June 30, 2005

Small Things can Really Mean Big !

Today was the last working day for a colleague of mine. I got invited to his farewell function at office. In his farewell speech, to my utter surprise, the first person he thanked was me. ME! I mean, it wasn't his boss or even his boss' boss. And I'm not even in his department !

He thanked me 'coz I was indirectly involved in him getting a job.

Four years back, when I organized a Macromedia Seminar, I had announced an opening for a position in my company at the meeting. Ravi, who was one of the attendees, took the cue and got through the interview on his own merit. I really didn't do much.

What I thought was just a really insignificant event turned out to be a big career boosting one for him. Ravi is now one of India's best Flash Actionscript programmers. It's amazin how small things can mean really big for others.

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Wanna ride along?

The RoyalEnfield guys are doing another biking trip in Chennai on June 10th. Would you be interested in joining in? Lemme know.

We want to include a social cause with the ride. If you can come up with a decent idea, Enfiled is willing to give you brand new Thunderbird to ride during the trip.

Send your ideas to me. And yeah, if you want to join the biking gang, lemme know too. I'm at 98415 97744 and Kiruba at Kiruba.com.

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June 29, 2005

Interaction Program with Prof.Sreenath Sreenivasan

Damn! This is one of those times I feel like kicking myself hard. I missed the interaction program with Sreenath.

Sree is the head of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and has founded South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), a group of more than 1000 journalists from around the world. He writes for Time Digital, The New York Times, Business Week, India Today, and Rolling Stone. He is one of India Today's '40 leaders under 40' in the United States.

Sree comes to India only once every four years and this would have been a good opportunity to meet up with this inspiring man.

Aaarghh!

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June 28, 2005

World Blog Day ??



Nir Ofir wants to commemorate August 31st as World Blog Day. Why that date? Because he thinks the date 3108 kind of looks like the word 'Blog' if you write it a certain way. His idea: "On this day every blogger can post a recommendation of 5 new blogs".

(via Global Voices Online)

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June 27, 2005

Financial Express Covers Blogging.

Indranil Chakraborty writes about the impact bloggers have on the community. The article has a strong Sify focus. And yeah, I'm covered in it along with a couple of my colleagues.

(Via Harish and Radha)

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June 26, 2005

Using GMail as your personal diary.

In addition to having a blog where I jot down interesting stuff that I wish to share, I also maintain a personal diary of sorts where I jot down about daily happenings, people I meet, my ideas and my thoughts. Most of these are personal in nature and things that I'd like to keep to myself.

I found GMail to be better suited than those online diaries. It's powerful search feature is what gives it the edge.

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June 24, 2005

Tata Crucible Business Quiz
Looks like a good quiz to look forward to. After Brand Equity quiz, this looks like the next big National level event to happen. Get more info here.

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Photos from Vikram's visit to Sify.

Vikram's Porche 911 at Tidel's parking lot.

(via Zhuhair)

Vikram chatting with Sify.com users

(via Manoj)

A small discussion after the chat.

(via Manoj)

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Mobile Puncture Service in Chennai - Call 9382819164

I got an email forward which talked about a mobile puncture service offering 24 hour service. I called up the number given in the mail '9382819164' to confirm. A very affable man picked up the phone and he confirmed that he is indeed offering the service.

His name is 'Baasha' and he sounded very helpful. He says all we need to do is just call his number and he will send one of his men immediately to help you out.

He does both two wheeler and four wheeler puntures. His charges are very reasonable ranging from Rs.30 to Rs.50 depending on the distance.

Note down the phone number. You never know when you might need it.

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June 23, 2005

Buy a Lenovo Laptop, get Free WiFi.

Buying a laptop from China's largest PC maker these days is apparently coming with no strings (or Ethernet cables attached).

Lenovo is offering free wireless network cards and three months of free Internet, thanks to a deal they signed up with China Unicom.

This offer is currently on in China. Pretty soon they might do a similar thing in India as well.

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June 22, 2005

What's your Skype ID?

Mine is 'Kirubashankar'. What's yours?



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Impressive Photography

Manoj is a colleague of mine. A project manager during day time and an avid photographer at night. I happened to drop by his desk and he showed me his collection shot with his brand new Nikon Coolpix 8.0 Megapixel SLR. Impressive indeed.








