Well yeah, I know a series of thoughts run through your mind when you read the title. The other day I was having a chat with this blogger friend of mine who was strictly against blogging being a form of entrepreneurship; but before we move further I wanna clarify that here I am not talking about casual bloggers with blogs as a vent to their daily incidents. I am talking about the people who invest time (and/or money) every day in blogging, cater to a niche (however big or small that might be) and are slowly mastering their niche. Some time ago, a term ‘Blogpreneurship’ did emerge, but could not get much mileage.

There are others who start casually and end up taking it seriously as a profession. Like I launched Youth Ki Awaaz in 2008 as a blog to vent my thoughts on the political issues in India, and later converted it to a public platform – now a media firm. When we talk about blogging as a prospective venture, there are a series of things to consider while setting the parameters for judging it as the same.

Considering the internet penetration in India at about 51.7 million users only (source), the target market is reduced, thus limited. But leaving all these factors aside, the following points relate the two and qualify blogging as a form of entrepreneurship:

1. Investment/Venture capital : Like in any other business/enterprise, here too, the blogger invests not only money (domain purchase/template,etc.) but invests some good amount of time in producing quality content. The blog here is the product and the content here is the service offered to the reader — which is the consumer.
2. Planning : Like in an enterprise the product strategy is deviced, similarly, in blogging, the content production strategy is deviced. Here the blogger spends time in reading up about his/her niche, the kinds of articles, videos or podcasts one can produce, the exclusive content one can have, the areas not covered before, the type of audience the blog caters to and their respective interests, the frequency of posting and much more.
3. Team building : One of the major requirements of building an enterprise is to build a dedicated and loyal team. In blogging too, the blogger is always on the lookout for writers/bloggers/niche-experts to be a part of the blog and contribute posts to add to the value of not only the blog but also the consumer, i.e. the reader. The blogger makes extra efforts to make sure that the contributors stick on — by providing them various perks, promotion, links, ad revenue-share and much more. Here, guest posts by niche-experts becomes a key to the credibility of the blog.
4. Revenue and finances : YES! Now in a real enterprise, revenue forms a major reason behind the hard work the employees and the management put in. Revenue is not only important to remunerate the workers in order to motivate them, but is also essential to develop the product further, launch new versions, invest in better programs, generate more leads and much more. In blogging, when the blogger(s) invest some serious time and effort, revenue from ads becomes essential. Here I want to clarify that blogging only for money is nothing but stupid. From my personal experience in this industry I can testify to the fact that those who start off only to generate revenue end up shutting down. The zest is lacking. Coming back, ad revenues help the blogger upgrade to a better host, get a much better template design for the blog, apply for trademark and copyright of content/logo/design, remunerate the writers in order to motivate them to work harder, start a new sub-blog. The reasons could be endless.
5. Risk : Yes, the risk is always there. Like in enterprises there is a risk of loss, competition or even a  shut-down, in blogging too, there is a risk of a blog with better content coming up and taking over the niche; there is a risk of the blog not being able to reach out to the masses; the risk of the content not being exclusive and much more.

What do you think? Is blogging equivalent to entrepreneurship? Or do you think I am over-estimating blogging?

Yes, now you can get through your email faster than ever. Priority Inbox, a new feature from Gmail, automatically identifies your important email and separates it out from everything else, so you can focus on what really matters.

In order to predict which messages are important to you, Gmail uses some of the same technology that it uses to weed spam out of your Inbox.

If it incorrectly predicts which messages are important you can help train it with the importance buttons just like you can help Gmail’s spam filter by using the Report as spam button. (via Gmail Help)

Does this new feature help you to save your time? Do share them as comments below!

Techmeme is a technology news aggregator. The website has been described as “a one-page, aggregated, filtered, archiveable summary in near real-time of what is new and generating conversation”.

Techmeme works by scraping news websites and blogs, and then compiles a list of links to the most popular technology-related news of the day, which is continuously updated. The stories selected are chosen primarily by an automated process (via Wikipedia).

Getting featured on Techmeme as several advantages. Your blog gets good traffic and it will also get good exposure. Below I mentioned some tips and a WordPress plugin to help your articles to get featured on Techmeme easily.

