Saleem is one of them. Known as one of the most influential users of the news aggregation site Digg, Saleem is one of four co-founders of a site launching this morning: Tip’d. The new site is yet another social media site, but focused on a specific niche (financial news), and bootstrapped with no outside funding.

Tip’d is launching at a time that’s both fortuitous and treacherous: With the current state of the global economy, interest in financial news is surging. At the same time, as investors become more cautious and companies cut back on expenses like acquisitions and advertising, it may be tough going for a start-up.

However, Tip’d has an ace up its sleeve: It’s launching at a time when yet another Digg user protest is underway, with many users upset about the banning of long-time and well-known Diggers.

The most obvious question for Saleem is how he got involved in a start-up that’s a competitor to the site where he’s spent so much time and effort. Saleem replies,

“I got involved with Tip’d because I believe that the site’s focus on one niche/vertical, given the global economy and the elections here in the U.S., is perfect. I think sites like Digg and Mixx give you an okay general purpose overview, but they hardly give you a comprehensive picture of what’s going on.”

He went on to compare the forecast for Tip’d:

“Niche social media as an investment: The problem with most social media sites is, they accept too much funding (e.g.: Digg), and then can’t monetize their low-value audience well (again: Digg). This makes it hard to make money by investing in social media.

“First, the investment was small (~$25,000), so we don’t need a $100M valuation to be a success. Secondly, we’re picking a niche (investing) where the audience is actually valuable ($10-50 CPMs is normal for investing Web sites vs. $.50 CPM on other social sites).”

The business plan for Tip’d is to begin advertising in three to six months, after building a community. Saleem and his cofounders are focused on long-term growth and sustainability, and may have the industry knowledge and skills to be a success. What remains to be seen is whether the Web needs or wants one more social media site, even as timely as Tip’d seems to be.

reprinted from http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/10/14/top-digger-launches-news-site-digg-meets-user-protests-again

It is my greatest pleasure to announce Sreejith’s roll out the ‘PM Karma’ community. It is aimed at forming a friendly and collaborative group of PM enthusiasts who share our knowledge and contribute to each other’s professional growth.

Basically this will be a group of PM bloggers , who are linked to me (and linked by me). We will be actively discussing on the topics of our interest (which we publish through our blogs).

Effectively , this will increase the traffic and visibility of our blogs and will also help us to know each other more. This will help us to share information, help each other in making our jobs better (or a better job!). How to join PM Karma Community (PMKC): Its’ easy , just comment on Sreejith’s post & he will add you to the community. Please provide the following info as well at PM Karma Community

1. Your full name
2. Your profile link
3. Your blog / web address

You are also requested to provide a link in your blog to mine (How ever this is not a mandatory requirement to join the community. But it is highly recommended since we will keep informed about each others postings, thus keeping our community closely connected).

Where can I find the community members? I will add a member page , after receiving sufficient number of requests.

What about adding a thumbnail of member? Please let me know.

1. Keep your blog clean (You know what I mean!)
2. No abusive comments

Note: Also read about the ‘Link Exchange Initiative’ here

(PM Karma Community is an extension of PM Karma Link Exchange Initiative

Welcome to PM Karma Community! Thanks & Regards, Posted by Sreejith at:

Business owners understand how important an advertisement is. It is in this manner that they would tell to everybody that they are selling products and offering services. They would not have sales, which in turn give them profit, if people would not notice and buy their products and avail of their services.

However, it is not happy to note that there are people who would try to steal money from advertisers and business owners by offering cheap advertisement packages and not delivering the agreed service. Business owners and advertisers should be informed of this because they would become victims of a scam.

The scam here is when the advertiser paid for these different kinds of services but none or some of them are not really even performed. The main point to consider here is to whom is the advertiser transacting with. To avoid being ripped off doing a background check by knowing the following will help.

