A pretty neat tool, for a very relevant consumer need. Caught my eye, am using it now, and am already blogging about it.

I receive on an average 25 emails a day (on a normal day) that goes up to 50 or more; Make that 600 emails a month, and important data, files are bound to get lost in the chaos. I had a tough time finding mails and files I needed (I still do), but now there’s at least a little help.

Xobni. Nice plugin to Outlook. Organizes mail, searches in a jiffy, lists all the files I have shared with my contacts, makes conversations out of my mails. See the demo video below to understand more.

[This useful discovery thanks to Rahul]

Convergence drives me crazy. And one nifty example I have here.

Post photos on Flickr of a concert you found on last.fm, take both information and post it on blog. Now you have a gig you attended, with photos tagged, date noted, tracks, albums and CD covers attached to it. That’s Gig Taggr for you. (This app is not quite there yet, but getting there).

Someone will soon add Google Maps, Youtube, Amazon and Facebook integration to this. So with one click you have added music, location, video, photos, reviews, CDs, reviews, books to this.

Just imagine.

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Wordpress rocks. In extendability (widgets, plugins, that too all free and open source); in design (beautiful free themes, wonderful CMS capabilities, magazine styles, et al); and in ease of use. Just for starters, the plugins I use on my website (which are listed by using another plugin!):

There are 60 plugins used: 35 active plugins and 25 inactive plugins.

Active Plugins

  Akismet 2.0.2
» Matt Mullenweg (url)
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template.

  All in One SEO Pack 1.4.6.13
» Michael Torbert (url)
Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog.

  Asides widget 1.0
» James Carppe (url)
A widget to display the content of the n most recent posts from the specified category - designed for aside usage.

  Audio player 1.2.3
» Martin Laine (url)
Highly configurable single track mp3 player.

  Category Cloud Widget 1.3
» Lee Kelleher (url)
Adds a sidebar widget to display the categories as a tag cloud.

  del.icio.us widget 1.0
» Automattic, Inc. (url)
Adds a sidebar widget to display del.icio.us links

  Feed Statistics 1.3.1
» Christopher Finke (url)
Compiles statistics about who is reading your blog via an RSS feed and what they’re reading.

  FireStats 1.3.6-stable
» Omry Yadan (url)
Statistics plugin for WordPress.

  flickrRSS 4.0
» Dave Kellam (url)
Allows you to integrate the photos from a flickr rss feed into your site.

  Flickr Thumbnails Widget 1.2
» James Carppe (url)
Displays thumbnails from Flickr based on the user/group/tag you provide.

  Google Reader widget 1.8
» James Wilson (url)
Adds a sidebar widget to show your latest shared stories.

  Google Reader widget 0.1
» Miguel Ibero (url)
Adds a widget with the links to the stories shared or starred or of a certain tag of a google reader

  Gregarious Reaching 2.0
» Ankur Kothari (url)
The ultimate social bookmarking plugin. Need I say more?

  Lightbox JS v2.03.3 Plugin 1.7
» Peppe Argento (url)
Used to overlay images on the current page. Lightbox JS v2.03.2 by Lokesh Dhakar.

  Random Redirect 1.1
» Matt Mullenweg (url)
Allows you to create a link to yourblog.example.com/?random which will redirect someone to a random post on your blog, in a StumbleUpon-like fashion. You can also specific in the URL `random_post_type` or `random_cat_id`.

  Snap Shots™ Plugin 1.3
» Ajay D’Souza (url)
Add Snap Shots to your blog. Go to Options >> Snap Shots to configure.

  Sociable 2.0
» Peter Harkins (url)
Automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites. Go to Options -> Sociable for setup.

  Twitter widget 1.5
» Sarah Isaacson (url)
Sidebar widget to display your Twitter timeline. The widget allows you to choose to display your twitter username in front of your updates. You can also choose whether to display the time before or after the twitter post.

  Wordpress Automatic Upgrade 1.2.2
» Keith Dsouza (url)
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions. Go to Wordpress Automatic Upgrade to upgrade your installation Thanks to Ronald Huereca for making the plugin run in automatic mode.

