Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing is a commonly used term in the Web 2.0 / social media world. Michael Brito discusses on blog, how important it is for marketers to use the practice of having conversations.

Conversational marketing is really about participating in conversations that are going on about your product in various channels such as blogs, forums, review sites and wikis. It’s also about taking the conversations offline in the form of roundtable discussions and/or townhall events; where you invite a group of users/consumers to a location and have real-life, authentic conversations with them.

However, conversational marketing has nothing to do with social-media marketing. Definitely, using social-networking and other Web 2.0 platforms to increase traffic to your website is becoming a common practice these days, but this has nothing to do with conversations at all.

Read the complete article here.

India Vs. Pakistan -- A Dream Final

Any India Pakistan match is special - add to it that it is a final of a World Cup just makes it special indeed. Both the teams performed very badly in the ICC World Cup earlier this year and now they have reached the final! It is very surprising to see the performance of Indian cricket team without a coach.

From the match perspective, I just hope that the match lives up to the hype of a final and that ICC gets some "umpires" who know rules of cricket. Nobody is interested in seeing blunders from umpires like in 7th ODI against England.

Here is some famous quotes:

Yuvraj Singh: "India-Pakistan is always a huge competition. It's just like a dream for us."

Malik: "In Pakistan we have lots of talent which, Inshallah, we are going to utilise and, Inshallah, the Pakistan team will be number one very soon."

Dhoni: "The pressure will be immense, not on us though because I don't believe in taking pressure and none of my team do either".

आज हर हिन्दुस्तानी को याद आएगा की वो एक हिन्दुस्तानी है
आज सबके मन में अपने देश के लिए प्यार जागेगा
आज हर हिन्दुस्तानी भारत की जीत के लिए अपने भगवान् से दुआ और अल्लाह से प्रार्थना करेगा

एक आम हिन्दुस्तानी दो बातें सहें नहीं कर सकता :
१) अपने देश पर वार
२) क्रिकेट में हार

Chak de India!

Chak de India!

India approached the previous two games with nothing to lose, going out there and expressing themselves freely. Now they are faced with a situation where victory is nearby. Dravid warned against complacency but admitted that the team had come some distance since the shattering scenes at Old Trafford. "I knew we really had to fight hard. We had our backs to the wall," said Dravid. "We had to script a really good comeback."

Wednesday was the second time India successfully chased over 300 in England. The first such feat was, in fact, at Lord's in the 2002 NatWest Series final. The target then was 326.



India have not lost to England at Lord's since 1975

Flintoff returns to tackle India openers

England (likely): 1 Alastair Cook, 2 Matt Prior (wk), 3 Ian Bell, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood (capt), 6 Owais Shah, 7 Andrew Flintoff, 8 Luke Wright, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 James Anderson, 11 Monty Panesar.

India (likely): 1 Sourav Ganguly, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Rahul Dravid (capt), 6 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), 7 Robin Uthappa, 8 Ajit Agarkar, 9 Piyush Chawla, 10 Ramesh Powar, 11 Zaheer Khan.

Hoo Ha India, Aaya India!

Orkut feels fresher !!!

orkut announced on August 23 that they will be rolling out a new look for their social network Orkut. Today, my account has been upgraded to the new design !!!

• Firstly, I would say that the new proposed look of orkut looks very neat and fresh.
• The blue and cyan color tones got a little bit more fresh and lighter
• In the new design, many of the edges have been rounded off for a smoother look.
• The custom, more playful first letter in Orkut style has been removed.
• The top bar wraps up some of the main functionality and integrates a search box.
• The three tabs social, professional, and personal moved a little bit lower, and look more traditionally tab-like than before.
• There’s some additional shades and gradients throughout the page as well.

5S Principles

5S is a reference to a list of five Japanese words which 'start' with S. This list is a mnemonic for a methodology that is often incorrectly characterized as "standardized cleanup", however it is much more than cleanup. 5S is a philosophy and a way of organizing and managing the workspace. The key impacts of 5S is upon workplace morale and efficiency. By ensuring everything has a place and everything is in its place then time is not wasted looking for things and it can be made immediately obvious when something is missing.

