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Last Thursday, the management student tweeted, "Trying to decide between a Lenovo or an Acer laptop."

Soon, and much to his surprise, he had a reply from the Chinese computer maker's India arm, Lenovo India Pvt. Ltd. "I only expected some users to respond," he said.

Lenovo got in touch with Kaushik, asked him for his specifications, gave him suggestions on various computer models and a list of authorized dealers from whom he could purchase the laptop. "Lenovo helped with the (purchase) decision," said Kaushik who bought a Lenovo G450 laptop two days after the company reached out to him.
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Lenovo India went on social media's newest and least understood avatar, Twitter, in end-July.

Members on the networking site communicate through messages shorter than 140 characters--a concept that has become a rage globally and continues to grow as users find new applications for it.

"Our expectation was only to listen to customers," said K. Ramakrishnan, country manager, marketing, at Lenovo India.

In less than two months, the company has generated enquiries and translated some of them into sales, for both individuals and bulk buyers.

Several Indian companies are advertising and closely tracking themselves on social media on the Internet--all the content generated on a gamut of blogs, online video and photo sharing sites, social networking sites and even on the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Few have been effective.

Source: Live Mint Firms logging into networking sites to connect with customers

Suresh Dumbre's day starts with a text message on his mobile phone. The message, in Marathi, usually comes at 7 am. The 40-year-old vegetable farmer in Dawadi village in Pune reads it aloud: Cabbage. Pune: Rs 64 for 10 kg. Mumbai: Rs 80 for 10 kg. Kolhapur: Rs 80 for 10 kg. Now, Dumbre knows how much his cabbages will fetch him in the nearby wholesale markets. He leaves home with his stocks only after reading the message.

Every day, at seven, 100,000 farmers in Maharashtra, Haryana and Punjab receive similar messages tailor-made to their specific crop and market requirements. Each of them has paid an average of Rs 50-Rs 100 a month for this service. Reuters Market Light (RML), the SMS-based information service targeted at farmers, was launched two years ago by the $13.4 billion Thomson Reuters Group. "We expect subscriber numbers to touch one million in three years," says RML's Managing Director, Amit Mehra.

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Last Thursday was an eventful day in Dumbre's life. He sold his cabbages at Rs 88 for 10 kg, the highest price they have ever fetched him. Later that evening, at the Sarpanch's office, he describes his experience to others over a cup of chai: A 10 kg sack of cabbages used to fetch him just Rs 25, and if he was really lucky, Rs 35. "I was at the mercy of middlemen who dictated the price." Dumbre became an RML customer barely a month ago and is thankful to his Sarpanch, Hore Jijbhau Manohar, for introducing him to RML. "The daily price updates have helped me make a profit of Rs 500," he says with a smile.

Apart from market alerts, Dumbre also gets weather and temperature alerts, fertiliser prices and technology tips on his phone. Bantu Desai, a grape farmer in Nashik grasps for words as he recalls how an RML weather alert once helped him save Rs 2 lakh. "Humidity is disastrous for grapes. An RML message warned me that humidity would be high in Nashik. I quickly bought a humidity-cover spray and saved my crops." Another farmer, Vilas Todkar, was not so lucky. He had not subscribed to any such alerts and says that he lost crops worth about Rs 4 lakh.

RML is trying to reach out to as many farmers as it can, says Amit Mehra. It is now all set to roll out services in other states, including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. "I believe this service could lead to (cumulative) savings of $5-6 billion," he says confidently. Mehra describes RML as a social enterprise initiative from the house of Thomson Reuters. "We wanted to take a lead in offering market solutions that have an impact on the society, and yet, are profitable."

Source: business.outlookindia.com SMS Farming

• Cyber police is watching Government can monitor, intercept or even block any online content including e-mail that it thinks is offensive or could threaten national security. Could lead to misuse.

• Personal data up for grabs Government agencies can now demand users' personal data from internet service providers. Could lead to privacy issues and litigation.

• Beware of e-mail/MMS/SMS jokes Exchange of messages/data that are "offensive, annoying or cause inconvenience" over any computing device will be treated as an offence. Open to interpretation.

• Intermediaries are better off Service providers will not be held responsible for offensive content put up by websites, but will have to respond to state orders to block remove content within two hours. Could lead to technology issues.

Pretty soon, millions of Indian users will find that it's no longer easy to put up just about anything on the internet without bothering about it. A photograph, a joke or an innocent, honest comment on a contentious issue could prove to be troublesome depending on how a government agency interprets it.

Drafted under the broad umbrella of cyber security, the rules give teeth to a new law passed by the government late last year.

It changes the system of penalties for cyber offences and makes it easy for government agencies to seek any information, including users' personal data. This sudden extremism over Net activities stems from the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year, where internet and mobile technology was allegedly used to plan and execute the operation. India's action here is not isolated and follows a pattern among countries like US and China, who are targeting terror aided by the internet.

Source: www.outlookindia.com IT: CYBER LAWS, What Was The Password?