• past successful projects as evident on customers comments
• a good reputation that will be confirmed by his references
• people that he’s had past transaction with and that are also reputable

The pay-per-click ad campaign is when an advertiser would pay a certain agreed amount by the search engine developers every time a user clicks on that banner. This was a good idea before it was not touched by hackers who developed a certain program to automatically click on that banner which increases the amount to be paid by the advertiser. The next paying scheme was the “pay per action”, which is harder to hack since the advertiser would only pay the search engine developers an agreed amount every time a sale would be done on that customer.

One thing is for sure, advertising in the Internet is not easy but it is fun, especially when one understands fully the power of the Internet. It is not a unidirectional means of advertising like the television or radio, but it is an interactive avenue for both the advertiser and the prospective clients.

To this, Arthur Ashe replied:

‘The world over — 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals,

‘When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD ‘Why me?’ And today in pain I should not be asking GOD ‘Why me?’

When I was in the Marine Corps I started with a non-reflective watch, so the bad guys could not see me. Then I realized that my watch was usually out of site, so I got a Mickey Mouse pocket watch with the hands that point to the time. Made people take me real seriously. I still have that watch.

After the military I bought watches that I liked, even if people could not understand them and was really happy. After the Marine Corps I was never late, so the watch was more for show than anything else, and occasionally to give someone else the time.<

I don’t like telling people the time, I live in France and some people misunderstand my accent, so I started just showing people my watch. Here is a snap of my old watch.

To make a dramatic change I decided that since I am never late I may as well have a fun watch. This one was made special, just for me.

The time is ALWAYS right, no matter what time zone I am in, and I don’t even need batteries. The only thing that can possibly go wrong is that the wrist strap may break.

Until the strap breaks, I know exactly what time it is, and as you read this post you can see that the picture of the watch even gives you the right time!

What Google is calling ‘a fresh take on the browser’

Google Chrome

Google spent a lot of time building an Explorer killing web browser which they have called Chrome. Google Chrome allows users to browse, search, chat, email and collaborate so much more in a browser that is faster than any of the others that I use. I use Firefox for the plugins, Opera when I want to browse because it does not have the plugins and so it is faster, Flock, Safari and Explorer as test browsers for the sites that I work on (all browsers have to work!)

I was expecting Google to buy into Firefox, but that is probably too open source for them. To compete against MS the product has to remain more under their control. Google is a fan of gadgets, so I expect that there will be quite a few gadgets in the near future. Google did use components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, and this ends up being open source, but a Google open source as opposed to a Mozilla open source. It is important to see the difference, since Google can change the core of their application and not worry about everyone from Mozilla having to buy in. Smart move, I say.

New Features

When you open a new tab in Chrome you have some interesting options. You have the 9 most visited sites in the main part of the window, on the right there is a search bar, a list of your recent bookmarks and a list of recently closed tabs. Pretty much the things that you would need or want to access.

There is also a small link on the bottom left that shows your full history, so you really do have access to anything that you have been recently working on. The site history does not open in a small sidebar, it opens in the full page. There is also a search function for your history. This is a great improvement on the other browsers.

There is also a full list of Chrome features, each with a 30 second video, on the Google Chrome site.

Since we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what Google set out to build.

In theory, each tab works as a stand alone browser. If one tab crashes the others do not crash. At least this is what they say, I have not had a crash yet to let you know it it works.

Google claims that there is “improved speed and responsiveness across the board”. I find this an understatement. This is the fasted browser on the internet today. They also say that they built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers. This seems true to me, and only time will tell.

One Thing I Don’t Like

There is always something. I like to click download and ignore the files. In Chrome the download appears at the bottom of your browser window and you can later execute it, drag it to your desktop or save it to a folder. I know this sounds smarter than what I am doing now, but old habits die hard.

This is just the beginning - Google Chrome is far from done. There is a beta for Windows and they are building versions for Mac and Linux.

Google only gets better, with every tool they have come out with. Firefox, Opera and IE can stand to have a new and powerful browser to compete against. Maybe FF will crash less and IE will finally be made into something other than a memory hog. I still use FF, but I think that Opera will only sit next to Safari for testing. (IE is not yet in the garbage because it does come installed on so many PC’s).