Sort (Seiri) : (tidiness, organisation, arrangement) eliminate all unnecessary items in the work area. This includes ensuring you have the correct tools for the job which means adding equipment that is required. The problem of sharing a tool creates the "search and retrieve" waste of time. Refers to the practice of sorting through all the tools, materials, etc., in the work area and keeping only essential items. Everything else is stored or discarded. This leads to fewer hazards and less clutter to interfere with productive work.

Straighten (Seiton) : (orderliness) Focuses on the need for an orderly workplace. "Orderly" in this sense means arranging the tools and equipment in an order that promotes work flow. Tools and equipment should be kept where they will be used, and the process should be ordered in a manner that eliminates extra motion. Everything has a place, and everything is in it's place.

Shine (Seiso) : systemized cleanliness. Indicates the need to keep the workplace clean as well as neat. Cleaning in Japanese companies is a daily activity. At the end of each shift, the work area is cleaned up and everything is restored to its place. The key point is that maintaining cleanliness should be part of the daily work - not on occasional activity initiated when things get too messy.

Standards (Seiketsu) : This refers to standardized work practices. It refers to more than standardized cleanliness (otherwise this would mean essentially the same as "systemized cleanliness"). This means operating in a consistent and standardized fashion. Everyone knows exactly what his or her responsibilities are.

Sustain (Shitsuke) : sustaining discipline. Refers to maintaining standards. Once the previous 4S's have been established they become the new way to operate. Maintain the focus on this new way of operating, and do not allow a gradual decline back to the old ways of operating.

Implemented By: Boeing, Boise Cascade, Hewlett Packard

60th Independence Day

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of Inida and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.



Team India celebrated Independence Day in England by winning the test series against England !!! (1-0)



JAI HIND.

Ban Karo! Social Spam Filtering

BanKaro.com is a social spam filtering platform, powered by community participation to ban un-solicited and intrusive telemarketing calls. Started by 2 Computer Engineering students from IIT Roorkee and 1 from IIT Kharagpur.

Telemarketing spam is a menace which is only likely to grow by leaps and bounds in India. Now users have the power of deciding whether to pick up the call.

Ban Karo is designed as a special-purpose social network. Every user receives a set of new telemarketing spam numbers on a periodic basis, via SMS, the website, or browser extensions. These numbers are passed through the user's circle of trust [connections that (s)he's built up in the network]. The circle of trust, in turn, acts as a social filtering mechanism which ensures that only those numbers which are most likely to call up the user and irritate him/her are on the list.

This is an invite only service so steal, beg or borrow an invite and join the BanKaro! revolution

About Spam Blog

As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused. The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.

Spam blogs cause various problems, beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines, making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own. And if an automated system is creating spam posts at an extremely high rate, it can impact the speed and quality of the service for other, legitimate users.

Orkut Spam Stopper

Today I noticed a new way that orkut has introduced (when ?) to stop spraps (Spam + Scraps).

we're sorry, but you must wait 713 more minute(s) before you can post another scrap to this scrapbook because you have posted other scraps too recently.

Other method that orkut was using before was image verification feature when a scrap had a link.

If orkut is planning to stop someone for 713 minutes then what will happen to their "organic growth" ??

We do not actively review content that users post on orkut. As you can imagine, it would be nearly impossible keeping up with all the new photos, community posts, and changes to user profiles. Additionally, reviewing newly written posts, photos and profiles would dampen the organic growth essential to any social network.

Harry Potter and the Deadly Hacker

The hacker, who calls himself Gabriel, said he had religious reasons for revealing the names of two key characters who allegedly die in the final pages of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

Bloomsbury, the London-based publisher of the Harry Potter series, deepened the mystery by refusing to say whether the ending published by the hacker was a hoax. Scholastic, the book's American publisher, also declined to confirm or deny whether the ending had been spoiled.

"There is a lot of material on the Internet. You can't believe everything you see," said Kyle Good, a Scholastic spokeswoman. "The only way we'll know for sure what happens is to read the book July 21st."

I think that this is just another fan-fiction publicised in a different manner. Given the number of fan-fictions available for the last book on the internet, no one would have liked to read this ^{(Alert: might be a spoiler)} one but this is a smart strategy, I must say.

