Pages

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Bangladesh cricket team for cricket World cup,2007

The Bangladesh cricket team has often flattered to deceive in the cricket matches leading up to the cricket World cup. The Bangladesh cricket team has even beaten the Australian cricket team in the past, and has of course has great potential

In order to get to the Super Eights, the Bangladesh cricket team needs to beat the Indian cricket team or the Sri Lankan cricket team in the Group matches. Since the West Indies pitches are expected to aid the slow bowlers, Bangladesh can hope that their left arm spinners can work wonders in the slow West Indies cricket pitches.

If the Bangladesh cricket team manages to win against the Indian cricket team or the Sri Lankan cricket team in the cricket World cup in the West Indies, it will be a great boost to cricket in Bangladesh.

Ashraful and Rafique are the

Habibul Bashar, Shahriar Nafees Ahmed, Khaled Mashud, Mohammad Rafique, Mashrafe bin Mortaza, Javed Omar, Mohammad Ashraful, Aftab Ahmed, Rajin Saleh, Shahadat Hossain, Tushar Imran, Alok Kapali, Tapash Baisya, Abdur Razzak, Manzural Islam Rana, Syed Rasel, Mushfiqur Rahim, Enamul Haque jr, Nazmul Hossain, Farhad Reza, Sakib Al Hasan, Mehrab Hossain jr, Nadif Chowdhury, Nazmus Sadat, Junaed Siddiquee, Mohammad Sharif, Dollar Mahmud, Shahagir Hossain Pavel, Marshal Ayub, Tamim Iqbal Khan


View the original article here

Sachin Tendulkar should never be dropped

Sachin Tendulkar should never be dropped from the Indian cricket team. It hurts and pains me to hear about Sachin Tendulkar being summarily dropped from the Indian cricket team.


The most common complaint about Sachin Tendulkar nowadays is that he is not a crunch match cricket player and tends to succumb under pressure.But, that argument about Sachin Tendulkar is really flawed

The perception about Sachin Tendulkar's so-called failures for the Indian cricket team is influenced by two factors- Our large expectations from Sachin Tendulkar and his batting position

Since Sachin Tendulkar opens the Indian team's cricket innings or bats at number four,any good innings by Sachin Tendulkar is not noticed and taken as part of the course and nothing extraordinary.

Have you ever wondered what would happened if Sachin Tendulkar had failed in those cricket innings when he scores centuries?


Sachin Tendulkar is now in a non-enviable lose-lose scenario in Indian cricket.If Sachin Tendulkar had scored against the Bangladesh cricket team and if the Indian cricket team had scored a facile win, the Indian cricket media would have taken potshots at Sachin saying he picked an opportunity to score against a minnow cricket team

Labels: india-cricket, sachin, sachin-tendulkar, tendulkar


View the original article here

30+ Social Giving Sites that Connect People to Causes and Nonprofits

Posted By WebAdvantage.net on Mar 4th, 2011

With so many social media sites, tools, and technologies on the internet, we have more access to causes and nonprofits than ever before. The convergence of social media and activism has given rise to a new wave of “social giving” sites that are helping people discover, engage with, and support the causes and nonprofit organizations they care about.

From the lone activist to large nonprofits, social giving sites present organizations of any size with an opportunity to discover new, exciting ways to expand their online presence, increase awareness, mobilize volunteers, and garner support and donations from multiple fronts.

Here’s a look at more than 30 social giving sites that are revolutionizing the way people and nonprofits connect:

(in alphabetical order)

