Global Information Industry Center, University of California, San Diego has just released a very interesting report entitled ‘How Much Information? A Report on American Consumers.’ This report looks at how much information Americans consume across all forms of media.

The report says, ‘In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totalled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included.’

The report also says that:

• Bytes of information consumed by U.S. individuals have grown at 5.4 percent annually since 1980, far less than the growth rate of computer and information technology performance
• Roughly 3.6 zettabytes (or 3,600 exabytes) of information were consumed in American homes in 2008. Americans spend 41 percent of our information time watching television, but TV accounts for less than 35 percent of information bytes consumed
• Computer and video games account for 55 percent of all information bytes consumed in the home, because modern game consoles and PCs create huge streams of graphics.

Club Intimate wasn’t mentioned, may be next time

You can read the whole report here.

Skype is a little piece of software that lets you make free calls to anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world. Even though the calls are free, they are really excellent in quality. If you and your friends are using webcams, you can also make free video calls. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype today. Every day, people everywhere also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles.

Since recently, eBay had controlling interest in Skype. On 19 November 2009, eBay announced the sale of Skype in a deal valuing the business at $2.75 billion. The buyer, who will control an approximately 70 percent stake, is an investor group led by Silver Lake and includes Joltid Limited and certain affiliated parties, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz.

We decided to use Skype at Club Intimate due to its superior quality of voice and video calls and because of the fact that one could maintain their privacy by not giving away their email address to other Skype users. Skype uses usernames to connect to other Skype users.

We have integrated Skype API to provide a seamless communication tool to Club Intimate users who use this service as instant messenger, for webcam chat and for sharing files.

Instructions below will help Club Intimate users download, install and use Skype on Club Intimate.

How do I download and install Skype on my computer?
Go to Skype.com. Click on the ‘Download’ button in the header menu, Skype will automatically detect your operating system and prompt you to download Skype. Click on the ‘Download Now’ button and then chose ‘Run’ to download Skype. You will be asked to select ‘Run’ button again and then follow the instructions provided on the application to install Skype.

How do I use Skype with Club Intimate?
Start by clicking on ‘My Home’ in the top navigation menu from any Club Intimate web page. On your personal home page, click the ‘My Skype Settings’ link found on the right hand side of your primary photo. On the ‘My Skype Settings’ page, enter your Skype Name and Password. Select appropriate Skype Privacy Settings and then click the ‘Update’ button to save your new settings.

How do I Skype with other Club Intimate members?
You can initiate a Skype session with other members directly from their profile pages or from other pages such as ‘My Friends’, ‘My Favourites’ and ‘My Private Pass List’. Just click the ‘Skype Me’ link. This will launch the Skype session between you and the other member.

Happy Skyping!

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Online dating user names are really important and you want them to say something about you, but in a good way. Many times online daters choose a user name that is not in their best interest. This could result in a lack of interest in your profile. There are some suggestions, however, to help you choose a good user name and some examples of what’s hot and what’s not.

First of all, your user name should reflect you in some way, but it should also be easy to remember and original. When people see your user name they will either become interested or turned off, so be creative. Choose something that is memorable, honest, short and fun and you will have a great user name!

The easiest way to choose a user name is to sit down with a pen and paper and brainstorm. Consider who you are, the types of user names you like, and then put it all together and personalize it. Doing this is the best way for you to come up with an original and catchy user name.

Examples of User Names
Some great examples of user names include names like RocknRollRoxanne or RusticRandy. You may prefer a user name like SanFranMan or BabyBlueEyes, both of which are acceptable and incorporate the recommendations of short, easy to remember, and original. The types of user names you will want to avoid at all costs include LonelyLiz, HopelessHarry, LookingforLove, and things of this nature.
It is obvious you are trying to find a date because you are on an online dating website. So, you don’t have to spell out your loneliness in your user name. Also, don’t sound too confidant either with usernames like HotLover or DrLove.

Get a Second Opinion
If you have come up with a couple user names you like but you are not sure which one will be the best for you then get a second opinion. Ask a close friend to evaluate the usernames you came up with and recommend the best one for you. Your friend will be able to tell you if the username seems desperate, sad, over-confidant, or lonely. More than likely a second opinion will be all it takes to help you decide on the best user name for an online dating site.
With this information you are now ready to begin the process of choosing a user name. Relax and just start brainstorming. Write everything down on a piece of paper and then see what you come up with. You may find that you have a couple of user names you don’t particularly like but by combining a couple you may find the right username!

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/banoootah_qtr/ / CC BY 2.0

Sean Parker, Managing Partner of Founder’s Fund, gave a presentation entitled “The New Era of The Network Service” at Web 2.0 Summit 2009. In his presentation, Sean tries to prove the point that in the next decade ‘network services’ like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin will dominate the World Wide Web as compare to ‘information services’ like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

I totally agree with Sean on this. Whilst there will always bee a need for information and data, the real value is provided to people by providing platforms that help connect people and build relationships. This is the core value of Club Intimate as well.

Below is the full slide deck of Sean’s presentation.

Sean Parker’s Web 2.0 Summit Presentation

I first got in contact with Vivek Agrawal in December 2008 when I was looking for a top notch web development company.  Based in USA, Vivek is the Client Relations Director of OSSCube, a web and software development company based in India.

