Independent Analysis: AI, SaaS, and Revenue Growth Strategy

One of the costs of doing business online for most consumers is remembering passwords and usernames. You can be safe using steps that you would take with any personal information wheterh offline or online. Microsoft has a good resource on creating strong passwords here http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/create.mspx Network Solutions is providing tips on how to protect your domain name through simple steps. read more digg story

Watch the stream live here http://snurl.com/2bg7r-nc ( Dave Armano ) At TechCocktail the audience got a break to get ready for him. he followed Dick Costello who gave a amazing presentation. Dick is the founder of feedburner and now after Google acquired feedburner works for Google. btw Eric Olson of Tech Cocktail worked for Feedburner. His talk started with a clip from a Nightline story on Gary. Gems from his speech: Be true to yourself To build community you should become a RAT ( Real. Authentic and transparent) Everything you do is being recorded. Game is over. You cannot hide anything. You have to be completely real otherwise your business will be hurt It is easy for small people to hurt big businesses Being 150 thousand percent passionate about your products before you think of building community People like a face behind a company ( I wouldn't work here if I didn't believe in the company) In the next 3 to 4 years the world is going to be full of live streaming video. Eve...

Jared Goralnick gave a great presentation on how to be more productive. He proved his point by placing the slides of his presentation online even before the presentation so people don't have to take notes. Link to presentation : http://www.technotheory.com/2008/05/productivity-talk/ Jared is very passionate about helping people be more productive and gives talks at many conferences. I had blogged about him talking at SOBCon 08 http://www.shashi.name/2008/05/sobcon08-jared-goralnik-founder.html . See how he made it easy for me to post this easily without having to give you a lot of my notes :)

It was worth every bit of the early rising I had to do for getting to Chicago before 8 a.m. Met Geoff Livingston at the Chicago Midway airport. It was weird that South West has a flight to Chicago almost at the same time from BWI and Dulles IAD in the morning.       The Loyola Water Tower Campus is in downtown Chicago  and it was easy to get there for $2 using the EL from midway and changing to the red line. The campus is great. Did not love the fact that the break away session room is 13 floors down but the location is awesome. So far have been to these sessions. You Can Build a Business From Anywhere Mike Domek 9 Tips to Profitability: How Squidoo Did It  Brian Williams & Corey Brown Leveraging Social Apps & Widgets For Your Business Moderator: Sean Ammirati Panel: Keith Schacht, Troy Henikoff, Nick O’Neill, Alex Bard Everyblock.com by Adrian Holovaty How to Think About Partnerships  Nick Fera\ K...

  I have been meaning to attend the Capital Cabal for a long time. I got my opportunity when Hank Dearden started a Maryland meet every 4th Tuesday . Blackfinn pub is a nice place to meet and network in downtown Betheda. I ran into Andrew Feinberg , Craig Stotlz , Erika Miller from Tower Club, Cheryl Dickison - R2integrated (r2i) , Renee Lewis and Sam of Razume.   Interview with Hank Dearden Organizer of Capital Cabal   Meeting Smart people at Capital Cabal   I am definitely going to the next one.

I am off for a day trip to Chicago tomorrow to attend the Tech Cocktail Conference . Day trips are usually tiring but meeting so many smart people at Tech Cocktail Conference in Chicago will keep the energy flowing. After the conference I am free till 6.30 if anyone wants to meet-up till the party at John Barleycorn’s Wrigleyville

          May 20th was the 4th Anniversary of Technosailor.com. At the 4th anniversary/birthday party at Austin Grill in DC. Technosailor announced that a 4th Blogger was joining the team. The team at technosailor.com will now be Aaron Brazell , Steven Fisher writing about venture capital and marketing, Carlos Granier-Phelps ( I met him in Miami - very nice guy) writes the Spanish Technosailor.com and Mike Dougherty - marketing topics.         I am happy that the Technosailor.com is expanding. Aaron Brazell left B5media for what I call "retirement" (Just a joke). I am sure he has a lot of ideas up his sleeve and look forward to seeing more announcements in the next few weeks. Here is a funny video that shows we had fun at the Technosailor.com 4th birthday.   I wish him and Technosailor.com the very best. In case you you don't have it on your list of blog to read be sure to add it to you...

