Google’s Rival is here!

The US media world is suddenly buzzing with reports of Kosmix, a new search engine that could change the way people search the web and find information. The main goal of Kosmix is to make finding information on the web more user friendly.

So far, the biggest online search engine “Google” operates on the following principle to search anything online.

“Finding the best set of documents for an input keyword or phrase”

As a result, Google brings hundreds of results in front of the user and the user can only visit some of them.

In contrast to this, Kosmix gathers content from across the web and shows a page after creating a multimedia encyclopaedia entry in real time. For example search for rediff.com and you will get a lot of different content, photos, videos and links.

It also has top results from Google, and suggests a list of related topics. Kosmix gives more information about any subject. For many queries, the results are satisfactory and look as if they have been compiled by a human editor, not a computer.

Behind the Scenes – Working Principle:

Kosmix has a specialized technology for its service. It has created a set of nearly five million categories on various topics. When someone searches on Kosmix, it automatically knows on which category the information may have. It takes content from web sites as well as from specialized Web services, and databases connected to the Internet.

Try Kosmix now!

Interested to explore more?

Read more about Kosmix at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15ping.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Content ideas for this post sourced from: http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/mar/20/will-kosmix-be-google-nemesis.htm

Top 10 Tips for Paid Search Marketing

1. Initiate a Paid Search Campaign : Pay Per Click campaigns are really beneficial for those companies which don’t get sufficient rankings in natural search engine results. One of the biggest advantage of PPC is that one can track Return on Investment easily through various tools and techniques available. Through PPC one can easily attract search engine traffic by putting bids on the keywords that the concerned business sells or promotes.
2. Set your Goals : Before setting up a PPC Campaign one should be very clear about the goals to be achieved. All the metrics that will be governing the success of the campaign throughout its lifetime should be established beforehand.
3. Accumulate Data : Another important step that comes into play while initiating a paid search marketing campaign is effective data gathering. Competitors should be monitored closely and appropriate market research should be carried out. Customer’s needs and requirements should be studied effectively and the campaign should be managed accordingly.
4. Bid on appropriate Keywords : Choose your keywords carefully. It is not a wise decision if you just keep on building a huge keyword inventory without bothering at all about the keyword relevance. A large heap of keywords can bring lots of traffic to your site but that will also include non relevant traffic that won’t be beneficial for your paid search campaign. Ideally, start with a list of core keywords for your campaign and then keep on expanding this base list based on individual keyword performance.
5. Target proper Landing Pages : Pay special attention to your landing pages. Don’t go for your site’s home page as your campaign landing page, instead create customized versions of landing pages targeted at specific ad groups defined in the campaign. This way the conversion rates for the campaign can really go higher.
6. Target major Search Engines : Though there are many search engines available around that can let you run paid search campaigns but it is always better to choose a search engine having major market share and a user friendly interface with advance tools integrated into it for efficient management of the campaign.
7. Take advantage of Offers/Discounts/Schemes : Customize your campaign regularly depending upon the schemes/offers you have introduced. Mould your ad copies to contain these offer creative’s which can further go a long way in attracting customers to shop from your site and boosting your conversion rates.
8. Know your Geographies : Be very clear about the campaign’s geo-targeting. Get to know from which region or area your prospective customers come from. By efficient use of geo-targeting feature one can save a lot on campaign’s budget and boost the campaign’s conversion ratio.
9. Structure your Campaign well : Structure your campaign based on your business theme and the types of products or services you promote. This way one can attract all types of potential customers with different shopping habits since they will be able to find exactly what they are looking for on your website.
10. Identify your Negative Keywords : Come out with a negative list of keywords for the campaign as the campaign progresses and put these keywords as negative keywords in the campaign. These keywords when used as negative keywords will be bringing more relevant traffic to your site (by reducing non relevant traffic) that would lead to a decrease in campaign’s CPC and increase in number of conversions.

SEO Keywords vs PPC Keywords!

In a PPC campaign we have the liberty to target thousands of potential keywords for our campaign but this is not the case with SEO. In SEO we have to choose the most relevant keywords in order to optimize the site. On to the

PPC front we can use inbuilt adwords tools for generating thousands of keywords for our campaign without laying too much stress on each keyword as over a period of time the campaign gets tweaked and we are left over only with the most profitable keywords with us.

However, in case of SEO we have to take into account the search volume associated with each keyword and the competition linked to it before selecting a few keywords for our SEO process. In case of SEO we should have the most targeted set of keywords with us. Also over utilization of keywords during SEO can be counted as keyword stuffing.

