Disqus - Latest Comments for Pranav

Re: Zappos Affiliates: Look out Below!

Pranav — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:56:49 -0000

Qiana,

would love to see zappos get back to paying 15% commissions now that free overnight shipping isn't offered anymore.

Not all's bad though, after posts like this one and elsewhere on the blogosphere talking about zappos' 6pm fiasco. Offering commissions for 'leaks' to 6pm, albeit only 5%, was still a good move.

Re: Widgets Galore

Pranav — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:15:18 -0000

For those who use the wp-notable plugin, here's the link to download the modification http://finaltag.com/2007/02/03/wp-notable-modif...

Re: Buh-bye Askimet

Pranav — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 15:52:17 -0000

Just checking my math skills! I hope it's not the same question it is asking to everyone . I answered (which is hopefully also the correct answer) to the same math problem Vlad was asked.

Re: AuctionAds Review – AuctionAds Partially Solves Two International Affiliate Problems

Pranav — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:34:33 -0000

That's strange in the EBay US not accepting international affiliates, I have been affiliated to them via CJ for years and I live thousands of miles away from the US!

Re: AuctionAds Review – AuctionAds Partially Solves Two International Affiliate Problems

Pranav — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:34:33 -0000

That's strange in the EBay US not accepting international affiliates, I have been affiliated to them via CJ for years and I live thousands of miles away from the US!

Re: Twitter to live, but don’t live to Twitter

Pranav — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 05:30:21 -0000

i blame robert scoble for this post...

Re: Slacker, the real iPod killer?

Pranav — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:21:10 -0000

Ever since I lost my ipod, I've been listening to last.fm on the PC - which is really cool, but I have nothing to listen to while away from the PC - slacker seems to solve this. really cool new gadget.

I don't think this will "replace" the ipod or something like that.

It's more of a 2.0 of satellite radio. So of you like listening to radio, you'll use slacker, and for the times you don't want to listen to the radio - you still have an ipod. Besides, from what I read here, this won't allow you to "own" music, you will still be restricted to listen to what is being streamed, albeit, as per your tastes.

IMO, even if this device makes it, it may not quite affect ipod sales.

Here's an Idea for the slacker people - let users "Buy" songs and store them right at your servers, let users select which songs they want to hear to, and stream them via the satellites - now THAT would be a total iPod killer.

Re: Do You Blog in English?

Pranav — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 05:07:29 -0000

I read and talk four languages, but when it comes to writing (and blogging, etc) it's "English only" For me, somehow. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I have been affiliate-marketing since I was in high school, and IMO the market most Bumpzee users are targeting seems to be North American where english is the predominant language in use when selling. (Spanish is something I was considering learning some months ago - dropped the idea)

Re: PRWeb vs PPC

Pranav — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:36:33 -0000

Fantastic post! and co-incident too! I was actually on the PRWeb website a while ago trying to find out how to send out a release - the costs involved and stuff, and here you have more details than I could find over there.

Re: Google Directory Lists BupmZee! For My URL

Pranav — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:06:50 -0000

"I wonder if anyone ever gets much traffic from Google Directory?"

- the Directory listing is actually worth a lot in terms of linkback value. so most traffic is indirect and heavily influences your SE score.

You are not listed in google directory because it's a very old version of dmoz, I don't remember the last time they update to fresher content from the dmoz database. it's best just to search dmoz for your domain to see where you are listed.

Re: Tomorrow Is My Birthday. Do You Think Bill Gates Will Buy Me A Mac?

Pranav — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:50:10 -0000

Happy Birthday, Vlad!
Why not just download ubuntu linux instead? :)

Re: “Ubuntu Is Really Not Just an OS, It’s a Lifestyle”

Pranav — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:48:08 -0000

Welcome to the world of freedom, Vlad :D .
Now that you are on ubuntu. here's something that will make it even cooler -

http://www.beryl-project.org/

using beryl, you can add stuff like OS X's exposÃ© effect and make your windows look feel much better overall.

Re: Overstock auctions shutting down affiliate program

Pranav — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 17:08:37 -0000

UPDATE - http://www.overstock.com/alliance_auc.html - their affiliate page does not have any mention of the program closure :o

Re: Do you accept cash on your online store?

Pranav — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:29:23 -0000

Exactly, Most of the stuff people buy online these days is the same stuff they'd buy offline, but won't because online is just more convenient - if you had to go to a store that already sells these things - to pay for them in order to buy those things online - well, it's almost a joke. This can only and only work if you are selling something that is not to be found ANYWHERE else but on your online shop.

