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25 March 2008
Minglebox makes waves in the Indian college community
Nikhil Kumar caught up with the CEO of Minglebox, Kavita Iyer, the brains behind the online social networking site dedicated to the college-going youth of India।
Minglebox.com is India’s first social networking website, dedicated solely to the college-going Indian youth। The website (www।minglebox।com) was launched in the month of October 2006, and in just eight months, it boasts of over 20,000 registered users, and growing। Through innovative add-on concepts like the jukebox and streaming videos from Youtube and GoogleVideo, minglebox is on its way to becoming the biggest social networking site of the country।
There is also a blog engine integrated in the site, and perhaps the most intriguing feature is the classification of users according to their schools and colleges। This makes the whole minglebox community one big college fest, where students from various colleges across the country can interact and share their views, opinions and ideas. In order to sign up for minglebox, a user has to select a college he/she belongs to, thus connecting the user automatically to every other member in the same college.
An IIM Ahmedabad, IIT Delhi (Director’s Gold Medallist) alumnus, Kavitha worked at ICICI with several of their internet and marketing initiatives and at Wipro Technologies with their product solutions business. As part of the Tata Administrative Service, she was in the core team that launched Tanishq, one of India’s leading consumer brands. Excerpt from the interview :
In your own words, describe the concept of minglebox।
Think of it this way: minglebox is an online hang-out for college students, which gives them a chance to meet students from all over the country with similar tastes and interests. The fact that the Indian youth is already pretty much into social networking through other services like Orkut and Myspace, makes minglebox a very important add-on, if I may, for students in the age-group of 15-25 years. Of course, the fact that we have incorporated a jukebox and streaming video, along with blogging and groups, make this a very interesting hang-out.
How did the concept start?
Well, there were three of us - Sanjay Aggarwal, Sushma Abburi and myself – all alumni of IIT Delhi, and when we came to Bangalore to work after our studies, we were blown away by the booming internet communication happening here. This was about two years ago, and Orkut was just beginning to make waves here. We did a lot of market surveys to understand the needs and requirements of the youth, and finally decided that a social networking site would be better than, say, a classifieds site. This is the best part of being an entreprenuer – you never know which idea is going to click, and when it does, you are glad that you quit your job and started on your own!
Do you consider Orkut and Myspace as stiff competition?
Not at all. On the contrary, the popularity of these two networks actually helped us market minglebox better. We just had to sell the product, and not the concept of social networking. And we do not claim that our site is better than theirs. We let the users decide. And we have a pretty strong popularity index as of today, in just eight months of launching.A huge problem facing other networking sites is the increasing amount of obscenities and inappropriate material.
How do you plan to combat this?
Since minglebox is meant purely for the Indian youth, we are aware of the boundaries and limitations of our society. We have a strong security policy, and with high-end spam filters and manual monitoring in place, we plan to negate this threat. Also, the fact that this is a close-knit online community, composed mainly of college students, anyone posting inappropriate material is immediately reported by the other users. So, this kind of individual policing also helps keep minglebox clean.
What are the short-term and long-term plans of minglebox?
We are looking at weekly upgrades for minglebox, with newer and better tools being incorporated। It is a little early to speculate on the long term plans since we are just eight months old. Probably, we would look at providing enough material to capture the user’s interest for longer sessions. Today, on an average, a session from log-in to log-out lasts around 29 minutes, which is great, considering the fact that we just started. We are looking to increase this time, and maybe start off with other features like podcasts on the site.
Finally, some words of advice to aspiring entreprenuers?
All I can say is go out there and do it. I’ve been an entreprenuer for almost 11 years now, and I’ve learned that the best way to get the job done is to remove all inhibitions and just go do your work. Hard work has its returns.Kavita Iyer can be reached at her email address:
kavita.iyer@minglebox.com
Minglebox.com is India’s first social networking website, dedicated solely to the college-going Indian youth। The website (www।minglebox।com) was launched in the month of October 2006, and in just eight months, it boasts of over 20,000 registered users, and growing। Through innovative add-on concepts like the jukebox and streaming videos from Youtube and GoogleVideo, minglebox is on its way to becoming the biggest social networking site of the country।
There is also a blog engine integrated in the site, and perhaps the most intriguing feature is the classification of users according to their schools and colleges। This makes the whole minglebox community one big college fest, where students from various colleges across the country can interact and share their views, opinions and ideas. In order to sign up for minglebox, a user has to select a college he/she belongs to, thus connecting the user automatically to every other member in the same college.
