Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Add Powerful Social Interactions, Easily…
A typical day in any professional company is never complete without discussions, meetings, brainstorming sessions and exchange of ideas and opinions. This can include collaborating with larger groups of people and trying to note down everyone’s ideas and suggestions. After all, social interaction is very much necessary if you wish to perform well in any given task. And this is something I first noticed when I began my steps on the professional front. I had to converse and meet many team members to know about the thought process and ways to improve my project.
A simple situation that I faced while collecting data for my project was the need to mingle with different team members. A senior suggested the use of online webinar and conference sessions. I eagerly lapped the idea and the end result – plenty of documents that had to be sorted out and a need to maintain everybody’s viewpoints. With already more than enough work on hand, I had this additional task of taking care of inputs and maintaining all views of people who did not agree with the reports.
Then one fine sunny evening, things changed when the team members yelled ‘Eureka!’ When I did grasp what all the excitement was about, I almost joined in the encore. They were celebrating the creation of a very unique product. This was designed to make social interactions easy and gave a whole new definition to the way a person interacted online!
TeemingPod, the new product on the block, is an innovative idea created by our team of inspiring engineers. TeemingPod surely changes the way a person interacts online. With this product, a user can use powerful social interactions right inside a web page to interact with others. It also provides a structured way of storing information which helps reduce all the discussion clutter stored in document format.
So did TeemingPod change the way I work?! It is a true marvel that now I can start a discussion or a poll required in one go and contact the concerned group through TeemingPod. Within a matter of minutes I can know about a group opinion in a single meeting! The FAQ section is where we post any questions related to the task and receive valuable and genuine feedback from all team members. It helps us to clear our doubts before the meeting. Thus we all are on the same platform and the meetings are much more fruitful.
Further, debate activity is the one which has resolved most of my issues. Through this activity I can review important, contradictory inputs from different sets of people without maintaining them in multiple documents. This also becomes helpful for all of us to refer to in our further follow-up meetings. Through the Link Set option, we can share important work-related links for reviews. The Tag Cloud section is where I can share and search for key words that saves time for the entire team!
Since then, there has been a complete change in the way my entire team works. We no longer have to manage multiple files that contain inputs. Our meetings have become more fruitful as most of the background information is already shared through TeemingPod for all of us to look at. Apart from saving time, TeemingPod added a fun element to the way we work. So, isn’t it time you tried it out as well?
A simple situation that I faced while collecting data for my project was the need to mingle with different team members. A senior suggested the use of online webinar and conference sessions. I eagerly lapped the idea and the end result – plenty of documents that had to be sorted out and a need to maintain everybody’s viewpoints. With already more than enough work on hand, I had this additional task of taking care of inputs and maintaining all views of people who did not agree with the reports.
Then one fine sunny evening, things changed when the team members yelled ‘Eureka!’ When I did grasp what all the excitement was about, I almost joined in the encore. They were celebrating the creation of a very unique product. This was designed to make social interactions easy and gave a whole new definition to the way a person interacted online!
TeemingPod, the new product on the block, is an innovative idea created by our team of inspiring engineers. TeemingPod surely changes the way a person interacts online. With this product, a user can use powerful social interactions right inside a web page to interact with others. It also provides a structured way of storing information which helps reduce all the discussion clutter stored in document format.
So did TeemingPod change the way I work?! It is a true marvel that now I can start a discussion or a poll required in one go and contact the concerned group through TeemingPod. Within a matter of minutes I can know about a group opinion in a single meeting! The FAQ section is where we post any questions related to the task and receive valuable and genuine feedback from all team members. It helps us to clear our doubts before the meeting. Thus we all are on the same platform and the meetings are much more fruitful.
Further, debate activity is the one which has resolved most of my issues. Through this activity I can review important, contradictory inputs from different sets of people without maintaining them in multiple documents. This also becomes helpful for all of us to refer to in our further follow-up meetings. Through the Link Set option, we can share important work-related links for reviews. The Tag Cloud section is where I can share and search for key words that saves time for the entire team!
