Abhishek Tiwari

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Any new blogger knows that building reader traffic is long and hard process. I have been going through this process myself since inception of this blog. Bloggers typically use recommendations from experts like John Chow, ProBlogger etc. They offer multiple strategies for building traffic over time.

These strategies are sometimes expensive or really slow. BlogRush a new beta service aims to solve that in a very simple fashion. Once the blogger registers on their service, they receive code for enabling a widget (just like the one on the right column) on their respective blog.

The widget displays posts from other blogs with similar topics. However the important thing to note is that BlogRush displays posts from the registered blogger, on other blogs as many times the widget gets displayed. So if the blogger gets 100 page views, her / his blog headlines will be displayed 100 times on other blogs hosting BlogRush widget.

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Amazon who has clearly established itself as the Web Services Operating System has made another interesting announcement today. Amazon is launching a start-up contest with awards up to $100,000 in cash and Amazon credits. Not only that, the winner will receive an offer from Amazon to invest in their start-up. The key is that the start-ups must utilize Amazon’s web services for their offering. This includes S3, EC2, payment service etc.

Here is how it will work (from contest site):

To enter, developers, entrepreneurs, and start-ups begin by completing an online application by October 28, 2007. The Amazon judges’ panel will review all applications and choose five finalists, based on originality and creativity of the idea, likelihood of long-term success, how well it addresses a need in the marketplace, and implementation of pay-as-you-use Amazon Web Services.

Finalists will be announced in November and Amazon will produce a video of each finalist to post on aws.amazon.com where the community can vote for their favorite start-up.

For the Final Round, AWS will fly the finalists to Amazon Headquarters in Seattle to present their idea to the judges’ panel. That evening, the finalists will pitch their business to VCs, mingle with industry leaders and Amazon executives, and be featured at the AWS Start-Up Challenge Awards Dinner, where the grand prize winner will be announced.

This is a very interesting move by Amazon. Who knows they may end up setting up a fund for start-up utilizing AWS, very similar to the fund dedicated to Facebook apps.

So if you are an entrepreneur or a start-up already dabbling with AWS, go check it out.

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Just yesterday I posted about ZOHO and their move in the small business marketplace and potential threat to Google. Google made a significant announcement today where it will partner with Cap Gemini to offer its office applications to enterprise customers. Cap Gemini already runs desktop services for over a million customers will starting offering Google apps to enable productivity and collaboration. Google offers following within its premier app edition:

• Gmail (with 10 GB)
• GTalk
• GCal
• Start page
• Page creator
• Docs and spreadsheet
• Management apps, enterprise support and
• API access

Well I was hoping that this was just another announcement among the plethora of press releases Google makes. However almost hours later this announcement is drawing heat from other big players in this space.

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Google launched their white-label app service mid to late last year, for small businesses, schools and personal use. From that point onwards this has been quite a hit as many start-ups and families have started utilizing their services. I too use their services for my personal domain.

This is quite a nascent space where folks like Google are gaining some ground. Most of these services have been offered for free, however the small business editions are being offered for a premium.

Zoho on the other hand broke onto the scene early last year as one of the strong players in the web office space. Zoho has been a very aggressive company, frequently releasing new features to bring a 360 degree offering. Until now this has been seen as a play to offer cheap alternative to Microsoft Office. This offering however was labeled as a personal edition. Anyone could have registered and used their services for free.

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Orkut (Google’s Social Network) announced a new look yesterday. They haven’t had much success in North America or Europe (Bebo is hottest in Europe) but are pretty hot down in Latin America and Asia. Most of the invites I receive on Orkut are from my buddies in India. So after few years of service they are moving (according to their blog) towards cooler Web 2.0 like style. Here is a screenshot for your pleasure.

Well, quite frankly, that don’t impress me much. I am glad that they are bringing new features in like feeds and video. However smoother look, curvy edges and bluish coloring scheme ain’t cutting it anymore.

Although they have had a lot of success in Latin America and India, they are trailing behind likes of MySpace and Facebook. Based on a recent analysis from ComScore Orkut hasn’t really grown over the past year.

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