I discovered a widget by HP on Sampad's blog called 'Print it". Adding the widget will allow your readers to choose and print any post on the page. The feature by Tabblo,com which HP acquired is called " HP Blog printing". TypePad, Wordpress and Blogger users can easily add a widget to their sidebar that allows readers to choose blog posts to print. The website where you can get this http://developer.tabblo.com/index.php/hp-blog-printing/ The pitch from the download site : Turn your blog into a print center HP Blog Printing makes it easy to add full-featured printing to your blog so users can enjoy a customized read on the go. Starting at the print button, readers can pick and choose the posts they want to print, free of sidebars, ads and other clutter. Each great-looking printout is fully formatted to reduce paper waste. Blog author benefits Enhancing blog printability and usability is free and easy. Readers like choosing con...

I confess I googled my first name "shashi". I consider myself privileged that I am result number 3 after Shashi Tharoor ( author and UN Diplomat) and Shashi Kapoor ( A well known Bollywood actor).  The two top results were Wikipedia pages. My curiosity was aroused. Who creates these pages? Can the person create the page themselves? So I asked this question on Twitter. IS it a good idea to start a wikipedia page for yourself ? No business reason but just in case someone searches for you? Advice? These were the replies: trib : @ shashib think it's considered pretty bad form. I have a vague recollection there's actually a policy. GridironGoddess : @ shashib I think wikipedia frowns on someone starting their own page paulswansen : @ shashib Sounds like a good idea. There's some possibilities there. andybob : @ shashib if you have to create your own wikipedia page you're not significant to be on wikipedia - the editors will likely remove it. ...

ExecutiveBiz had a event yesterday at the Tower Club in Tysons Corner. the event was a book signing by Jack London Chairman of CACI. The Book "Our Good Name" is 778 pages long and I have added it to my Queue of books that I have and not read yet. :) My 3 takeaways : a) Companies should prepare for crisis management and learn to defend their name in the changed world. I think he said ' Companies should not think that this won't happen to them". b) Keeping quiet and hoping that a crisis will go away is not a good strategy. c) In this day and age the trend is  for people to get the story out first and check the details later.             Jack was very open and approachable (No one hovering around to intervene). I asked him the main motivation for the book and here is what he said. (Sorry it is not complete because I got a call and the N95 stopped recording :( ) He answered my question as to whether they int...

Here is the link to the article : http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006319&src=article1_newsltr Key takeaway For the full year 2007, online ad revenues totaled $21.2 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) / PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) "2007 Internet Advertising Revenue Report." That was 26% higher than 2006, which was itself a record year. My Commentary: As the consumer spending declines offline increase in buying online makes sense to me. Why drive several miles to the store when you can order online. At a recent training course I heard 2 of my fellow attendees say that they lived in the City and did not have a car so they made use of online grocery ordering services. They had evaluated zipcar but it was expensive to use that service for their shopping trips. This may not hold true for a long time if the economy is not stimulated. First people will cut their shopping trips and luxuries like eating out. That can extend to pu...

Rohit Bhargava - Author of the book "Personality Not Included" has So five very simple rules you can follow to get smarter about your domain name strategy: read more | digg story

Interview in Chicago : I took this video at SOBCon08 where Jim Beam was one of the sponsors. JJ Betts is a very nice guy and I took this interview at the docks on the banks of the Chicago river. The social media portal of Jim Beam is http://www.thestuffinside.com/ and they are definitely thinking "outside the cask". Check out Mark MurrMann's page http://www.thestuffinside.com/subjects/markmurrmann . I was happy about their community efforts to provide food, baby care, car repairs, financial assistance, and computers to the families of our troops http://www.thestuffinside.com/subjects/operationhomefront Top Bourbon in the world: Jim Beam has a amazing brand awareness and is the world's number selling Bourbon according to the company. Here I must mention my knowledge of Whiskey, whisky - how ever you want to spell it. I grew up in India where the only brand that people have heard of is Johnny Walker (blame the British for that one) and everyone thinks in terms ...