An IIM Ahmedabad, IIT Delhi (Director’s Gold Medallist) alumnus, Kavitha worked at ICICI with several of their internet and marketing initiatives and at Wipro Technologies with their product solutions business. As part of the Tata Administrative Service, she was in the core team that launched Tanishq, one of India’s leading consumer brands. Excerpt from the interview :
In your own words, describe the concept of minglebox।
Think of it this way: minglebox is an online hang-out for college students, which gives them a chance to meet students from all over the country with similar tastes and interests. The fact that the Indian youth is already pretty much into social networking through other services like Orkut and Myspace, makes minglebox a very important add-on, if I may, for students in the age-group of 15-25 years. Of course, the fact that we have incorporated a jukebox and streaming video, along with blogging and groups, make this a very interesting hang-out.
How did the concept start?
Well, there were three of us - Sanjay Aggarwal, Sushma Abburi and myself – all alumni of IIT Delhi, and when we came to Bangalore to work after our studies, we were blown away by the booming internet communication happening here. This was about two years ago, and Orkut was just beginning to make waves here. We did a lot of market surveys to understand the needs and requirements of the youth, and finally decided that a social networking site would be better than, say, a classifieds site. This is the best part of being an entreprenuer – you never know which idea is going to click, and when it does, you are glad that you quit your job and started on your own!
Do you consider Orkut and Myspace as stiff competition?
Not at all. On the contrary, the popularity of these two networks actually helped us market minglebox better. We just had to sell the product, and not the concept of social networking. And we do not claim that our site is better than theirs. We let the users decide. And we have a pretty strong popularity index as of today, in just eight months of launching.A huge problem facing other networking sites is the increasing amount of obscenities and inappropriate material.
How do you plan to combat this?
Since minglebox is meant purely for the Indian youth, we are aware of the boundaries and limitations of our society. We have a strong security policy, and with high-end spam filters and manual monitoring in place, we plan to negate this threat. Also, the fact that this is a close-knit online community, composed mainly of college students, anyone posting inappropriate material is immediately reported by the other users. So, this kind of individual policing also helps keep minglebox clean.
What are the short-term and long-term plans of minglebox?
We are looking at weekly upgrades for minglebox, with newer and better tools being incorporated। It is a little early to speculate on the long term plans since we are just eight months old. Probably, we would look at providing enough material to capture the user’s interest for longer sessions. Today, on an average, a session from log-in to log-out lasts around 29 minutes, which is great, considering the fact that we just started. We are looking to increase this time, and maybe start off with other features like podcasts on the site.
Finally, some words of advice to aspiring entreprenuers?
All I can say is go out there and do it. I’ve been an entreprenuer for almost 11 years now, and I’ve learned that the best way to get the job done is to remove all inhibitions and just go do your work. Hard work has its returns.Kavita Iyer can be reached at her email address:
kavita.iyer@minglebox.com
03 March 2008
हिन्दी में लिखना अब बहुत आसान
हिन्दी में लिखना अब बहुत आसान हो गया है ।
ट्रांस लिटेरेशन software का प्रयोग करके अब आप भी हिन्दी भाषा में बहुत आसानी से लिख सकते हैं।
कविता लिखें या कहानी लिखें ,अपना ब्लॉग ,अपने विचार अब आप भी व्यक्त कर सकते हैं।
ट्रांस लिटेरेशन software का प्रयोग करके अब आप भी हिन्दी भाषा में बहुत आसानी से लिख सकते हैं।
कविता लिखें या कहानी लिखें ,अपना ब्लॉग ,अपने विचार अब आप भी व्यक्त कर सकते हैं।
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doshdosh
What is this blog all about?
Dosh Dosh is a blog about ways to make money online. Topics commonly featured on this blog includes professional blogging, affiliate marketing, get-paid-to programs, advertising networks and social media monetization.
Exposing fraudulent scams, Dosh Dosh aspires to be the largest online repository of legitimate profit initiatives. Dosh Dosh’s objective is to empower all readers with the knowledge needed to consistently make substantial amounts of money on the internet.
