Amazon India Is Giving Away Free Ebooks

 
Amazon launched in India a week ago.  

Amazon India is now selling Books, Kindle eReader including all new Kindle Paperwhite priced at Rs 10,999(only WiFi) & Rs 13, 999 (WiFi + 3G), and Movies.

As part their inaugural promotion they are giving away one free Ebook every day for fifteen days. The deal is called "Free Kindle eBook Fortnight".

Amazon India: Free Kindle eBook 

Details of the deal:

Free Kindle eBook Fortnight
For the next two weeks Amazon.com will be giving away popular bestselling titles for free, one eBook each day -- for that day only. The free eBook of the day goes live at midnight (IST) and ends at 11:59 pm the same day. From biographies to business and travels to Tendulkar, they’ve all been covered; so be sure to bookmark this page or follow us on Twitter and Facebook to ensure you don’t miss any of the featured titles. Customers who have their country of residence set as India in their Amazon profile are eligible to avail this offer. This can be modified in the "Country Settings" section on Manage Your Kindle. Additional Terms and Conditions apply.

So, why wait? Go grab a free eBook. Today's(14th June) free book is Dongri to Dubai - Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia. I just got my copy!

The offer ends on 26th June. Go get a free eBook every day.

Happy reading!

Facebook Gifts

Facebook is introducing a new feature, Gifts!

This new feature allows you to send real gifts to your Facebook friends. When I logged in to Facebook this morning, I saw this:

Facebook Gift link on profile

A new entry called Gifts between  App Center and Games Feed. As you can see in the next screenshot, Facebook has made it really easy to send gifts to friends.

How to send gifts to Facebook Friends

You can send gifts in a few simple steps. Browse for the right gift to send to your friend, Add your message and send!

Facebook Wine Gift

They have a decent collection of gift items, from chocolates to cards to variety of wines.

What are the countries supported by Facebook Gifts?
According to their help page:

Counties supported by Facebook Gifts

"Please note, the ability to send or receive a gift is currently limited to people located within the United States. If you are located within the US, you will only see the option to give a gift to friends also located in the US."

So, if you are living outside of US, you have to wait for Facebook to launch this feature in your country.

Some interesting things to know about Facebook Gifts:

• You don't need to know your friend's address to be able to send gifts!
• Your friend won't see the price of the gift!
• They can choose a different size, color or style(if it's available)
• They can even swap it for another similarly priced gift before it ships!
• Your friends gets to decide the shipping address.

Sounds interesting right?  Go to https://www.facebook.com/about/gifts to watch introductory video.Or head to their help page for more information.

Happy Gifting!

What Are Testimonials

A testimonial is a statement made by a person in praise of a particular product or service. Wikipedia says:

"In promotion and of advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a person's written or spoken statement extolling the virtue of some product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary citizens, whereas the word "endorsement" usually applies to pitches by celebrities. Testimonials can be part of communal marketing."

You can go to Wikipedia page for Testimonials to read more.

This is the first post in a series of blog posts I plan to write about the importance of testimonials for your business and personal life.

Testimonials play an important role in social connections. The first thing you do after meeting an interesting person is to find her on Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter. Reason to do that is very simple. You are always looking for some references while making new connections. Common friends, common connections, common social groups. Something to find a connection some how. You ask common friends about the new person. In summary, you are trying to get a handle on her Reputation.

Testimonials are important for both individuals and businesses. In this post, I will talk about testimonials for businesses.

Testimonials can be used as a powerful marketing tool. It's through testimonials that you tell the world what your past and current customers think about your business.

Due to the increased use of Internet, customers have access to many more tools and services than ever before. Internet users use Google and other search engines to find products and services. That makes online presence a must for even offline businesses. Whether your business is offline or online in nature, you have to have a strong online presence. 

Search engine visibility and a good page rank are crucial for getting prospects(prospective customers) to your website. However, having more people visit your business website is not your end goal. The end goal is to make them trust your business and do business with you. It could be purchasing a downloadable software package or signing up for a web service. This is where Testimonials come into picture.

In future blog posts, I will be writing more on testimonials.

Uhuru Lifetime Free Hosting Competition

Uhuru Software has announced a competition for websites. Winning 5 websites will get a Lifetime Free Premium Hosting from Uhuru. Winners will be decided by community voting.

According to Uhuru:

Further information regarding the contest, and where to vote, will be announced on the Uhuru e-mail community discussion list. 

RULES OF THE CONTEST:

- The nominated web sites with the most votes from the community will win lifetime free premium hosting on the Uhuru service.
- The owners of winning web sites will be invited to be guests on the Uhuru podcast show.
- Nominated web sites must be hosted on the Uhuru service.
- There is no restriction on the type of web site eligible for the contest. Just some examples are:

• A mobile Android app that just uses the Uhuru service as a back-end database.
• A customer resource management web site for managing sales engagements for your own products.
• An application for managing students and grades at a college.
• A blog about cuddly dogs.

- Nominations for web sites engaged in illegal or immoral activities will be rejected and cannot participate in the contest. Read the Uhuru service terms of use for details about which activities violate our hosting policies.
- The voting tool will require that voting participants register to vote. Only one vote per registered account is allowed.
- You are allowed to nominate any web site running on the Uhuru service whether it is your own or someone else's.
- You can nominate as many of your own web sites as you choose.
- Nominations which leave incomplete information on the registration form will be rejected.
- Lifetime hosting is defined as the period of time that Uhuru continues to offer a hosting service for web applications. As long as Uhuru is operating a hosting service a site with lifetime hosting will continue to get free service.
- Premium hosting is defined as 1GB RAM, 512MB shared file storage and 512MB shared database storage.
- If a web site which exceeds the free resources offered in the lifetime premium hosting offer should win the web the contest the free hosting prize will be extended to whichever site the owner of the winning web site chooses. In other words, there is no obligation for the winning site itself to be the site which recieves the lifetime free hosting. The free hosting prize can be transfered to whichever web site the winner chooses.
- The URL submitted for the nominated web site does not have to be in the uhurucloud.com format. It can be a private domain that has been redirected to uhurucloud.com.
- Uhuru reserves the right to extend the voting period.
- A web site must receive at least 10 unique votes to win the contest.

Important dates to remember.

Voting starts: Monday, February 20th, 2013.
Last date to submit nominations: March 23rd.
Competition ends at 12:00pm Pacific Time on March 29th, 2013.

Good luck.