NRao Blogs: February 2012

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

HubPages, Knol, Squidoo, Wikipedia and Other Article Sites - Comparison

This knol provides selected information about various article sites that are of help in understanding and evaluating Knol's progress.

Google Trends

Knol is doing well in comparison to Many Article Platforms

Knol is doing better than Hub pages

See Google Trends Comparison between Knol and Hub Pages
Between Knol and Hubpages

See Google Trends Comparison between Knol and Squidoo

See Google Trends Comparison between Knol and Xomba

See Google Trends Comparison between Knol and eHow

HubPages

Hubpages was launched on 5 August 2006. CEO Paul Edmondson had raised $2 million from Hummer Winblad. Hubpages was started in Berkeley, but now operates from 95 Minna Street (3rd Floor), San Francisco, CA 94105.

Hubpages allows users to create web pages (like Wikia or Squidoo) and comments can be given by readers on them like blog posts. Pages can be tagged by the author and also by readers. This allows for quick visits to related pages.

Hubpages inserts google ads, links to Amazon, eBay and other affiliate-paying retailers, and splits revenue 50/50 with the page creator. Squidoo, only pays 50% of profits to page creators. Thus Hubpages promised a better deal.

The Hubpages team was founded by three guys out of Microsoft that were part of the successful startup MongoMusic. The team includes Paul Edmondson, Jay Reitz, and Paul Deeds.

Source

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/05/hubpages-launches-gets-2-m-from-hummer-winblad/

Hubpages has a maximum daily global visitor size of 535 K and in June 2009 it recorded 1 million page views per day.

Source

http://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com (accessed on 19.6.2009)

http://blog.hubpages.com/2009/06/hubpages-is-now-a-top-150-us-web-destination/

Recent Statistics

As of July 24th, 2009, there are

413,641 Published Hubs
82,424 Published Users

http://hubpages.com/about/ (Accessed on 25.7.2009)

As of October 17, 2009, there are

536,059 Hubs

104,355 published users

http://hubpages.com/about/ accessed on 18.10.2009

In around 3 months time, 20,000 new authors joined and 120,000 hubs were written.

According to http://www.quantcast.com/hubpages.com accessed on 18.10.2009 the daily global visitor size is 618 K and 329 K US visitors. The maximum numbers are 661 K and 352 K.

Interview of Jason Menayan, Director Marketing at Hubpages
27 August 2010
http://www.blogherald.com/2010/08/27/all-about-hubpages-an-interview-with-jason-menayan/
Now there are 900,000 article written by 170,000 authors.

Reactions of Hubpages people to Panda update of Google search 2011
http://www.webpronews.com/google-panda-update-lack-of-consistency-on-quality-2011-03

27 March 2011
Hubpages has 1,142,497 hubs
206,000 published users
On 27.3.2011 Quantcast reports that for the period 27/9/2010 to 25/3/2011 hub pages has global average of one million visitors with max 1.6 million on 21/2/2011 ( http://www.quantcast.com/www.hubpages.com )

Knol

Knol platform is started by Google. It was made available to public writers/authors on 23rd July 2008.

By January 2009, it had accumulated 100,000 knols. Which would mean that by June end 2009, it can report 200,000 knols.

According to an estimate made by me using the page views details given for most viewed authors by knol platform, so far 25 million page views must have happened in the last one year public service of knol. I made one more estimate of the top 800 knols. Page Views for Top 800 Knols. The page view number comes to be 8,350,540. Hence an estimate of 25 million page views for all the knols seems to be appropriate.

The current monthly page views can be between 4 million to 6 million. If one assumes an average page views of 2 by a visitor, around 2 million global visitors per month must be coming to knol. The number of unque visitors can be less than the figure and one estimate I saw is around 400,000 per month. Seems Ok if we think each visitor is coming 5 times in a month to the knol platform.

Knol is slowly increasing its features and options made available to authors. Authors can embed many items in knols like word files. ppt files, youtube videos etc. They can also make knol collections (human search pages like Mahalo from knols only - http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-build-a-mahalo-page).

25 .9. 2010
On many days 750 new knols are being written on Knol.

2011
Knol had even 1500+ new posts on some days during 2011. But its total page views per month were way short of its breakeven point of 36 million page views per month. The best estimate of page views per month for Knol is 11 million.

Google announced that Knol will be discontinued on 22 November 2011. Knol content will not be visible to public after 30th April 2012.

Squidoo

Squidoo is a website based in Hastings on Hudson, N.Y. It allows users to create pages (called lenses) for subjects/topics of interest. These pages or lenses can contain Flickr photos, Google maps, blogs, eBay auctions, YouTube videos, and also text matter and links. It was launched as beta testing site in October 2005 and was launched as full site in December 2005. In one month, it could attract users who built 10,000 pages. In six months, the figure had gone up to 100,000 pages.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/05/AR2006010501846.html
Squidoo encourages its authors to write at least some minimum number of lenses so that they will have some earnings and thereby commitment to the platform. This statement in Squidoo blog is an indicator of that policy.

