Community Strategy – Infoedge’s Brijj.com Incentivizes Networking

Strategy Critique – Incentivising Professional Networking – Are we killing the Goose?

Info Edge India Limited of the fame of Naukri.com, Jeevansaathi.com, 99acres.com had launched Brijj.com in 2007 which is a professional networking site built on the lines of Linkedin.com. Though the site was aimed at promoting professional networking and social job hunting (HR 2.0) concept, the initial response was not what they expected.

People jumped in to directly post stupid things like: get me a job. However, the site traffic kept growing (thanks to big daddy Naukri.com). However, recently to enhance the concept of professional networking in India, the portal has taken a strategy to incentivize networking.

I was suddenly surprised when some random people started sending me connection requests and I was thinking probably someone has really gone through the pain of knowing me and wants to connect with me. However, I get this mailer yesterday afternoon from Brijj.com saying:

“A trip to London could be yours”. 

Wow, I don’t mind getting a free trip to London. So what is that I am supposed to do? Well not much, just do professional networking. Sounds like a dream. I build my network and you send me to London. Ahmm…well as apparent this strategy is to promote the user interaction on the community and to get more people coming to website, however, it’s going to loose the purpose of Professional Networking. I build my professional network based on trust and previous or present working relationship shared with an individual.

However, by incentivising the networking it’s like killing the goose. My network might grow, however, is it going to be meaningful? Nah, I would end up networking with jimpys whom I wouldn’t have added otherwise. I had to reject few requests already and then I started thinking if this is the right strategy at all??

What’s your thought?

New Search Engine – www.cuil.com It’s Raining Search Engines now

www.cuil.com CUIL the New Search Engine

After Scour.com with Social search now there is CUIL.com a completely new search engine. A former Google employee and her husband launched a new search engine this Monday called Cuil (pronounced as “cool”), aiming to topple Google by indexing more Web pages than the search giant.

After the Web 2.0 buzz across the globe, it looks like it’s the time for Search Engines…with news about search engines every day, I feel like I am bathing in a Search Engine rain.

Cuil, situated in Menlo Park, California, is led by Anna Patterson, a former leader of Google’s search index and her husband, Tom Costello, who researched and developed search engines at Stanford University and IBM. The two, president and CEO, respectively, met at Stanford.

Russell Power, the third cofounder of the group, also worked at Google on search indexing, Web rankings and spam detection. He works as vice president of engineering at Cuil.

Cuil, claims it has indexed 120 billion Web pages and can provide results organized by ideas with complete privacy for users. While on the other hand, Google, on Friday claimed it had discovered 1 trillion unique Web pages on the Internet.

Cuil said its search engine goes beyond traditional approaches by analyzing the context of each page and the concepts behind each query so it can provide better rankings by content rather than popularity. Cuil then organizes similar results into groups and sorts them by category. It also offers tabs to clarify subjects, as well as suggestions on how to refine searches.

Cuil and Scour aren’t the first Google rival to launch this year. Wikia Search, a highly anticipated search engine from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, made its official debut in January. Wikia Search hopes to provide better search results by allowing a community of users to index pages by using their Web page rankings and other suggestions, as well as its own indexing of the Web.

Though, seems like the servers of Cuil are already getting heated up (image below), which is good in a way, as they would have wanted a huge traffic to come to them.

Let’s see how cool Cuil is?

Google Killer – www.cuil.com – It’s Raining Search Engines now

www.cuil.com CUIL the New Search Engine

After Scour.com with Social search now there is CUIL.com a completely new search engine. A former Google employee and her husband launched a new search engine this Monday called Cuil (pronounced as “cool”), aiming to topple Google by indexing more Web pages than the search giant.

After the Web 2.0 buzz across the globe, it looks like it’s the time for Search Engines…with news about search engines every day, I feel like I am bathing in a Search Engine rain.

Cuil, situated in Menlo Park, California, is led by Anna Patterson, a former leader of Google’s search index and her husband, Tom Costello, who researched and developed search engines at Stanford University and IBM. The two, president and CEO, respectively, met at Stanford.

Russell Power, the third cofounder of the group, also worked at Google on search indexing, Web rankings and spam detection. He works as vice president of engineering at Cuil.

Cuil, claims it has indexed 120 billion Web pages and can provide results organized by ideas with complete privacy for users. While on the other hand, Google, on Friday claimed it had discovered 1 trillion unique Web pages on the Internet.

Cuil said its search engine goes beyond traditional approaches by analyzing the context of each page and the concepts behind each query so it can provide better rankings by content rather than popularity. Cuil then organizes similar results into groups and sorts them by category. It also offers tabs to clarify subjects, as well as suggestions on how to refine searches.

Cuil and Scour aren’t the first Google rival to launch this year. Wikia Search, a highly anticipated search engine from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, made its official debut in January. Wikia Search hopes to provide better search results by allowing a community of users to index pages by using their Web page rankings and other suggestions, as well as its own indexing of the Web.

Though, seems like the servers of Cuil are already getting heated up (image below), which is good in a way, as they would have wanted a huge traffic to come to them.

Let’s see how cool Cuil is?

Ahmedabad Blasts Update – 16 Blasts, 10 Killed, 100+ Injured

Ahmedabad Blasts Update

According to the sources on NDTV, now its over 16 blasts in the Ahmedabad City which has left 10 killed and over 100+ injured. The scene is really chaotic right now in many parts in Ahmedabad with police trying to shoo away the people with power. This is in favour of the people only as you never know how many blasts have been planned.

Veerappa Moily just now gave a statement that take these blasts as a unified case of blasts and shouldn’t be politicized.

Lal Krishan Advani said political angle is not been considered yet…however, later on the agencies can look at that angle too.