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June 21, 2005

Learning to use Ebay better

I've never used Ebay or any of the online auction service though my wife has purchased stuff off it. There's something that's been holding me up and I'd always been wanting to learn about how it works and its foolproofness.

I think I have the perfect opportunity now.

Ebay is organising a seminar on explaning how Ebay works and how it can benefit us. The seminar is happening in Mumbai on June 25th and Chennai on July 2nd. More details here.

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Chat Live With Vikram Today at 5:00 PM

Yeah, the 'Anniyan' stud is coming over to our office to do a live chat program. There's a lot of buzz around. Our admin guys have been busy contating the Tidel Park authorities to get the pre-permission so that he can just drive in straight into the software technology park without the need to do the paper work.

While we get to meet him in person (ahem!), you can get to meet him virtually here. Catch the live chat.

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The Dream of Every Cycling & Blogging Enthusiast

Subaru, the car maker and sponsor of Lance Armstrong is offering a chance I'd die for. One of my life time ambitions is to cycle around the circuit ( if not participate) in the Tour de France. Unfortunately, it's only for guys in the US and that sucks.
(Via Ramnath)










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The cake was here. And then it went here !



When the whole department gangs up, you hardly stand a chance.

What was worse was the birthday bumps that followed later. Four strong guys get hold of your legs and hands and toss you up. As the body goes up and comes down with gravitational force, that's when the rest of gang target in their power kicks to your bums.

'Ouch. Aaah. Aiyoo. Ammmaa' formed most of my conversation !

In true 'Avvai Shanmugi style', they finished their first round of kicks, then gave me a glass of Pepsi, and then started off with the second round. ( "Theliavecchi Adikanum" ).

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June 19, 2005

What a way to start a birthday !

I woke up to my daughter's sleepy voiced rendition of 'Happy Birthday' and it totally brightened me up! The small things in life that thrill you to bits! :)

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Podcasting Meet Today.

Ok, first the bad news. Two hours before the start of the meet, the Cafe Coffee Day people tell me that WiFi at their place is not working. Dart!! Can't believe our luck!

So, what we might do is, go ahead with the meet at 4:00 P.M as planned. After people come to the scheduled venue ( Cafe Coffee Day on Cenotaph road), we grap a quick cuppa and proceed to another venue. Most probably the Barista on Khader Nawaz Khan road.

So, for those of you who want to join in for the audio conference, mail your skype id to Kiruba [@] Kiruba.com or leave it at the comments section. We'll ping you once we are connected. We are armed with a laptop, mic and speakers.

We are keeping our fingers crossed !

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June 17, 2005

Errr....


(via Aditya Pappu)

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Need Your Suggestion

Here's the scenario. There are going to be around 15 folk in a cybercafe for the Podcasting meet. There are people in US, UK and Australia who want to join in the conversation. Which is the best way to make this happen?

Is there a (free) conference facility where people can dial in?

I've heard of Skype, LiveMeeting and ofcourse there's the Yahoo messenger. Which would you recommend?

Or is there something else better?

Please advise. Thanks much.

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June 16, 2005

Setting up WiFi at Home.



Ah! This is the interesting part. Dirtying your hands in setting up the networks yourself. I've got a DSL Broadband Wireless Router 54 Mbps/ 2.4 GHz from NetGear (model WGR614). Picked it up from Ritchie Street. Surprisingly affordable at Rs.2600. This is at nearly half the cost of a comparable D-Link router.

I can't fix it yet because my DSL modem is USB type. I would need an Ethernet Modem to fix up the broadand router. I've asked Airtel to replace it and they have promised a free replacement within three days.

We are getting in a couple of PCs in to help with my wife's work. Here is how the general networking is planned. Not the exact one though but roughly close.



I'd all ears to hear your tips and suggestions.

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June 15, 2005

Chennai Podcasting Meet



Podcasting is the latest craze and is said to be the next big thing in personal publishing. Last week alone saw astounding levels of activity in this space.

"What is a podcast? How do we do it? What's the easiest way? How do we manage the hosting bandwidth?" We'll tackle these and some more of the questions when we meet up.

We'll experiment with Podcasting live at the meet. That's a reason why we are meeting at a Wi-Fi hotspot. (even though it's another coffee joint)

Consider this as a Bloggers meet with a focus on Podcasting. While we are at it, we'll also touch upon Skyping, audio and video blogging. We'd love to hear about your views and tips.

