Ramanisblog

Tag: blogging

  • Facebook Tracks You through ‘Like’ Button.

    We know of sites tracking and despite denials to the contrary Facebook has been tracking information.

    Google/Yahoo have also been accused of retaining  information for a month.

    Now the tracking seems to be done through the ‘Like’ Button.

    Safety conscious Internet users are likely to avoid using this Button, thus denying the Links traffic.

    Unwittingly the sites are resorting to actions that instead of increasing traffic are indirectly contributing to reduction in traffic.

    Of course they,  for the time being, might have temporary monetary advantage by using this information by selling personal information.

    If Internet users become more Security conscious, the information sharing sites may be cooking their own goose unless they keep on devising new methods to steal personal information.

    As an aside,why is it that negative news about Facebook is being brought out systematically in torrents of late?

    Story:

    Facebook and Google, which has a widget for its “Buzz” social-networking service, say they “anonymize” browsing data so the information is not traced to a particular user. Facebook says the data are deleted within 90 days, while Google says data are deleted within two weeks. Facebook and Google say they use the information to measure the widgets’ effectiveness and help other websites attract visitors.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281504576329441432995616.html#ixzz1MqmgrTv4

     Facebook shares your  information with Strangers

    http://ramanisblog.in/2011/03/03/facebook-shares-your-information-with-strangers/

    These tools will help you Browse the Internet with out any Trace.

    http://ramanisblog.in/2011/05/11/browse-internet-without-leaving-traces/

  • Why and What Do I Blog?

    I started Blogging in August 2009.

    My knowledge of Computer and Internet was and still is sketchy.( In fact my son who is a Product Manager in an IT multinational tried to teach me;well I could not understand any thing!)

    I just waned to write.

    There are two types of people around me,one that states my opinions/advice is good and they welcome it, they are a minority)

    Majority felt/feel that I offer my opinions on every thing under the Sun whether it is Right or Wrong,Correct or Incorrect.

    In Life, I have found that  offering opinions is unwelcome whether it sought for or otherwise.

    The opinion seeker wants his/her opinion/views confirmed.

    If your opinion is different unnecessary argument ensues.

    I wanted to deal with the problem my way.

    Start Blogging.

    Nobody can hurt you, for they are not near  you for one and for another people tend to accept views /opinions of others who are not close to them.

    (For abusive comments,I keep quiet).

    Some times I am surprised that people accept my views and do ask my opinions.

    Secondly I wanted to be heard.

    Whether some one likes or not doesn’t matter.

    Gregariousness and being heard is a basic instinct.

    Many a Relationship breaks for want of hearing and listening.

    What do I blog?

    It comes under three categories.

    Information I feel is useful to others.They are linked straightaway to the information,possibly with a couple of reputed links.

    Second,I blog   on a Story on any subject about which I have some  idea, with my comments.

    Thirdly I write on a subject/topic I feel I am proficient( for example Time,Health issues,parenting,Relationships,Indian Philosophy,Hinduism,Christianity,Religion) .

    ( even this post has Links)

    Another point is that I do not know what I am going to write.

    I write as the subject appeals to me.

    I also contribute comments to Standard Magazines/Newspapers/Journals.

    Some times I Blog them with the original story.

    The purpose is to share what I feel.

    In fact I do not prepare a draft, edit and publish.

    I just write  and publish,  at times forget to spell check

    My  brother’s daughter tells me that my writing is forceful and language bordering on violence in expressing my opinions( she should know ,she was a Professor of Sociology):yet she likes it.

    And my copy is raw.the same view was expressed my by son and many of my friends.

    One of my Readers  suggested I that my comments  must be longer.

    Well,I am what I am .

    I want to thank Readers and Subscribers and Commenters  on the day of my reaching One lakh Hits.

    To top it all,I enjoy blogging .

    That’s enough for me.

    Related:

     

    Related Articles

  • Indian Govt proposal to muzzle bloggers-Respond.

    Government is probably irked by Bloggers coverage of CWG Scam,2G,Radia Tapes,ISRO affairs.
    Going  Tinpot Dictators’ way?
    Bloggers in and from India should put a stop to this non sense.
    Forward your views .
    We shall pettiton first The President India( hope she remembers she is the President)
    Simultaneously ,represent to Human Rights organization and International Civil Rights Groups.
    NEW DELHI: A government proposal seeking to police blogs has come in for severe criticism from legal experts and outraged the online community. The draft rules, drawn up by the government under the Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008, deal with due diligence to be observed by an intermediary. 

    Under the Act, an ‘intermediary’ is defined as any entity which on behalf of another receives, stores or transmits any electronic record. Hence, telecom networks, web-hosting and internet service providers, search engines, online payment and auction sites as well as cyber cafes are identified as intermediaries. The draft has strangely included bloggers in the category of intermediaries, setting off the online outcry.

    Blogs are clubbed with network service providers as most of them facilitate comment and online discussion and preserve the traffic as an electronic record, but equating them with other intermediaries is like comparing apples with oranges, says Pavan Duggal, advocate in the Supreme Court and an eminent cyber law expert.

    ‘This will curtail the freedom of expression of individual bloggers because as an intermediary they will become responsible for the readers’ comments. It technically means that any comment or a reader-posted link on a blog which according to the government is threatening, abusive, objectionable, defamatory, vulgar, racial, among other omnibus categories, will now be considered as the legal responsibility of the blogger,” he explains.

    Even Google, the host of Blogger, among India’s most popular blogging sites, expressed displeasure at the proposal. “Blogs are platforms that empower people to communicate with one another, and we don’t believe that an internet middlemen should be held unreasonably liable for content posted by users,” a spokesperson told TOI.

    Blogs, which are typically maintained and updated by individuals, have showcased their political importance in recent times and the internet community views these rules as a lopsided attempt to curtail an individual’s right to expression.

    If individual blogs are an intermediary, then why can’t Facebook and Twitter also be classified as such, as they too receive, store and transmit electronic records and facilitate online discussions,” retorts the spokesperson of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based organization, which works on digital pluralism. “These rules will not only bring bloggers and the ISP provider on the same platform, but the due diligence clause will also result in higher power of censorship to the larger player. Imagine your ISP provider blocking your blog because it finds that certain user-comments fit these omnibus terms,” the CIS spokesperson added.

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-proposal-to-muzzle-bloggers-sparks-outcry/articleshow/7668026.cms

  • Best Media Buttons for your Site.

    One can avoid multitude of Buttons and choose the best ones.

    There are now well over a hundred social media sites with more than one million active users. From microblogging to social bookmarking, to photo sharing, to business networking – the list just keeps growing. And most of them offer handy “share this on…” buttons that you can add to your site – all with the tantalising promise of sending you more traffic.

    But you can’t even put 10% of the buttons available on your site – unless you don’t mind having no content except for the buttons. So the question becomes, how do you choose?

    Here are some tips to help you make the right choice for your site:

    1. Fish where the fish are

      2. Buttons offer the magical promise of tapping into a huge new audience, but the reality is that unless a decent chunk of your readers are already using a social media site, the buttons are close to worthless. So spend some time finding out what the biggest social media sites are in at least the top 3 countries where your readership originates.

      In South Africa these answers are pretty clear already – Facebook followed by YouTube withTwitter and LinkedIn bringing up the rear. But if your audience is Brazillian you need to be focussing on Orkut, not Facebook.

      Another way to choose which networks to target is by using your own stats. Open up Google Analytics (which every site owner in their right mind should have installed) and look at which sites are referring traffic to you already. You might be surprised at who’s on top.

      Adding buttons from sites that are already sending you traffic sounds counterintuitive, but it’s all about reinforcing that positive feedback loop. Say a new reader clicks through to your site from that network, then clicks on a second article. Why make it hard for them to share back to the site they just left?

    2. Pick the right horse(s)

      3. Volumes are always enticing, which is why everyone and their cat has Facebook buttons on their site, but always stop to consider whether a social media site suits your audience. Even though it’s in decline, MySpace has over 100-million active users. But that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for your fly-fishing blog, or your Public Speakers Association site.

      Choosing a smaller but more appropriate network (see point 1) will pay off with more valuable traffic than simply going for the numbers. LinkedIn is an obvious example. Hardly any local sites feature its buttons, yet its userbase is of exceptional quality because it’s composed almost entirely of professional people. A bottle of champagne is worth more than a vat of cream soda.

    3. Less is more

      4. The temptation is always to hedge your bets by adding a dozen buttons, or to use a service like “Share this” or “Add this” that aggregates hundreds of buttons into handy little pop-ups. Now while I have nothing against those services in principle, I have yet to work on a major South African site which gets any kind of decent traffic from the likes of Delicious, Digg or Buzz. Your site may be different though – so check those stats.

      Every single button you add to your site sends a subtle message – it effectively says “we endorse this site.” By adding every button you can find, however elegantly, you’re saying “we’re hedging our bets – we endorse everyone!” Two or three carefully chosen buttons are easier to design around, clearer to user and place less strain on your site’s loading times.

      This principle also applies to the size of buttons. Most sites offer several different sizes of buttons, and the larger ones are attractive to site owners because they are nice and obvious. The only problem is that obvious can sometimes become loud – particularly with half a dozen of the competiting for airtime. Consider varying the size you use – the largest button for your most important network, followed by smaller versions from the other networks.

    4. Keep it together

      5. Wherever possible, try to group all your buttons together into a single, discrete area – somewhere obvious and prominent without being overwhelming. The top right corner of the content area is very popular and therefore quite familiar to most users, but the bottom left also works well.

      Whatever you do, don’t straggle them across the page, and don’t repeat them unless your pages are long enough to justify it. There’s nothing worse that a site that looks like a Christmas tree, with buttons that overpower the content with their sad-eyed pleas for “moar clickz pleaz!”

