Reference Designer

A viral marketing method works in a fashion similar to virus. Your son gets flu. The flu virus spreads to few of his classmates. The next day your son stops going to school. He work is done. Some of his school classmates come back to their home and they spread the flu at their home and at their playground. Some of the parents who catch flu spread the flu to their offices. And the phonemenon continues. Very soon the virus spreads to a part of the city.

As a viral marketer you are the 1st person who go to school and spread the virus to some of your classmates. Your job is done. To understand it with a most recent example consider the free international calling offer from Vonage. Vonage started offering unlimited international calling for $25 a monnth. I received this message in an email from Alok Jain. The email did not came from vonage. I did not see it in any advertisement. Alok Jain was spreading the virus. Vonage just spread the virus – that there was a free unlimited international call for just $25 a month. And its job was done. It did not spend millions advertising on TV or online media. The offer was picked up by few persons and they started sending email. Within few days it reached to millions of the India population. Vonage had added one more deadly virus. They offered free two months two anyone who referred someone to this service. Very soon there was phone calls going to everywhere. I got at least 10 calls asking me to take up this plan. They wanted two months free calling.

It was a brilliant move from Vonage. Whether it make bussiness sense to them it a different question. But, in my view it was a brilliant move from vonage. I believe they must have made several hundred new customers with this plan ( I do not have exact data). They saved several million dollars on marketing expense with this move.

Discussion of viral marketing, especially in online marketing arena is never complete without the classical example of hotmail. Hotmail started free email service at the time when other companies were offering paid email services. With every email there was a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com”. Very soon the message spread like a wild fire. Hotmail just ignited the initial spark and the fire spread like a California forest fires.

Viral marketing is a great strategy. If you want to market your product or service think if and how you can apply it to the product or services that you want to market. The idea will come like a spark. if your idea hits the right spark your job is done.

Traditional non viral marketing works in a linear fashion. If A is the effort required to bring one customer then the amount of the effort required to bring y customer will be A*y. In the viral marketing, your initial effort is that sparkling idea. And there is no subsequent linear effort required in marketing.

Figure 1 : Traditional marketing techniques requires linearly increasing effort to increase customers

Figure 2 -In viral marketing techniques, the few initial customers are compelled to spread the message.

Fiigure 1 shows the traditional marketing technique in which the company needs to reach to each invidivual potential customer.The cost of marketing increases linearly with number of potential customer that the company wishes to reash.

Figure 2 shows the viral marketing technique. The company initially makes few customers. These customers are then compelled to spread the message to other potential customer, who in turn spread it to even more customers.

Once again focus on figure 1. The message goes from company to the customer. The customer knows that the message is coming from the company. They know that this is company’s marketing ploy. This reduces the efficacy of the markeing effort applied by the company. Move on to figure 1. Only the first 3 persons in this figure are contacted by the company. Any person below them get the message not from the company but from a reliable person that is not part of the company. There is a more authentic and compelling message coming from someone reliable. The customer does not ignore it.

In the online marketing arena, similar principle apply. Your content or intent should be so compelling that it will force users to spread the message. You will also empower the users with tools on your website to spread the message.

Motivating users

There are several methods that we can use to motivate users to spread message. The most important of them is a free or promotional offer. Make users known that you are offering something valualble as free. This technique was used by hotmail. Hotmail was able to increase the userbase to over 8 million users in a matter of 18 months.

Empowering Users with tools to spread message

If you have a online product you should provide tools to users that enables hime to share the content or the product with others. You can give him a pop up box, telling him to share the product or online content details with other.

Uncategorized online marketing

There may be several reasons why you may want to change the ip address of your comcast network. One example may be are inadvertantly banned from a forum and you want to create a new log in. The forum masters check your origin with your IP address. You may create a new login by changing your ip address. I assume that you have internet connection from comcast, though same scheme applies to other service providers.

Before you start, note down the ip address that you have at present. You can use http://getyrip.com to find the ip address. Here is how your ip address will look like before attempting change.

