Facebook Home : GIANT is making the GIGANTIC leap

A lot more buzz is spreading around regarding the recent declaration of "Facebook Home" by co-founder Zuckerberg. Different folds of discussions are taking place. Few people are commenting it as another version of screen saver, while some are deeply concerned about the security of the users.

Interestingly all are commenting based on few assumptions & perception made on sheer imagination as this particular thing has not released any prototype yet. This innovation is going to hit the world wide web on 12th April'13. So for the time being commenting on the good or bad sides of Facebook home is absolutely foolish act.

To me Zuckerberg , the person who have redefined the social media , is not going to do something whimsically. There is sharp indication of bright future business prospect. Just think for a while, if the screen of your smart phone is pre-occupied with one app , you are so much within its control. This is huge business.

As a business entity if you are in control of the major touch point of your consumers to display your product, you have the absolute monopoly power of making making great business out of it.

Primarily as the name suggests 'Facebook Home' which will let the users have their home screen active with facebook application with live chatting option. So far my understanding says , you will remain logged in and news feed will actively show on your display.

So whenever you will look at your smart pal (phone) you will have to see through facebook. Bang on ... that's the hot spot where you will have the liberty and endorsement for displaying your offerings to the right consumer.

Nowadays, the most common touch points that we use to reach prospective consumers, are either expensive or do a little to grab attention. But this time around, such a concept of permanently occupying the home screen would make the deal so hot for overall businesses.

Again another revolution is just at the doorstep. Stepping upon the uniqueness and first mover advantage, for one more time , Zuckerberg is going to rewrite the history with shared benefit. Giant is making the gigantic leap.

Photo courtesy: allthingsd.com t1.gstatic.com rack.1.mscdh.com
Review by Abir Hossain

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1Weather; an amazing weather app

1Weather; an amazing weather app Weather app in mobile always amazes me. You dont need to rely on tv or radio to know the whereabouts of the weather of a particular time. It’s withinh your palm now. You can surprise people with your prediction reading through the weather app. That’s the best part to me.

Few days back, more specifically in last moonsoon season, I made several prediction about the possibility of rain and it worked like anything. I started sharing it with my dad. Initially he thought , it was a fluke.Neither I was properly convinced at that time. But with the proof of several incidents , I got convinced and thus I have grown the interest in me.

At the very onset of my smart phone using, one of my senior colleagues recommended me such an app that can give the weather forecast of my location. That was accuweather. I immediately downloaded it and started using with sheer excitement.

I have been effectively using this app till date. But couple of days ago, while browsing Playstore randomly, I came up with another weather app i.e 1weather. After going through few user comments, I decided to give it a try with an expectation of experiencing something completely new.

Honestly speaking, I have found 1Weather a very nice and effective app. And it’s way better than any

weather app of such genre  It’s nice to keep your eyes on, smooth, attractive visuals, wonderful graphical presentation etc have made it standout. To me the most effective attribute of this app is that, it can detect your exact location and can give the forecast with beautiful presentation.

I believe, 1weather is more impact full due to it’s several distinctive factors. Till now I am pretty happy with that , and I would highly recommend people to have it who wants to track the weather forecast.

Review by Abir Hossain

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"Google Keep" - another invention to keep millions of users

” Google Keep” - another invention to keep millions of users. Just downloaded Google Keep. Not because of it’s utility but the name Google attracts me so strongly , that it becomes very hard to resist.

I somehow feel attached with Google for so long. Particularly I have witnessed the rise of Google and how it has become the internet giant . Hope ‘keep’, another of it’s creation would hook millions of net savvy like me.

The softer part of adding color to the note must make it stand out with others. One thing is for sure, color always spices up our lives. To me it’s one of the major sources of happiness. And Google has once again proved it’s amazing ability to redefine simplicity which is well depicted here in ’ keep’ by adding color schemes.

