Ideas for Dictionary.com

I remember the days when my table always had a dictionary since it was super helpful when I came across an unknown word. That is so 1990s.

Today, the best solution to this would be “googling” the word. If you are fond of vocabulary, like me, Dictionary.com might be the perfect website/app for you. In fact, one of the android apps that I first installed was Dictionary.com!

The feature, that I feel distinguishes Dictionary.com from other online dictionaries is its ability to save your “favorite” words. In other words, when you forget the meaning of a word or want to use it again, you can always look up your favorites on the app. Another impressive feature is its offline dictionary.

However, I feel Dictionary.com has tremendous amount of potential that can be unleashed as it scales to the next level. Here are some of my ideas that I feel can be implemented:

• Syncing website and android/iOS apps: A feature that dictionary.com lacks is its ability to sync desktop/website and mobile apps. Imagine a situation where you could favorite words and store/sync on any device!

• Pop quiz: Possibly the most important reason why someone would use Dictionary.com would be to improve his/her vocabulary. How about creating some games that can improve your vocabulary? May be something like a pop quiz to test if you can recollect your favorite words?

Five Trends In the Last Five Years

Here’s a list of five trends that have changed our lives in the last five years:

1. Going Mobile:

A few years back, this were the headlines in the newspapers – “People in China and Taiwan use mobile more than computers for accessing internet ”.  Today this has become a reality – mobile has practically changed the way we work and the way businesses work.  A smartphone is now an essential product and not a luxury product.  For a common man, smartphones have replaced his old bar phones as well as his music player and digital camera; he now books his tickets through mobile, does mobile banking and uses mobile for social networking. For businesses, mobile has become a huge segment for advertising – with companies such as Google and Facebook competing for a share of pie, and early adopters such as InMobi fighting back.

2. E-commerce:

Although a bit hyped these days, e-commerce has practically changed the way we shop. An average Indian, who five years ago was hesistant to shop on Amazon or Ebay because of “trust” factor, now does all of his shopping online. After years of struggling to become monopolies, home grown companies such as  Flipkart and Snapdeal have a huge share in the e-commerce industry. But companies like housing.com, bookmyshow, makemytrip.com, yatra – although having small share of the overall market – still are monopolies in their respective segments.  Now there is an e-commerce company for almost every business – Bigbasket for your daily grocery or Washkart for your laundry! One of my personal favourites is kwench.in – an online lending library!

3. Transport:

There was a time when you used to travel by a local bus, which would probably break down every now & then. Now cities have metro rail, Volvo buses. Now buses are not only comfortable, but are faster (no change in overall travel time though – traffic jams & improper roads still exist). But one segment where your local transport has changed – Taxis!  Five years back, the only way you could book a taxi was to contact a local taxi guy (or someone who owns a fleet) and book a taxi days in advance. With large scale taxi-aggregators like Olacabs or Uber, planning your taxi ride takes not more than 15 minutes.

4. Content:

Online courses(MOOCs) such as Coursera and Udacity have revolutionized education. Integration of online & offline channels, usage of social media to provide correct and accurate news is something has changed the media industry. You get to know news by tweets and answers from Quora. Although the reliability of information is a big challenge, this segment has a huge potential that has changed how content management works. Add data analytics on top of this segment and we can make better decisions. Peer to peer sharing of knowledge through Quora, or information through social media is something that revolutionize our lives.

5. Government decisions:

On number 5 is government decisions. Five years ago, applying for a passport used to take six months. Now, the verification processes take a few weeks. Earlier, booking rail tickets required you to stand in a queue at your local train station. Now, IRCTC has changed everything (including the meme industry). People are now aware of scams that have happened in the past. This segment is still the one that has the biggest opportunity. The new government is trying to reform things – step by step, but understanding that government decisions have the single biggest impact in our lives is the key.

Comic Con Express – Bangalore

It was September 8^th, a Saturday night. As I was switching the TV channels, two interesting news grasped my attention. One was – KANE is in Bangalore! Something that I had already missed that day – never knew he was coming to India – that too in Bangalore Landmark! The other news was that Comic Con Express was held in Bangalore on Sept 8 & 9, 2012.

I had heard of Comic Con somewhere – was it some kind of comic fair/festival?  I found a few guys in costumes in the news channel and one of them told – “It took me one & half weeks to make this costume”. I decided to check it out the next day. As I called up one of my friends to ask if he’s coming along, he reminded – “The Big Bang Theory”. There you go!

