The previous post demonstrates how to update your twitter status using facebook mobile. That's one way communication. Receiving SMS notifications when someone sends you a tweet completes the dialog which is pretty simple and free of cost. 1. Twitter Search: Go to search.twitter.com and look for any tweets referring to your twitter handle; @fundubytes in my case. Note the feed for the query.
2. Configure Google SMS channel: Create a private SMS channel on Google SMS channels and set your twitter search query feed as source.
Now, you are all done to receive free SMS notifications when someone sends you a tweet!
So the news Airtel brings twitter via SMS in India is all over now. In an exclusive deal, only Bharti Airtel subscribers can send and receive tweets via SMS for the next 4 weeks. Afterwards it will be open to all. But, non-Airtel subscribers need not envy this. You too can tweet via SMS with a small trick as follows:- 1. Create a facebook page: Assuming twitter users are mostly early adopters, they must be having a facebook account too (Get one if you just woke up!). Now, create a fanpage. Select Website under Brand, Product or Organization category and if you don't have a website, let your twitter profile act the same. Publish the page.
2. Activate facebook mobile for the page: Edit page and activate Facebook Mobile to publish status updates to your Facebook Page on the go. *Note: Doing such will break any previous linkage of facebook mobile with your account and you won't be able to update your profile status (facebook mobile allows only one status updating at a time). But, don't panic!
3. Link your facebook page to your twitter account: Visit http://www.facebook.com/twitter/ and link your twitter account with your facebook page.
Doing such will make sure that the status message of your facebook page is reflected back on your twitter profile.
Now, you are ready to tweet via SMS. All you need is to send an SMS to 92FACEBOOK (9232232665) to update your fanpage and thus your twitter status. And the best part is, it costs approx 50 paise to do so (national SMS charges). Read more if you want to sync the same message as your facebook status too.
4. Twitter to facebook: Add the twitter app on facebook and set it to update your facebook status whenever you tweet.
Alternatively, you can add Selective Twitter Status and update your facebook status only when your tweet ends with a #fb.
Now, you are all set to tweet and facebook on the go.
Next part of this series will illustrate how to receive SMS when someone sends you a tweet. Say thanks to facebook by sharing or re-tweeting this!
Ahem… finally investing 10 days - staying back after office hours, including 2 sleepless nights, messing up with 96 videos, the first playable Cricket game on Youtube is ready for beta release.
How to play?
1. It’s a game of 2 overs. You need to score your maximum runs.
2. When a ball is delivered, it pauses for a while and gives you an option to click on buttons labeled – A,B C, D…
3. You click a button and guess your hit. Add the hits manually to your total score and remember it.
4. At the end of each hit, it displays a button and clicking on it takes you to the next ball.
5. At the end of 2nd over, you can share your score by writing it in the video itself. Since the game is based on streaming of YouTube videos, you might find the UI a bit glitchy.
Now, apart from the game, the real motive behind this personal project was to find the feasibility of a TV-like advertising model where multiple advertisers can bid for time slots within youtube videos.
Currently YouTube offers the following advertising options:-
1. Create your own brand channel
2. Sponsor a brand channel
3. Participatory video Ads that are shown on homepage
4. Contextual Google Ads and banner Ads
YouTube statistics show that around 5.8 billion video clips are watched each month, with average time spent per person is 54 seconds. Complete report
While watching a YouTube video, the full attention is within the dimensions of the video player which need to be leveraged by giving advertisers a TV like platform to buy time slots within a YouTube video and unlike TV, viewer can interact with the Ad and ROI can be correlated directly with the video views.
I shared the same hypothesis to Shishir Mehrotra, Director of YouTube monetization to find the feasibility of following advertising options using YouTube Annotations feature:-
1. Advertisers can buy time slots for FOURS and SIXES. You can find “Your Ad Here” links. It let you compose a message where advertisers can inquire for a time slot. e.g. Castrol can bid for the FOURS as it is a four-stroke engine oil (just for demo purpose)
2. A secret link can be shared with the advertisers, which will enable them to write their copy, brand name right on the video on the exact timeline.