Re: New Amazon Context Links

Pranav — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:52:28 -0000

Hey Vlad!
Actually, I too logged into my amazon affiliate account after a really long time after learning about the context links! These hopefully will result in more logins to the amazon affiliate account to check stats :)

Re: New Amazon Context Links

Pranav — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:04:55 -0000

There is a choice for not including the the popup in the context links, I just disabled it for one of my sites.

You can choose not to have a popup by changing "amzn_cl_preview=1;" to amzn_cl_preview=0;" in the JS code. (this is also possible by un-checking th box that says "display preview" in the link creation wizard at amazon's associate area.

Re: Are you (time) rich or (time) poor?

Pranav — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:15:27 -0000

Hey Mark!

Akismet thinks you're a spammer! :S Just de-marked the post from the "spam caught by akismet".

I agree with you, there have always been "time rich" and "time poor" consumers. but the way this article sheds light on how online marketers can use this classification to their advantage was something I thought was very cool.

Re: Linkshare to offer merchant RSS feeds?

Pranav — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 09:54:31 -0000

Thanks for commenting, Chris!
I am sure that RSS feeds are a great addition to linkshare's affiliate tools and will make it super-easy for affiliates to know new offers/coupons and get expiration notifications etc, but there also seems to be the possibility of (bad) affiliates misusing RSS feeds to auto-generate Webpages and crowd google's index and all, I hope LS will have some sort of security measures etc to prevent this from happening.

Re: Five Reasons why I blog

Pranav — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:53:26 -0000

Vlad,
I didn't tag anyone because most people I'd like to see blog about this have already been tagged, so I'd rather let readers add to the meme directly (like andy beard did on his post).

Re: Five Reasons why I blog

Pranav — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:54:46 -0000

Leonard,
yeah, but it's true! lol .. that's why I find myself blogging sometimes.

Re: Planetbeta was not an April Fool’s joke!

Pranav — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:10:21 -0000

Revolution, you think?

Re: Google offers special Customer Support to spammers In India

Pranav — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:07:28 -0000

Am I banned for saying this? ... Let me check ...
hmmm.... not banned - and LOL made a good two and a half dollars today (I don't do adsense much - the last website I made with adsense links was a year ago.)

See it's this sort of attitude that I hate, when google(ers) behave like gods's chosen ones.

When I say spammers, I am referring to the get paid to click on google ads that you come across in local newspaper classifieds, and more frequently- ads on adwords for India made software and templates that will auto-generate thousands of pages "with content and adsense code" so you can make money. is this not spam?

Don't tell me this doesn't happen. It's happening, and on a massive scale. i don't have proof handy, but I will dig some up and post here soon.

Re: Google offers special Customer Support to spammers In India

Pranav — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:26:59 -0000

just googled "Make money adsense" and here's one adwords ad that I came across .. what do you make of this? not spam, you say?
http://a2zadsense.com/g/?gclid=CLCIxJWOzYsCFQ2B...

Re: Google offers special Customer Support to spammers In India

Pranav — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:35:11 -0000

and this http://www.thenetjobs.com/?gclid=CMKl1NuPzYsCFQ...

Re: Google offers special Customer Support to spammers In India

Pranav — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:37:47 -0000

and this ... http://www.igooglecash.com/

Re: The technorati favorites exchange meme

Pranav — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:28:49 -0000

Vlad,

Just posted a link to Andy's post about the OPML file.

Re: Ebay profits up by 52%

Pranav — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 15:11:37 -0000

I love paypal, somehow google checkout, for many reasons, is just not a great alternative yet. paypal has security and ease of use and worldwide availability. google, apart from the search engine itself, lacks on the ease of use front somehow, I mean, it just doesn't feel like they have given enough consideration to usability. Paypal, on the other hand, looks like it is made entirely to keep paypal users happy - which is what I think is the most important factor in the success of a company!

Re: What’s up with CJ?

Pranav — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 21:31:36 -0000

Chris,

What is annoying me is not the stats I am (not) seeing, it's the fact that CJ is not talking about the outage nor the delay in reporting anywhere. that's something that needs to change for CJ to keep it's position as the affiliate network I do the maximum business with and more importantly, to survive in the changing world of e-business.

Re: eBay takes on Auctionads with “togo”

Pranav — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:13:23 -0000

Shannon, not google, ebay themselves have come up with this cool widget.

Re: Green or red?

Pranav — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:20:41 -0000

The "stop" and "go" is exactly what I first thought about and went with the green for now!, red seems pretty bold as shannon says and somehow matches well with the overall layout. heh, I am still confused. the poll is with 50-50 results!

P.S: getting rid of akismet right away, it seems to be blocking more and more actual comments from being posted for some reason.