Bangalore is one of the places best to be roamed around with a bus pass. Getting into random buses, not knowing what its destination is – FUN! As I entered the Koramangala Indoor Stadium, I realised that the place was full of like-minded people – comic lovers! Right from DC comics to Amar Chitra Katha to local Indian comics, the place was vibrant. About fifty stalls, people dressed up into various comic characters, exciting comic merchandise, special events by TV Channels, Comic Con Express in Koramangala was one AWESOME event.

I felt that the event could have had more publicity and probably have been BIGGER.  The next Comic Con events in India will be:-

Mumbai Film and Comics Convention: Oct 20-21, 2012

New Delhi – 3^rd Annual Indian Comics Convention: Feb 8-10, 2013.
Hope it’s held in Chennai soon.

 

 

 

Steve Jobs 1955-2011 .

RIP Steve Jobs – The inspiration to millions , the revered for the rest.

Starting shortening in seconds

In Mircroblogging websites like twitter , every character is precious , as the wordlimit is only 140 characters . The current trend is relying on the URL Shortenening services like bit.ly and goo.gl for extra large URLs. The URL shortening services which work on the concept of hashing and multiple hashing can convert your extra long URLs into as short as 4 characters . Hence the domain name plays an important role too as they consume characters . That would mean a domain as short as 5 characters (bit.ly) would consume 10 characters for its shortened URL (eg : bit.ly/CR3w) . Becoming a trend in the recent times , the web gaint google started offering its own URL Shortening service with the domain goo.gl

But is URL Shortening services limited to bit.ly & goo.gl ? No , You can actually create your own URL Shortening service for ur domain . http://yourls.org/ is one such domain which provides customised URL Shortening for your domain . That would mean , if your domain is sierra.com , the customised URL shortening would be sierra.com/R3tG (eg.) Well , programmers could actually write a piece of code using their own URL shortening algorithm.

Considering the waste of time (going to a website, pasting the URL , copy-pasting the shortened URL), goo.gl has its own Chrome extension .
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/iblijlcdoidgdpfknkckljiocdbnlagk

So, save ur time & ur characters using the goo.gl chrome extension where u can shorten , copy as well as view details and traffic of your shortened URL in a click.
What are you waiting for , Start Shortening in Seconds !

Being a quizmaster @kweezzz

(original post at http://sarangbasutkar.tumblr.com/ sept 26,2010)

Finally got a chance to become a quizmaster , once again . I miss those good old quiz days when quizzing was a part of daily events . Well , I hosted a quiz @kweezzz on twitter today at 11.45 am. The quiz was on “Movies , TV shows & more ” .It had 16 questions .With hundreds of answers for the questions on twitter , I had an amazing response from the participants . Some of them however found tht some questions were easy to google. However I wanted my first quiz on kweezzz to be quite easy . The quiz was on for abt 1.5 hrs with answers tweeted for each question along with the winners of each question . I also received tremendous responses from the audience who suggested how I could improve the online twitter quiz . On the whole , an amazing experience , as a quizmaster . Thanks a lot , @kweezzz for providing me this opportunity . Looking forward to host many such events .

“I Love Quizzing , Being a quizmaster is all fun ! “

Hosting a quiz @kweezzz

(original post at http://sarangbasutkar.tumblr.com/ sept 24)

A good news for those who love quizzes , I m going to host an online quiz on twitter . For those interested in attending it ,

1 . follow @kweezzz with ur twitter account

2 . u may need to follow @sarangAB for a few visual questions.

3 . location – twitter

4 . time : 11.30 am-1 pm

5 . date : 26th , sept , sunday

The theme of the quiz is “Movies and TV Shows”  . Its the time for the showdown of ur quizzing skills ! 🙂

 

Kweezzz

(original post at http://sarangbasutkar.tumblr.com/ sept 24,2010)

It was close to midnight and I checked in my twitter account when I found the focus of a few people on a twitter quiz by @kweezzz . I had seen a similar quiz a few back by @shreyaghoshal & @quizderek . The kweezzz today was on the topic – “chennai” & I ended up in being one of the fastest ppl to reply . I have seen a number of quizzes but the online quiz or rather twiz- twitter+quiz , as I usually refer to has a good concept behind .

A person posts a question & his followers tends to reply . The quiz master can check out the fastest reply in his timeline & thus suitably reward the winners. Dont tend to underestimate the speed of the answers by the users. I usually find correct answers being given within 30 seconds !

One drawback of twiz is that it largely depends upon the internet connection which you are using . Moreover , there can be server errors for a user as well as the twitter website being “whaled” . I guess the tweet ups will definitely understand ;).

Twiz is an innovative concept & its pretty interesting , if u r interested , follow @kweezzz on twitter .

