internQ.com - Jobshop for interns - Better than the lot?

Recently I was introduced to a very small startup - internQ.com, as the name suggested I thought it is yet another internship portal on the Internet, till I actually dug in their portal.

The site seems clean and WHITE! :) A very well toned structure of the whole portal and informative. The best part I found was that it has a mixture of 'Startup' jobs from around the country (India). The best part is that neither the employer nor the employee has to register to post their jobs or post their resumes respectively. This would allow the portal to have an open approach and create a very large startup and internship positions database.

internQ.com, is basically targeting the Internship and Startup jobs sector and at the right time. There are new companies being formed every week and most of them need manpower in some form or the other be it internships, temporary jobs or long term commitments.

internQ will have some direct competition from the already existing internship sites like HelloIntern (most of the vacancies are old or very old), Twenty19 and LetMeKnow. But it all depends on how does the team executes their plan. It'll be an excellent game to watch.

Forrester dumps IT for BT.

Stumped? Well I was too when I came across this article. Forrester Research chairman and CEO George F Colony has come up with a new nomenclature for the IT term being used in Business today i.e. "Business Technology". What? why should one phase out Information Technology for Business technology? Theres a reason for this change. Colony calls it the 'Scream test" - thats right! Its really simple (Warning:- You might lose your job if you do this!) All you have to do is walk around your cos campus and pull out all the plugs from the wall. The reaction- wait for the high pitched scream from the far end of the office. Thats right this is the reaction which any company would have in todays world, as IT has become the backbone for any business around the world.
Back in the early days it was simply known as 'Data Processing' but now it has been replaced by 'Management Information System' (MIS) in the early 1980's. In the 1990's we replaced it again by IT or Information Technology. But now after a decade Forrester Research is in the process of introducing a new nomenclature i.e. 'Business Technology'. Colony says, "My bet is that your company will lose millions of dollars an hour without technology. If you're like Goldman Sachs or Barclays Bank, you may lose hundreds of millions of dollars an hour". Now thats a huge amount for any business to lose. But there are many businesses which have already changed the true definition of IT to Business Solutions and Business Solution Technology.
While initiating a discussion board on the issue, the Forrester CEO said he was "going on a campaign to dump IT in favour of BT.". Best of luck Mr.Colony and company, should I include your name in the history books now? ;)

theLectureNotes.com

Guess what theLectureNotes.com is featured on Digg.com.

read more | digg story

Living a dual life, no more SPY-ish.

Yes thats true. One way or the other about 1/3rd of the world onine population or lets say netizens have started living a dual life. They create their own avatars which is totally or atleast 67% ifferent from themselves in the real world. How is it possible? Well, the answers are spread all over the internet. Websites like Facebook (an american social networking site), MySpace (an undertaking of News Corp.),theLectureNotes, Friendster, Bebo etc are the medium. People register on these sites create what they think would have a magnetic effect on others and voila! a new Human being (virtual ofcourse!) is born.
Recently, Gaia Online made it to the news as one of the platforms for creating an online avatars by members. They can live a different life online, buy credits upgrade their life and also have families online. It was said that the world has become a global village but I would say World has become an online micro village in Kilobytes!
Again, the other day I was browsing around, digging the vast space of information on the internet until I hit an all new web service, meant only for students in the UK (it says only in the Uk but will expand organically). It was none other than theLectureNotes.com the membership is by invitation only whic I personally think is good so as to keep unwanted faces out of its campus. Yes campus! the web service has three main objectives i.e. Share lecture notes from universities around the UK, Refer them from different universities Network with students from different universities all in all its a other campusg created online -- a virtual avatar of the whole educational campus. The sites' BETA version will be launched on 2nd September 2006. On researching a bit on this website I dug up some profiles and communities which might prove useful some day or the other.They are:
http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=18479801 ( a community for theLectureNotes.com)
http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=11865704979664101418 (the creator!)

I'll keep updating the link if I come across some more profiles or communities.

But to be honest I think that this web service has got some true potential! So check it out.

A lil' more of hibernation would fatten me up.

Hey everyone, I know 'am blogging almost after a month but the circumstances were not in my favour (dont blame me!). Anyways, I'll be starting again with the financial data analysis in the near future, as I am extrmemly busy with a project. You want to know whats keeping me busy? Well for that you need to wait for some more time as I'll be posting the entire project summary exclusively on this blog.

Till then happy blogging!

Utkarsh Sinha

Bernanke & Co. increases lending rates to 5.25%

Finally, the much awaited decision regarding the interest rates has ended. The Federal bank has increased the lending interest rate to 5.25% i.e. a quarter percent increase. The Fed has increased its interest rate for the 17th time since its start in January 2001.

"The extent and timing of any additional firming that may be needed to address these [inflation] risks will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth, as implied by incoming information," the central bank said in its statement.
Source : CNNMoney.com

But according to Keith Hembre, chief economist with First American Funds suggested that this might be the last increase in the interest rates. But Fed says that a risk of inflations still remains, following which traders have backed out from the bet i.e. they would increase the rate for the 18th time in August.
Following the interest rate hike at 2:15 PM (ET), DJIA rose by 1.98% to +217.24 , NASDAQ increased by 2.96% ending the day at +2174.38 up by 62.54 points since the previous closing, whereas Standard & Poor's 500 index(S&P500) shot up by 2.16% closing at +1272.87 up by 26.87 points since its previous closing. Hence, the above trade market scenarios clearly shows that Mr.Bernanke had made a very good decision while increasing the lending rates and in turn helping the market shoot up by 62 points.
But even though America had a good trading day, it was totally the opposite on the other side of the globe. India's SENSEX had a strong start in its first innings and rose upto 194 points but due to interest rate hike fear the market closed at a mere 32 points above its previous closing. Will the hike in NASDAQ fuel the rise in SENSEX? This'll be known on Friday itself, the last trading day for this week! May the investors have a great weekend.

Paypal v/s GBuy, Google's new online payment option.

It has been about 1 year now that Google's Gbuy is under rigorous testing by big merchants. Paypal which is the commonly used online payment system used by millions world over will soon face a tough competition by Gbuy. It was announced that Gbuy would be launched on 28th June '06 but after exhaustive search over the internet I didn't find any news about the launch! Is Google sceptical about its new system or is getting ready to enter the market with a BIG BANG! Even though the world awaits Gbuy. Paypal, an Ebay holding is confident about its market share and trusts its members. But let me warn you Mr.Meg Whitman (CEO of Ebay) that these are the same people who were loyal to MSN's Hotmail but switched over to Google's Gmail after they were enticed with the 2 GB inbox space. So if I were you I would not believe them. Anyways, even though people prefer Paypal for online transactions, VISA and Mastercard are the ones which are highly trusted for any sensitive transactions and are still considered the market leaders.
So if Google has stepped into the market, where is Microsoft? Are they still attending the 'My name is Bill Gates, I am leaving Microsoft!' farewell party? If not then are Mr.Ozzie and Steve Balmer working on any plans to step into the online payment system. I would say hurry up guys!