"Do you have 50 lenses you’d be proud to show your old English teacher? Your mom? Your kids? Your boss? 50 lenses worth bragging about and staking your reputation on?"

http://blogs.squidoo.com/squidblog/2009/03/31/its-march-31st/

Some facts about Squidoo as on 1 February 2009
Squidoo has nearly 900,000 lenses.
Squidoo is one of the 300 most popular websites in the US.
Squidoo grew 91% in 2008.
Many lensmasters earn more than $1,000 a year from Squidoo. Some make $10,000. Others are happy with $40 or $4.
http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo (accessed on 19.6.2009)

As of October 2010

Squidoo has 180,000 lenses.

http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo accessed on 8.2.2011

Comparison of HubPages, Knol and Squidoo

In terms of articles, knol matched squidoo in the first six months. Squid could build 900,000 lenses in 3 years. Can knol shorten the period?

26.3.2011
Now on Knol, there is increase in new knols posted. The peak number observed so far was 1800 on a day.

Wikipedia

According to http://stats.grok.se/en/top and its associated pages there were 10,000 articles in August 2008, where there was a hit for every minute. It means 43,200 hits per month. The number four article in the list, which is a proper article is 2008 Summer Olympics and the visits are 4,437,251(in one month). The 1000th position article is Jake Gyllenhaal with 147,266 page views or visits in August 2008. This shows the scope for a celebrity article even in knol.

Wikipedia recently crossed three million mark for English articles. The first million articles took five years, the second million came in 17 months and the third million took two years. (http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?664957). The total articles in wikipedia are now around 13 million.

Last year Wikipedia foundation collected $26 million for the running expenditure of wikipedia.

Statistics of Wikipedia for the month of December 2010
http://stats.grok.se/en/201111

Wikia

Wikia is a different wiki publishing platform started by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

On 9.3.2010, on its home page the following statistics are presented

2,326 pages created in the last hour
15,911 edits made today
794,261,085 words added in the last week ( http://www.wikia.com/Wikia )

In a press release given on 9th September 2009, Wikia claimed that it attracts more than nine million unique visitors in the U.S. per month to its 70,000 enthusiast communities and nearly three million pages of content. It claimed that it is a top 75 site.

Retrieved from "http://www.wikia.com/Press:Profitability_and_triple_digit_growth"

About Wikia

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and President of the Wikimedia Foundation, and Angela Beesley, a member of the Wikimedia Foundation board, created Wikicities in October 2004. By February 2005, 100th wikicity was launched. The hundred Wikicities received around 14,000 edits by 500 registered users in January 2005.

(Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/02/prweb205304.htm )

Blog Related Metrics

On a worldwide basis, Blogger blogs have a readership of 267 million people a month, compared to 143 million a month for Wordpress (comScore, April, 2008).

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/18/as-blogger-nears-its-tenth-birthday-it-still-dominates-but-for-how-long/

According to Alexa, Blogger's rank is 7 and Wikipedia's rank is 8. So Knol has sibling that is more successful than Wikipedia at the moment in terms of visitors and page views. Knol authors have to develop association with blog authors to develop a winning strategy for knol.

http://www.alexa.com/topsites

Digital, E-, Online or Web Businesses or Companies

For the month of December 2010 http://www.quantcast.com/www.blogspot.com shows 57.4 million US visitors for blogspot. For blogger it shows 52 million US visitors.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently - HBR Blog post

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/02/nine_things_successful_people.html

February 2011

1. Get specific.
2. Seize the moment to act on your goals.
3. 3. Know exactly how far you have left to go
4. 4. Be a realistic optimist
5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good
6. 6. Have grit
7. Build your willpower muscle
8. Don't tempt fate
9. 9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D.
The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. Follow her on Twitter @hghalvorson

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Archives (1) - Read - Heard - Viewed - Thought - by KVSS Nrao

The Current Posts

Read - Heard - Viewed - Thought - by KVSS Nrao

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Success of PLoS Currents - Influenza

http://knol.google.com/k/plos/plos-currents-influenza/28qm4w0q65e4w/1#

Very happy to see today that the weekly page views of the above knol are 10,475.It was when I saw it last time. Now it is 10,501.Within a span of 10 minutes there were 26 page visits. Four papers were accepted into the collection in the last 24 hours. It is nice that scientists are submitting paper to the collection and visitors are reading the papers. This initiative of knol has brought new segment of authors as well as visitors to knol. It also brought a genuine popular knol onto the platform.

"Beginnning of Wisdom is Fear"

This quote I saw in a foreword written by Louis Bradeis to the book Primer of Scientific Management by Frank B. Gilbreth, Hive Publishing Company, Easton, 1973. The original edition was published by D. Van Nostrand Company in 1914.