It’s quick and simple but to my utter surprise, there is no scope of uploading any file as attachment. So one needs to take photograph using camera and that would be uploaded tied with relevant notes . Other than that , voice recording system looks pretty handy and off course , sharing options are good as usual.

Now the big question comes - Evernote or Google Keep ? To be frank , despite my blind support towards Google  I have found color as the only distinctive factor with Evernote. But on the other hand , few important options are missing.

Therefore, just a suggestion for Google, don’t go for inventing something just for the sake of combating competition. Such a monster does not look good doing so. You have already outsmarted others , just keep doing that with unique invention.

Review by Abir Hossain

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Future Growth Potential of Tumblr

Tumblr has become the most trafficked website in USA. A recent statistics shows that the number of visit by the people has increased by 7% (May,09 – Nov,12).

Tumblr.com has the audience of 168.2 mil worldwide with 82.7 mil blogs and 36.8 billion posts. On an average , daily posts is around 68.7 mil according to Tumblr website.   

Tumblr.com has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 36. About 45% of visits to the site consist of only one pageview (i.e., are bounces). About 9% of visits to the site are referred by search engines. About 32% of Tumblr's visitors are in the US, where it has attained a traffic rank of 18. Its content places it in the “Hosts” category of websites.

Estimated percentage of global internet users who visit tumblr.com:

	Reach %	Change
Last 1 Month	2.557%	+ 7.9%
Last 3 Month	2.406%	+2.2%

So, the statistics shows that, Tumblr is growing very fast which project it as the next big thing.

Conceptually a blog is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first). Blogging flourishes in the 90s.

Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links". These small messages are sometimes called microposts. Through microblogging people now share:

- What they observe in their surroundings

- Information about events.

- What their opinions are about certain topics.       

And most importantly, they do not require to spend much time on it. Within a very short while using hand held device it is published. The mass people nowadays seek more exposure and tend to reveal their thought process.

Microblogging services have revolutionized the way information is consumed. Microblogging seems nowadays the future of communication platform because of then following reasons:

-         It can be done with simplicity and quickly.

-         It requires short attention spans.

-         People’s growing desire to remain connected.

-        The rising cost of travel that will cut down on face-to-face meetings.

-        The increased affordability, quality and functionality of digital communication tools.

Computers have been getting smaller and closer to our faces since their very beginning. First they were in big rooms, then they sat on desktops, then they sat on our laps, and now they're in our palms. With the increased number of hand held smart devices, microblogging prospect is even on the soar.

Tumblr and Posterous had fought a very tough battle over supremacy in microblogging service where Tumblr appeared to be the winner in the 3^rd Quarter of 2010. Tumblr leaves Postereous behind the competition. In recent technological world, time actually flies faster than we can even assume. Things can be altered anytime in this competitive edge. For instance Myspace was one of the highest visited social networking website in the world. But within the waves of time Facebook has now become talk of the town in place of Myspace. Now people, rarely talk about Myspace. Bottom-line of this discussion is , world of internet is very dynamic nowadays. To remain ahead of the game you need to evolve in a continuous basis. For Tumblr specifically, though it bet its main rival Posterous a couple of years back, but a recent acquisition by twitter (http://specialtake.com/tech-world/posterous-is-a-great-human-resource-acquisition-by-twitter.xhtml)  another gigantic microblogging site. Tumblr must remain vigilant regarding its competitor in order to remain in the game. 

Tumblr could be the next big thing in microblogging world because it has the uniqueness of blogging service like WordPress as well as on a microblogging service like Twitter.

Courtesy : alexa, quantcast, Wikipedia 

Review by Abir Hossain

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Posterous Is A Great Human Resource Acquisition By Twitter

Originally posted in  Specialtake.com  on  14th March, 2012

Acquisition by twitter:  its not Posterous . . . it’s the talent

Social networking sites being operative in the above the line (ATL) marketing (http://www.v7n.com/forums/marketing-forum/38819-what-above-line-below-line-marketing.html), has started acquiring the smaller sites like Twitter’s very recent acquisition of Posterous.