Susan Scrupski of ITSinsider has a post about Social media Spammers. She referred to a post of her friend Tammy Erickson http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/erickson/2008/05/the_new_challenge_for_women_in.html where she talks about The next challenge looms ahead – to reshape corporations – to make them better places for our daughters – and our sons – and ourselves. You battle-scarred veterans – women and men – who have opened the doors of opportunity, have given today’s young women the confidence that they can achieve whatever they choose. Now, let’s give us all humane workplaces that are worthy of being chosen. Now the first comment here is from Kimberly Rosenberg who openly recommends a product in the comment. In my opinion you mention a product in a comment only if the post is about products and usually asks for recommendations. In this case if the post was about which products to use for Small Business this would have made sense...

LiveContacts lets you track your friends using the GPS on their device. For the past few weeks I have been testing a service called LiveContacts from livecontacts.com. You can use Livecontacts with a compatible phone and a cell phone service from T-Mobile or AT&T in the US (where the provider does not restrict your GPS) . Sorry IPhone users your turn will come soon.   One of the first advantages of Livecontacts is that you don't have to do anything to update your position. The livecontacts software ( called localizer) you download on your phone does it automatically. Imagine you are hiking in a canyon and your family can see your position on their computer. In conferences you can spot where your buddies are and find them easily. Livecontacts will introduce some additional features to allow you to see the location on your phone which will be cool. If you are concerned with privacy you can just turn off the tracking. What I would like to see in Livecontacts: a) A c...

Just saw this tweet from @ustream on twitter that Google's Co-counder larry Page will be on Ustream. What does this mean ? Submit questions and find out for yourself . From the Ustream website : Ustream.TV proud to present a live broadcast of the New America Foundation’s interview-style discussion and Q&A session with Google Co-Founder and President Larry Page. And guess what, you can participate! During the discussion, Mr. Page will describe Google’s strategy for expanding access to the Internet and allocating spectrum more efficiently — and explain why opening the vacant TV channels for unlicensed access after next February’s DTV transition is the most important thing the FCC can do this year to promote broadband deployment and tech sector innovation. http://www.ustream.tv/blog/2008/05/15/google-co-founder-larry-page-to-be-live-on-ustreamtv

Powerful Solutions for Small Businesses - A Networking Event for Entrepreneurs With Rohit Bhargava Author " Personality Not Included "Hosted by Jonny Goldstein – Jonny’s Par-Tay Presented by Network Solutions in association with DC Media Makers Location: Busboys and Poets 2021 14th St. NW Washington DC 20009 Ph: 202-387-7638 Wednesday June 4th Speaker: Rohit Bhargava Rohit is a marketer, blogger, speaker and author of the anticipated new book, Personality Not Included -- a guide for companies on understanding and using their personality to better connect with customers in the social media era. A founding member of the pioneering 360 Digital Influence team at Ogilvy, he writes the Influential Marketing blog (now ranked among the top 50 marketing blogs in the world) and is often featured as an expert in media including The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Fast Company. His new book, published interna...

Shiv Verma is based in Virginia and is my friend for many years. In the last few months he has been telling me about the hard work that has been going into launching two websites cooljodi.com ( "Jodi" in Hindi means couple) and Simplyastro.com . He is a hardworking guy and I am sure he will succeed( nice guys always do !) Cooljodi.com will have a lot of interest in India where websites like shaadi.com are very popular. I reead the Washington post astrology section regularly so I plan to check out Simplyastro.com . As we went to lunch i thought it was great opportunity to capture Shiv's enthusiasm on camera. Here is the interview on Qik.com Shiv's pitch for simplyastro.com Astrology Services built on most complex astrological rules engine. Services also include well renowned Panel of Experts providing Personal Services. Some of the unique features include - FREE Membership to view your Horoscope, Birth Chart, Match Making, Sade Sati Predictions, Period Analysis...