एक जैसी रुचियों और पसंद वाले लोगों को एक प्लैटफॉर्म पर लाने के लिए शुरू हुई ऑनलाइन सोशल नेटवर्किंग अब कम्यूनिकेट करने और जानकारियां शेयर करने का सबसे सुविधाजनक, सस्ता और आसान जरिया बन गई है। दुनिया में करोड़ों लोग सोशल नेटवर्किंग वेबसाइट्स से जुड़े हुए हैं और इनमें रोजाना हजारों-लाखों नए नाम जुड़ रहे हैं।

सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट्स के इस बढ़ते नेटवर्क पर आईटी कंपनी क्यूबिट टेक्नॉलजी के एमडी संजय शर्मा कहते हैं कि टेक्नॉलजी को आप रोक नहीं सकते और न रोकना चाहिए। वह सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट्स की तुलना टीवी से करते हुए कहते हैं कि जिस वक्त टीवी शुरू हुआ, गिने-चुने चैनल और प्रोग्रैम थे लेकिन आज सैकड़ों ऑप्शन हैं। ऐसे में आप क्या चुनते हैं, यह आप पर निर्भर करता है। इसी तरह सोशल नेटवर्किंग वेबसाइट्स की भी बाढ़ आ गई है। लेकिन इनका इस्तेमाल आप अपने फायदे के लिए किस तरह करते हैं, यह आप पर निर्भर करता है। वह जोर देकर कहते हैं कि ये वेबसाइट्स आपको प्रफेशन में आगे बढ़ाने में बड़ी भूमिका अदा कर सकती हैं।

प्रफेशनल यूज भी : असल में, इन दिनों सभी सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट्स ढेर सारे प्रफेशन और कमर्शल ऑप्शन उपलब्ध करा रही हैं। इन पर नौकरियों और कारोबार से जुड़े न सिर्फ विज्ञापन हैं, बल्कि लोग एक-दूसरे को सीधे अवसरों की जानकारी मुहैया कराते हैं। जिन्हें अवसर की तलाश है, वे भी यहां मौजूद हैं और जिनके पास अवसर या उससे जुड़ी जानकारी हैं, वे भी यहां हैं। सीधा संपर्क होने की वजह से यहां बननेवाले प्रफेशनल संबंध ज्यादा सटीक और गहरा होते हैं। फिर जितने ज्यादा मेंबर, उतने ही अवसर भी ज्यादा मिलते हैं। ये तमाम चीजें मिलकर एक मजबूत मार्किटिंग सिस्टम तैयार करती हैं, जो आपके ब्रैंड, प्रॉडक्ट और सर्विस को प्रमोट करता है।

• भारत में करीब पांच करोड़ सोशल नेटवर्किंग यूजर हैं।

• सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट्स पर यूजर औसतन 25 मिनट बिताता है।

• भारत में इंटरनेट यूजर्स में से एक-तिहाई सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट पर हैं।

If one compares the websites of the 2006 Melbourne and 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, the gulf in professionalism in the design of the respective website is clearly apparent. While the Melbourne Games website is highly interactive and filled with great photo galleries and features of not just the 2006 Games but also the legacy of the Commonwealth Games, the Delhi Games website seems haphazard and requires effort to search for information required. Taking into account the enormity of the Games, it seems strange that the Organizing Committee hasn't invested more into using the website to generate interest.

The Commonwealth Games are expected to be a big boost for our tourism, which is all the more important now post the terror-ravaged year of 2008. Yet, strangely enough, the website has no information regarding the attractions of India and has no link to the Tourism Department of the Indian Government. If a foreigner visits the website one of these days, looking for additional reasons to visit India during the Games, he wouldn't be given any. Nothing is mentioned about the Taj Mahal or the Forts in Rajasthan or the Backwaters of Kerala. Of course there are millions of other sites where the information can be found, but there's no excuse for the lack of it on Games website. During the 2006 Games, Melbourne2006.com.au was the top sports website in Australia, a feat that the Delhi Games' website would fail to emulate here in India if it remains in its present condition.

Another massive disappointment regarding the website is its lack of information of the history of the games. You have to look around a little to find the little information they have given, and even that can be called a snippet at best. There's no section on the website providing all the facts regarding the previous editions of the Games. To be honest the Commonwealth Games don't command great respect outside, well, the Commonwealth. The level of competition can hardly be called world class when you have just three of the Top 10 medal winners of the Beijing Olympics taking part. A lot of work has to be done when it comes to building up the importance of the Games, and that responsibility falls to the hosts. Yet again, on comparing the Melbourne and Delhi Games' websites, it's tough to believe that they both represent the same global event. While the Melbourne Games' website makes it look like a spectacle, the Delhi Games' website seems to have been given such little attention that on the page of the Tradition of the Queen's Baton Relay, several grammatical and typographical errors exist including the presence of the same paragraph one after the other.

What I found extremely compelling on Cwgdelhi2010.org was that there was zero coverage of the Closing Ceremony of the 2006 Melbourne Games. The Closing Ceremony can be said to be the start of the journey for the 2010 Games, the moment the attention moves from one edition to the next. The likes of Aishwarya Rai, Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Isha Sharwani, Shiamak Davar and Sunidhi Chauhan performed at the Ceremony in an effort to get the buzz for Delhi 2010 started. And considering the fact that the Melbourne2006.com.au has a special on the Bollywood presence at the Ceremony only makes it even more startling that our website has no mention at all.

The last oversight that I noted was regarding the Official Video of the Games present on the website. The video, which commemorates the start of the Countdown to the Opening Ceremony at a time when there were a 1000 days left. Yet when you search for the video on YouTube you find it uploaded by some guy who spelt "Video" as "Vedio" and has less than 1500 hits. The Organizing Committee has clearly failed to realize the role YouTube can play by not spending a little money in making it a featured video on the popular website. Also, on the official website, there are no controls to the video on the Home page as a result of which it keeps going through a loop unless you navigate to another page. You can't pause it and neither can you mute it, unless of course you choose to turn off your speakers entirely, which makes it irritating once you have seen the entire thing. And another glitch regarding it is that, right at the end, it says "1000 days to go". Even though the video was meant to commemorate the start of the countdown, but shouldn't it be edited to keep it relavent if it's being broadcasted on the official website?

Source: sportscampus.com CWG Delhi not Net Savvy?

6 things the Organizing Committee can do to make better use of the Internet: