After a post on how to teach communication skills using Twitter, I though of posting some stuff for self-learners too.

Here are the steps to become an effective communicator using Twitter.

Step 1. Keep posting your updates regularly. Keep them brief and try to convey more in a tweet.

Step 2. Follow the people who are regular twitterers and keep sending private messages to them.

Step 3. Whenever you find some useful information, post an update with a link to it. You will get back a lot of information on sharing this

Step 4. Post your latest blog posts links as your status messages. Request people to leave comments on your blogs.

Step 5. Make attention grabber statements which can help you attract eyes.

Step 6. You can also post your problems in form of questions. You will get andwers on Twitter.

Well, the basic rule to become an effective communicator is to communicate. Now you are communicating on Twitter and becoming an effective communicator.

Leave a comment now!

Step 1. Make your students comfortable in using Twitter. Show them video tutorials at YouTube on how to use Twitter.

Step 2. Ask them to post their status on Twiter, i.e. what they are doing, using present continuous tense.

Step 3. Ask them to send messages to each other and respond.

Step 4. Instruct them to create their blogs, post original articles, and post links as their Twitter updates.

Step 5. Ask them to read each-other’s articles and post their views as comments.

The biggest source of information – Internet has brought in tremendous improvement in the way we communicate. The process of conveying information – which use to take “days” – now could be finished in “seconds”.

During last few years, all of us have heard about the new terms like “Googling”, “social networking”, “Orkuting” and more.  It would be difficult to mention all the terms we have been introduced to recently. Among the successful names on the Internet, one is YouTube – a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips.

YouTube has expanded the communication horizons for all netizens. It has added a feather to the Internet that allows the users to express themselves through videos.

YouTube accepts videos on a wide variety of different subjects such as Autos & Vehicles, Comedy, Education, Entertainment, Film & Animation, Gaming, News & Politics, People & Blogs, Science & Technology and many more.

The most popular videos on YouTube include comedy skits, video blogs, how-to videos, and music videos from up and coming artists.

The YouTube Advantage:

YouTube has been utilized by businesses to market them, teachers use YouTube to share their lessons, Artists use YouTube to share the clips from their albums, And netizens use YouTube to share their knowledge in wide variety of areas.

YouTube has been proved as a wonderful medium to reach huge number of people. Also it has been a cost-effective tool, and perhaps that is why it has been this much popular.

The BIG advantage of uploading videos to YouTube is: once the videos are uploaded, they are available for viewing; anyone with an Internet connection can visit the YouTube website to view the videos.

This enables the YouTubians to share their knowledge as well as acquire new information.

I am going to post the steps to set up a YouTube account on my blog at tarunpatel.net/blog.
Wish you happy YouTubing!

More about YouTube:

YouTube was founded in February 2005. YouTube is the leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide. In November 2006, Google Inc. acquired YouTube.

Tarun Patel can be reached at tarunjpatel@gmail.com or tarunpatel.net/blog.

Yes, that’s true. I have started Twittering on Twitter.com.

On Twitter I post my latest updates i.e. what I do during my working hours; what is my latest blog post about and much more.

You can catch me Twittering at http://twitter.com/tarunpatel.

Here is some information about Twitter:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I have announced that I am writing a report titled “Knoling For Fame + Dollars”. But I think I forgot to tell you what Knoling is.

Well my definition for Knoling is “writing a Knol”.

As you know, Knol is a Google initiative to creating an online encyclopedia. And many people will be wiring their Knols. So again, the process of writing a Knol is Knoling.

In the report, I will explore the ways to make Money with Knoling and also earn the Fame.

Have a great time!

“Knoling For Fame + Dollars” is the title of my upcoming report.

In the report “Knoling For Fame + Dollars” I am writing about the ways to make money by writing for Google Knol.

In the report I will also answer the following questions:

• How to set up a Knol? or How to start Knoling (the process of writing a Knol)?
• How to put advertisements in Knol?
• How to promote your Knol?
• How to add references to a Knol?
• How to write good Knolws?
• How to verify your name as Knolar (one who writes Knols)?

And I will also talk about the advanced Knoling techniques.

The report will be released in maximum of 10 days.

Have a great time

I have been online for more than 10 years, having many websites. Till last month I was a GoDaddy customer. One of my friends who is a US citizen suggested me to go for IX Web Hosting. I did it and the service I found is AWESOME!

These are the people with a service oriented mindset. You fire a query to them and in the shortest time - they will be in your inbox - of course with a solution!

I have hosted www.projectgujarat.com and www.tarunpatel.net at IX Web Hosting. And both the projects are going on in a real smooh manner.

Whoever is planning to create a new hosting account, my strong recommendation is IX Web Hosting

GO for it, enjoy the service and write a comment for this post.

Have a wonderful time ahead!

Cuil (pronounced as cool) is another search engine in the long series, trying to beat Google, the search giant.

The Cuil people on their about us page write: “Welcome to Cuil—the world’s biggest search engine. The Internet has grown. We think it’s time search did too“.

Surprisingly, I did not discover Cuil from the Internet, I knew about existence from an Indian newspaper today morning.

Cuil’s management includes the following people:

1. Tom Costello, CEO and Founder: the person who founded Xift, a revolutionary search engine in the year 1999

2. Anna Patterson, President and Founder: she was the architect of Google’s large search index, TeraGoogle, that launched in early 2006.

3. Russell Power, VP of Engineering and Founder: He was technical lead for the serving part of TeraGoogle.

4. Louis Monier, VP of Products: He was also working with Google where he led the design of a faceted search engine.

5. Vince Sollitto, VP of Communications: He was a spokesman for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, serving as chief deputy press secretary.

6. Pete Szymanski, General Counsel: He was an attorney for seven years in the Silicon Valley office of Cooley Godward Kronish where he specialized in assisting emerging growth companies.

7. Bruce Baumgart, Head of Operations: He was formerly at the Internet Archive and he helped design, build and run petabyte clusters in California, Amsterdam and Egypt.

So, Cuil has three people who were an integral part of the modern God ‘Google’. Being with a big one, they must have acquired the skills to run a search engine and we could definitely expect a good service from Cuil.

The home page of the Cuil seems to be good and cool as its name suggests But when I searched a term in the search engine it shows the results in tabular form - which of course is a difficult format to perceive as I have been Googling for more than 8 years now!

But its always good to give it a TRY.

When I Cuiled a term “Mobile Phones”, Cuil gave me 11 results on the first page and a cool thing is it allows users to explore the term by categries. Unfortunately my notebooks Print Screen button is not working so I will not be able to pus a screnshot here, but trust me its really cool. You can click on this link to experience it yourself: http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Mobile%20Phones&sl=long.

How is it?

At the end I would like you all to visit Cuil and have a change.

Wish you happy Cuiling!

I read about Knol many days back, but did not share with anyone as I wasn’t writing on my personal blog

Dhruv, a hard working boy and my brother, hinted me to write about Knol by sending me the details of an article published by The Times Of India.

According to Google, the Knol project is a site that hosts many knols — units of knowledge — written about various subjects.

The Knol competitor, Wikipedia describes Knol as: “Knol is a Google project which aims to include user-written articles on topics ranging from “scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions.”^[1] The brainchild of Udi Manber of Google,^[2] it was announced on December 13, 2007 and was opened in beta to the public on July 23, 2008^[3] with a few hundred articles mostly in the health and medical field.” [source]

As Google is the gatekeeper to all the knowledge available on the Internet, it has an advantage of beating its nearest rival. Another advantage Google has is the funds it has to promote and last its efforts.

Another good trick Google is playing to popularize the Knol usage is the earning part for its writers. Google will put advertisements on the pages of Knol writers and share the revenue among them.

The Times of India writes: “Knol, named to represent “a unit of knowledge”, seems to be an attempt to fill in the blanks left by Wikipedia’s more community-oriented approach to disseminating information. Knol’s basic premise is the same — to create an online reference library that people contribute to — but it represents a significant departure from Wikipedia, so far the dominant source for information on subjects as disparate as Einstein and the Riot Grrl movement.” [source]

By the way I am going to try out Knol to share my knowledge and make money out of it.

How about You ?

Want to try? Here is Google Knol!

In May 2008, the number of Internet users in India reached 28 million+.

In 2008, the number of Internet users in India has increased by 27% versus year ago, according to comScore, Inc.

Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president, says, “India truly represents one of the most promising emerging Internet markets, given both the size and technological sophistication of the population. While global Internet brands like Google and Yahoo! currently reign as the most visited Web properties in India, several local players also have strong positions in the market.” Continue Reading ->