But is mobile exciting enough? That was our next conversation. For sure we have the short codes SMS and some interesting IVR stuff. We can also probably create WAP sites and some banner ads. Not engaging enough still.

So imagine my delight when I bumped into some nice people from RockeTalk, one of the leading mobile phone social networking service, at the recent India Social Summit at Delhi.

Here are some salient features that you might not know about mobile social networking:

1. There are a lot of users. Rocketalk has around 5mn. That’s almost on par or more than some well known global and Indian social networking sites. Check out this Jan 2010 blog post from Rocketalk.

2. These sites are targeted towards the young population in Tier II and small towns who don’t have a laptop/PC but who have mobile phones with data connection. 60-80%% of users are from small towns.

3. We normally are on Facebook to connect with old friends. Generally many users on mobile social networking sites use the service to find new friends. In fact, you can specify age, gender, location, etc. and search for new people as soon as you create your profile on the site. Users from small towns often say their friends are right next door in their neighborhoods – why spend money on the data connection to connect with them when you can just visit their houses any day.

4. Users do a lot of fun stuff like play a virtual antakshari game or send virtual gifts to total strangers even if buying those gifts costs anywhere starting from Rs. 10-20 each. They also upload pictures and videos.

Also Rocketalk just opened up an API recently so we might see some nice applications in this space. Rocketalk is not the only player. We also have Mig33, which I suppose is promising and interesting equally. Here’s an interview of Mohit from Mig33. Will connect more and try to do more posts around this in the future.

What I’m interested to see now is how these sites gear themselves up for brands and corporates. When Facebook opened up itself to brands and created Facebook pages, it did make a very smart move. Now we see every brand on Facebook doing their own thing and ultimately all that is making Facebook a very fun place to be at for everyone.

The update status ‘XYZ just checked-in @ABC’ is becoming a bit of an eyesore, especially when it comes out on Twitter and Facebook repeatedly. Why not be creative? So recently I checked in inside a flight IC 213……..

How about checking in on foursquare itself. I just checked in @foursquare.com

I added a place called ‘The most wonderful place in the world’ recently. I am the proud mayor of that place now.

My colleagues suggested why places only, why not people? So we thought we should check  in @Tina @Surangana. How many girls in office have you as the mayor now? Cheeky.

One of my colleagues has become a super mayor for becoming the mayor of 10 places. I’m at 4 – one is an imaginary place, one of MG Road sucks, and two of my clients’ offices.  I don’t travel so much nowadays, except for obvious places where I could go with my 9 months old . Like one of my friends on Twitter said, ‘Fathers of toddlers can become mayors of doctor’s clinics; Hard Rock Cafe, difficult.’ :-)

By the way, let’s connect if you are on foursquare. My profile is here. Let’s see how many more interesting places we can discover and thus get many more fancy badges.

1. The Bharatiyas: 67% of the Indian youth who lives in the rural areas with least influence of globalisation, least economically priviledged and high on traditional values and highly Bollywood influenced.

2. The Indians: 31.% of the youth who have moderate global influence but still rooted to Indian family values.

3. The In’glo’dians: Minimal in number but globally inclined, exposed and affluent. Always try to be different.

So thus when it comes to social networking, the report reinforces what many of us intuitively know. The site is filled with the aam junta or the Bharatiyas. The In’glo’dians are rapidly moving to Facebook, and distancing themselves from the masses.  This, coupled with all the recent controversies surrounding the site, ‘Orkut is no more cool’.

I remember recently creating Orkut and Facebook groups for two of our clients. Both the Facebook groups have been growing and the conversations are happening. The Orkut groups just refuse to get active. I now tell my colleagues to think extra hard before including Orkut on any client campaigns.

What is also interesting is that the top layer of the In’glo’dians are moving to Twitter, and soon after some years Facebook might just end up getting the same fate of Orkut. And witnessing how Orkut had peaked in India and fall, it won’t be long for another wave of change to happen.

We have heard of rock bands giving away music for download. Now what I think is really interesting is that the new movie 3 Idiots is going to be available for download on YouTube, though not likely to be free. I would like to wait for the price, and if it is high, I don’t think it will change anything on the illegal downloads front that they are hoping to change.

What is also interesting is that this can set a trend for other movies from Bollywood to be available for download. And while Youtube is the perfect platform, I wonder what will the guys at movie rentals like Seventymm and pocket friendly movie DVD makers like Moser Baer say about this.

But judging by the number of current members in that community, which stands at 95,000 plus, I think the purpose of that live chat was to just promote his new movie, 3 Idiots. So from Twitter, now Facebook fans…celebrities are on a  high to leverage social media to the fullest. Good going.

Update Dec 22, 2009:

A tweet from Ravi Kapoor mentioning the number of people on the chat.

