaupload site, hacker group “anonymous” launched biggest ever attack bringing down sites of Department of Justice, FBI, Universal Music Group, RIAA & several others.

My personal point of view is that Megaupload should not be held responsible, as they are just the platform offering file upload services. They have laid down proper terms and conditions [cached link] where in point number 7.4 they clearly state the following:

Megaupload Services may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation, including export control laws, is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by patent, copyright, trademark, service mark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights. If you use another party’s material, you must obtain prior authorization

Megaupload has taken utmost care to inform users what is allowed and what is not allowed to be uploaded on the site and if the users choose to upload copyright infringing material, they cannot be held responsible for it!

This action has set a dangerous precedence, and I wonder what the US Government plans to do with other similar sites like MediaFire, YouSendIt and Rapidshare, who provide similar kind of file-sharing services. As of now Megaupload & all their umbrella sites are down and I doubt you will see them live again ever… R.I.P Megaupload!

Additionally, if acts like SOPA & PIPA are passed, actions like these will become commonplace and will ruin the internet freedom!

I would love to hear your views on this!

Internet marketing tools – how to get your business noticed online!

Kaushambi — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:04:37 +0000

Before we start, here is a disclaimer – This article is for people who are just getting started online. Internet veterans may find it too interesting.

Internet is growing in India quite rapidly – Thousands of businesses are coming online on daily basis. However, many of them come online with very high hopes of getting constant stream of traffic to their website. However, most of them get discouraged seeing that no one visits their sites other than their family and friends. I regularly get asked from internet newbies that “How do I drive traffic to my website” or “how do I market my business online”. Like offline, even in online world you have to market & advertise your website / online business.

Again, many perceive Internet advertising to be an overnight tool to get big. But Internet marketing is no genie. Choosing the right online promotion tools to get your business noticed is a herculean task which can involve a long gestation period. Depending on various factors such as your marketing budget, time restraints, finding your target audience, benchmarking against your competitor’s promotional strategies and so on, you will need to carefully pick your internet marketing tools and options. Let’s get an overview!

Search Engine Optimization

Don’t simply rely on the fact that your business will get noticed online by potential customers who accidently bump into your brand name in ads when they are browsing. Majority of users use search engines to directly find what they’re looking for. According to one estimate, over 90% of visits to most websites is through search engines.

In such cases, you are competing with millions of other websites and webpages offering similar services or products. Increase the chances of your website to appear on the first few pages of Google by optimizing & building excellent content around your product niche. Spent time reading online the basics of Search Engine Optimization.

Experts say that if your link appears beyond the second page of Google, you’ve potentially lost your customer. Warning: This is a feat that requires unparalleled persistence. Don’t expect your business to get noticed with SEO overnight. It takes loads on patience & effort to rank well in search engines.

Online display Ads

When we’re in the shoes of a lay person browsing the internet, we don’t bother to really observe the various kinds of ads that we are consciously or subconsciously consuming. But go to the opposite side of the fence as a marketer and you’ll see the world of online ads come alive.

There are thousands of niche segments within banner ads, direct targeting in gadget and mobile ads, location targeted and generated ads, back linking, social media ads, contextual ads, printable coupon ads, video ads, in-content placement ads etc. that you can choose depending on your business requirements. Don’t fall for the pay-per-click model lure straight away. First decide which medium of paid advertising suits your product and services. Again, spend time reading on Internet about various kinds of advertising!

Affiliate Advertising

Just about every internet savvy person is jumping onto the bandwagon of being involved in Affiliate marketing with the likes of Ebay, Amazon, Clickbank, Commission Junction and thousands of other popular affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing essentially involves a business / merchant paying or rewarding one or more affiliates (website or publishing platforms) that bring in visitors and eventual buyers for them by promoting, reviewing or placing their products and services on their platforms.

In return, the affiliates get a percentage of the advertising revenue depending on the number of visitors and converted buyers for their merchants. Affiliate marketing has become a great way for small business owners and individuals to earn money and a great medium for advertisers and marketers to get a vast amount of low cost exposure. To get your business noticed online, take advantage of millions of Internet users waiting to promote your product or service.

Social media and Forums

Using social media as an internet advertising tool to get your business noticed online will involve creative and engaging content generation. Get more user following for your brand name by updating interesting feeds about a new launch, a product trivia or new offers on your services.

You can even choose to create a buzz around your business by publishing content related to your product – not something that necessarily sells your product each time. For example, if your business is a restaurant, you may want to invite users to upload innovative recipes and award the best recipe with a free meal coupon. Niche forums too are a great way of subtle marketing in the guise of expert advice, guest articles, stubs and link placements.

