Ok, you’ve been asking for it, so here it is!

I’ve just finished creating, and testing the Social Bookmarking template for Blogger.

You can see it in action on dhigu.blogspot.com. Getting an available name on Blogger is really hard these days!

So you want it on your own blogger based blog? Read on…
The Social Bookmarking template snippet seems to be catching the fancy of quite a few people.

I guess that my initial assumption that the Wordpress users out there would be the geekier of the lot and want it more was completely wrong. Blogger allows for template customization right there in your template settings and that’s where you’ve got to go to install my Blogger template section. It’s easier and it’s possible to do it without actually having to go all the way to host (and manage) your own blog somewhere.

The Blogger Template snippet
Here’s the Blogger template snippet: dhirajgupta_socialbookmark_Blogger.zip

I’ve set up a working demo at dhigu.blogspot.com.

Edit: The basic template is available for download as well.

Requirements

You don’t really need much to have the Social Bookmarking section. A blogger blog, preferably with hosting outside of blogspot (choose the advanced option when you sign up).

Hosting of blogger files outside of blogger lets you have whatever other files you want along with your posts hosted as well. This does have some cost associated with it, but is cheap and well worth the money. Here’s some good hosts to try out. If you already host your blog, go straight to the How to Install section on this page.

You could however be one of the rest of the millions who have their blogs on Blogpot, the free Blogger.com hosting service. How do you get the template to work? Simple. Use one of the “free” hotlink file hosting services on the net. There are several, I tested out with FilesUpload and the functionality should work fine. You’re going to have to upload *all* the images in the images folder in the zip file. And the Overlib javascript library as well. After you’ve uploaded you’re going to have to change the template code to have fully qualified URLs for the images. Similarly the template parts where you add the Overlib library code according to the simple Overlib installation instructions, remember to change the src attribute to your selection of free files host. And if you don’t get any of this, you could ask for help here, maybe I (or someone else) could help you out.

How to Install?
Just like the Wordpress template section, You’ll need to be able to add the images for the template and also the Overlib javascript library.

The template snippet expects the images for the Social bookmarking block to be present in a folder called Images in your host root (/). Copy the images from the zip file to your Images folder.

Next you need to install the Overlib Javascript Library. This is what allows the template to have those neat tooltips on the hover of each Social Bookmarking site. This is usually quite painless and should not pose a problem. Get the Library and install it on to your blog template according to their instructions.

Next, it’s time to actually insert the template section into your template code. For this, first take a deep breath. Relax. We’re going to be editing some template code manually and while it is simple, it pays to be attentive.

Ok, first make a backup of your existing template. This is to make sure that if things go wrong you can revert back to where you were. First open up your blogger account and click on the big Template tab on top. Copy all the content in the big text box on the bottom. Create a new file and save the contents of that textbox in it. Give it a good name and save it safely so that you can get back to it if you need it.

Right. On with the editing. Most blogger templates have a section called or something similar. In this section you’ll find the Blogger template tag for the title of your post inside a section called . Just after the tag ends (), paste the entire contents of the blogger.html file, which you’ll find in the zip file download, above.

Save the template. Republish your blog. Your blog posts should now come up showing the Social Bookmarking section right under the title section of each post. Expand the section and check that the tooltips are working fine.

Place, lay the template out as per your wishes. Tweak as required.

If you have any problems, post a comment here.

Licensing?
I really don’t want to get into any
kind of licensing or that kind of stuff. So please consider it free of all restrictions, modify, use, do *whatever* you want to, with it.

If you’re feeling thankful, you could leave a shoutout on your site. Do tell me if you find it useful, here or by feedback.

Shoutouts
A big shoutout to Socializer, for inspiration on this.
A bigger shoutout to NEO Binaries for helping me find Socializer in the first place! I just clicked Bookmarks on the comprehensive category list.

A big shout out to the guys at Overlib too, you guys rock!

