Few months back, there was a guest article by best-selling author Scott Fox[of Internet Riches fame] on Internet Riches for Indian Entrepreneurs[articles here & here]. This time we review Scott’s new book e-Riches 2.0

A short review
Let me start off with one of the best reasons to read the book – “Today your customers are online, even if your business has nothing to do with the Net, computers or Technology. To keep up with the competition, you need to promote what you sell by using the latest online marketing techniques to interact with your customers”. This is where e-Riches can help you to use the medium of the internet to establish your brand, make money and outsmart your competitors.

In depth review
It does not matter whether you are a web startup since this book covers a broad range of topics which might be helpful to four kinds of people

1. A corporate marketer or agency employee
2. A small business owner or partner
3. E-business curious and
4. Worried about your financial future.

In the current economic situation, most of the people can be put under the category[4] and internet can definitely be an alternative source of generating some income. This is where e-Riches 2.0 comes in very handy since it covers the various aspects of Web 2.0 and beyond. Also, even if you are not able to earn online, the book would definitely help you/your business to create an effective brand.

It touches upon the various aspects of the Web namely -

1. Email marketing
2. Social Media Marketing
3. Importance and usage of mediums like Blogs and Microblogs
4. New online Public Relations[PR] and Promotion tools
5. Online broadcasting [How to use Video Marketing]
6. What makes a winning online marketing strategy

Most interesting chapters
Although the entire book was quite interesting to read, few of chapters entered in my favorites category. They are -

Social network marketing
Whether you are Web startup or not, Social Networks have become very important since, all the conversation about your brand is happening there. Many times, I hear that we are not internet-savvy & hence you become unaware about what is being told about you as a person/your company. This is where this chapter comes in handy since it touches upon all the aspects of SN Marketing namely -

• Why should you/your startup use Social Networking.
• Which Social Networking medium is best for your business.
• Strategies for success in Social Networking.
• Quick start guide for guys who are new to this medium.

Era of Blogging and Micro-Blogging
Everyone [or should I say most of us] know what is a Blog, but how many of us use the medium effectively.This is where this can be an excellent starting point if you want to use Blogging to reach the right set of people and to promote your business. It explains the Do(s) and Don’t(s) of blogging and touches upon each & every corner of the medium.

Microblogging especially Twitter has now proved an effective medium for marketing and the chapter talks on Twitter for Personal use as well as for business use.This complete chapter was a delight to read !!!

Who should read e-Riches 2.0?
If you are already quite acquainted with the Web and the various aspects of Marketing, this book would help you with some important pointers which can be used in your daily routine. However, if you are new to this entire Web arena, e-Riches could turn out to be an excellent starting point of your journey.

What else could it have?
1. The chapter on Twitter could have been a bit more exhaustive and should have included some interesting tweets on how businesses are using that medium. A small Q&A with few business owners could have made a huge difference giving it a more dialogue oriented approach.

2. Though Facebook had a huge mention in the book, Orkut was left far behind. Some more detailed analysis on how Orkut could be used a marketing machine would have been insightful [Note-Orkut is hugely popular in India though Facebook is catching up ...]

My personal learning
It has been long[4.5 years] since I am blogging. I have been thinking of booking my own domain[which would stand as my own brand] but had been delaying for a quite a long time.

After reading Scott’s book, I understood personal branding in a much better way & have now registered ThoughtsPrevail

Final Words on e-Riches 2.0
As stated before, it could be an excellent starting point or an excellent resource for detailed reference on some of the activities that you perform on the Web.

My personal thanks to Scott Fox for including my Facebook profile[as his Fan] in his book.Scott, if blogging wouldn’t have been there, we wouldn’t have connected with each other !!!

Sometimes, it is better to leave our normal path & do something different.You might have read lot of articles on Startups, Technology, Book reviews & some of my small achievements;but this time, ThoughtsPrevail has something different/hatke to offer Readers are always smarter & as you might have observed the title of the article “We have a contest !!!”

As a part of the contest, answer one/both of the following two questions[ as a comment in the article with your contact details] & win some cool goodies from Virgin Mobile-Indian Hatke League

1. Suggest a hatke name for one of the existing IPL team(s) with a valid reason for the same.
2. You have seen FakeIPLPlayer blog rise to popularity; on a similar lines, Suggest a Hatke title for the official IPL Blog.

Rush your entries before 29th May,2009.

* It is an open contest & you can compete against yourself by submitting unlimited entries.
* Creativity is the only key for being “Hatke/Different”.
* If you are one of the lucky winners, you would be contacted by either email or phone number provided in your comment.
* If you would like to spread the message of this contest, please use the following link.

Hope you guys have a Hatke time !!!