Yesterday (March, 13, 2012), the short-form blogging platform Posterous has sold to Twitter, only 19 days after denying any sale plans.  Posterous is a simple yet innovative way of microblogging which showed immense potential initially by a neck to neck battle with Tumblr. Later on Tumblr emerged as the undefeated champion.

What is the Mathematics shadowing above the decision

Market share refers to the percentage of sales a company has in a specific market within a specific time period. For example, General Motors has about 37 percent of the annual unit sales of cars in the United States. Higher market share translates into higher profits. Gaining or building market share is an offensive or attack strategy to improve the company’s standing in the market.

Gaining market share is risky and expensive, hence you should first decide if it is a sensible move. It is a viable move when one or more of the following conditions apply:

1)      In high-growth markets building market share is easier because there is a chance to share the pie with competitors without triggering a price war.

2)      Developing an innovative new product is an opportunity to wrest market share from existing products by offering better performance or lower costs.

3)      When a large company takes over a smaller firm, it can invest money and experience to expand the market of the smaller firm.

4)       When the competitor is unwilling or unable to fight back (e.g. unable to cut prices) because it is in financial distress, busy with other opportunities or ignorant of the challenge you pose.

Among all, acquisition is somewhat easier & quick way of gaining benefit for the biggies. For example, Philip Morris International (PMI), is the leading international tobacco company despite the fact of tobacco industry being getting darker. Winning formula over the time is it expanded its business through a mixture of organic growth, geographic expansion, and acquisitions. PMI has successful track record of acquiring and integrating companies, including the recent acquisition of Rothmans Inc. of Canada. Other recent acquisitions in Colombia, Indonesia, and Serbia and increased investments in Mexico and Pakistan have also reinforced their position as the leader of the international cigarette market.

Why twitter acquired Posterous

It apparently seems that twitter wont sacrifice its unique selling proposition of micro blogging concept by going beyond 140 characters adapting Posterous’s comparatively large space. Then what benefit twitter is looking for?Probably the followings would answer:

• Get benefited by simultaneously acquiring  its product manager and engineers as well. Posterous team will definitely be a valuable addition at Twitter.
• Utilize the technological know how of innovative approach of Posterous by improving the sharing.
• Gain quick shot volume of users as Posterous had 15 million monthly users.

Will Posterous remain alive anyways

After the acquisition twitter is saying that Posterous Spaces will remain up and running without disruption. But twitter is also clarifying that they’ll give users ample notice if they make any changes to the service. For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, they’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks. So it’s clear that, Posterous wont be alive more  and twitter’s fame in acqui-hiring startups and shutting them down is only firming up which is evident by seeing that it didn’t take long for Posterous’ users to start looking for alternative options within one day of this big change. WordPress, which is clearly winning from this situation; according to blog that saw a 250% increase in imports from Posterous over the last hours.

As because Posterous’ business model isn’t totally compatible with Twitter’s own business model—so it’s evident that acquiring the talent would be the core objective of this acquisition. Now it would be interesting to see new innovation coming up with Twitter with the end of the chapter of Posterous.

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How To Use Thumb To Become An Opinion Leader

Originally posted in specialtake.com on 13th March, 2012. 

Thumb  (http://thumb.it/) – a social network with purpose 

Social networking has been embedded into the modern life style nowadays. People can use this networks of online friends and group memberships to keep in touch with current friends, reconnect with old friends or create real-life friendships through similar interests or groups. Notable presence of such kind networking service providers are like – Facebook & Twitter whose accidental successful innovation led the social networking a boost up and defined the internet mobility differently.

For last couple of years, being encouraged by the success of some other social networking site, so many sites evolved but few of them could actually attract the users. Among those, Thumb is the distinctive one that was born back in 2010 (Initially known as Opinionaided).

