Facebook is cracking down on free promotion | kills profile boxes
August 31, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
(img src : coastalvectors.com)
Notice the two developments on Facebook in recent past.
Some days ago Facebook killed “Become a Fan” option and forced on us the “Like” alternative.(Ref1)
Before that about a year ago we used to get updates about which friend became a fan of which site or application. This is history now.
They seriously do not want you to use their platform for free marketing. So all those popular branding and viral advertisement option are being killed. It remains to be seen how long it goes before they kill the remaining free promotion options out there.
facebook kills profile boxes
As a most recent development some more of free promotion options are being targeted. See the graphic to the right. Its a snap shot from my own profile.
Facebook is Killing profile boxes. We can no longer showcase what cause we are supporting or what books we are reading. It was kinda free promotion for good causes. But probably Mr Zuckerberg does not care if we want to save the girl child in India or I want to tell my friends what books I am reading or I have recently read.
All they need is to make the advertiser pay. The days of free promotion on social media power house -Facebook, is almost over. The Applications that used to enjoy a viral presence are dying now. Yeah if you can carve out a revenue sharing deal with Facebook then that is probably no problem, like Zynga – the makers of Farmville and MafiaWars.
Of course revenue is important but I don’t think this is a very wonderful way of making money. We have loved facebook as a sharing platform. Now they are killing that spirit. Kind of sad to see this approach.
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Chhenapoda.com : A Prequel
June 9, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Friends, Social Media
Me and some friends form my native state of Odisha recently planned to bring up a group blog to highlight Odia issues and keep the Odia (Oriya) community update with latest news that concerns us. I would take this opportunity to thank Miss Nivedita Dash (Journalist) and Mr Suraj Harichandan (Banker) to have helped me conceptualize the idea and helping me choose the domain name. A big Thank You to Mr GopiKanta Ghosh (Eminent Author) , who induced me into planning this new community blog. The initial idea was to reawaken the great souls of Orissa among each of us.
The first step was to Book a domain name. It needed a fair bit of brain storming from me and my friends of course. We needed something that could appeal to the Odia heart. It needed to be small and easy to remember as well. I was looking at something like rottentomatoes.com or tacobell.com. The final list included phatamathia (cracked vessel), khataamba (sour mangoes), sajapakhala (fresh water rice) and chhenapoda (a sweet cheese cake). May be to your pleasure or to your disappointment we finalized chhenapoda.com to be our blog domain. It won hands down as the unanimous choice and people had the following opinion about the name.
- It is a prized domain.
- It is a nostalgia associated with Odisha that is both yummy and traditional.
- If you are an Odia you cannot forget the name.
- Irrespective of Sex, Age and Region it is has an appeal hard to put down.
- It is the pride and symbol of Odias.
I will like to share with you a few funny incidents while booking this particular domain. Suraj suggested the name chennapoda.com while I was thinking it should be chenapoda.com. Both the domains were available and both the words are in popular use. In a hurry we booked chennapoda.com but as it appears the right spelling is chhenapoda as we can see on Wikipedia. Their title says Chhenna poda though. Now I am dead sure it should be chhenapoda – the right spelling of the Oriya sweet dish. So we got this domain too. Two is better than one, what say?
Image Credits - oriyafoods.blogspot.com
On the Wikipedia entry I came across an interesting fact. It seems there had been a big fight over ownership of the Rasogolla brand as a state’s intellectual property. I mean the Rasogolla as a brand entity not the recipe. Odisha lost to West Bengal on that front but they are adamant not to lose this trade name to another entity. But it’s sad that the State Dairy Corporation (OMFED) that is leading the fight is not very sincere about it. I mean if you are aiming at getting the ‘Chhena Poda’ trade name all to yourself then you better get the related domain names as well. Don’t tell me you are a bunch of old fools who are diabetics and can’t even enjoy the delicious sweet, forget fighting for it. IT literacy in the state capital is pretty good but the top officials are expired products and should be done away with. Let the Youth lead for a change or at least consider the youth opinion.
