Wackao » Ripul Kumar

After Panda arrives “The Penguin”

Ripul Kumar — Wed, 09 May 2012 02:45:17 +0000

Well, this penguin is different, this isn’t a flightless bird but an algorithm update by Google. Unlike panda which launched a hurricane in the SEO community, penguin seems to be launched with a specific aim, “Reduce SPAM” in search results. According to Google, penguin would impact approximately 3.1% of search results. While there are rumors in the community that Google is penalizing the over optimized sites, I have a different thought on this. Optimization can never be “over”, if you are stuffing your content with too many keywords and anchors then it isn’t optimization, its killing the SEO for a single purpose i.e gaming the search.

Also it seems that the most impacted sites are sites/pages which focus on “Money”, “make money”, “money keyword” keywords. Also Google is now focusing on things like the relevancy of links. If the links were coming from the same niche but different anchor texts than only keywords then there is a lesser probability of getting hit by Penguin.

There is a lot more one has worry about if you are taking shortcuts in SEO. Sooner or later Google with update and catch SEO concepts like “Article spinning”, “non related blog commenting”,”Directory submission”. Google wants that every content adds a value in internet, even if it doesn’t go for genuine link building techniques. Get posting, Article submission, creating niche microsites and linking them together promoting the main site are some of the upcoming concepts.

Ecommerce Bubble finally bursts in India as Amazon approaches with Junglee

Ripul Kumar — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:59:04 +0000

Finally, the much awaited and expected news hits the Indian eCommerce domain. Amazon has finally officially started its operations in India in the name Junglee.com. Though still in a passive mode Amazon entrance has caused jitters in the industry. Investors of the eCommerce domain are now focusing on consolidation and saving their buck before Amazon sweeps all. The first hints come up with two giants merging together, Letsbuy.com is now acquired by Flipkart.com but the big question still lingers “Is that enough to hold Amazon off?”.

Lets take a look at the numbers:

Amazon

Revenue $48 billion Net Income: $1.4 billion

Flipkart

Revenue: $100 million Net Income $7 million [estimate figures]

Letsbuy

Revenue: $30 million Net Income $1.4 million [estimate figures]

Clearly, there is no match.

According to Indian demographics and user behavior, price sensitivity is the single most exciting factor which triggers sales for eCommerce companies and it is a well known fact. So, going by what we have above, if Amazon starts a price war with Indian eCommerce companies then there is no denial that Flipkart + Letsbuy + Snapdeal + Yehbhi + Mynta can not give a fight to Amazon.

But wait, there is something more than meets the eye:

Data also suggest that sites offering good user experience and good brand value also attract the A rated consumers who are willing to pay premium on user experience.

Flipkart has followed a very innovative strategy by acquiring a lot of companies such as weread and music companies like mime 360. Letsbuy had an superior recommendation engine and reviews engine which will now be merged with that of Flipkart.

But

Is there really any competition for Amazon?

Honestly no! Indian eCommerce is ripe and ready to be taken up and consumed by Amazon. Its my personal opinion, I have done several transactions with Flipkart, Letsbuy, Yehbhi, Myntra but there was no Wow! factor.

All these sites are plain vanilla eCommerce.

I could not find Flipkart or Letsbuy’s mission statement, which was really disappointing. It is also an indication whether Indian eCommerce companies going forward have a plan.

Amazon is way behind in adopting innovative technologies in user experience and design. Primarily due to the fact that they do not want to take any risk in changing the already optimized user flow. Strangely, most of the Indian eCommerce follow Amazon rather than looking forward to innovate the user experience.

Its time Indian eCommerce wakes up and starts finding strategies to defeat Amazon. And my guess is its not as easy as stating that “we’re a favourite online shopping destination. And it’s all thanks to you! “

Which is the Fastest WordPress Theme?

Ripul Kumar — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 05:10:16 +0000

WordPress is the best and most preferred CMS of all times. With more than 50% of websites now running on wordpress, wordpress themes are in demand these days. And as a result many popular Themes Clubs and Stores have come up. Many of these are now every designer’s list such as Elegant Themes, Theme Forest, Mojo-Themes and many more.

A common trend which has been seen in the premium theme stores is that though these are good looking themes but because of their nature and design, these themes are slow loading and are not w3c validated, which is a major concern when it comes to ranking higher in Search engines. Such themes are particularly important for small blog owners who want to get attention from Search engines which in most of the cases is the primary source of visitors.

This motivated me to find the fastest WordPress theme and following were the results which you’ll see:

1. SwiftThemes

2. vCandy

3. WP Simpy

4. After Burner

5. TwntyEleven

I did a small comparison among these themes and here are my results:See Results

I even tested out with TwentyTen and TwentyEleven themes under the same installation by switching themes and found that vCandy did come out to be the fastest theme with lowest loading time.

