Recently, I got an opportunity to speak at an event organized by Computer Society of India, Delhi Chapter.  The theme of the event was "Software 2.0" and I made a small presentation on "Software 2.0 – Transformation of Software Services". The purpose was to highlight how software services industry would change with the advent of Web 2.0, i.e. Internet as an application development and delivery platform.

Here are the slides

It is also available on SlideShare at:
http://www.slideshare.net/indusnet/software-20-transformation-of-software-services

I had precisely three envelope entrepreneurial ambitions! I call them envelope as each of them encompass several small ambitious projects. All three are aimed to change the world in my small way and make it a better place:

1. To build a successful Internet technology company which can enable millions of businesses
2. To bring mass scale change in education system in terms of quality, content, reach and cost
3. To become an investor with a difference!

To make sure that my journey at least start off to fulfill all the three ambitions, I (along with my partner Pallav) started up a technology specific angel fund and incubation center called Seeders. This is our attempt to bring finances, infrastructure, resources, connections and mentoring (technical + business) to the aspiring and daring ones.

For the more curious ones -

We will be investing in technology companies which uses Internet as a strategic enabler. These can be software product companies, SaaS projects as well as niche knowledge services. Any wild idea that makes business sense is also welcome! And yes, the venture must be based out of Kolkata or must be willing to shift its base to Kolkata (at least for incubation phase).

More on this project will be soon posted on http://www.seeders.in

So keep tuned in.

Friends,

I will be speaking @ Internet World in the Web2.0 theatre on 28th April 2009 from 16:40 hrs on "Three Dimensions of Internet Strategy"

The talk will revolve around an approach that let businesses put together a comprehensive Internet strategy order to optimize their revenues and profitability by connecting – communicating and collaborating more effectively with the stake holders of the business.

The slideshow is attached

So, do drop in. 

Regards

Abhishek

P.S.: Internet World will take place @ Earls Court in London between 28th-30th April 2009

I recently shared few ideas with fellow IT companies about braving the downturn in a NASSCOM event.

The takeaway from the presentation was -
Stick to fundamentals. Business is simple. If we complicate it for the sake of some buzzwords, we will see more such tough days!

Here is the presentation for you:

Earlier in the day, our Industry stalwart, Mr. B. Hari did a small workshop on Wealth Dynamics (the Roger Hamilton one) and how entrepreneurs / executives should adopt the path of least resistance to succeed.

A great day out!

P.S. A few days back, I shared some random recession strategies. You might like to check them out as well.

P.P.S. Thank you Nasscom, for such a wonderful event.

Over years, we have been subject to several frauds.

It can be a political fraud when someone do horse-trading of members of legislative assembly / parliament to reach the coveted majority mark in the parliament. Or cast their influence to get a contract awarded to his favorite business house.

Then we have been subjected to corporate fraud where Harshad Mehta brings down the market single-handed or highly recognized corporate teams bring down companies like Lehman Brothers, Enron, Worldcom and most recently Satyam.

So what's next?
I can see a high probability of a social media fraud!

This is very much probable due to the volume of social content that is being created and the level at which private data is getting exposed to the public (or is at risk of getting exposed). There are so many companies launching sites which collect and process personal and business information as Web2.0 web services or SaaS systems. Many of them claim to have solid privacy policies and data protection measures. However, I seriously doubt the claims of most websites and waiting for someone to come up and disclose that they have been funding their operations by misusing the copyrights or selling private information in sizable chunks to third parties.

I was just wondering at its probability and the consequences. Any ideas?

There are so many people working to get a new technology out to masses – a new invention to make things better. However, in my experience I firmly believe that:

Technology is as good as its implementation.

Many a time, little imagination is put into implementation of the technology which is existing. If the existing technology is properly explored, understood and implemented in creative and innovative ways, I think it will do a lot of good to the mankind than decades of new inventions. For billions, the usage is falling behind the rate of discovery.

Let us implement the available tools and technologies properly, because poor implementation will not make any difference to the mankind and the guy next door (for the sake of simplicity).

Thoughts are welcome…

I was checking template trends on Google Trends and my intuition was positively reinforced. Joomla templates have officially overtaken traditional web template in search volume. The graph below is self explanatory.

