I’m Still Alive - Part 2
Hello everyone,
Not sure how many of my old readers still subscribe to my blog’s RSS feeds but regardless, a shout out to everyone who is still reading it. I have to admit I have become really busy after starting my MBA at BU last Fall. Moreover, getting my hands into more businesses just made my time even more crunched!
For those who understand the internet properties and Google rule-sets, my blog has lost it’s page rank, link popularity and content quality score. Leave aside the recent Panda 2.5 update, I think my blog needs some fresh juice to get back the the position it deserves.
For those who have been starving to learn more about my whereabouts and activities, I’m half way into my MBA program. I will be graduating in December 2012. I have to say my experience so far has been very exciting, learning, valuable and refreshing. However, managing work, two businesses and a questionable personal life alongside this program is certainly challenging. I guess it is still worth all the pain : - )
Like I’ve said in the past, I hope to keep the blog flow a little more frequent on this site. Not sure if I will be able to keep up with it though, so I am not promising ; - )
I’m going to stop here, to keep this one short, without any images or links. If I get back with my next post soon, I plan to get some useful content to share with you all. Till then, have fun, enjoy life and keep the ball rolling!
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That’s it from Siddharth Rao’s Blog for today. Enjoy fellows!
I’m still alive!
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s Blog! How are you all? Yeah – it’s been a long long time and I’m still alive ; - ) A lot has happened in the last six months and I almost forgot I had a blog to update!
This is how each day has been for me in the last six months. Moreover, alongside my job, businesses and projects – I’ve been cooking up this great idea of starting my MBA this Fall semester. So getting my hands dirty with this thing called GMAT (in 7 days – literally); and the entire application process – it has been a memorable ride~!
While I plan to do an entirely separate post on my “GMAT in 7 days” stunt; I’ll write more about the entire application process as well in my future posts – so that it might help someone who plans to do something similar. I’ll create a separate category for MBA and put all my posts in there.
For those who are curious – drop me an email and I’ll let you know which school I’m headed to – for my MBA starting in a few weeks (or few days I must say). I might spill the beans on one of my future blog posts as well.
What coming up next on my blog: I’m going to make a couple of posts for some coupons from two brand vendors that I’ve worked closely. One of them is a web hosting vendor (this very blog is hosted on their server) and the second one is a vendor for branded eye glasses / contact lenses. Following these two posts – I’ll try to find time to seriously be a little more regular with my frequency of blog posts ; - )
That’s it for today. All my readers in the US – enjoy the great weather while it lasts!
Apple iPad – The Flop 2010 Tablet
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s Blog! I thought of starting the New Year’s first post with a technical review on the most anticipated tablet PC – the Apple iPad!
On January 27th, 2010 - Steve Jobs unveiled Apples latest product, the iPad. Apple’s mission with the iPad was to “fill the gap” in between smart phones and laptops. However, the main question still remains to be answered, is there a need for a device to bridge the gap in between the two technologies? I personally don’t think so – anyway, from what it appears as of now, the iPad certainly has some issues. Here are the five top issues that most bloggers are talking about:
- No Multi-tasking – just can’t digest this fact (come on Apple, are we in 1990 yet?)
- No built-in Camera - I can’t imagine a tablet with no camera
- Stupid Adapters for every freaking thing – what’s the definition of the word “compatibility”?
- Same Touch Keyword as iPhone – I feel there is a need to further innovate the touch screen keypads and iPad just gives a bigger version of what we already had with the iPhone (not impressive at all)
- No Flash Media Support – Apple continues to make devices which are not compatible with any flash memory (GrrRR..)!
The bottom line - iPad is still in its infancy! I’m sure we will see better versions of this tablet which will cover the above core deficiencies, but for now – this is what we have and this is what we get. So I’m not buying this damn thing for $500!
On a side note, I’ve been extremely busy with a lot of things on my plate, in the last two months. That is why I could not do any blog posts. I should have a slightly better schedule from February onward – so I can make some more posts.
Happy Anniversary to Siddharth Rao’s Blog
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s blog! Nothing technical in today’s post – I just wanted to let my readers know that it has been one year since I started this blog. Time indeed flies!
I started this blog in November 2008 with an objective to share some of my knowledge, provide reviews on certain products/services and to do an experiment for establishing my brand name on search engines. While the first two objectives are partially achieved and they appear to be on track, the third objective was significantly achieved. I had aimed to appear on rank#1 in the search results of the top three tier-1 search engines namely Google, Yahoo and Bing (formerly MSN/Live).
