Shivan Jaikaran’s Blog

What is to is must is!

I just could not get over this one…lol

It depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is!

This one reminds me of my cousin

So I have finally upgrade my blogging software, Wordpress. Everything took about 2 hours. I have been procrastinating to do this for over a year, but after getting literally thousands of spam comments every single day, now seemed like a good time to do it. Some spammers even managed to inserted hidden html code into my posts and even in my footer! Although this was sneaky, it was very effective because I certainly did not detect it (since it was hidden) and who knows how long it was there…

So I’m posting this message using Wordpress version 2.5.1. It’s pretty slick (posts are auto saved while you type and Akismet is installed by default).

So thanks to this upgrade, spam comments are more effectively detected, automatically dealt with and legitimate comments can now be approved faster.

When I get the time, I’ll try upgrading my personal site and maybe getting a nice-looking theme in there as well. I think the current theme sucks…

Shivan was last seen perplexed trying to figure out how to make sada roti with Happi flour…hehehe

I am really impressed with the Facebook architecture (believe it or not). I’ve seen companies spend thousands/millions of dollars on getting their product out there. I’ve read business plans and came up with a few in my career. They are all good but few are innovative, creative and match the growing trend of the latest cutting edge technology. Your marketing plan is only as successful as the intellectual capability of the people/team behind it. And if these people are a bunch of technological duncies, well then you have just wasted a bunch of money. What about finding that right match….a marketing team or person who knows the ins and arounds of technology to pad his marketing plan to perfection, be innovative and most importantly, be successful….by taking into account technology and the Web 2.0.

By definition,

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses.

What I have seen companies spend millions of dollars on can be done on Facebook for free, in seconds, by one person. I kid you not. I am not saying that Facebook is a replacement for the typical marketing plan but it can be a significant complement.

Facebook Groups
By starting a Facebook Group, you can give your brand *instant* awareness. You send out invites, friends invite friends, friend’s news feed show the recent group activity and friend’s of friends of friends of friends (you get the picture) join in. And trust me, this can all happen in ONE day at the cost of $0.00. Compare this to ads in the newspapers, radio and the rest of the media. IMO, this is by far the perfect demonstration of viral marketing.

This same analogy can be applied to Facebook Pages, Facebook Events, Facebook Notes and Facebook Marketplace.

Facebook, the online market place where food prices never go up.