Re: Openoffice.org to port a mac-native version soon

Pranav — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:35:22 -0000

Testing the math comment plugin

Re: Openoffice.org to port a mac-native version soon

Pranav — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:36:51 -0000

Testing Again!

Re: Chitika introduces “Linx” - in-content contextual text ads

Pranav — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:33:48 -0000

Yeah, that's something I didn't think about .. readers can just roll over a link, know more about the product you are talking about see the images etc, read on. and then, if they so decide, click on the link for even more info or to buy.

Re: New social shopping network: ShoppingWords.com

Pranav — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:14:44 -0000

Scott,
I agree. shoppingwords is unimpressive at best. but it does still bring in a concept to the social shopping web that could make some sense by exploring into further, either by shoppingwords themselves or some other company. something as simple cleaning up the website design and interface should help to begin with...

Re: Shoppero.com - A Social Shopping Network that Pays Back

Pranav — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 08:37:29 -0000

Thanks for the comment, Philip.

I have a very strong conviction that the pay to contribute model will be an huge part of the next generation of social networks.

In the "Web 2.0" era, people contribute a whole lot more than they did when in the early days when such pay to contribute models first started and later failed. I think it is the way the incentive is packaged and marketed is what will be the deciding factor in which startup or internet giant will effectively leverage this model of internet usage to their favor.

In this packaging, if a social network treats their users and contributers as partners rather than freelance workers, that would work a whole lot better. Contributions can be incentivised in terms of an algorithm based on popularity and effectiveness of the contribution. "Making Money" can never and should never be the central theme of such a network - it should be contribute the best you can, and both, the creators and managers of the platform and the user/contributers are rewarded as partners in content creation and monetization. In such a scenario, users would contribute not because they want to make money out of the netowork, but because it is their own network - to the extent of their contribution. whatever they contribute, is their own, and makes them money, too.

Re: Gmail Competing with DotMac?

Pranav — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:37:06 -0000

Looks like google are indeed doing something very similar to what .Mac has been offering for a few years now: offering large amounts of adjustable storage space in the cloud for email and photos (and other things probably soon to come)

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-10-n90.html , http://mashable.com/2007/08/09/gdrive/

So I guess as you said, an apple/google partnership on this front might actually be in the works!

Re: mylivesearch beta goes live, doesn’t even support Firefox!

Pranav — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 15:56:56 -0000

smithie,

when I posted this, MLS was showing a message that my browser (firefox) is not supported. when juik commented about a day after the post, that firefox is available, I re-checked MLS. and firefox was, indeed an option at the time.

I use ubuntu linux mostly (I've mentioned this in the post), and when i re-checked the mylivesearch website a day after making this post, as I have mentioned in the update - there is, as of posting that update, and yet, as of posting this comment, no linux (or mac) support - checkout the screenshot at the bottom of the post above!

Re: No more Free overnight shipping at Zappos!

Pranav — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:14:24 -0000

I don't think it's much too different online as well,

Zappos has it's own market of over $1B in sales per year - by offering shoes and handbags (and now few other related niches) along with great customer service.

They did start off as a small niche e-retailer few years ago, For any business to sustain, it has to have growth, When zappos started, Amazon had already begun selling apparel, but zappos, shoebuy, shoes.com, ebags etc found their own markets and are growing every year. There is room for everyone in online retail, as long as e-retailers are not just in for the money, but to build something that online shoppers will appreciate and like.

This "something" can be anything. Sometimes, it is simply a range of products that can't be found at the big stores, sometimes as simple as great customer services, quicker delivery or even a very well designed website,

Ultimately, I think niche e-retail is not about running a small business and surviving in the midst of bigger players, but about starting a small business and making as big as it can be.

Re: “Are you an affiliate marketer? You suck!” ~ Calacanis

Pranav — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:14:22 -0000

Maybe I'd have had a better idea of what you were implying if I was actually there (or seen a video). you did seem to make too many generalized statements - from what I read in the the transcript, at least, - to make all affiliates look like payperpost.

Re: gimme - social shopping on facebook

Pranav — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:29:04 -0000

Oops, thanks for clearing that up. I'll edit the post.

Re: Radical Buy ~ Social Shopping + Affiliate marketing on facebook

Pranav — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:02:05 -0000

Hey Vlad! Welcome back! :)

It's a fantastic theme isn't it? makes a blog look really clean and professional.

Re: Text Amazon to buy it

Pranav — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:04:15 -0000

Exactly, the transition may be slow, but I'm sure it will happen. Imagine a year from now, one may be texting a comparison shopping site for the prices for a product just seen at a store - and get an SMS with prices and offers on that product available online, AND within a one mile radius of your current location!

Re: No more Free overnight shipping at Zappos!