Since then, there has been a complete change in the way my entire team works. We no longer have to manage multiple files that contain inputs. Our meetings have become more fruitful as most of the background information is already shared through TeemingPod for all of us to look at. Apart from saving time, TeemingPod added a fun element to the way we work. So, isn’t it time you tried it out as well?
Monday, May 25, 2009
Harbinger Releases Raptivity Web Expert
Harbinger Knowledge Products today announced the release of Raptivity Web Expert, a break-through software product that helps web designers and developers add deep and meaningful interactions quickly and easily to their web sites.
With interactivity, web page visitors stay longer, engage better and return sooner to web sites. Raptivity Web Expert leverages the award-winning Raptivity technology, which is based on Harbinger’s unique Rapid Interactivity approach.
““As a global leader in interactivity software, we believe that interactivity is a giant leap forward from mere user interfaces. Unlike user interfaces, interactivity is about keeping the user engaged on the web page. Interactivity provides a whole experience of doing stuff differently on the web page – using a 3D navigational space, a flip book, an interactive animation or a panning card deck, for instance. Raptivity Web Expert makes it easy to add such experiences to the web”, said Vikas Joshi, Chairman and Managing Director, Harbinger Group.
With Raptivity Web Expert, people can add interactivity to their web pages with minimal learning and absolutely no programming. Licensed perpetually and royalty-free at $99 under a special limited-time promotion, Raptivity Web Expert provides a unique library of rapidly-customizable templates, known as interaction models. Interaction models are, in turn, based on most common ways users interact with web content. The output of Raptivity Web Expert is based on accepted industry standards, easily distributable over the Internet, and does not require any proprietary plug-in.
“Web developers are constantly under pressure to deliver more for less. Raptivity Web Expert makes the job of building interactions quick and easy, in an economical way. The launch offer of Raptivity Expert gets them up and running at a low cost. Converting web sites into interactive experiences is now within everyone’s reach,” said Seema Chaudhary, President, Harbinger Knowledge Products Inc.
To know more about Raptivity Web Expert, visit http://www.raptivity.com/webexpert/
With interactivity, web page visitors stay longer, engage better and return sooner to web sites. Raptivity Web Expert leverages the award-winning Raptivity technology, which is based on Harbinger’s unique Rapid Interactivity approach.
““As a global leader in interactivity software, we believe that interactivity is a giant leap forward from mere user interfaces. Unlike user interfaces, interactivity is about keeping the user engaged on the web page. Interactivity provides a whole experience of doing stuff differently on the web page – using a 3D navigational space, a flip book, an interactive animation or a panning card deck, for instance. Raptivity Web Expert makes it easy to add such experiences to the web”, said Vikas Joshi, Chairman and Managing Director, Harbinger Group.
With Raptivity Web Expert, people can add interactivity to their web pages with minimal learning and absolutely no programming. Licensed perpetually and royalty-free at $99 under a special limited-time promotion, Raptivity Web Expert provides a unique library of rapidly-customizable templates, known as interaction models. Interaction models are, in turn, based on most common ways users interact with web content. The output of Raptivity Web Expert is based on accepted industry standards, easily distributable over the Internet, and does not require any proprietary plug-in.
“Web developers are constantly under pressure to deliver more for less. Raptivity Web Expert makes the job of building interactions quick and easy, in an economical way. The launch offer of Raptivity Expert gets them up and running at a low cost. Converting web sites into interactive experiences is now within everyone’s reach,” said Seema Chaudhary, President, Harbinger Knowledge Products Inc.
To know more about Raptivity Web Expert, visit http://www.raptivity.com/webexpert/
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Social Interaction - Way To Boost Your Web Site
Surveys have confirmed that the main growth in the use of the Internet is in the area of "networking". Connecting people is a significant part of the Internet through use of web sites to discuss things with like-minded people.
Until recently, the only way of being connected was via email. That is mostly one-to-one and has inherent delays. Nowadays, you can share text, audio and video using social networking sites. These are not one-to-one, but many-to-many and are also immediate. Groups of like-minded people are getting together, swapping information and passing on useful ideas and products.
