Most popular social networking site in India

No! It's not Myspace or Friendster. It's Orkut.

As of today, it is the second most popular site in India. In fact, Indians now form the 3rd largest number of Orkut users (15.01%) after Brazil (55.64%) and the US (18.94%). See here. Of course, the numbers might not be that accurate as I discovered that a lot of my Indian friends were all over the World, including the US.

I recently became a member on the invitation of one of my old friends from India. We had studied in the same University there - Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, in Himachal Pradesh.

As I already have a gmail account, signing up was quite easy. In case you did not know, Orkut is owned by Google Inc. Anyway, it was amazing. I got in touch with a lot of long lost friends (all alumni from the same university) and even some relatives.

I guess the difference with other social networks like Friendster and Myspace is that it doesn't have a Blogging feature and you can't make your profile private (apart from some details). Of course the blogging part can be solved quite easily by integrating Blogger with it.

Related Links:
- Social networks and my psychographic profile
- Online social networks

Tags: blogger google orkut social networks

Adamok.net Disclosure Policy

This policy is valid from 29 May 2007

Adamok dot net is a personal blog written and edited by Adam Mutum. If you have any queries about this blog, please contact me (ahoklah@gmail.com).

This blog carries advertising, sponsored posts, etc. I would like to assure all my readers that Adamok dot net abides by word-of-mouth marketing standards. I believe in the honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content.

I am sometimes compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. However, I always strive to give my honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.

My Google adsense cheque

My cheque from Google just arrived. It's not much but is definitely welcome.

It was sent to my address in Malaysia. My mother-in-law posted it to me here in the UK. The bank charged me about £8 which is quite a lot but I guess I have no choice.

I have had Google adsense ads on my blog for a long long time but the earnings were pitiful until quite recently. They only increased after I started more blogs and playing around with the placements. Unlike some other people I hate putting my ads inside my posts. I try out of different formats on my different blogs. Still trying to find out which are the most effective.

Would love to hear from other bloggers. Which format of ads are the most effective in generating revenue?

Tags: adsense cheque google

Sponsored contests. How not to do it.

Holding contests are a great way to attract more traffic to your sites. I too went ahead with a Dodge Nitro T-shirt contest on my auto blog after being contacted by a company who wanted to sponsor the prizes. Didn't mind promoting the Dodge Nitro as I hoped that in return I would get some publicity. The fact that I wouldn't have to worry about the postage also pushed me to go for the contest.

I'll send the t-shirt to the winner or winners. That way, you don't have to pay for postage...

The contest was not that successful. I guess T-shirts as prizes are not that attractive anymore or maybe it was the brand. There might have been more takers if it had been a Ferrari T-shirt.

Anyway, the sponsors left me high and dry after the contest. They didn't respond to any of my e-mails.

I learnt my lesson the hard way. If I ever get an offer for a sponsored contest, my condition would be to send me the prizes. I will ship them to the winners myself.

Read the whole series of events here.

UPDATE: 5 June 2007
I am really happy to announce that everything turned out great in the end. The whole fiasco was due to e-mail problems.

Hosting with Blogger

Wrote this post after I received a few e-mails asking me how I hosted my site with Blogger.

In case you were not aware, Blogger now hosts your blog for free under your domain name. It is not forwarding but actual hosting.

The documentation provided by Blogger is under "How do I create a CNAME record for my custom domain?"

I registered my domain name with godaddy.com and here are the steps:

1. Log in to your account at www.godaddy.com.
2. Open the Domains tab and select My Domain Names. You'll be directed to the Manage Domains page.
3. Click the domain that you'd like to use with your blog.
4. Click the Total DNS Control And MX Records in the box entitled Total DNS Control.
5. Click Add New CNAME Record. If you've already created a CNAME record for your blog's address, click Edit next to the existing CNAME record.
6. For the Name, enter only the subdomain of the address you want to use for your blog. For example, if you picked www.mydomain.com as your address, enter www here.
7. Enter ghs.google.com as the Host Name.
8. Click Continue, and then click Add. If you're editing an existing CNAME record, click Continue and Update.

BTW, I have another blog called Freebies hosted with Blogger. However, it was initially a blogspot blog with the url: http://tidakapa.blogspot.com

Something for my ego

I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk

Got this from Larry's blog.

Don't be complacent

It's been a while since I won the 'Melayu boleh' SEO challenge.

For quite some time, I used to be in the top 5 results on Google, Yahoo and MSN for the key words - 'Melayu Boleh'. However, I was complacent and as a result. I am now only #9 on Yahoo!, and #14 on Google.

This shows that we can't afford to be complacent or rest on past laurels. You might have spent a few thousand dollars to get on top of the search results but beware that you can always go down the charts if you are not careful.

Let's see if I can back on to the top 5 again.

PR 0 to 1 in 3 months

My first real post on this blog was on the 10th of Feb 2007.

So far I have written 17 posts (excluding this one) and my Google PR has jumped to 1.

Not bad if I may say so. I will try to get it up to PR 3 by August this year.

Update: The Google PR for this blog is now 2 (5 May 2007).

Coming abroad the Technorati favorite train

Was tagged by Derrik sometime back and finally got to put this up on my blog. I have already carried out the Technorati Experiment on my ah ok lah blog and it was a big success.

Hope this helps with my blog rankings.

***Start Copying Here:***

Rules For Boarding The Train

1. Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.
2. Copy the rules and ENTIRE List below and post it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can be accessible for, go ahead and change the titles of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.
3. Take “My New Faves” and move them into the “The Original Faves” list.
4. Add 3 Blogs that you’ve just added to your Technorati Favorites to the “My New Faves” section. Remember to also add the “Fave Me” link next to your new blogs
(i.e. http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://www.yourfavesdomain.com).
5. Add Everyone on this list to your Technorati Favorites List by clicking on “Fave the Site.” Those who want good karma will fave you back. If not, you will for sure get the benefits of faves from the bloggers who continue this list after you.

My New Faves
Beta Blogger Fave the site
Confessions of an Everyday Housewife Fave the site
Bringing up Aidan Fave the site

The Original Faves
Gossip Juice Fave the site
Steve Ladin Fave the site
The Blog World Fave the site
Kelly Cho Fave the site
SEO expert Fave the site
Flipping Rich - Fave The Site
Stock Trading 101 - Fave The Site
eMoms at Home - Fave The Site
The Wrong Advices - Fave the Site
derrich.com - Fave the Site
Shawn-Knight.net - Fave the Site
Stephen Fung - Fave the Site Add him to your favorites and he’ll donate to charity!
Ed Lau - Fave the Site
QMusings - Fave the Site
Gary Lee - Fave the Site
Dosh Dosh - Fave the Site
Nate Whitehill - Fave the Site
Ms. Danielle - Fave the Site
Jeff Kee - Fave the Site
Scribble on the Wall - Fave the Site
Jimi Morrisons Head - Fave the Site
Jon Lee - Fave the Site
Samanathon - Fave the Site
Eat Drink & Be Merry - Fave the Site
The Man of Silver - Fave the Site
Hannes Johnson - Fave the Site
My Dandelion Patch - Fave the Site
Nathan Drach - Fave the Site
SiteLogic - Fave the Site
Julies Journal - Fave the Site
***End Copying Here***

Won a T-Shirt

Have been neglecting this blog for sometime. I was planning to put the domain up for sale but later decided against it.

In my last post I had written about the T-shirt contest being organised by TheBlogWorld . Well, I just learnt that I am one of the winners.

Thanks a lot Amanda.