Metric Tools

Metric tools may not be direct marketing platforms, but they will give you guidance and direction on your promotional and internet marketing strategy. Metric tools will also tell you if your business is getting noticed or not. You can use Google’s Adword Conversion tracking tool to get insights on the conversion rates of your visitors, track leads, new sign ups, page views, measure the success of a particular campaign and much more.

Use Google’s Keyword tool to use optimized keywords, match keyword type, search competition on that keyword and so on. To test the effectiveness of your website, get comprehensive reports on the quality of content and images you have used, the conversion rate your website is enabling etc. through Google’s website optimizer. These are standard Google products. You can choose from a million other similar products available online.

Top 5 Free Website Builders for Small Business Owners & Entrepreneurs!

Kaushambi — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:51:00 +0000

An online presence – What was once considered to be amusing, has now become a necessity for all businesses and entrepreneurial setups. Even many individuals are setting up their own niche websites showcasing their talents, hobbies etc.

However, most of them are not aware how easy it is to create a good looking website. Infact, there are many easy to use free online website builders that can do a perfect job for you instead of spending your hard earned money on hiring website designers and web developers. You don’t need to be a computer genius to use these because they allow you to build your website through simple interfaces that even dummies can master.

Here are 5 free Website Builders that you should look at:

Wix

Wix is an online website builder that was released in 2008. One of the strong points of Wix that stands out is the ability to create cool flash websites in a matter of minutes. You don’t need to have a design degree to come up with cool design ideas because Wix will provide you readymade templates that can be edited and tailored to your requirements.

Add to this, the ability to create a mobile website, a Facebook page and a range of ecommerce functions, Wix definitely has earned its spot in our list of top 5 online website builders. Wix also offers hosting services and other premium plans that you can check out at Wix.com

Weebly

Weebly is definitely a player to reckon when it comes to building websites online. Weebly was ranked 4^th in Time Magazine’s list of 50 best websites in 2007. That was a long time back and Weebly has evolved further into a comprehensive website builder offering drag and drop features, preset themes and templates, an easy user interface and hosting services.

And for all you tech savvy users out there, Weebly also allows you to edit CSS and HTML of a site. Signing up is free and similar to other service providers, Weebly has premium plans that you can check out at Weebly.com

Webs

Little needs to be said about Webs because it has been functioning and evolving as a hosting service and now as a website building service since 2001. Webs offers the usual array of hosting and website building services plus some great apps, statistical data and analytics, mobile sites, themes and templates to suit virtually all segments of blogging, design portfolios and businesses.

Like most other website builders, a free subscription will mean that Webs will place their own ads or banners on your website. To check out the premium plans and other features on offer, visit Webs.com.

Moonfruit

The very moment you visit Moonfruit, you are greeted by a banner that says "Pick a design. Launch your site" This is extremely comforting for non technical users who want to get a website up and going without too much hassle. Moonfruit partners with the biggies of the online industry like Getty Images, iStockphoto, PayPal and many more to give users a power packed website building experience.

Based in London, Moonfruit also claims to be the number one hosting site in UK and a stunning figure of more than 4 million websites have been made on their platform. A simple user interface, great design options and tools, ability to publish for computer and mobile platforms, blogging and other top tools bring Moonfruit to our list of top 5 website builders. Check out what’s on offer and subscription details on Moonfruit.com.

Webnode

Webnode was launched in 2008 in a Czech and Slovakian version. By 2010, Webnode was functioning on 12 different language platforms and reportedly, had more than 2 million users. The layout of this online website builder is simple and clearly laid out. With themes that support personal websites, business websites and ecommerce portals, Webnode allows a classic drag and drop usability function and an array of gadgets and widgets.

Labeled as a "quick and dirty way to build a Website or blog, relatively painlessly" by a popular blogging portal, Webnode definitely scores when it comes to ease of use. To find out more about how you can make payment gateways, business statistics, innovative designs, professional outlook and much more simply a click away, check out Webnode.com.

So there you have it – 5 sites that will help you create a great online presence at nearly no cost. Website creation is not a tough job after all!

Whoa! Samsung Gamifies Its Corporate Website In Style

Ankit Agarwal — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 07:19:58 +0000

Well Played Samsung, very well played!! Gamifying a corporate website takes lots of courage and vision especially when no one has tried it ever before. Samsung US has gone ahead and tightly integrated Gamification in its corporate website.