But for those people trying to earn money online, it's good to understand the fact that there is this essential human need for people to interconnect when online. If your business web site doesn't have any means of interconnection, you are less likely to attract the modern Internet user, who sees interaction as fundamental. No longer can your business rely on a support email address or a "contact us" form.
These days you need to allow your web site visitors to interact with you AND with each other. That means you need a forum, for instance, or at the very least a blog where people can comment on what you've written. You could also do with the ability for people to add content to your web site, such as articles, images or video clip. Such features in a business web site will help create a sense of belonging, of identity.
In the future a good business web site will be one where a community of people meet together to discuss what the business offers. Internet users in the modern broadband connected world want interactivity. If your web site doesn't offer some kind of interactive feature, you will lose out to competing web sites that do.
TeemingPod is one such a way to allow people to interact with YOU and other site visitors. It is a platform that helps you embed powerful social interactions right inside a web page. It allows people to interact in various forms like discussions, doing a poll, sharing useful links etc. It also has a cool looking user interface to attract more visitors to use it.
To know how TeemingPod helps sizzle up your website, check out this post.
To know how TeemingPod helps add interaction to your site, visit our website or view demo.
Until recently, the only way of being connected was via email. That is mostly one-to-one and has inherent delays. Nowadays, you can share text, audio and video using social networking sites. These are not one-to-one, but many-to-many and are also immediate. Groups of like-minded people are getting together, swapping information and passing on useful ideas and products.
But for those people trying to earn money online, it's good to understand the fact that there is this essential human need for people to interconnect when online. If your business web site doesn't have any means of interconnection, you are less likely to attract the modern Internet user, who sees interaction as fundamental. No longer can your business rely on a support email address or a "contact us" form.
These days you need to allow your web site visitors to interact with you AND with each other. That means you need a forum, for instance, or at the very least a blog where people can comment on what you've written. You could also do with the ability for people to add content to your web site, such as articles, images or video clip. Such features in a business web site will help create a sense of belonging, of identity.
In the future a good business web site will be one where a community of people meet together to discuss what the business offers. Internet users in the modern broadband connected world want interactivity. If your web site doesn't offer some kind of interactive feature, you will lose out to competing web sites that do.
TeemingPod is one such a way to allow people to interact with YOU and other site visitors. It is a platform that helps you embed powerful social interactions right inside a web page. It allows people to interact in various forms like discussions, doing a poll, sharing useful links etc. It also has a cool looking user interface to attract more visitors to use it.
To know how TeemingPod helps sizzle up your website, check out this post.
To know how TeemingPod helps add interaction to your site, visit our website or view demo.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Speaking of Eating Your Own Dog Food…
TeemingPod was designed for web developers who want to add social interaction to sites and applications. As someone involved in the making of TeemingPod, I’m quite excited about the platform. So, when someone asked me last week “How do YOU use TeemingPod?” I thought I would reply through this post.
Speaking of eating your own dog food, we use TeemingPod in a variety of innovative ways, and today I am going to describe the most unusual one.
The TeemingPod product team uses TeemingPod to report their daily work activities. Surprised? Wonder how they do it? Read on…
First, the background. Flash back to January 2008. Every Friday, my inbox received weekly reports from all ten engineers in the product team, and my task was to consolidate them in one report. It was a tedious job to get a snapshot of the week’s output from ten different reports. It got worse as the team grew.
There were further challenges: keeping the reports organized in folders, making them accessible during travel, tracking who has not reported, going back and forth to get reports in the right format, and so on. All this consumed a huge amount of my productive time.
Now, the big idea. One Friday, when I was fretting over this weekly chore, one team member came up with a bright idea: Can’t we use TeemingPod instead of these reports?
The objections were immediate: TeemingPod has polls, debates, FAQs and so on, but it does not have a “Reporting” activity. That wouldn’t stop our creative minds, so someone suggested: Can’t we use the Debate activity for reporting?
“How so?” I asked. And the ideas flowed. Everyday, we could create a “debate”, identified by today’s date as the “topic.” Every team member’s work becomes a “view” within the debate. Each team member simply logs into the pod and enters his “view” of the day. The team manager accesses the pod to get a daily report.