JKRowling once wrote on her website :

“We’re a little under three months away, now, and the first distant rumblings of the weirdness that usually precedes a Harry Potter publication can be heard on the horizon. I want the readers who have, in many instances, grown up with Harry, to embark on the last adventure they will share with him without knowing where they are they going. Some, perhaps, will read this and take the view that all publicity is good publicity, that spoilers are part of hype, and that I am trying to protect sales rather than my readership. However, spoilers won’t stop people buying the book, they never have - all it will do is diminish their pleasure in the book."

With a month to go until the book's release, Potter-mania is starting to build to a fever pitch. Read authentic information about the book here.

Update: Walmart has started "Harry Potter and the Walmart Pledge". Join their worldwide pledge and make the promise that you will keep the magic and not share the story's end!

How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture

There is a 8 minute video-journey through how things have changed since 1996 and takes us all the way through to 2014. The video gives us a glimpse of how Internet is changing the way we live with couple of examples. However, if you think about all the other areas of life that are going to be positively affected due to advancements in technology, your excitement will know no bound. I say we are lucky to live in this day and age. The video mostly talks about Google and its innovation and future path.

There are 2 more nice videos on youtube (gooTube) worth watching:

Google MasterPlan
Web 2.0

There is a excellent book on search industry: The Search.

John Battelle’s, The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture is the only book you need to read about the search industry in present day. John Battelle’s research is completely comprehensive and his style of writing is so easy to read you would never know you were reading about as complex a subject as the search industry. The book delves into the history of search and the monetization of search engine queries. The search also goes into depth about the present and future of search mainly revolving around Google’s role within the industry. The great thing about this piece of literature is that John Battelle does not take a side. He doesn’t write from the angle of being a Google supporter or a Google Hater. He takes a very neutral stance which makes is a much more enjoyable read. Mr. Battelle’s outlook on search becoming integrated with every facet of advertising is an opinion I have never read in the past but makes a lot of sense.

I have a small article which says: Don't be Too Evil

Google Stops "Did You Mean: He Invented"

Google was recently reported to correct the following search queries via their “did you mean?” functionality:


she invented -> Did you mean: he invented
she scored -> Did you mean: he scored
she instructed -> Did you mean: he instructed
she saved -> Did you mean: he saved
she discovered -> Did you mean: he discovered
she golfed -> Did you mean: he golfed

The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results. Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the comprehensiveness of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it.

From what I know Google’s spell-checker at its core works on phrases which are popular on the web, as opposed to manual edits. It might be Google engineers manually corrected this using a blacklist, or they advanced their algorithm to return more relevant spellcheckings for cases like these – it seems clear that a search query like “she invented” is not likely to be a misspelling

My Hogwarts Express

I was very worried about my "36" hours journey from Delhi (H Nizamuddin) to Bangalore (Yesvantpur Jn). I was asking people who travel a lot in trains about what to do in such a long journey etc etc etc. However, it turned out to be a very enjoyable trip in my life. Never before had I experienced such a long journey and so enjoyable!

I would like to thank the rain god and the indian raliways. Thanks to former because of timely showers on day 1 and to latter because of their construction of the window panes to look like that of a typical dementor scene in Prisoner of Azkaban. To add to the "magical" atmosphere, the seat next to me was occupied by Her-my-oh-knee, oops! I meant a small, sweet and cute girl of 7th standard. (Hey Navleen! I have a confession to make. It wasn't you who was cheating, actually I was playing foul but then they say, 'everything is fair in war!') and in the same compartment were many-haired-weasleys! (Yes dude! you were right. I had written nothing for "R" and I was speaking on-the-spot to get points).

However, I had to curse myself when the train reached Secunderabad! By mistake I had deleted 1 number from my cellPhone and I seriously regret for having done that. Few of you know and others can easily guess the person whose number got deleted accidently.

Anyways, lots of work need to be done here at Bangalore.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

ISHRAT - Jawahar Bhawan Day

The day of joy for every bhawan inmate in IIT-R is the day when we celebrate our Bhawan Day. Scheduled in the lovely season of spring, bhawan day brings color joy and laughter to the every day monotonous life of a hostel inmate. With a stage ready to showcase our talent, its our shot at fame in front of the packed audience. Its a festive day and a festive mood for us to enjoy.