Google Chrome is a great option for fast browsing if you can live without all those add-ons that you have gotten used to. Recently I was only using Opera and would open FF just to use an add-on. this may sound silly, but I work much faster like this. As I said, Opera is on its way to retirement for me.

The best test of Google Chrome is to try it yourself.

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The species, with adults averaging just under four inches in length, was discovered by Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State. They list the discovery in the journal Zootaxa.

Hedges found the new snake — a type of threadsnake — in a tiny forest fragment on the eastern side of Barbados. He believes the species is rare because most of its potential habitat has been replaced by buildings and farms. “Habitat destruction is a major threat to biodiversity throughout the world,” he said. “The Caribbean is particularly vulnerable because it contains an unusually high percentage of endangered species and, because these animals live on islands, they have nowhere to go when they lose their habitat.”

The snake named Leptotyphlops carlae, as thin as a spaghetti noodle, is resting on a US quarter. Blair Hedges, professor of biology at Penn State University, discovered the species and determined that it is the smallest of the more than 3,100 known snake species. Credit: Blair Hedges, Penn StateHedges determined that the Barbados species is new to science on the basis of its genetic differences from other snake species and its unique color pattern and scales. He also determined that some old museum specimens that had been misidentified by other scientists actually belong to this new species.

Scientists use adults to compare sizes among animals because the sizes of adults do not vary as much as the sizes of juveniles and because juveniles can be harder to find. In addition, scientists seek to measure both males and females of a species to determine its average size. Using these methods, Hedges determined that this species, which he named Leptotyphlops carlae, is the smallest of the more than 3,100 known snake species.

According to Hedges, the smallest and largest species of animals tend to be found on islands, where species can evolve over time to fill ecological niches in habitats that are unoccupied by other organisms. Those vacant niches exist because some types of organisms, by chance, never make it to the islands. For example, if a species of centipede is missing from an island, a snake might evolve into a very small species to “fill” the missing centipede’s ecological niche.

The smallest animals have young that are proportionately enormous relative to the adults. The figure shows that hatchlings of the smallest snakes are one-half the length of an adult, whereas the hatchlings of the largest snakes are only one-tenth the length of an adult. Tiny snakes produce only one massive egg — relative to the size of the mother — which suggests that natural selection is trying to keep the size of hatchlings above a critical limit in order for them to survive. Credit: Blair Hedges lab, Penn StateHedges thinks the Barbados snake may be at or near the minimum possible size for snakes, though he cannot say for sure that no smaller species exists — several other snake species are nearly as small. While it is possible that a smaller species exists, finding such an animal is unlikely. “Snakes may be prevented by natural selection from becoming too small because, below a certain size, there may be nothing for their young to eat,” said Hedges, adding that the Barbados snake, like others to which it is related, likely feeds primarily on the larvae of ants and termites.

In contrast to larger species — some of which can lay up to 100 eggs in a single clutch — the smallest snakes, and the smallest of other types of animals, usually lay only one egg or give birth to one offspring. Furthermore, the smallest animals have young that are proportionately enormous relative to the adults. For example, the hatchlings of the smallest snakes are one-half the length of an adult, whereas the hatchlings of the largest snakes are only one-tenth the length of an adult. The Barbados snake is no exception to this pattern. It produces a single slender egg that occupies a significant portion of the mother’s body.

“If a tiny snake were to have two offspring, each egg could occupy only half the space that is devoted to reproduction within its body. But then each of the two hatchlings would be half the normal size, perhaps too small to function as a snake or in the environment,” said Hedges. “The fact that tiny snakes produce only one massive egg — relative to the size of the mother — suggests that natural selection is trying to keep the size of hatchlings above a critical limit in order to survive.”

Hedges has discovered and described more than 65 new species of amphibians and reptiles throughout the Caribbean in the course of his genetic and evolutionary studies. In the paper in which he describes the Leptotyphlops carlae snake that he discovered on Barbados, he also describes another new snake that he discovered on the nearby island of St. Lucia, a new threadsnake that is nearly as small as the Barbados snake. Finding new species, collecting them, and naming them is a necessary first step for other types of research. Hedges said this exploration and discovery of new species also is critical for protecting biodiversity. “It is difficult to protect a species if you don’t know it exists,” he said.