However, when it comes to creating a blog that you want to host on your own space, or promoting your blogs during the initial few months, most people tend to get confused. Worry not. It happens to most of us.

At least that’s what I mentioned to a good colleague of mine, who wanted to start blogging, when I wrote her a detailed mail recently. Soon there were other colleagues who were asking me the same thing, and I forwarded that mail to them. Then I though why not just post the mail online and maybe it might help someone else as well. So here it is – though a bit modified.

Before you go ahead, remember there are many blog CMS, web hosting companies, blog designs, and a number of blog promotion advice you can get easily searching on the web. What I am writing is based on what I have used and learnt. Nothing more.

Booking a domain, webspace, and creating your blog

1. Check for a free domain name (like Bella.com) – Type the domain name you want in the search box in this site – Domainsbot and wait. It will tell you which domains are free and which are not. You have to use other domain checking tools in case you want check for the country specific domains like the .in and .co.in variety. Or you can go for unconventional domain names.

2. Once you found your desired and free domain name, you need to register it and buy some space on the web for your domain. There are many domain registrars available. I used 1and1 for this site and others because I find it better and cheaper. On 1and1, go to the Linux hosting from the left hand side and choose the Beginner package. (Or choose any other package or web host if you prefer.)

3. Once you have done the payment and you are ready to roll, and the 1and1 site or your web host admin dashboard is showing your domain name and how to edit details and stuff, set up your MySQL database, this is how you can do it in 1and1. Copy the MySQL set up details on a notepad and keep it safe.

4. After this, you need to copy your ftp username and password from your webhost and also copy it in a notepad and keep it safe. On 1and1, this is how you can get your ftp details.

3. Download the Wordpress CMS on your system (remember this is from Wordpress.org, not Wordpress.com) (dare I say Wordpress is the most advanced of the lot, has one of the largest communities and is the most popular blogging software today.)

4. Extract the Wordpress files from the zipped folder and follow the instructions. For those who used 1and1 as their web host, here is the FAQ. Don’t get scared if it gets too technical. Read it slowly and you will come out fine. Remember the only thing that needs to be done is to open the file called ‘wp-config-sample.php’ using a notepad and fill in your database details that you have saved earlier. Then, save and rename the file as ‘wp-config.php’. You are done editing it. Simple.

5. Download a ftp client like Filezilla and install it on your system. Once done, open it and fill in your your host (like bella.com), username and password (the ftp details you copied earlier) in the QuickConnect bar on top and click the QuickConnect button.  Filezilla will then connect to your webspace. The left hand window of the client shows the files on your system and once connected, the right hand window will show the files on your webspace.  Navigate to your Wordpress folder in your system in the left-hand window (lower one), select all the files in the Wordpress folder, right-click, and use the upload link. That’s all. It will take a while to upload all the files to your webspace depending on your connection speed. You might as well have a cup of tea in the meantime.

6. Once all the files are uploaded, type ‘http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php’ in your browser address bar and follow the installation instructions that follow. (Remember to replace example.com with your domain name) The installation should go smooth and you can now log in to your dashboard.

There is also a video tutorial on installing Wordpress on 1and1 written way back in 2007 at Solostream. Also, before going further, you might want to read up the Wordpress Lessons.

Designing your blog

1. Now that your blog is up, you might need to design it better and choose a different look than the default theme. For this, you need to either look for some good free themes or buy one.

You can start looking at the links below. Choose one according to what you are going to post in your blog. For example, if you are going to post pictures most of the time, you might want a theme with a wide post area. If you are going to write business stuff, you might do better choosing a theme with less colors and jazz.

- Mashable: Top 12 Stunning Wordpress Themes
- Mashable: Unusual Wordpress Themes
- Mashable: Wordpress 2 Column Themes
- Mashable: Wordpress 1 Column Themes
- Mashable: Wordpress 3 Column Themes
- Mashable: 4 Column Wordpress Themes
- Performancing Wordpress Themes
- Smashing Magazine: 100 Excellent Free and High Quality Wordpress Themes
- Smashing Magazine: 83 Beautiful Wordpress Themes You Probably Haven’t Seen
- The Official Wordpress Themes Directory

2. The next important thing is adding some useful plugins (third party tools that give you extra features). You can go to the Wordpress plugins directory or even check out my collection of Wordpress plugins you can’t just miss. Here is a huge list of 300 Wordpress tools you can check out as well.

3. Of course, you can already start posting.

Promoting your blog

1. Add a way for your readers to subscribe to your blog. But you might want to add a email subscription box as well.
a. Feedblitz (for email updates)
b. Feedburner (for RSS)

2. A little bit of search engine optimization so that you blog starts appearing in search engines and eventually rank well is necessary. There is no shortcut here nor it is easy but not impossible to do it alone.

