Archive for June, 2009
Her name was Neda…
Jun 21st
The Iranian elections – unbelievable and heartbreaking events! It has been a week of a terrifying human drama captured and spread in social space – all over Flickr, Youtube, Twitter, blogs, etc, etc.
A lot of news and megapixels of imagery and video have been captured to let us visualize the events in the Middle East – tear gas, masked protesters – people! One image in particular, however, started to make an impression above all the others and is right now a trending topic in Twitter.
Early on 20th June a young, beautiful woman was demonstrating in Tehran with her father. Though standing innocently, watching, she was one of the first victims of Basiji – militia that patrol the streets of Tehran beating women, children and students.
It is said that Basiji sniper shot her through the heart, just to watch her die.
Then her life leaked into the pavement of Karegeh Street – captured by cell phone cameras. No long after, took on a new life, flickering across computer screends all around the world.
The words of her fellow students, her fellow Iranians and the rest of the world are already burning indelible message in cyberspace.
Her name was Neda, an innocent bystander shot dead just for watching
From Twitter #Neda
@Nazbaboo Neda Joon your bravery will not be forgoten
@wolfspath RT @SeriousFace: RT “On 9/11, the world said we were all Americans. Tonight, we’re all Iranian” #IranElection #Tehran #Neda
@goodtimenation RT Neda is the bystander who became a martyr in front of her father. Watch http://bit.ly/2fZee8 THIS IS VERY GRAPHIC, BUT VERY IMPORTANT!
@CyberIranian RT alexispl RT What we need is a group of good hackers to go after the IR gov. Take them down, remove the filters, etc #Tehran #gr88 #Neda
@nihonmama For Neda: http://blip.fm/~8lffz You can blow out a candle, but you can’t blow out a fire. #iranelection (RT @yishaym)
It has been reported that the name Neda means voice or call in Farsi…
Her name was Neda…
She is the voice of the people. She is a call to freedom.
Further reading:
US urges Iran to end ‘violence’
Iran Updates (Video) – Live blogging the uprising
CNN: ‘Neda’ becomes rallying cry for Iranian protests
Latest Buzz on Twitter – VW and Iranian elections
Jun 19th
Everyone is talking about Twitter, the simple microblogging service with an impressive growth curve. Recently, two completely unrelated to each other topics are creating lots of buzz all around Twitter.
Twitter was due for maintenance during the Iranian elections, but for some reason maintenance was postponed. It appears that the US Government may have had to deal with this. Twitter were asked to delay the maintenance so that Iranian people are allowed to communicate with each other while this difficult period. This shows, yet again, that Twitter as well as other new media can have a very important role in society. Just recently Facebook launched a Persian version of the site in order to facilitate communication for Iranians.
The other buzz is related to Volkswagen and has nothing to do with politics. Volkswagen have launched an interactive banner (you can check it HERE) that lets you find which Volkswagen car is mostly suitable for you. To find out all you need to do is to enter your Twitter user name into the banner. Then it analyzes your profile/tweets data and suggests you a VW model
It is inevitable to ask ourselves, however, whether Twitter is necessarily the best choice for a brand’s communication. Surely, Twitter, has skyrocketed its number of users in a very short period of time, but there are still a lot of people that have never heard of Twitter and would not be interested in this banner ad, at all. By using Twitter for this ad, Volkswagen voluntarily excluded a huge part of their target audience, but on the flip side, those people that use Twitter and are fans will highly appreciate the creativity and the interactivity of the ad.
EXPOSED: Clickbank Affiliate Blueprints
Jun 14th
13.07.09:UPDATE: Members page has been updated and now it can only be accessed by username and password.
This product launched on June 6. Its price is 67$ per month and you can find its homepage HERE.
The selling idea is that you get a product giving you the basic guidelines to make money as a clickbank affiliate. There is a lot of information loaded to this product, but it is really very basic.
There are money-making blueprints in both PDF and video, and there also are links to a lot of other resources that can be handy for the affiliate marketer.
This information product will be updated every month, so that pretty much explains the monthly subscription fee. I think that this product is suitable for any newbie or advanced affiliate marketer to check out and refresh their knowledge, but yet again do not get the impression that this or any other similar product alone can help you to get any, let alone a steady income online.
Apart from leaving the members page insecure and indexed, there is something really funny, which again proves the fact that people selling such products are really lazy and even ignorant. As i said this product launched on June 6, but here is what can be read in the Official Blueprint:
“38 million people have put up their very first websites online this year 2005 alone. It is estimated that by 2008, the Internet sales industry will top the dollar bank. And to think, majority of those websites will be offering different affiliate programs for people to choose and participate into.”
Members page can be found HERE
Shustir.com – the big revoltuion of small businesses
Jun 13th
In tough times like now many businesses do not survive, especially small ones. There is one advantage to small businesses however – they can self-organize faster than big corporations and manage getting through. A new service just launched by Shu Kim and Khanh Pham – and you’re gonna love it!