ALSO RECOMMENDED : HOW TO: Get Your Site Featured In Google News

Some Tips To Get Featured :

#1 – Always produce original content with descriptive titles. Give some link love to Techmeme, which drives some traffic.

#2 – If you have written or published an unique and different kind of article, like Mark Zuckerberg (CEO, Facebook) went to a local barber shop. Then you can send an email directly to the Techmeme editors at editorial@techmeme.com. They will be surely interested!

#3 – If you are re-blogging something, like linking to a news story, then chances are pretty less. The editorial team will rarely include you in Techmeme. Meanwhile, if you can provide some unique context that is missing from the current Techmeme conversation, you can get included.

#4 – If your blog/website is already indexed by Techmeme, then you don’t need to work very hard to get onto Techmeme. Just do your usual blogging stuffs. Here the chances are pretty high that your article will automatically become part of the relevant conversation happening at Techmeme.

# 5 – Follow TechmemeFH or Techmeme for your sake!! Also recommended to follow Gabe Rivera, the guy behind Techmeme.

#6 – To send a tip to Techmeme, just include “Tip @Techmeme” or “Tip @TechmemeFH” in your message along with the URL of the news story you’d like to appear. Check the below image for example :

Note : If you were the first person to tip Techmeme about a story url, your Twitter id will be credited on the homepage of Techmeme if the story is posted. The credit will appear beneath the posted headline, after “Discussion” links. Look for the word “Thanks”:

Want to know what Gabe recommends?

My recommendations? First, focus on the content. Break news or write original analysis, and do so clearly and concisely, always careful to provide real value to new and existing readers. And use descriptive titles. Second, enable discovery of your post. If necessary, though emails, links, trackbacks, IMs, etc.

And here is the link love part, mentioned #1.

Now if your blog or news article sends a moderate level of traffic to one of my sites, it will be evaluated for inclusion.

Keep “Suggest To Techmeme” Button/Link On Your Blog

If you are using a WordPress blog, then you can easily use a to keep “Suggest To Techmeme” button on your blog posts. – Download Plugin Here.

Have you tried these tips? Do you know any other tip? Please share it in the comments!

Blogging is a hobby for few and it is life for many. The main thing you must know in blogging is to attract each and every visitor and make them your reader. It is a must to do if you do blogging as a hobby or for life. Who is a visitor? A visitor is someone who comes to your blog for the first time through any referrals or through search engines or through any means. Who is a reader? A reader is someone who visits your blog daily or hourly for reading some new good things. It is not easy to convert your visitors to readers but it is not that much hard as well. Following some simple things and implementing the same can help a lot in achieving it. Here are some simple 5 ways to convert your blog visitor to a reader and make them addictive.

#1 – Plan your content :

The first and main thing you must take care is the content of your blog. Always remember one thing that you are writing for your readers and not for the spiders. You must have a damn good and useful content to get it done for you. Without a good content it is not possible to convert even if you follow 600 ways. Content is the king as always said.

When you are giving good contents then the visitors will stay in your blog for more time which can convert in good ratios. Do keep in mind that a planned content posting will always help you rather than posting it without any order. I mean post one or two articles daily and it is well and good if you can post more. This will create an impression to your visitors that this blog is getting updated twice a day with good contents. Chances are more for bookmarking your blog.

#2 – Encourage Commentators :

This is the second best thing you must do. Encourage your commentators by sending them a Thanks e-mail for posting the comments and ask them to visit again. Also keep a Top commentator widget on the sidebars or footers to show your visitors that some activities are going on always. Also conduct “Top Commentators Of The Month” contest and allocate ad slots for them in the sidebar. You will get good flow of comments if you make your blog a do follow one but of course never encourage keywords usage. That will make your blog look spammy.

#3 – Have Regular Giveaways :

This can get you loads of new readers for sure. Make a habit of giving some giveaways regularly but not too regularly. You can plan it accordingly as per the $ in your pocket. Make sure that you place these giveaways visible to all clean and clear, this can attract them easily. You can conduct competitions like tweet the post or post comments or facebook share etc. Do not forget to post about the winner of the competition because that will show that you are loyal in giving away.