That day we realized that creativity has not stopped at the product itself, but it continues on how can we effectively use a TeemingPod activity in our day-to-day life.
The system went into operation in February 2008.
Fast forward to today. We have been using this reporting mechanism for almost a year now. Our team reports that TeemingPod has had over 250 “debates” as of today, which I can scan in no time by simply accessing the pod. I can search for information in a single click. Now searching for information like bug 239 is no longer time-consuming. Nor do I have to worry about reports while traveling. There is no headache of arranging them in a proper format and no back and forth of emails. It is all there in a single pod and a single click away, anytime, anywhere!
Of course, the content of the pod is secured, as only my team members are invited to the pod.
Now for the bonus benefits. TeemingPod has helped me a lot to raise my team’s enthusiasm and motivation. If a team member does a great job or solves a complex issue, I simply give him or her a TeamingPod thumbs-up. This increases their ranking on that day (their view’s ranking in the debate). This has introduced a healthy competition within the team to do their task in the best possible way and become the team member of the day.
This is how we have been using TeemingPod as a daily reporting tool for a year. I can definitely state that usage of TeemingPod is limited only by its users’ creativity!
Speaking of eating your own dog food, we use TeemingPod in a variety of innovative ways, and today I am going to describe the most unusual one.
The TeemingPod product team uses TeemingPod to report their daily work activities. Surprised? Wonder how they do it? Read on…
First, the background. Flash back to January 2008. Every Friday, my inbox received weekly reports from all ten engineers in the product team, and my task was to consolidate them in one report. It was a tedious job to get a snapshot of the week’s output from ten different reports. It got worse as the team grew.
There were further challenges: keeping the reports organized in folders, making them accessible during travel, tracking who has not reported, going back and forth to get reports in the right format, and so on. All this consumed a huge amount of my productive time.
Now, the big idea. One Friday, when I was fretting over this weekly chore, one team member came up with a bright idea: Can’t we use TeemingPod instead of these reports?
The objections were immediate: TeemingPod has polls, debates, FAQs and so on, but it does not have a “Reporting” activity. That wouldn’t stop our creative minds, so someone suggested: Can’t we use the Debate activity for reporting?
“How so?” I asked. And the ideas flowed. Everyday, we could create a “debate”, identified by today’s date as the “topic.” Every team member’s work becomes a “view” within the debate. Each team member simply logs into the pod and enters his “view” of the day. The team manager accesses the pod to get a daily report.
That day we realized that creativity has not stopped at the product itself, but it continues on how can we effectively use a TeemingPod activity in our day-to-day life.
The system went into operation in February 2008.
Fast forward to today. We have been using this reporting mechanism for almost a year now. Our team reports that TeemingPod has had over 250 “debates” as of today, which I can scan in no time by simply accessing the pod. I can search for information in a single click. Now searching for information like bug 239 is no longer time-consuming. Nor do I have to worry about reports while traveling. There is no headache of arranging them in a proper format and no back and forth of emails. It is all there in a single pod and a single click away, anytime, anywhere!
Of course, the content of the pod is secured, as only my team members are invited to the pod.
Now for the bonus benefits. TeemingPod has helped me a lot to raise my team’s enthusiasm and motivation. If a team member does a great job or solves a complex issue, I simply give him or her a TeamingPod thumbs-up. This increases their ranking on that day (their view’s ranking in the debate). This has introduced a healthy competition within the team to do their task in the best possible way and become the team member of the day.
This is how we have been using TeemingPod as a daily reporting tool for a year. I can definitely state that usage of TeemingPod is limited only by its users’ creativity!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
How Blogs Are Going Social
As blogging evolves, one natural trend that is emerging strongly is making your blog more social. It becomes less of something to simply read, and more of a community destination in which to interact.
How does one make a blog a happening place? How does one involve readers in expressing themselves? How to provide interaction beyond “leave a comment”?
Obviously, you need to provide a space on your blog for your readers to do things together. You want to enable your users to poll, debate, ask questions, leave useful links and perform group search. The idea is to bring community features to life on your blog and stimulate social interaction.