How does it work:

Voters can voice their opinion with a thumb up, a thumb down or a neutral thumb, and have the option to leave a comment if they desire. Users can also choose who they poll with their questions, querying just men, just women or a combination of the two, just their friends in the service or even people from their contacts. People use thumb to get opinion of others on a specified things or subjects very quickly and thus helping them taking decisions. Most importantly, the responses of the people are very easily quantifiable by only thumb up and thumb down. On an average, each question gets 70 responses and 10 comments.

For example, in last valentines day, I was about to buy a bouquet of flowers for my girl friend and just before taking the final one I thought to have it checked out by others. So I took the picture and uploaded in the thumb asking whether its looking good or not. Within 4 to 5 minutes I got 170 responses and 60% of which gave me thumb up rating with several comments. Thus I took the final bouquet which eventually made the day for both of us.

Ask for opinions:

You can easily ask for opinion on any things. A relevant picture that needs to be uploaded either by taking a new photo, searching online or use an existing photo. Then you select the category where your question is well fit in and then ask question for opinion.

Give opinion:

Besides asking you can also give your opinion to thousand others by clicking on voting section.  Here on the basis of your specified categories, question will appear along with photos, and you are to give thumb up or down or neutral and you can also give your personal views in the comment box.

Results:

Here you can both see the results of the question you asked and you helped others. Its simple but full of fun. If any of your comment is being replied by others, you will really feel valued and there would be options for replying and continuing the conversations. While conversing you can also make people your friend if you feel like. So that later on, if you would like , you can keep your questions only for your thumb friends.

Me:

Last option is ME. Where you will have your simple profile and other things. Two options are here -  My friends and Find Friends. You can have your facebook or twitter friends in thumb as well by tapping in find friends option. Besides, your usage statistics with the number of votes you casted and also number of stars that you have received so far. If you are recognized with top advisor in any category, it will appear here.

Top Advisor:

Interestingly, there is the great chance of getting reply from the people who asked the question. In fact, if your comment is helpful for the asker, he/she can give star to your comment which will lead you to be recognized as the top advisors in specified category. Trust me, when your views or comments will be recognized by star mark and some day you become the top advisor in any category , you will feel like an expert. It took me 20 days to get the top advisor rating in relationship category. Its fun and pretty encouraging as well.

How Thumb is differentiated with others:

Existing social networking site actually let the users use two way windows – people can express themselves as well as they can observe. Engaging with people is depending on each individual. And it has been found through a survey conducted among 148 facebook users that, 71% of them like to engage on social network but end up not doing so. As a result, people start feeling bit monotonous just by expressing themselves or just by observing others. Here is the underlined opportunity which is well cracked by Thumb. It absolutely engages people giving them instant feedback from hundreds of other people. And this happen without making it further complicated with too much options. Its very simple, very sleek hence effective tool for taking decisions.

In today’s society it’s safe to say that the majority of people can be seen either on their phone or on a social network in one way or another at almost any given time throughout the day. Here Thumb would be the first social networks which will allow you to be a part of it with a purpose.  Being human being, we all enjoy helping people, get benefited from the timely advice and spontaneously connecting people who are well like us.

According to Thumb’s latest figures, the average user now spends 205 minutes per month on the opinion sharing service. Compare that to comScore’s latest research on social media use that showed the average Tumblr and Pinterest visitor spent 89 minutes a month on each of the service’s websites. So here I conclude saying that, Thumb, the winner of best app ever award in 2011, has started creating a mark on the peoples’ lives purposefully.

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Foreign Direct Investment in Bangladesh (Prospects & Problems)

FDI and Bangladesh

After 1990 some FDI came in to Bangladesh. At that time some major attractive sectors for FDI were oil, gas and power. Besides some more FDI took place in cotton, chemical industries and textile industries. USA, Malaysia and UK were the top most countries to do FDI in Bangladesh. But the inflow of FDI is below expectation in comparison with other neighboring developing nations like China, Vietnam, Hong Kong etc.