3. After 1st over there is a drink break and advertisers can buy that space to play a video ad (maximum 10 sec).
Note: current YouTube policies do not allow any commercial activity of your videos. Thus, the pointers mentioned above are just a proof of concept. But, YouTube partner channels can join the project.
Now, various other possible advertising options could be derived from the same:-
1. In-video advertising - “A 10 seconds time slot within most viewed videos on YouTube”. Tell me how it sounds?? So, there is a possibility of media buying on youtube.
e.g. Branding of a condom brand within a videos tagged as sex related (which generally get high views), of course with a message for safe sex, where multiple advertisers bid for the same time slot. Kiwi and Cherry Blossom shoe polish brand can bid for a time slot in a highly viewed video of Charlie Chaplin for a scene of “polishing a shoe”.
2. Integrating Google AdSense with YouTube Annotations feature, a revenue sharing model for video publishers where advertisers bid and buy time slots dynamically based upon the tags and description of the video.
3. Improvement of YouTube annotations feature might enable you to integrate images, videos in future.
Let’s see how the face of online video advertising changes!
Currently the lkadvani.in ads seem like slap on your face. But, one fundamental thing to note is - electing Indian Prime Minister is different from US presidential poll. So, instead of bugging an internet user from Indian demographics by showing the damn ads of promoting L. K. Advani as brand, what they could have done is - tracing your locality from your IP and showing you the respective BJP candidate for the nearest constituency, showing manifesto for local development and then asking to vote, thus promoting BJP as brand. Tackling the most common issue during elections - of not knowing "who is the candidate in your constituency?". Ultimately, if BJP gets majority, L. K Advani's dream too will be fulfilled.
Another coincidence with the recent Varun Gandhi incident is that L.K. Advani's facebook page has a powered by "RSS Connect" tag.
I hope this is not Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which is considered as as reactionary group of Hindu fanatics with Fascist tendencies.
Let me try if anyone from BJP or Congress is reading this (are they listening to the online buzz)? Mark your presence with a comment below if you are listening to.
Recently Symantec released stats of SPAM messages which says the top 3 regions of origin are - US (25%), Brazil (9%) and India (5%). (Download PDF Report)
Now, if you analyze the orkut demographics, the top 3 source of traffic are - Brazil (49.64%), US (20.82%) and India (17.14%). (orkut demographics)
Pretty interesting, isn't it! So, what's your take on this?
This is how a recent print ad of Tzomet Sfarim Bookstore targets the avid facebook users to go offline and read a book. Pretty simple and clever! (More details)
You know me as a professional blogger and a social media evangelist.
So, while driving the United Nations Millennium Campaign across social media, I have successfully accomplished some exclusive tie-ups and work to spread the words through social media. Rahul Bansal and Divyansh Sharma helped me a lot in the process:-
1.Exclusive orkut community:- http://orkut.com/endpoverty This exclusive public URL community page can be accessed without even logging into orkut. To participate, of course you need to join the community. 2.RSS feed for the community:- By default orkut does not provide RSS feed for an orkut community. But, we have developed an online service that provides an RSS feed for any orkut community. You can track the activities of the above exclusive community without logging into orkut, by subscribing to http://orkutfeeds.com/endpoverty2015 in your Feed Reader.
3. An orkut app is coming soon. (check unreleased preview)
4. Youtube video Game:- youtube game built using the video annotation feature based on a pacman kind of game where poverty monster is chasing you and you need to click on the goal buttons for level up before the poverty monster eats you. Similar to 8 UN MDG (Millennium Development Goals) this game has 8 levels and failing in a level it educate you about the Goal in details.
(Do not cheat by rewinding the video)
5. Blog badge:- Bloggers and site owners can put the following blog badge on their sidebar to spread the words to their site visitors.
Thus, requesting all readers to take action to help eradicate poverty on 17-19 Oct and register your count at http://standagainstpoverty.org/
Also, this is an appeal to other similar causes, campaigns to unite and join this cause.