Web has been my best friend and it is the only where I could have found my first ever Angel Investor, a person who believed in me and my ideas .Though it would be close to a month since Valentine’s day has passed,I would like to share an article which was published in DivyaBhaskar newspaper[V-Day special edition],Ahmedabad [I received my copy few days back !!!]. The central theme of the article was Why Web is the best place to find your life partner.

Note:
The article is in Gujarati,if you know the language;hope you like the article else kindly scroll down to have a look at our photo.

Below are three key take-away(s) from the article:
1. Maintain an excellent profile on the Web.It may not only get you your Angel, but would also help you in each & every aspect of your personal & professional life.
2. If you are not blogging, start a blog[more here].Without my blogger friend Paras Shah, this interview wouldn’t have been possible. He was the one who introduced me to the journalists.
3. Finally, point(2) leads us to Networking.Be an active networker; whether times are good or bad, guys in your network would definitely be your savior & sometimes, you may also find a surprise appearance in a newspaper

It has been a long long time since I wrote my last article.Guess time has finally come to break the BLOGGING shackles [one of my new year resolution's] with another great news for ThoughtsPrevail.As per the recently released list by eCairn Marc Dangeard,ThoughtsPrevail is the 91st most influential blog for Entrepreneurs …Check the entire list below:

On the personal front, I have relocated to Hyderabad where I am currently working for a startup;more about which would follow soon on my LinkedIn profile.To keep up with the same spirit of blogging, there are a couple of book reviews,interviews with startup founders, personal experiences & few surprises on Thoughtsprevail

Thanks to Invenio group for this wonderful list, guess it is time to relook at my feeds in Google Reader !!!

To start with, I started blogging in the start of 2005 and since than, it has been a roller-coaster ride.The blog which started off as MY personal blog [like a diary] became YOUR [the reader's] personal blog!! I met a lot of wonderful entrepreneurs,startups,technologists through this powerful medium [in short,blog has been a CHANGE AGENT] & hence, I have now decided to end my journey of blogging Oh Oh wait, I was just kidding;how can I give up my second life !!! Now let me now jump to the crux of the story

After few mentions about me & my blog in newspapers, it was the time to take this blog from the print media to the broadcast media.Few days back, there was a short story on blogging on UTVi Business Channel and ThoughtsPrevail [along with myself] got a good coverage on the show [the video footage below]

It was nice to see myself and my blog on TV.On this occasion,I would like to thank each one of you[the readers,visitors & most of all Google ] for bringing ThoughtsPrevail till this stage & the UTVi media team for finding this blog worthy for their show.

Other past achievements:
ThoughtsPrevail enters Guy Kawasaki’s AllTop
Rohit Agarwal’s TechTribe recognizes ThoughtsPrevail
Winner of “Art of the Start” contest & my favorite
Can a blog get you your Angel

As you might have seen on my blog, I am an ardent fan of Guy Kawasaki.It is an honor for me[as well as ThoughtsPrevail] to get featured in the India Section of his website AllTop

Below is a email confirmation from AllTop Team:

It is a great moment for me [since, AllTop is Guy's startup] , to add this badge to my blog

Thanks to each one of you for making this happen !!! An interesting journey for ThoughtsPrevail with one more feather to it’s cap ; some of the so called “Past Achievements” can be found here, here and here.

This is just the beginning and more is yet to come !!!!

For the last few days have been very busy for me and I would like to unravel a short story.I had put a post on my blog “Asking people,why do they blog?” and I had mentioned some of the reasons,why I blog.Blog could definitely land you in your dream job or help you in a pre-management degree or building contacts or earn few $ …. but I found a different reason to have a Blog

Blogging would not have been possible without Web 1.0 or 2.0 and blogging has changed a lot since the arrival of Web 2.0 Most of us who want to startup or have a startup know the importance of an understanding life-partner in their life. Now you guessed it right My search for a perfect partner ended on a Web 1.0 site and later my blog contributed around 30% to a new relation which started with an engagement on 20th June,2007. I never knew,a blog could create wonders in my personal life as well. Just as we know that it takes hardly sometime for launch a startup in the Silicon Valley,it harldy took few hours for us to decide on starting up our new relation

After winning Art of the Start Contest on Startups in India,there is another small feather in my cap .This time,the reward is from Rohit Agarwal,CEO of TechTribe.Yes,I received a free copy of “How Innovators Connect” by Rohit Agarwal and Patricia Brown and the reason is (again) my blog .

I just read the introduction page and guess what,the content is not only excellent but it has also got interviews from Entrepreneurs including one of the my personal favorites “Guy Kawasaki” who is also covered in the book.I would definitely post my personal comments on the book along with the learnings from the book.

Below is a small momento of my achievement: