Digg is down

Now what is happening to Digg? All this while I have only been accustomed to Blogger shutting down office every now and then for maintenance work, but now, Digg.com has also stopped working because they are under maintenance.

While XooXonline.Info can work uninterrupted 24X7, I simply do not understand what it takes Digg and Blogger to stop working every now and then ;-)

Hopefully, the site will be back to working again soon...

My Blog's popularity

Have you seen Technorati providing a rank to your blog, which gives an idea of how popular your blog is? I added my blogs very recently, so I do not rank high enough. But this blog of mine, has been around for around ten months now. And it is already a PR 3 website.

If you know a bit of Search Engine Optimization, you will appreciate that fact, because making a perfectly Search Engine optimized site is quite difficult. But, I should thank all the online resources I obtained from sites like Apogee Search Engine Marketing that I used to go through for increasing my blog's PR.

But then Apogee doesn't do just that. They are a Texas based firm who help in the entire online marketing services. This includes Paid Advertising, Organic Search Marketing, Affiliate marketing, etc.In fact, they have recently started endorsing the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO).

Ok, back to my blog; I intend to increase my blog PR to atleast 5 in the next 3-4 months. And believe me, I am going to work really hard for that!

Revival of West Indies

"West Indies were the gods of Cricket. They were unbeatable." These are lines that I have only heard from my dad and uncle. Because, their dominance died just about the time I was born. Over the past decade,it has always been Australia who have been the unbeatables and the most hated, simply because of their dominance.

But, of late, West Indies have started to show their power once again. They won the Champions trophy last time around and this time too they have been very impressive. Australia were defeated, and India too were in a crunchy match.

Now with a semi-final berth, it will be great to see how they play South Africa, and possibly even win the tournament. I bet many of the older people out here would be praying for just that: A Windies revival..

My website's anniversary :(

November 21 marks the first year anniversary of my website XooXonline.info . When I launched it last year, I started it out as a book review site. Later I made it a forum for MBA preparation. Then, I changed it to a Blog discussion site. Midway it was a site for Adsense publishers.

One year on, I have no idea to renew my domain name. My website is going to die..One year of webmastering has still not got me even a decent traffic. James Brausch in his blog writes the three major causes of failure are

• Not taking action
• Lack of focus, and
  
• Not following a proven path.

I believe my reason to fail in my website venture was most possibly due to the second reason; for a pathetic lack of focus to maintain a theme on my website. Look, I am now writing a blog as well. Thanks James, you atleast opened my eyes to what I am doing wrong :(

Moving house

We have recently decided to move to a new house which is nearer to my grandma's place because my mom felt that she could spend more time with her mother. Today, I went to have a look at the work going on at the house. The guys we have contracted are now working on the bathroom equipments. In our present house, we have a very simple bathroom with all conventional taps and stuff. The new one looks real good.

I just came back and was searching for some online bathroom shops. Just to make sure that the new bathroom is 'world class' ;-)

The taps fitted are kind of similar to what I found at Taps4Less.com. In fact, after visiting the online bathroom shop, I am now interested in getting a few other bathroom furnitures as well. Let me see what my dad feels about them.

World Premiere of FrightWorld the Movie

Do You Love Horror Films? Do You Love Halloween? And do You Love Haunted Attractions?

If your answer is yes, here comes the most awaited event this Halloween. And mind you, this is the event just for you. FrightWorld the movie is making its grand world premiere on October 31st at the FrightWorld Haunted Amusement, one of the top thirteen scream parks in the US.

Attractions:

There is more to the event on the D-Day. You can have a tour around the haunted attractions at FrightWorld. This includes the five award winning ‘Houses of Horror’. This apart, the participants also get a chance to meet the stars of FrightWorld, especially, Kamilla "Katexenna" Kova, UK Fetish Model who also stars in the movie who will be there to meet the gathering.

Kamilla apart, Dina Cataldi and Tiffany Scott will also be there at the event along with all the scream queens of FrightWorld. It is a wonderful opportunity to meet FrightWorld FX team.

To add to the glamour of the event, the organizers have arranged for “13” bands who shall play during the world premiere. This includes names like Marazene, Any Question, Obomatic, Punch Drunk and Imbued Vagary.

The audience shall also be witnessing a Question & Answer session with the cast of FrightWorld the movie.

All of this shall happen through the entire day. Make sure you reach there as early as six so that you can witness the red carpet walk of the stars, which shall be followed by the screening of the movie. After this, you can have a tour of the haunted houses till midnight when the music show begins.

How to proceed

If you are now enthralled and want to be a part of this world premiere, you can visit FrightWorld, the Dark Amusement at Williamsville, New York or simply visit the website for FrightWorld The Movie World Premiere. Tickets cost $23.

Fried Coke makes it BIG

What do you get when you mix a batter of coke syrup with strawberry syrup and a little bit of strawberry; and then deep-fried in doughnut sized balls?

It is America's new inthing called Fried coke. It is being billed the newest American fastfood and is getting hugely popular. Fried Coke has even been awarded the "most creative" new fair food.

Abel Gonzales. a computer analyst who developed the recipe has no plans for patenting it, though his two stalls at State Fair of Texas(where he got the award) sold over 35,000 fried cokes in a 24 day period

Ok. Now try your own recipe..With mountain dew probably!??

Blogger Competitions

It sometimes amazes me to see how blogging has of late moved from being more of a past-time to a full fledged buzzing activity. I always knew a few bloggers made a lot of money, and so I too have put up a few Google ads in the hope of making a quick buck out of this..but that has not been a very successful attempt so far.

