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Bhopu / Category /
Website Reviews
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Posted On
Oct 26, 2007
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 I still remember by friends running around searching hundreds of colleges to get information on admission procedure and other campus particulars. I wish we all knew that we would soon have this entire information just on one podium. Now, here’s one that will help you make those decisions about what college you should join a whole lot easier – by connecting with students from colleges and reading their comments and reviews on their alma mater. Surprised?
I’m talking about the new online college community, Collegespeaks. This site makes a successful attempt at providing a common platform for colleges and students to share specifics about the campus, education and much more.
It is the first time colleges and students will be provided a platform to come together for facilitating beginners. This concept has just begun to snowball as Collegespeaks is bringing a different piece to the table.
Collegespeaks is the perfect solution for educational institutions to provide the perfect website where they can place information and be visible to a large number of students all over. While all colleges want to reserve a good website for their institute or college and reach out to the masses, and a number of college have actively promoted websites, they haven't necessarily been able to coordinate efforts. Collegespeaks has been designed to enable colleges to quickly create mini sites within the website, add content without space constraints and update it as often as they like while gaining mass students viewer-ship. It also helps students effectively search colleges and gain access to course, infrastructure and faculty related information amongst other things. The website further helps colleges to promote events taking place at their college, education methods followed and add campus pictures and news.
How did the concept come about?
As stated by Akshay, CEO Vinfotech “It is very important to know real campus experiences as it gives the true feel of life at a college. Collegespeaks encourages active participation from students who don’t otherwise have a platform to share their experiences which are helpful for those who are looking out to shortlist colleges they would like to join”.
To accomplish this, an interactive and easy to use website was required and Collegespeaks team comprehended this to create a platform that provided both. The website focuses on:
- Providing colleges easy access for adding and updating information about themselves: faculty and specific course information, link to their website and email, along with a comprehensive list of opportunities, programs and other infrastructure available in the campus while creating a central resource that lists all the college resources available in states
- Also, providing a place where students can express their experiences and views about academics, extra-curricular and infrastructural support available at the colleges they are attending.
All these features make Collegespeaks a unique resource that connects all college resource programs and aids the decision of students short listing colleges to apply to.
Feature Launched - College Corner
 A completely new concept where colleges can register and display their particulars like awards and honours, campus news and events, courses offered, campus pictures and infrastructure to provide more information about their college to students. Collegespeaks is committed to making colleges more accessible on web. By providing each college with their own detailed website on Collegespeaks along with the ability to easily update it, it is a unique solution for colleges to reach out to the student community.
Some features of College Corner:
• The only platform that brings colleges and students together
• Colleges get unlimited space for their site within Collegespeaks
• After registrations, colleges can make unlimited updates and stay current
• Upload pictures, prospectuses and admission forms, add contact, infrastructure, placements details to their site
• Add as many pages and sections as they require
• Avail the 90 Days Free Trial before they subscribe
• Be on the only website that brings students and colleges together on an interactive and easy to use platform
Collegespeaks has over 3000 colleges and more being adding everyday.
 Upcoming features on Collegespeaks:
• Student registrations
• Search
• My Campus
• Grade Your College
In days to come, Vidya Vyas, owner of Collegespeaks.com plans to release many new and interesting sections on Collegespeaks stemming from her commitment of providing simple solutions to everyday needs. I look forward to writing another article on this exciting new space on the web soon. Till then, I wish the site luck and hope to see it rise to become a one-stop-college-student-solution online.
Some Related Articles:
Collegespeaks.com is live!!
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Posted On
Aug 21, 2007
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 I still remember by friends running around to consultants while applying for an International University. I wish we all knew that we will soon have all this information just a click away. Now, here’s one that will make your career while you sit make friends, chat and watch videos. Surprised?
I’m talking about the new online community, Bharatstudent.com. Before I go any further and write about it let me put a pre-review for you in one line. For me, it’s like Orkut + Googlevideo/Youtube + Naukri/Monster/Timesjobs. Yes, it’s true, you got all that on one site and all in your reach once you’re a member through a free registration.
Now, here’s a little about the portal. The site looks quite decent with a neat and easy navigation. It has different  sections like Friends, Gangs (groups/communities), Bharat Café, Campus TV, Girls only and Earn part Time (you can work part time for the portal and earn money). It targets the youth, like every other community or even jobsites. But here comes my favorite section ‘careers’ and ‘study abroad’ that gives you an impression that this is not just any other monotonous portals to pass time but a serious attempt to entertain and also help the youth of our country with their careers.
Another very interesting thing is the ‘Girls Only’ section that is exclusively for girls. It carries ‘Profile of the week’, ‘Recipe of the day’, ‘Powerful Women’, ‘Tip of the day’, ‘Product reviews’ and Featured articles and discussions. Well I think they should have included a guy’s section too. Oh well, this portal’s still cool. I’ve got invitations from tons of online communities and I don’t even bother to register ‘cause they’re all the same. I did register for this immediately ‘cause the home page of the site says it all. It talks about all the stuff the site has to offer and I don’t regret joining this because it’s worth it. It’s free, it’s fun and it’s useful too. Try, it’s definitely worth trying. I would like to know your thoughts about what you think about the portal.
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Posted On
Aug 18, 2007
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 Just like me, not many of us would have heard of this new video search engine Truveo. AOL/Time Warner has launched a video search engine called Truveo to crack Google for advertising dollars and search dominance. This is one area where I expected Google to pioneer and excel, but they've fading under their own weight. Any attempt to search for video at Google will only return results for Google Video and YouTube, not video on the Internet at large.
Talking about this new search engine, I’ve been eagerly following the blogs on Mashable. Check the recent blogs and you will trace this very cool news on Truveo. It’s basically a simple video search engine — as are Yahoo!"s Video Search and Google Video (Truveo’s only two major competitiors). I have to say, after a bit of here and there, I like it.
First of all, the thing that drags me to it is the clean, intuitive interface (I personally think Google’s a bit too clean and Yahoo! too cluttered). They have categories, including top picks, news, sport, entertainment, and recently viewed. And one more thing I like about Truveo is their advanced search feature — from what I can see, neither Google nor Yahoo carry such stout options.
‘Show details’ - this is my favorite feature. Sure, you get some details in the result itself, but with a simple click on "show details," you’ll be quite amazed as to what you get to know about the video. For the most detailed video I could find (details vary on the video clip):
Runtime, Author, Genre, Category, Copyright, Country, Language, Host Site, Produced, Found on.
Pretty impressive, one would say.
Do you guys know Yahoo accepts video submissions through media RSS, Google direct uploads and separate submissions for the major producers, but what about Truveo? Worry not. If you go to the bottom of their ‘About’ page, you’ll notice they accept videos as well — through media RSS — a big relief.
Overall, I unexpectedly find Truveo much better in some ways to its competitors. Of course, it lacks some of the main features such as the file size of a result and can be quite irrelevant at times (Yahoo!) but apart from those, I quite like it. Heads up to the Truveo team for their awesome product, but only if they include Blogs as well, I’m sure if they do they can evolve as a true Web 2.0 search company.
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Posted On
Aug 13, 2007
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 I’ve been a huge fan of Meebo ever since the day they started, or rather since the day I heard about them. A website that enables you to chat using your Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AIM and own Meebo account without having the software installed for these IRC’s. It’s simply brilliant, finally someone saw that people don’t always want to install messenger, or Google Talk..they want to use their accounts on any machine anywhere…the chat window is embedded in the actual web page, which can pop-out to create a pretty cool and similar looking window as the actual software-GUI.
I like the young look for the homepage-very sharp. Among Meebo's nice touches are a typing indicator (so you can see if someone is responding to a message you've sent) and a time stamp (so you know when messages arrived). The service's software also lets you mouse over names on your buddy list to see how long they've been connected.