ActiveCause — ActiveCause, The Social Giving Network™ brings together nonprofits, corporations and individuals to form vibrant, self-activating communities. Has a host of innovative features and tools to empower philanthropists to spark change where it’s most needed.Amazee — A platform that empowers individuals and organizations to initiate and promote their ideas and plans in groups, to find like-minded people and raise funds.Betterplace.org — Large online donation platform connecting organizations in need of support with people who want to help, one-to-one, worldwide.Bring Light — Connects donors and charities to create a way for more informed and effective online fundraising. On Bring Light, approved Charities describe specific fundraising needs. Donors can then make donations via credit card or they can establish a Donor Account.Causecast — Gives nonprofit organizations an effective and aesthetically-pleasing forum to promote their ideas, raise money and increase awareness on the internet. Has slowly evolved into an inspired community of leaders and individuals, news and media, and tools used to take action like donating, volunteering, petition-signing and creating original content.Causes — Positions itself as the world’s largest platform for activism and philanthropy. Empowers individuals to create grassroots communities called “causes” that take action on behalf of a specific issue or nonprofit organization. Since 2007, Causes has brought together 140M users, raised $30M for over 25,000 nonprofits, and helps 500,000 user-created causes.Change.org — Start, join, and win campaigns for social change. Campaigns can be about anything, from supporting curbside recycling programs to fighting wrongful deportation. Change.org members start campaigns around thousands of different issues.Changents — Connecting the people that help the world (change agents) to the people that help them.ChangingThePresent — Connects people to more than 1500 meaningful charitable gifts offered by nonprofits worldwide. Lets you browse by cause or nonprofit name; members can also create charitable gift wishlists.Citizen Effect — Gives “Citizen Philanthropists” the ability to choose a project, leverage their social networks, and communicate directly with a partner community. Partners actively manage projects so they can seamlessly share information with Citizen Philanthropists and directly report on the impact projects are having on the ground.Crowdrise — Crowdrise, a unique blend of crowdsourcing, social networking, and other incentives, is all about online fundraising, event fundraising, volunteering and having the most fun in the world while doing it.DeliverGood — Builds efficiencies into the charitable giving process by connecting charities and non-profits who need stuff with people and companies who have stuff to give.DoSomething.org — One of the largest organizations in the US connecting young people to the causes they care about by creating a culture of volunteerism through web, TV, mobile and social media.FirstGiving — Partners with nonprofits to allow them to plan, execute, and measure successful online fundraising campaigns with FirstGiving’s fundraising software. For individual fundraisers, makes raising money online easy, effective, and fun.Getinvolved — Matches you to volunteer opportunities that are right for you based on your interests, causes you care about, and the skill sets you have to offer.Givealittle — A New Zealand based site, Givealittle exists to make good things happen. Part of a wave of online ventures worldwide figuring out ways to use the web to create a real difference offline. Members can donate to hundreds of online charities, and nonprofits can create member pages to increase awareness and collect donations online.GiveMeaning — An online fundraising site emphasizing creative fundraising ideas and other unique forms of charity donation.Givology — Partners with leading grassroots nonprofit organizations, local communities, and schools to sponsor education grants and innovative community-based education projects.GlobalGiving — Connects you to over 1,000 pre-screened grassroots charity projects around the world. Project Leaders post their causes and details about what they need, giving donors an inside look at the project’s unique needs and work being done.idealist.org — Users can search for volunteer opportunities, events, and other concrete ways to get involved. Organizations can create profile pages to advertise their presence and recruit people to the cause by connecting with volunteers, donors, and supporters.Jumo — A social network connecting individuals and organizations who want to change the world. Leveraging connection technologies, Jumo enables people to find, follow and support those working toward solutions on the ground in their community and in regions across the globe.Network for Good — Secure, convenient donation system that makes it possible to give to any charity, anywhere, anytime online. Processes donations for over 1.2 million charities via DonateNow.Philanthroper — A giving site with an interesting twist: think “Groupon”, except donating instead of buying. Every day, Philanthroper features a different nonprofit/charity on its ad-supported site and invites visitors to donate just a single dollar. Philanthroper takes no cut from donations.Pifworld — An online charity platform where your donation goes directly to personally selected projects. Via video updates, you can see the change made possible. On the website you can donate to projects you like and act to make a change.Piryx — Makes fundraising easy by connecting people with the causes they care about online; charges a small transaction fee to cover donation processing.Razoo — Search for and donate to nearly 1 million officially registered nonprofit organizations; set up a fundraiser for a charity of your choice in minutes; your donation or fundraiser can be shared with millions who believe in you and your cause.SixDegrees.org — Support your favorite charities by donating or creating fundraising badges — as well as check out the favorite causes of other people, including celebrities. You can also pay it forward with “Good Cards” – gift cards for charity that can be redeemed as a donation to more than 1 million charities.Small Change Fund — Empowers you to make big change with small change. Discover, share, connect with, and support grassroots projects in communities across the country – projects that need just a small amount of money to make a real and significant impact in the world.Social Actions — Connects you to the issues and causes you care about via subscription alerts to “action packs” grouped around popular causes, such as health care, human rights, and the green movement.VolunteerMatch — Makes it easy for good people and good causes to connect. Offers a variety of online services to support a community of nonprofit, volunteer and business leaders committed to civic engagement. Welcomes millions of visitors a year and is a preferred internet recruiting tool for more than 76,000 nonprofit organizations.YourCause — Uses personalized web pages to leverage member’s voices, networks, and spheres of influence to improve the lives of others and connects their causes to relevant charities. Offers more than 25 nonprofit categories and boasts over 1.2 million registered nonprofits.

Do you know of any other great social giving sites?  Tell us about them in the comments below and we’ll consider adding them to our list!

Comments(6)

View the original article here

Ricky Ponting lacks integrity in Sydney test match

Ricky Ponting surely lacks any semblance of integrity. The two appeals , one off Dhoni, where he claimed to have perfectly (!) taken the catch (see attached photo) and the catch by Clarke perfectly sum up his integrity or lack of it

As Prem Panicker writes in Rediff.com, Ricky Ponting should be banned until Ricky Ponting improves his behavior


Ricky Ponting said "There is no way I grounded the ball". What do you think, is Ricky Ponting grounding the ball or is the ground rising up to meet the ball ?


Labels: clarke, cricket, panicker, ponting, prem, ricky, sydney, test


View the original article here

Asia cup series 2004 cricket teams (India Vs SriLanka final)

Teams for the Asia cup cricket tournament

Sri Lanka team  for the Asia cup          Bangladesh team for the Asia cup

India team for the Asia cup                   UAE team for the Asia cup

Pakistan team for the Asia cup              Hong Kong team for the Asia cup

Established cricket teams for the Asia cup cricket tournament

The teams for the Asia cup cricket tournament includes the established teams of world cricket such as India ,Pakistan and Sri Lanka who will really be battling for the honours

The underdogs for the Asia cup cricket tournament

 The Asia cup cricket  series also includes the teams in Asia such as Bangladesh,UAE and Hong Kong. Bangladesh has of course started playing test and one day international cricket matches - but this should be a great outing for UAE and Hong Kong to show off their cricketing prowess.

Asia cup cricket series featuring India,Pakistan,Sri Lanka,Bangladesh,UAE,Hong Kong

Who will win the Asia cup?Discuss

Schedule for the Asia cup cricket series

Our successful past predictions- India Vs Pakistan series

Natwest cricket series


View the original article here

After Cancellation Notice, Offshore SEO Company Threatens Negative Reputation Management Campaign

Ash Buckles

A company received a smear campaign threat from its outsourced SEO firm because the firm knows Google’s algorithm improperly ranks negative results, which Google claims helps to show an impartial view of the Web.

