Knol: About.com and NOT the Wikipedia Killer

Recently Google announced the public availability of Knol, after a test run of around 7-8 months. Most of the people see it as Wikipedia killer. Though there are similarity between Knol and Wikipedia, there are noticeable difference as follows -

• The first difference is that Knol is all about articles and not creating encyclopedia. Wikipedia is more subject/topic centered whereas Knol is more article/ author centered.
• Author can still own the copyright of the article and decide whether s/he wants contribution from others or not. He has also few license options available to choose from. Option for selecting license is not possible with Wikipedia.
• One major difference that I see it the option for monetization. I had written one post previously that Twitter and FriendFeed should allow monetization, so why not Wikipedia? Google approach definitely encourages sharing and collaboration by adding monetization aspect to the contribution.
• All articles in Knol is having nofollow attribute, so there will not be an impact on the page rank of the hyperlinked page. Though the link to your blog/ website will not affect PageRank, still you may expect increase in traffic.
• Knol puts strong emphasis on trust and they have a verification mechanisms. They recommend name verification by telephone or by credit card.

I personally feel that there are more difference than similarity in Knol and Wikipedia. They cater to two different markets and I believe there is sufficient scope for co-exist rather than killing each other.

Instead of Wikipedia, I believe that Knol has more similarities with About.com. If you don't know, About.com is a portal where you can get articles on various topics written by prominent authors. Generally all those articles are paid articles and About.com pays to the authors. Seeing Knol's article centric approach, I believe that conceptually Knol is very much similar to the About.com. I would prefer calling Knol a "Web 2.0 About.com".

About.com doesn't give reader of the article any method to contribute to the article similar to Wikipedia. Neither it does allow everybody to publish new articles in different categories. So the contribution is very much restricted in About.com. Knol.com takes the idea of About.com, fixes contribution issue and also incorporates monetization which again promotes contribution. The emphesis on contribution is what makes it "Web 2.0".

I am not saying that Knol.com is going to kill About.com. In fact, in my opinion, there is good possibility for co-existence of all three websites - Knol, Wikipedia and About.com. Though I am saying that Google has made About.com available to everybody and we will definitely see excellent knowledge base in future.

Thanks Google.

Yahoo Groups Power User Program

Yahoo recently announced Yahoo! Groups Power User Program. According to Yahoo -

"This program rewards the owners and moderators of some of our top Groups. You have dedicated a lot of time to making your group great, and now we want to give you something in return.
As a first benefit, you now have free access to 24-hour online customer care chat support. To access this service, visit our Contact Us page and look for the Chat with us live now link. "

I think it is an important and very useful step for promoting Yahoo Groups. I maintain quite a few popular yahoogroups and sometimes lack of direct support becomes a little irritating. I appreciate Yahoo for this initiative.

More details on the Yahoo Groups Power User Program can be found at - http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/groupspoweruser/index.html. In case you want to know whether you are power user or not, check this out -

"You’ll get an email welcoming you to the program! If you didn’t get this email and you’d like to check to see if you’re in the program, click the Contact Us tab at the top of any Yahoo! Groups Help page, and look for Chat with us live now. If you see the link, Congratulations! — you’re a Power User. If you don’t see it, you’re not currently in the program"

There is also a yahoo group on this topic at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/groupspoweruser/

WordTracker Keyword Suggestion Tool is Dead

Yesterday I noticed that Google External Keyword Suggestion Tool has started showing the actual search number in present month as well as the average that Google has with it. I wonder is there any reason for me to use free keyword suggestion tool by Wordtracker now? The quality of data with Google is certainly better and more up to the date than WordTracker. Because Google is the most used search engine, it's data make more sense to me than WordTracker or Overture.Here is the screenshots that made me happy and I hope it will make you happy too -

Check out Google External Keyword Suggestion Tool. I hope new features will not disappear like some of the stats features from Google Trends disappeared.

AdSense For FriendFeed

FriendFeed.com is soon becoming my central content publishing / sharing platform. People can know what blog posts I have made, what I am doing and my GTalk status message on my FriendFeed. FriendFeed is even have commenting option so my reader can share their thoughts as well. But there is a problem that there is no monetization option in FriendFeed. With my blog, I make good amount of money and that is the reason I promote my blog everywhere rather than my FriendFeed. I wish soon FriendFeed will also allow us to add Google AdSense code so that we can utilize and promote it more agressively. If there is a AdSense for Feed, AdSense for Mobile, so there got to be a AdSense for FriendFeed. Don't you think FriendFeed is nice but it will be even better with AdSense ;-) ?

Average AdSense CPC (Cost Per Click)

Was wondering what is the average cost per click (CPC) people get using Google AdSense and found a good poll on digital point forum. You might be knowing that it is not permissible to disclose your earnings as per Google agreement.