Offer of Bangladesh for encouraging FDI

Bangladesh offers the most liberal FDI regime in South Asia. These include: tax holiday for five to seven years, income tax exemption for 15 years for the experts of foreign enterprise, protection from double taxation, exemption from duty for importing machinery and spare parts for 100 percent export-oriented units, full repatriation of profit and dividend by the foreign companies, eligibility for full working capital loans from local banks on banker-client relationship, option for foreign firms or joint venture not to sell there shares through public issues and protection from expropriation by the state under Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act.


Determinant of FDI in Bangladesh

Determinant of FDI in Bangladesh can be grouped into two categories. One is resource-oriented and second one is market-oriented.

Resource-oriented determinant includes availability of raw materials, low cost skilled/ unskilled labors, technology created or innovation created assets or physical infrastructure.

Market-oriented determinant includes market size and marketability of the field products for which FDI is sought. Projects that depend on a resource ( e.g. oil, gas and mineral processing projects) often have to compete for capital funds with similar projects proposed elsewhere to investors.

Other factors such as liberal industrial policy reforms, liberalizations of policy related to FDI, investment treaties with other countries for promotion and protection of investment, incentive packages etc are also regarded as the determinant of FDI in Bangladesh.

FDI situation in Bangladesh

According to an UNCTAD report, FDI to Bangladesh averaged $ 7 million annually from 1990-96 but increased to an annual average of $ 196 million from 1997-2000, primarily due to foreign investment in energy sector. In 2001, however, new FDI dropped 72% ( to $ 78 million) from the previous year. In 2002 new FDI again dropped to $ 52 million. But in 2003 FDI jumped to $ 120 million.
Bangladesh most often has sent trade delegation in foreign countries to explore the trade opportunities as well as highlight opportunities for investing in Bangladesh. In this connection, number of foreign business delegations have visited Bangladesh to explore trade and investment opportunities, including from India, France, Turkey, Malaysia, Taiwan China and Korea.


Prospect of FDI in Bangladesh

Bangladesh as a destination of large scale inward FDI depends on the terms and conditions that Bangladesh has right now. Infrastructure plays the vital role in this connection. But with the current infrastructure Bangladesh is not that potential for inward FDI. If the infrastructure can be improved then the scenario may be changed completely with some prospect for FDI in Bangladesh .

The most important prospect for FDI in Bangladesh is the availability of cheap labor.

Textile & garments sectors have very good potentiality for FDI. But nowadays it is thought that China is getting much more orders than Bangladesh. But the truth is that buyers do not rely on only one seller. So Bangladesh will have the potentiality in Textile & garments sectors for that reason.

Bangladesh has a big market of 150 million people. Per capita income is increasing and so as to the standard of their lifestyle. People were used to have only one dress but nowadays they tend to have more than one. Not only that rapid growth of garments has widen the employment opportunity for women. Previously where they used to use coal for cleaning teeth, now they use tooth paste. They tend to use cosmetics, sandals and so on. Besides they are sending their children to school. And they are also becoming conscious of having family planning. All these lead to improved lifestyle. So the market is ever increasing.

In India 30 coror people are middle aged who need 30 corore washing machine, 30 corore woven, 30 corore toaster. In Bangladesh the population is about 15 corore. So if per capita income of one corore people increases then it would be a huge market.

Bangladesh has a great prospect of FDI in power sector, gas sector and energy sector. These sectors are very highly capital incentive industries which have great demand. But locally there is no such company to meet this demand up. Not even the government has that capacity. Besides tariff is low in gas & power sector. So that’s why these sectors are very much potential in regard to FDI.

FDI is booming in service sector in Bangladesh because it is easy to take away profit from service sector. So there is gap in manufacturing sector. So a huge scope for FDI exists in manufacturing sector. China got very handsome FDI in their manufacturing sector.