Samsung Nation is the gamification engine aimed at building a community and increase engagement on its website. The simple principles of activity based reward mechanics are at play where users get badges to complete certain actions on the website and certain badges then result in real rewards for users

We have a lot of coverage of gamification and one can argue whether gamification is a smart business strategy but from the looks of what Samsung is trying to pull here, gamification looks like a winning proposition. Samsung might be the first corporate to have taken to gamification in a big way by implementing it on its website itself but we have seen enterprises toying with gamification earlier as well.

Chances are that if you have ever played the Farmville’s or the cityville’s or you are an active user on Foursquare you have seen gamification at play. The gamification framework promises a variety of benefits depending on the type of application but one aspect comes out for sure whenever we talk of gamification – increased user engagement.

Be it the forcing users to perform actions via time-bound actions (e.g. crop to be harvested in 4 hours as in Farmville) or be it the community building (e.g. sending virtual nothings to friends in order to unlock special items) all platforms / application leveraging gamification lead to increased user activity.

There is no better place for users to engage than on company website itself!

Samsung is striving to make its website the go-to place for Samsung and non-Samsung users by rewarding one and all for spending time on the website and performing actions. Be it really simple ones like ‘spending 15/30 seconds on the website’ to ‘watching a video on the website’ to ‘contributing to the Q&A’ section, Samsung is using gamification to entice everyone to engage with its corporate website like never before.

Some of the noted industry analysts have voiced their concerns on enterprises investing too much resources on building communities on Facebook and directly / indirectly sending users to their Facebook page instead of bringing them to their own website.

Come to think of it, it does make some sense because despite Facebook’s reach and the viral quotient, the end goal has to be increase activity on the website and not Facebook. Then, there is the fact that Facebook is not a platform you control unlike your website.

It might be still early days when it comes to enterprise flirting with gamification but boy it does seem exciting and something that has the potential to make their corporate websites super effective. For e.g. Consider a non-Samsung user ‘watching a video’ on the company website (thereby unlocking a badge) and actually discovering that the product demo in the video wins him / her over thereby converting into a purchase!

What are your thoughts on Samsung’s gamification of its corporate website? Do you think its a winning strategy and more enterprise will adopt game mechanics in the future?

How Amazon cloud drive can help you and your business

Kaushambi — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:35:08 +0000

Cloud storage in simple words, is an online storage facility given to users who want external servers to store or host their data for them. And with the need for larger storage capacities clubbed with mobility, cloud storage is getting very popular.

Amazon’s Cloud Storage bearing the motto “Anything digital, securely stored, available anywhere” is the most popular and widely used cloud service on the web. Let’s take a look at 5 reasons why you should make Amazon Cloud Drive your cloud storage point to help you and your business.

Never worry about losing that portable hard drive again

If you are constantly faced with the situation of carrying sensitive business data on a portable hard disk every time you travel, the Amazon Cloud Drive can be your answer to storing and retrieving data safely. Simply sign up to one of their plans (5 GB is free) and store your data conveniently on their servers. It doesn’t matter if you travel across cities, states or countries, you will always have that vital data for your presentation as long as you have internet connectivity.

You don’t need to specifically make a purchase of any kind to use the Amazon Cloud Drive. Take advantage of 5 GB free cloud storage by signing up. Whether or not you want to upgrade to higher storage capacities, is a call that you can make later. For majority of people though, 5GB should be enough to store all the important data.

Organize your data or mirror your hard disk

Many people are extremely picky and choosy when it comes to organizing their personal or business data. All their portable or non portable data storage devices will have the same folders, directories and data paths. Does this sound like you?

If it does, you will like the Amazon Cloud Storage because it allows you to create folders and sub-folders as per your requirements. Preset top level folders are Documents, Pictures, Music and Videos. If you wish, you can create your own top level folder and organize your data the way you want to.

Ability to recover deleted data from your Amazon Cloud Drive

Yes, we all make mistakes and that’s exactly why we have something called the ‘recycle bin’ in Windows. A similar recovery system exists in the Amazon Cloud Drive too. Your cloud storage drive will contain a ‘deleted items’ section which you can access to recover your deleted data.

You can either recover the items to the same folder where they were deleted from, or move them to another folder of your choice.

Storage plans to suit all needs

At present there are 7 plans that you can take while using the Amazon Cloud Drive. The first plan comes with 5GB free, while the highest plan offers 1000GB for $1,000 per year. Depending on your storage needs and your ability to splurge on the moolah, you can opt for various storage plans.

Point to note: Although you can downgrade your Amazon Cloud Drive storage plan, you should remember that your present plan will continue until the end of your billing cycle. This can really hurt you if you opt for a high storage plan only to find out later that you don’t need that amount of cloud storage space.

