Turn The National Library into The National Book Museum

A few days back, I was discussing with a friend from Jadavpur University about our National Library. They have a HUGE collection of books.

Turn The National Library into The National Book Museum.

However, you may need to wait there for hours to get a book. (By the way, if you get what you were looking for, you should call it your luckiest day – many books are either missing or “too brittle”). To add, you cannot carry all books to home. For lending of regular books, you will need to make a deposit of RS 7000. As the discussion went on, I was talking about Amazon Kindle and Google Books and how these things can change the education system.

The National Library, Kolkata | image: Octobit

Now, the problems are:

• The readers are not getting books they want
• Even if they are getting them, they cannot always lend them
• Taking a note of whatever you can from a thousand page book is a big problem and it is time consuming too. And such mindless copying does not help while you actually need them.
• To add to the pathetic situation, you cannot get all the pages photocopied either.
• More painful situation is, some books that are too brittle to be issued for reading, do not have a second copy. What are we storing for the next generation!

Is there any solution?

• Digitize all books and make them available to anyone and everyone
• Change the name from The National Library to The National Book Museum. If it is not done by 2040, we got a big problem.

Books do not belong to someone. If knowledge is for everyone, so are books.

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Why you should not buy a developed blog?

Buying and selling developed websites is a common trend in the web. Hundreds of websites, blogs and others are up there for sale at different marketplaces by the original owners. And hundreds of people are looking up for a good deal there. They often buy a website to jump straight into the web entrepreneur’s role and start earning.
 
If you buy a well established directory or a p0ker website, that’s fine. I have nothing against your reasons. But I would always recommend you not to buy a blog, leave alone an established blog.

(By the way, if you are buying a blog just for the domain name, go ahead and reconstruct the whole thing as you wish.)

Why you should not buy a well established blog?

What does a blog have to sell?

Great content or resources, huge reader base, an existing revenue generation model, a brand name. Is that all?

Nope; a blog has something more than that – it has got the original author of the blog who has developed it into what it is today. We read Matt Cutts’ blog not just for information! We read that blog because we trust him as an authentic source of information from Google.

Can anyone replace Matt Cutts and retain the same reader base? I don’t think so. I am not saying that the new owner or blogger cannot offer similar information. But, he or she is anything but Matt Cutts. People go there to read Matt and nobody else.

Or think about Chris Brogan or Seth Godin or Darren Rowse. Hundreds of bloggers write on the same topic everyday but is there any replacement for these bloggers! People read these blogs because of the bloggers who write them. It is not just about the great tips they offer – it is also about the trust those bloggers have won. It is also about the communication they have developed with the readers of the blog. These people are worth more than their blog. Those blogs are nothing without those authors.

These people are worth more than their blog. Those blogs are nothing without those authors.

You may be thinking that if we always read those blogs for the bloggers alone, why do some of them invite guest posting?

A guest would write for one day or just for a certain period of time (like a week when the blogger was out of town). They will not be there forever. People continue reading the blog because they know that the original blogger will be back soon.

What about group blogs like Smashing Magazine or Mashable or Read/Write Web? They either have different bloggers or invite others to post in those blogs. What if someday these blogs change ownership?

People will still continue reading these blogs. These blogs have grown into something bigger than a blog – these are now some great online publications – like a newspaper or magazine. People have different expectations from them.
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Follow a star blogger?

image by silvermel.

There are thousands of blogs on blogging, SEO, marketing, online branding, easy money making etc. in the web. And more interestingly, people often claim them to be experts in the domain even though they have just rewritten or restructured an available content.

You will see the same situation in almost every niche. (This is the beauty of internet – you can easily develop a place for you to speak.)

But do you read all those blogs? (Certainly not - unless it is your job) You have definitely selected a few blogs that you follow regularly for new ideas or to keep track of latest developments or just because you love the topics he or she covers in the blog.