Respect to all the people who commented. Yes, that’s you, 3spots, Steven Wong, Pierre Far (Socializer), Matt Fausey (tagtooga), Kenji, techbee, TonNet, and Scott Rafer.

The biggest shoutout goes out to you, Dear Constant Reader, for egging me on to make this. Hope this fulfills your wishes.

Took the opportunity over the Saturday weekend to bring some much wanted reform on to DhirajGupta.com.

Following are a few of the changes that are visible on the site:

1. You don’t need to rate the posts for which you submit comments anymore. Rejoice!

2. I’ve removed that annoying “Click here to post a comment” message and instead you can post a comment directly on the same page.
3. The RSS feed is now full HTML, the way it should be. This might cause a few problems in some archaic / weird RSS readers; if so, do let me know and I’ll do what is feasible. I’ve also changed the feed picture, see if you can spot the difference!
4. The RSS feed now doesn’t get the extended links on the bottom of each post (FeedBurner calls this FeedFlare). While this was cool it kinda slowed RSS Readers a bit because each of those links was an image coming from Feedburner. I’ve decided to remove it, in favor of the now more popular “Click to Social Bookmark” section on the site. Maybe this can ultimately make it to the RSS feed as well. Let’s see.
5. Integrated MyBlogLog to show number of clicks on external links. Hover over an external link to see it.

Just found blabb.com courtesy 3spots. Blabb is a completely AJAX based site - the site never loads a page again after the first one comes down. Even for search.

It’s fast, it’s neat and tidy, and it’s cooler.

Why?

• You don’t *have* to sign up to post something. Don’t know how they’ll tackle spam posting, ultimately.

• Posts are classified simply by theme as compared to tags by everybody else. This should be a lot simpler for the “simple” folk to put in new stuff against themes which are titled creative, useful, readable, technical, media, scholarly, fun and etc
• It’s FAST.
• Most importantly, it attempts to solve the problem of “The click”. What the heck am I talking about? Each and every one of these sites, at it’s root, deals with one simple core fact. Delivering it’s users to websites of interest. The problem: How to collect metadata for these links? All the other sites, take your pick, digg,delicious,whateverelse, simply ignore this and let the user click on the title of the link change the page to the target site. Blabb does a one-up on this by opening a shmoooth AJAX frame that shows a live preview of the site. The user can then add the site to his favorites and whatever else, including clicking on the link again to open it in a new window. I loved this!

Recommended.

I’ve been looking at Social Bookmarking sites and what kind of impact they’re having on the way the general Internet populace finds news, tells the world about their discoveries and in general increases activity on a particular topic of interest faster than any search engine ever could.

I recently modified the blog template on my site to include a “Click to Social bookmark” section below each post title as you must have noted.

Want the same section on your site? Read on…
My Social Bookmarking section seems to have gained some sort of audience and I thought I’d go
ahead and give it off to anyone who was interested. So I made a
Wordpress template for everyone to use. If anyone’s interested I could
make a Blogger template as well. Ask for it if you want it.

The Wordpress template snippet

Here’s the Wordpress template snippet: dhirajgupta_socialbookmark_wordpress.zip

How to install?
This will currently only work for people who host their own Wordpress blogs with someone other than Wordpress. This seems to be a requirement for you to be able to edit your Wordpress theme - they don’t let you edit it right there.

You’ll need to be able to add the images for the template and also the Overlib javascript library.

The template snippet expects the images for the Social bookmarking block to be present in a folder called Images inside the folder where you have the Wordpress template. This is the norm and you should already have it. Copy the images from the zip file to your template’s Images folder.

Next you need to install the Overlib Javascript Library. This is what allows the template to have those neat tooltips on the hover of each Social Bookmarking site. This is usually quite painless and should not pose a problem. Get the Library and install it on to your blog template according to their instructions.

Next it’s time to finally insert my Social Bookmarking template snippet into your actual Wordpress template. To do this, open up the wordpress.html file from the zip file you downloaded from my site. Copy all the contents from this HTML file into the correct place in your “The_Loop” section. Normally you would paste it right under your title header area. Save and refresh your blog; you should see the Click to Social Bookmark link come up.