Plus best of all vCandy is 100% W3Cvalidated. See yourself

Download vCandy

Developers Hacks Siri for other Devices

Ripul Kumar — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:59:40 +0000

Recently Apply launched its iPhone 4s with a new and revolutionary feature “Siri”. Seems like developers/hackers of the world are now putting the feature into good use. Recently a hacker demonstrated how he can use “Siri” from iPhone to control his wifi thermostat.

Now this is some cool stuff.

Spam Blog comments have advanced levels

Ripul Kumar — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 05:41:47 +0000

How could I ever miss this? As the technologies in the web advance level by level so do spam on the web. One such medium of Spam are Spam comments on blog posts. Now, spam comments on your blog posts are not only focused on creating backlinks to the originator the sponsor but also to impact your site SEO negatively by creating spam in your blog comments. Surprisingly these comments pass the well known “Akismet” one of the most well known and excellent tool for WordPress blog/site owners.

Here is a screenshot of spam-comments which I regularly receive:

Interesting Fact: All these spam comments have spelling mistake & website as facebook or bing or google.com .

Lets have a 2 min Pause for the Legend! “Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)”

Ripul Kumar — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:42:10 +0000

Finally the day we all never wanted to see has come, as the Wikipedia says Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011). A true legend, the most renown and successful entrepreneur of our era has passed away. A person who has touched every one’s heart and redefined design, a great personality, the best presenter and a truely inspiring figure , lets all keep a 2 min pause for the legend.

At APPLE Official Site:

See tribute to Steve Jobs from Gizmodo :

A Tribute to Steve

Job’s Speech at Stanford

Best Google Doodle Ever!

Ripul Kumar — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 05:39:28 +0000

Today Google has launched a new Doodle which is the best Doodle Ever. It is amazing to see how Google is supporting HTML5 through their doodles and telling common folk about it. Yes! there is no flash involved.

The way I see the future it is definitely going to be the HTML5/CSS3 way, with Apple and Google supporting HTML5 and IE9 subjecting to the power of CSS3, in future all the browsers would start supporting HTML5. Though Flash has its own future with open source Paper Vision 3D. HTML5/CSS would challenge flash on all the 2D animation and effects and possibly replace flash in this arena, Flash would move on to higher levels of animation and 3D websites would become more popular.

Unable to call in iphone

Ripul Kumar — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 06:33:16 +0000

Yesterday my iphone was acting just like a paper weight for me…

I don’t know why i was not able to make any call to any number..though i was able to receive calls.

My network was completely fine, all other function, apps were doing fine and no hanging problem…

It just goes blank after i dial the number…completely blank.

One thing i noticed was whenever someone calls me i was able to make call within 2-3 minutes but after sometime back to the problem. The same was with the messages.I can receive the messages but i couldn’t send any.

The solution which got my phone working was i resetted all my network settings….

Amazing Apps for $0.99

Ripul Kumar — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 15:51:57 +0000

Well, I was just searching for some good apps for mac and found something very interesting. There is a big sale going on, Gameloft has released its “back to school” campaign where you get 4 Awesome apps for $0.99. These apps were previously ranging from $4.99 to $6.99.

The pic says it all guys, download these apps before its too late.

Silent Ops – ~~$6.99~~ ? $0.99
Backstab – ~~$6.99~~ ? $0.99
N.O.V.A. 2 – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance – ~~$6.99~~ ? $0.99
Dungeon Hunter 2 – ~~$6.99~~ ? $0.99
NFL 2011 – ~~$4.99~~ ? $0.99
Rayman 2: The Great Escape – ~~$4.99~~ ? $0.99
Splinter Cell Conviction™ – ~~$4.99~~ ? $0.99
Fast Five the Movie: Official Game – ~~$4.99~~ ? $0.99

Update(1st October,2011) Sorry Guys! the Offer has now Expired!

Why you should not use “digg digg”

Ripul Kumar — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:14:55 +0000

Many Bloggers must have used the social bookmarking wordpress plugin “digg digg”.

For those who don’t know about “digg digg”.
It is a social vote button or simply the social bookmark plugin used by bloggers.

It display counts for popular social butons such as digg,Facebook, Reddit etc etc.

I installed this plugin two weeks back on my blog. Though the plugin looks great but slowly and gradually my traffic decreased to half.

I was not able to make out what was the reason of this sudden drop in the visits and then two days ago while i was checking out my blog posts i came to know that the page is taking a hell lot of time to open that was the reason of the sudden drop in visitors to my blog.

I deactivated the plugin and my page was opening very fast.
So, what i did was disabled my plugin and to my surprise my daily visitors to my blog are back.

See the screenshot below