  WordPress Database Backup 2.2
» Austin Matzko (url)
On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Navigate to Manage → Backup to get started.

  WordPress Related Posts 0.9
» Denis (url)
Generate a related posts list via tags of WordPress

  WordPress XML Export 2.0
» Aaron Brazell (url)
This will generate a WordPress XML export for import into other WordPress blogs. Based on code provided in 2.1+ versions of WordPress and originally written by Matt Mullenweg.

  wp-cache 2.1.1
» Ricardo Galli Granada (url)
Very fast cache module. It’s composed of several modules, this plugin can configure and manage the whole system. Once enabled, go to “Options” and select “WP-Cache”.

  WP-EMail 2.20
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Allows people to recommand/send your WordPress blog’s post/page to a friend.

  WP-EMail Widget 2.20
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Adds a EMail Widget to display most emailed posts and/or pages on your sidebar. You will need to activate WP-EMail first.

  WP-PageNavi 2.11
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog.

  WP-PluginsUsed 1.00
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Display WordPress plugins that you currently have (both active and inactive) onto a post/page.

  WP-PostRatings 1.11
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Adds an AJAX rating system for your WordPress blog’s post/page.

  WP-Print 2.11
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Displays a printable version of your WordPress blog’s post/page.

  WP-Stats 2.11
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Display your WordPress blog statistics. Ranging from general total statistics, some of my plugins statistics and top 10 statistics.

  WP-Stats Widget 2.11
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Adds a Stats Widget to display stats from WP-Stats Plugin. You will need to activate WP-Stats first.

  WP-Sticky 1.00
» Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan (url)
Adds a sticky post feature to your WordPress’s blog. Modified from Adhesive by Owen Winkler.

  Yet Another Related Posts Plugin 2.0.4
» mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine) (url)
Returns a list of the related entries based on keyword matches, limited by a certain relatedness threshold. New and improved, version 2.0!

  Youtube Favorites Plugin/Widget 1.0
» Ozh (url)
Customizable display of your latest Youtube favorite videos. (quick readme & manual)

  YouTube widget 1.1
» James Wilson (url)
Adds a sidebar widget to show a YouTube video.

Most of these are wonderful in functionality and are easily customisable. Do check them out for using in your website. And if you are using anything other than Wordpress to run your blog, it’s time to change, I say. Download the Wordpress engine and host your own; or get a free blog at Wordpress.com.

Click on image to enlarge. Taken from Google trends on the iPhone for India. Lets try to read the story this graph shows.

Until late June, not much was being about the iPhone in India (on Google, I mean). Suddenly, PR kicks in, news channels and TV is flooded with talk about the iPhone, blogs start writing about the steep 31k price tag, Airtel starts its holistic marketing campaigns, and finally it also reflects in search requests, with Google spiking in July and still showing high queries in August. Similar buzz can also be noted when the iPhone 3G was launched world-wide, and India has already started searching for tidbits in early June.

Even more reason why pre-seeding works well in technology, blogs and WOM. Apple would want Engadget, CNet and all other gadget reviewers to go ga-ga, early. And sustain the search volume to reach critical mass in awareness first; then with the actual launch, people are already camping outside the stores, blogs have hyped up the functionalities; Steve Jobs is smiling his way to the bank.

Another interesting observation from the Trends link: Mangalore beats all other cities (even Mumbai and Bangalore) and Gujarat tops the searches for both iPhone and iPhone 3G (Surat and Ahmedabad being the main contributors). Unlikely candidate for the geekiest state, beating Karnataka and AP, don’t you think? Or is it just a reflection of buying propensity?

[Try Google Trends. Pretty darn interesting.]

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What happens when you take an established dimension of looking at videos (featured, rated, comments, views) and then completely twist it on its head? What if enough videos and features now exist on all those many subjects that one can look at the unfolding of the events related to each and every subject, happening, or person in chronological order?

You get TimeTube.

Particularly interesting if you are reading about a person or event. It helps you chart the impact, pre and post reactions and what the whole world has to say about that particular experience, as time passes. Pretty darn interesting.

