Content Aggregation = increasing spam

This morning I was trying to look for a piece of news and I did what most of us would have done.. "googled" for it...

And google did what it does the best.. got me all the links for the sites with that piece of news.. I checked the first link.. read the first article.. then clicked on the second on in the google list.. hoping to get some more information or a different point of view or someone else reporting about it, and guess what, it was the same news article from the first site which was captured and displayed by the second site in the list..

Alright no issues... lets try the next one..

Oh this is nice.. this one is different.. i read that one.. but i wanted to read more..
so tried some more links..

but sadly even after checking upto 5th page.. all i could find was the same two articles.. repeatedly appearing with different fonts or backgrounds on different sites.. which of course had "Aggregated" the content from the source site..

Such a wonderful use of technology..

I agree that its a great concept to get all your favorite content from different locations to one place.. but like every good thing.. this one is starting to get misused..

There are a lot of sites these days who are just replicating information from other sites.. without posting anything original.. and its actually gets annoying if you are looking for some information and keep bumping into same stuff again and again..

And i guess we cant really do anything about this except for just ignoring these sites (that is if you have already looked around a bit and know which ones are just replicating), which anyway keep growing..

I wish there was a way the search engines could identify which site is the actual source and which ones are just aggregating.. and put the page ranks accordingly..

any thoughts about it.. ??

Docstoc Badges

Check out the cool docstoc profile badge on the right panel..

Although officially docstoc.com doesn't provide it yet, but its very easy to get one made if you want it for your blog or site.. here are the steps..

1. Register on docstoc.com. (click here)

2. Save this badge on to your computer.


3. Upload this image to your blog and get the image url.

4. Copy this code
<a href="http://docstoc.com/profile/[username]" style="border: 0px none;"><img src="[your image url]"></a>

5. Replace [username] with your user name on docstoc and [your image url] with the url of the image you uploaded.

6. paste this code to your blog.. :)

cool...

I will upload more badge design later.. keep watching this space for more..

Happy Diwali

Here's wishing everyone a very Happy and Prosperous Diwali. May this festival of lights bring enormous happiness and peace to our lives.

Have a BLAST ... :)

Ideas for Web 2.0 in India

I have been an avid netizen for a long long time and have seen emerging trends on the internet. These days Web2.0 seems to be the buzz word. There are hundreds of new websites coming up every other day claiming to be a web 2.0 site. Now the term itself is a topic of discussion and i have seen lots articles and posts debating on what it actually means, what can be considered as web 2.0 and if its really something different or just a hype.Whatever it is.. its in your face right now.. vibrant colors, dynamic user generated content, glassy look and feel, social networking features, mash-ups etc. etc. and it looks like it not going to end anytime soon. Now this observation stands true for most sites originating and targeting US and other western countries. but whats the scene in India? One can actually count the sites which would qualify for the title.

I tried to analyze the reasons for this difference and the answers were pretty straight. Such sites thrive mainly on the user generated content and tend to provide features which a common man can use while collaborating with other online users. Although India has most rapidly growing internet users but still the utility for the internet is still limited to send mails and chat. Some urban users also use it to book tickets or use internet banking at the most. And the most widely used site by Indians is Google, which developers like me dwell on.

Basically, if you think about Web 2.0 ideas that can click in Indian market, you would have a very few options like social networking, video sharing, music sharing etc. Most of these are already captured by international sites like orkut , youtube etc. Despite these, we have some local players trying to make a hold on the same ideas bigadda.com and ishare.com by rediff are a good example for such attempts. These sites are almost the clones of the originals with a little desi touch and a few extra features. Lets see if they make an impact, desimartini.com which was launched a few months back is still sitting dormant.

Now coming back to the point, is there anything else which can sell in Indian internet market ? Especially something which can be called web 2.0 ?

Rich Dad Poor Dad - does it really help?

What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
Did you read this book?

To some its the best thing happened to poor or financially weak. To a few others like john this is a waste, highly unrecommended to those who wish to make some money and lead a good life.

If you read the book, you get highly motivated and it feels as if this guy is a genius. But think again, after reading it.. you are left with a lot of unanswered questions inside. Its like, okay.. i have to build my assets and reduce the liabilities to have a stable cash flow.. but how do i do that? whats the best way to build assets ? or should i quit chasing high paying jobs and start something on my own? The book says investing is one good example to build assets, but thats not always feasible. It also says having your own company can reduce the taxes, but its not advisable unless you have a strong backup. In short, we are made to believe that there is a simple way to get rich, but the way is not defined... and the author plays with this thought throughout the book. You are given assurances that getting rich is a cake walk but it doesn't tell you anything in specific which you can act on to achieve it.

I agree with john in some of his arguments, but then Robert Kiyosaki's basic cash flow logic is absolutely correct. He might have built up the plot on a fictitious character (Rich Dad) and might have used all fake stories to support his logic, but the gist of it stands out true.

I have been reading about this book and several other ones in the same series to get a further insight about this whole idea of financial literacy and developing some assets. Robert Kiyosaki is promoting investing as the best option but somehow I'm not totally convinced with the idea.. starting my own corporate house sounds like much more fun to me.. I may be wrong but I would like to explore it further. Do you have any suggestions on the idea of building assets, especially with India in the backdrop..

i like docstoc

Have you heard about the new document sharing portal docstoc.com ? Its really good. As the name suggests its an online document repository with millions of professional documents submitted by the users of the site. You can look for any kind document here, legal documents, application forms, presentation templates, sample reports, case studies, user manuals, guides absolutely anything at all. The best part is, if you don't find the doc you were looking for.. just place a request, as soon as someone uploads a document matching your request criteria, you will be notified in an email.

If you are a student and you want to share all the notes and research papers you have complied, with your friends, this is the place you can do it .. all hassle free. The advantage here is that you can actually preview the whole document before actually downloading it, thanks to this new flash paper innovation.

It looks like a good place to hang around for a while and check out documents.. ( i look out for movie scripts.. being a movie buff and fiction e-books..). Try it out..