Reference this e-mail and tell me if you’d rather hire offshore to save a few dollars or go with a reputable SEO company that can provide you with skilled SEO link builders and an on-going professional relationship.

This is in response to a request to cancel services for a month-to-month service offering:

negative online reputation campaign Click to Enlarge

The legal nature of these tactics is questionable in the United States, but hiring an offshore firm doesn’t provide you the same protection from a “Negative Reputation Campaign.”

It’s unbelievable that an SEO company would put its own reputation on the line with such an e-mail because a client has decided to go with another SEO firm. I’ve seen these tactics for more than a decade in both Web design/development and SEO, and its extremely unfortunate.

A couple weeks ago, Google tweaked their algorithm to penalize DecorMyEyes.com after the NY Times published an article discussing their alleged fraudulent business practices that resulted in supposed increased Google rankings.

Bottom line: Google took action! They need to continue that effort with sites like RipOffReport.com, ComplaintsBoard.com, Scam.com and other sites that obtain very high positions in the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and seem to be favored by Google’s algorithm.

When searching for brand names, you often see negative complaints published on these URLs at the top of the SERPs. I would understand seeing these URLs with negative information showing up in the SERPs for searches like:

Brand name scamBrand name sucksBrand name complaintsBrand name problemsAnd other keyword combinations based around negative terms

But when a brand name is the sole keyword and a complaint site URL is showing up #2, there is most likely an imbalance of credibility with Google’s algorithm that gives the complaint site the advantage.

Keep in mind the backlink portfolio to the URLs listed do not warrant a #2 ranking, nor does Google agree that a similarly credible website should rank for every brand in the world with little more than a brand name displayed in a page title, header tag and content body. At least Google’s love affair with Wikipedia can be argued that Wikipedia’s deep pages obtain thousands of links individually and therefore deserve a top ranking.

What did I miss in this post and plea to Google to do the right thing? Please comment and share.

Tags: Offshore SEO Company, Online reputation, orm, Outsourced SEO, Reputation Management


View the original article here

About cricket match games at GameCricket.com

about the GameCricket cricket match games

The free online cricket match games at GameCricket.com were written by me almost 10 years back, in an attempt to create a truly statistical cricket match game that can use match simulation and probabalistic analysis to generate a fun cricket match and also predict cricket match game results

The online cricket match game at GameCricket.com follows the ICC rules of international one-day cricket and Twenty20 cricket

In the GameCricket online cricket match game, if for example, you decide to play a fifty over match, each cricket team in this online cricket game has 50 overs to bat and each bowler has a maximum of 10 overs.The cricket game enforces power play for the first 15 overs and the corresponding last 10 overs of the cricket match


View the original article here

Sri Lankan cricket win in World cup predicted two months ago

Its time to crow, even if the Sri Lankan cricket team does not win the cricket World cup,2007. The very fact that the Sri Lankan cricket team has proved successfully that the Sri Lankans are among the two best cricket teams in the cricket
world proved that our statistical cricket results prediction system works


GameCricket.com uses a statistical technique based on one on one encounters in international cricket matches to predict the results of cricket matches. Statistics never lies and therein lies the secret of our cricket match predictor algorithms

Our most successful predictions in this cricket World cup- We predicted that the Indian cricket team could lose to the Bangladesh cricket team

Labels: 2007, bangladesh-cricket, cricket, cup, gamecricket.com, india-cricket, srilankan-cricket, world, world-cup-2007


View the original article here

After Cancellation Notice, Offshore SEO Company Threatens Negative Reputation Management Campaign

Ash Buckles

A company received a smear campaign threat from its outsourced SEO firm because the firm knows Google’s algorithm improperly ranks negative results, which Google claims helps to show an impartial view of the Web.

Reference this e-mail and tell me if you’d rather hire offshore to save a few dollars or go with a reputable SEO company that can provide you with skilled SEO link builders and an on-going professional relationship.

This is in response to a request to cancel services for a month-to-month service offering:

negative online reputation campaign Click to Enlarge

The legal nature of these tactics is questionable in the United States, but hiring an offshore firm doesn’t provide you the same protection from a “Negative Reputation Campaign.”

It’s unbelievable that an SEO company would put its own reputation on the line with such an e-mail because a client has decided to go with another SEO firm. I’ve seen these tactics for more than a decade in both Web design/development and SEO, and its extremely unfortunate.

A couple weeks ago, Google tweaked their algorithm to penalize DecorMyEyes.com after the NY Times published an article discussing their alleged fraudulent business practices that resulted in supposed increased Google rankings.

Bottom line: Google took action! They need to continue that effort with sites like RipOffReport.com, ComplaintsBoard.com, Scam.com and other sites that obtain very high positions in the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and seem to be favored by Google’s algorithm.

When searching for brand names, you often see negative complaints published on these URLs at the top of the SERPs. I would understand seeing these URLs with negative information showing up in the SERPs for searches like:

Brand name scamBrand name sucksBrand name complaintsBrand name problemsAnd other keyword combinations based around negative terms

But when a brand name is the sole keyword and a complaint site URL is showing up #2, there is most likely an imbalance of credibility with Google’s algorithm that gives the complaint site the advantage.

Keep in mind the backlink portfolio to the URLs listed do not warrant a #2 ranking, nor does Google agree that a similarly credible website should rank for every brand in the world with little more than a brand name displayed in a page title, header tag and content body. At least Google’s love affair with Wikipedia can be argued that Wikipedia’s deep pages obtain thousands of links individually and therefore deserve a top ranking.