Days of my Life with Twenty19 & the Improving the “twenty19ian idea” :-

        About 3 months back , as I was browsing the internet , I found a fan page in facebook-twenty19. I then visited the website for twenty19 which turned out to be a portal for internships-something interesting . I also observed that there was a spot for the requirement of campus ambassador for twenty19 , which I then applied . I was already the mozilla firefox campus rep , & I wondered how campus ambassador programme would change my life . 

As days passed , I was selected as the campus ambassador programme & it inturn proved to be a changing point of my life . I updated the details of my account at twenty19 & also uploaded my resume.

Also , I started applying for a few internships as I was desperate to be an intern. I also started doing some of the simple tasks which were presented to me every week . Then came the campus tribe- the official google groups for all the campus ambassadors in twenty19 & there was almost a revolution happening over there . Right from the introductions to the bugfixes , ideas were pouring in , which in turn helped twenty19 grow. The task does by many campus ambassadors were noteworthy but there was something which always kept the tribe alive . That was the involvement of the twenty19 team with the tribe . Right from posters to visiting cards , everything was provided to the campus ambassadors . Well , I suggested an idea too – planning for meetups in various cities for the campus ambassadors , I suggested it because I wanted the meet the brains behind twenty19 . Happy that the meet ups are being held 🙂

Still wondering how twenty19 is a success ? Its the dedicated effort the the twenty19 team that accounts for the success of twenty19 . A revolutionary UI by Sid , wonderful networking by Rahul , great inputs for the website by the team,  well lead by KK . A majority of the success is because of the workshops held by twenty19 in various colleges  & the campus ambassadors popularising it across the country . I can now proudly say that I am campus ambassador at twenty19 🙂 I have also been shortlisted by 4 companies for their internships- 2 of which , I didnt attend , 1 which I am currently interning at & 1 more yet to be decided whether to attend or not.

The idea behind twenty19 is simple – students upload their resume & apply to the companies while companies post their openings .In other words , start ups need students , students need start ups. Twenty19 serves as an interface between them . I call this the twenty19ian concept . Start ups then shortlist the students & take the picked ones as their interns . 

Social media currently plays an important role in the world . Twenty19 already has a fan page in facebook (with 2000+ fans ) , an account at twitter(@twenty19) delivering important updates . It also has many more groups /fan pages for individual colleges/regions. Plus a mailing list which gives out the updates recommended for you !

  There can be a few more additions to it such as :-

1 . sms alerts for students .  

2. mobile apps – nokia ovi apps,symbian apps, android apps , iphone apps with the latest openings customised as per your needs ! 

3. chrome extensions with latest openings 🙂

4. wikipedia pages 

5. having twenty19 stalls at symposiums /techfests.

6. having ads on other websites. 

7. twenty19 videos in youtube.

Thank you twenty19 for letting me be a part of you ! 🙂

Personal Branding/ Social Media : Better use of facebook & twitter

Ideas by which one can promote individual/business using social media (facebook & twitter):-

Facebook :-

1. Create an exclusive fanpage in facebook . Make sure you get the appropriate URL . For eg . if the name of your company is sierra , 

   you can create a facebook page with url <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sierra.

http://www.facebook.com/sierra.</p>

2. If you own an business , make sure you create a business group . By using groups in facebook , the group members can actually “group         chat” , a new feature in facebook.

3. For an individual create the appropriate url . for eg. if user name is shyam roy , url can be www.facebook.com/shyamroy

4. Creating ads in facebook (the one that appears on the right hand side column)

5. Create facebook badges & put them in your websites/blogs. 

6. Create facebook apps with “universal like” button & install them in your websites/blogs.

7. Often make posts such that common man will be able to see,share & “like” it.

8. Invite all your friends from gmail/any email id using the invite option so that you can reach out to the maximum no. of people.

 

Twitter :-

1. Create a profile with eye catching twitter handle. Avoid numerals/special characters in twitter handles. 

2. Make wise use of the hash tag . for eg . if your business organisation name is sierra , you can use #sierra for all mentions/references to           sierra so that one can search for it using the hash tag.

3. Make sure you reach out the maximum people . 

4. Develop twitter clients/apps based on python/php/java(any app)that displays details of your website/organisation website.

5. Tweet often . followers will start following you automatically !

6. Make “live tweeting ” of events in your organisation.

7. Use the twitter app that displays your recent tweets in your website . Blogs such as blogger , wordpress have ready made apps built in .

 

Both facebook & twitter are important for social media as they are well recognised by the google analytics . By the page ranking algorithm of google , references to both facebook & twitter automatically appears in the first page of the google search.

 

– Sarang Basutkar