Sure, there'll also be the back slapping, leg pulling and the fun networking.

Be sure to mark your calendar.

Date : 19th June, Sunday
Time : 4:00 P.M
Venue : Cafe Coffee Day, Cenotaph Road, Teynampet.

For those who can't make it, we'll be available on chat and there'll be a webcam to broadcast the meeting live. More info on this coming soon.

If you want to join in, either physically or virtually, please say so in the comments section or RSVP at kiruba at kiruba.com. It'll be great to have you over.

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June 14, 2005

Bunty aur Bubli



:)

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June 13, 2005

The Babe On Top Of My Lap



After months of window shopping, research and pussyfooting, I finally bought a laptop. It's a Samsung X05 Ultra. It's sleek, light weight, all silver (oh yeah!) and one of the best looking pieces in the market. I did check out the performance and they matched with the leading players. What tilted the scale to it was the 3 years warranty. Everyone else just offered one year and I'm paranoid about warranty.

It's a wedding anniversary gift to ourselves.

Now, the only thing remaining is to put it to good use!

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June 12, 2005

Blogger Meets happening at the newspaper near you

Ramya's coverage on the Blogger Meets appeared in Today's The Hindu. Check out the supplement 'Magazine' on Page 4 titled 'Bloggers Park'. Interesting heading.

I get a small mention in the article.

And oh! There's a picture as well along with the article. I'm the one at the back doing the bhangra dance stance !

The article is unique in the way the views were garnered. Ramya requested for opinion on blog meets from her blog readers and quite a few responsed back. Notice that opinions came to her and not her going out to all. Nice.

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June 10, 2005

Sudoku?

This seems to be the latest craze amongst puzzle lovers. Most Indian newspapers have started to publish these puzzles too. One of the tasks for the week is to learn this game. It's not very flattering when a 12 year old kid come over to you and asks, "Uncle, can we solve this Sudoku together?" and instead of replying, "Oh Sure", I go like, "Huh? Sukoku?" !!

Tch Tch.

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Technorati Public Beta Launched.

The new site tracks 11.1 million blogs and over a billion links. And with lots of new additional features. I'm impressed.

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Odeo Makes it to Fortune Magazine's Top 25 Breakout Companies

is not even released. Yet, it has already got an unique distinction. I guess with Ev's penchant for making things very simple ( like what he did for blogging with Blogger.com), Podcasting will hit it big too.

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The Man, the Plane and the Beauties!

Photos from the launch of the Kingfisher Airlines.




Yeah, I know you want to look at the bigger pics! ;) There are some more pics here.

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June 09, 2005

The 5 Stages of the Mac Guy's Transition

Oh! I perfectly understand how the Mac guys must be feeling. Nice comic. Look carefully to note that each box represents each stage of transition - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression & Acceptance.


This comic too small? Here's a bigger version. There are more such comics here.
(via Anush)

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Sify Bikers Day Out - The Whoa! Games

Oh boy! Looks like the Royal Enfiled's Sify Bikers Day Out is gonna be lots of fun. As if just riding the brand new Thunderbirds on the wonderful East Coast Road is not fun enough, there's interesting games to top it further. Check these out...

The Taxi game
Teams of 10 people will have one bike. The aim is to get all 10 members to the finish line with a maximum of two persons on the bike. The rule is that one person can only ride the bike twice in the race. Strategise and think, use your brains to crack the problem and make your team cross the finish line first.

The pick me up game
We will stack cans on one top of the other. The rider must ride towards the cans and pick up the top most can without dropping the others. The rider comes back and picks up the next can.. The rider who reaches the lowest level of cans wins!

Sand Off-roading
Learn how to handle a bike on the beach with tips and guidance from our expert ride Sachin Chavan. Experience the freedom of beach biking and the joy of the fresh sea air.

Dirt track experience
Drive through some trails which show you the exhilaration of biking off-road. Our experienced guide will lead to show the way.

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June 08, 2005

Google AdSesnse for Feeds : Approved !

Google has approved my application for AdSense for Feeds. Well, it's about time, if you ask me. I applied over a week ago and didn't hear from them until yesterday. It's the Google office at Hyderbad that is incharge of this stuff, and I expected a faster response or atleast an acknowledgement.

I've enabled Ads on the feeds and it will be interesting to see the percentage of revenues coming from this. My gut feeling is that it will be much lower than the earnings from websites. I'll keep you posted.