Store your Amazon MP3s for free

This is an awesome feature! It can be a big drag to miss out on all your music while you travel, isn’t it? Well that is a thing of the past because with Amazon Cloud Drive, you can store all your Amazon MP3 purchases for free.

A superb benefit of using this service is that all your songs are backed up on your Amazon Cloud Drive for free and they don’t take up any of your storage space. Use the Amazon Cloud Player to store, stream and listen to your music anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection! How cool is that?

Point to note: Remember folks, you can only avail free storage for your Amazon MP3s, which means the music that you buy from Amazon. Don’t expect Amazon to provide free storage for your other music too. And remember, these files must have remained unaltered since you purchased them at Amazon.

If you have not done it as yet, give Amazon Cloud Drive a spin and let us know what you feel!

Should you be buying Facebook and Twitter followers?

Kaushambi — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:59:00 +0000

If you are not aware, it is true that many brands, businesses and individuals buy twitter and facebook followers to inflate their followers count.

Does buying fans and followers on social media sound unethical to you? Unethical or not, many small and large business who don’t have the time, patience or inclination to gradually build up a genuine following, are adapting this new trend of buying followers and fans for their social media pages. Here are a few things you should consider before you bulk buy for your social media.

Make a good impression

Have you noticed that you tend to "Like" something on Facebook more promptly if it already has a following of 30,000 people and it ‘looks’ popular? And sometimes, until you know of the product, service of the social media page personally, you’d generally be iffy on following a page that has only a handful likes or a few followers, isn’t?

Many businesses consider buying Facebook or Twitter followers not because that’s actually going to convert more lead for into sales them in the future, but for setting up random visitors psychologically that their page is popular, accepted and worth following.

More fans and followers but no interaction

You may end up buying fans and followers for increasing potential sales in your business but you can you buy interaction too? It’s extremely easy to recognize fake followers and fans if a visitor sees no interaction of your fans or followers with your brand.

There have been cases where paid fans and followers copy paste multiple comments, wall posts or tweets for various businesses. This becomes an immediate getaway to the fact that your popularity has been paid for, which may harm your reputation considerably.

Top search results within Facebook and Twitter

We wonder if having more followers can push you up in the ranks of search results in Google. But your chances of turning up in searches made within Facebook and Twitter can decrease considerably if you have more followers.

Again, it will also boil down to having good content on your Facebook or Twitter page because even if you manage to route traffic to your page by showing off popularity with large number of followers, you won’t be able to hold the visitor for long if nothing interests him/her.

Risk for negativity

Do you know what kind of harm you risk for your brand by buying followers for Facebook or Twitter? Imagine you woke up one morning to find out that a follower has posted for fun "Hey guys, I am a paid follower. Is anyone else paid here?" or "Get a better offer for following XYZ".

This could not only mean a complete waste of money for the followers you bought, but also a complete slur on the name of your brand. Your genuine followers will feel betrayed and never trust you again. There isn’t much potential for signing a contract with each individual follower to post only positive comments right?

Buy the target audience you want

One big advantage of buying Facebook and Twitter following though, is that businesses can select the range and profile of the type of fans and followers they want. For instance, if you have a beauty product to sell, you could specifically buy American women fans in the age group of 25-40 and so on (yes, there are services that give you that).

On the other hand, if you solely depend on building genuine traffic, you would probably take a long time to build up a following of potential customers and a target audience of the exact diversity and category that you would hope for.

It may sound like we’re sitting on the fence here, but it’s really a matter of every business’ ethics and policy to bulk buy followers on social media or not. Building genuine fans and followers who can regularly interact with your brand and actually consume your marketing communication sounds like a much better idea to us.

What’s your opinion? Should social media followers be bought?

117 Government Websites hacked in first half of this year!

Arun Prabhudesai — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 06:11:00 +0000

I was taken aback with the numbers released by Indian Government today. According to the press release – Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) reported total of 117 Government websites were hacked in first half of this year !

Here is a look at number of websites hacked since 2008.

Yes, one can understand that with groups like Annonymous, Lulzsec becoming active over last year – incidences of hacking have increased to a very large extent – not only in India but globally as well. However, I am sure that if enough efforts are made by Indian authorities, these numbers can come down drastically!

What surprises me though is that on one side Government is going at lengths when it comes to national security – by banning Blackberry or threatening to bring down sites like Google, Skype among others. But not enough importance is given to safeguarding Government websites that carry sensitive data and amount to threat to national security as well.

What is your take on this ?