    5. Choose smart buttons over dumb ones

      6. More and more sites offer “smart” buttons that react when a user clicks them, and also display how many times a content item has been shared. The most obvious example is Facebook’s “Like” button, which immediately posts the link to Facebook without you even having to leave the site. All the major sites now offer variations on this theme, and the ones that don’t are working on it, trust me.

      The advantages of smart buttons are enormous. Firstly they are deliciously easy and interactive for users: Click, share, happy. Secondly they signal that a story is already being discussed. Humans are social animals with herding instincts and conversation is self reinforcing. Nothing drives clicks like the idea that someone has already clicked before you.

    6. Implementation is everything

      7. A lot of the biggest networks offer several different varieties of buttons, usually graded according to how difficult they are to install. In general the easiest ones are also the dumbest ones and the ones that add the most to your sites load times. Many sites still offer iFramed buttons for instance – these are to be avoided wherever possible.

      A case in point is Facebook’s “Like” button. The quickest thing to do is grab their standard iFrame code and plonk it on your site. But the javascript version, though more challenging to implement, has a lot of advantages including more accurate page targetting and more control over how the button behaves.

      Whatever button you choose, be sure to make the most of the customisation options offered. Facebook, for instance, gives you the option to translate the button into Afrikaans, as Huisgenoot has done. You can also choose how many extra features you want with the button – such as whether faces of the “likers” are displayed next to the button. But don’t get carried away – more features also means more space and more noise.

    What would I choose?

    In the end, personal preference and design aesthetics will also play a part in your choices. It’s your site, your vision and your audience. Don’t be afraid to make a choice because it feels right in your gut. To my mind, at least 75% of South African sites should be using some variation on this formula:

    • The slimmest Facebook “like” button (aka “button count”) – Javascript version.
    • Twitter’s own Tweet button – I favour the “horizontal count” version because it fits well with the Facebook button above.

    And then either:

    • The LinkedIn share button (again the horizontal version)

      • …or:

    • The Stumbleupon button (since it’s the only “traditional” sharing site in SA’s top 100)

    These are the plain vanilla choices because they are in the sweetspot of mainstream readers. Your site may be insanely popular with the DeviantArt or Bebo crowd – so remember to check first.

    What about all those other fancy plugins and widgets?

    You’re quite right, many sites now offer all manner of handy little boxes that pull, for instance, the latest tweets about your content onto your front page. They offer some fantastic opportunities, but also some real dangers.

    Until then, remember, common sense should always prevail. If the tail is wagging the dog, trim that tail down. Just bear in mind that a dog without any tail is a sad beast indeed.

    http://memeburn.com/2011/02/6-ways-to-choose-the-best-social-media-buttons-for-your-site/

     

  • Anonymous comments killing Blogs?

    Blogging is a way of expressing oneself

    That’s all. Do not take things seriously to heart.

    There are always negative comments, sometimes very sensible, some times sheer non sense.

    Apart from this, we have Anonymous comments, which I feel are being posted by people with no work to do,who can not put their points across and from people who are senseless.

    Critical comments are worth hearing and replying to while anonymous comments may be considered as Spam and dealt with accordingly.

    I do not think anonymous comments are killing blogs ,but rather educate Bloggers that they have stupid people around them .

    In fact such comments drive me Blog more.

    I am very lucky in that I receive very positive comments for the most part. But there are those times where I get extremely negative ones. I don’t mind negative comments, if they’re about the actual subject at hand in my post and present a clear point as to why they disagree with me. What I find baffling is this trend of extremely negative comments, from anonymous commenters, that have nothing to do with the post, just how much they hate me. And I am supposed to do what with this opinion?

    Oftentimes they are about my looks and how ugly I am, yet the commenter leaves no picture of themselves, which in the interest of fairness, you’d think it’s only right that they’d put themselves out there in the same way, no? I had someone leave a comment on one of my YouTube videos the other day saying ‘your parents should have been sterilized before they allowed you to exist.’ OK, fine. But what is the point of that comment? I would imagine, if you find me that offensive, you wouldn’t watch more than one of my videos (as said commenter did).

    Bloggers put a lot of work into what we present. It takes a lot to put yourself out there the way we do. Negative comments are fine, in fact, the world would be a scary place if everyone did agree with me. But I would argue that it’s not just bloggers who have a responsibility for what we put online – commenters do too. I look forward to the day where anonymous commenting doesn’t exist. If you want to have an opinion and enter into the discussion, put your name behind what you say. It’s much more respectable. Even better, make sure your comment presents some form of logical argument relating to the post – ‘you’re an ugly bitch’ just doesn’t cut it in the big leagues. Until then, your silly little comments won’t be taken seriously and sadly, I fear, neither will blogs themselves.

    http://bangsandabun.com/2011/02/are-anonymous-comments-killing-blogs/