Times Points - TOI or Times Of India new reward scheme

Source: here

Below the FAQ copied from website. It is a good and somewhat different idea to bring traffic to website. I am sure there is significant difference as based on number of comments posted and the not bad points.

So the idea goes like this.

• When you visit an article you'll get 1 point. 
• For comment 5 points. 
• When someone likes or recommends another 1 or 2 points. 
• Facebook or Twitter share will get 5 points for each share

So if you post average 20 comments a day you may get 150 points (assuming 20x1 for visit + 20x5 for comment + average 1.5 likes or recommend). So in a month you'll get 4500 points and you can redeem gifts. For example Adidas 3x deo is worth ~5200 points. In the market it's going for ~500. So approximately 1 poitn is 10paisa or 10 points = 1INR.

Not a bad deel as it can pay for your broadband bill :)

But the downside is the system is very buggy. Many a times, you'll see the points are not getting updated, your login is not loading, or the system asking you to confirm email address multiple times etc.

Still worth a try if you spend lots of time reading news. By the way one tip is make sure you've adblock installed on your firefox/chrome. Their model is simply based on ad prints or ad revenue so the site is filled with ads. 

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Frequently Asked Questions

Earning Points and Badges:

Points and Badges will be awarded for various activities performed on Timesofindia.com. These include reading articles, commenting, watching videos, linking your profile with Facebook and Twitter accounts and subscribing to our daily newsletter. Points accrued on the Times Points program will soon be redeemable against exclusive deals on the Times network.

Expiry of Badges:

• When you reach a particular level within a badge, you will get to keep it for 12 months.
• If within those 12 months you cross to the next threshold, you will move to the next badge level.
• However, after 12 months, you can lose your badge in case of a drop in your activity on the site.

Points Credit:

Badges and Points will take a maximum of 90 seconds to be credited to user accounts. In case of the Wordsmith badge, points and badges will be credited after user comments are published on Timesofindia.com.

Latitude - Dead and no alternative.

Finally Google killed Latitude. I loved it because of its capability of background updating of location and sharing with freinds and family. Ofcourse, I love the "trips" and "distance to moon" which was wonderful. You can still see it as part of the "location History" in Google search app on iOS or Web Page. Just search for Google Location History or simply login here. . You can see all your previous data there.

https://maps.google.com/locationhistory‎

But what I am missing is the 'sharing'. i.e. my friends, family can see me where I am or I can see the location in real time. Especially useful when we travel on business or on an extended holiday.

I think as part of it's product strategy, google targeted plenty of applications which doesnt really fall under "social" net and started to integrate all the apps in to Google+. May be good for Google, but not too good for me.

For the alternatives, I see Google+ auto update which will be coming to iPhone in September as the one alternative. Other than that, I don't think I've any other stuff. 

India - Super power or to be a failed state ????

No mood to write but the way Indian are becoming, I have strong doubts that India can ever be a super power.

My SingTel application - Good and fine example of what TELCO's should do

Point your browser here.
http://info.singtel.com/personal/apps-tv/apps/my-singtel


SingTel just launched a revised app and this is a Hit. Finally it seems our telco's are learning what Customers are looking for. Instead of selling their own stuff, now Singtel tried to share what we, the customers are looking for.

So instead of 'singtel offers' in old apps and web pages, the App shows how much data been used, how many minutes consumed, how many SMS been sent during the current billing period. Below are some screenshots captured from iTunes (hope it's legally ok to post it here).

Great job SingTel.