I have been following the utterz of Barefoot In the Garage for many months now. I was really touched by this reply.   Tom Jordan is a writer and is very creative with his utterz. http://barefootinthegarage.blogspot.com/ . His wife Emma is recovering from cancer and I am privileged to be able to watch Tom be strong for his family and at the same time keep us entertained through his Utterz.   His other online works: The Unreal OC Guy Waving Hand Theater of Your Mind Utterz

The DC PHP Developers Group is organizing the 2008 DC PHP Conference & Expo, June 2-4, 2008. The agenda has some great topics and speakers http://www.dcphpconference.com/?q=node/87 . Another reason to go to the conference is also that my friend and local Social media nice guy Keith Casey of Whygosolo.com and Caseysoftware.com is organizing it with a great bunch of other folks. Talking about user groups here is a list of user groups I know of in the DC area. it would be great if you could comment and let me know the ones I have missed ( there must be lot of them:) ) and we can consolidate this info. This may be useful for newcomers etc.   DC metro tech user groups Northern Virginia Drupal Users: http://groups.drupal.org/northern-va-users-group Northern Virginia  Java User Group: http://novajug.org/ DC PHP Developers Group : http://www.dcphp.com/ Washington Area SGML/XML Users Group: http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug/ Maryland Cold Fusion User Group...

Lorelle Van Fossen writes an article that makes you stop and think about how you should schedule your time. Twitter can be a powerful tool but if not used in appropriate doses can give you a stomach ache :) Good article to read for everyone in the blogging world. I met Lorelle at the SOBCON08 and she spoke about how to speak to your blog audience, an awesome eye opening  session. read more | digg story

I attended the SocialDevCamp in Baltimore on Saturday 10th May. This is a “unconference” so people come to the event and then suggest sessions and then vote on them. The agenda is then made onsite and people go to the session rooms that they are interested in.The session on Semantic web was the most interesting one. It was presented by Harry Chen who I thought was a student but turns out he is Prof. Harry Chen of University of Maryland Baltimore County. I hope I get to meet Harry at other events. Video of his presentation http://www.viddler.com/explore/kyeung808/videos/9/ by Kenneth Yeung Here is his presentation: | View | Upload your own Harry Chen also recommended this video to understand Semantic web. Other links suggested by this session : http://simile.mit.edu/timeline http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/Exhibit/Examples http://swoogle.umbc.edu/ dbpedia.org http://www.mindswap.org/2003/PhotoStuff/

SocialDevCamp is a new "unconference" movement for "for Thought Leaders of the Future Social Web" which was held at the University of Baltimore 's Thumel Business Center Building on May10th 2008. I am really glad that Network Solutions joined the other great companies and individuals who sponsored SocialDevCamp. To explain my headline , while the baby boomers and Gen Xers maybe content to meet the CEO, most Millenials want to be the CEO. This also led to me remember the words of Gray Hemel '' Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who's forging a bullet with your company's name on it. You've got one option now--to shoot first. You've got to out-innovate the innovators. " quoted in the book "The Art of innovation" - Tom Kelley. This is how the atmosphere was. And judging by the number of C level cards I got , these entrepreuners are not waiting for someone to make them the CEO. As SocialDevcamp started in th...