What did I miss in this post and plea to Google to do the right thing? Please comment and share.

Tags: Offshore SEO Company, Online reputation, orm, Outsourced SEO, Reputation Management


View the original article here

The Cricket Astrologer Blog-One day cricket game predictions of all world cricket teams

Ajantha Mendis has suddenly burst into the world cricket scene through his mesmerizing display of spin bowlers against the Indian cricket team. Ajantha Mendis is however more similar to Anil Kumble than his idol, Muthiah Muralitharan

Ajantha Mendis is not a typical spinner like Muralitharan or Shane Warne but relies on his incredible accuracy to always be a threat to a batsman, irrespective of whether the batsman is batting on 0 or on 176.

Like Anil Kumble, Ajantha Mendis relies on his subtle changes of pace, direction and length to fox the batsmen

There are huge expectations from Ajantha Mendis among Sri Lankan cricket fans and cricket enthusiasts such as myself. Its only once in a generation that a classy spinner emerges

Recently, there have been fears that there wouldnt be any near term replacements to Muralitharan, Shane Warne and Anil Kumble

If Ajantha Mendis does well in this test cricket series against the touring Indian cricketers, his future is almost assured, since the Indian cricketers are reputed to be such great players of spin bowling

Labels: ajantha mendis, anilkumble, cricket, india, kumble, muralitharan, shane, shane-warne, srilanka, srilankan-cricket, warne

Virender Sehwag ,the best captain that the Indian cricket captain neverhad

Virender or Virendra Sehwag is the inspirational captain of the Delhi Daredevils Twenty20 cricket team in the IPL.

Sehwag probably realizes that having an incredible cricket talent is often a liability as people start questioning his attitude and his style of batting as soon as he fails in a couple of innings

As a result, Sehwag , who has a sharp cricketing brain , a never-say-die attitude and an ability to get along with his teammate is never considered for the captaincy role


Sehwag is easily the best Indian test opening batsman after Sunil Gavaskar, and given his cool demeanour will not mind never being the captain of the Indian cricket team. But the Indian cricket team would have missed having this cool technician as the Indian cricket team 's captain

Sehwag ,with his earthy commonsense and great team building skills, would have been a great Indian cricket captain


What do you need from a cricket captain? Someone you could trust, someone who could motivate you when you are down and someone who truly cares about the Indian cricket team and wants it to succeed

Sehwag, as his stint with the Delhi Daredevils cricket team shows, satisfies all the above criteria, and should be given the mantle of captaincy of the Indian cricket team before his retirement

Labels: cricket, delhi daredevils, gavaskar, india, india-cricket, sehwag, sunil, virender, virendra

Ricky Ponting| A disaster for Australian cricket

Ricky Ponting is recently back to Harbhajan bashing,but that doesnt exonerate his disastrous influence on Australian cricket


Apart from violating the spirit of the game, creating a new era of verbal abuse,encouraging his fellow cricketers to act like a pack of wild dogs and generally denigrating Australian cricket, Ricky Ponting hasnt done anything wrong.

One wonders what damage Ricky Ponting would do to world cricket when he is guilty of "major errors"


Labels: australian-cricket, cricket, don, harbhajan, hayden, india-cricket, india-vs-australia, ponting, ricky, singh, sydney, symonds

Malcolm Speed,ICC cricket CEO,Good Riddance

Andrew Miller,writes in Cricinfo magazine that the ousting of Malcolm Speed as ICC CEO is an admission of the factionalism in the ICC


Malcolm Speed has often be seen to be partisan and has made almost as many gaffes as Ray Mali.

Malcolm Speed may have had issues with the BCCI, but that didnt mean that he could make nasty , gloating comments about India and the inability for a country with a population of 1 billion to win the cricket World cup..

I may not be a great fan of the BCCI, but Malcolm Speed, as ICC CEO, was far worse- Malcolm Speed 's nasty comments don't exactly inspire any confidence about his leadership skills and people from the subcontinent are bound to view Malcolm Speed , as more of a representative of England & Australia cricket boards


Goodbye and good riddance to Malcolm Speed, his seven years as ICC CEO, have resulted in the ICC organization being reduced to a toothless organization, viewed with suspicion by every cricket playing country of the cricket world

Labels: andrew, australia, bcci, ceo, cricket, england, icc, india, malcolm, miller, ray mali, speed

Sachin Tendulkar is 35 today-What the world thinks of Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar turns 35 today and a good way to appreciate what Sachin has achieved for Indian cricket is to read what other cricketers,mostly his opponents have said about him

.















Labels: chappell, cknayadu, cricket, greg, india, india-cricket, richards, sachin, sachin is god, sachin-tendulkar, tendulkar, vivian

Malcolm Speed,ICC cricket,Mickey Arthur so hypocritical!

Malcolm Speed , the ICC and the South Africa cricket coach Mickey Arthur are incredibly hypocritical.

Reports suggest that on the basis of Mickey Arthur's protest, the ICC, led by Malcolm Speed, has asked the BCCI for an explanation for the spinning track prepared for the Kanpur cricket test match , which ended in three days


Why is Mickey Arthur, the South African cricket coach and the ICC not asking for an explanation for the pitch for the Ahmedabad test match which also ended in three days

The fast and green Ahmedabad cricket match was simply a gift given by the pitch curators to the South African cricket team, but Mickey Arthur is simple not grateful

No country will be as stupid as to provide a cricket pitch that is favorable to the opposing cricket team, but the pitch curators at Ahmedabad managed to do just that

The Ahmedabad cricket pitch was tailor made for the South African cricket team's fast bowlers and not surprisingly, the South African cricket easily won the Ahmedabad cricket test


The ICC's comments on the pitch for the Kanpur cricket test sparks of such hypocricy- has Malcolm Speed's ICC or Mickey Arthur ever asked the Australian cricket board for an explanation for the fast cricket pitch at Perth or Centurion Park?