(click above to see live results)

It is interesting to note that Joomla templates have gained a lot of popularity in eastern European countries compared to the south Asian countries. In Northern America a very interesting trend has been spotted. Regions like Nevada, Alabama and Nebraska are virtually untouched by the Joomla revolution!

I cannot help without this shameless plug

TemplateKingdom.com, our template website, provides high quality joomla templates. In fact you can see those templates LIVE in action before making a purchase. My team can also put together custom joomla template design and integration for you! So get in touch with our guys at http://www.hire-a-designer.com/

A very interesting visualization of Facebook traffic.

Is this the future of web stats? And it can be interesting if the same video is shot over time-line with specific location kept constant. And yes, a facility to fast forward and slow motion won't hurt. It will really help us understand how the traffic patterns have changed over time.

Hello Friends,

Here are some street smart strategies to survive the recession:

1) Invest in marketing. Your competitors are not doing so to save money. You shall go ahead and make the kill to get maximum leads and exposure. As we know offense is the best defense. So it is best to attack recession with your full might and try to go all out to grab the business that might be available to you. It will help you increase your market share in a shrinking market.

2) Identify deadwood inside your organization. They sneak in when you are at a high and do not care about few 'under-performers'. However, it is easy to identify them when the going gets difficult, because they are unable to earn back their own cost to the company. Put together a system to calculate cost and revenue from each and every individual in the company.  It is difficult to do, but this is the only way you know if you have the right team or not. If a guy is not earning for you, he must be told so, given a warning and an opportunity to improve quickly. If he does not, you shall let him go.

3) Start a new business line which creates more value in the current market dynamics. It is best if your new service has the same target audience as your existing business. It will just make life simpler. To get you more bandwidth, consider closing a business, which does not excite you or seems to have a bleak future. Recession is the best time to do such transitions.

4) Partner with your clients. Deliver real results with real benefits. Calculate the benefit you have given to the client and see how you can maximize it. If your services and/or products are not delivering the value that a client expects, you need to do a serious re-think on your business model. Recession is a result of blind-mad-rush where companies forgot the basics of business and got swayed away in the glamorous world of equity, valuation, expansion, etc.

5) Sort out the internal processes and do some house-keeping. This is the only time when you are a little bit free and you can actually take care of your home in a proper way. Processes, policies, products, offerings can be reviewed, polished and realigned to take advantage of the next boom.

Feel free to add your points -

Update:
Recently my friend Arun has put together his set of tips! So why not grab them as well
http://www.arunagrawal.com/2009/02/20/recession-busting-strategies/

Hello Friends,

I have recently given an interview to Viraj Sawant of new-web-business.com on my views as "Blogging as a career". I found the interview interesting and have expressed my opinions strongly. Feel free to have a look:

http://www.new-web-business.com/internet-entrepreneur-in-india-abhishek-rungta-interview/

Friends,

I have recently written an article for SME WORLD (November 2008 – January 2009) issue of Financial Express. It should be a good read for any small business if they want to put together an Internet strategy for their business.

Internet Strategy for Small Business

Internet is making the world flatter and giving small businesses a level playing field to compete with the big players. Many businesses have changed the rules of the game by using Internet to their advantage.

Do you have a compelling Internet strategy? In simpler words, do you have a clear plan, on how you will use Internet as an enabler to create an edge for your business? If not, put one together now.

Demystifying Internet Strategy?

Every successful business needs a strategy, i.e. meticulous planning and a long term vision across all functional practices like human resource, sales, marketing, supply-chain management, etc.

Internet is a media, a platform and a network. Therefore, it is not a business function. But, it cuts across all business functions and has a profound impact on the way we do things. It has changed the way we do business.

Therefore, it is important to plan to usage of Internet across different business functions in a way that it can make the business more competitive by optimizing it’s top-line and bottom-line growth.

Every organization is unique. The way their business works is different. And therefore, their Internet strategy is bound to be different. However, a generalist approach for small business highlights three core strategic dimensions –

• Acquisition of new business
• Developing a strong online business network
• Improving efficiency in communication, and collaboration

Acquire new business

Internet is a mass media with millions of attentive people logged in. They are trying to solve a problem. And if you can solve that problem, you have a hot business lead!