#4 – E-mail your readers :

Whenever you post something really useful and if you think that it will be useful to your readers also then shoot out a mail to them. It can be something like a killer post or a pillar post etc. Make sure that the mails are not spam and not sent too often because this may create a bad impression on your blog.

#5 – Make your blog interactive :

A blog must be always an interactive one so try to make your blog as much as possible. Try to posts articles which can invoke your visitors and make them participate in that. It can be anything like a voting post or thoughts sharing post or anything which can make the blog live.

For more such blogging tips, you can freely subscribe to our feeds for quick updates.

Hope you all like the post!! Share your views and thoughts through comments!!

Off Topic :

Technorati Verification : B92BWA2Z4UVY

AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter 3.0.0 is the easiest solution to edit and reuse PDF contents. This wonderful software is available for both Windows and Mac users.

Some reasons why you should move on and check this product :

#1 - Standalone, don’t require Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat.
#2 - Support encrypted PDF files conversion.
#3 - Preserve text, layouts, images, tables and hyperlinks in an editable Word document.
#4 - Support Batch conversion of 200 PDF files, Partial, and Right-click conversion modes.

Overview

AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter is an efficient application to convert Adobe PDF files to well-formatted Microsoft Word documents. Perfect tool to convert PDF to Word. You can use the tool even without installing Microsoft Word. The original text, layouts, images, tables and hyperlinks can be exactly retained in the generated Word documents. Modifying or reusing the contents becomes easy after converting PDF to Word.

Specifications – Key Features

Key Features

Supported Formats

• Support importing Adobe PDF 1.0—1.7 formats (.pdf)
• Support encrypted PDF files conversion

Convert PDF to Word Accurately

PDF to Word Converter preserves the original layouts of text, columns, tables, graphics and hyperlinks of PDF files to Ms Word documents. There’s no need to retype or reformat the converted documents

3 Efficient Conversion modes

• Batch conversion—Convert 200 PDF files at one time
• Partial conversion—Select any pages from the PDF file to convert
• Right-click conversion—Right click on a PDF file and convert it into a Word document without launching the program

Miscellaneous

• Extremely easy to use
• User-friendly interface
• Doesn’t need Adobe Reader or Acrobat to be installed
• Doesn’t require Microsoft Word
• Support PDF files in 9 languages: English, Turkish, Thai, Latin, Korean, Greek, Cyrillic, Japanese, Chinese

How To Use AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter?

Just 3 steps to show you how to use AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter:

Step 1. Launch PDF to Word Converter

Launch PDF to Word Converter by double click PDF to Word icon on your desktop.

Step 2. Import PDF files

Click Add and browse your computer files to locate the PDF files to be converted. You can import as many as 200 files in this program. After the files are imported, the file information will be shown in the panel.

Step 3. Convert PDF files

Just click the Convert button, and wait for a little while, you will get the Word files as you want.
During the conversion, you can terminate converting the files by clicking the Cancel button where the Convert button is.

After the conversion is completed, a dialogue box will pop up, informing you the conversion is finished. You could click Open to go to the destination folder.

In a nutshell, this is a great product. Do share your opinions as comments below.

Literally anyone out there can sign up for a blog these days, so how do you set yourself apart from the masses? A blog can serve a number of purposes, especially if you are hoping to increase your traffic as an online business. In fact, if you have a standard e-commerce website, it is to your advantage to create an additional blog, which will help you to rank for a number of keywords more easily, and it will also add more pages to your website that are easily indexed by Google. Win-win!

Still, once you have created your blog for your company, you may be wondering where to go from there. Instead of twiddling your thumbs and hoping the blog will take care of itself, here are some top tricks to maximize your blog and get noticed:

• #1 – Guest Blog : If you are a blogger, you must take the opportunity to guest blog. (You can also try HBB)This can be done in one of two ways. First, you can offer your content to other bloggers within your niche, who will publish it for you with a link going back to your website. This process is highly beneficial to further ranking your website because links from other valuable blogs will give you authority in the eyes of Google. Even better, if you give a guest blog post to a blog that has a large reader base like this blog, those readers will be prone to check out your website if you are in a related niche, and you may gain more readers and traffic as a bonus. Otherwise, you can choose to exchange guest blogs with another blogger in your niche, which will provide the same benefit as above because that blog’s reader base will be likely to visit your blog to read the new guest blog post. You should also look on services like myblogguest.com for finding guest bloggers. If you have solid and informative content on your blog, these same readers may come back again and again or even subscribe to your RSS feed!