Blogs & Websites in Year 2015

In year 1993, we used to have almost static websites. Then a time came, around 1996-1997, when we started having dynamic websites using technologies like ASP and ColdFusion. Then there came a time when we had an content management system integrated out of box with your websites using Wikis and Blogs.

I believe that we are still in this era of blogs and wikis and I wonder how it is going to be for the future? How will be my website http://www.punitpandey.com/ in year 2015? I believe in 2015, my website will be having at least following characteristics -

1. It will be having a portal integrated, so I'll be able to create communities and do twittering on my own domain. Instead of going to FaceBook, Twitter and tons of other websites, you will find all those features on my website itself.

2. It will be written in altogether a new UI, may be a very advanced version of Flex and Flash. Flash 25.0? The thin client (browser) will definitely become fat. I doubt that HTML will be the primary language for website writing.

What do you think? Do you have some weired thoughts as well?

Blog Optimization Tips & Techniques

This is a very nice post. It has documented most of the tips that I learnt by myself from my five years of blogging, with ofcourse few new points. Check it out -

25 Blog Optimization Tips

Twitter in India

Now-a-days I am very closely monitoring social networking and emerging trends. One of of the recent success stories of social networking is Twitter.com. Twitter is your own messaging channel to stay connected and keep other posted about whatever you want. Your posts are limited to 140 characters. People can use it in various ways, but the one way by which it is becoming very popular is as micro blogging. Instead of writing a detailed post on blog, you can just write a quick 140 characters post (called tweets) and share with your friends, family members and everybody you want. The advantage it has over blogging is that, it is very simple to use.

Now coming back to the actual point, Twitter has yet to gain the major ground in India. Twitter is very popular in US and Europe, but yet to gain popularity in India. It doesn't mean that it is not being used in India, rather seeing the potential in India it is extremely under used if we compare it with other social networking website like Orkut. Knowing the fact that Twitter can work well with mobile phones and can be used for sending tweets 'using SMSs' & 'as SMSs', I believe soon it is going to beat Orkut as the most popular social networking platform. Indian public is the most SMS (Text messages) savvy public I have seen anywhere and that is the reason I think that we are not far from the day when we will see Twittering everywhere in India.

Twitter itself understand this potential to some extent and as a result of that recently they have given India a local SMS number (5566511). Having this SMS number means Indians will not have to pay international charges for making post. More information on this local code can be found on Twitter blog here.

Don't forget to follow me on http://twitter.com/pandeypunit. Happy Tweeting!!!

Free Vedic Horoscope

Continuing from my last post, I want to inform my readers that it is also not required to buy astrology software, if you want to cast a birth chart, also called kundali or kundli in India. The website http://www.astrosage.com/ provides a detailed web-based astrology software absolutely free. You even need not to register on the website and you can cast detailed horoscope. AstroSage.com everything that you will find in an Astrology software like Parashara Light, Varahamihira, Goravani Jyotish, and Leo Gold etc. Here is the URL -

Free Vedic Horoscope

Free Online Horoscope Matching

I have found that not many people are aware of the fact that they can match the birth charts online absolutely free using Vedic astrology principles like Ashtakoot Gun Milap (North Indian equivalent to ten porutham) and Manglik Dosha (Mangal Dosha) on our website http://www.astrosage.com/. AstroSage.com is not merely a website, but it is a full flagged online astrology software. In absence of something like AstroSage.com, you had to rely upon commercial software worth thousand of rupees or get your matching done through some outside agency. Now it is as easy as supplying birth details and do the marriage matching by yourself. Here is the direct link to AstroSage.com Horoscope Matching page -

Free Online Horoscope Matching on AstroSage.com

Swami Vivekananda at the World Congress of Religions 1893

http://www.archive.org/details/SwamiVivekanandaSwamiVivekananda1893Speech

Recommended Books on Ayurveda

When you start studying any subject, it is important to get the right books. This is even more important for Indology subjects because more than 90% books are written by authors who even don't understand the basics of subject.

There are some other problems as well. First of all the original text (Charak, Sushrut, Vagbhat) etc. are very old and not written keeping the present time in mind. Even some of the recent commentaries are pretty old and the language used is not very easy to understand. Also most of the books lack the practical approach and are almost with no examples. So here are few of my recommended books that I found the best available in the market -

IN HINDI

1. Chikitsa Chandrodaya by Babu Haridas Ji Vaidya (in Hindi)
Publisher: Haridas & Company (P) Ltd., Mathura
When I was searching for books I never thought that the best books will be from my neighbouring city. I am from Agra so I am very pleased that these books are published from Mathura. These books are talk in details about theory as well as practical. Almost all important diseased are dealt in this book. Also the author has also given Yunani medicine at many places.