Place, lay it out and tweak according to your preferences.

And in case you have any problems, do let me know.

A word of caution
I’m not quite an experienced Wordpress user, any help / assistance / feedback on the working of the template snippet would be quite appreciated.

This template snippet will end up increasing the page download size of your blog for first time visitors, a little bit. The stuff that gets added (Overlib JS, image) should be cached by the browser well, though. Your Mileage May Vary.

This is not really a full blown template yet, it requires you to already have a template ready. If any of you’ve got a cool template and would like to share it with the rest of the Internet along with the Social Bookmark section incorporated, do drop me a line.

Licensing?
I really don’t want to get into any kind of licensing or that kind of stuff. So please consider it free of all restrictions, modify, use, do *whatever* you want to, with it.

If you’re feeling thankful, you could leave a shoutout on your site. Do tell me if you find it useful, here or by feedback.

Shoutouts
A big shoutout to Socializer, for inspiration on this.
A bigger shoutout to NEO Binaries for helping me find Socializer in the first place! I just clicked Bookmarks on the comprehensive category list.

A big shout out to the guys at Overlib too, you guys rock!

So you like Social Bookmarking sites.

I like it when you bookmark my posts socially. I get a lot of new readers that way.

Just click on the heart below any post title to bookmark it on your favorite bookmarking site.

Don’t know what Social bookmarking is? Can’t figure out which one to use? Check out the Social bookmarking section on NEO Binaries.

Not everyone understands, at all, what terms like RSS, Atom, and news aggregator mean.

These are all technologies and terms related to receiving notifications when an update happens - in my case you could use these to get notified whenever I post something new on this site.

For those of you that don’t know (and don’t really care) what these things mean, and yet would like to be told when there’s something new on dhirajgupta.com, I bring to you (drumroll) FeedBlitz!

Feedblitz let’s publishers (me) offer an email subscription to subscribers (you) so that you can be notified, by email, whenever something new has happened. They only send out email whenever there is actual activity, in a concise single email for the day. No activity, no email; it’s that simple.

And no, they won’t spam you. They promise.

To subscribe, simply fill in your email address on the new “Subscribe for updates:” section on the right and hit subscribe me! A new window will open with my feed url highlighted and ask you to confirm.

And you (and thus, I) will be much happier!

I think Google’s Notebook offering is just another confused attempt at market acquisition in one more idea that’s been abused heavily on the Internet - bookmarking and notes. This, along with their recent string of application releases has really brought my kettle to a boil.

“Google Notebook Labs” has just released a firefox extension (whatever happened to the just plain, good old, Google Labs is a mystery). This extension’s download page is where you get taken to when you signup on Notebook - if you do it with Firefox, that is. The perception that I got as an end-user when this happened to me is that the whole Google Notebook concept is a Firefox extension and just that! I don’t know if that is the intention that Google has, really, but that’s what it looks like to moi.

Anyways, on with my review of Google Notebook and why it sucks.

Read more…

The Extension
Let’s start with the Firefox extension. Here’s a list of things that I dislike about it:

1. Architecture: Google created a single sign-on architecture quite some time back. This, is what lets you sign in to all (well… most - Adwords is a notable exception) of google’s offerings using the same “Google account”. The architecture is based around storing of a central cookie that is used by all of Google’s services. This works well in most cases but is quite problematic when you take the same architecture and apply it to a rich interface, like the Notebook Firefox extension.

   The problem is the extension depends on this cookie for its functioning. The Google Notebook Firefox extension has no way for the user to specify their Google account username and password. So the only way you’re going to get this Firefox extension to work is by logging into your google account in your Firefox browser. Clicking on “Open Notebook” simply opens a small popup window which fetches the google single sign on web block when you’re not signed in. This is the first login-required Firefox extension from Google and I had expected better.

