With the increasing number of video formats, the complexity in identifying the best format has also increased.  Compatibility, size, quality and affordability together determine the format that best suits for any requirement in the web.

A video format used in the web should be compatible with major browsers and Operating Systems. Major browsers include Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and Safari. Major Operating Systems include Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. When it comes to size, the smaller, the better. And when it comes to quality, the higher, the better. The cost factor also plays an important role. I have summarized below, few recognized and used formats in the web with their pros and cons. Proper analysis of our requirement with the capability of the video format will help us to identify the best format for the requirement. These formats are developed and backed up by giants who continuously update and keep them to standards.

• WMV:

Windows Media Video (wmv) is developed and controlled by Microsoft. The video file is based on Microsoft Advanced Systems Format (ASF) container format and is compressed with Windows Media compression. The quality of the video is good and the file is also of low size. One major drawback is that the file runs only on Windows. Neither does it support Flash nor Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) standard.

• Quick Time:

Quick time (.mov) is developed by Apple Inc. The latest released version is 10.0. QuickTime is particularly suited for editing. It contains one or more tracks, each of which contains abstract data references for the media data. QuickTime also supports key standards for web streaming, including HTTP, RTP, and RTSP. Also, QuickTime supports every major file format for images, including JPEG, BMP, PICT, PNG, and GIF. QuickTime also features built-in support for digital video, including MiniDV, DVCPro, and DVCam camcorder formats, as well as support for AVI, AVR, MPEG-1, and OpenDML.

• Real Media:

Real media was the first streaming technology on the market. However, Real media still trails Flash when it comes to smooth playback of high-impact interactive multimedia. Web developers have begun to use the Real System G2 and SMIL to stream synchronized multimedia presentations over the Web. This in turn is promoting a wider usage of real media by the developers in the web.

• Macromedia Flash:

Flash is often referred to as the best solution to web media. However, its unfriendliness with search engines has always left it behind. Flash generates high-impact web multimedia with short sound effects and loops. Formerly called as Future Splash, the Flash company was later acquired by Macromedia in 1997. With Flash, users can also draw their own animations or import other vector-based images.

• MPEG-4:

Developed in 1998, MPEG-4 was specially designed to play streaming media file with high quality in the web. MPEG stands for Moving Picture Experts Group and is managed by ISO (International Organization for Standardization). MPEG-4 is a proprietary technology; it requires licensing in order to be used. AT&T claims to have the patent rights for MPEG. But Apple and a number of other video content providers are continuously working on MPEG along with their technologies.

Stay tuned for my next blog in which, I plan to explain the different methods that are available to deliver these formats on the web.

Since its launch about a year ago, Google Chrome has been in the limelight every now and then; and for good reasons too. The latest news has Chrome further zeroing in on its arch rival in a more creative fashion. On September 22, 2009, Google launched Google Chrome Frame “an open source plug-in that brings HTML5 and other open web technologies to Internet Explorer.”
According to Google, with GCF, you can: (more…)

Did you ever wish that keeping up with all your favorite websites was as easy as checking into your email? Or that somebody would keep an eye on the Internet for your sake, choosing interesting stuff and placing it where you can find them easily?

Too incredible to be true, right? But that’s exactly what Google Reader does.

Google Reader was introduced way back in 2005, graduating from beta status in 2007.

For anyone who is not yet familiar with Google Reader, and given that RSS feeds are more extensively used, let me explain……

Google Reader is a web-based aggregator that is capable of reading all RSS feeds that you have subscribed to, so that you can  access them all in one place. Google Reader lets you know each time your favorite websites are updated. You can then, if required, organize feeds into folders, label them, and share the most interesting posts with your friends.

Google Reader is located on the Web at reader.google.com. You can access Google Reader using your Google Account.

Let’s now take a quick look at some of the main features that Google Reader has to offer: (more…)

Identifying the right keywords to use is very important for any website’s search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. It is good to know how to come up with keywords to consider in the first place. Here are a few tips that will prove useful.

• Make an initial list of all the keywords you think people might find your website with

These keywords should be a short list of what your website is trying to promote and other words related to your industry. You need to use your imagination and think of words which people will search to find your business online.

• Request your customers to make a list of all the keywords they would try to find you with

The keywords generated from the perspective of a customer may be totally surprising as very often an average customer does not speak the same language that we do.

• Yet another great way to gather keywords is to see what words are being used by competitors

Type one of your keywords into the search box of the search engine of your choice to determine the sites with the top search engine placement for this word. View the source code of your competitor’s page and check their Meta Keywords tag. It is probably best that you check out the top five search engine results.

• It would also be good to identify the keywords that people used in search engines to access your site

To do so, check out the “Entrance Keywords” report in Google Analytics. I find this report very useful as it shows the keywords used by users to come directly to that page from a search engine.

• Once you have prepared an initial list, you’ll want to scan through your site to see how it has used the keywords that you have already chosen

You might even find ideas for additional keywords this way. You must look for specialized words or “phrases” that will deliver qualified traffic.

• After accumulating enough words and phrases, you will need to find out the popularity of each potential keyword

There are three main tools available online to assist you in doing the keyword research, Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and the Google Search Based Keyword Tool.  To use these tools, type in the keyword that you want to research and the tools will display other relevant keywords. You can use these suggestions to add keywords to your list. Doubts prevail on the accuracy of the data presented by these tools.  However the data it offers is better than having no data at all.

• From the list of possible keywords, you need to identify the relevant words to the site

You would not want to choose a keyword which not many people search for. However, at the same time, you would not want to choose a keyword which is too competitive.