Now let us assume that your comcast ethernet cable is connected to a router. You need to take out that cable and insert into your computer directly. After you do that turn off the comcast box and turn it on. Now check your ip address again. Here is how it looks after the change.

Uncategorized

I have seen a high demand for the online quizzes. Early in my college life, I was impressed by the books that had a lot number of solved examples followed by a large number of unsolved questions. One of the reasons for this was I grew up in a very competitive atmoshphere. There was no option but to excel and be in the top 1%.

When I wrote my book Signal Integrity for PCB Designers I has this aspect in mind. I included as many questions at the end of chapters as possible. These questions, in the form of multiple choice answers form the basis of testing your skill.

Recently, I came across skill-guru an online platform where a “guru” can post the questions alongwith answers and explanations. The students can take the test online at any time. The questions in my book  could reach to a greater audience. Since I had published the book myself, I could post the questions without requiring permission from the Publisher.

If you want to  test your signal integrity quiz for fun or for refreshing your Signal Integrity basics you may like to take the following two quizzes.

Signal Integrity Quiz #1

Signal Integrity Quiz #2

How skill-guru works

Skill-Guru is collaborative platform which allows the subject area experts to create tests. When some one takes a test designed by guru, he can assess the level of his knowledge and, can therefore improve upon his skill. This helps students.

If you have an expertise in your area you may like to become a guru and post questions in skill guru. If you want to test any skill in your area of study you may like to see if there is any quiz available in the are of your expertise at skill guru.

Uncategorized si, Signal Integrity

This is part of my recent conversation about Liveperson stocks. I do think that Liveperson is a good stock to own. I do not trade stock much now. The part of my conversation.

dmorris400: hi.

i saw your post about Ezdia. Can you tell me more about it?

Me: Hi

dmorris400: does it have stock?

Me: ezdia is a networking cum freelancing platform. It is a knowledge sharing platform where you can trade knowledge. It also brings together knowledge seeker and expert together.

It does not has stock. I am one of the stake holder as I see a good future in it. If if you wish to invest I can introduce it to its CEO.

dmorris400: why would you say it will replace lpsn? to me it looks quite underdeveloped

Me: eZdia  is still under development.  Many functionalities are not yet available. But it will have freelancing functionality into it in addition to live person help.

dmorris400: do you worry about being sued at all by LPSN for infringement? your site seems quite similar

Me: Not at all. ezdia is different. And why can I eZdia be sued ? I do not get you.

dmorris400: i thought your post on the msg bd for LPSN was a bit of a hyperbole LPSN is doing very well

Me: LPSN is doing well, but eZdia will do much better

dmorris400: ok, well maybe some day

Me: as ezdia will be a much stronger platform It will take some time possibly one and a half year

dmorris400: for now it seems like LPSN has a very large market share and many major clients

but anything’s possible

Me: Check some of my blogs about ezdia at http://referencedesigner.com/blog and you will have an idea of the potentials of ezdia;

It will take one and a half year time

dmorris400: yes, i have seen that blog. you are essentially describing what LPSN already does and does well

but good luck

Me: ezdia will have many more functionalities in addition to what LPSN does

Thanks

dmorris400: ok

good

Me: what do you do by the way ? Do you have LPSN stocks ?

dmorris400: no

Me: I see

dmorris400: not yet

do u?

Me: It last two quarters are doing well. Its results for the lost two quarters are promising.

dmorris400: do u follow it?