The primary keyword was obviously my name “Siddharth Rao”. As of today, my blog appears on rank#1 in search results for the above search term – on Google and Yahoo. On Bing, I’m still on rank#3. Hopefully, I’ll get on the top in a few more months. With this experiment – I got to know how to optimize web pages and web sites on specific search terms or keywords in a systematic way, to achieve competitive organic rankings in search engines.
Believe it or not, it is not as easy as one might think. There are over two hundred variables to consider and fine time, in a relatively sequential manner before we can get close to what we are talking about. However, from the business side – the entire future of any commercial web site depends on these factors. Ultimately – any site is useless it is not found by visitors for relevant keywords or search terms.
I’ll do a follow up post sometime next month to cover more detailed technical aspects about optimization. That’s it for today! For all my readers in the US – enjoy the holiday shopping season and stay warm (it’s going to get cold soon)!
Wily Black Friday and Cyber Monday Shopping
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s blog! This post is going to be a short one. Today I’m going to talk about Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the upcoming holiday shopping season. By the time I do my next blog post – it will probably be past Thanksgiving : - )
Did you ever wonder why so many people go out shopping like crazy on the day after Thanksgiving – on this so called “Black Friday”? It marks Thanksgiving Day in the United States, which is the beginning of the traditional Christmas holiday shopping season, for everyone. The name Black Friday was adopted from an accounting term - red ink which denotes a negative profit margin, where as “in the black” refers to a positive profit margin. People all over the country save money throughout the year to satisfy their hunger for shopping on this very special day.
Similarly, Cyber Monday is more profoundly known for great deals and bargains obtained from the online shopping world! Every year, thousands of retailers release special deals, promotions and offers around this time of the year – letting consumers buy products, services or gifts at rock bottom prices. Inspite of all that - it is amazing to see that so many people still pay the retail price tag for their product or service when they can easily and effortlessly save up to 70% on those purchases.
For most of you, black Friday shopping probably means being a part of that overnight shopping bonanza. Well, that’s not 100% correct. If you ever thought that you could only get those crazy discounts if you were willing to give up your sleep on the thanksgiving night, think again! You’d be pleasantly surprized what online shopping can prove to me for you, if you have plans to buy something – on this year’s black Friday!
There is an exclusive free ebook titled “Black Friday & Cyber Monday Shopping Secrets 2009” - at WilyDeals, as a part of their introductory pre-launch offer. I’d strongly recommend all of my readers to download this free ebook and read some tips/tricks in it. It’s a nice read through, especially because it’s rich in content and best of all, it’s FREE! After reading this ebook, you’d laugh your way every time you see those people stack up outside a store like Best Buy, etc. with food, sleeping bags and jackets – shivering in cold temperatures.
Finally, on a closing note – I’d like to wish all my readers a Happy Halloween and happy thanksgiving! I might do a quick post around that time but with my busy schedule, I’m not certain if I will find time to do another blog post before end of next month.
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.CM Domain Name Registrations Open – Opportunity or a Waste?
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s blog! In today’s post – I’m going to talk about a latest development in the domain name business. There have been talks of the much-anticipated Cameroon Domain name extension (.cm) becoming available for public registration – since months now. Some people even speculated this move as a purposeful effort to re-create the demand similar to dot-com registration bubble of the early 1990’s.
For those who don’t know what this is all about – here’s a little background on the developing story. Cameroon is a small country in the African continent which has a domain name extension of “.cm” – just like other countries (for example, Australia has “.au”, India has “.in”, etc.). Every country has something called CCTLD (country code top level domain) – which is available while registering domains for/from that country.
Cutting the long story short and coming to the point – Cameroon ccTLD came into news when someone from Cameroon registered google.cm and put up ads on the resulting page. The page started receiving ton’s of traffic – because “.cm” is a naturally occurring typo when someone tries to type “.com”. It is said that up to 15% of people typing the entire site URL in the address browser can end up doing such a typo for any .com domain name. At least that’s what most registrars have used on their sites – for advertising “.cm” domain name registrations.
This triggered a lot of user interest and talks around making .cm domain name registration open to the entire world – since many people started looking at it as an opportunity to tap on a sizable amount of Internet traffic. Since then – many people have been eagerly waiting for it. To accommodate the sudden rush and interest in these domain names and also to protect the “brand names” / businesses from their respective names – the idea of “land-rush phase” came into play.
Landrush phase was the time when select registrars held auctions on “.cm” domain names – thereby allowing brands/copyrighted keyword owners and general public to “bid” on the names. Any name having more then one bidder would actually enter into “auction mode”. During this landrush some domain names got sold for as high as half a million dollars (that’s what I read on some random blog post by someone else).