These statements are in the wake of the BJP led governements in the cities where these blasts have occured. Agencies like SIMI etc are under scanner now.

I would again like to re-iterate to keep safe and follow the tips which I suggested.

Ahmedabad Blasts – 16 Blasts, 10 Killed, 100+ Injured

Ahmedabad Blasts Update

According to the sources on NDTV, now its over 16 blasts in the Ahmedabad City which has left 10 killed and over 100+ injured. The scene is really chaotic right now in many parts in Ahmedabad with police trying to shoo away the people with power. This is in favour of the people only as you never know how many blasts have been planned.

Veerappa Moily just now gave a statement that take these blasts as a unified case of blasts and shouldn’t be politicized.

Lal Krishan Advani said political angle is not been considered yet…however, later on the agencies can look at that angle too.

These statements are in the wake of the BJP led governements in the cities where these blasts have occured. Agencies like SIMI etc are under scanner now.

I would again like to re-iterate to keep safe and follow the tips which I suggested.

Sachin Uppal: Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts – Update – 9 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

Sachin Uppal: Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts – Update – 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

http://sachinuppal.blogspot.com/2008/07/ahmedabad-blasts-6-blasts-in-30-minutes.html

http://sachinuppal.blogspot.com/2008/07/ahmedabad-bomb-blasts-6-bomb-blasts.html

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts – Update – 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts – Update 2 – 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured, as updated on NDTV.

It’s a really disheartening to see how bad the situation is becoming on a daily basis in India. Yesterday, teams were sent from Rajasthan and Delhi to Bangalore to probe the bomb blasts and even the national security guard (NSG) teams were checking the blast sites and trying to find out cues on the sources of the same.

It’s becoming evident now that these are all similar kind of blasts which are low intensity blasts and done to disrupt the local population with their daily activities and instill terror in the country.

The perpetrators of this crime should be brought to justice.

News updates:
HamroPalo.com
A2to.info
theindian.com

Blog Updates:
Danny G Sam
Hindustaniat
Paras Shah
Indian Raksa
Ankit Rawat

More updates to follow…

Ahmedabad Blasts – 6 blasts in 30 minutes

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts – 6 blasts in a series within 30 mins. These bombs were allegedly planted in soft targets like Cycles, Tiffin Boxes, Buses – and with evil intentions in crowded areas … more news is awaited.

Places where these bombs were planted – Maninagar, Bapunagar, Isanpur, Narol Circle, Sarkhej, Haksar

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts report: – at around 7.30PM

There are reports of 6 bomb blasts in Ahmedabad - this is as per the news showing in NDTV news channel.

Kindly share if you have any information regarding this.

TIPS to keep safe in a time like this – A public appeal to all Indians:

• Please keep away from crowded places.
• Try to avoid traveling for few of days.
• Inform any suspicious activity to police immediately.
• Keep general vigilance in and around your vicinity.
• Do not spread panic, relax and help others.

Keep safe.

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts – 6 Bomb Blasts Reported

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts, 6 Bomb Blasts reported till now

While the IT City of India, Bangalore was just recuperating from the Serial Bomb Blasts yesterday, now Ahmedabad has been rocked by series of 6 bomb blasts.

Just one day after the bomb blast in Bangalore, today, serial Bomb blasts have rocked industrious Ahmedabad city of Gujarat in India. Till now 6 bomb blasts have been reported. The effected areas are Maninagar Chowk , Raipur , Bapunagar , Isanpur , Narol , Naroda , Juhapura.

These bomb blasts have occurred in busy areas like market places, buses etc. There seems to be a lot of chaos already.

Also, refer to Paras Shah’s blog for the same.

Bangalore Blasts – Update 4 – Series of blasts – Terror Strikes Bangalore

Bangalore Blasts – Update 4 – 8th Blast – Series of blasts – First Time Ever in Bangalore

Bangalore has largely been a safe and sound city to stay in. Most of the IT companies find it as the safest haven with the best of talent and mostly stable political situation in the city. Even though the infrastructure of the city has been a area of concern for many organizations, however, with most of the positives these things take a back seat.

25th July’s Serial Bomb Blasts in Bangalore which lead to at least 1 killed and over 6 injured shook the city. These were low intensity blasts, however, this opened the city to the first ever serial blast risk. After Delhi and Mumbai serial blasts, Bangalore has been on high alert however, things were peaceful in the city. But after this series of bomb blast, things are different now. Even though the city is quickly recovering from the shock, the government and police needs to make sure the security is stepped up to the next level and such instances do not occur again!

A recent update seems to point out that there has been one more blast which is the 8th in the series now

Below is the – City News and Blog Update – News and related updates from across the city:

NDTV LIVE video reporting

Economic Times Reporting – Terror strikes Bangalore, Sensex ends lower

Neha Singh – Reuters UPDATE 3-Seven small blasts hit Indian IT city of Bangalore

Yahoo News – Five blasts hit Bangalore

Times of India – 7 blasts rock Bangalore; two killed, 20 wounded

Humsurfer reported – Bangalore Bomb Blast, 6 blasts rock Bangalore, Two killed, 20 injured, Bomb Blast In Bangalore, Bangalore News

DNA India – Serial blasts rock Bangalore, one dead

Blog updates on Bangalore Blasts:

http://justkeepsakes.blogspot.com/2008/07/blast-in-bangalore.html
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/07/25/india-bomb-blasts-in-bangalore/
http://rimahadchiti.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/bomb-blast-in-bangalore-today/
http://zdark.blogspot.com/2008/07/update-3-seven-small-blasts-hit-indian.html
http://sterex.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/bomb-blasts-in-bangalore/
http://amritanshuu.blogspot.com/2008/07/7-blasts-rock-bangalore-two-killed-70.html