Tech StartUps - THE BIG BANG on the Web !

Why developers are dumping PHP for ColdFusion

Prashant Sharma — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:15:14 +0000

It’s costly,it isn’t ‘open source’ but still it’s becoming a handy replacement of PHP(and .NET) for plenty of developers worldwide.And there are a number of reasons why PHP guys are preferring ColdFusion nowadays.

BTW,ColdFusion is a web application development language,governed by Adobe(primarily developed by Allairs,which were acquired by Macromedia in 2001 and further,Macromedia got acquired by Adobe in 2005).

Right now,the trends are very much in favour of PHP.It has already captured a big chunk of web development arena(consuming .NET market) due to its “Free” and “Crowd fueled” nature.But still,the ColdFusion community is steadily growing stronger.

These reasons may not convince every PHP addict to shift over Coldfusion but will convince the PHP programmers enough reasons to give this ‘alternative’ a try(if they haven’t tried CF already).

So,here are the reasons (more…)

A “Must Watch” video for an educator to gear up for the “Unsocial Web” !

Prashant Sharma — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:38:51 +0000

As Teacher’s day has just passed by,we dugg out a video on Teachers.tv which,according to us is a “Must Watch“ video for any educator in this generation of “Unsocial Web“.

This video outlines simple classroom activities to help educators take practical steps to keep pupils safe online.

It also suggests various methods to increase awareness of the potential dangers of internet usage.

The practices suggested in this video are very simple and effective.

You can watch the video here

Teacher’s day Special : Five ‘Frontrunners’ of “e-learning 2.0″

Prashant Sharma — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:43:06 +0000

To make this year’s Teacher’s day special for our readers(expecting atleast few teachers within our readership domain),we have come up with a list of websites which are making a significant(if not great) contribution in the field of education of different sorts.

But there is one thing that remains common among all the sites that have made it to this list…

They are all e-learning 2.0 websites,which means they are open(unlike closed,transaction based systems),community fueled(unlike tutor sourced) and employ Web 2.0 technologies to execute their mission(and that’s actually a special and unique thing about this list).

They defy the old methods of learning on the web and have certainly achieved their goals to an remarkable extent.

So,here goes the list : (more…)

“Addoursearch” lets your site get searched from the browser searchbar itself

Prashant Sharma — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:31:17 +0000

Addoursearch is a web app that lets your web site or blog’s visitors search your site directly from their browser’s built-in search feature. Addoursearch.com is a free service and requires no registration to participate.

The good part is a hassle-free procedure to get this widget.Users simply complete a online form with their site information and are then presented with a small snippet of code. When this code snippet is installed in a web page, it generates a small image or “badge” similar to popular bookmark and RSS buttons commonly found on web sites and blogs.

Addoursearch is Web’s first browser search plugin service.It opened its services on June 5th,2008,and within two months(little more than this) of its launch,it has already got a million badges out of its factory.

According to Troy Peterson,the founder/developer of his Duluth based startup,”the widget is easy to install by any visitor to your site/blog and hence serves your site with an easy way to get searched by your visitor”

The area where Addoursearch will find it tough to survive is (more…)

5 “Unconventional” yet “Highly influencial” professions on the Web !

Prashant Sharma — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:21:40 +0000

Gone are those days when a 14 yr old child used to study day & night to cherish his dream,and by the word “Dream” we mean “Engineer”,”Scientist”,Manager and endless list of other conventional professionals.

The “New age buds” have a sort of “unusual” dreams now…(that’s what their parents say !)

Nowadays,you will find a huge number of people(kids included) striving to become a “Famed Blogger”,a “Professional Digger”, a “Social media expert” or a “Hacker” and they have reasons for it…

All these “New Age Professions“(Yup!,today,they are all full fleshed professions) are making news all over and influencing the Web(as well as daily life) like never before.

So,here is a list (with a brief-up) of five such professions which are the “Dream” of a young blood today (more…)

Mozilla kicks Chrome’s a*s…Gets TraceMonkey to the front

Prashant Sharma — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:12:15 +0000

Now that’s really getting interesting.We just made a comparison between Chrome and IE8 and the hot favorite(before Chrome’s launch) Mozilla is getting envious due to a ubiquitous applaud that the Chrome is receiving,from the entire blogosphere.

And that’s why they are back !…Not with an upgraded Mozilla but with a sneak peak at the Mozilla’s next delivery Mozilla 3.1.According to one if their coders Brendan Eich, (more…)

Chrome vs IE8 : And the winner among the latest two is…

Prashant Sharma — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:13:55 +0000

Word of Caution : I strongly discourage any wannapreneur to even think of ‘building a browser’ as a startup idea bcoz there are just too many options in the “browser market” already and interestingly,every new browser is setting a new standard in this “over-crowded” market.

Microsoft’s latest installment IE8, and Google’s first web browser,Chrome(download from here,if not done yet),being the latest two in this sector are grabbing all the limelight these days.

A browser is basically a “Gateway to Internet” to any web user and hence technology giants are right there,building simplified(for us,but complex for them) web browsers to gain/retain their market share in this unending “Browser War“.

IE8,despite being much improved and evolved than its previous version has been completely overshadowed by the recent launch of Chrome (more…)

“Techlusive” is NO MORE ! A Mysterious Shutdown at its peak…

Prashant Sharma — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:27:24 +0000

Just a couple of hours ago, ‘Techlusive‘,a Canada based technology blog has shut its doors indefinitely without any reason or whatsoever.Chris R,the primary blogger at Techlusive was frequently blogging on Techlusive with his fellow blogger(s) before this unusual shutdown.

This is the message they are showing up right now :

This blog started off on June 29,2008 and saw a sudden rise in its traffic(+15K unique visitors) in the month of July,which is obviously good in any case. “Techlusive” according to us was a (more…)

5 reasons why social networks are a “Failure” in monetization

Prashant Sharma — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:19:44 +0000

It’s hard time for popular social networks to get the much desirable payback from the networks they have built all over the world.And it’s not one but the majority of such networking sites,that aren’t able to find an antidote to this problem.

Orkut for instance,has a massive following in Brazil and India but when it comes to monetizing its network,it is still struggling to even find a ray of hope.One reason can be below average(compared to myspace,facebook) CPM rates as the majority of the audience isn’t from the US.Due to meagre payback,there were rumours that Google might close its doors as anymore investment won’t be worth it.(BTW,Yahoo! recently announced its (more…)

Is “Google Knol” a pre-cursor of the “Rise of Web 3.0″ ?

Prashant Sharma — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:00:54 +0000

Web 2.0 has been there for quite a while and now it’s Web 3.0 which people wants to hear about but has there been any service oriented to Web 3.0 by far and what actually is this “Web 3.0″ ?

According to Calacanis,

“Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform”

Some other folks call it “A Semantic Web“(holds true to a large extent).

Our perspective :

“High quality content is already there on the web(mostly hidden,poorly indexed) but the issue is regarding the platforms which let the high quality content come out at the top.

All such platforms ex. Squidoo,Hubpages,Helium,eHow and hundreds of others(Wikipedia,being an exception,focussing majorly on the content) care more about the quantity and less about the quality of the content.Only a meagre chunk of their “content bank” is actually ‘rich’ in value.

High quality content isn’t a perogative of “gifted individuals only”.It can (more…)