Once the landrush phase was over – the registrations were made open to anyone, using regular domain registration practices (with the exception of the price tag, of course). The open registrations commenced from Sept 18, 2009 – and these Cameroon ccTLD names are now available to anyone who wants to register it. However, each domain name registration has varying costs – depending on the registrar. I’m still unsure why this has been set up this way.
Note that very limited domain registrars have been granted the permission to sell “.cm” domains. The two best places that I have found out and recommend are:
NameCheap (cheapest .cm domain registrar)
NameCheap is selling each “.cm” domain for $105 (yeah, I know – that’s over 10x the original .com domain name registration cost).
DomainMonster is slightly expensive compared to NameCheap – but they have bulk discounts. So it would be recommended for someone who really wants to register over 25 domains or so. Otherwise – I would go nowhere else but only NameCheap.
Having said all that – the question here is that is it really worth spending $105 for a “.cm” domain name (which eventually can only be tapped as a typo of the equivalent .com domain)? The answer can be “yes” and “no” – as it depends on several factors. If you can find a high volume keyword/site name which is not “copyrighted” and who’s .cm domain name is available – you can register it and tap on say 3-4% of the typo traffic coming on it. If the original .com site has 2 million visitors on it – every month then 3-4% of that number can be really substantial. If you can target that traffic to the right stuff, there’s indeed a very good opportunity.
Alternately – you can register one of the domain names of a very small brand that is on the rise. If they grow over time, you can go back to them and auction their brand name’s .cm domain and ask for a healthy price tag to sell it ; - ). The possibilities are only limited by the extent of your creativity and imagination. However, you need to be calculative and careful before buying these domain names. Since they cost $105 a piece, it’s not hard to loose your shirt – if you are not thoughtful : - )
I bought my share of domains around some different test models that I have in mind. Lets see if this investment proves to be a useful one for me. Anyway – that’s it for today. Some exciting stuff is going to be on this blog very soon. I’m looking forward to posting it as soon as I’m done with it.
Social Networks Leaking Users Data To Tracking Sites
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s blog! In today’s post – I’m going to talk about how most (if not all) of the Social Networking sites out there can leak user-specific data to tracking sites; and thereby to third-party companies/people. On how many Social Networking sites do you have your profiles?
Now-a-days, almost everyone has a profile on at least one of the major social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Twitter, etc. Also, most users tend to put in a lot of information about themselves on their profiles. This includes information about their likes, dislikes, current status, academic history, employment history, pictures, etc. It goes without saying that all this information can be used extensively to study the behavior of that user online; and then use it for marketing or anything else.
Most popular social networking sites (including Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, etc.) tend to make personal information available to companies that track the browsing habits of its users. According to a new study by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), this allows them to link anonymous browsing habits to specific people.
“When you sign up with a social networking site, you are assigned a unique identifier,” says Craig Wills, professor of computer science at WPI.
“This is a string of numbers or characters that points to your profile. We found that when social networking sites pass information to tracking sites about your activities, they often include this unique identifier. So now a tracking site not only has a profile of your Web browsing activities, it can link that profile to the personal information you post on the social networking site. Now your browsing profile is not just of somebody, it is of you.”
While there is no direct harm with this information leak, it can vary significantly from person to person. Please take some time to take a look at your profile and check for yourself to see what information you think is not necessary to be in there. Safeguard your information using correct privacy settings. Most social networking sites give you full control on what part of your profile you want to make visible to the public. Be sure to use those features for your own good.
Remember – once you post something online for public use, it’s public forever. Even if you delete your profile; there are several archival sites on the internet which archive the content forever. It can be a heck of a hassle (and sometimes almost impossible) to trace it and delete it later.
You can read the full article on this topic - here
That’s it for now. The contest that I mentioned in my previous blog post – is still in the works. Stay tuned – it will be coming soon!
Random Ramblings on a Few Findings
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s blog! Another month passes by – since my last post. Summer days are surely long, but they do fly fast as well. I have so much to do and I always find myself falling short of time. Phew – the same old human mindset of never being satisfied!
Anyway, in this post – I’m going to talk about a few findings that I stumbled across, in the last 4-5 weeks. Also, at the end of the post – is an update on my dollar product experiment : - )
Finding # 1: To start off with – I stumbled upon an advertisement in my Gmail account about a domain on sale. I have been seeing this ad quite frequently since then and every time I see it, my head spins thinking that how can anyone justify the cost that they are asking for the domain? Take a look at the screen shot below:
YES !! The domain is up for sale at 2.4 million dollars - Crazy stuff. I know the dot-com era of the late 1990’s – when someone would still agree to pay a super-hefty price tag for a mere domain name. That too – only if it is a premium domain name and it matches the name of the company that needs the domain for it’s own branding. However, on today’s date – selling a four-letter domain like lisa.com for 2.4 million dollars – just does not make any sense to me. It would be interesting to see how many months (or even years) these guys can wait to see if they get a prospective buyer for the domain, with that kind of a price tag.
