Category — Local Industry

Trends change over the year, few people adapt instantly and others with a lag. The latest boom about social media and internet marketing has taken information to the next level. With tools like Twitter, Facebook, WordPress etc. we get to hear news faster than any newspaper might update today. It’s really fun to see internet providing information at such rapid speed.

I still remember the early days of internet when firms had a little newsletter box on their website so that they can keep their users (and/or clients) posted about recent updates. Technology has advanced today but many firms still opt for the old-fashioned-newsletter (hard copy). How about maintaining a section on your website that can keep your users updated about your firm?

Say yes to Blog and feel a difference about your corporate on the internet. Having a blog can help you in many ways, including:

• Frequent updates on news and events
  Keep your blog casual. Post updates (news) about your corporate, product and events (picnic, competitions etc.) to give your web audience a good insight into your firm! Expose your RSS URL  on the main website so that people can easily follow your blog
• Maintain a web audience
  Interaction with your users (through comments), getting to know their instant feedback can always lead to improvement in various areas
• Better results on search engine
  Many web sites (especially in this part of world) are not highly optimized for search engines. Having a well-maintained blog can help you get a good traffic on your blog as well as on your website directly from the search engine

There is definitely much more to it than what one can list down in a single post. I myself suggest blogs to my clients (instead of maintaining a page for ‘news & events’) and have got a really good experience in driving traffic from blogs. Yes, there are certain firms that are still printing hard-copy newsletters because of their end-users. By setting up a blog in parallel, they can help others in bringing about a change!

The bytes will surge, the elite will assemble and excellence will reign supreme!

The specified thrust of NUCES-FAST in shielding the latest technology, emerging sciences and business sanctions it to genially invite you to ProCom.Net (scheduled on April 30 & May 1, 2009), a variety of outstanding competitions, for the 10th consecutive year in the industry. The whole and sole arrangement of students reflected by the guidance of proficient faculty makes it the most distinctive event of the year.

The official event website is http://www.procom.net.pk

Source: Procom.Net ’09 Facebook event

Last Sunday, I went out on a lunch party thrown by some of my batch mates. It was really nice meeting everyone after such a long time and sharing whats happening in our lifes these days. We had lunch at BBQ Tonight and then for the ice-cream treat, Om Batra took us to Gelato.

The main reason for which the get together was organized was to celebrate the recovery of everyone from what happened at Nuvica. And I was really happy to know that all my friends got into well known firms around the city. However, Imad and Munir went off to open another firm and have been doing quite good so far. Munir is really one of the most talented person of our batch and Imad, he is good at creative stuff. I hope they do well in their venture (currently their expertise are in ASP.Net, PHP, desktop, mobile applications and creative designing).

Immy & Munir – I wish you all the very best for your new start!

Today, tons of technology blogs are out there on the internet. As time is passing by, blogging has picked up popularity and Pakistani users have also put up some technology blogs to cover our industry happenings; and they even succeeded in making a good impression about what they were doing. That’s their one side (if you’re in read-only phase). Now if you have ever had a chance to communicate with them, or if you ever have emailed them for a review of your website etc. then you really get to know the reality of what is happening around in our greenish society!

Trust me, top most blogs of our industry are running in a totally unprofessional manner. Most of them have started focusing on quantity and not quality. How many times I have seen a post that quotes from Google blog and they just write up a paragraph or two above summarizing the story. Is that really it, just to earn some bucks per post? :S

One big blunder that I felt was lack of knowledge (especially in a hot field like VoIP). It happened when I asked them to review my website, they denied even after they struggled to read the VoIP laws of PTA. However, 5 months later I am again contacted by another writer from their community to get details about our startup since they wanted to cover our story. I did mention them about what happened earlier and then I submitted my post. 3 weeks later I got to know that my venture won’t be covered again. Tough luck you might say? No, I would say – poor management of the community running the blog!

Hmm, a funny incident also happened. Few weeks back a post was published and the URL pointing to the main website was wrong. I dropped in a comment that there has been typo, so please correct the hyperlink. After few minutes, the post vanished away and was back with the same content & author in few hours but WITHOUT my comment.

Anyway, I always looked up to our industry blogs with great pride. But whenever you get a chance to have your review over there, even top personalities out there would only talk negative about your startup. I believe, talking positive, helping out with reasonable suggestions can help the startups get better only if they share positive stuff from their experience. Unjust reviews and comments won’t lead us anywhere. Last but not the least, I’ve even seen Jehan Ara of P@SHA posting positive posts about ventures on her blog and encouraging the efforts where as on the same side, the community couldn’t leave their green standard!

Hmm, Karachi Bloggers Meetup was held last Saturday and I couldn’t make it due to some family commitments. However, I did read all the live coverage provided by Fariha Akhtar at Ideas Hut.

Bloggers on the board did share their experiences and the ways through which one can make money from blogs. But I believe they should also highlight key factors to our Pakistani youngsters to avoid opening blogs just to make money through Adsense; more commonly termed as “Made for Adsense (MFA)”. And trust me; such sites won’t earn you anything except few cents!

I’ll be InshAllah sharing my Adsense experience in the upcoming posts. Stay tuned!

BAP 2007, a joint effort of MITCEF and OPEN, aimed to promote innovation in Pakistan by putting companies through a mentoring/coaching program. The ‘Business Acceleration Program’ started with ‘invitation for applications’ in summer, followed by seminars from PASHA/PSEB to explain the key points; leading up to workshops and selection of top 20 companies.

‘Presentations & Selection of winner & runner-up round’ was held on 6th November in Avari Towers. Luckily, I had a chance to visit the program with my friend, Ammar. Thanks to the CEO of TeleData for arranging the passes.

The Final 5 consisted of:

1. Alchemy Technologies
2. Autosoft
3. Sofizar
4. Softech Systems
5. Tohfay.com

Each company presented its idea. ‘Alchemy Technologies’ were way too good in their presentation and responding to the questions of mentors and judges. Their idea was Risk Reports. Autosoft was presented by Ms. Sadia d/o of CEO, ASD. And they targeted products for banking sector. Sofizar had an innovative idea: “TicketNest.com” – selling tickets online without holding them, targeting visitor’s need, optimizing their site with SEO techniques and producing better search results. The speaker, Zafar Khan, quoted “every morning when I wake up, I have earned $3-4,000”. Softech Systems gave a boring time. Only few paid proper attention to what the CEO was saying. Last one was Tohfay.com, yet another e-service for delivering gifts.

After a small hi-tea, the results were announced:

Winner: Sofizar
Runners Up: Alchemy Technologies
Third position: Autosoft
Fourth position: Softech Systems
Fifth position: Tohfay

It was a great learning experience! Not many of us today pay attention to ‘ideas’ rather most of the smart people indulge themselves in only routine work. Why not target something high, tweak our minds and apply all what we’ve learned, come up with ideas through which we can also be part of something big. Because IT is all about innovation, no matter how big or small you are!

For more details about MITCEF-BAP, Click here.