Me: I do it sometimes. But I think it may make sense to grab some of its stock

dmorris400: it has been rising lately. quite consistently
Me:

Yes – it has some potentials and it may make sense to have few hundreds stocks of it, if you have money

dmorris400: do u think it will go higher? seems like it might get some publicity soon and really run nup

Me: I believe it may go a dollar or so higher

dmorris400: yeah. i am thinking so too

the volume has been high lately
Me:

My theory is to buy 100 or so at current price.

dmorris400: 100 is not much, maybe 1000

Me: If it goes down, say by 50 cents, buy 200 more. If it goes down another 50 cents buy another 300 more

In case it goes down

dmorris400: well i doubt it will go down by that much at this rate of it rising

but maybe

Me: If it goes high, well and good

dmorris400: i bet it hits 5

then maybe corrects a little

Me: In that case you are winning anyway

I am giving a case where you win in both ways whether it goes high or low

dmorris400: true

Me: If it goes low and you buy more, it lowers your average buying price

At some point it will rise and you make good money

dmorris400: true

Uncategorized liveperson, stock

There are many platforms that make it easy for you to find the expert help that you need. You can find the experts at Live Person. Live person has more than 30,000 registered experts in over 600 categories, as per the  information from its website. You need to choose the right category to be able to find the right expert for you. It is possible that you are able to find right professional in the exact area of expertise that you need.

The question you may ask is why should you choose an expert when you can do the same thing yourself using search on internet. And it is a very valid question. And most of the time you do not need “so called” expert. You may end up having more qualification than the expert itself. Just do enough search.

Ezdia does exactly this. eZdia has a search engine, that you can use to find the answer to your question by using its search engine. Most of the time you will find the answer from one of the search results. It is, however, possible that you are unable to find answer to some of your specific question or some peculiar case.

As a recent example I wanted to make my PHP BB based forum search engine friendly. I did search a lot on google but could not get the exact information I was looking for. I finally came across a PHP expert and asked him if he could help me. I did not mind paying him for the work. I finally got my problem solved within 6 hours of contacting.

So ezdia provides you one platform where you can search knowledge. And when the knowledge search fails to solve your problem may resort to taking an expert help.

Liveperson can also help you find the right expert for you. However, you need to find the expert in the right category, unlike ezdia. In eZdia you can just search for a expert using expert search with keywords that precisely defines the area where you are seeking help. At live person, after choosing the right person, browsing through profiles and deciding upon an expert, you press the “Contact Live!” button and you can then start communicating with the expert. You can use ‘Hire’ button to begin your paid session via Live Chat or Phone. In a similar way you can click “chat” button at ezdia to start communicating with the expert. Of course, at eZdia too you will check the back ground of the person, his rating, his associated content, before you decide to hire him.

It is possible that the ezdia expert that you’d like to consult with is not online. In such case, you may like to add the expert in your connection list or you may send him an email. The experts usually respond in a matter of 24 hours.

The rating system at ezdia ensures that you get the quality services. If the expert answers your query
reasonably well, you can give him good rating. The rating system is one reason why the expert will try his best to solve your problem at a reasonable rate.

Looks simple ? Next time you need to find answer to your question, search at ezdia. And if you do not find answer, do not hesitate to contact one of the thousands of ezdia ezperts.

freelancing Add new tag, freelancing

I am continuing to write about the personalities, and, the subject of today’s blog is Avinash kaushik.  Avinash  Kaushik is the author of the book Web Analytics: An Hour A Day. Avinash Kaushis is  the Co-Founder and Chief Education Officer for Market Motive.

Avinash Kaushik is also on the board of advisors at Coradiant,  Commerce360, iPerceptions,  University of California Irvine.

His biography is best described using  his LinkedIN profile.

“A dynamic leader in the field of web analytics, Avinash Kaushik helps Fortune 100 companies make the most of their analytics strategies. Through both his blog—Occam’s Razor—and his book, Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, Kaushik puts a common sense framework around the often frenetic world of web research and analytics.

As the Analytics Evangelist for Google, Kaushik spreads his philosophy that investing in talented analysts can be more profitable than simply investing in metrics tools.

He is a staunch advocate of listening to the consumer, and is committed to helping organizations unlock the value of web research and analytics.”

I look forward to interacting with Avinash Kaushik.

Vikas Shukla is the lead architect of Hardware Design at BL Healthcare. He also provides consultancy for SEO and social media marketing.

Uncategorized online marketing