Jawahar Bhawan had its bhawan day on April 11, 2007. This bhawan day was publicized using a flex at the central location in from of DOMS, and it is very popular in the campus due to its location in front of Sarojini Bhawan and is always a much awaited event because of the crowd it pulls. However, this time it turned out to be a complete chaos. (No! I am not talking about Chaos - the biggest gaming event in North India during Cognizance).

The number of events in the cultural night were more than what the impatient crowd could tolerate. With every passing event, it was expected that the great(-?) anchor(s) Mr. Paramjit will call upon the chief guest and will act as saviour for the people who left their mess food to enjoy the delicious food of the bhawan day. However, every event that you tolerate, is just another mistake to you.

The conspiracy to make the devil rise from within the masses reached its peak when they started with prize distribution at around 9pm, when all messes in other hostels closed for the day. Prizes were given to the inmates for as many reasons as you can think of! Just to test the tolerance limit and endurance strength of the crowd, number of councillors were increased in real time. When they ended, I was wondering, why prizes were not given for taking the coupons for the bhawan day! or rather for chosing this bhawan for your stay in the campus!

The function advanced and the fight started to pass through the heavily chained door to fill our stomachs with what they call as celebration food.

"hamari mess khaali karo!"
"1-2-3-4, band karo yeh atyachaar"
"inqalab! zindabaad!"
"arey bakre ko bhi khilla kar maara jaata hai"

Even the song sutta was revisited.

The mess gates were finally opened at 10pm sharp (IST!!) for those lucky guys who were standing very near to the gate. Body waves carried the people inside and then they witnessed the food about which I have mentioned about 2-3 times before. It was prepared well enough so that you can leave the hall within few minutes so that others can be given entry in the mess.

I think all credit goes to the management/organizing committee of Jawahar Bhawan Day. Extremely Well planned. A perfect walk through hell.

Don't you think that the people behind this should post a apology to all the students at IIT-R???

Or do you think that this was their way of saying, 'We hate bhawan days. Now, we think even you do!'

Sri Lanka beats India

Sri Lanka beat India to not only advance to the next round of World Cup Cricket, they have probably eliminated India entirely. India are almost certain to follow Pakistan out of the World Cup after a 69-run defeat by Sri Lanka in Trinidad. The remote hope for the 2003 finalists is Bermuda beating Bangladesh on Sunday.

Dravid : "I thought it (255) was a good score to chase. We had the batting, we had an extra batsman, but we kept losing wickets."

The media who host the various programs have more to lose I guess. They have all these ads giving them big revenues. And now, all has been a waste of time, atleast for the advertisers. All the channels would lose out on a major chunk of the sponsorship. So, what do they do instead ?

Chappel : "It is a very emotional time for a lot of people and in the light of recent incidents I'm not going to be making any comments on what is wrong with anything or anybody.

Kiran More: "The big disappointment for India was their batting. We failed to score 200 against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and our batting was a total failure"

However, this was the 1st time I saw any Indian cricket match on a big screen. IIT Roorkee in having its annual technical festival - Cognizance 2007 (March 23 - 25). For the entertainment of the crowds (both insiders and outsiders), India Vs. Sri Lanka match was aired live. The crowd turned out to be awesome.

However, as the Indian innings progressed, the loud cheers "Hoo Ha India .. aaya India!" died down and there were just handful of students remaining to see India lose their 10th wicket.

Krish Srikkanth writes in his blog : Bermuda might cause a sensational upset by beating Bangladesh and pave the way for the men in blue to enter the super eight, but that was not the way it was meant to be.

Let's Hope this is the beginning

Admittedly, we did achieved that against a weak team like Bermuda. The usual association of Indians with Bermuda is its dreaded triangle which reportedly has claimed many ships and planes. I guess by now getting a jolt at the beginning of every World Cup campaign is mandatory for India. Team India almost seems to thrive in the face of such reverses. Unfortunately, they will not have Pakistan at later stages (if they make it) to recharge their batteries. Probably getting beat by an resurgent Bangladesh team was just the thing the complacent team needed.

This time, I couldn't get many dialogues from TV room of Govind Bhawan, IIT Roorkee during the game because of loud cheers from the fans but still I managed 1
This part is in Hindi, so sorry non-Hindi folks.

"Bacche ki jaan loge kya!!!"
(after Yuvraj scored his 50 and seeing the plight of Bermuda bowlers!)