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June 07, 2005

Lifecycle of Bloggers

A highly recommended read. If you've been blogging for sometime, you'll definitely relate to this piece. It's a fun take on the evolution of bloggers. I couldn't help smiling as I read through this piece.
(Via Sumeet Singh)

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An Illustrated Talk on Old Paintings

There's an illustrated talk on 'The Lost Vijayanagar Paintings of Thiruvellarai and Pattiswaram' by Dr.Job Thomas at Sundar Mahal (Amethyst Coffee Shop).

Dr.Thomas is currently the Director of South Asian Studies Program at Davidson College. On a surprising side note, his PhD dissertation was on 'Paintings in Tamil Nadu'!

The Tamil saying, 'Uloor kulam theertha kulam aagathu' (the local pond will never be considered pious) is so very true. We, in Tamil Nadu don't give the paintings too much interest and here is an Amercian who has done a PhD in them. Gee!

You can get more information on the exhibition from http://www.prakritifoundation.com/events.html

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June 06, 2005

Book Tagging

I usually don't participate in memes but found this one good. I've been tagged by a few folks and so in the spirit of the chain, here goes..

Total books I own : 192 (These are just the books we own. I say we, because it includes my daughter's story books as well. I love kids stories. So, there you go! :)

Last book I bought : The 80 / 20 Principle - The secrect of achieving more with less by Richard Koch

Last book I read : Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Books that mean a lot to me:
Love Story by Eric Segal
It's not about the bike by Lance Armstrong
See you at the Top by Zig Ziglar
Lee Iacocca - An autobiography
Straight from the gut by Jack Welch

Tag five people and have them do this on their blogs:
Vasu Venkat
Venky Krishnamoorthy
Gaurav
Murali
Karthik Narayan


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Bike Out



Royal Enfield's marketing department seems to be busy. In true Hells Angels type, they are organizing a Bullet ride from Chennai to Mahabalipuram, a 40 km ride on the scenic sea facing highway. They have invited a few folks from my company to join in. What's more, they even provide brand new Thunderbirds. Throw in a few biker games and competitions and it looks like it will be a day of fun.

If you live in Chennai and interested in Bullets, here's something for you. You can request for a bike test ride and they'll let you have it for a full day. You can take it to office or ride around anywhere you like. Contact Shashank Nambiar at 98414 81985 or mail him at mailto:trip.chennai@gmail.com. Sounds like a good opportunity to try out.

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June 05, 2005

Promoting Your Blog

Almost every other day, I keep receiving email requests which ask for tips on how to increase their blog's traffic. I wrote this as an email first to answer them and then decided it makes sense to publish it here.

First, I'll start with an honest answer. I wish I knew the answers myself. If I knew, I'd be breaking the one lakh visitors per day barrier! And, reeling in the Adsense moolah!

Well, I'm not.

Yet, there's sureshot lessons I've learnt that's helped me reach where I am. And I'd love to share 'em with you.

1) Get your own domain.
Kick out the secondary blog addresses like yourname.blogspot.com. Buy your own domain. Show you are a professional. Show you are serious enough.

2) Get your custom email.
This has been my blog's best marketing tool. My email is 'Kiruba @ Kiruba.com' and I don't use any other free emails. Every time I send our an email, I promote my site in a subtle manner. My point is, why promote Yahoo or Hotmail, when you can promote yourself.

3)Publish your URL in stationaries.
Use it in your E-mail signatures. Use it in your business card. In your letter pad. Heck, I even have it on my helmet.

4) Add a blogroll
It's the equivalent of 'You scratch my back, I scratch your back'. Sign up with Blogrolling.com. Add up your frequently read blogs.

5) Ping.
If you are using blogger.com, activate the ping option. Sometimes, the automatic pinging doesn't work. So, I always fill up Blogrolling's ping form.

6) Register your blog at India.Blogstreet.com.
Blogstreet is and will continue to be the most important blog directory. Why wouldn't you want to be here?

7) Provide RSS Feeds
Many people use Newsreaders to subscribe to their frequently read blogs. Don't miss out on this crowd. Make sure your site has RSS feeds. If you don't know what this is, ask a tech friend.

8) Add Meta Tags
Google is a very important driver of traffic to your blogs. Help Google index your blog better. Provide appropriate keywords in your meta tags.