The ICC should be dismantled as soon as possible- the ICC 's decisions are really biased against the subcontinent

The Oval fiasco and the reinstatement of Darrell Hair is another slap in the face for the subcontinent, and it is high time the Asian cricket boards support each other in the face of such blatant bias against them


Labels: ahmedabad, arthur, bcci, centurion, cricket, icc, india-cricket, india-vs-southafrica, kanpur, malcolm, mickey, park, perth, south-africa, speed

Robin Uthappa: Australians are sore losers"

In yet another interesting interview, Robin Uthappa has given interesting insights on the Australian cricketers and the Australian cricket media.

In a move that is assured to ruffle the Australian media 's "thin", he has called the Australians "sore losers"


Robin Uthappa uses the Australian cricket media's coverage of the CB cricket series finals to make his point- The Australian cricketers were beaten squarely by the Indian cricket team but the Australian cricket media only covered the cricket series results sparsely in a couple of short notes

The Australian cricket media instead focused on Harbhajan Singh again and his alleged bad behavior

Robin Uthappa suggests that the Australian cricket media was only interested in raking up unnecessary controversies and was not even sporting enough to acknowledge the fair defeat of the Australian cricket team


Any international cricketer would acnowledged the tremendous abusive behavior of the Australian cricket team, dirty comments about the players' immediate family are always on the cards when the Australian cricketers are around

Robin Uthappa suggests that he and his younger colleagues are not prepared to take the nonsense talked by the Australian players without hitting back and letting the Australian cricketers get a taste of their own medicine

Mahendra Singh Dhoni even recently underscored this when he said that his cricket team "learnt" a lot about sledging without being punished from the Australian cricket team

Labels: australian-cricket, australian-media, harbhajan, india, india-cricket, india-vs-australia, robin, singh, sydney morning herald, uthappa

Sourav Ganguly was missed in CB one day series in Australia

Sourav Ganguly was really missed by the Indian cricket team in the CB cricket series. Surprised?

There is so much said about the youngsters in the Indian cricket team being responsible for the Indian cricket team's win- but did the young Indian cricket batsmen do better than Sourav 'Dada' Ganguly?

The answer is a resounding "No"- Sourav Ganguly had a batting average of over 60 in one day international cricket matches over the last year of so- but all the Indian cricket batsmen in the CB series barring Mahendra Singh Dhoni had averages of less than 50.

The only batsman who came good in the CB finals was Sourav Ganguly's erstwhile senior partner, Sachin Tendulkar

In the absence of Sourav Ganguly, there were only two opening partnerships greater than 50- both of the partnerships had the greatest one day international "senior" batsman in the world- "Senior" Sachin Tendulkar play a major role


Sourav Ganguly was treated badly by the Indian cricket selectors and Mahendra Singh Dhoni- We seem to be getting back to the bad old days, when the whims and fancies of selectors and Indian cricket captains decided the composition of the Indian cricket team


Sachin Tendulkar said it best when he said that the seniors still have a role to play and the Indian cricket team should be selected based on performance rather than whims, fancies and age


Sourav Ganguly is a better fielder than at least Suresh Raina and Munaf Patel,who let a lot of balls slip under their feet-

Sourav Ganguly is supposedly a bad fielder and thats the reason he was dropped- but compared to the leaden footed "young" fielders in the CB cricket series such as Munaf Patel and Suresh Raina, Sourav Ganguly is definitely better


Sourav Ganguly is definitely an asset to any Indian cricket team - he would have been a valuable all-rounder in the Indian cricket team, and allowed the Indian skipper to even play an additional batsman


Labels: cb-series, dhoni, ganguly, india-cricket, india-vs-australia, mahendra, munaf, patel, raina, sachin, sachin-tendulkar, saurav, saurav-ganguly, singh, sourav, suresh

Allan Border praises Harbhajan Singh for restraint

Allan Border, the former Australian cricket giant, has praised Harbhajan Singh for his incredible restraint

Contrary to the reports in the Sydney Morning Herald and other sections of the Australian media, Allan Border said that he appreciated Harbhajan Singh 's restraint in the face of some really abusive behavior from the Sydney cricket spectators


Apparently, Allan Border was close to the crowd that was resorting to racist comments about Harbhajan Singh - comments about his religion and his "patka" were apparently freely being bandied out by the Sydney spectators. Allan Border mentioned that Harbhajan Singh handled himself well, in response to some really persistent abuse


Labels: allan, allan-border, border, cb series, cricket, harbhajan, herald, india vs australia, india-vs-australia, smh, sydney, sydney morning herald, sydney-morning-herald

Sydney Morning Herald media coverage of India Vs Australia cricketseries:One sided and sickening

The Australian media especially, the Sydney Morning Herald,has been incredibly disappointing.