REFERENCE : List Of Cool Blogs To Write Guest Articles

• #2 – Stimulate Conversation : If you want to get more people involved in your blog, you must stimulate reader conversation! This starts by creating provocative and controversial posts – negative or positive – that people will be likely to comment on to start a conversation. It is also helpful to ask questions and respond to any comments that are made so people know you are listening. Additionally, one of the best ways to stimulate conversation on your blog is by using plug-ins like Keyword Luv and Comment Luv. As a warning, these plug-ins will attract serious spam that you will have to filter out, but they will also reward your readers for participating in conversation. Keyword Luv allows commenters to include their targeted keywords as a Do Follow link in the comment box, which will only be published if they provide a relevant and informative comment. Comment Luv serves the same purpose by fetching the feed from the commenter’s website when they leave a comment to bring up their last blog post title, which will be displayed below their comment on your blog. This will again reward a reader for providing something relevant to a blog conversation by subtly promoting their own blog at the same time.

REFERENCE : List Of Cool Blogs Using CommentLuv Plugin

• #3 – Social Media : As an online business, it is imperative that you have social media profiles on a number of different websites, with Facebook and Twitter being the bare minimum. The benefit to using social media profiles when it comes to your blog is that you can synchronize social media with your blog so that each new blog you post will be simultaneously updated to your Twitter and Facebook followers. If it is an interesting post, they will be likely to circulate it to their followers, and so on and so on and so on. Brilliant!

These best blogging tips are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, yet you may feel overwhelmed embarking on this task all alone. Luckily, you don’t have to because many of the menial blogging tasks can be outsourced to your virtual assistant, like monitoring comments, adding plug-ins, and managing the design and layout of your blog. This will leave you the time to focus on the more important tasks at hand of writing stellar content, making connections with other guest bloggers, and even hiring new writers and co-authors for your blog so that it becomes a legitimate resource in your online niche market. The truth is that quality cannot be overlooked when it comes to blogging, and the effort you put into your blog will be worthwhile by drawing even more traffic to your company’s website!

For more such blogging tips, you can freely subscribe to our feeds for quick updates.

So how are you going to maximize the potential of your blog? Please share it in the comments!

If you are looking for an iPhone App to manage and read all your Google Reader subscriptions, stop no farther than MobileRSS.

Google Reader already has an awesome interface for Smart phones, especially the iPhone.  It’s nothing short of an iPhone App in more ways than one.

MobileRSS is an iPhone App that can link up to your Google Reader account and synchronize all the subscriptions available there.  Here are a few reasons why MobileRSS may be preferred over the traditional Google Reader Web Application

Why MobileRSS?

Offline Access

You can synchronize all the latest posts with a WiFi connection and later read them at your convenience.  This provides you offline access and prevent the usage of costly Mobile Network bandwidth.

Sharing made Easier

Google Reader allows you to share the posts with other readers and also over the e-mail.  It doesn’t yet integrate sharing with Twitter etc. for the mobile version.

But MobileRSS overcomes this limitation and enables you to instantly share items on Twitter, Facebook, Delicious etc.  (Refer to the screenshot below)

Save Bandwidth by disabling Images

You can setup the application to download images only with a WiFi connection.  This saves you bandwidth even if you wish to synchronize posts over the Mobile Network

Use Multiple Google Reader Accounts

You can setup Multiple Google Reader Accounts (a.k.a Google Accounts) and the MobileRSS App can fetch the feeds from all of them

Few Images…

Try this FREE App and let us know what you think! For more reviews about free iPhone Apps, subscribe to our feeds, so that you can get them as quick as possible.

Bloggers learn from their experience, from their mistakes, and many more. I picked up some movies (both hollywood and bollywood) from where you can learn some stuffs like blogging tips and SEO tips. Also mentioned some movies where you can learn some leadership skills.