KVSS NRao

28.8.2009

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Knol Experts - A Cartoon - Have You Seen It?

Visit

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cartoon_knol_experts.php

Market-Driving Organization

Both market-driven and market-driving are encompassed within the more general framework of market-orientation. Market-driven relates to the company’s ability to learn, understand and respond to the market (Jaworski, Kohli, and Sahay 2000). On the other hand, market-driving relates to the company’s ability to change the market (Kumar, Scheer, and Kotler 2000). It is suggested that market-driving organizations are likely to propose offerings more valued by consumers than competitors. This is based on Jaworski, Kohli, and Sahay’s (2000) notion that market-driving organizations are better able to gain a sustainable competitive advantage by changing the structure or composition of a market and/or behavior(s) of its players.
Source:

http://www.amsreview.org/articles/carrillat05-2004.pdf

Jaworski, Bernard J., Ajay K. Kohli, and Arvind Sahay. 2000. “Market-Driven Versus Driving Markets,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 28 (1): 45-54.

Kumar, Nirmalaya, Lisa Scheer, and Philip Kotler. 2000. “From Market-driven to Market-driving.” European Management Journal 18 (2): 129-141.

19.8.2009

Estimate of Total Page Views of Knol Till 16.8.2009

Quick estimate of top 800 knols is now 11,590,414.
Quick estimate for top viewed 2002 knols is now 15,119,486
Quick estimate for all knols is 30,743,486

For more details Page Views for Top 800 Knols and Top Viewed Knols.

17.8.2009

Difference Between Creativity and Innovation

"Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things." Theodore Levitt.

I saw this interesting quote in a small piece on Theodore Levitt, published in the Corporate Dossier of The Economic Times of India, 14 August 2009.

The difference between creativity and innovation is not always clear. Hence this explanation by a renowned professor is a valuable. Innovators are action oriented persons who actually implement new things in the world. They can take the creative ideas from others and they can come out with them themselves, but they are entrepreneurs who identify the potential creative idea that is likely to give the desired results and actually implement them. So one has to look for innovators in action oriented people.

An Interesting Thought

"No task is too lowly.

No ambition too high."

Rai Bahadur M.S. Oberoi

A quotation in the advertisement on the occasion of his 111th Birth anniversary (15 August 2009) released by The Oberoi Group (Hotels)

Many times children feel many tasks in the house have to be avoided by them. They don't realize that these tasks have their own importance, and even when they become CEOs of their organizations, when these tasks are not done promptly, there will be complaints and CEOs may have to tackle them. At that point of time, they may realize that they have no understanding of the issues involved as they never looked at the complications and motivation of the persons who are carrying out those tasks. A message that says every task in this world is of equal importance and it has to be done with care and accuracy should help in many of us doing our tasks whenever and wherever they are assigned officially or unofficially with care and commitment.

KVSS NRao

16.8.2009

Some Tips for Success

1. Rehearse challenging tasks mentally: Do your planned action mentally over and over.

2. Seek results, not perfection: People obsessed with perfection turn out little work. The sooner we accept the comforting fact that we are less than perfect, the sooner we can get on with our personal and professional goals.

3. Be willing to take risk: The other way of expressing this is to say "Do not fear failures. Accept them"

"A man learns to skate by staggering about, making a fool of himself. Indeed, he progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself." George Bernard Shaw.

4. Compete with yourself, not with others: Most high performers are interested in doing the best possible job by their own standards. Worrying about a competitor's abilities in a situation where there is no head-on competition can be self defefating.

References:

1. Morton Hunt, "Seven Secrets of Peak Performance"

2. Beth Day, "Dare to Make Mistakes,"

Both from, How to Be Even More Successful: Whoever You Are, Whatever You Do, Reader's Digest Selection, 1990.

Top 5 Knol Author

Today my cumulative page view figure reported by the knol has gone up to 251,483. It gives the author rank of 5 to me in terms of page views. I am happy that my efforts to keep writing knols on the ideas that I got over time were adequately recognized in relative terms by knol visitors. I try to respond to the comments of visitors as early as possible and try to modify the knols as suggested. I also encourage my colleagues and friends to contribute to knol and strengthen the platform. It is a good place to record our knowledge and make it available to many including ours. Even I refresh my knowledge by reading what I have written.

I thank all visitors and fellow authors for making use of my writing positively despite some shortcomings.

How to Bring Authenticity to Your Talk

Many times audience may feel the speaker is phony. They do not believe in him. When the listeners do not believe, cynicism prevails and many will not respond to the call of the speaker.

Nick Morgan, the founder of Public Words, a communication coaching firm, in an article in Harvard Business Review of November 2008, advocates that speakers must have four aims or intents to make their talk authentic.