Its one thing to support the Australian home team,but to run fake campaigns,denigrate the opposition players and cast a blind eye to the doings of the Australian cricket payers is simply not done, at least by a leading national newspaper


By its one-sided reporting,the Sydney Morning Herald has been abusing its power. In this one-sided article about the first final of the India Vs Australia CommonWealth Bank cricket series, the hopelessly biased article talks about Harbhajan Singh 's alleged behavior, but fails to mention the abusive and racist remarks by the Sydney cricket crowd

The Sydney spectators abused Harbhajan Singh by making racist comments about Harbhajan Singh 's Sikh religion and this was not even mentioned in the article


In the cricket article, there is some mention about Pathan and Harbhajan walking down to Hayden and making some comments, but the dirty, abusive comments used by Hayden,Symonda and the rest of the Australian cricket team are not even mentioned


There is no barrier to entry for nastiness in media- what if the rest of the world cricket media behaved in the same despicable manner as the Sydney Morning Herald?

The good old days of the cricket columnist is now being abused by these so-called cricket writers who are bringing decency in the cricket game to its knees

Labels: cb series, cricket, harbhajan, hayden, india, india-cricket, india-vs-australia, pakistan, ponting, racist, sikh, smh, sydney morning herald, symonds, westindies

Mathew Hayden,an obnoxious big weed?

In an interesting interview, Mathew Hayden has justified his calling Harbhajan "an obnoxious little weed" by producing his own latest photograph and his new pineapple weed look


Mathew Hayden points at his own photograph and indicates that the "pineapple weed" is quite cool and has a lot of perfume to go with it. When Hayden called Harbhajan Singh a "weed", he actually wanted to say good things about him by comparing him to a perfumed "pineapple weed"


Mathew Hayden has mentioned in his recent interview that there is nothing wrong about being obnoxious, and that he is proud of being obnoxious and nasty and is probably the most obnoxious person around

Labels: harbhajan, hayden, india vs australia, india-vs-australia, little, mathew, obnoxious, weed

Ishant Sharma giving Ricky Ponting a hard time

Ishant Sharma, India's latest cricket sensation has been troubling Ricky Ponting in the India Vs Australia test and one day international cricket series


Ishant Sharma has the ability to bounce the ball off almost good length- and that has ensured that Ishant Sharma has troubled all the Australian cricket batsmen including Ricky Ponting in this India Vs Australia test and one day cricket series


In this cricket video excerpt from the India Vs Australia cricket test match at Sydney,Ishant Sharma gives Ricky Ponting a torrid time and ultimately even grabs Ricky Ponting's wicket


Labels: cricket, india vs australia, ishant, ponting, ricky, sharma, video

Sachin Tendulkar Vs Brett Lee video- See God in action

If you ever doubted that God existed, you should see this Sachin Tendulkar Vs Brett Lee cricket video. Sachin Tendulkar hit three amazing boundaries off Brett Lee including two breathtaking straight drives that scorched the MCG

Sachin Tendulkar's straight drives off Brett Lee were nothing short of cricketing perfection, as the MCG spectators were treated to almost a religious miracle- the most mesmerizing straight drives almost in the history of cricket


As you can see in the Sachin Tendulkar Vs Brett Lee video below, Sachin Tendulkar slams the ball back to the boundary with majestic power that seemed to signal that he is almost back to being the best bastman in the cricket world today


Labels: brett, brett-lee, cricket, mcg, sachin, sachin is god, sachin-tendulkar, video

Harbhajan Singh appeal to be tried by controversial judge of New Zealand, John Hansen- a ploy by the ICC

Harbhajan Singh's appeal will be judged by John Hansen, a really controversial judge who is known to give rather "blinkered" decisions.

According to Kiwifirst, John Hansen, the New Zealand high court judge is known to make rather controversial judgements.


John Hanson has been described by this Kiwifirst website as someone who is "unable to apparently separate his personal bias and interests from his arbiter's job" and someone who is "Prone to take a blinkered approach in proceedings and in his written accounts of proceedings and rulings, providing inordinate focus on the arguments of the litigant (or counsel) he personally fancies"

Labels: andrew, bcci, cricket, hansen, harbhajan, icc, john, john-hansen, rp singh, symonds

Ricky Ponting lacks integrity in Sydney test match

Ricky Ponting surely lacks any semblance of integrity. The two appeals , one off Dhoni, where he claimed to have perfectly (!) taken the catch (see attached photo) and the catch by Clarke perfectly sum up his integrity or lack of it

As Prem Panicker writes in Rediff.com, Ricky Ponting should be banned until Ricky Ponting improves his behavior


Ricky Ponting said "There is no way I grounded the ball". What do you think, is Ricky Ponting grounding the ball or is the ground rising up to meet the ball ?


Labels: clarke, cricket, panicker, ponting, prem, ricky, sydney, test


View the original article here

Tools for Competitive Intelligence Session – PubCon 2010

Scott Cowley

A quick recap of content from a competitive analysis session of PubCon 2010 with Matt Siltala, Michael Streko, Michael Gray, and Andy Beal.

Matt Siltala

Things to identify about the competition:

Hubs. Check PRWeb search, Digg, or article site search to see what’s being said about your competition, what they’re doing, and even which keywords they’re going after. You can make a spreadsheet of keywords that are being targeted by your competitors. Check local review sites to see which specials are being offered.

Tools. Use AuthorityLabs to put competitors side by side with keywords and identify areas to attack.

Social Media. You can use Social Media For Firefox plugin, Knowem, Who’s Talkin, Twitter Search/Lists, Image Search, SEO For Firefox plugin to identify.

Do “link:www.competitor.com” together with the Social Media For Firefox plugin  to identify the best content.

Identify competitor keywords. What your competitors may be using may be converting better than your keywords. Test with Adsense. Make sure you’ve got enough good content on your site around your competitors’ keywords.

Michael Streko

Ways to find the “Next Move” of the company you’re looking at:

Search their code.Check out their Robots.txt. You could find a test site, pictures, a new product or domain, etc.Google search for possible partners.Check http://dotheyfolloweachother.com to see who people in your competitors’ organization are close to.Follow their company on LinkedIn.com Fan the Facebook page. If someone leaves, call them right away and find out why.Know Who Links To ThemRead their content, don’t be afraid to email a site linking to a page that has out-of-date content and request a new link to your better version of content. Use incompetence to your advantage.Become an affiliate of your competitors’ sites, find out “earnings per click” to get a good idea of traffic.Non-Internet Bonus Tactic: call your competitor and walk through the process.

Michael Gray

Using Blekk0.com – use “/adsense=XXXXXXXX” with the Adsense code or analytics code and get a list of competitor sites.Use Tineye.com to see where an individual has other profiles and whether they are legitimate.Quarkbase will show popularity of content.Use a Google search for “submitted on” OR “submitted by” OR “discovered by” OR “posted by” to determine which content is being submitted and by whom. Identify the pattern of content “sneezers” when new content is being promoted/submitted. Try to get into the circle. TwitterCircles.com will help you identify who competitors are connecting with.

Andy Beal

Look for customer rants. Poach clients, promote your alternative, improve your own products and services to avoid these same issues.Look for any negativity coming from competitor employees or clients. Blow on the spark that lights the fuse.Use Twitter. Use custom parameters at search.twitter.com and set up competitive searches. If X employee talks to Y employee about Z keyword, track it. Export as RSS. Take advantage of private Twitter lists.DomainTools.com/Registrant-Alert/ and /Mark-Alert will let you spy on competitors to find out when they’re registering new domains.Oodle.com/job helps spy on job listings. Look up competitors’ name and create an RSS feed then aggregate multiple competitors.

Tags: Competitive Analysis, pubcon 2010


View the original article here

An Over-Optimizing Nightmare: Staying Off Google’s Naughty List

Kevin Phelps

Disclaimer: The below post illustrates a personal experience. The views and opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of SEO.com or the work performed with their clients.

For the most part, link building is pretty straight forward and simple. You can publish your articles, request some directory listings, bookmark links, guest blog posts, request links from other webmasters or even purchase links if you’re feeling particularly rebellious. But keep in mind if you don’t have a strategy behind it, you might fall face-first into a ditch filled with sorrow and regret.

Many times so many of us start a website in hopes that in 5-6 months we might start seeing some decent cash rolling in. Because you need link building to attain those rankings, you need to make sure the links you’re acquiring match the progress that your website is currently at. Let me explain.

Most experienced search engine optimization professionals understand that you need a healthy balance of links. Building links in moderation and keeping a proper anchor text to non-anchor text ratio is crucial. If your entire backlink portfolio consists of anchor text links, it isn’t going to look natural to the search engines. Same can be said if everything is a directory link, bookmark link and especially a comment link.

If you are submitting articles, make sure that you are using your anchor text but also make sure that some of those links back to your site are strictly the URL or business name. If your site is brand new, the number of anchor text to branded links should probably be a 50:50 ratio so your backlinks don’t look unnatural.

However, the same cannot be said about large, established websites. Odds are that if your site has 40,000 backlinks, submitting higher ratio of anchor text links aren’t going to hurt you or your rankings. For example, if you pointed 1000+ spammy, anchor text filled comment links to YouTube, do you think it’s going to make a difference? On the other hand, if you did the same to a brand new site with no reputation or authority, you’ll probably get a penalty very quickly.

I’d like to share a personal experience with this. On one of my personal websites I wasn’t following my own advice. I got in the habit of submitting content using my anchor text. There was variation of the anchor text but I never threw in my URL to make it appear more natural.

For a couple months all I saw was an increase, and for two of my main keywords I even attained first page rankings. I was very happy and hopeful that this website might actually bring in some money. Then, on one fateful day, Google dropped the hammer…

As expected, I was very perturbed to say the least. After looking through my backlinks I found that I clearly wasn’t following best practice. I wasn’t building enough natural looking, credible links. Instead I got caught up in my fantastic rankings and continued submitting content, directories, bookmarks and other links using only my anchor text.

Because I was a new site with a limited online existence, building these links worked for almost two months, but it caught up with me. If I was a site with some authority and a very healthy, natural looking backlink portfolio, this probably wouldn’t have happened.

Just remember that the links that you are pointing back to your website need to vary when it comes to your anchor text and method of link being built. I think the same analogy (for the most part) applies to life, “too much or too little of anything, is a bad thing. Keep everything in moderation.”

Tags: Link Building


View the original article here

How Keyword Research and Competitive Search Fuels Display Campaigns

Posted By Jaime on Mar 4th, 2011

This article by Hollis Thomases originally appeared in ClickZ on February 22, 2011.

Traditionally, the worlds of online display advertising and search marketing have mainly operated in silos. The two tactics may both be part of the bigger online strategy, but the people involved with search generally do not really work in or understand display and vice-versa. Lately however, it feels like there’s a greater interest in fusing the two worlds together, maybe fueled by the diversion of traffic away from search and into social media and/or Google’s rebranding of its Content Network into Display Network. Regardless, when the search and display professionals come together, a lot can be gained from the sharing of information. Today, let me give my media planning brethren some tips from the search side.

Keywords Tell a Lot

For the online media strategist, an existing PPC campaign can be a goldmine of information. Keyword performance can help sculpt various directions of the campaign from its creative concepts, messaging and copywriting to identifying sites to target for placements or new niche opportunities. Don’t have an existing PPC campaign to turn to? Consider a bit of keyword research in the vein of a start-up PPC campaign for all the same insights mentioned previously.