Finding # 2: Off late – I’ve started discovering a new avenue and breed of tech-savvy roadside beggars. Remember seeing those shabby people on red lights - with cardboards reading “Homeless, Tired, Broke, Thank You, God Bless”, etc.?? These are spotted more as we hit spring, summer and the fall seasons.
I received seven emails in the last 5 weeks – from un-identified people who called themselves homeless, etc. Surprisingly – Gmail’s spam filter filtered none of these emails. The email read the same thing like their banner reads and it had a link to initiate a paypal donation of $5/$10 etc. to these so called homeless people. I said to myself – WOW – here comes the age of a homeless Internet literate and email enabled beggars!
Finding # 3: The job market in the US appears to be picking up quite nicely these days. If I compare what I see now versus what we saw in Q1 and Q2 of 2009 – it looks so much better. Of course – there are countless number of people sitting there to latch on to these new opportunities. But the fact that we are seeing such activity is a positive sign. I hope we have already hit the bottom and the only direction we can see this market go – is upwards! I know at least half a dozen friends who got new jobs in the last 5 weeks : - )
Finally – here’s a small & quick update on the experiment that I am conducting. I posted about this experiment back in May. You can read the full post here. So far – things appear to be on track. I have managed to build my initial set of prototypes, blue prints, wire frames, etc. – whatever you want to call it. I’m now working on the dirtiest part – paperwork for incorporation, legal terms, etc. It is a part of any business and if not planned well – it can act as a systematic time bomb and destroy your business.
And yeah – here’s something new I’m planning to do on my blog. In a few days – you’ll start seeing a weekly contest banner on the top right section of this page. Of course there will be prizes as well. I’ll make a detailed post about this when I get ready. Just wanted to add some fun and interaction on my blog for all you readers!
That’s it for now and perhaps this month. Stay tuned for the contest thing I mentioned above! I bet it’s going to be fun and interesting.
Celebrating One Year of Profitable Online Marketing
Greetings from Siddharth Rao’s blog! It has been almost four weeks since my last blog post. June has been a super-busy month at work and I’ve been traveling a lot, so couldn’t find time to write anything. Anyway – today (June 23, 2009) is a special day for me!
On this day last year – I entered into the world of performance based search engine marketing (or PPC marketing). I had known it since the last three years – however, I actually started building a business model and using it on a large scale since last year.
Looking back at what all occurred in this one year – it brings a smile on my face. From countless days of frustration, restlessness, analysis, dissatisfaction and stress to days of anxiety, anticipation, coding, research and calculating profits – I’ve had my share of all of them. I got to learn hundreds of new things, techniques & concepts and most importantly – the importance of thinking like a customer. If you’re a techy person, chances are that your brain is designed to think differently compared to a non-techy person who wants to buy something. There are exceptions but in business – we look at the majority and sell our thing to them, not the exceptions.
Here’s a short breakdown and analysis of the festivities.
I started off with the following:
- A vision to design a business model – where automation technology works as primary functional operators (and not people, meaning more technology and less employees to do day-to-day work)
- Reasonably solid and broad knowledge of Web & Internet technologies
- Sound understanding of the LAMP architecture and programming languages
- Good hand on computerized graphics designing tools
- An advertising budget of a few hundred dollars
- Strong desire discover and capitalize on new business opportunities
- Passion to build a large-scale online business which is portable and highly scalable
In the last one year, this is what I learnt, achieved and discovered:
- Learnt literally hundreds of small (but highly important) new techniques in the Internet world
- Educated myself with a lot of essential marketing techniques for the online audience
- Discovered the best business model that I’ve ever come across – in terms of scalability and return on investment
- Achieved a certain degree of financial independence
- Discovered a definite potential to scale this business model to a million-dollar business
- Made contacts with some leading directors and industry experts for ecommerce giants
This last one year looks like five years in the Internet world. Things change rapidly and that makes the game very exciting – at least for me! There’s so much more to learn and implement – I can certainly see a promising future for myself and others in the ecommerce-sphere. Although I’m still not that experienced to pass judgments for others – I believe that patience, perseverance and determination will separate the winner from the followers!
On a closing note – I’ve decided to post a poll question to my readers.
If you were given a choice to choose between:
- A job of a manager for a publicly traded large company (or)
- A job title of a CEO for a small private startup company
What will you opt for / why? Please leave your comments and thoughts on it!