I noticed that it doesn’t require registration, but you get some added functionality if you do choose to register. One extra is a single sign-on for all of your IM accounts. Meebo allows registered users to save chat logs, store conversations, and add personalized touches such as icons and skins to the application.
Just like many new Web-based IM services I’ve come across, Meebo also carries some difficulty notifying you when a new message arrives. To make the browser tab blink, or to set a flashing icon in your system tray, you'd have to download software--which defeats the primary purpose of using a Web-based service, so Meebo doesn't offer this option.
Overall, Meebo gives you a handy way to access your IM account when you're away from your PC. And it's so easy to use that you may want to consider it as a replacement for your bloated desktop client.
So for all my friends who want to chat online but don’t have the software installed, or have firewalls in place that prevent chatting, head over to Meebo. But watch out guys, it might decrease your productivity levels unbelievably!
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Posted On
Aug 11, 2007
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 In the youth culture of social networks, the worst thing is to grow old and boring. I doubt if the Facebook whirl will continue for very long. I recently took a look at the new Plaxo Beta about a month back and I agree that Plaxo does have some advantages; they have a user base of 15 million and the new features directly address the challenges Facebook will have in moving to the business community.
Plaxo's motivations, of course, are purely mercenary. Everyone wants a piece of Facebook's magical billions. Where Facebook is weak, of course, are its not-so-private privacy settings. Your choice, when adding someone as a Facebook "friend" is to offer them either an insulting (and easy to spot) "limited profile" or open the kimono, drunken party shots and all.
Plaxo, by contrast, offers more fine-tuned controls in its new Pulse social network. The premise: Plaxo users will be able to designate contacts as dysfunctional family members, insincere friends, smarmy coworkers, casual acquaintances, or desperate hangers-on, and treat them accordingly - never leaving them the wiser as to their classification. Your friends will never know how limited you think they are.
Will users flock to Plaxo and use Pulse in the same way that they use Facebook today?
Even so, I’ve created a new account at Plaxo after long ago abandoning the service. I like that the news feed is not limited to Plaxo applications, and I intend to give it a fair shot. Perhaps it will steal some of my attention away from Facebook. We’ll see.
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Posted On
Aug 09, 2007
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 Spend a week in a vacation rental and see what is near you. Slow down, immerse yourself in the local culture and avoid the fast pace of rushing from one guidebook "must-see" to the next. A great way to travel!
The website Vacating.net is a new portal offering details of vacation rentals and holiday homes across Western Europe. Use the site to search for vacation rentals in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and plan a holiday.
The objective for this portal is to allow house-owners to rent out their properties themselves, without having to pay a fee to a travel agency. On the other side, vacation seekers use this website to search and book vacation rentals in Western Europe, without having to look at annoying advertisements. A win-win situation for both – the vacation seeker and the holiday-home owner.
The site is well planned and displays all the locations that have a holiday rental using Google Maps. Further to this, the ‘Quick Search’ option and visuals on the home page make the search more decisive at the instant.
There are some great deals to be found on Vacating.net. You can choose from a range of economic and expensive stays. There is also an interesting extra curricular activity section that tells of available activities happening around stay, so you are aware of them in advance and can schedule to attend them before you get there.
One of the best features I liked about Vacating was that the registration is free and it lets the owners of the properties get in direct touch with vacation seekers, letting them save on the fees to agencies.
You can look at pictures of the property and places around it. You can read about features of the rental home in detail, like a modern kitchenette and other extra and pictures of the interiors, thus giving you a clear-cut idea as to what you will be getting.
The website is very transparent compared to other similar sites and carries no advertisements.
If someone is looking out for vacation rentals around Europe, you can refer them to http://vacating.net. This is one great website that caters to all your vacations. You can opt for luxury in the most lavish way, or you can opt for budget vacations depending on your budget and plans. You name it and they cater to it.
One of the most complete websites that I have come across, it is very soothing to eyes, classy and informative.
I hope they extend this service to include all of Europe and gradually, make the website global.
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