These four powerful aims are: to be open, to connect to the audience, to be passionate, and to listen to the audience.

Openness indicates that the speaker has nothing to hide. He is relaxed in communicating to the audience. Aim to connect to the audience makes the speaker focus on the listeners right from the first word. The emotion of passion has to come out of every word spoken. Have the aim to listen to the body language of the listeners.

Morgan concludes that when speakers practice their talk with these four intents their body language improves during the talk and they come out as more authentic speakers.

13.8.2009

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Forecast and Subsequent Managerial Action

"Concern over flu pandemic justified said Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization in her address to Address to Sixty-second World Health Assembly held at Geneva, Switzerland on 18 May 2009.

The new influenza virus with great pandemic potential, the new influenza A (H1N1) strain, unlike the avian virus, spreads very easily from person to person, spreads rapidly within a country once it establishes itself, and is spreading rapidly to new countries. We expect this pattern to continue. The emergence of the H1N1 virus creates great pressure on governments, ministries of health, and WHO to make the right decisions and take the right actions at a time of great scientific uncertainty.

A defining characteristic of a pandemic is the almost universal vulnerability of the world’s population to infection. Not all people become infected, but nearly all people are at risk. Manufacturing capacity for antiviral drugs and influenza vaccines is finite and insufficient for a world with 6.8 billion inhabitants. It is absolutely essential that countries do not squander these precious resources through poorly targeted measures.

The health sector cannot be blamed for lack of foresight. We have long known what is needed."

http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/62nd_assembly_address_20090518/en/index.html

The statement in circulation is that WHO estimates that 2 billion persons in the world will get infected with the virus. Every country in the world is preparing for 30% infected persons.

The forecast is there and the WHO Director General specifically stated that the virus has given the world a grace period so far. Have the governments across the world used the grace period to develop measures to prevent the spread of infection and treat the patients requring treatment.

Forecasts are given based on a set of current parameters in existence. Managerial actions can change some of the parameters and minimize the damage caused by the threats. If the current sanitation conditions are predicted to infect two billion persons, a better sanitation regime can minimize the spread of infection. But the government, and rest of the institution in a society have to recognize the threat, understand the situation and come out with measures and then promote those measures.

Is it happening all over the world? In India is it happening? There are more appeals not to panic. But announcement of measures to improve the situation and change the patterns of behavior of people for better are not visible. Some are arguing that only one percent will die from the infection and hence there is no need to worry. Do they understand what is the significance of one percent? Should we not improve our health consciousness and contain the threat posed by the virus? Should we simply do our normal routines as we do day every day and wait for the verdict of the virus about who will go out of this world?

It is much better if we change our routines and improve sanitation all around and take actions to minimize the effect of the virus on our society. For that good protocols should be announced and promoted and medical facilities are set up properly all over the country in every country of the world.

12.8.2009

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Principle and Practice

In his book "The Idea of Justice", Amartya Sen discussed the difference between principle and practice. The principle may be ideal but its practice may not bestow the desired results in the society. One issue he raises in this context is democracy. Elections may be taking place, but adequate systems are not in place in political parties & media and people involvement is less resulting in societies not getting the whole package of benefits that are expected from democracy.

The argument may be extented to free market or capitalist system of production. Yesterday I came across a book dealing with economic justice in free markets, where it is mentioned that capitalists should not have luxury life styles when workers have subsistence life styles. The persons or thinkers who advocated free markets as an ideal economic system have pointed out this fact. But in practice, capitalists ignored this important point and are exhibiting money power in the society. They are influencing government machinery and legal machinery with their money power and probably flouting many laws. It results in injustice. Amartya Sen's treatment of justice in his book starts with the premise that many people see injustice all around and their views on justice are formed from their experience with injustice.

A related knol by me

Capitalist Morality versus Socialist Morality

Strategy and Tactics

One of our students has written in his knol on Mandi - a Sales experience session, that the next time he does the same thing he will use a more strategic approach.

My question is what is a strategic approach? What is strategy? Strategy when applied to an activity which is repeated many times refers to the basic steps one takes every time. Strategy is a plan and so strategy is planned by the individual or the firm concerned. We do this activity in this way. In sales situations, the salesman can develop a strategy. But each and every selling encounter can be with a different person. Even if the same customer is being serviced, the other dimensions of the situation may change and the interaction may be differnent in each sales encounter. The salesperson has to react to various events that happen during the sales talk and here the tactics come. Some persons may outright ask the sales person to go away, some may criticize him, some may criticize his product, and some may welcome him. In all these alternative reactions of the prospects, there are differences in the intensity of emotion shown. The salesperson has to change his response and try to manage the interaction for mutual benefit. Everything the sales person does in reaction to an unexpected behavior falls into tactics.