   This problem is especially compounded for users like me, who are forced to use more than one google account. Even more so, when you are not logged in and try to “Note This” and the login box pops up; even after logging in correctly, the extension doesn’t go ahead and complete the Noting operation. You’ve got to do it again.

2. Usability issues: Most functionality appears to be happening inside a web block, actual rich functionality is mostly absent in the extension. This makes the extension a bit slower in response compared to what one would expect. Yes, it’s web based, it’s cool, but what’s the point if it’s not really lightning fast; especially when I’m using it to take Notes.
3. Bugs / Problems

1. Installation: Upon install it asked me to restart Firefox (this is a bother that I’ve become used to), and on restart it emptied out my session. All my pages that were stored in my session by Session Manager came up saying (Untitled). This, I’m definitely not used to.

   Everytime I sign in to google notebook, it asks me download the Google Notebook firefox extension. I don’t think that’s a good thing to do to your users. I don’t know if this is caused by them or my Fasterfox has cached the Google Notebox first time signin process, your mileage may vary on this one.

2. “Note this” wipes out site formatting: Noting anything from a website by the advertised select and right-click operation works abysmally as per my expectation. It’s slow, and it wipes out all, yes all formatting, CSS styling, pictures that are not URLs and applies a standard googlish look to it. Not desirable, not expected and extremely tacky. My grabbed notes should look the exact same as they were when I took them.
3. “Note this” adds bookmarks: Right clicking on a page without selecting anything and saying “Note This” just creates a bookmark note. Content on the page is not copied. Makes me wonder what the point of it all was? I could have just added a bookmark on to Digg or Del.icio.us, right?
4. “Note this” doesn’t always work: So what does one do, if he wants to copy the entire page into a note? Ctrl + A, right click and say Note this? Nope, nada, zilch, not working either. I tried it on a NEO Binaries page, and all I got was an extremely innocent error saying, “Error creating note.”. I hate error messages that don’t have the courtesy of telling me what the actual error was. I suppose that goes along with the whole Google spiel of “It’s simple, and it just works!”. Well it doesn’t, not for me.
5. Clicking on maximize in the extension opens a new tab in Firefox. Clicking on Help opens a new window. They’ll probably say it’s by design. I think it sucks!

The Google Notebook Service

As for the the actual Google Notebook offering, it’s got it’s own set of problems as well:

1. Publishing: So I can publish my notes. And what’s the point of that when I get a URL that looks like this: http://www.google.com/notebook/public/06758462020617548695/BDRdQSwoQ6qDM6LMh. What? I’m supposed to remember that? Or send it to someone? Aside from the fact that it looks like the most lame page ever created, I think exposing pseudo blogging features without actually providing any, is just a waste of time, effort and marketing might.

2. Usability Issues:
1. It’s slow. That’s what it feels like when they don’t tell me what’s happening in the Ajax. Show me something, some sort of progress or activity.

2. It’s not attractive to look at, at all. The way it functions leaves a lot to be desired. Compare it with Google Reader for example.
3. The My notes and the other notebooks move up instead of the tab shifting down. Why create a tab bar effect in the first place?
3. Missing features

1. Search!: Google is a seach company. Whatever they do, whatever offering they launch, however much money they make, they must remember this: they are a search company. And when they show messages saying “Search will be available in a few days”, they’re asking for it.

2. Tagging / Categorization: So I’m supposed to search, and only search for my notes in my Google Notebook. I’m not supposed to label, tag or categorize them. No fair. I completely agree with Michael on this.
3. Blog this???: Shouldn’t I be able to create notes and then easily publish them to my blog on Blogger? Especially when they are services by the same company? Doesn’t it make sense? I mean, c’mon guys, get your act together. Fine, you already have that store, edit and publish interface in Blogger. But I’m creating notes here. I want to publish these notes on my blog (and not on your lame URL with weird numbers and symbols).

   Did nobody actually think of this at all?