I have found Vivek to be personable who can quickly build a good working relationship with his clients. Vivek and his team at OSSCube have deep and detailed knowledge of developing web and software applications especially that involves open source frameworks. This not surprising when you consider that OSSCube have HP, Intel, Amazon.com, Google India and Yahoo India as clients. So signing up OSSCube as our technology partner was no brainer. 

Whilst quality is important to me, I was also looking for a company that could deliver value for money, and I have found both with OSSCube. Vivek and his team can deliver quality outcomes with a fraction of the cost one is expected to pay in Australia and USA.

So if your next big web project is keeping you awake at night, make sure to get in touch with Vivek.

“Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap!” This is how Ping.fm promotes its services on its front page of their website. So about ten days ago I decided to take up the offer and signed up. Anyone who uses services like Ping.fm or Hellotxt  will understand the value of updating their social profiles on various different social networks and bookmarking services with one click. This is exactly the outcome I was hoping to achieve.

So on the day I signed up, I set-up my social profiles at Linkedin, Facebook and Plaxo with Ping.fm. Setting up these networks with Ping.fm was a breeze.  I also tested the service by sending one status update and a blog post. To send RSS feed of my blog, I first created an account with Twitterfeed to push the feed to Ping.fm. In turn, Ping.fm sends my feed to the social networks that I have linked. Everything has worked as it should and I was very pleased with the fifteen minutes I spent setting up these services.

To my surprise however, last week I could not login to my account at Ping.fm. Initially I thought that I may have forgotten password or may be using an incorrect email address to login. Well, this wasn’t the case, Ping.fm has either deleted or suspended my account and they have done this without sending me any notification. Needless to say I was pretty upset. One would understand if I were to abuse their services or didn’t comply with their terms of services then they would have all the rights to suspend my account but this is not the case. By the way, Ping.fm does not have any terms of service document on their website. One would think that a large service like this would tell their users how their services are meant to be used. This beats me!

Feeling upset and dejected, I decided to contact Ping.fm through their contact page and asked if they have suspended or deleted my account and if they could provide a reason for doing so. One week on and I am yet to receive a reply from them.

So all in all, my experience with Ping.fm has been very poor. Well if you ask me, I am not totally surprised of the service levels I have received. This is what happens when a couple of developers set-up a successful web service who has no experience in customer service or understanding the value of a having a customers’ charter. They are probably good programmers but have no idea how to service their clients. This is probably one of the reasons why there is no terms of service document found on their website.

For me, there is always Hellotxt.

Join Club Intimate today!

A Turkish court recently blocked access to MySpace and Last.fm, according to a Turkish blog. Internet users are already prevented in accessing Facebook and YouTube. This latest ban may be as a result of a case filed by Turkish Union of Music Producers.

The Turkish blog site Webrazzi has reported this on their website.

Access to MySpace and Last.fm is banned by Turkish court. We are currently not fully informed about the reason of the ban, but it may be due to music copyright violations.

We believe the “web site bans” have a big negative effect on Turkish economy while Turkey has 7th largest and most engaged online audience in Europe with its 27 million Internet users. As comScore stated in the report published in May 2009, internet users in Turkey spend more time online and consume more pages than users in other European countries.

Join Club Intimate today!

Search Engine Optimisation remains a key element of internal marketing strategies for any organisation who wish to have a decent web presence. In fact, organisations spend thousands of dollars hiring SEO experts so that the volume and quality of traffic to their web site from search engines can be improved. But most of you would already know the importance of SEO optimised web sites.

In the last few days, I have been working on optimising Club Intimate pages. Whilst I could have outsourced this task to the experts, I decided to this myself. And the reason for this is, in my view,  if one wants to learn the ins and outs of a technique or a method then one must get their hands dirty by doing it themselves.

Given that Club Intimate has presence in four different geographies, all fours websites need to be optimised individually. So far I have been able to optimise two sites, Club Intimate Global and Australia. Websites for New Zealand and United Kingdom are still needing be done.

It is suffice to say that a SEO expert could have optimised Club Intimates sites quickly and perhaps with better results however I would have missed the opportunity of learning something new.

The new website is now launched. It was launched yesterday (8 September) at around 8:00pm AEST. It took about 3 hours to complete the launch process, this also included migration of user data from the existing site to the new site. No major issues were encountered. Users were able to login and use Club Intimate as they usually do. 

Since the launch however, we have been engaged in the quality control process to make sure that all functionalities are working as they should. There are some known minor issues which we think will be resolved this week.

The engineering team was working till late last night and I thank them for all their efforts. This has been a long road but a major milestone has been achieved.

In my view this is the start of the journey. From next week we will start working on marketing and promotion of Club Intimate. Over time I have come up with some unique marketing concepts and will put them into practice soon.

I would also like to thank you Club Intimate members for their support and well wishes. Without their support this major milestone wasn’t possible.

Eight months in the making, Club Intimate is planning the launch if it’s new website this week. This launch could happen as early as tomorrow depending upon if the engineering team gives the go ahead.

From design to development, a lot of hard work has gone in to this new site.  This new site will represent the aspirations of its loyal users, the engineering team and my friends, family and well wishers.

During the design of this new site, I have taken into account of two major components, users’ feedback and additional interactivity between users.  I need to dedicate another blog just to talk about the new features of Club Intimate. For now, please enjoy a sneak preview of the new site.