Strategy is based on general principles which may have been codified and recorded in books, textbooks and manuals. They can be learned in the class room. While some tactics be rehearsed in the classrooms and training programs, their range is so large that individuals have to improvise all the time. So tactics are based on the invidual learning ability of the persons to understand the situations through their own experience.

Blogging - History

Mint, the business news paper of India carried a feature on 10 years of blogging. It seems in 1999, Peter Merholz proposed that weblog is pronounced as wee-blog and blog word originated. But web logs have a longer story. I tried to document the story to some extent and came across the fact that Justin Hall was a pioneer blogger. I am now into developing a knol on blogging history. Blogs, Blogging and Bloggers - History and Current Trends.

Class in Any Subject - An Opportunity for Knowledge Capital Growth

Each interaction is an opportunity for both the students and the teachers to take the understanding of the subject to a higher level in the society as a whole. Each time a topic is explored in a classroom, there will be delta increase in the understanding of the topic by the society. Each time the participants come up with a question, for which the teacher has no satisfactory answer, a situation is created for enquiry by the teacher. Sometimes the participants may be happy with the answer, but the teacher knows that he had not given a satisfactory answer. He has to refer, think and research. Even research problems germinate in discussions at postgraduate level classes.

KVSS NRao

11.8.2009

The Idea of Justice

Questions of justice, truth and fairness are important philosophical issues. Amartya Sen brought out his contribution to this important topic in his recent book "The Idea of Justice." There are many reviews of the book on the internet. I came across one review in Mint Lounge dated 8.9.2009. ET NOW, a TV channel prominently advertised the interview with Amartya Sen and hence I could listen to some portion of the interview.

The reviewer said it is a technical book full of citations. The reviewer's conclusion was that "A difficult read, worth your time." The book it seems is full of citations. The two authors who get cited frequently are John Rawls (whose 1971 book "A Theory of Justice is the standard text in the field) and Adam Smith, who wrote on moral philosophy.

For details of the book from the publisher

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846141478,00.html

For a review by Sholto Byrnes (Independent UK)

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-thinker-inside-the-mind-of-prized-intellectual-amartya-sen-1749308.html

Interview with Amartya Sen (2009) on the book on Justice

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/amartya-sen-interview-nobel-laureate-on-terrorism/98807-40.html

links to videos available.

A Related Knol by Me

Justice is an evaluation measure for ethics enquiry.

Moral Standards and Moral Judgments – Approaches

Knol

Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations: The ideas pointed out Hayagreeva Rao has application to the success of knol. Knol's success now depends on the activism of knol authors and knol visitors. I advocate knol authors to take up the cause by recruiting more authors. I also want knol authors to highlight the good things and good knols in blogs and thereby promote knol in blogosphere.

Knol Author Recruitment - Double the Number of Knol Authors

Knol Promotion – Role of Blogs

KVSSNRao

10.8.2009

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Difficulties in the World due to Diversity

Marwa el-Sherbini, once Egypt's handball champion, was killed in a German courtroom on 1st July. She moved to Germany along with her husband who is doing a doctorate in genetics at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden. The murder occurred in a courtroom and the litigation started due to a dispute regarding use of swing in the playground and involved ugly arguments in which her religion was mentioned. Is the murder a result of hyped sentiments? (Came across in a feature article in Mint Lounge, dated 8.8.2009 page L4)

Vikram aged 37, who was teaching and researching at Purdue University, was arrested for allegedly sending threat emails to the US President George Bush and some other VIPs. His father a scientist, a former captain of Indian Navy and a lawyer went to US to defend his son. He was deported recently. He blames the US system saying there is no rule of law or real democracy in USA. He thinks his son is being troubled because he wrote an article titled "Indo-US nuclear deal: Unexplored angles" that appeared online on March 26, 2006. Vikram wrote a letter to Purdue University president protesting against the expulsion of an Afro-American student who was caught copying in the exam. He thinks that in an attempt to silence dissent on the campus his son is being punished. (Times of India, Dt. 9.8.2009, page 7)

Both these incidents need more information for evaluation by neutral people, but important issues or incidents to be probed further for deeper causes by many.

KVSS Nrao

9.8.2009

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Enjoy the Effort and Accept the Result

Failure is a fact of life. In many competitive endeavors, many compete but only small number win. If every competitor wants to feel happy on winning only, every event in the world creates many dissatisfied people. Society cannot be stable with many dissatisfied people all around. What should be the motto of people?

Swami Sukhabodhananda, in his article titled “Enjoy the Effort No Matter What the Effect” published in Times of India dated 7.8.2009 (page 16) explained in detail the statement made by Lord Krishna in Bhagavadgita. You have the right to do your job but you have no right to demand the result.

Swamiji exhorted people to evaluate alternative goals on the basis of quantum and quality of efforts to be made to attain the goal and the benefits derived by attaining the goal. The ROE (Return on Effort) is to be determined and on that basis only goals are to be selected. But once a goal is selected it is important to identify the milestones in reaching the goal. As each milestone is reached or achieved there must be joy in the person. Between each pair of milestones in succession, there is a process to be done and people have to concentrate on the process and feel the joy by doing the process effectively. If for any reason, the milestone is not achieved, still the joy doing of the process properly should remain with people. All have to accept the result and adapt to the failure. Swamiji referred to musicians who are absorbed in their performance and most of them are unmindful of the reaction of audience. They enjoy their role or involvement in bringing their art alive. The pleasure of ovation comes much later. Sometimes the audience may not respond enthusiastically. But the pleasure of performance has to remain.

People can have desires, target and goals. Every desire has a process to be performed. One has to put in the best planned effort to fulfill his desire. But everybody needs to realize that there is a chance of failure and he has to accept it in the worst case. He can accept it better, if he enjoyed the process at every step.

Most of the processes in life make one a more capable man for future endeavors. Therefore, any effort made to attain any goal in life is valuable despite a failure in some specific goal.

KVSS NRao

8.8.2009

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Biological Sciences

NGF is of use in treatment of glaucoma

Dr Stefano Bonini of the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Rome Campus Bio-Medico and a group of researchers evaluated the effects of nerve growth factor (NGF) eye drops in a rat model of glaucoma.

They concluded that patients treated with NGF demonstrated long lasting improvements in visual field, optic nerve function, contrast sensitivity, and visual acuity. NGF exerted neuroprotective effects. They reported that In 3 patients with advanced glaucoma, treatment with topical NGF improved all parameters of visual function. They gave the implication of their research finding: These results may open therapeutic perspectives for glaucoma and other neurodegenerative diseases.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/07/31/0906678106.abstract

Books

Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations

by Hayagreeva Rao, Stanford University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources, Princeton University Press, 2008, $24.95.

Rao argued that innovation succeed because of social activists. Auto industry flourished due to social activitsts (consumers). They formed car clubs, sponsored races, held reliability contests etc.

Rao's analysis has application to the success of knol. Knol will succeed if some of the authors and some of the visitors take up the cause of knol and promote it and defend it.

Knol Author Foundation Members

Microtrends: Surprising Tales of The Way We Live Today by Mark J. Penn & E. Kinney Zalesne, Penguin Books, 2008, $25.99.

After the Megatrend of Naisbitt come the Microtrends. The book reveals dozens of microtrends reshaping the US and global society.

Computers

NComputing

A story in Business Week dated 3rd July 2006, talked of a cheap virtual computer that may be available at $50. The story said CEO of the firm, Stephen Dukker plans to sell one million computer by 2009. Today I came across a story in Time of India (7.8.2009 Page 17) that reported that actually so far two million computer seats were installed by the firm. The current cost of a dumb work station is $70. Many colleges that are installing large number of computers can definitely take up this low cost alternative.

Business Week Article: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991411.htm

Democracy

Democracy day is to be celebrated on 15th September. Knol author foundation opened a knol on democracy to collect interesting news on democracy and thereby facilitate thought process on improving democracy. All authors and visitors are invited to contribute to the knol.

Democracy Around the World.

Democracy Index

Came across the web page on democracy index.

The study was done 2006. http://euobserver.com/9/22936

Sweden has a near perfect democracy, followed by Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark. USA's rank was 17. UK's rank was 23.

The full list of countries covered can be downloaded from http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf.

India

TEDIndia, a conference of TED will be organized in India during 4-7, November 2009 at Infosys Campus in Mysore.TED India: A Conference.

Knol

Goal of Knol: This is a thought and plan by me for knol. Knol has momentum and new authors are registering every day and new knols are being written every day. By end of 2nd year, 31 July 2009, knol will have 100,000 authors, one million knols and one million page views per day. This will provide the knol with a strong force underlying structure on which a big super structure can be built later on.

Goal of Knol: Knol Authors 100,000 - Knols 1 million - Top 100 Website

Greet New Authors: All existing authors need to greet new authors and welcome them. A platform like knol which is based on voluntary contributions by authors requires large number of authors to succeed. Existing authors have to participate in the process by recuriting more authors and welcoming new authors and encouraging them.

Knol Author Recruitment - Double the Number of Knol Authors

Good and Interesting Knols:

Healthy Organizations from Conflict Management

Promotion of Knol Platform and Encouraging New Authors: Yesterday I made a presentation on registering for knol authorship and writing knols. The first knol that resulted from this presentation is:

Excellence in Higher Education: Way Forward

We can hope for some more knols from the persons who appreciated the features of knol platform.

KVSSNRao

7.8.2009

Originally posted on Knol
http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao/archives-1-read-heard-viewed-thought-by/2utb2lsm2k7a/ 1633

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Global Number Two Individual Knol Author

On 10.4.2011, Narayana Rao K.V.S.S is Global Number Two Individual Knol Author.