4. Email Integration: In published Notebooks I can email a link to whomever I want to. How? By using my offline mail client. I don’t know how that makes sense to any person who uses GMail. I use Gmail. I have a Gmail account. I use the same account to login to Google Notebook. And yet, I must use (insert favorite rich email client here) to send a link from my Google Notebook as email. Sounds crazy to me.
4. Confusion?: First Google bought Blogger. Then they came out Google Bookmarks. Then to top it all of they released Google Pages. Now they release Google Notebook with functionality that has bits and pieces of everything. It totally confuses me as to where they’re going with all this. I only wonder how the casual user is supposed to comprehend all of this.
5. Competition is better: The competition is way ahead Google in almost all aspects as regards Google Notebook.

   Take a look at:

   Scrapbook: A top pick Firefox extension, it is something which beats eSnips, OnFolio and now Google Notebook at their own game. And it’s free, fast and respects the way my notes look.

   Del.icio.us: Yes, the true-blue original bookmark sharing service. I think it’s way ahead of Google’s attempts to enter the market.

   SyncNotes: Yup, our own SyncNotes is way ahead of them in the actual Note taking, publishing and sending departments as well.

My point?
Google Notebook is definitely not the robust and kick-ass kind of offering that we’ve become used to come out of the Google stable. Instead its a confused attempt to enter late into one of the most heavily crowded spaces on the Net. That too, Sideways.

Are we looking at the first chinks that are beginning to appear in Google’s shiny armour?

This one’s going to be a rant where I blast the heck out of this TV program called Bid2Win.

The Concept
You watch this TV program where TV stars come on and tell you about this latest object of desire - the latest gizmo, gadget, device or whatever that you really, really want. What you’ve got to do is bid for the lowest price on the gadget by sending them SMS messages. You can thus (allegedly) “win” this really expensive device for literally peanuts.

The hosts urge you to to SMS whatever price you think will “win”. They insist that the more you SMS, the more your chances of “winning”.

How all this is supposed to work is that a whole lot of people out of the viewership of the program SMS repeatedly into the program’s SMS number, the minimum price they think will bid for the particular product. The hosts suggest that you should SMS the coolest price - only the “coolest” price will win. This cannot factually be true; the actual winning bid is the minimum price that a single person bid. The on-screen graphics that run during the program display this story well enough; they repeatedly display what the number of prices that have not been SMSed below a certain minimum price by viewers.

The viewers try to guess what numbers have not been SMSed. The program lets you bid for a 24 hour period, the time difference between the two shows. Bid2Win then displays  yesterday’s winner in the program.

The program talks about you sending SMS messages repeatedly for each bid. Alternatively you can use your telephone to call the Bid2Win number where their IVR system will pick up and you can put your bids in.

What they don’t stress on, enough (and should):

• Each SMS you send them is going to cost your Rs. 10/-

• Each minute you spend trying to figure out how to use, and then actually end up putting your bids in is going to be charged at Rs.6/- per minute.

What they don’t tell you:

• Sending of SMS messages only works with Airtel mobile phones.

• I think the call-in number will also only work with Airtel mobile phones as well.
• The number of wins that are possible. From what they seem to say, I think there is only, I repeat, ONLY one such device to be one, because they’re visibly announcing only one winner.

How they make their money:

Size of viewership who actually send them SMS messages, cumulatively MULTIPLIED by the number of SMS messages MULTIPLIED by 10

Size of viewership who actually use their IVR system MULTIPLIED by the number of minutes they use the system, cumulatively MULTIPLIED by 6

And this is done, daily.

Now can anyone guess the approximate viewership that this kind of program has, daily? I’m sure it is in the scale of figures where the number of digits really look insane.

So you thought you were getting that yummy, scrunchy must-have, brand new gadget/device/gizmo for cheap? Easily?

Think again.

Cost of average device that is displayed? Under a lakh of Rupees? Typically under 50 thousand.

Considering every combination for under Rs. ten, then you have 10 + 10 * 99 combinations. That’s 1000 combinations for a sure shot “chance” to win. At Rs.10 per SMS, that’s Rs. 10,000/- to make it a very costly chance, I’d say.