Bangladesh upset India in World Cup

Bangladesh produced one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history with a five-wicket victory over India in a Group B game on Saturday.

Bangladesh has witnessed some memorable victories in ODI cricket but nothing compares to today’s victory against India in World Cup Cricket 2007. It is the greatest and most memorable victory because from the first over of the match, Bangladesh dominated India. It was a one sided match and India failed to offer any sort of resistance against Bangladesh. Bangladeshi players were always in control. In the end, Bangladesh won by 5 wickets.



Here is some dialogues from TV room of Govind Bhawan, IIT Roorkee during the game:
Most of this part is in Hindi, so sorry non-Hindi folks.

"Bangladesh ne bekar bowling ki... even Sehwag was able to score 2 runs"
( at Sehwag's dismissal)
"Indians haaton main makhhan laga kar aaye hain kya ???"
(when dhoni droppped the catch)
"inko bolo ki 50 overs ka match hai...itni jaldi over mat karo .. vaise bhi aaj night out maarni hai"
(when zaheer gave around 15 runs in some over)
"Ganguly hamesha team se alag rehta hai... sabke saath mill kar nahin chalta"
(when Ganguly completed his 50)
"arey ek no-ball de kar gam khatam kar .. sona hai"
(when there were few dot balls before bangladesh scored that last run!)
"lagta hai India-Pakistan ek hi flight se waapas aayenge!"
(after Ireland defeated pakistan)

India might have a more celebrated top order but it was the Bangladesh middle order and fast bowling attack that was clearly better on the day.

Rahul Dravid : We didn't get enough runs on the board. I thought 240 would have been a good score but the wicket surprised us. Their bowlers kept it really tight and they didn't let us get away. We know we've got to win two games now. We've got our backs to the wall and have got to fight pretty hard.

Let's wish good luck to Team India for their remaining matches!

Happy Birthday Einstein

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely considered to have been one of the greatest physicists of all time. While best known for the theory of relativity (and specifically mass-energy equivalence, E=mc²), he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."

Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.

Happy 128^th Birthday Einstein!

Update: I just received a message from Robert Langdon that 128 the largest number which can not be expressed as the sum of any number of distinct squares. But it is divisible by the total number of its divisors, making it a refactorable number!

Good Wishes for Indian cricket Team !!!

We have stood by the sidelines, passionately watching some superb victories and ruing some dismal defeats. We have celebrated fine performances and lamented poor form. We have lived our normal lives and yet kept an eye on the Indian cricket team in the run up to the ICC World Cup in the West Indies. We have wondered why the selectors fixed a revolving door at the entrance of Team India’s dressing room and even more when the team management kept challenging players to don different roles.



Not surprisingly, cricket fans are buying in to the hype. Hoo Ha India, Aaya India! has moved from being a commercial catch line to a magic mantra as Team India launches another bid to regain the prestigious crown 24 years after Kapil Dev led his bunch to a stunning conquest. For a nation waiting to savour the heady flavour of victory at the big stage, there has been no dearth of good wishes and prayers. It is time for Team India to turn on the magic that it is capable of and make a billion dreams come true.



Here is Indian team for World Cup 2007

1 Rahul Dravid (capt),
2 Sourav Ganguly,
3 Robin Uthappa,
4 Sachin Tendulkar,
5 Virender Sehwag,
6 Yuvraj Singh,
7 Mahendra Singh Dhoni,
8 Dinesh Karthik,
9 Irfan Pathan,
10 Ajit Agarkar,
11 Harbhajan Singh,
12 Anil Kumble,
13 Zaheer Khan,
14 Sreesanth,
15 Munaf Patel.

For those interested in stock markets, we have a Cricket Stock Exchange for you as I told you before.

P.S: Wish Team India in the comments to this post!

IIT-IIM grads launch Cricket Stock Exchange

Students from IIT Roorkee and IIM Ahmedabad have attempted to fuse corporate and cricket worlds by launching www.cricstock.com – Cricket Stock Exchange – on this virtual stock exchange, shares of international cricketers can be bought and traded by cricket fans, and the stock prices of cricketers will reflect their recent performance and what fans feel about them.