One solution is to add widgets. For example you can add a poll through Poll Daddy. Or add a microblog through Twitter. Or simply throw in a Google gadget – but you want to be sure the gadget goes beyond just providing information. You want social interaction, not just content syndication.
You can use all these disparate platforms or simply use TeemingPod. TeemingPod is a platform that helps you embed powerful social interactions right inside a web page.
TeemingPod not only helps in adding web2.0 sizzle to a blog but also helps the blogger to interact with the readers in various forms like debate, share links, questions and answers, poll etc. It also helps blog readers to collaborate with each other, apart from the blogger, who share the same interest.
To know how to TeemingPod helps sizzle up your blog, check out this post.
How does one make a blog a happening place? How does one involve readers in expressing themselves? How to provide interaction beyond “leave a comment”?
Obviously, you need to provide a space on your blog for your readers to do things together. You want to enable your users to poll, debate, ask questions, leave useful links and perform group search. The idea is to bring community features to life on your blog and stimulate social interaction.
One solution is to add widgets. For example you can add a poll through Poll Daddy. Or add a microblog through Twitter. Or simply throw in a Google gadget – but you want to be sure the gadget goes beyond just providing information. You want social interaction, not just content syndication.
You can use all these disparate platforms or simply use TeemingPod. TeemingPod is a platform that helps you embed powerful social interactions right inside a web page.
TeemingPod not only helps in adding web2.0 sizzle to a blog but also helps the blogger to interact with the readers in various forms like debate, share links, questions and answers, poll etc. It also helps blog readers to collaborate with each other, apart from the blogger, who share the same interest.
To know how to TeemingPod helps sizzle up your blog, check out this post.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
For More Info… Please Don’t Leave This Page!
How many times do you go to a web page looking for some information, and find only a part of what you are looking for? Then you have to leave the site and rely on search tools or discussion groups to hopefully serve up some additional relevant material on the topic. Information revolution has made available every possible information just a click away. However, it has had an unfortunate side effect. While it benefits from expanding information availability, the amount of time it takes to find the right answer impedes productivity and drives up costs.
There are various tools which help reducing the time to search for the right kind of information. Like Google blog search, yahoo forum search, Google website search etc. But, still they have their own limitations.
A solution which would give all the related information with the topic we are searching for is desired in this age of information revolution. This knowledge base would be created by users which share same interest and read similar articles. Hence, the information would be relevant.
On the other hand, content owner of a webpage would also benefit by gaining insights of users' thinking, their questions and even their knowledge of the topic.
TeemingPod offers one such solution to maximize business value from information. It provides a flexible platform designed to enhance information sharing and communication in-context (/embedded) with the topic being discussed on that web page. When a user does not find information on web page, one can look for the information in TeemingPod embedded in that page. User can ask questions, reply to queries, leave behind useful links related to the web page, discuss the topic with other readers sharing same interests etc.
Every reader can contribute information relevant to the web page in the pod, thus enriching the web page content with additional information. Readers can streamline sharing of trusted knowledge that can significantly improve content of the web page.
There are various tools which help reducing the time to search for the right kind of information. Like Google blog search, yahoo forum search, Google website search etc. But, still they have their own limitations.
A solution which would give all the related information with the topic we are searching for is desired in this age of information revolution. This knowledge base would be created by users which share same interest and read similar articles. Hence, the information would be relevant.
On the other hand, content owner of a webpage would also benefit by gaining insights of users' thinking, their questions and even their knowledge of the topic.
TeemingPod offers one such solution to maximize business value from information. It provides a flexible platform designed to enhance information sharing and communication in-context (/embedded) with the topic being discussed on that web page. When a user does not find information on web page, one can look for the information in TeemingPod embedded in that page. User can ask questions, reply to queries, leave behind useful links related to the web page, discuss the topic with other readers sharing same interests etc.
Every reader can contribute information relevant to the web page in the pod, thus enriching the web page content with additional information. Readers can streamline sharing of trusted knowledge that can significantly improve content of the web page.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Increasing stickiness and engagement of website
When taking a stock of things that happened in 2008, I was thinking of few terms in Web world which have ruled the market. Some of the terms which came to my mind were mash-ups, web services, micro-blogging, social networking etc. A major challenge faced by every website in 2008 was to increase stickiness and engagement of the web site so that the user spends maximum time on web site.