Do not ignore the fact that this prospect is looking for what you offer. Therefore this is a potential pull-sale prospect. It is more valuable than hundreds of cold calls and thousands of mailers that you might invest in, expecting a single digit conversion rate.

This opportunity has its own challenges:-

• What is your prospect searching for?
• How will your prospect find you?
• What offer should you make?
• How will you convince him?
• Why will he trust you?

The entire cycle is comprised of a) Getting targeted visitors to your website, b) Convert those visitors into clients and c) Analyze results and make changes in your online customer acquisition process! (Note: A targeted visitor is one, who is looking for a product /service you offer.)

You can get the targeted visitor by using techniques like SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) backed by high quality content on your website.

SEO is a technique used to rank a website high on search engines on specific keywords. SEM is all about buying clicks on popular search engines. Both techniques have their pros and cons. The selection entirely depends upon the business need and the overall Internet strategy of the company.

Once you have the visitor on your website, you can further test various offers, content snippets and design elements by techniques known as A/B split testing and Multivariate testing to see which combination works best!

This is just the beginning. Some of the many things that you must consider:-

• Which keyword shall I target?
• Is it worth paying $1 per click when I am selling something worth $25 only?
• How to handle a visitor who is not interested in my product today, but might need it tomorrow?

The list can go on and on. As you can see, it is a fairly technical process; it needs expert guidance, external consultancy and implementation help.

Make new connections

Business networking is a marketing method by which business opportunities are created through networks of like-minded business people. People like to work with people within their comfort zone. So before you can talk business, you need to create a trusted relationship.

A good network is like a catalyst, which can multiply the speed of your growth. If you know the right person at the right time for the right job, you will race ahead in the competition.

When this networking is done online, it can connect you with people all over the world in a very efficient way.  You can efficiently create private and open networks where you can share opinions, ideas, problems, information, knowledge and most importantly business references! There are several online business networking websites like LinkedIn, Ecademy and Ryze.

It is important that you approach the network in the right spirit, present yourself nicely, increase your connections, work on win-win partnerships, and adhere by the pay-it-forward principle of networking.

I highly recommend that you try to strengthen your network with face-to-face meetings with as many people as possible.

Some questions that you need to answer to do this bit effectively:

• What is your elevator pitch?
• What are your goals of networking? What are you trying to achieve? Most people who are actively networking invest a lot of time, without a clear view of the desired outcome.
• What kind of people you want to connect with? Why will they like to connect with you? What is your win-win proposal for different categories of connections that you will make?
• How can you proactively help? What knowledge can you share? Which are your areas of expertise? Do the areas of expertise help you create influencers in the marketplace?

You need to do the groundwork to get the best results. So do not underestimate this part. You may need someone to help you with this.

Streamline communication and collaboration

In an increasingly dynamic business environment, proper communication and collaboration system is the key to success. Internet is a software platform that enables such system to be deployed across the organization cutting across various roles, designations and departments.

Businesses do not operate within their closed shell anymore. They have major impact from its environment consisting of employees, clients, suppliers, etc.

You need to react to changes as they happen every moment across the organizational eco-system. Therefore, the data required is real time – i.e. updated every moment.

You need to have an intranet (internal collaboration portal) or extranet (external facing collaboration portal) to keep up with the pace.

Think of some of the advantages it can bring to your business:-

• Employees can share ideas, notes and project details.
• Efficient communication with all your employees and clients.
• New employees applying online on your website to reduce time and cost in processing the job applications.
• Real time order status and inventory flow can be seen by respective customers and internal stakeholders.
• Clients have access to their ledgers in real time.
• Clients can communicate with their sales managers, place new orders and file complains / queries instantly.
• Suppliers can see tenders online and submit their quotes. The built in rule engine help you select the winning bid.
• Documents can flow within departments with remarks added on within seconds at relative ease.

Such empowerment will increase the level of productivity and satisfaction at all levels. Innovative ideas will result in paradigm shift in the way a particular work is done.

Some examples:-

• E-statements by bank save money, postage and trees.
• You can buy and reserve your air ticket / railway ticket online without standing in the queue.
• Major corporations need you to apply for a job online. Even, Barack Obama, President (elect) of the USA is recruiting his team online!
• Large corporations like BPCL have online system to receive and resolve complains from consumers.
• Online shopping is becoming the order of the day.