Because you’re one person in millions watching. Which lowers the chance of you “winning” anything signifcantly.

I’d put up the concept right up there with gambling on a roulette table in a casino in Las Vegas. The house always wins. No matter what you do, remember this in any gambling scenario - the house always wins. All gambling games are designed that way, including Bid2Win.

The people behind Bid2Win: From some initial research it turns out that Bid2Win is one of the most successful programs in UK and has been repackaged to suit India.

The same company that started Bid2Win in the UK, continues to power monetization using mobile (and other new) media in all it’s forms. The company’s name is Cellcast and admittedly they do claim to be at this for a long time, 1998.

And I’ll be surprised if their offerings works well in India as well. They have the know how and the experience, they just need to adapt it to the Indian market, which they seem to be doing well.

My Point?
My whole point with writing all this is that looking at where we’re headed with all this on public television really upsets me. Looking at it from my viewpoint I feel they are actually fooling the audience into spending gigantic amounts of money on a particularly small service being offered. All with the detailed organization and power of an MNC who knows the game inside out. Getting the end consumer hooked into thinking that they are spending less while they’re actually “bidding” to get something that isn’t really worth the effort and the pain that viewers go through.

Above all it’s such a crass way of doing it. Look at another program that my family seems to be addicted to: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa: Ek duje ke liye. This particular program has it’s singing contestants come on to stage and literally plead with the audience to vote for them by sending SMS messages as detailed. And they have more network operators support than just Airtel, which means many more participating viewers, which means much more money for them.

And then companies like CellCast go ahead and coin new terms like Participation TV for something that’s been around for a very long time: How to make money selling something in a win-lose situation.

My simple advice to all the people who don’t understand any of this and are just curious about participating on these shows:

Don’t.

All my life, I’ve been spoiled by serendipity.

If you don’t get what I mean… here’s an example for you: Ever wondered about the meaning of a word or how a word came into existance and then in a short span of time, have your questions answered for you without
even actively looking for it? That’s serendipity. Ever had a music album that you heard a lot in your teens but never since because you lost it and it became unavailable (and you didn’t really look), and then suddenly, years later, you found it while you were not even looking for it? That’s serendipity for you, too.
I’m just studying coincidences but this really happens to me a lot. Too frequently, and too much more bang-on-target than it should. I read about a concept somewhere and then everywhere I look, it starts to appear. I consciously remember wanting to look up something on the Internet or wanting to download something and a few days later, boom, it’s presented to me on one medium or another.

I’m not really saying that this is the sort of thing that one should depend upon, or even that I do, but it is something of a bad habbit that I’ve picked up over the years.

Some would say that this is just another form of procrastination. I would tend to agree. But what can one do? You can’t really go around hunting around for your smallest whim or fantasy and then force-fulfill
it, can you?

Some would even go ahead and say that all of this is really a big load of bulll; there’s no such thing. To these people, I’d like to point out that a lot of the world’s discoveries and inventions were made this way. For example, penicillin. Arguably one of the most important discoveries in medicine in the past, penicillin was discovered by accident by Alexander Fleming while he was actively working on finding it (or something similar to it).

So was Velcro.

How about … Post-it Notes?

The rings around Uranus?

The effects of LSD, even.

One of the biggest problems with Serendipity is that you cannot, by definition, ever predict that it will ever happen. Which is also why it’s always a pleasant surprise. Take Skype’s “Skype Me” mode. You never know who might just call.

What’s my point? I’m simply trying to say that you don’t really, necessarily have to sweat the small stuff; it could just come to you anyway. One should concentrate on more productive long-term goals and
actively work towards them.

And then maybe, just maybe, that seagull which flew away could just come back to be with you forever.

Anyway.

The time has finally come for all of you to tell the world how much you appreciate NEO Binaries. NEO Binaries has been nominated as one of the entries for the monthly poll on TheNextBigWebThing.com. Only your vote can help us get to the top!

Please vote for NEO Binaries as The Next Big Web Thing for April, 2006.