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List of Top Viewed Authors on Knol maintained by Will Johnson and Chair Potato indicates that in the page views revised on 21st January 2011, Narayana Rao K.V.S.S. occupies the number two position in individual knol authors in terms of page views. The position is maintained on the revision done on 6th April 2011. Will Johnson himself is racing forward with more weekly page views to overtake the cumulative page views in course of time.

Cumulative Visits and Page views

As on 10.4.2011: 551,610 visits, 781,080 Page views

The performance is similar to the Top 100 Authors on the Associatedcontent.com platform

Top 100 Authors on Associatedcontent.com

But as on 10.4.2011, Associatedcontent.com is a six year old platform and Knol will complete 3 years in July 2011.

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Happy to share with my readers that I am going to become Two Million Page Views Online Writer by this month end. It took four years to reach the milestone. The support extended and encouragement given by many readers is appreciated and I thank all.

Two Million Page View Online Article Author - April 2011
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Google Knol Home Page - NRao

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Top Knols of Narayana Rao - Now available as blog posts - compilation going on

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Links have to be changed from Knol to Blogs

New Knols of Interest

How to Improve Learning Experience for Learners?
Teacher's Day - Teachers' Day
Cost Accounting and Costing - Video Knol Book

Interesting New Knols - Collection

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Top Knols

Top Knols of 2008 - All Categories Combined
Top Knols of 2009 - All Categories Combined
Top Knols of 2010 - All Categories Combined
New Knols, Interesting Knols, Featured Knols, Top Viewed Knols - 2011

Top Knols - Knol Book
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Knol Directory

Knol Directory of Interesting Knols
New Knols Directory
Knol Sub-Directory Index - Alphabetical Knol Directory
Knol Collections Directory
Knol Books - Catalogue
Knol VideoPedia
Interesting New Knols

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Knol Help For Writing Knols

Knol Help

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________________

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Special Knol Promotions

Google Online Marketing Challenge - Live Case Study - Global Competition
Google+ Pages Related to Knol

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Knol Authors

Knol Author Directory
English Knol Author Directory
Telugu Knol Author Directory

Active Knol Authors and Knols Posted
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Knol Books

Knol Books - Catalogue

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Knol Bulletin Board

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Author of the Day

Suresh Emre

I communicate my ideas on the Knol platform because it provides unique opportunities for feedback and interaction. I also use this platform to inform the reader about important ideas developed by others. My main goal, however, is to inspire the reader to engage in Self-discovery and expansion of consciousness.
wpv: 17219; cpv: 353,964

Knols: 333;

Top 200 Knol Authors - Profiles

Valuation of Knol - Can it be $30 million?
Valuation of Knol - Google's Wiki Article Platform

Knol Bulletin (Message) Board for Authors and Visitors
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Knol Forum

Knol Forum
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Subject Home Pages on Knol - A Suggestion to Knol Management

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Knol Home Page Categories

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Business

Business Management - Knol Books - Catalogue

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Education

Education Category - New Knols
Professors - Writing Knols - Knollers - Knol Authors
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Entertainment

Entertainment - Knol Books - Catalogue

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Health

Collaborative Medical Books - Knol Medical Books - Authors

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Industries

Engineering Knol Books - Catalogue

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Internet

Computer Science and Engineering - Knol Books - Catalogue
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Music

Music Knols
Music Videos - Music Knol Videopedia

Indian Classical Music - Knol Book

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Reference - Research

Reference - Research Category - New Knols

PLoS Currents: Evidence on Genomic Tests
PLoS Currents: Influenza
PLoS Currents: Huntington Disease
PLoS Currents: Tree of Life

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Regional content

Regional Content Category - New Knols
Country Information Knol Books - Catalogue
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Science

IIT JEE - Knol Books - Catalogue

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Shopping

Shopping Category - New Knols
Shopping Guides - Knol Books Catalogue
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Society

Religion and Morals - Knol Books - Catalogue
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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Additive Layer Manufacturing - Bicycle Produced - Airbike

EADS produced a bicycle using additive layer manufacturing (ALM)

Press release 7 March 2011

News item on bikeradar 15 March 2011

Monday, February 6, 2012

Google Page Rank

February 2012
http://techniciablog.blogspot.in/2012/02/google-page-rank-update-everything-you.html

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Scaling Selfhosted WordPress to Half Million Blogs

Edu Blogs uses wordpress and it had half million blogs and 8 million page views per month in 2010. Read the way they handled software and hardware in the story by them.

http://wpmu.org/scaling-wordpress-wpmu-buddypress-like-edublogs/

Friday, February 3, 2012

Knol - A Top 1000 Website

Recent

Estimate for unique monthly visitors for Knol:

(Basis of estimation 100 times of performance of Narayana Rao)

Knol Page Views and Visitors - Historical Record - K.V.S.S. Narayana Rao

( Countries of the World - Knol Authors - Knols )

16.11.2011

7 million

This unique visitors number gives 730 rank to Knol

13.10.2011

6.84 million

This give Knol a rank of 784th website

6.10.2011

6.62 million

This gives Knol a rank of 831

28.9.2011

6.2 million

6.2 million is an important figure because in the earliest of Top 1000 announced by Google Adwords the 1000th ranked website had 6.2 million unique visitors. Now, Knol registered the estimated 6.2 million unique monthly visitors and it is now in firmly in the Top 1000 website. Its onward movement is strong with good momentum.