Build Web Apps for humans not for “users”!

Mukund Mohan — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:31:07 +0000

A surprising number of web services applications seem to be built for “users”.

They tend to identify you by username (not by real name) in the apparent intention to “save time filling out another field on the form. The use experience is mostly antiseptic and designed to be efficient, not engaging.

So here’s the number one thing to keep in mind when building a SaaS / web application.

“Imagine you are the web application (in person). What would you tell me (the customer) to do with it”?

What this means is that all the menus, navigations, error messages should be words that you would use to guide me to work with you.

You will tell me “Sign up” not to Submit.
You will use verbs (actions) to tell me what to do instead. “Build. Manage. Deploy” instead of “Dashboard. Settings. Reports”.
You (as a person) will tell me “Date needs to be in DD/MM/YY format” not “There are errors in your application, please review”
If the user name I chose is likely unavailable, you’d let me know as soon as I enter it rather that after I entered 4 fields and press Sign up to find out
If you were to welcome me back into your home (your site) you’d say “Welcome Mukund”, and not “Welcome mukund @emailaddress.com“

The most important point I am making is to ensure that as a developer, you keep the human in mind. We like productivity, but we also love nice (pleasant) surprises.

Please do play this mind game with your web application.

Imagine you are talking to a user – as a real person, speaking to another real person. Now, look at your web application again. Do the menus, navigation labels and errors sound like what you’d tell me in person? If not, you have some work to do.

What’s your opinion?

Yahoo India Launches MoviePlex, to Compete with Youtube for free Bollywood Movie Streaming!

Ankit Agarwal — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:27:00 +0000

Bollywood Movies For Free-Sounds like a magic formula, doesn’t it? Add Internet to the mix and one would imagine that the anyone who can package Free Bollywood Movies over the Internet should be able to attract the attention of a fast increasing internet savvy user base in India.

Well, Youtube did it a while back with Youtube Box-office, so there is some validation to the theme. Now, to further the hypothesis, Yahoo India has bit the bullet and has launched a brand new service- MoviePlex.

Movieplex is a platform which will allow users access to licensed full-length Bollywood movies for free on the internet

The rationale to launch a service might make sense from Yahoo’s perspective as it is constantly evolving into a media company.

Yahoo India on its part has been aggressively building content partnerships and Movieplex is another attempt at building a rich content repository and ensure user stickiness.

There are those obvious similarities with YouTube’s Box-office and it might be too early to compare the two but there might be a few things Yahoo might have in its favor.

The battle will be won to a certain extent based on who is able to acquire more licenses and offer an extensive library of Bollywood movies. Yahoo is known to be the online partner for a lot of Bollywood productions and I am assuming it might help Yahoo to secure new title licenses. I am not aware of YouTube being involved with online partnership/sponsorships with Bollywood projects in the past
Yahoo has a slew of other services which can help it monetize Movieplex indirectly. Think Yahoo mail and a lot of content links strewn around the Movieplex page. Youtube Box-office is essentially a video-only page and even though a lot of people know it’s a Google property, there are no links to promote other services. Not sure how much can this help but I am assuming there are significant costs involved in user acquisition for say Yahoo Mail

In terms of the movie experience on Movieplex, the experience is pretty neat and with my broadband connection, the streaming was near perfect even in full screen.

However, in parallel I ran another movie in Youtube Box-office and found the video clarity better. But that could purely be a matter of different titles so it may not be easy to judge and compare the two.

Only time will tell whether Youtube or Yahoo wins the race of acquiring more users to its free Bollywood streaming service but there are significant challenges on both user adoption and monetization front.

As far as bollywood producers go, I wonder if streaming services will give them some respite from the rampant piracy in India and the huge revenue loss from the same.

Even as the broadband speeds have increased in India to allow for streaming services approach to work, the internet broadband caps and Fair Usage Policies makes one wonder if people would be keen enough to watch movies via online streaming. If there aren’t enough takers, no amount of movie titles is going to work.

The other challenge is obviously monetization and there have been lot of discussions centered around the same. As reported by Medianama earlier, cost of streaming a movie online comes around $1-2 which makes it difficult to earn enough profit margins from the service.

Additionally, the entry of another player might take away the buying power from Youtube to a certain extent making the cost equation even tougher for either player.

One might question if Yahoo has enough cash to burn before it sees profits coming out of the Movieplex platform but as far as Yahoo’s focus on content goes, this seems like a prudent move.

What are your thoughts on Yahoo India’s Movieplex? Do you prefer watching movies via online streaming? If you do, share your experience of watching movies on Movieplex