"The idea is to capture the mood and sentiments of cricket fans and translate them into numbers which will be reflected by stock-prices" informed Rahul Roushan, final year student of postgraduate programme of IIMA and one of the developers of the website. Currently the website has issued IPO (Initial Public Offering) of all the international cricketers of test-playing countries. A person gets one million of virtual cash as soon as he registers with the website and he can use that money to buy shares of any number of these cricketers. He has to bid within a specified price range for buying the shares of different cricketers.

More about functioning of the website can be known from http://www.cricstock.com/faq.htm

The team comprises of Rahul Roushan, Karthik Laxman, Siddartha Murlidharan (all of them final year MBA students of IIM Ahmedabad), and Mitanshu Garg (3rd year student of IIT Roorkee). Kaushik M (computer science alumnus for BITS, Pilani, and currently working as a software professional) gave valuable inputs to professionalize the website.

Think twice before you send that mail

All those who flirt on e-mail, send confidential company information, or send hate mail about their bosses from anonymous IDs: here is what to do.

Stop right there. The humble e-mail is bouncing back.

In the seven years after the country passed its information technology law that made e-mails legal documents, there has been almost no awareness and compliance - and few seemed to care. But that is all changing, with e-mails at the heart of a series of new Indian lawsuits.

E-mails are increasingly becoming a foundation of litigation in India. Many cases have been brought to court. No judgement yet reported.

But Indian laws require a complex set of requirements to prove that e-mails have not been tampered with.

• E-mails are considered legal documents in India since 2000, when the Information Technology Act came into force.
• E-mails are legal if they are made available in electronic form, and accessible in a way that they can be used for future reference.
• They must be retained in the format in which they were originally generated, sent or received. Electronically available details showing the identification of the origin, destination, date and time of dispatch or receipt are a must.
• Offenders can be imprisoned for a maximum of 10 years and may have to pay a penalty of up to Rs 1 crore.

E-mail archiving is now shaping up into big business.
Read here

All Wikipedia Links Are Now NOFOLLOW

As of now are all outbound links from the english Wikipedia Site using the NOFOLLOW attribute, no exceptions.

No matter where you place it, Article Page, Talk Page, User Page, Project Page, whatever. No Link will get any credit at the major search engines.

This will not eliminate SPAM at Wikipedia, but it will over time certainly reduce it a bit. Especially the spam of invisible pages that have virtually no traffic but at least some PageRank is now virtually a waste of time for any spammer.

Spamming of areas with traffic was futile already without the NOFOLLOW attribute in place, since Editors remove the SPAM within hours or even minutes after it happened.

Social network users ruining their privacy!

Students at the University of Bristol have recently been warned of the dangers of posting to social networking websites. They aren't the first to hear these warnings, and they won't be the last.

Prof. Nigel Smart of the Computer Science Department at the University of Bristol has expressed his concern at the worrying trend of people giving up their privacy on the internet via social networking websites. He told HEXUS: "I am concerned that from some of the posts I have seen, by colleagues, students and others, that there is a deep societal problem emerging of people giving up their privacy without realising it".

Just about anyone can read what's posted onto social networking websites like Orkut, MySpace and FaceBook. 'Anyone' includes the intended audience of friends, but potentially relatives, teachers and employers too.

People have been posting stuff onto the web for years, though, so why is privacy suddenly a bigger problem for a larger number of people? Three or four years ago, it was all about chat rooms and forums. Both have a level of anonymity by default; you can choose your handle and only talk about what you want to, truth or lies... nobody will know.

There's more to worry about on the web than predators and viruses. We're giving everyone access to our personal lives.

Showing off your drinking triumphs to your friends? What if prospective employers are watching?

It's easy to get an account with almost any social-networking site, and we've learned from chat rooms, it's easy to pose as somebody else. It's easy, then, to get added to a friend list (especially with the 'more friends the better' attitude of current social-networking sites). Suddenly, that 'friends only' stuff is pretty much public.

Social networking users need to take a step back and think about just what they're posting onto the Internet. It'll probably be too late for a number of people, and it'll take a lot more 'victims' of the lack of privacy before most users actually start heeding these warnings. Just beware that anything posted online to your friends now, could very easily come back to haunt you in days, months, or even years to come.

Random Reading:

• Advertise on orkut
• Future of matrimonials
• Social networks a hacker's paradise
• Orkut
• India's growth in Orkut
• Join Orkut ???

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