Here is a beautiful case study of a taxi driver who is winning customers from a simple video on YouTube.

It was Devesh Mishra’s friend from Singapore who shot the video and uploaded it on YouTube. “I know a little bit of English as I am intermediate (10+2) educated. However, in the video, I was helped by my friend as he told me what exactly to speak in front of the camera,” the taxi driver reveals. Mishra further informs that eight foreign travellers have so far contacted him and five of them have turned out to be good business.

According to Mishra it was amazing to get such response and this made him understand the power of internet. “It was a wise decision as I eventually understood that I could not have reached those consumers if I had advertised on some other media. Internet helped me to reach out to foreign customers,” he said.

Internet has now become an important part of Mishra’s life. “I created my email id on Yahoo and now I religiously surf the internet at least twice a week. I get hundreds of emails every week. Most of the mails are from foreign travellers looking for my services. I also visit Yahoo and Google to be always updated about latest happenings,” he said.

Get the full story here.

See? Now that’s a good case study of how the Internet can be put into use.

But, well if you think what kind of accent this man has,.. He is an ordinary Local Taxi Driver, You are not looking at a pilot. Are you?

I Wish Good Luck and Success to this man who is for sure going to be a role model for several others.

Observed this just a little while ago.
Not sure if I am the first one to spot this, but this is sure an interesting development for Bloggers and WordPress users.

We already know that Google shows the Video Thumbnails beside the search results from top video sites like YouTube and Metacafe. We also know that Google shows the Picture of a news article from news sites if there is a picture in the news post. But this is new: (The search result which has the image is a WordPress.com Blog)

The search on google.
The blog with an in image in the post.

Have you spotted this before or is this a new feature that Google is testing? Does this also work on Self hosted WordPress blogs and other Blogging Platforms othet than WordPress? I didn’t spot any other occurance yet.

Ever wondered what sells and what doesn’t during the recession?
Here is a list: (not in any order)
1. Candy, Cosmetics and Contraceptives
2. Luxury Retail
3: Reposessions
4: The Government
5: Education
6: Vices
7: Discount Retail
8: Information Technology
9: Health Care
10: Non-cyclical Businesses

Read more on How Stuff Works.

Came across this article at DailySEOblog.com by Mani Karthik, it is one good list put together in terms of what is true and what is not in the SEO world.

People have their own theories on what works and what doesn’t. While some things are never revealed officially by search giants, SEOs figureout by practice. This is one such list you should have a look before you start optimizing your website.  I don’t have second opinions on any of the points listed by Mani.

Quoting a few points from Mani’s list of 25:

3. Changing the crawl rate settings in Webmasters tools console will change the Google crawl rate once and for all.
Apparently not. Google will also check your posting/publishing frequency and set an appropriate crawling frequency based on it, despite your manual setting.
10. A flash page means bad SEO.
Not at all. Using flash will definitely give you less options for SEO compared to a content rich page, but that doesn’t mean bad SEO. You can focus on other SEO factors and get equally good if not better results.
11. Adding a WordPress blog will automatically fix your site’s SEO.
WordPress is a great tool. But just adding one to your site/replacing with it will not give you any edge. You have to use it wisely to get the results.
14. Sitelinks appear only for websites who have high PR.
Sitelinks are auto generated for websites with high traffic. There is nothing you can do control them except to block some of the links from appearing using WebMaster tools
22. SEO is a one month process. Do it and get it done !
SEO is not a quick fix. It requires regular check ups and updates. Nothing can be achieved in short term.

Read the full article here: Top 25 commonly believed SEO myths.

I thought I read it wrong or it was a spelling mistake for LCD in an online advertisement that I spotted on Mashable.com

But after I clicked the ad and reached Samsung Website page, it was evident that Samsung really meant LED TV. Well, I didn’t know there were LED TVs.
Thickness: 1.2″
These LED TVs range from $2300 – $3800 (40″ to 55″).
I wish I own one of these ultra slims but my current slim fit Samsung TV (29″) is doing really well.

Update: These TVs were recently launched. Also to be available in India soon.

Millions of users in many countries were surprised by this confusing logo with Morse code which is being displayed today across all Google Homepages.

Some would argue that Google is brainless or doesn’t care about users because the logo is so confusing that some users thought there was something wrong with their internet connection and the logo didn’t load completely, some thought their new LCD screens are about to die. Some people also thought it was representing some block breaker game. Some Even thought it was Braille.

I would say, so far, This is the most Daring and Dashing Logo ever done for any occasion by any company on the Internet. Also biggest risk taken by any company to play with the Company Identity. I think it should be the best logo ever in the Top Official Google Logos.

What do you think?

When I grew up, I will ride my bicycle like this:

Telegraph was quick to appreciate the Google logo for St George’s Day on the Google UK homepage.

But in the article, it says

Google regularly produces altered “doodles” of its name to mark national days, sporting events and scientific anniversaries, but did not release a St George’s Day logo on April 23 last year.

“We have done St George’s Day drawings a few times before, but part of the reason for releasing them is to surprise and delight our users so we try not to do them every year,” a Google spokesman said.

“Most of the ideas come from our own staff, but we also get hundreds of requests from campaign groups and charities, and very occasionally we do ones for them.”

So was there really no logo last year?
No. There was one.
You can check the 2008 St George’s Day logo here.

Update:
Telegraph was quick to change the news article after I posted this on Twitter replying to Telegraph.
The changed lines:

Google regularly produces altered “doodles” of its name to mark national days, sporting events and scientific anniversaries, and has previously released St George’s Day logos in 2002, 2006 and 2008.

You got that?

These wallpapers should change your boring desktop to an interesting one filled with life!

Checkout more April 2009 wallpapers here and here.

In.com is running a contest for an Online reality show/series that will showcase five people who will be sent to 5 different cities in South Africa and these five people have to travel and blog on the go. Post videos and write articles.

As soon as i read the first page of the Fantastic Five site, I immediately thought WOW, may be this is here for me. But I was disappointed to see a rule saying “You must have at least one International Travel.” What does this have to do with finding passionate people/bloggers who are interested in Traveling to South Africa and blogging, posting videos about what they see there and ultimately impress the online audience?