So, of late I am trying to see if other avenues also exist in blogging. In fact, there are a lot events happening for bloggers. There are quite a few blogging competitions happening right now. And the prizes are also exciting that even a couch potato like me has started to participate in this.

Like, there is one competition going on in BloggerPoker. I am right now in the first round of the game, where I stand to win around $500. And there are 7 preliminary rounds, mind you..so, I.., even I stand a chance!!!

Even new blogs are allowed, so I have got myself a new blog exclusively for this. You check that one out on their homepage.Hopefully I win this one..Pray for me...

Nostradamus 2007 - 2012

A new book on what Nostradamus, the sixteenth century prophet whose prediction for the next five years has been released. Titled "The Nostradamus Code :World War III 2007-2012" , the book has pretty lame predictions, though they have been built up to spell doom on the universe.

Here are some things that I picked at random while glancing through the ebook are

-- Death of three popes during this period. In fact, Nostradamus predicts that the current pope might be assassinated. Now, I think that is very much possible given that he has only recently stirred a controversy with the Muslim world. God forbid though.

--Nuclear confrontation in the Middle east. Again, this looks a possibility with increasing wars in the region. But a nuclear war still looks very unlikely to me.

--Rise of Antichrist. This looks like the most significant dimension in the book. Nostradamus predicts the rise of a middle eastern person known as the antichrist who shall be worse than Hitler. In fact he shall bring the church down.

I do not believe in these stories, which seem more made up. But then, I disbelieve anything of this sort. If you may wish to purchase this book, check out NostradamusOnline (Price: $14.95)

Autobiographies - When should they be written

It sometimes amuses me to see tiny-tots, not 3-4 year olds, but young celebrities setting out to write their autobiography. My question to them, 'What have you even seen in these 20-25 years of your life that you want to archive it in a book?'.

It is clear the greed of making some buck out of it. A person who has seen his life rise and fall can write a memoir which shall be an inspiration to many. But young celebrities writing a book even before they see themselves fall is something unusual.

Recently, the Pakistani President wrote a memoir about his life as a general as well as President. Why was that? Clearly to make the most out of it before he is thrown out in the upcoming democratic elections in his country.

Then, Materrazi, the infamous Italian footballer wrote his autobiography clearly make a buck soon before the public forgets the head-butting episode. He says the money is going to charity. But I am afraid he wrote all that in his short time just for the health and wealth of orphan children. He would have very well donated part of his world cup earnings to them instead.

But then, as long as there are people to read whatever gossip comes out, everyone; the writer, the publisher, and the public is happy...

Amazon books on your websites

You would have come across numerous websites that 'recommend' books from Amazon or other websites. Now, the question is not of the ad itself, but instead on how effective the ad is when it comes to conversion.

I used to manage a site for Book review. Ok, that was not for more than a couple of months before I changed the theme of the website to a different topic. But now, one year hence, I have become a lot more wiser on how to choose a website and what to put on it to convert best.

For example, I know of a technology gadget discussion weblog that has good traffic and over 1500 subscribers to its feed. The author has a page proudly recommending books on technology and websites to his readers.

Now tell me if this would convert or not? Trust me, even if you have a million visitors everyday, the conversion to such a recommendation does not happen well enough. The reason is the visitor, no matter what does not go by your recommendation just because he happens to read your blog. There should be 'something' on your website that gets him to buy. If not, write only for those who come to buy.

So, if only I had my book review site till today, I am sure it would have clicked with Amazon. This is because when I review books, which people eventually buy if they are satisfied, then satisfied readers naturally proceed towards buying the same. So, a good reviewer can find visitors proceeding to purchase from Amazon, and so conversion is good. Not for someone who writes on something and immediately expects people to come to him for purchases..

Business Plans

I am considering changing the theme of this blog to something as what is suggested by the name of the blog itself. Nice Ideas...

What does it make you think about??I can see things like Business Ideas, plans and peculiar stuffs that have either made others stand out or have occurred to me which I think could be of value to you.

I get so many ideas sometimes..I think this could be a platform for me to talk about them with you people so that I these thoughts could add value to me or someone somewhere who is looking for great ways to make a career...

Orkut's new feature

Do you Orkut? It's a shame if you do not in my friend's circle. That is because everyone of my friends keep in contact through Orkut only.

Orkut has recently introduced new features on its site. Till now, to scrap a person, we need to visit his/her scrapbook, write a note and then submit..But now, it has become much simpler. Now, when a person writes in your scrapbook, all you need to do is click on the reply button just below his scrap, a text box automatically appears. Write down there and press submit, and the message is posted on that person's scrapbook..A lot of effort is saved.

Another new feature is the ease of deletion of old scraps. Though we do not delete scraps most times, as it is a matter of pride to have a huge scrapbook, it might become necessary sometimes. Now, like in a mail inbox, you can check all those scraps you need to delete and take action simulataneously.

another small step is an option to view 10/20/30 scraps at a time..The most significant step however is the ability to choose more than one person as the moderator(maximum 10). This can be of significant use since many communities were hacked(or rather cracked) recently. And now that more than one person will be a moderator, it becomes much more difficult to hack all these ids simultaneously to get hold of the community. Or in other words, community hacking has more or less been taken care of...

Try this personality test!

Check out this test. Hope you fill find something about yourself that you did not know till now...
This is to find out if you have the guts to say 'NO'...
Click here for the test