Knol Page Views and Visitors - Historical Record - K.V.S.S. Narayana Rao

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10 million unique visitors per month will give Knol a rank of 444

Presently at 444 rank Costco.com 10 million unique visitors per month.

Top 1000 Websites - Ranked on Unique Visitors per Month

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15.9.2011

Knol is a Top 1000 website

Estimate for unique monthly visitors for Knol: 5.524 million

Knol is a Top 1000 website on the basis of Unique monthly visitors.

Top 1000 Websites - Ranked on Unique Visitors per Month
http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/#
Knol Page Views and Visitors - Historical Record - K.V.S.S. Narayana Rao

14.9.2011
Knol will register estimated 5.5 million unique visitors by tomorrow and this performance will make Knol a Top 1000 website based on July 2011 Google adwords data.
http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/#

25.7.2011

Knol Top 1000 Website?

Based on the top 1000 web sites released by Google, many websites are stating that top 1000 website requires 4.1 million unique visitors per month.

Is knol getting 4.1 million visitors already?

My knol portfolio is getting 47,111 unique absolute visitors per month. Assume it is one percent of visitors to Knol. Knol may be getting 4,711, 100 visitors per month. More than 4.1 million unique visitors per month.

Top 1000 Websites - Ranked on Unique Visitors per Month

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A Poem on Knol reposted and modified (16.11.2011)

Goal, goal, this time for knol
Whole world for reading knol

Goal, goal, this time for knol
Play and excel in knol author role
Post and promote knol with Google
Goal, goal, this time for knol

Write, write, the time is bright
Think, think, no need to blink
Link, link, there is juice to drink
Cite, cite, you will be right

Three years toil of yours
Returns you fruits and dollars
Provides you page views and visitors
Now all yours and yours

Goal, goal, this time for knol
Whole world for reading knol

Narayana Rao K.V.S.S

Source: Knol Progress 2008 - 2010

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Congrats, Congrats - Knol Enthusiasts

Congrats, congrats
Visitors, visitors
Flocking your sites
Leaving comments

Congrats, congrats
Sits knol on multi-million hits
Stands tall in global websites
Provides authors credits

Congrats, congrats
Knol enthusiasts
Efforts and results
All yours, yours

9.10.2011 Narayana Rao

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Thursday, February 2, 2012

How to motivate students in the classroom - Videos

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Four more videos are in the series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueWAGvoJ0nQ

Pages

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Knol is doing well in comparison to Many Article Platforms

HubPages

Knol

Squidoo

Comparison of HubPages, Knol and Squidoo

Wikipedia

Wikia

Blog Related Metrics

Other Article Sites

Ehow.com

About.com

Associatedcontent.Com

Infobarrel.com

Suite101.com

Zimbio.Com

Friday, February 24, 2012

Sunday, February 19, 2012

The Current Posts

Success of PLoS Currents - Influenza

"Beginnning of Wisdom is Fear"

Knol Experts - A Cartoon - Have You Seen It?

Market-Driving Organization

Estimate of Total Page Views of Knol Till 16.8.2009

Difference Between Creativity and Innovation

An Interesting Thought

Some Tips for Success

Top 5 Knol Author

How to Bring Authenticity to Your Talk

Forecast and Subsequent Managerial Action

Principle and Practice

Strategy and Tactics

Blogging - History

Class in Any Subject - An Opportunity for Knowledge Capital Growth

The Idea of Justice

Difficulties in the World due to Diversity

Enjoy the Effort and Accept the Result

Biological Sciences

Books

Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations

Computers

Democracy

India

Knol

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Links have to be changed from Knol to Blogs

New Knols of Interest

Top Knols

Knol Directory

Knol Help For Writing Knols

Special Knol Promotions

Knol Authors

Knol Books

Knol Bulletin Board

Author of the Day

Knol Forum

Knol Home Page Categories

Business

Education

Entertainment

Health

Industries

Internet

Music

Reference - Research

Regional content

Science

Shopping

Society

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Monday, February 6, 2012

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Friday, February 3, 2012

Estimate for unique monthly visitors for Knol:

Knol is a Top 1000 website

Knol Top 1000 Website?

Congrats, Congrats - Knol Enthusiasts

Thursday, February 2, 2012