Contentmixi - revolutionizing the digital marketplace

Contentmixi (http://www.contentmixi.com/ ) has emerged as a new force to reckon with in the world of online selling of Website Templates. In a marketplace having no dearth of players providing web-content on the fly, success of such firms largely depends on product packaging, relevance of the product and ease with which it can be used by users. Relevance is a key issue and most web content providers in my humble opinion seem to ironically favor clutter over clarity - what with their websites virtually becoming unassailable with the enormous battery of products and services they cater to. Contentmixi - as the name quite appropriately suggests - provides a MIX of Digital Content be it Web Templates, Logos, Animations and yes, even E-Books and so on, and is designed to cater to Customers who are looking for Cool Website features to add to their websites or create their websites with.Even a cursory look at the website's Tag Cloud reveals more than amply what it is all about. If you or your company is tasked with designing a website and are wondering where to find attractive templates for it - look no further. Log in to http://www.contentmixi.com/ and feel welcome to choose from about anything and everything under the sun; the range of options to choose from varies over more than 50 product categories with each category having further subdivisions based on the specific template types. Wondering what would be a cool Logo for your endeavor? Click the LOGOS tab on the Contentmixi website and select from 452 options! Animations to go with your website? No Problem - it's right there on top! . Customer support too is a click away as is the option to provide feedback. Should you feel something is lacking - something you couldn't find, or something that you did find but still found it to be lacking in some way - help is only a click away! Could you ask for more?What distinguishes Contentmixi from the rest of the pack is its focussed approach at selling - not just about everything a-la other market portals such as e-bay etc., but about everything within the ambit of the digital products space - more specifically in the Web-Site Design Arena. As such, buyers who do not wish to waste their precious time browsing through a morass of products they are not interested in can directly zoom in to what they desire. This is a precious time saver and in this racy era of convenience shopping, Contentmixi could well be the very epitome of it!. The website creators have taken the pains to provide every conceivable Convenience feature a potential buyer would aspire to have and more! With alphabetically designed Product Categories and Advanced Search Features with a range of meaningful options such as Search by Price Range, Product Category, Id-Keywords, Product Types - zooming in on the right product is a breeze. The categories too are exhaustive enough to cater to every conceivable nook and cranny of the virtually inexhaustible product variety that exists today and that could possibly be marketed through a web-channel. The range of options is simply explosive and I can bet you cannot but find exactly what it is you are looking for. From Agriculture to Computers, from Beauty to Industrial, Dating, Entertainment, Electronics, Education, Interior Designing the list is endless. If you've got a product or service to sell from your website, Contentmixi has got just the Digital Content Template for it.The look and feel of the website too is pretty chic and contemporary...attractively colored rectangular buttons with smooth rounded edges lend loads of elegance to the page-design. Navigation from one page to the other is extremely intuitive and one doesn't have to wonder for example, where to find the Home page button should one quickly want to revert to it from anywhere within the site.Contentmixi is still newly-developed and the categories and listings are sure to swell with the passage of time. I like contentmixi for its vision of providing targeted solutions to its customers quickly and cheaply. One doesn't have to go from pillar to post when one is in dire need of getting the work done quickly. You can find handy options conveniently and not have to pay through your nose to get it. That's the most impressive USP about this site. To be sure there are competitors in this arena and Contentmixi is by no means an exclusive provider of this kind of Content. There is a sizeable market for Website Design and other related aspects such as SEO, Full Website Services, Web Marketing, Email Marketing, Domain Hosting with a host of companies offering tools and services in these areas. Contentmixi focuses more on providing Web Templates. Whether Contentmixi would diversify into related areas of Website design and Web Marketing in general is anybody's guess at the moment.One flip side I can think of as I round up this update is about page-loading speed which I found on some occasions to be slower than accepted standards. Although this could well be due to bandwidth issues at the Client machine; nevertheless, I think the website designers would do well to check on that. Other than that - as the website emerges over the next couple of years, I am sure it will get a solid footing in the realm of Selling Digital Web Template solutions.Visit http://www.contentmixi.com/contest for details about an exciting contest for bloggers!

Business Models, Strategy and Tactics

I recently came across this wonderfully written paper by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School and Joan Enric Ricart who have kindly consented to my cross linking their paper on this blog.

Ramon and Joan dwell upon an exceedingly important concept pertaining to Business Models, Strategy and Tactics and in the process lay threadbare these ubiquitously used but rarely completely understood concepts. I found it exceedingly useful and thought it would be good for the benefit of the readers of my blog. Feel free to post your thoughts which I am sure would benefit the authors too.

We often use these terms almost casually without understanding their real meaning. I have read quite a few books on the subject but most of them deal with Strategy and Tactics per se while leaving Business Model - a term again used quite frequently - out of the discussion. Ramon and Joan fill the gap by elucidating the real significance of this term. They draw upon several other studies in the process and show a working definition. They present examples to develop the concept more fully to show how these terms can be employed in better understanding and creating a framework for your business. I hope it will be found beneficial by the readers.

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-036.pdf

ऐसे ही

टूटता है दिल तो क्या हुआ - टूट जाने दो
मरता है इंसान तो क्या हुआ - मर जाने दो
शीशो के टुकडो में खुद को तलाशता क्या है
बिखरती है दुनिया तो क्या हुआ - बिखर जाने दो
मै भी हूँ इक आसमान का मोहताज
मुझे भी बेगैरतों पे तरस खाने दो

Remembering the unsung martyrs of the battlefield of Life...

I read with significant interest about the recent felicitation of Shri Sachin Tendulkar at the Ambani residence, on completing 20 glorious years donning the Indian cap and bringing boundless laurels to the nation. The man has scaled peaks that only a few - indeed none perhaps - can match. That he gets the due recognition is only fair and who better than Sh Mukesh Ambani to do the honors.

Of course Times Of India did its bit by felicitating Sh Tendulkar by running pages after pages singing paens to the legend. All this is pretty heart warming - no doubt about it.

Reading and reflecting on the story however I could not help but think about the countless unsung heroes whom no one cares to think about much less felicitate. Bread winners of small families who go about slogging the daily grind - fighting the crowds, facing the jeers, wading through difficulties only to ensure that fodder for the fire ever brewing in the stomach is provided for. Do they deserve recognition? People living on the sidelines. A few days back, on one of the traffic signals in Mumbai - I saw an old beggar - who seemed to be mentally ill with hair tied in multitudes of dried knots - reflecting as it were the staid reality of his wretched existence - his eyes were dim as he carelessly looked about; suddenly cars behind me started honking and I realized that the signal had turned green making the fellows behind me restless - perhaps I had pondered a second too long --- who cares?

The other day, as I was brushing my teeth - I had in a fit of absent-mindedness left the tap open - only seconds later came the blinding realization of the water crisis looming around us. I immediately closed the tap. I realized that there are countless fellow human beings for whom water is a luxury only to be rivaled by Sachin's Ferrari or the 800 Cr Boeing Jet which Mukesh Ambani presented Mrs Ambani on the latter's birthday. My heart pounds at these inequalities - I do not know its genesis. I fail to understand.

Mirza Ghalib's lines come to my mind - Sab kahan kucch laala-o-gul mein numaya ho gayeen
khaak mein kya soorate hongi jo pinha ho gayeen

True to his wit - he must have been appalled too at the gross inequalities around him. Not everyone gets the fame or recognition. Indeed many lose their will to fight at all. But one thing is for sure. Everyone needs recognition. A little word of praise can work wonders on the human pysche. But what we all are subjected to is nothing short of daily humiliation. Sadly we get humiliated and humiliate others in turn. What is Dharma afterall? Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you. Simple. But this simple concept fails our understanding every moment. Given as we are to facing injustices and grinding realities of life - who has the time to ponder over such high-falutin useless postulates.

I write this article for those who fight it out every moment of their waking lives and go unheard and unsung. To the mother who teaches her child to read and write. To the father who wakes up daily at 5 Am to go to work. To the sister who prays for the well-being of her brother. To the wife who stands by her husband come hail come storm. They may not get the recognition they deserve - perhaps only a few ever will. This is not to cast innuendos on those lucky few who do get it. They are perhaps more equal in the eyes of the Lord - more equal than all other equals; as Ghalib puts it - not all become famous - many more such people who could have are languishing in dust!

Such is life and such are its laws and rules. Let's raise a toast to the survivors and remember those who couldn't survive the ordeal. Perhaps they will in their next lives.

Should Immigration Policies Be More Welcoming to Low-Skilled Workers?

In this edition of Harvard Business School's working knowledge discussions - the topic posted above was reviewed. My comments along with other posters' comments can be read here at
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6326.html

Mine is comment number 15 in the list.

HBS WK is a platform for discussion on different views and ideas posted every month by Prof James Heskett - HBS professor. This platform has been in existence for several years now and whenever I get a chance I do participate in the forum discussions. I encourage you all to visit it regularly to see the latest contents posted there and benefit from the wide ranging ideas and dialogues - most of which are quite intellectually stimulating as well as socially relevant.

Late Dr. Shiva Kumar Dubey - My father

Here's the link to a book written by my father Late. Dr. S.K. Dubey. I encourage you all to take a look. http://www.indiaclub.com/Shop/SearchResults.asp?prodstock=11503