Big Company: Essel Group

They are the company behind Zee Entertainment, Zee News, DNA newspaper and many other Big projects!
One of their businesses is DMCL : Digital Media Convergence Limited. Dunno what to say about convergence but one of their sites my POPKORN is seriously TErrrrribLLLEeee!

Most of the space on the website is packed with advertisements, and even they are not layed out properly! The layout is a complete MESS.

WORST:
When I clicked on the About Us section a popup ad comes up. On deleting that I clicked on Company Profile - a pop up ad comes up, on reading abt Essel Group my only question is :

Is a company like Essel not ASHAMED to have its name associated with such spammy junk on the internet??
Is this why I have stopped watching TV cause the companies that own the channels have a complete LACK of Quality standards?

From last sometime I have been looking for a free blog theme option for a small company website. I have been checking out lots, cause my work often requires setting up blogs. Here is a summary of what I have found,

Blogger

Blogger Rules as of now due to the new Template Designer option that they just released and the Page feature that they released in January. Read More about this at my Guest Post.


So Blogger is as of now the best option to make a free company blog.

Wordpress

Wordpress has a huge range of themes for a free blog, but the fact is none of them are right for a small company website. Also the customizability is very limited in the free option.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a good option, it has an open completely customizable HTML code and an option to create Pages. I am still planning to look more at this blog platform to figure out what can be done with it.

Posterous

I love this blogging platform but as I have mentioned in this Guest Blog, there is just no good theme option for it, though its HTML code is open and customizable. Pages option is also lacking. Not good for company blog, I would say.

Flavors.me

I found this website via here, its quite ok for a profile. Not so much for a company profile cause we cannot connect a Facebook Fan page there. I feel they need to do a lot more in terms of user interface, include some cool themes or some such.

It integrates the Facebook, Twitter and many other streams with the profile. Check out mine below,


Wix

I found this site, Wix.com pretty good for creating a flash website. They have tons of options including some good free ones. Using the customizing tool is a little cluttersome as it is heavy and difficult to load. I think it could be used to make a simple, yet elegant flash website.

Do you know any other options to create a website (for free without using too much of HTML or CSS)?

Lately I have been doing a number of experiments, currently they are all on Twitter, maybe they will move to other platforms later on. I also came across an article about Twitter Quantity Experiment on WWD,

Since the experiment, I’ve returned to my pre-experiment tweet average. Since upping my tweet quantity didn’t appear to have any value, there’s no reason to bombard my followers with more tweets. Read More.

So increased tweeting didn't have much effect to the authors popularity on Twitter. A similar one that I am doing currently is posting automated updates on my personal twitter. I have seen so many people do this, these are people who have like tens of thousand followers. So I was wondering how this helps, so I configured some feed updates.

Currently I have 5 auto updates that are sent out once a day.

Difference: A few posts get retweeted, a few people told me to STOP with the feeds and thats about it. The twitter followers anyway keep increasing at a slow but steady pace, I don't think that has picked up.

I also have a few other experiments going on, will tell you about that in other posts. Since social media is new and upcoming what works and what doesn't is still all blurry. No clear answers are available. This is why experimenting makes sense.

One tip: Take a look at social media case studies of similar companies or individuals to see what they are doing, and what works for them. This kinda gives a reference scale. Comparing to a different niche will not be valid.

Sometime back I had blogged about Posterous as a really good blogging platform, recently I took a look at Tumblr which has been around quite some time and found it to be pretty awesome!

After taking a look at the themes, this platform is something different. A personal blogger can install some really pretty theme, I really don't see why most people go for a Blogger or Wordpress unless if they don't know about other options.

Some features,

Custom HTML
The theme is completely customizable with HTML, though I guess if its a non-techie blogger then they wouldn't want to customize stuff. In which case, Tumblr has about 300+ themes to choose from!

Moreover you can easily change the color scheme of the theme,


Auto post to Social Networks
Auto feature to post new posts on Facebook and Twitter, and configure the RSS with feedburner.

Import RSS feed into blog
I really like this feature! Just by feeding in the url of the feed of a blog, all the new blogs get posted on your Tumblr! So I have subscribed to this blog on my Tumblr.


New bloggers often have the problem of generating content for their blogs, so if there is some blog they read a lot they can link that blog so there is content generation to their Tumblr and your fav blog gets more readers! This way even if your posts are sporadic, there is still content being generated on your blog!

Pages
This is a feature Tumblr introduced recently, its really important cause even Blogger doesn't have a good Page feature.
Labnol has a very interesting way to use this feature.

So check this site out, let me know how you like it!

The TED events are non-profit ones that bring speakers from various walks of life to share ideas that are worth spreading. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. Last year there was a TED event in India for the first time.

TEDxMumbai is a independently held event in the spirit of TED. It is happening on the 3rd of April, 2010 at the Blue Frog.

The registration was opened couple of days back. If you are interested you can register here,
http://tedxmumbai.com/register/
(The seats are sadly limited and last date for applications is 17 March)

To give you better understanding of the TED event (if you don't know abt it) or to share one of the really cool videos I have come across, here is a lady called Temple Grandin who was born autistic but who went on to become an animal behaviour expert.



Check out more videos on TED.com, most of them are if not mind blowing at least eye opening!

When I told my parents that actress Gul Panag often tweets about her dog Milo and has even created a twitter account for him (@super_milo) they didn't know whether to laugh or to think its insane!

Well a recent study on Trendspotters actually finds out that 'dogs' are more tweeted about than dads, sisters, brothers, girlfriends, daughters and other relatives!

Only 'friends' and Moms are tweeted of more than Dogs!


How much do you and your friends tweet about pets?

Currently I am hunting for a Blogger theme for a company blog. Something simple yet striking. I am looking at themes one after another. Most of them are for different purposes. Often there is a tendency to start fitting the company blog into one of the themes in front of me.

If I did that then I would be left with a theme I am not happy with. The reason for this is that I need a theme for my company blog... but instead it became a matter of fitting the company blog into the theme.

I dunno if you get what I am saying.

I find it a good exercise even at other times in life for eg. : when I go shopping, we are given so many options. I envision in my mind what am I looking for. A skirt, pant, baggy pants, some fashionable, or something casual or a homewear pajama.
This is important cause then I simply pass on stuff I definitely am not looking at. It makes the process of making the choice for the dress much simpler.

Same way for the theme I am looking at slowly I create an image in my head of how I want it. Without this I might try to push the company blog in any random theme and not be able to create something I am happy with.

Envision!

Maybe I will get it custom designed now that I have the pic in my mind.