2. Aadhunik Chikitsashastra by Dharmadutt Vaidya (in Hindi)
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
This is another gem of the book that I found. It is around 1000 page book which talks in detail about the Ayurvedic medicine as well as Modern medines for various diseases. There are other sections on medical emergencies and clinical method which make this book really useful. This book also bridges the gap between modern medicine and Ayurveda by using both the systems in complimentory way. Also use of Hing-lish make this book easy to read. I am not sure whether an Eglish translation of this book is available or not but definately hope for one.

IN ENGLISH

Truly speaking I have not found any good book in English on Ayurveda. One thing that I don't like about the books in English is that these book mix Ayurveda with other systems and hence diluting the subject. Some of the popular books are books by Vasant Lad, David Frawley and Svoboda. Out of these books, I liked Textbook Of Ayurveda (two volumes) by Vasant Lad. This is a good book from the theory perspective and dealt with theory in details. But once it come to the practical examples, this book cannot be compared with other books. In fact, in both the volumes, the author keep talking about theory which is very disappointing. Though seeing the dearth of good books on Ayurveda in English, this can be easily rated as the best book available in market. There is another popular books in English named Ayurveda Healing by David Frawley. Though keep in mind that this books is for beginner level and lacks the depth and details of the book by Vasant Lad.

Please note that above list of recommended books is written for people who want to get into the details of the subject. I'll rate the level of all above books from Intermediate to Advanced. In case you are just casual reader of Ayurveda, these are not the recommended books.

Books on Ayurveda

A comprehensive list of books on Ayurveda can be found at https://www.vedamsbooks.com/ayurveda.htm

Ayurveda Notes on Rasa and Dhatu

Signs and Symptoms of vitiated tissues (Dhatus)

Restlessness, palpitation, cardiac pain, exhaustion without cause, irritation by loud noises, haemoglobin deficiency, roughness and dryness of skin.

• Muscle (mamsa) - cracking joints, eye
• Fat (medas) - lassitude, overly thin constitution, exhaustion, falling hair, nails, teeth, loose joints
• Bone (asthi) - thinness, weakness, bone, lightness, Vayu bone diseases weakness, and dry mouth
• Marrow (majja) - pallor, lassitude
• Reproductive - exertion, impotence, non-ejaculation of semen
• Essence (ukra)

Sapta (Seven) Dhatus and their functions:

• Rasa (fluid) Dhatu -Derived from the digested food, it nourishes each and every tissue and cell of the body and is analogous to the plasma.
• Rakta (blood) Dhatu - Regarded as the basic of life, it is analogous to the circulating blood cells. It not only nourishes the body tissues, but provides physical strength and colour to the body.
• Masma Dhatu - The muscle tissue, its main function is to provide physical strength and support for the meda dhatu.
• Meda (fat) Dhatu - Consists of adipose tissue providing support to ashti dhatu. It also lubricates the body.
• Ashti Dhatu - Comprising of bone tissues, including cartilages, its main function is to give support to the majja dhatu and provide support to the masma dhatu.
• Majja Dhatu - Denoting the yellow and red bone marrow tissue, its main function is to fill up the ashti and to oleate the body.
• Shukra Dhatu - The main aim of this reproductive tissue is to help reproduction and strengthen the body.
• Blood (rakta) - cracks, loss of luster, emaciation (especially of buttocks, neck and abdomen)

Table 1: Dhatus. The information presented here is derived from Principles of Pharmacology in Ayurved by Dr. Kulkarni.

Indian Name	Modern Translation of Meaning	Indications of Favorable Condition
Rasa	nutrient portion of the blood	good skin quality, vitality
Rakta	blood (e.g., blood cells)	good coloration of the cheeks, lips, ear lobes, tongue, tip of nose; warm palms and soles
Mamsa	muscles and soft tissues	muscles of chest, arms, and legs are strong; facial muscles yield good expression and eye movements, speech is clear
Medas	lipids (fats, membranes)	proper moisture of skin, eyes, lips, and hair; normal sweating without bad odor; no excessive accumulation of fat in the area of abdomen, hips, back, and neck
Asthi	bones, cartilage	well-proportioned body, strong teeth and nails, thick hair; joints are supple and freely mobile
Majja	marrow	glowing face, healthy skin, soft voice
Shukra	vital fluid, semen	eyes are bright, teeth are white, skin is soft, voice is pleasant, sexual vitality is strong but controlled

Must Read Books On Spirituality

I understand that no book is needed for attaining the ultimate. Though these are few great books that may guide you on your spiritual path. Here are my favorites -

"I Am That" by Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"The First And The Last Freedom" by Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Vigyan Bhairav Tantra (The Book Of Secrets)" Part I by Osho

"Vigyan Bhairav Tantra (The Book Of Secrets)" Part II by Osho