Google is Offering $250 Free Adwords Account Advertisement!!!!

You might think that am kidding but its true. $250 in adword advertising is worth to experiment with until January 31, 2009.

Try it: http://www.google.com/ads/250/v.html.

Mobile Payments Getting Traction On Social Networks, But Fees Are Sky High

Users are increasingly choosing dead simple SMS mobile payments for micro-transactions on social network applications and gaming sites (it fills the void while they wait formore direct action), but super-high transaction fees are limiting growth.

The problem is that legacy transactions - specifically scams that give users a “free” ring tone with the fine print mentioning a monthly charge as high as $20 - have brought in so much cash to the carriers that they’ve gotten used to taking 50% or more of the total payment in fees. For the market to grow to encompass legitimate transactions, those fees have to drop dramatically. For that to happen, the social networks need to get involved directly in carrier negotiations.

Two companies, both headquartered in Europe, are already targeting mobile payments for apps - Mobillcash(UK) and Zong (Switzerland).

When you buy a virtual shotgun on Mobwars, for example (and they are selling a lot of them, up to $1 million per month) you have to pay real cash. You can choose to pay via a number of services (Facebook doesn’t offer a direct payment solution yet), including either Mobillcash or Zong.

If you choose Zong, you enter your phone number on the site, get a text message with a four digit code, enter the code on the site and you’re done. It’s by far the easiest way to charge a transaction online outside of Amazon one-click.

Zong’s fees aren’t transparent, but Mobillcash’s are. Mobillcash has a clunkier interface (you have to choose your carrier and go through extra steps), but they show what their fees are because to get, say, $1 into the Facebook app you have to pay $1.50 on most carriers. That implies a 33% transaction cost, almost all of which goes to the carrier. Many of Mobillcash’s payments are way beyond 33%. Zong says they pay an average of a 40% transaction fee to U.S. carriers.

Those transaction fees are severely limiting the size of the market. Lots of merchants and application developers would love to take mobile payments, but paying 40% or more of the transaction to the carriers is a non-starter.

Zong argues that the fees are actually much lower than they seem because conversion rates (when chance that money will change hands once a payment button is pressed) are more than 50%. If that seems low, compare it to PayPal conversion rates that are reported to be a fraction of that.

Regardless, though, any merchant selling an item with actual marginal cost (virtual items are by definition free to produce, so higher payment fees can be tolerated) aren’t going to allow mobile payments via SMS. If the carriers were to lower those fees (or if they were forced to by market forces or the government), a very rich ecosystem could blossom, and the carriers would get the majority of the value created.

What Happens If Carriers Ignore the Opportunity

Chances are the carriers won’t lower their exorbitant payment fees anytime soon. What I’m guessing will happen is that services like Zong and MobillCash, as they add valuable users who like to pay via SMS, will simply offer to move those users to credit card payments. Users still pay by just entering in their phone number and then typing in a 4 digit code they receive via SMS, but the charge would go to their credit card instead of their phone. The difference in fees is so large that customers can be offered a very large incentive to simply store their credit card and use that instead of having the charge go to their phone bill. And checking out is still much, much simpler than typing in your name, address and credit card details.

Funniest Google pic

Today morning, i was viewing a website, that did not changed it's URL for the search results. I mean if you view the first search result page, or the last the URL was the same. I was a bit uncomfortable, and tried to see the Google's URL for search results. And it changes accordingly.
However, i did some changes in the URL and i got this funny pic. The fact that makes this pic funnier is the Google logo at the bottom. The O is misplaced, and hangs at the bottom.
How can this happen. We all know there is a relation between the result page and the number and style of O that appears in the Gooooogle, but having an O dropped out from the name is quite funny.
All i did was to change the start parameter to 10,000. And then i got a message saying that ,"Sorry, Google does not serve more than 1,000 results for any query. You asked for results starting from 1,000,000.". It means the designer had probably expected this kind of query, and hence this error message.
Now i tried to play a bit more, i changed the start parameter to a negative value say -99 and i got the search page 1, for that. Even i changed it to alphabetic value and the start page was visible. So, they are doing a validation for these values, then why leave behind the values greater than 1,000. And even more, leaving apart the O :-)

Have a look yourself and enjoy.


Here is a better and enlarged view of the image.