I have been following SunDC and Wx_DC to get the weather on Twitter for the DC area. I always thought it would be nice to have weather on demand on Twitter I saw a Tweet from DrThomasHo "you can now get temperature in Fahrenheit from @ isitniceoutside by appending (f) after postal code @isitniceoutside is developed by @howicode . The advantage I see is that you can get weather on demand. How to start: a) Follow @isitniceoutside on Twitter b) @isitniceoutside will start following you back. c) To get weather send a DM example : d isitiniceoutside 20171(f) d) If you want to get the weather in Celcius then you don;t have to out the (f) at the end. So now when you want the weather use Twitter. Some of the questions I have for @howicode are : What is the source of this weather info? How often is it updated? Want to see other Bots etc who give you weather on Twitter go here : http://twitter.com/search/users?q=weather

There is a great article on Business Week on the recent funding of $100 million that Facebook  received. The funding according to Spencer. F Ante's article will be used "entirely for servers". Its interesting to see a few numbers from other major players: - Data Center Knowledge puts Facebook as having 10,000 servers (including 1,800 MySQL servers) and will buy 50k with the new funds. - Forrester Research's Gillett a leading expert on the evolution of IT infrastructure, and researches topics such as customer use and adoption of virtualization, grid computing, and utility computing estimates that Google, owner of the world's biggest Web search engine, is buying half a million servers each year. Did you know a study last year said YouTube accounted for 10% of all internet traffic . - Microsoft's ( MSFT ) annual consumption is as much as 200,000 servers. How does this compare to you or your company? have you see other figures around the internet? Woul...

In the new media its amazing to find that conferences are being organized pretty quickly. Between the time that I heard of SocialDevCamp and the date its being held there was a gap of 30 days. Dave Troy says "developers and thought leaders who are interested in imagining the future of the web, not just where it is today." Network Solutions is one of the sponsors of this event.  I am excited to be going tomorrow.  Details of the event are at http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/SocialDevCampEast   Will try to create a lot of media and have a day of knowledge and networking.

BeckyMcCray of SmallBizSurival.com released a e-book resource for Small Business Owners in Small towns. From Becky's blog : Need ideas for a small town small business? We have a new ebook for you. 20 Small Business Ideas for Small Towns is a short ebook detailing 20 different ways you can make a successful business in a small town. It also covers seven ways to generate your own ideas, so you can dream up the small biz idea that best fits you. This booklet is brought to you by Network Solutions .

I stumbled on this website that shows how to print your own business cards using your Flickr photos. I have not tired it yet. If you tey it I would love to get your feedback. please comment here. http://stuff.gazpachosoup.net/flickr-card/ Thanks, Shashi

After the techCocktail DC a few weeks ago I walked to Teasim in Dupont circle in DC to have dinner with Nahum , Jimmy Gardner. Being social people we started a conversation with a fellow guest. This is what she said about social media. She was going to a job interview in a few days and I hope she got the job.

Summize is a tool that you can use to search for any keyword mentioned on Twitter. Both for me personally and for Network Solutions I use tools like Tweetscan and Terraminds to search Twitter for any conversations that mention me or Network Solutions. I have been using Summize and really like it. here are reasons why I like Summize: a) advance search is easy. I use this query to make sure I do not miss people mistyping my name. "shashib OR shashi OR netsol OR "network solutions" OR sashib OR shasib OR networksolutions" b) Everytime there is a new "tweet" Summize updates the top of the browser to show the number of new tweets. c) Summize gives you links to conversations associated with the "tweet"

The start of SOBCON was awesome. Ruth Mary Sylte @rmsylte tweeting to me that the CTA ( Chicago "el") was the best way to reach down town. Its amazing and costs only $2. You reach town in 30 minute or less. I met Liz Strauss in Chicago for the first time on a meridian on Michigan Avenue on Friday. We had met previously in SXSW in Austin. You can't miss her - she is tall and remarkable.        Tojosan ( Todd Jordan) I was looking forward very much to meet. Despite the weather paying spoilsport he arrived at the hotel in time for us to walk around and get a meal . I really got to know him well and he is very genuine and is the kind of person who will help anyone selflessly. With Tojosan it was like we continued our online conversation offline. We walked to the Khyber Restaurant to meet some other awesome guys Dawud Miracle , Adam Kayce , Chris Garett and have some great food. Chris took a rain check as he was feeling the jet lag and...