It would be wiser to avoid the generic keywords since it is going to be extremely difficult to optimize for them. Try to pick keywords that are specific. For example if you are a freelancer based in New Orleans, your ideal keywords would be freelancer New Orleans or web development services New Orleans. Going for the generic freelancer or web development keywords is not going to be beneficial.

After you have gone through your list and taken off words that are not relevant or that your website does not have sufficient content for, you should have a shorter and more relevant list of keywords. Place the keywords strategically in the title, meta tags and content of your website.

Most of the people do not do much research when coining keywords for their website. So just by doing the necessary keyword research and getting some insight into what keywords are being used by people online will help you go a long way in choosing the right keywords and matching your content with what people are looking for. It gives you a very definite advantage over those websites that have not done any optimization.

There were several eyebrows raised, when Wipro appointed Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe as the joint CEO of Wipro. The new model was proposed by the chairman Mr. Azim Premji, who was the stand-in CEO after Vivek Paul resigned from the company. Amid recession, Wipro outperformed its rivals by an increase of 11.78% in its Q1 revenue that proved the proposed model a big hit!

By this pioneered model, Wipro has reduced the workload at the helm and helped both CEO’s to concentrate on the business verticals that they are responsible for. They have shared the responsibility and integrated all their technology business under a single umbrella. Though the companies would have an extra burden, this model helps them to focus on the business more carefully rather than one executive handling myriad business.

Vendor consolidation has been the norm of the big shots in the recession. Most of the big companies in Europe and America, irrespective of the industry have 100-150 vendors, which include 60-100 vendors handling the pivotal IT support. The current trend is the trimming of the vendors to 5-10%. This will help the Big IT vendors to stay afloat in the recession as 2-3 bulk projects can the turn the game for them.

The outsourcing world has been quite skeptical about Barrack Obama’s ‘Protectionism’, however, if we go by the new consolidation trend, most of the big players in US and Europe will go for vendor consolidation, which can reduce their cost by another 10-15%. The main advantage of this trend is that, if there are fewer vendors, then the access to the sensitive data and the accountability of that can also be restricted to a few, which in turn de-risks data-theft.

As big players hold the benefit in this model, the small players will face the hard side. Companies look for a broader portfolio when they select vendors. This puts small players out of the race. Small players should aggressively bid for small projects and increase the number of deals, as they have to compromise on the margin due to the recession.

Although a frequently used word, I began to think about “Assertiveness” only when I was taking a presentation on “Power & Politics” in my Organizational Behaviour class during MBA. One of the tactics used by people in an organization to gain power over others was stated as “Assertiveness”. I did not provide any further explanation for the term. During the discussion time, one of my classmates in the audience asked me for more details about the term. I fumbled a bit and managed to find my way through . However, our Professor noticed this and later called me to his room and gave me a book on this subject. The insights which I gained from that book are significant and I feel it is very useful in an organizational context. So I am sharing what I know about the topic in this post.

There are four states of behavior of a person:

1. Aggressive
2. Passive
3. Passive/Aggressive
4. Assertive

Let us try to understand the terms with a situation:

You gave a report to a subordinate to be completed at 3 p.m. and he hasn’t given it till 3.15 p.m. The responses from the different behavioral types would be as follows:

The passive person says in a shy way “ Hi,… err… Are you busy?.. I was wondering if…. … if that file is near completion yet?”

The aggressive person goes to the subordinate in a stern way and shouts “ So where is that <____> report?!! .. You are a lazy %#$%#^ “ .

The passive/aggressive person’s comment would be “ I suppose if I want that report I’ll have to do it myself”. This is followed by the self talk “Next time he wants something from me, he is really going to get it ”

An ASSERTIVE person would say “ We agreed the report would be ready by 3 p.m. and now it is 3.15 p.m. Is there a problem?”. He would try to gain an understanding on the situation and find a solution.

You might have noticed such situations during work. It is widely agreed by psychologists that a person and his behavior are different. The outcome of any situation is directly dependent on the person’s behavior. This in turn is dependent on several factors like fears, feelings, emotions, beliefs, experiences, self-esteem, worries, etc. A person responds to the same situation differently depending on his mindset. A clear example that can be provided is the approach which a batsman takes when facing the same bowler in tests and T-20’s. It becomes easier to change your behavior once this realization takes place.

Let us try to describe the term “Assertiveness”

Behavior type: keen to stand up for one’s own rights while accepting that others have rights too.

Four corner stones of assertiveness:

1. Good eye contact
2. Open posture (The open stance has arms and legs not crossed in any way)
3. The words used (Speaking in terms of  “WE” rather than YOU and I” )
4. Neutral tone of voice

How to think assertively:

1. Do a bit of planning about situations that you might encounter.
2. Try to reason with yourself and control your behavior. (This requires conscious thought. )
3. Know your rights – to get respect, to talk, to make mistakes, to choose your own feeling or emotions, etc.

How to behave assertively:

1. Stay in control of your feelings
2. Stand your guard
3. Confront an issue with another person

Sometimes you might be at the other end of an aggressive conversation. To deal with this some techniques can be used. One is to listen to only the words and mentally filtering out the tone and style in which the person is communicating. Other is to keep on asking for facts from the aggressor. The aggressor is sure to tone down if you do not respond in the way he wants you to.

Advantages: You achieve results, people like and respect you, your confidence and self-esteem remains robust, you suffer less stress.

For effectiveness in an organizational setting, a conscious effort and a step-by-step approach of  implementing the idea of assertiveness is needed. Always remember the 4 cornerstones.