Some ebooks on SEO I have read are SEO Made Easy and Google SEO Starter Guide.

In short, there are two type of optimization you can do:

a. Onsite optimization: Make sure you have the meta tags in your site html proper, put good alt tags for images, include relevant keywords in your post without overdoing it. Try the website grader to check how your site scores. Check if the theme you are using is designed properly. Is it W3C compliant? Even if it is not, can you fix some major errors? Here is a basic starter to learn html.

b. Offsite optimization: Google will rank your blog primarily on how many and what type of sites are linking to it. Try to get as many as quality sites and blog as you can to link to your blog. Some people buy links, some request and beg, some exchange links, you decide what you need to do. How you can start is by submitting your sites to directories, bookmarking on (do follow) bookmarking sites, commenting on do follow blogs, and most importantly connecting with other bloggers and writing good content. You will see the phrase ‘content is king’ many times over as you start researching more online.

Submit your site to search engine and directories. Refer the main ones below to start with:

a. Google
b. Yahoo
c. Live

You can use Submit Express’s Free Submission as well to submit it other smaller search engines.

Also, use these tools to analyze your site better:
a. Google Sitemaps: It helps Google index your site better, tells you which page is being indexed by Google, and where are the problem areas.
b. Google Analytics: It tells you details about the site traffic.
c. Yahoo Site Explorer: Webmasters traffic analytics tool by Yahoo.

Then there are site directories:
a. DMOZ
b. Yahoo Site Directory

What about blog directories:

a. Technorati
b. Blogcatalog
c. Mybloglog

Here is a giant list of blog directories.

3. Network with other bloggers: The blogosphere is a huge network and it’s fun to be connected and it’s beneficial as well. The usual (and correct) advice is read other blogs, comment on their posts, reply to comments on your blog, and send emails once in a while to established bloggers in your niche sharing an interesting post you have written. In short, let other people know you and that your blog exists. Everything doesn’t happen automatically on the blogosphere, even though we would love to think of it like that. The underground blogosphere, which is described as a complex network of bloggers communicating and networking among one another through emails, phones, IMs, etc. to promote and help one another out, is much prevalent.

Some of the best blogging tips are at Problogger, Copyblogger, and Daily Blog Tips. There are more good ones. Check out this directory of bloggers writing on blogging here. There are other directories at Alltop categorized by subject. Choose your niche.

4. Create social networking profiles and promote your blog there. Yes, the social networking sites, where you already so familiar/ or tired of.

Facebook: The biggest social networking site can give you ways to publish your blog’s RSS feed on your profile page, exposing your posts to your friends. You can join groups where you can occasionally share your best posts.

Flickr: Do you plan to use pictures on your posts? You can try creating a Flickr account and uploading your picture there and embedding it to your blog posts. It will save you web space and create an opportunity to network with people there.

YouTube: Similarly, you can post your videos on YouTube and embed them on your blog. It can give good exposure to your blog through your videos and friends there.

Twitter: Nowadays, a lot of traffic to my blogs come from Twitter. Twitter is today the cool thing everyone is talking about and the sooner you try it out, the better. You can feed you blog RSS to Twitter using Twitterfeed. There are a number of Twitter Wordpress plugins to do the job as well. My Twitter profiles are here (@palinn and @indiaprblog) and hey I post interesting links often.

Linkedin: You can showcase your blog posts, and share it to groups. I put my other blog, India PR Blog, as a company I am engaged with. So I come out like Founder and Writer, India PR Blog as one of the current job description.

Remember all these sites have their own communities and different ways of engaging within those communities. Learn and adhere to those. If you are not spamming your blog url and are nice to most people, it should be fine.

5. Other methods: You can put your blog url on your email signatures, talk about it to friends, clients, colleagues, pitch to the traditional media, etc. Run a contest on your blog. The possibilities are endless.

Happy blogging.

This post is intended for those who are new to blogging. Experienced bloggers are also requested to leave their advice and tips in the comments.

Image credit: How to Make a Badass WordPress Logo

Cool Greeting Cards – This is a Facebook application with a good collection of greeting cards including Diwali ecards that you can send to your Facebook friends.

Diwali eCards for Orkut and Facebook – This is a collection of 11 nice Diwali eCards that you can paste on your friends’ scrapbooks on Orkut and Facebook.

Diwali Poojan eCard – A Diwali prayer ecard for sending to your Orkut and Facebook friends, complete with a long audio of the song ‘Om Jai Jagdish Hare, Swami Jai Jagdish Hare…’ Just copy paste the html and paste it on their scrap books. Now that’s one truly Indian style orkutting.

Happy Diwali Photo Zing – This one’s my favourite. You can upload your and your friend’s picture, decorate it with Diwali flashbulbs, resize the picture as you want, and paste it to your friend’s scrapbook. Check out the picture above as an example.