The way Internet can be used to increase efficiency is only restricted by your imagination.

It is a good idea to hire a consultant who can think aloud with you to find out ways, in which your business can become more productive, more efficient and stay ahead in the fiercely competitive world.

Conclusion

There is no silver bullet of Internet strategy. However, the following tips will help you define your Internet strategy and put the same into execution.

• You need to put together your organizational goals. Break them down into functional goals and map them with the three dimensions of Internet strategy.
• Rationalize and prioritize various elements of your strategy. Everything may not be feasible or even rational to execute. The cost / return analysis should be done.
• Once you have created the right mix, define your approach for every element in detail. It is a low-effort high-impact world of Internet. If success gets magnified, then so are the mistakes!
• Execute the strategy in a time bound manner. Everything changes fast and if you are caught on the slow trail, you might be doing something which does not hold value anymore.
• There is no absolute truth. Make sure that you have a mechanism for measuring the results.

How Indus Net Technologies can help?

Indus Net Technologies has been rated as #1 IT SME in India – 2008 by Dun & Bradstreet.

We help enterprises all over the world through consulting and implementation of their online strategies. We bring together 11 years of experience and implementation expertise to ensure success in your online initiatives through out its lifecycle.

Our core teams provide creative services, web application development and Internet marketing (SEO, SEM & conversion optimization) solutions. They are guided and supported by our consulting initiative.

You can be in touch with us at abhi@indusnet.co.in

I thought only Microsoft messes up their products / releases.

I could not understand, why will Google release such a major product i.e. a browser to compete against Microsoft and the Firefox without support for their own toolbar. Also, after five days of usage, I find Google Chrome still lacking in many areas:

• Browser plug-ins won't work!
• Text editor of my blogging software does not load (Must have some problem with Java Script)
• I am missing the option where Firefox posts the POST-DATA when something goes wrong, so that you do not have to fill up the form from scratch.

So, I have again started using Fire Fox after the initial Google Chrome mania. Yes, I will still continue to use Chrome to see how it develops.

Will keep you all posted.

I was reading about Google Chrome.

> Some blog says that it has snapped up 2.8% market share in 24 hours. Amazing. Isn't it?
> Some feels they have dumped and back-stabbed their partner, Mozilla / Firefox

So I decided to try it out. My observations (based on two days of usage) have been:

> Quick to download and install
> Faster than IE (for sure) and seems to be faster than Firefox
> Wide, open interface gives a feel of "freedom" and gives more space to see the website
> Interesting pop-up blocker. It minimizes the pop-up!
> Incognito window – for those who want to surf without leaving a trace
> A quick homepage with most visited websites listed to improve productivity
> Address bar doubles up as search box of Google.

So far it looks fantastic.

Few things I did not like (mainly interface and usability):

> Favorite button is not very intuitive
> Settings icon is definitely not a decent visual metaphor!
> It has a minimalist design. So some less-used features has not been accommodated.

However, one question is disturbing me – What is Google trying to achieve?

Is it "organizing the information of the world" or "becoming the central processing unit of the world" with a thin client (the chrome browser) and the client to access the web based operating system to access this massive central processing unit powered by clustered Linux servers!

Their attempt to monopolize is very evident. And with monopolization comes manipulation. So keep your eyes open.

Are anti-trust activist taking note of it?

Today I came across an online tool called Quillpad.

This online software let you type in most Indian regional languages (including Hindi, of course). The quality of application and usability has blown me away! I think such applications will make vernacular content a reality on Internet.

This is how they describe their service:

Quillpad is a free online Hindi typing tool. Now it is very easy to type in Hindi. For example, type 'aap kaise hain' in the text field below. Quillpad will convert it directly into Devanagari script. If you write a word like 'vishesh', first sh should become 'श' and the second sh should become 'ष'. Quillpad will intelligently do that for you. No need to use shift keys or to memorize any key mappings. So 'राष्ट्रपति' can be written by typing 'rashtrapati' or 'raashtrapathi'. Quillpad can also predict if multiple words are possible for your input. You can click on the word to select from those options. In addition Quillpad allows you to type English words freely in between Hindi words. It intelligently transliterates them into Hindi.
(taken from their website)

It took me a minute (yes – just one minute) to get used to this tool and I was off to a flying start. In minutes, I managed to write this line in Hindi, which is near perfect.