Hospitality sector in Bangladesh may also be regarded as of another attractive prospect for FDI. Because we see peoples’ per capita income is increasing and as a result demand is creating for luxury apart from necessity only.

BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) can be a potential sector for FDI in Bangladesh.

In China 90% overseas Chinese bring remittance and invest them in their own country. But in case of Bangladesh though it has received $3.81 billion in the first eight month of the fiscal year 2006-2007, making 27.23 per cent growth than the same period of the last year, they don’t tend to invest those money rather they are more interested in purchasing land and building. So gap is always there for investment in the country whereas demand is increasing.

Foreign companies generally consider Bangladesh as fairly open and liberal to foreign investment and FDI.

Location advantage – ideal geographical location of the country for international business and very convenient sea and air access internationally foster the path for FDI.

Due to low cost of living the total cost of business in the country is fairly competitive in the global standard which is regarded as the one of the prospects for inward FDI in the country.

Bangladeshi products get the benefit from the duty free and quota free access to most developed countries (EU, Japan, USA, Australia etc) due to Generalize System of Preference (GSP). So foreign firm may also find this facility as the prospect for FDI in Bangladesh.


Problems of FDI in Bangladesh

The country has a bureaucratic system which is too much complicated and not compatible with an investment environment. The implementation of FDI generally is prolonged due to this inefficient and dishonest bureaucratic system.

Interrelated administrative barriers are also there that result in weak policy formulation and implementation, competitive drawbacks, poor quality of skills are also creating problem for inward FDI.

Ineffective institution and below standard governance dampen prospective FDI in Bangladesh.

Political turmoil and unrest situation between political parties pollute the environment for FDI.

Whatever FDI Bangladesh has, technology sharing is not happening in that way. So the real benefit of FDI is yet to hit the country.

Overall infrastructure of Bangladesh is too much below standard like roads and highways, transportation etc. Malaysia as a country, had improved their infrastructure first. They didn’t go for finding FDI rather FDI found and came by themselves just because of strong infrastructure.

Corruption is the most vital problem in Bangladesh in regard to FDI. It has become as an informal taxation. For business enterprise corruption works as tax or lubrication cost. Our society and culture have corrupted by sick politics. Besides due to corruption expenditure increases and apparently price also increases.

Black money exists everywhere in the world. In other countries this black money is subject to reinvestment whereas in our country it is not. Rather this money goes to another country.

Government control and management has been extremely ineffective and inefficient. The country is suffering from inefficiency of state-owned entities in telecommunication, energy, ports, aviation, railways, and banking and many other sectors. This inefficient sectors cost largely for FDI in the country.
The politically influenced government agencies are functioning as regulatory bodies without any operational autonomy. So an effective and rapid response towards providing the necessary services to investors is apparently absent in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh faces a system loss often probing with the lowest per capita power consumption and network coverage of electrification. This creates immense discouragement for investment in the power intensive industries.
Inefficient cargo handling causes high business cost. This happens because of the ill motive of labor union as well as sick politics.
Bangladesh provides various favorable investment facilities and incentives under liberalized industrial policy. Bodies like the Export Processing Zones are there to promote export orientation and privatization based growth strategy. However, in reality, none of these favorable policies and strategies are implemented, thus discouraging foreign investors.
The BOI (Board of Investment) of Bangladesh has a One Stop Service cell to serve and assist with various investment facilities, mostly FDI. But, materializing the service in reality is still beyond imagination.

Prolonged legal suit in Bangladesh put the investors into a great dilemma about whether to put their capital in this country or not.

Administrative coordination problem results in high business cost and hassle for investors.

Inefficient and corrupt custom system are also the hindrance for FDI in Bangladesh.

Besides all those problems some other problems are also there like poor leadership quality, ignorant labor force, disorganized capital market that damage the national image of the country to the investors.

There are numerous number of problems for inward FDI in Bangladesh. But still the country could be proved as a fantastic destination for inward Foreign Direct Investment by removing some of these problems.

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