Most of the content you’ll read on this blog is directed towards this end: Detailed reviews of websites, programs and products will primarily examine their role in short or long term monetization strategies.
Who’s responsible for this awesome blog?
I’m Maki, the writer who’s responsible for all the material you read on this blog. Apart from managing Dosh Dosh, I’m also currently a Political Science and Philosophy student in Toronto, Canada.
My personal interests revolve around indie rock music, anime, photography, art films, internet media and really good literature. I’ve worked as a freelance journalist for several years and previously spent some time in various Public Relations and marketing firms.
My academic interests are rather varied: I read widely on topics such as mass communication, philosophy, sociology, political science and literary theory. I’m particularly interested in the work of Alexander Wendt, William H. Gass, Richard Rorty, Fredric Jameson, Jurgen Habermas, Amartya Sen and Noam Chomsky.
My professional interests lie in affiliate marketing, social media, blogging and anything which results in copious amounts of money. I’m horrible with programming, web design and other technical stuff but am pretty capable of writing solid content on a wide variety of subjects.
Please send me an email if you’re interested in collaborating on any specific projects or joint ventures. I’m relatively open to any offers that are mutually beneficial or just flat-out fun.
One last thing.
How to Advertise Your Website or Business: 8 Paid Advertising Models
Advertising is one easiest ways to get targeted traffic to your website. The deluge of visitors that arrive at your site through paid advertising channels may purchase a product, browse around your website, or perhaps subscribe to a newsletter or feed.
Some will also bookmark your website online for future visits, share it through social media websites or recommend it to friends.
While advertising isn’t an end-all solution for increasing your site income or audience size, it can definitely create more mind-share and brand exposure. Here are a collection of ways to market your website to relevant audiences.
8 Types of Paid Advertising Models for Your Website
Note that these are paid advertising channels and are not free promotional methods. I’ve included a brief comment on each advertising model, based on my personal experience and knowledge about them.
Pay-per-Click Advertising. Very targeted traffic from search engines. Excellent if you are promoting affiliate programs or building an email list through landing pages. Great if you are selling products on your website as well.
Site-targeted advertising is very useful as well. PPC might not be necessary if you are primarily running a content website and already rank well for multiple relevant keywords.
Ezine or Newsletter advertising. Traffic is especially targeted if you can arrange for a personal recommendation within the newsletter/ezine by the owner. It can be hard to discern the value of the subscriber base so initially run test ads for short periods of time. Might not be useful to promote the same website several times on the same list as the members are largely the same.
Banner Advertising. Depending on the placement, banner ads are great for branding purposes.
In my opinion, click through rates and traffic is strongly related to banner design, tagline and the relevance of the site you are advertising on.
Feed-based Advertising. From what I’ve heard from others, it’s slightly more difficult to measure Feed advertising’s ROI. Poor click through rates are usually the case for feed advertising although it can serve as branding scheme if one advertises on a site with a large subscriber base. There are various feed advertising networks which can help you to buy ad space on specific feeds.
Paid Reviews on Blogs. It’s important to pick quality bloggers with a decent amount of integrity, trust, reach and authority. I would also recommend choosing a blogger that doesn’t do paid reviews very often in order to maximize the mental attention directed towards each review.
The more objective the review, the better. Undisclosed reviews will generally work better but it is difficult to find high quality bloggers that don’t disclose.
Text Link Advertising. Useful because it can provide you with some SEO benefits. I would pick a high traffic site over one with a high PageRank anytime. Design your anchor text to encourage click throughs and ensure that your link is placed in a visible location and not somewhere like the footer.
It’s usually better and cheaper to contact websites directly to inquire if they sell text links, instead of using a network.
Contests. This is not technically a form of paid advertising but can be considered so when you offer a substantial cash prize or product to generate buzz, links, traffic and new member signups. Marketing contests can also held whereby the winners will be determined according to the amount of traffic referred to your site.
Paid Syndication. This involves a sponsorship of a website, whereby your content will be syndicated and integrated into the framework of the site in question. Techmeme is an example of a meme tracker that offers paid syndication and displays sponsor posts on its sidebar and in-between regular content.
What’s the Best Way to Find Websites to Advertise On?
While you can easily find relevant websites through third party ad networks, I highly recommend using the following method instead because it will guarantee higher referral traffic and greater brand exposure.