Optimizing Videos for Search Engines

Videos also need to be optimized so that they can deliver your message to vast online audience around. Some of the handy tips we can apply to our videos while uploading them are given below. These measures can effectively help us in optimizing our video for search engines. 

 1. The title of the video should be attractive, relevant to the topic concerned and able to catch the user’s attention well.

2. Videos should be uploaded to famous video sharing sites such as youtube with hyperlinks to the main site.

3. Targeted terms for the video should be contained in the tags for that particular video. This way we will be optimizing the video for those particular phrases as well.

4. Embed a sitemap containing all video links on the website.

5. Providing a code for the video that other people can use to embed the video in their websites.

6. Instead of uploading a large video, break the video into sub videos and then upload them. This makes the video viewing much user friendly without any interrupts.

7. Video should be informative in nature & should contain content relevant to the video topic.

8. Submit video to RSS sites to enable video sharing among interested users.

Unique picture of Obama’s inaugural address by NASA tech

A unique image of US President Barack Obama’s inaugural address has been captured with the help of NASA’s technology which enables users to see highly detailed view of the function.

The special thing about the picture is that it allows one to see the complete view of the function besides enabling one to zoom in the image to such a detail that even the face of each and every spectator can be seen easily.

Photographer, David Bergman used the Gigapan camera system to generate this image.

The Gigapan camera system is a NASA spinoff technology also used in Mars exploration rovers and can capture thousands of digital images and weave them into a uniform high-resolution picture of more than a billion pixels.

The technology is based on the panoramic camera system that the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity is being used to explore the Red Planet for more than five years.

The Gigapan system was developed through a two-year collaboration between NASA and Carnegie Mellon University.

Interested to see the image right now?

Just click the link below:

Click here to see image

Handy SEO tips for a Website

1. Choice of Keywords: While carrying out SEO task for a website, pay special attention to the choice of keywords as per the business theme of the website rather than just going with the market trends.

2. Meta-Tags: Be sure to use your targeted keywords in the page meta-tags and in the content of the web-page. There should be nothing like forceful keyword stuffing. The keywords should maintain a uniform density in the page content.

3. Content Updation: Be sure to update your website content on a regular basis. Search engine crawlers love to see changing content on a site. Integrate a blog with your website and update it on a frequent basis.

4. Directory Submissions: Go for directory submissions. Submit your website into different directories under relevant categories. This way you can get quality inbound links to your website.

5. Social Networking: Go for social networking, take part in forum discussions and put meaningful comments in response to the queries. Get the world know about your website so that you can get quality inbound traffic to your website.

Happy New Year 2009!

Hi Folks,
Wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year 2009!

Test Driving Mahindra Logan.

This weekend I got an opportunity to test drive Mahindra Logan, the passenger car from Mahindra Renault stable. I went to nearby showroom market of my sector for some work and spotted Mahindra representatives sitting over there under a canopy offering test drive of Mahindra Logan to the people present around. Infact personally, I haven’t found Mahindra Logan too exciting perhaps might be due to dull outer looks of the sedan.

However, I approached the company representatives to have a closer look at the vehicle. The company representatives told me about the three variants of Logan – 1400cc, 1600 cc petrol variants as well as one more diesel variant. One of the technical representative quickly lifted the bonnet of the car and showed me the latest technological advances incorporated into the sedan.

The car’s overall machinery structure looked quite refined to me with Renault’s world wide proven trust and reliability present on each machine part of the sedan. Afterwards, they showed me the interiors of the vehicle. I personally found the interiors not quite impressive but ya the leg space and head space was sufficient inside.

Now it was the turn to take the test ride of Mahindra Logan. I drove the car with AC on for a good distance. The cooling was pretty ok for me. The ride was comfortable over pot holes too. But yes, I personally found the gear lever a bit hard to operate and while changing gears I felt a sound coming from the engine. Rest all was fine with the vehicle.

In my opinion I feel Mahindra concentrates more on the technical aspects of the vehicle rather than just making it visually appealing. Overall I found Logan quite well built and if it can get some improvement in terms of exterior looks, the vehicle can really become a much more big hit with the masses. At last I submitted my feedback and comments related to the car to the company representatives and bid adieu to them.

Disclaimer: The post above only expresses my personal opinion on the subject concerned. The company logos and identities used in the post are respective trademarks of the company concerned.