Introducing – Shustir.com.
Shustir is an online interactive marketplace for people who prefer to buy from small businesses instead of large corporations. It has set to be a platform where customers can connect with merchants, independent professionals and other entrepreneurs!
It is a personal decision to where we spend our money, but when you choose to spend on a product or service you find on Shustir, you actually make a difference. It is free for you and to the small businesses that populate it with virtual “storefronts”. Storefronts are really cool, you can visit and find video store tours, menus, product shots, life stories or whatever else the owner decided to post. You can interact with thousands of small merchants and service providers, easily and quickly.
On Shustir you can:
- Find the products and services you need: use the easy Search feature and find the products and services you need
- Meet the people who actually run the business: interact with owners and employees so you get to know the businesses’ real face
- See what other people think: Check and provide consumers’ feedback on how they feel about a particular business with the site’s rating feature.
- Join the community and meet people like you: People who care about local merchants and small business owners who are the bone of our communities.
If you are an owner of a small business of any kind or are soon about to be – go create your free storefront. It is 100% free and also includes SEO, so you will get found : )
Also, check out the video created by the founders Khanh Pham and Shu Kim explaining further what Shustir is about.
Undergoing some maintenance
Jun 10th
EDIT: 13.06.09 – Everything should be up and running now! Besides, the problem was not with the database, but with one of the plugins i had installed. Plugins can be a mess sometimes, be careful with them. I am very happy and thankful to the buddies who helped me with this issue!
Just wanted to let you know that am fixing some database bugs today, and possibly tomorrow. Access to certain sections and posts may take time longer than usual. I am sorry for the inconvenience and promise to get back on track as soon as possible.
Project Natal: Microsoft about to revolutionize video gaming!
Jun 6th
The rumor turned out to be true: in an utmost secrecy, Microsot were preparing for the release of their new video game concept. This concept was presented at the E3 conference in LA.
The concept is amazing! Project Natal is a box that you can place under your tv set, just like Wii/PS. The difference, however, is major. The console picks up the movement of the player in real time. Having this in mind, it turns out that the player no longer needs a controller/joystick. Microsoft presented an introductory video containing a number of fun and family oriented games that they would like to develop.
Though it is just a concept in progress, it is enough to make Nintendo and Sony shiver a bit. This concept is technologically impressive and should really speed up the race for latest new generation video games.
If this concept gets developed, it will give Microsoft international stature (at last; ), and may even dethrone the current market’s video game king – Nintendo.
Meanwhile, we will be wondering about few issues such as how will the camera detect the right person when seveal people are in the same room (especially considering multiplayer games). 2010 is the official date the gameset is set to release and we impatiently await it.
EXPOSED: Instant Affiliate Generator
Jun 4th
Today i happened to stumble upon a very interesting product - Instant Affiliate Generator.
This is a 37$ software product offering you the opportunity to turn your website visitors into your affiliates. I guess that all of you are familiar with the method of building email lists by turning your visitors into subscribers – write a free report, get it up to your site and ask visitors to leave their name and email so that they can get your report – classic.
Well, Instant Affiliate Generator offers you a similar approach, but here it gets viral with the tell-a-friend model. For example, you write your report, upload it to your site, and in order for visitors to get it, they need to send your link to 5/7/10 friends. : ) Nice and simple.
You can use that tool with as many scenarios as you can think of, the important thing is that it can really be very powerful.
Here is a more detailed description of this product’s advantages:
Increase Your Traffic – Using this system will multiply your traffic exponentially! The more people visit your site, the more get sent to your site by others. The technique is so viral I was shocked to find how underutilized it actually is.
Boost Link Popularity – With more and more people linking to your site almost everyday from all over the internet, your link popularity will explode helping you to effortlessly achieve great search engine rankings!
Get More Subscribers – Simply add a subscribe form to the same page as your Instant Affiliate Generator code and watch as your opt in list grows more and more by the day, virtually hands free!
Increase Your Sales – If theres one thing that is guaranteed to increase your sales, its more traffic right? Well with ‘Instant Affiliate Generator’ you’ll get planty of it!
Add Visitor Interaction – With all the hype around ‘web 2.0′ more and more people are expecting to be able to get involved in your websites in some way. This allows them to do just that and get great rewards for their efforts!
Gain Repeat Visitors – It’s well known that it can take 7 or more visits to your site before someone decides to buy. ‘Instant Affiliate Generator’ brings people back to check their referral stats giving you another chance to offer them your products.
Unlimited Domains – The simple code can be added to as many domains as you want or as many pages on the same domain as you want. You can instantly increase the profits of literally every page on every domain you own!
Collect Affiliates Details – When someone sends enough traffic to get their reward, simply send them to a subscribe form to collect their gift. Now you’ll build a list of partners who can send traffic to any of your other products or future product launches.
If you want to check the tool, directly on its download page – CLICK HERE
And in case you wonder how you can use this tool successfully, drop me a line, and i will reply to you with a scenario example.
Enjoy :)