Some excerpts are taken from respective blog posts. Credit goes to the respective author and all the movie names have hyperlinks, feel free to check the complete blog post. Cheers.

#1 – Avatar : Avatar is a 2009 American epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver.

Jeremy Schoemaker, “It hit me on the way home from the movie theater. Its the same story as the 1990 smash hit Dances With Wolves. Just like with movies and books their are no new methods/ideas . Just alterations of what has worked for ever.”

You can also check the 7 things we should learn from the movie Avatar.

#2 – Kung Fu Panda : Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 American animated film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Here the author tells you how and where Kung Fu Panda movie reveals SEO secret. There is no secret of SEO, all the available information on SEO blogs are more than sufficient to understand about SEO. All you’ve to do is, work hard in using them.

#3 – Inception : Inception is a 2010 American science fiction action film written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, and many.

The hero is a good-looking geek — and so is his female colleague. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) works with a team of hackers — including a really smart, beautiful female geek — who together set out to hack wetware, rather than software.

#4 – 3 Idiots : 3 Idiots is a 2009 Bollywood comedy film directed by Rajkumar Hirani. 3 Idiots stars Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, and Kareena Kapoor.

Do work with Passion and Choice : This applies to every blogger. If you can point out best part of yours like which are the best topics you can write about it. You should find your strength and understanding about Subject.

#5 – Pixar – Studio : Pixar Animation Studios is an American CGI animation film studio based in Emeryville, California, United States.

Pixar is as close to a constant learning organization as there is, with a proven ability to reinvent and a genuine cultural humility. Google’s founders could learn from Pixar’s founder and president Ed Catmull’s prolonged and determined efforts.

Also check “Can We Learn From Pixar?” by Dave West.

#6 – Once Upon A Time In Mumbai : Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai is a 2010 Bollywood drama film, starring Ajay Devgan, Emraan Hashmi, Prachi Desai, and Kangana Ranaut.

You must listen the Dialog that “Himmat batai nahi Dikhai jati hai” in the same manner when we want to blog about something then we must have guts to write our own and creative content. You must listen 100 times that Content is KING.

#7 -The Queen : The Queen is a 2006 British-French historical drama film directed by Stephen Frears, written by Peter Morgan, and starring Helen Mirren as the title role, Queen Elizabeth II.

1st lesson is about the recognition of who holds the power. The Queen was born into power at a time when the values based on tradition were upheld. 2nd lesson is about the importance of encouraging dialogue and information sharing as a leader.

What IT leaders can learn from Hollywood?

To get you started on the road to becoming a presentation star, it’s important to realize that when you get up in front of a room of people you are no longer a corporate manager. Even when it’s a small meeting, as the presenter you are now “on stage.” Like it or not, you are cast in the role of entertainer/storyteller. And in that role of storyteller you need a story to tell.

Small Business Lessons We Can Learn from Watching Movies

Movies have a big impact on our everyday life. The movie “Avatar” now has grossed over $600M in sales. In fact, technology has increased our appetite to watch to entertain ourselves since we can now watch not only on television, but on computers and smartphones.

There’s no reason to feel guilty about watching a movie, thinking you should be working instead. You can actually learn about business by watching movies (and that’s more than firing people in “Up In The Air”!)

Also recommended “5 Social Media Lessons I Learned from Working with a Hollywood Actress” from Copy Blogger.

Do you any similar experience? Have you learned anything from any movie? Please share it in the comments!

If you have a self hosted Blog, chances are pretty high that it is powered by WordPress.

There is a deluge of Themes available to decorate your Blog and make it look Pretty.  But do you know that using a Theme Framework may be Good for your Blog, for more reasons than one?  Read on.

ALSO CHECK : Choosing A Top Grade Theme For Your Blog

What is a WordPress Theme Framework?

As WordPress puts it:

A Theme framework is a Theme designed to be a flexible foundation for quicker WordPress development, usually serving as a robust Parent Theme for Child Themes.  Some Theme frameworks can also make theme development more accessible, removing the need for programming or design knowledge with options pages.