Begin by using the same keyword research tools a PPC specialist would:

Web analytics: Understanding what keywords are already driving traffic to the site and where that traffic travels throughout the site and if that traffic converts into the desired action can be quite revealing. Doing a gap analysis of the advertiser’s objectives versus what they’re actually achieving should provide the media strategist with some informative insights and direction.Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool: The “granddaddy” of free keyword research tools, this tool allows you to gauge the popularity or importance of a keyword or keyword phrase based upon its search volume, while at the same time identifying other related keyword phrases. The tool lets you manipulate your query in all sorts of ways, for example, limiting results by geography, by type device accessing the search, by product category, and more. Once served, you can also manipulate and sort the data. In the below example, limiting results to the Anti-Aging category, I queried for some skincare keywords as searched for on mobile devices within the U.S. and then sorted by the most popular U.S. searches.

adwords-keyword-tool

You can take your favorite keywords from this list and toggle over to the Traffic Estimator to get some projections on volume and cost, both of which the media buyer might want to use for perspective if you’re trying to deliver a direct response campaign through display advertising and needs to negotiate CPMs on an eCPA basis.

adwords-traffic-estimator-tool

Google Trends: Media buyers looking to do mass marketing naturally gravitate to popular content for all the eyeballs it attracts. Similarly, Google Trends tracks and showcases what’s “hot” in search at the moment. You can capitalize on these trends if you can move quickly and have ad creative and budget at the ready.Twitter Search and Trending Topics: You can also gauge the current pulse of a keyword, especially more unique ones, by seeing how many tweets mention it. Do these tweets link to sites that might be useful for your media plan? Use Advanced Twitter Search to pinpoint more specifically if appropriate. Twitter’s Trending Topics – though often a jumble of nonsensical hashtags plus celebrity names – may also help identify opportunities for quick of-the-moment ad buys.

Useful Information From Competitive Search

In addition to datamining existing advertiser and generic public assets, it can be useful to apply the same techniques as above to some of the free and paid competitive search tools. Google AdWords’ Analyze Competition feature, SEMRush, and SpyFu are all free or quasi-free tools. The Search Monitor, a for-fee platform, gives all kinds of juicy information about competitors as well as trademark infringements and affiliate miscreants. AdGooroo, also a for-fee platform, has some similar elements as The Search Monitor along with a “Display Insight” feature which can definitely be exploited by a media planner/buyer.

Another Thing You Can Do With Keywords

I’m a big fan of contextual advertising, much of which is based on keywords, so your campaign may only perform as well as you’ve compiled a sound list of proven keywords to provide to your vendors. Your contextual network representative can tell you not only how many impressions they estimate, but also what related keywords you might have missed and other opportunities to exploit your list.

Want to hear more on this topic? Come hear me speak on the “Crossing the Digital Divide: The Leap from Search to Display” panel at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York next month!

Comments(0)


View the original article here

Why Companies Made Major Marketing Shift in 2010 (free whitepaper)

Dan Bischoff

SEO.com Marketing Shift Whitepaper
SEO.com releases whitepaper outlining a radical change in marketing spending across the country, and identifies the return on investment for search marketing.

SALT LAKE CITY – In this ever-changing digital age, marketing has made a momentous change. Companies of all sizes are shifting advertising and marketing budgets from traditional strategies to search engine optimization and other forms of online marketing.

“When we look at the numbers out there, it’s very revolutionary,” said Nelson James, president of SEO.com. “What used to be the main strategy for marketers has taken a back seat.”

Forrester Research said marketers spent $26 billion in 2010 in Internet marketing, which rivals all spending on cable/satellite TV and radio. Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) said nearly half all companies have decreased spending on traditional areas and are investing more in online marketing.

“We started investing in SEO for the first time this year, and the payoff has been tremendous,” said Sarah Huizingh, marketing manager for Spillman Technologies, a company that specializes in public safety software. Huizingh said Spillman took money out of the print advertising budget to invest in SEO.

Traditional strategies that are taking the biggest hit include print and direct mail. A recent SEMPO survey reported that 49 percent of companies are shifting money from their print advertising budget and putting it toward search engine optimization services, pay per click management and social media marketing. In 2010, 36 percent moved money away from their direct mail budget and 17 to 24 percent of companies made a similar shift away from conferences and exhibits, yellow page ads, and TV and radio ads.

So, what are the reasons for this change in behavior?

“It really comes down to three things,” James said. “Especially in a poor economy, people are looking for marketing solutions that target their demographic better, are highly measurable and show how each spent marketing dollar makes money.”

Strategies like SEO and PPC target customers at the moment they want to buy. Social media has the potential to engage millions of customers. Through analytics, marketers can accurately track where customers come from, how long they stay on a site, what campaigns bring in the most sales and more.

On average, SEO.com clients that have been doing search marketing for six months or more, receive an average return on investment of nearly 2,500 percent – or the equivalent of receiving $25 for every $1 spent.

“Online marketing enables companies to track each spent penny and is proven to deliver a really big ROI,” James said. “It’s probably the biggest reason why more are shifting their marketing budgets. As a result, traditional advertising is getting the leftovers of the marketing budget.”

For more detailed information, images, graphs and statistics about this shift in the marketing world, and the average ROI of 2,500 percent, read the whitepaper “Shift: From Traditional to Online Search Marketing” here: http://www.seo.com/Shift_Whitepaper.pdf

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a SEO firm that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through user-friendly design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.

Tags: internet marketing, marketing spending, Marketing trends, online marketing, Pay Per Click, Search marketing roi, seo, Social Media, traditional marketing


View the original article here