There might be a time when the state diary corporation might come running after my neck for the domain or something. I am going to be well prepared.
I hereby request all Odias and patrons to help us by contributing to the group blog. More information on it to follow…stay tuned.
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Ultra Blue (al-emarati) : The sick racist blogger who got no balls and needs a life
May 25, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
One of my journalist friends alerted me to a news piece on Mail today. I was horrified with the views of this fanatic who posts with the avatar of “ultrablue”. I mean who would not be …see his thoughts about other races.
Here is a link to the sick post. You better not read it. It might cause your blood to boil and you may feel like feeding that idiot author to African Driver Ants.
The author spews venom about Indians who died in the recent flight disaster that claimed 158 lives at Mangalore Airport in Karnataka. While the world is mourning the deceased and consoling the families of the bereaved this creature has this opinion about the incident.
I not care if the victims “rest in peace” but it seems to me that they are, rather, resting in pieces!
This plane, carrying Indians who live and work here, means that 160 Indians that clog up the roads, cause accidents, fail code inspections at Indian restaurants, speak like this guy, and are a general drag on the security of the UAE, won’t be coming back. That is a very GOOD thing!
I can only pray that this happens every week!
al-emarati posted this pic - its people mourning the crash and he brings in Hindu gods and Indian food into this...what a bastard.
Next he follows it up with more crap about Indian names and Indian food.
Mr UltraBlue.. feels 50% or more of the Emirates population is Indian. Which is not true. But since when the idiots of Dubai were intelligent? If they were why would the need of foreign workers ever arise? All they can do is sleep around with a multitude of whores and maintain a family big enough to make up a 100 camel caravan.
Yeah we may be cheap workforce but your country needs us to stay up on those drying oil wells. I am glad that at least the government agrees Indians are the best people to work with. But at the same time it makes us sad that some dung brains like UltraBlue have such opinion of Indian race. That shows the level of education and upbringing you got.
On top of it he blogs anonymously and could not face more than 5 comments on his blog. The fart face needs to get some balls and face the public like a man.
UPDATE : The site in question has now been flushed down the toilet. Thanks to the active blogging community and the support shown by Understanding Indians and Emaratis. You all have played your part and I say you Rock.
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this is without doubt the sexiest video ever! :P Facebook Spam Virus
May 15, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
Hey guys… Saturday is about to end and I am on Facebook. Lol the right time to be on FB you would agree with me.
Now the funny thing happened….. one of my friends shared some thing like this on my wall. I deleted it ofcourse and sent a message to the guy. But as I look at my updates my updates I see a lot of people being infected.
I recognized it because this has happened to one of my friends before. I ask you to remove the updates and remove the user (if not your regular contact) because I suspect they infect you when you click the link. You got to remove the updates because anyone who visits your wall might click the link as well. Again.. I am trusting FBs technology that the infection does not spread just by visiting the infected profile.
It is just a shared video.It somehow infects your PC or hacks into your account.Iam not sure which one is the case…in either case it would probably post this vid on friend’s wall.
Ok thats fine but how the hell do I get rid of this?
O yeah.. I have the solution now. Go to your facebook setting->application settings find this app named Winamp and remove it. Change you password as an additional precaution.Then make sure you remove all those posts form your wall and friends walls too.
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Think Twice before you allow that Facebook App
May 13, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
Dear Readers,
This post is for all Facebookers who are concerned about their social security and privacy on world’s most popular Social Network. We know Facebook is not very interested in safeguarding our privacy. You might like my last post about Facebook Privacy fiasco to see the dangers facing you on FB. Some of my friends on Facebook are so concerned that they are planning to leave Facebook for ever. So I planned a series of posts to help my friends and YOU to use facebook safely. This is the first in the series.
Think twice before you allow that stupid facebook app.