Together we can make a difference.
Following table shows the orkut demographics for past few months.
Some points to note:-
1. India which overtook US for the 2nd position in May 2008 has slipped to the 3rd slot again.
2. US has increased 2.47% from Aug to Sept to reclaim the 2nd position.
3. Canada out of the race in Aug, Australia being the new entrant.
Twitter IM bot twitter@twitter.com, which enables you to send tweets right from your Gtalk, Yahoo Messenger .etc. is facing downtime due to heavy usage and the current status shows - "Offline. Working on additional capacity."
Lets find out some alternatives that work in this crisis period.
Tweeting through IM includes two steps - LISTEN and RESPOND.
Apart from ego-surfing i.e. checking for any tweet targeted to you, Listen helps in tracking trend of keywords and topics of your interest. To listen through IM, you need the following earplugs:-
1. iNezha - Add inezhabot@gmail.com in your Gtalk contact which let you read any RSS feed right in your IM chat window. Update the notification frequency to 1 minute.
2. IM Feeds - Similar to iNezha, you can add imfeeds@gmail.com as a Gtalk buddy which notifies you whenever a subscribed feed updates.
After you are done with any of the above, search for any tweet that mentions your name or any keyword you want to monitor using search.twitter.com and subscribe to the RSS feed in your IM. Some other twitter search e.g. tweetscan have advantage over the default search as they display the originator of the tweet too in the RSS. E.g. RSS feed for any tweet that mentions my name is - http://tweetscan.com/rss.php?s=%40fundubytes
Now, it notifies you with any updates for your chosen feeds at regular intervals. The second part is to respond to them by blowing these horns:-
1. Excla.im - A jabber bot that allows you to update your twitter status by verifying your twitter account and adding tweet@excla.im as your Gtalk buddy.
2. IMified - A very powerful tool that does much more than mere updating your twitter status. To send tweets, you need to add imified@imified.com in your friend list and add the Twitter widget in your account settings.
3. twitt'd - You can send (also receive) tweets by adding twittd@jabber.org as your Gtalk buddy and verifying your twitter credentials. Tweets sent by twittd are displayed as being sent by web interface.
4. Ping.fm - Sign-up for a ping.fm account and integrate your twitter profile. Add pingdotfm@gmail.com as friend and update your twitter status by sending a message starting with @tt
5. TwitterIM - msn@twittermsn.com and TwitterIM for Windows Live Messenger and ICQ respectievely seem to be broken since quite some time.
6.SMSgupshup (India only) - This is a bit tricky. First sign-up for SMSgupshup and create an SMS group. Integrate your Gtalk account and add webaroosms@gmail.com as a Gtalk buddy. Now, you can send message to this SMS group right from your gtalk. The next step is, sign-up for twitterfeed and add your twitter account and RSS feed for the SMS group. E.g. RSS feed for my SMS group is http://www.smsgupshup.com/feeds/fundubytes
Now, whenever you update your SMS group your twitter status automatically gets updated, though there are some limitations like only 8 SMS/hr and twitterfeed minimum update frequency is 30 min.
Apart from the above IM bots, there are some other options too:-
2. Jabber Twitter Bridge - Java application to update Twitter with Jabber's status (Gtalk).
3. Twit4Live - A Messenger Plus! Live Script that adds twitter interaction to Windows Live Messenger. Interact with Twitter from Windows Live Messenger.
4. Twitter plugin for Pidgin - Pidgin is a multi-protocol IM client where users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks. Along with the twitter plugin, use the character count plugin for Pidgin that displays the character count of the current message in a Pidgin chat window.
Recently launched Google open-source browser, Google Chrome has got much appreciation for its looks.
Now, Firefox addicts like me have got a reason to flaunt it with Chromifox - an experimental Firefox 3 theme inspired by bright and soft blue Google Chrome.
Since, Google Chrome is not available for Linux and Mac OS yet, you can use it as an alternate till the release. Download Chromifox
SMS
