Gujarati Print Media !

Today comparatively a good Gujarati print media website surprised me. Rather its technical issue then a content.

They introduced following meta-tag today on their homepage.
meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="60;"

It keeps refreshing their homepage every 60 seconds. If you are reading something and page get refreshed. It takes at least 4 seconds for me with super broadband internet connectivity. Homepage size is 360KB, In India normally one gets rate of 5KB per second. It will take 72 seconds and before that it will try to load again !!! Broadband users getting continuous rate of 20KB will need 18 seconds when they read something for around 40 seconds page will start reloading !!

Why did they introduced it ?
Hmmm.. Do you think its to give you latest news update ? Latest cricket score update ? Latest Budget updates ? ..

My Answer is NO to all these.. They introduced pop-up advertisement on homepage. Every 60 seconds you will get new advertisement !! If you have allowed your pop-up to remain on. Else they don't earn out of this activity/change.

If one needs to update some content like news, score, etc they can use partial-submit and it updates content without disturbing readers.

Alas.. no Gujarati print media website taking care of readers ! This site "was" far better compared to other websites. The site is none other than www.divyabhaskar.co.in!

Well, they made many big mistakes in near past.. Like readers get "Page Not found" error on clicking any news item on homepage. {The problem was in linking the actual news page. They linked all pages with "http://www.divyabhaskar.co.in" and page redirection was not set on their hosting server to "http://divyabhaskar.co.in" so you always got "Page not found exception".. to read that news story just copy link location of the news item and paste it to browser and remove "www.", I read it like this for atleast 4-5 days in last 2 months !! }

My rating went down this morning about this site, not in last 2 months!

Gujarati Print Media : Web Presence

This is in continuation of my blog - on the subject Where do we stand in terms of Gujarati Print Media website's qaulity.

Few more examples from today's GS !


Let me help you point out the particular piece !!




Another example from today's online edition -


Let me point of my specific point from this article -


One more example of todays online edition -


... and to be specific...

Thats it for today !! Tomorrow there would be new things, I am sure.

Business Competition at the Speed of Thought

Bill Gates rightly predicted "Business @ the Speed of Thought". Here is a real-life example of Business Competition @ the Speed of Thought. A piece from today's news -

"
By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK - Verizon Wireless introduced an unlimited calling plan $99.99 a month on Tuesday, a move that was quickly matched by AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA and weighed down stock prices for all U.S. mobile carriers. Verizon Wireless was apparently the first major carrier to make an "unlimited" plan available nationwide with no domestic roaming or long-distance fees.

Its announcement was all but five hours old when AT&T announced its own unlimited plan.
"This is a highly competitive market and we're committed to moving fast to meet customer needs," said Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T Mobility.

Three hours later, T-Mobile followed suit, saying it would introduce a $99.99 plan on Thursday. Unlike the Verizon Wireless and AT&T plans, T-Mobile's includes unlimited text and picture messaging, which costs $14.99 per month when added to other T-Mobile plans.
....."

Adding new product in matter of hours is a huge tasks. Many softwares need to be changed to accomodate new product. Entire nation, all terminal should display same price and description. Cell phone should allow the person to talk unlimitedly.. and so on..

BUT, companies like AT&T and T-Mobile responded Verizon's new offer, just in hours ! Amazing speed.. I remember to change some minor policy to Gujarat Technical Admission commeettee for B.E. admissions, they would delay the process of admission !!

Gujarati Media: Missing web etiquette

Somehow, for Gujarati print media, presenting information on website is not as important as presenting a company to the readers. It is never considered as an important face of the company. Most of the Gujarati print media websites do not care about quality of their site or news on the site. They do lots of mistake, on daily basis. Look of those sites are not attractive. So many pop-ups and high frequency of those pop-up ads. Those pop-ups are on top of many advertisements in the pages. Arrangement of advertisements are like traffic of Ahmedabad. Fonts are not very attractive. Many of the sites coming to this category are very old. They never re-introduce new technologies to show it in better way. CSS based design, Ajax based transactions, designing of the site, placing ads properly. etc are not considered since long. People living in foreign countries are heavily dependent on these sites. Most of them would agree to pay a little for better site as well!

Many times wrong information is been conveyed through these sites, many times many of the links are broken, sometime wrong links, and what not...!

I have yet another example of a news item here which prompted me to write this blog- just read the news...

Interesting on Postal Departments!

In the United States, first-class mail volume has dropped 7 percent since 2001 — an average of 1.3 billion fewer letters, postcards and bills each year. A 15 percent boost in bulk advertising and other discounted mailings has so far offset only some of the loss in revenue.

Many postal agencies are having to serve more households because their nations' populations are growing but are getting less mail to deliver to each, said Dean Pope, general manager of business development at Canada Post.

"In order to sustain business in that formula, you have to find new services and products and find new revenue growth opportunities," he said.

One of those new services is Canada Post's Borderfree program, which allows Canadians to buy items from U.S. e-commerce partners, pay in Canadian currency and know all taxes and fees ahead of time. Borderfree takes packages from U.S. hubs through Canadian customs and delivers them in Canada.

In France, La Poste will print e-mails customers send in and deliver them to physical mailboxes with registered notes and time stamps.

Tunisia's postal service offers a pre-charged payment service for paying utility bills and buying things online.

In Italy, a new digital certification service at Poste Italiane archives loan documents for banks so that years after a transaction a party can retrieve the original document with an electronic postmark as proof of its authenticity.

-By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer

Just to add little fact about Indian Postal Services, they run "Postal Small Savings Scheme". Millions of villagers are connected with this scheme. Its a huge success. Most of the scheme subscribers are farmers. They keep saving a little chunk of their income every month or quarter.

Brits think Gandhiji was myth: poll

Albert Einstein rightly said that next generation will not be able to believe that a man ever lived on the earth for Gandhiji !! Here is the exact thing British has to say about Gandhiji !!

LONDON (AFP) - Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.

Americans dont want to rule the world

How many American do you feels to see America ruling the world ? 80% .. ? 90% ..??

A recent survey says this - the survey is still in progress so figures are not final yet -