In that case, you are a dedicated reader of that blog. But did you ever think why you go back to that blog rather than visiting other 9999+ blogs on the same topic?

When you start liking a blog because of the ideas it share, there are high chances that you have a similar tendency.

To put it simply, these blogs have added some value to the regular topics. It is not just about the writing style they follow (I don’t think you have enough time to read a blog on blogging religiously, just because the blogger has a great writing style). If you think deeply, you would see that you are actually hooked by his or her ideas and thinking process. Perhaps they can offer a new perspective on the same old topic. Or maybe they offer up to date step by step tutorial to do certain things. The point is – there are certain things that you love about the blogger and that keeps you hooked.

It does not mean that your friend would love to read that blog too. At the same time you would be amazed to see that so many other people also follow that blog like you. (There are plenty of fishes for everyone - lol)

Why am I saying all these?

When you start liking a blog because of the ideas it share, there are high chances that you have a similar tendency. Why don’t you chase that tendency?

Am I saying you to copy all those blogs that you love! If you are unconscious about why you are religiously reading a blog, chances are that you are already following the style and thinking pattern of that blog – unconsciously.
Should you continue doing that consciously?

The blog that you are following already exists – take some inspiration from that blog and add some value to it (you are the value). That’s it – you would soon see a new brand is born on existing ground.
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Next Generation People Powered Search Engines

Twitter is a great tool for b2c product marketers to understand public reaction immediately. There is no doubt that it has revolutionized both online and offline marketing efforts.

Twitter Power = real people + real time + minimum words + free + simple + Summize (to be integrated soon)

However, this is not a post on Twitter.

This post is about the next generation people powered search engines.

Wait a minute; there are thousands of search engines around the web to serve definite purposes – why do we need another search engine?

Wait two minutes; we have thousands of social bookmarking websites to discover new pages and they are people powered in the truest sense of the term– why should we bother about another search engine.

Come on, how many people even know about search engines in their own niche? General people are not web freak like you – they still use Google, Yahoo or MSN to search for what they want. (BTW, do they really know or do they really bother about why they are using a search engine to find something! I have no idea.)

Do you really use Artcyclopedia to search for an artwork? I doubt – you know your search habits better.

What about social bookmarking websites?

Come on, they are far from being a complete people powered search engine. They are not crawlers – they just depend on what people like you and me feed them – they do not have the need to offer the best results on any given topic to stay in the market like Google or Yahoo.

So, what the hell are people powered search engines?

Google does it indirectly (perhaps) – there are certain rumors in the market that Google tracks user experience while deciding the overall ranking of a website. What if Google asks the visitor to rate the site he or she has just visited! (Google has already started experimenting with a Digg like interface.) However, in this case, your rating is only for you when you search for the same term again in Google. Google is yet to declare if your rating would affect the overall ranking of a website throughout the user base or not.

Therefore, what are the elements of a people powered search engine:

1. It should be a powerful crawler to find new pages on its own. 
2. It should have both rating and tagging system.
3. It should track if the user is really taking a decision (like buying the product or bookmarking it to use later etc.) to determine the actual value of the rating itself.
4. It should be powerful enough to fight with spam.

Some problem areas:

1. As I mentioned in point number 3, it must develop a system to evaluate the quality of the rating.
2. The biggest problem is search habits – search engines have millions of pages for a competitive keyword in their index. However, general visitors do not like to visit beyond third or fourth page to find what they are looking for (this does not mean that search engines are great to offer the best results). Thus, it is very tough for a new website to get visitors even though it may offer some great solutions to the visitor’s need. In addition, if a new website does not get visitors there are high chances that it would never be able to rank high in a people powered search engine.
3. Big and well-established brands and websites would have more chances to get more visitors from people powered search engines.
4. Rather than showing the rating button on the SERP they must develop a system (may be as a toolbar component) to rate a website while the visitor is actually leaving the page.          

What else?

I know there are so many other issues that need to be considered… But, aren’t these big enough to start?
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