मैने आज क्विलपॅड मे हिन्दी में टाइप किया. यह बहुत ही आसान है. इस तरह की आसान टाइपिंग सुविधा होने से कई लोग कंप्यूटर्स पे हिन्दी का उपयोग कर पाएँगे. क्विलपॅड के डेवेलपर्स तो मेरीशुभकामनाएँ.

I highly recommend this wonderful software.
Go use it and start typing in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati or Tamil. Feel free to post your experience with this software.

I have finally started using Twitter.

My twitter page is http://www.twitter.com/abhishekrungta

To be honest, I do not think Twitter is a great thing. Micro blogging does not catches my fancy, since it does not help me to add any value to myself or anyone else. It is the last thing that could have happened to me after the distractions from phone calls, emails and blogging.

But then why did I joined? Good question!

Millions of people may not be wrong. So, I joined in to validate my assumption. I do not want to get left behind if Twitter turns out to be something a world-changing application. Again, I wanted to have a first hand experience before confirming my theory about micro-blogging.

So I thought – Lets give it a try and see what people love about it.
Keep following me on Twitter!

Regards
Abhishek

There is a mad rush towards online social networking space. Every second person wants to get on the bandwagon with his own social networking website with a silly-sounding name. In my opinion, most of these sites are just a fad and are not built on strong fundamentals in terms of a) revenue sources and b) the problem they solve.

What is online networking, btw?

The purpose of a social networking website is to help you keep in touch with your existing contacts and to generate more contacts! In case of social networking, the contacts are friends or prospective friends, whereas In case of business networking, the contacts are business associates or prospective business associates.

Now, answer this question – How much time and money are you willing you spend to keep in touch with your: a) friends and b) business associates. It is important to know this fact. Online market may be different, but it is closely related to offline consumer behaviour. Online business model can help in extending the product composition with new innovation and format of delivery. It is important to know if people are willing to pay for a given convinience. And if they are not willing to pay for the convinience, what alternate source of revenue do we have?

So how do you keep in touch with your friends?

In real life, you spend nothing to keep in touch with your friends. You call them up when you want to hang out with them, you give them a shout on their mobile phones or drop in to kill some time! If you are tech-savvy and love to announce a great news, you send them emails. Why will you like to send a scrap to someone (when you can simply send a short email or catch up on various instant messengers)? And why will you like to create such huge volume of personal content and share with millions of people on the Internet who are not even known to me.

Though you may have build friendship /relationship on social networking websites, they are generally not for long. And the long ones actually use the social networking as only the contact point and then evolves and flourishes offline.

What about business associates?

However, business networking sites will keep evolving, since it adds value to businesses. It help people refer / recommend a vendor or buyer to other people in a networked environment as a recommendation network. It has been very successful, when it comes to executive search and generating new business.

Again, the formal nature of relationship and privicy factor makes business networking websites a great place to get connected and exchange notes.

So, the conclusion is:

So, as on today, given the trend, I can say that social networking is a fad, which is getting saturated and is not supported by a proper revenue model. Online advertising cannot be considered a decent revenue model for a site where people come to kill time! However business networking is here to stay. Corporate intranets having social communities may stay. 

I have already written the orbituary of Facebook, My Space, Bebo and social networking platforms. These are evolving as a fad and will vapourize in the same way in years to come. I wish these trillion dollar valuations to be true, but my mind says otherwise. And I am not the only person saying this. Steve Rubel of Micro Persuation feels the same way to a great extent (may be for different reasons).

What do you think? 

Just a random thought:

Programmers are supposed to use their programming skills to automate business process for their clients. Therefore, a good programmer should be one, who takes an initiative of automating his own work and never repeats the line of code he has written once Charity begins at home!

Unfortunately I have hardly seen many such souls.

What do you think?