Invisible mode for Google Talk

You must have used the invisible mode on Yahoo Messenger. If you ever wished the same feature for Google talk or any such other XMMP protocol based chat service, the wait is finally over. There have been recent developments in this field and people are coming up with plugins or rather tweaks at this instant of time, which allows to be invisible, while you can still chat, see online people, learn about any new unread email and know when someone scrapped you on orkut.

The Plugin

Manual Way
Here is what you need to do if you want to be invisible.

1. First download PSI (0.10) or Miranda IM. For Psi versions later then 0.10 you'll need to modify the options.xml file to enable Invisible status. In order to learn about how to configure Miranda for google talk account see,this help, or for Psi IM, look here . For detailed instructions to configure PSI,
   

1. Now log in as Invisible status provided by the client.
2. Open the XML Console and inject the following code through it
3. Repeat the above step whenever you want to refresh the buddy list.. the last line of the code causes the server to return Email Notifications.

5



5

We are currently doing the alpha testing, and have plans to release a beta plugin soon.

Detailed configuration in PSI-IM

For those who are new to PSI-IM, here is a brief tutorial on how to be invisible in Google Talk.

For those who are using PSI v 0.11 or above, you need to modify the options.xml file. If you are on Microsoft Windows XP, then you can find the file at C:\Documents and Settings\username\PsiData\profiles\default. If you are on Linux, look into /home/username/.psi/options.xml. Look in for the string invisible and set its value to enable/ true.

Next, login as invisible in PSI.



Next, choose your google talk account and right click to get the XML Console Option. When the XML console is open, don't forget to check the Enable option in the bottom left. Have a look at images below.




Next, you need to copy the code given above into the input window. Open the XML Console window by pressing th XML Input button on the right bottom. And paste the code as shown below.


After you inject the above code click on "Transmit", you will see various messages. Don't worry, they are the status of your buddies. Now close every open window, except for the main window. Now start chatting with your favorite bussy, as normally. You can see the buddy, but s/he will see you as offline.

NOTE::
You have to repeat the above procedure, everytime, you want to get status updates.

The working

When you log in as Invisible the server replies with an error msg saying this mode is not supported. Although you wont receive any buddy list status or other notifications but the server doesn't disconnects you.

Now when you inject the the XML the server sees you online and replies you with the buddy status of your friends and immediately it sets your status unavailable. The server then sends this packet to your online buddies. GTalk/Other clients when get this packet they set your status On and Off. Usually this transition is so fast that practically you remain offline.

In this Invisible Mode you can start a chat with online friends. However there are some issues with the case when someone tries to send you a message in the first place. Most of the times you do get notification, and hence, you can start chatting directly, however there have been reported cases when it will go as offline message and you will only see it in Email Notification (Google puts an unread Email for the offline :-)

Is Your Senator On YouTube?

Can’t get enough speechifying from politicians on C-SPAN? Now you can catch them on YouTube. Many elected representatives in Congress already have their own YouTube channels, but YouTube has just launched two central hubs to make it easier to find videos from your senetor or congressman.

These channels are pretty spare right now, but they tend to consist of actual speeches on the House or Senate floor (snooze), updates on upcoming legislation, or a call to action to get constituents to help support a particular bill (for instance, see Nevada Senator John Ensign’s video below on making the Internet tax ban permanent).

Most of these videos have very low view counts, less than 500 each. Nobody was watching these videos before. Putting them altogether in their own channel is not going to make them more popular. If Senators and Congressman want to use YouTube as a direct channel to the electorate, that’s great. But can someone teach these folks a little about Web video production values? They come across as little more than commercials.

Microsoft Leads $24 Million Round In N-Trig To Bring Multitouch To PCs

We’re going to be seeing a lot more touchscreen computers. One of the features of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system is that it supports a multitouch user-interface (much like on the iPhone or a Tablet PC). To further the adoption of such touchscreen technology, Microsoft led a $24 million round in Israeli startup N-trig. Other investors included Aurum Ventures, Challenger Ltd., Canaan Partners, and Evergreen Venture Partners. In just the past two years, the company has raised $52 million.

Apple selling refurbished MacBook Air for $999

Apple's online store has reduced the price on its refurbished first-generation 1.6GHz MacBook Air (model no. MB003LL/A) from $1149 to $999, according to DealNN. That's $400 off the already reduced price of $1399 and the lowest price seen to date, which may be of interest to some readers looking to pick up the ultra-light portable for the price of a 13-inch white MacBook.