Pranav — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:30:28 -0000

Cassie,

While they don't "officially" offer free overnight shipping, there have been reports ever since they discontinued the offer of them surprising customers by shipping orders overnight.

Re: Do You Blog in English?

Pranav — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 05:07:29 -0000

Re: PRWeb vs PPC

Pranav — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:36:33 -0000

Re: Google Directory Lists BupmZee! For My URL

Pranav — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 16:06:50 -0000

Re: Tomorrow Is My Birthday. Do You Think Bill Gates Will Buy Me A Mac?

Pranav — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:50:10 -0000

Happy Birthday, Vlad!
Why not just download ubuntu linux instead? :)

Re: “Ubuntu Is Really Not Just an OS, It’s a Lifestyle”

Pranav — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:48:08 -0000

Re: Affiliate Marketing & Blogging Disclosure Test, Your Help Needed

Pranav — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:16:16 -0000

Link #2 - dunno why, but I'd click there if someone offers such options on their webpage/blog post (I didn't click because I am not signing up yet).

Re: Affiliate Marketing & Blogging Disclosure Test, Your Help Needed

Pranav — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:37:55 -0000

LOL @ Mark. Jim has an interesting point though - if he is talking about all sites/blogs, not just his blog. would disclosing that a link is an affiliate link help or repel visitors from clicking?

Re: Will Google Try To Own Affiliate Marketing Like Everything Else?

Pranav — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:43:20 -0000

Jim,

From what I am seeing google isn't quite eating CJ and linkshare alive, they are not even entering what "mainstream affiliate marketing" is. They are just a BETA CPA network who will eventually let people who have never been affiliates become affiliates. For the "supers", I don't see google ever becoming major option, maybe a part of the mix, but that's what Google will ever become - They are not monopolizing anything, the way google is looking at it is to create a market for CPA in the places it hasn't reached yet.

Re: Lacoste - City Croc New Shopping Bag :: Styleocial - Style conversations

Pranav — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:01:35 -0000

Doesn't look like it's in stock at zappos right now. did you try www.ebags.com ?

Re: The World is Flat

Pranav — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:59:50 -0000

An Email to google can get you indexed in co.za, manually - I know someone who has a .com hosted in the US and got indexed in google.in in this manner - so that might with with google south africa too.

Re: The World is Flat

Pranav — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:02:21 -0000

BTW, I am reading "the world is flat" on an off for the past week, too! There is another book I am reading alongside (recommended reading for anyone reading the world is flat), called "3 billion new capitalists", contradictory (sort of) to the world is flat, but very convincing.

Re: Thoughts from Affiliate Summit West

Pranav — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:31:08 -0000

Now that's one absolutely fantastic blog post about the calacanis keynote. Six figure checks are not pathetic if it's six figure checks that make you happy!

A Buddha (or replace with saint, yogi, whatever) once said to a new disciple seeking enlightenment - "Why do you want enlightenment? you may not like it!". Some people realize that and don't go for their respective nirvanas, and that's as cool as buddhahood. To be happy is nirvana. For some (myself included ;) ) happyness may mean success at work (lots of money, lots of work, lots of ideas, trying to change the world, etc) for some others, happyness is much simpler (spending time with family and friends, enjoying a good meal, etc).

Happyness - no matter how complex or simple, isn't pathetic.

Re: SEO Copywriter

Pranav — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:48:54 -0000

I know someone who'd be interested and is fantastic at SEO writing, and writing for the web in general (used to work with us before we started outsourcing copywriting work), but he's based in india (most probably willing to re-locate) - let me know if that's fine, I'll ask him to send you the resume.

Re: 2007/04/24/which-social-network-is-most-likely-to-get-you-laid/

Pranav — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:06:12 -0000

You missed out orkut. It's HUGE outside north America and very popular among youngsters in Brazil and India.

Re: Bug Story Blogs - byKiara.com features Product Comparison, Ratings, Reviews, Name Brands and more...

Pranav — Thu, 14 May 2009 04:42:56 -0000

Testing

Re: Bug Story Blogs - byKiara.com features Product Comparison, Ratings, Reviews, Name Brands and more...

Pranav — Thu, 14 May 2009 04:48:42 -0000

Is disqus the only bug story?

Re: Does Twitter make you a better blogger?

Pranav — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 19:43:17 -0000

twitter is the best thing since blogging. Too much text is just not required for some things you want to say and the 140 character limit is more than enough.

Microblogging rocks!

Re: Mike Arrington is wrong about Google search

Pranav — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:38:07 -0000

Google doesn't need people to hang around it's website any longer than they already do. the way google's advertising based business model and search application is build, and should be - because it works, is that people can find what they are looking for and get there, fast.