Diwali Glitter Graphics – Glittering Diwali graphics for your friends’ scrapbooks.

Prachina – More Diwali copy and paste images for Orkut scrapbooks. Lots of images of Gods and Goddesses.

Orkut Accessories – Three cool animated Diwali cards for Orkut scraps.

My Orkut World - Lots of animated Diwali cards for your friends’ scrapbooks.

Orkut-Scrapbook – Collection of 10 cool pictures of Ganesha, candles, lamps, swastika, decorations, etc.

Cool Orkut Graphics – Collection of animated lamps plus one Hum-Tum card to be copy pasted on your friends’ scrapbooks.

Xplore the World:Diwali Store – Five galleries of pictures of goddesses, lamps, and decorations for your Orkut friends.

Zabri Graphics – Big classy and animated Diwali cards for sending to your Orkut friends.

Orkut Glitters – One nice and warm Diwali card for your best Orkut friend.

Not anymore. Now you can update your Facebook status from your Firefox browser with the Boost For Facebook addon. After installing the addon, it will reside on your browser as a toolbar showing a sidebar button, search Facebook box, Facebook shortcut links, and an ‘Update your Status’ box. You can type your new status in this box and hit enter on your system keyboard. That’s it. Your Facebook’s profile gets a new status update.

First time you installed the addon, you might not get the status update feature working on the toolbar. If so, visit the Boost for Facebook Help Page and see the instructions on the FAQ/ Feature Specific page.

To update your Facebook status from your mobile phone, add the Facebook Mobile application. This will allow you to text your status to Facebook. This application is currently available for users from the US, UK, and Canada.

Post Your RFP is a Facebook application that you can use to browse a list of RFPs that other users have posted. There are more than 800 RFPs listed so far and you can see them listed in various industry categories.

If you are in an organisation, you can use this service to post RFPs and let your friends and contacts know about it. Post Your RFP can also draft and review proposals for you.

Rajesh has talked about this and I second it. To take the discussion forward, let me say considering the number of Facebook invites exchanging in the emails nowadays, it is reminiscent of how Orkut invites were getting shared and exchanged some years back.

Let me try an analogy. Years back, we all used to have Yahoomails, Hotmails, and various other email services – content with with the 25 or so MBs we used to get with each account. Then suddenly Gmail came along. Suddenly all the previous email services became pale in front of it. It’s true even today everybody has a Yahoo or Hotmail account and comparatively these services might be having larger user bases but Gmail seems to be the preferred second email service one uses after the office email account (at least all my friends, media contacts and clients use Gmail). Today in India, I see Facebook as a Gmail and Orkut as a Yahoo or a Hotmail.

Why is that?

1. Features laden – Facebook is feature packed – much more than Orkut. Once the users get a hand of the social networking thingy in Orkut and they are ready to explore more, they would definitely like to gear up to Facebook. Orkut today offers just what Internet Explorer used to offer before Firefox came along. We used to work on Internet Explorer to just ’surf’ the web. Then came Firefox announcing that we could surf with tabs, develop and put addons, manipulate webpages, and customise how the browsers look.  Similarly, right now we are just plain ‘networking’ on Orkut - sending each other scraps and exchanging messages in communities. Facebook, on the other hand, can become your start-up page (just like Netvibes or iGoogle) combined with social networking elements, given its expanding sets of third-party applications. For instance, put in a to-do list and an email module on your profile page and make them invisible to your friends. Throw in feed readers. It can also be your twitter.

2. Something different – Every tom, dick and harry today has an Orkut account. Some people are going to feel ‘we want a more niche social network’ – some place special than this general hangout place.  You get scraped by everybody and get spam friends requests by the day if you are a girl.

3. More privacy - No more of those Orkut woes where somebody downloaded your pictures and morphed them into something silly. You cannot see a person’s profile page in Facebook unless you are his/her friend. If you want to be friends, all you can do is send a message or poke him/her first.

4. A customisable and classier interface – Ever wondered why your boss is not on Orkut? Maybe it is because it is full of kids and everything there look so ‘teen’. Facebook has a more mature, cleaner, and classier interface. I love the white and blue combination. You can also customise your profile page as you want. Throw in funkier applications or plain business modules, it is your choice.

Given a choice, on a maturity/seriousness scale of 10 – I would put Linkedin at 10, Orkut at 1, and Facebook at 5. So it fits between the extremes.

5. It’s more aspirational, like Rajesh said - the lure of a more global member-base, coupled with familiar Indian faces (many who have studied or are studying overseas) already friends with global buddies… making them more accessible to new joins.

If you like this article, vote for it on Grupl (Facebook’s Digg-like application) :-)