There is a subtle difference between stickiness and engagement which makes a huge difference on how you design your web page. A fine balance must be struck between stickiness and engagement.
Stickiness concerns itself with keeping the user on the page whereas engagement has to do with keeping user involved in doing something. Most engagement tools (hyperlinks, buttons, blog links etc) actually drive the user away from the webpage, thus reducing stickiness. On the other hand stickiness enhancing tools (widgets, mash-ups, RSS feeds etc) end up in a one-way communication, eliminating engagement.
Below is a graph which shows Engagement vs. Stickiness.
Websites which are designed for Content Syndication is an example of high stickiness, but low engagement.
iGoogle / Gaming websites are a good example of website which has high engagement but low stickiness.
When we write an article and just provide few related references of other articles/websites, has neither engagement nor stickiness.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Increasing Social Interaction in a Blog Using TeemingPod
As blogging evolves, one natural trend that is emerging strongly is making your blog more social. It becomes less of something to simply read, and more of a community destination in which to interact.
TeemingPod is a platform that helps you embed powerful social interactions right inside any web page, such as your blog. It provides a space on the blog for readers to do things together. It enables users to poll, debate, ask questions, leave useful links and perform group search. The idea is to bring community features to life on your blog and to stimulate social interaction.
The process for adding TeemingPod to your blog is quick and easy. TeemingPod provides a small code snippet which you can drop in your blog page easily.
Depending on how you want to control access to social interactions on your blog, TeemingPod provides two options.
TeemingPod provides public pods where blog readers can contribute to the pod with a “Guest” identity.
TeemingPod also supports private pods where user can login to the pod using her/his TeemingPod login, if she/he is a member of that pod.
Blogger has moderation rights for the pod to remove unwanted content. This keeps the social collaboration space clean and free of unwanted clutter. Blogger can also extract data from TeemingPod to a simple text file for further reference.
TeemingPod adds all the Web2.0 sizzle to any web page in no time, and your blog is no exception. This in turn increases stickiness and engagement of your blog. To read an interesting post on the tradeoffs between stickiness and engagement, do read our next article on this blog.
TeemingPod is a platform that helps you embed powerful social interactions right inside any web page, such as your blog. It provides a space on the blog for readers to do things together. It enables users to poll, debate, ask questions, leave useful links and perform group search. The idea is to bring community features to life on your blog and to stimulate social interaction.
The process for adding TeemingPod to your blog is quick and easy. TeemingPod provides a small code snippet which you can drop in your blog page easily.
Depending on how you want to control access to social interactions on your blog, TeemingPod provides two options.
TeemingPod provides public pods where blog readers can contribute to the pod with a “Guest” identity.
TeemingPod also supports private pods where user can login to the pod using her/his TeemingPod login, if she/he is a member of that pod.
Blogger has moderation rights for the pod to remove unwanted content. This keeps the social collaboration space clean and free of unwanted clutter. Blogger can also extract data from TeemingPod to a simple text file for further reference.
TeemingPod adds all the Web2.0 sizzle to any web page in no time, and your blog is no exception. This in turn increases stickiness and engagement of your blog. To read an interesting post on the tradeoffs between stickiness and engagement, do read our next article on this blog.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
TeemingPod at Web 2.0 Expo, New York
You may whisper it subtly or cry it aloud from roof-tops; you may write it in small fonts in inconspicuous corners or big bold letters staring out of glossy brochures. What you can’t ignore is that the power of Web 2.0 is here to stay.
The O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo at
One would have thought that action would begin after a couple of hours of the opening of the Expo. Exhibitors who wanted to give the final touches to their booths and go grab a coffee probably had their first cuppa only after 6pm!
The curiosity that TeemingPod drew as a platform for Embedded Social Interaction was awesome. How can so many activities like polling, discussions, questions & answers, searches to name a few; be done in a savvy, unobtrusive fashion without leaving your Web application or Web page?
Well, we built it. So we proudly flaunted it.
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