Yahoo announced that they are opening up their search results for third party data integration. This will allow third party to contribute to Yahoo search experience and make it more useful for their users. It will be interesting to see how other webmasters use this open search platform to gain popularity by sharing data with Yahoo, while still retaining their competitive edge, by virtue of their database, in their respective area. We can expect to experience a long-tail of innovation in days to come. This will help webmasters, visitors and Yahoo! A perfect win-win-win situation.

On the other hand, Google already have a open platform called Google Co-op, where anyone can create custom search engine. As per Google Co-op,

"Google Co-op is a platform that enables you to customize the web search experience for users of both Google and your own website."

Google also offer Google Subscribed Links which in their own language they define as:

"Subscribed Links let you create custom search results that users can add to their Google search pages. You can display links to your services for your customers, provide news and status information updated in near-real-time, answer questions, calculate useful quantities, and more"

The challenge

However, both the services that Google offers, has a great deal of focus on promoting Google, Google Search & Google Subscribed Links. Again, they are not directly making any change in the Google Search (at least it has not be publicly explained how it will effect user experience of a normal search).

Therefore, Google Search or Yahoo Search cannot be termed as true "user contributed" or "Web2.0" as described by Tom O'Reilly. People won't contribute unless they see that their contribution is making a positive impact in the search pattern and it is visible. In the current state both Subscribed Link and Yahoo Open Search will only help if a user wants to use the enhanced engine. Most Internet users will never switch these engines. Even if they are told the benefit of the plug-ins, how are they supposed to select the ones which will help them from a collection of thousands of user contributed plug-in channels? And what happens when new plug-ins come out?

Suggested solution

If search engines want to go the Web2.0 way with user contribution enhancing the overall experience and defining the way search engines display results, they need to bring user contributions to the mainstream. I feel that themed searches are the way to go. Google / Yahoo shall classify a particular user contributed plug-in into a theme. When a visitor wants to search for a business, he may choose a "Finding a business" theme. On a contrary when a visitor wants to learn about the subject he may chose the "Tutorial" theme.

Let us see an example.

We search for a very competitive keyword – "web design". This is the result we get.

If you see, there are three different intents that the search result satisfies. A person might be searching "web design" because he:

• Want to find a web design company (blue marker)
• Want to learn web design (red marker)
• Get web design resources (green marker)

All three intents are very different. Most people do not type-in their intent in the search box to make it a specific search, because they are not specialists in using search engines. Therefore, a search engine should suggest a possible intent and display results only related to the given theme. The theme model can best work when they are formed based on a collection of user generated plug-ins. Thus user generated content can find its way to the end user in an organized way.

It goes without saying that pulling in the user generated content directly into the main search result has its challenge of weeding out spam. But this seems to be the most logical way as of now. 

Recently I came across this excellent CSS reference website:

http://reference.sitepoint.com/css

I highly recommend this website since it has been written by two of the world's most renowned CSS experts — Tommy Olssen and Paul O'Brien. In this online reference, the entire CSS language is clearly and concisely explained, including browser compatibility, working examples, and easy-to-read descriptions.

For the purists, you can refer to the W3C CSS reference here – http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/

Few other decent references are:

• http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms531209(VS.85).aspx
• http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/css_tutorial/
• http://xhtml.com/en/css/reference/

W3C HTML Working Group has recently released HTML 5 working draft. This is a very important step forward; the same is available for review and comment at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/

The new standard addresses the need of web application developers in more pro-active way:

• Basic template facility has been implemented with facility to repeat elements
• There are also new elements for navigation, headers, footers, figures, and dialog
• Client-side persistent storage functionality (JavaScript APIs for key/value pairs & embedded SQL databases)
• Support for server-sent events, which will facilitate persistent connections to remote data sources

Some old features like frames have been removed.

Let us see how soon new browsers start supporting these new features of HTML 5. Currently the Opera browser has the best support (though it does not support all features) for HTML 5.

Footnote:

There is an overall trend to make HTML more developer friendly so that complex web applications are developed as per W3C standards and are compatible on different browsers on different mediums. With Bill Gate's prediction coming in about different shapes and sizes of computers in this decade which will make computers more intuitive (like the table PC), this seems to be moving in the right direction.

So let's think, how your website will look and take shape (as per device specific browser compatibility) when displayed on a coffee table as the people sitting around it mumble the name of your company!

Abhishek