9) Write daily.
When people visit your site, they invest in their time and Interent time. And more importantly they think about you. Respect that. Don't make them turnback empty handed.

10) Comment on other sites
Let's be honest. We love receiving comments. And invariably check out the commeter's blog. It's an effective way to introduce your blog to others. However, be honest in your commenting. Don't comment for numbers' sake. Comment, so you can engage in a discussion.

11) Keep your posts short & sharp.
I hate reading long posts. And am sure so do others. If you can't help it (like this long post), atleast break it into smaller paras and provide sub-headings.

Hey, like I said, these are my personal opinion. Am fairly sure these will work for you for sure. If you have a point that's helped your blog, we'd love to hear it from you.

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June 03, 2005

My Kid's a Spider-Girl Now

My daughter is crazy about Spider-Man. She's got Spider-Shoes, Spider-Handbag and what needed to complete the attire was the Spider-Dress.

We told her she'll have to save up for it. So, every time she sees any change, she would quickly pick it up and add it to her bag. Every coin became a Spider-Coin.

After two months of franctic collection, she finally reached the Rs.200 mark. We took her to Ranganathan Street to buy the dress.

It was her first real 'buy' and she's mighty proud of it. So proud that she refused to get out of the dress the whole day! :)

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June 02, 2005

Another Indian wins the American Spelling Bee.

Anurag Kashyap won this year's prestigious Spelling Bee contest. Some of the words he spelled were tristachyous, exsiccosis, ornithorhynchous, appoggiatura. (Boy, I didn't even know these words existed, leave alone knowing their spelling!)

Indians seem to be rocking in this contest. Check out the winners here.

2003 - Sai R. Gunturi,Texas.
2002 - Pratyush Buddiga, Colorado.
1999 - Nupur Lala, Florida.

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Invited to lecture at Madras Advertising Club.

This is the 5th consecutive year that I've been invited to take classes for the students of post graduation in Advertising. Every year, when I get the invitation phone call from the club, it brightens me up for two reasons.

The first is because of the club's continued confidence in my abilities as a teacher. And the second is because I simply love to interact with students.

I'll be covering subjects on Online Advertising, Internet technologies, Online PR, Cyber crime, E-commerce, Brand building on the Net, Internet marketing and ofcourse, blogging.

My teaching assignment starts in July. Thankfully, I have ample time to make good preparation. I, so look forward to it.

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Wondery Why?

I always wondered why the Spelling Bee contest is always telecast on ESPN. I mean, since when did language become a sport?!

Beats me.

Nevertheless, I totally love watching the competitions. Especially the look on the young ones' faces as they think deep. It's a pity we don't have such competitions amongst school kids here in India.

I have written to Paige Kimble, the director, offering to help start the Indian version of the competitions in India. I'm positively sure, with the help of like minded folks here, we can do a real good show. I hope I get to hear from her.

I have always been impressed with Toastmasters International program and I have always tried to initiate a chapter into organizations that I join in.

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Oh my! What's Wrong With These French & Americans ?!

The French have decided that instead of saying 'weblog', they will say 'note bloc,' shortened to 'bloc'. We don't know when the US Congress will pass a resolution renaming French weblogs as 'Freedom blogs.' !!

Har Har !!

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Success Thru Google's 20%

Mike Cannon Brooks, the CEO of Altassian - makers of Enterprise application software, reports about the success of his company's experiment with Google's 20%. (Google employees can spend 20% of their official time on their pet projects)

He gave his employees the freedom to work on projects of their liking for one day in a week. And it looks like it tremendously paid off. His people built some kick ass products.

Don't miss to read Mike's blog where he discusses the idea, the rules and the results.

How I wish other companies gave such leeway too!

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June 01, 2005

Symbiosis !


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Anti-Smoking Line

I should've written this two days back to mark the International No Smoking Day. Here is the line that I often say to my smoker friends. You should see them cringe!

Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.

:)

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Stoppress : The *New* Google Adsense

I got a sneak preview of the latest Google Adsense ads. And it quite simply blew me away. The new ad system will definitely increase the revenues. I had this for a few hours on my site and I've already seen a 30% jump in terms of clickthrus.

The new Ad box will have dynamic javascript looking feature. It'll have main keywords listed on top and based no the click, the appropriate ads will change. There is even a search box included.

The best part is you don't have to do any change in the code.

The new ads will be launched soon. Keep a look out for it.

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