Hedges and his colleagues also are the discoverers of the world’s smallest frog and lizard species, which also were found on Caribbean islands.

Funding for the research to be published in Zootaxa was provided by the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Crash test dummies provide invaluable data on how human bodies react in crashes and have contributed greatly to improved vehicle design.

I am your Making Money Online Crash Dummy. I am going to save you 6 Months to a Year of research, testing, and contribute greatly to improving your wealth.

6 Things a Online Crash Dummy Does:

1. Does Not Research a Product, the Market, or the Cost

2. Does Not Focus on a Niche

3. Does Not listen to Experts, read Articles, or Ebooks

4. Does Not Believe that you can Make Serious Money Online

5. Does Build a Website with a Bunch of Different Products

6. Does Not Focus On Keywords

6 Things a Successful Maker of Money Online Does

1. Conducts Market Research to find an In-Demand Niche

2. Develop or Finds a Product in a Niche Market

3. Learns from Experts, Articles, and Ebooks

4. Know You Can Make Serious Money Online

5. Understands and implements SEO on websites

6. Understands the 3 Methods of Making Money Online: Affiliate Marketing, Dropshipping, & Ownership

You Must do Market Research to ensure you know your product will sell.

For Example - You may Have the best Pillow Cases in town, you build the Best Pillow Case Website, and even research your Pillow Case Keywords BUT if no one is buying Pillow Cases then you have wasted your time and money focusing on a product that will not sell. Make Sure there is a Market for your Product!

Make sure you have a Niche! It is much easier to find buyers when you build a specific website towards Pink Girls Leather Skirts than it is to build a website to Girls Skirts. The specific Keywords “Pink Girls Leather Skirts” is typed into a search engine by Buyers Not Browsers. Girls Skirts is typed in by Browsers, and we want to sell so we need Buyers.

Understand the Methods of Making Money Online. The 3 Proven Methods are Product Ownership, Dropshipping, and Affiliate Marketing. Make sure you understand the benefits and requirements of each method and focus on the method that fits you.

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I got this question from a very unfortunate friend of mine, Kathy, who blogs down at Is 8 Enough?. Are you can imagine, she was pretty distraught at the prospect of starting all over again, and unfortunately, in these circumstances, backups are the life savers. Sometimes, everything goes wrong and the only option is to restore from backups. If you don’t have backups, however, you’re stuck, without a paddle. What you need is a Disaster Recovery Plan, which very simply consists of defining what CAN do wrong for your website and planning how to recover if such an eventuality *does* occur.

So, in this case, the disaster we are looking at is the case where your WordPress blog has vanished off the surface of the Web. What do I recommend to make sure you don’t end up in the same predicament? Well, I’ve already blogged in the past about how to backup WordPress, so this post is really a continuation of that. The plugin I recommended is a great one called BackUpWordPress which does an excellent job of backing up your entire WordPress installation, all your themese, plugins, settings and posts.

Now, the great thing about this plugin is that you can also schedule backups to happen at regular intervals. My DR (Disaster Recovery) Plan is simple, and I use this on sites like MBA Geek and Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot. Configure the plugin to take backups once a week, and automatically email them to a dedicated GMail account. Here’s are what the settings look like:

Once all that is set up, I just forget about it. If anything ever goes wrong, I know that I have a full backup of the entire installation in my gmail account. At most, this will be 7 days old, but if your blog is particularly busy, or you think there’s more risk of losing your information, you can schedule the backup to happen daily. You get loads of space in your Gmail account, so feel free to use it up.

I hope Kathy’s experience never happens to any of you. It may not be the sort of thing that will drive you to become an alcoholic, end up in drug rehab or contemplating your life at the top of very high building, but it can be one of the most stressful events that ever happen to you .. especially if you are responsible for someone else’s websites too!