In short, a Theme Framework provides a lot of useful features that are quickly available and easily customizable based on your needs.

Why is a WordPress Theme Framework better?

There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to WordPress Themes. It is virtually impossible for a WordPress Theme to give all that you need for the Blog.

A Theme Framework solves this problem by giving you the following :

Getting rid of few Plugins

The Power of WordPress is its extensibility by the way of Plugins.  Theme Frameworks helps you to get rid of few Plugins, by giving you those very features as part of their core framework.  This way, you can free up your Blog of some Plugins.

A good example is the SEO features provided by the Thesis Framework for WordPress – which makes it absolutely unnecessary for you to install any SEO related plugins.

Design Options are virtually Endless

Though many WordPress Themes give you the flexibility to tweak the Design options, Theme Frameworks can provide you with numerous options to control most of the Design – either through code or with visual editors.   Also, an established Theme Framework has a set of proven and robust Child Themes which can give your Blog a completely professional look.

Switching Design becomes Easier

It is perfectly normal to switch your Blog Design over a period of time.  With Theme Frameworks, it is just a matter of switching the Child Themes without affecting other settings for your Theme.

What Theme Frameworks are available?

If you are sold on the idea of using a Theme Framework or if you would like to know about the available Theme Frameworks, here are a few of them:

• Thesis Theme
• Genesis Theme
• Thematic
• Carrington

There are many more, you can make an easy search for them using Google as ‘wordpress theme frameworks’.

I will be happy to assist you with any questions you have on WordPress Theme Frameworks.  Comments are the best way to contact me!

From railway stations to news sites, everyone seems to be talking about Twitter. Such is the craze of Twitter today that almost everyone has heard of it at some point or the other. If you haven’t heard about it for the marketing revolution it has brought, you are likely to hear about it for the celebrity gossip.

Twitter today is one of the finest and easiest ways to know about your favorite celebrity right from them. While Twitter is a fairly simple platform to use, it can be quite confusing in the initial days. The first time you login and start following people, you will see an overload of information with lingo you had never heard before. Well, welcome to Twittersphere.

There are various apps available to make your life easier on Twitter. Applications like Friend or Follow and We Follow help you in growing your network, some let you send updates in a much easier way like desktop clients TweetDeck and Seesmic or Web client like HootSuite, and some let you analyze your profile such as TwitterAnalyzer, while there are few which let you run marketing campaigns on Twitter. You are completely spoilt for choices when you consider these apps for specific needs but when you try finding an application that gives you a complete solution to all your Twitter needs, you are in for disappointment.
Started as tool to help you grow your account, Buzzom today is a complete solution for Twitter needs of individuals. From finding people, growing your network, sending updates to automating blog feeds, Buzzom has it all.

Buzzom lets you manage multiple accounts with either your Twitter or Facebook login. You can send updates; connect with your friends while keeping track of the conversations.

Outstanding Features Of Buzzom

People Search is one of the most useful features and it’s completely unique to Buzzom. It lets users make use of various conditions to find people and connect with them. It provides an engagement console for you to interact with the users’ right here at the dashboard.

You can search people by using keywords in bio, location, username and the number of followers and followings. It is one of the most convenient ways of finding targeted users.

Buzzom Stats provides you good insight on your account. With some amazing backend analytics, it can tell you what kind of profile you belong to. It also provides you some suggestions on how you can better your performance.

Buzzom Score ranks you in a scale of 1 to 100 where a score of 100 would put you as the best profile.

You can automate RSS Feed by Buzzom Feed Management which will automatically send updates from your website/ blog. This really is a great feature for bloggers/ marketers who wouldn’t want to sit whole day sending updates from their website.

The Grow, Flush and Reciprocate options under Twitin lets you grow your network essentially by following more people, unfollowing people who are not following you and following you followers back respectively.

Buzzom also offers some other goodies in form of Buzzom badge which you can use in your website or blog to promote your Twitter profile. There is a Buzz toolbar for Firefox and Chrome so that when you come across an interesting topic, you can tweet it right from your browser.

Buzzom is a highly efficient and easy to use platform which comes absolutely free of cost. Buzzom does have a paid version Buzzom Premium which is offered at $10 per month.