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Net Gains (Aug 04, 98) |
Miningco.com is the first bookmark at the tip of his mouse - and
after you visit it, you'll realise why. This is a unique concept
where different areas of interest are looked after by a human
guide, making this a real mine of useful information and links
(something not many directories and search engines on the Net
can boast about). You may want to check out how M. A. Arun runs
the the Indian Culture section (http://indianculture.miningco.com/),
to get an idea of the Miningco funda.
When I started my new job two months ago, there were a few colleagues
interested in what my name meant. Being under the impression that
my name had no meaning (unlike meaningful Indian names), I convinced
them that my name had no meaning. Which was something I believed
myself until I visited another of our guest's favourite bookmarks
- ParentSoup (http://www.parentsoup.com). Inspite of it's leaning
on western values, he finds the site very useful as a parent and
he recommends this site to every parent because it has lots of
tips on parenting kids of various age-groups including teens.
And these communities are what every online service is trying
desperately to build - but there's no standard recipe for success.
Features, chats, message boards, and polls, Parentsoup has it
all. The one section in the Soup specials that caught my attention
was the Baby Names section. They have a baby name dictionary,
directory of famous names, a list of the most popular names, and
even give you the meaning of your name. Here's where I discovered
that Lyndon, a 2-syllable boy's name of Old English origin, means:
"One who lives at the hill of linden trees".
Well, in that case I had better shift to Eden Gardens in Thane
where there's a Linden tree !.
This is a great bookmark for parents-to-be too, since among other
things, they have a Find-O-Matic, which allows you to choose the
baby gender, number of syllables, starting alphabet, even religion
and ethnicity (if desired), and it whips up a list of potential
baby names for you to choose from. Now only if making a baby was
so easy…
Being in the newspaper field, it's not surprising that three of
his favourite bookmarks are news and media related : CNN (for
content), Editor & Publisher online (http://www.mediainfo.com)
for industry analysis, and Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicago.tribune.com),
which is a source of inspiration to him as far as content presentation
and creative advertising go.
Our guest ends with a warning for Indian corporates : "If
businesses are to prosper in the future - which is not very distant
- they have to adapt (to the Internet) today".
Amen!
(Aug 4 2003 Note: These bookmarks were those of Sunil Rajshekhar, who used to head Times Interactive)