Some of us just use facebook for the apps or so it seems. You open their public profiles and see automatic updates from a host of crappy apps. I hate such kind of users. They don’t do much on Facebook so they allow all kind of apps to access information. But they don’t realize that the apps are pulling information about their friends as well. If you are not concerned about yourself ..at least take a moment to think about your friends.
I logged on to facebook today and there were some updates. One of them was this.
Freinds Exposed App - Sick thing
Now see what questions is it discussing? Definitely personal right? This person who choose to use the app is a close friend so I have no issues with it. But imagine I do the same and it pulls up this kind of crap with my clients or relatives. You do not know whom it is targeting..because you authorized it to access friend’s information. When? yeah you might ask that… Note that link at the end of the update…see what they said…its a link bait…they induce you to click the link..then some thing like this comes up.
- Think twice before you allow that damn app next time
If I want to use this app ( I would actually never do it) its fine but I have no right exposing my friends to such kinda stuff. God knows what they are doing with the information they pull out from our profiles. Given that they are discussing things like Virgin – hot- hooking up they could be well be one of those sick companies selling viagra or dating service sites. Or they could simply sell out your information to those who do it.
My request to you all is
to take a moment and think twice before you allow any app.
Do not expose your friends privacy.
Stay away form those people who are on facebook just for those apps and games.
Take a moment to set you privacy settings.
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Does Adultery cause Earth quakes? BoobQuake2010
April 28, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media, Society and Nature
One of my friends just shared a hot trend on social media – BoobQuakes. Incidentally it steams form the Iranian cleric’s remarks about adultery influencing earth’s seismic activity. (More on Yahoo)
Quoting form Yahoo –
“Many women who do not dress modestly… lead young men astray, corrupting their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted last week as saying by Iranian media.
So Mr Sedighi who probably has done some deep research into seismic-sex is of opinion that jerks in society who cheat on their partners are responsible for the jerks on earth’s crust, that we call earthquakes.
One brave female blogger defied the preaching and called for a public bashing of this idea. This has eventually snowballed into BoobQuakes. There have been two BoobQuake rallies to prove Mr Sedighi wrong. Believe it or not after the Boobquakes hit the streets a 6.5 Richter scale earthquake hit Taiwan. Do you see any logic behind Taiwan people being punished for the immodesty of European and West Asian Chics?
Well here is the world seismic activity map(courtesy – http://www.iris.edu/seismon/). Most of the harsh quakes seem to be happening in the island and coastal regions. Do the sharks and octopuses have anything to contribute to our equation of illegal sex and earthquakes? May be it is the shrimps who live in the coastal waters. You might also notice that the deserted places are void of earth quakes too. No earthquakes seem to hit Tundra or Siberia or Ice Caps. So it has something to do with sexual activity.
Again what about the European countries where sex trade is permitted? They do not get as many Quakes as Indonesia does – the world’s largest Muslim population area.
Here is my final report on this issue.
Don’t waste your time relating Adultery to Earthquakes. If women could cause natural disasters by flaunting cleavage then men are doomed, but so are women.
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Using Google Buzz | Features Explained
February 11, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
Hey Friends,
You would have noticed the new feature on your Gmail page. Yeah the Buzz. Mostly when if you are signing in for the first time after buzz was rolled out then you would see a welcome screen prompting you to activate and use Buzz.
Now that you are there you might ask what exactly is this Buzz about. Wasn’t Wave enough? Well wave was a whole new world where you could share and work in a collaborative environment. You could share and work on documents, applications updates and much more. This one is a simpler thing much like our Twitter and Facebook status updates.
Buzzing on your Gmail
You have followers and you can follow people like you do in Twitter. To find more people to follow you may use the follow more people option. Feel free to use the search profiles option to find people or use the contacts options to follow people who are already in your Gmail contacts. Very simple and lightning fast.
find and connect to more people
Once you have followed some people you can see the updates like the following. It is in a similar fashion as we see in Facebook. Checkout the red box for some really kool options. Comment and like as we normally have on Facebook. Google tops it up with their email this feature. Plus you may chat with the original poster right from the update regarding the update. Nice eh?