Make a list of the search terms/keywords relevant to your website’s theme.
Enter these keywords into search engines like Google and Yahoo
The best websites to advertise on are within the Top 30 search results
Contact each of these websites and inquire about advertising
Getting links from these related websites has the added benefit of improving your own search engine rankings, not to mention that you’ll save a considerable amount of money.
For example, Dosh Dosh ranks well for several money related keywords and as a result, I often receive emails from affiliate marketers and webmasters who want to promote their product or website by buying ad space here.
It’s a smart move after all. Why struggle to rank well on search engines when you can rent a prime spot from an authority site that already does that for you?
Keep this point in mind when purchasing advertising for your website: Try to pick sites that are already ranking for all keywords that are relevant to your site.
Some will also bookmark your website online for future visits, share it through social media websites or recommend it to friends.
While advertising isn’t an end-all solution for increasing your site income or audience size, it can definitely create more mind-share and brand exposure. Here are a collection of ways to market your website to relevant audiences.
8 Types of Paid Advertising Models for Your Website
Note that these are paid advertising channels and are not free promotional methods. I’ve included a brief comment on each advertising model, based on my personal experience and knowledge about them.
Pay-per-Click Advertising. Very targeted traffic from search engines. Excellent if you are promoting affiliate programs or building an email list through landing pages. Great if you are selling products on your website as well.
Site-targeted advertising is very useful as well. PPC might not be necessary if you are primarily running a content website and already rank well for multiple relevant keywords.
Ezine or Newsletter advertising. Traffic is especially targeted if you can arrange for a personal recommendation within the newsletter/ezine by the owner. It can be hard to discern the value of the subscriber base so initially run test ads for short periods of time. Might not be useful to promote the same website several times on the same list as the members are largely the same.
Banner Advertising. Depending on the placement, banner ads are great for branding purposes.
In my opinion, click through rates and traffic is strongly related to banner design, tagline and the relevance of the site you are advertising on.
Feed-based Advertising. From what I’ve heard from others, it’s slightly more difficult to measure Feed advertising’s ROI. Poor click through rates are usually the case for feed advertising although it can serve as branding scheme if one advertises on a site with a large subscriber base. There are various feed advertising networks which can help you to buy ad space on specific feeds.
Paid Reviews on Blogs. It’s important to pick quality bloggers with a decent amount of integrity, trust, reach and authority. I would also recommend choosing a blogger that doesn’t do paid reviews very often in order to maximize the mental attention directed towards each review.
The more objective the review, the better. Undisclosed reviews will generally work better but it is difficult to find high quality bloggers that don’t disclose.
Text Link Advertising. Useful because it can provide you with some SEO benefits. I would pick a high traffic site over one with a high PageRank anytime. Design your anchor text to encourage click throughs and ensure that your link is placed in a visible location and not somewhere like the footer.
It’s usually better and cheaper to contact websites directly to inquire if they sell text links, instead of using a network.
Contests. This is not technically a form of paid advertising but can be considered so when you offer a substantial cash prize or product to generate buzz, links, traffic and new member signups. Marketing contests can also held whereby the winners will be determined according to the amount of traffic referred to your site.
Paid Syndication. This involves a sponsorship of a website, whereby your content will be syndicated and integrated into the framework of the site in question. Techmeme is an example of a meme tracker that offers paid syndication and displays sponsor posts on its sidebar and in-between regular content.
What’s the Best Way to Find Websites to Advertise On?
While you can easily find relevant websites through third party ad networks, I highly recommend using the following method instead because it will guarantee higher referral traffic and greater brand exposure.
Make a list of the search terms/keywords relevant to your website’s theme.
Enter these keywords into search engines like Google and Yahoo
The best websites to advertise on are within the Top 30 search results
Contact each of these websites and inquire about advertising
Getting links from these related websites has the added benefit of improving your own search engine rankings, not to mention that you’ll save a considerable amount of money.
For example, Dosh Dosh ranks well for several money related keywords and as a result, I often receive emails from affiliate marketers and webmasters who want to promote their product or website by buying ad space here.
It’s a smart move after all. Why struggle to rank well on search engines when you can rent a prime spot from an authority site that already does that for you?
Keep this point in mind when purchasing advertising for your website: Try to pick sites that are already ranking for all keywords that are relevant to your site.
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