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Chanced upon a video of a talk by Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD. It was a talk about a program started by AMD called 50*15, where they aim to connect 50% of the world’s population to the internet by the year 2015.

It is a fantastic overarching theme to have as a vision, something that will set direction for the computing giant for the coming years, and more so because it involves other companies, even competitors in delivering a stretch goal that will benefit all of them, and the part of the world that is still hungry for information and enlightenment.

But what struck me most, was Hector’s relationship with his father and the way the old man egged his young son to perform better, in all aspects of life.

“For a civilization to progress, every generation has to perform better than the previous one.

A seemingly simple statement, but with great impact on young Hector’s mind. In his teenage years, the importance of this did not hit him, but when he set out on his way to a great career, his father reminded him of this one statement, coaching him that it’s not a job that he has set out to do, it’s a transformation, at an individual and societal level. Hector’s father again repeated the same mantra on the day of his marriage, reminding him that he had to be a better husband than his dad, and again, on the day Hector had his first child, reminding him that he had to be a better father too.

For a civilization to progress, every generation has to perform better than the previous one. In every aspect of humanity. In understanding, in treating fellow human beings, and in living as a whole.

Touche.

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I have posted some videos from TED before, and this one is another of those brilliant talks that could actually, change the world.

This one’s about how humans are leaving a footprint on the planet more devastating than ever before, and is spoken through the language of pictures, leaving a lasting impact on how urgent and awe-inspiring this situation is. And then begins the China revelation: pictures that show how unbelievably fast and incredibly sudden, the change is: in urban landscapes, in mass geno-shift, in the sheer scale of what is happening.

Edward Burtynsky won the TED prize for 2005, and left a lasting impression of me, even 3 years after the talk was delivered. And as they say, one has to see it to believe it, when it comes to China. Here you go.

Accepting his 2005 TED Prize, photographer Edward Burtynsky makes a wish: that his images — stunning landscapes that document humanity’s impact on the world — help persuade millions to join a global conversation on sustainability. Burtynsky presents a riveting slideshow of his photographs, which show vividly how industrial development is altering the Earth’s natural landscape. From mountains of tires to rivers of bright orange waste from a nickel mine, his images are simultaneously beautiful and horrifying.

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Pretty plugin. And damn useful. Its a shame I didn’t discover this before.

ScribeFire adds loads of functionality to the Firefox browser, for all bloggers. Publishing posts on the go is a breeze, and categories and past entries are also easily manipulated.

Find the plugin here.

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Every time I think what more can people do, to creatively bring a win-win, there is one more brilliant marketing insight that falls plum onto my lap.

For the uninitiated, CAPTCHA is the oddly designed scramble text and numbers that one has to enter for verification on websites; to prevent auto-scripts and email-bots from entering / registering / creating accounts / running DoS attacks etc. While we usually land the boring gibberish on login and register pages, some guy actually thought of using that mindspace for advertising brand names; capturing valuable attention, and also making the user repeat it in his/her mind for filling in the web form. Seth Godin also covers this in his blog.

As users are very likely to read and type the CAPTCHA text, some people are suggesting to commercial this cryptic graphic. See good examples from Jean Yves.

Brilliant!

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TED is a confluence of ideas that is unparalleled in my opinion, in its breadth of topics, its strength of discussion, and the intellectual power of its participants. And most of all, in its purpose. Of spreading ideas that are worth spreading.

TED is a yearly congregation of many fantastic minds who discuss and showcase anything that inspires; may it be origami or climate change or quantum physics. Definitely worth a visit.

Here I give you one of the many speakers: Malcolm Gladwell of Blink and Tipping Point fame talks about an important turning point in consumer understanding in the food industry. From the TED website:

In this witty monologue, Malcolm Gladwell follows the career of a food industry consultant who uncovered a key secret to what eaters like. Running huge focus groups to find customers’ truest tastes, Gladwell’s hero draws a radical conclusion, an epiphany that has defined food marketing ever since. Note: The theme of the 2004 conference was “The Pursuit of Happiness” — hence the talk’s quirky presence.

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