Interacting with the updates
Now notice the green box. These are cascaded updated from the same person. To see more of what a person has been doing lately click the cascaded area. E.g doing clicking the same area on my updates will give you an expanded update list exclusively by me.
Expanding collapsed Buzzes
I will put in some more stuff once I fill myself up (lunch time). Damn those cooks in downstairs restaurants. The smell is invading our workplace and aggravating our hunger.
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Checkout My Room on YooWalk
January 25, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Reviews, Social Media
Hey Guys. I just found an amazing place to kill time on web. If you thought Facebook was the ultimate time killer social platform then here is something you must check out. I recommend yoowalk.com for the ultimate social networking freaks.
For some time I have been looking for a change from Facebook. This one comes as a fresh new idea for internet marketing as well as social networking. Yeah I know you are asking me how it is better than Facebook. For all those who have a Facebook page compare yours with my yoowalk room. See below. (if you can’t see the flash loading then click here to see my room)
Walk around. Yeah I mean it. Just walk around.
If you want you can take a nap on my sofa.
Use the speaker to listen to my songs. There are two at the moment. (might take some time to load)
My fishes are really cute. All you non non-vegetarians don’t even think about it.
The bath tub is for babies. No messing in there.
Need I say that if you are there you must add me as your friend?
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Bhoot chad gaya re Music Video| Rakhi Sawant | Controversy
January 21, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
Now this is about the fiasco about the latest Rakhi Sawant album. For those who don’t already know India’s no.1 (who decides these titles – not me) item girl just launched a new album with Canadian hip hop artist IshQ Bector. So what’s the big deal?
Actually I like the marketing strategy that these people follow. This is a very interesting and low budget promotion trick that almost always delivers. All you need to do is to create a controversy. If you are even a little known celebrity the media will catapult you into limelight. TV channels will repeat your controversial music video N number (where N tends to infinity). So the normal viewer and reader will be so bugged that he will finally get the music video to see what the hell is this all about.
I did the same. Now don’t give me that look. Blame the media. Watch the video here.
Now this could be a repeat compilation of the promo video. What ever it is it tastes yuck. Rakhi is such a gross Hip Hop performer. Good try nevertheless. But she needs to try harder.
I feel the sensor board did the right thing to hold it but they gave the wrong reasons. They should have instead censored the song for being crapy. Rakhi now has a very valid reason for suing the board for holding the song just because it uses the word “kaminey”. They did allow the super hit movie “Kaminey”.
Here are some more music videos in this series – Jhagde ( Rakhi Sawant and Ishq bector)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjuzXW91KkE
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Facebooks Retweet Equivalent | How to Use Facebook Via
January 16, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
We are all familiar with twitter’s RT (retweet) features. Now Facebook has started a similar feature on the lines of Retweet. This is a short post on how this feature works and the advantages it will bring to Facebookers.
Retweet feature that first started on twitter as a practice of preceding any post that you want to re-post to your followers with a RT and @originalusername. Now we have dedicated retweet buttons as it became massively popular. @mentions on Facebook also caught up soon. Now its time for RTs. The main idea behind RTs on twitter of Via on Facebook it so credit the original poster for his contributions. Lets see how they work.
This feature is now available to the public and only works on links for the time being. That is you cannot “via” your friends status updates or shared videos. All You need to do is use the good old share option on a link posted by your friend. Then notice the change marked red.
You can choose to remove the via feature if you like to. (note the remove link) I would strongly suggest you keep it. This would let people know who the original poster is and you won’t be involved with the nasty incidents that follow when you share something that does not match everyone’s taste.
On twitter we have some thing like this.
Enjoy the new feature. I hope this is implemented on status updates as well.
