The first and biggest is COMMENTS! Registration is no longer required to post a comment on any post. Of course if you already have an account you can still login to ensure your comments are attributed to you, but those who don’t can now post a comment without any long term commitment. Also, on the right you can see some of the recent comments so you’ll always know what the active discussions are. This was the most requested thing we’ve heard from people since our last redesign and we’re excited to see where it leads.

The next change is also something that was heavily requested, and that is a change to the ADS on the sites. You’ll immediately notice fewer of them, but what might not be as obvious is those smaller square ones to the right are specific to this city only and are being sold for a flat rate for a period of time rather than a confusing CPM/traffic/network model. Depending on the city, these range from $7-$175 for a full week. If you purchase one, during that time your ad will be the only one in that spot and will show on every page. We set these up both to make it easier for smaller local businesses to get their ads on our site, and also to help us bring in ads that relate better to our local audiences. Also, keeping these sites online is expensive and every little bit helps.

There are a bunch of other things we changed but we’ll leave those to you to investigate and take advantage of. Hope you like it, and we look forward to seeing you in the comments!!

Love,
The folks at MBHQ

Anyone up for some barf ;)

the picture suggests that heat is scorching at the moment in beautiful Islamabad.  And the girl is not so happy about having her ice lolly being shared ;)

Stay cool everyone.

As for me .. this journey at IMB was absolute fun … but I guess its bye-bye time now that I lingered on for some time ;) Will see you when hit Isloo again Inshah Allah .. and the occasional hello hi’s ^_^   2.5 years here were helluva good …  IMB will stay close to my heart  .. yup the drama queen thingy. And IMB gals and guys .. when I come back .. we’ll have a grand meet up :)

Until then ….

ps: hoping people are as active to help IDPsof swat, malakand divison and buner as they were during earthquake days.

Agenda:
=====
5:30 ~ 6:00pm : Registration
6:00 ~ 6:15pm : Prayer Break
6:15 ~ 7:35pm : Presentation / Talk by Badar Khushnood [ http://tinyurl.com/badar-khushnood ]
7:40 ~ 8:00pm : Q&A Session
8:00 ~ 8:30pm : Refreshments

Date/Time:
=======
Monday, Feb 09, 2009 (6~8pm)

Host/Venue:
========
Organized by: NUST SEECS [ http://www.nseecs.edu.pk/ ]
Venue: SEECS Seminar Hall [ http://tinyurl.com/nust-seecs-map ; Login with ur Gmail to see the street map ]

Registration (Mandatory):
================
We have limited seats so please register here:
http://tinyurl.com/google-biz-sol-nust OR
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cHczM0FDb0plVGFWMkV2TWU2dE13QXc6MA..

Event Page:
=========
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=64845731412

NOTE:
1- Registration will close on Friday, Feb 06 at 3pm
2- Only pre-registered participants will be allowed to enter NUST-SEECS campus
–> (as per university security protocol)
3- Please DO NOT forget to bring your ID card with you

Supporting Bodies:
===========
1- CIO Pakistan [ http://ciopakistan.com/ ]
2- Cogilent Solutions [ http://cogilent.com/ ]
3- Brightspyre [ http://brightspyre.com/ ]

The Food

The Metblog Family

Money, so much Money!!!

If you don’t know, I’m talking about the Blogger meetup session.

It was live-blogged over here. And it covers the crux of the event, so I will just put in my two cents and my takeaway points.

I don’t remember the names of the people from IEEE Bahria university, but they did a marvelous job handling the event. Three cheers for them.

Badar, the country representative of Google gave a pretty informative introduction to blogging for newbies and introduced how blogging can be used as a means to make both ends meet. He introduced a couple of case-studies from Pakistan which were pretty interesting to hear about. Those including pinkwool.com, sizlopedia.com, paperpk.com and some more.

There were six panelist speakers.

1) Atif from Brightspyre
2) Shehzad from bytesforall
3) Nadir from Naqsha.net
4) Faheem from paperpk.com
5) Saad from Sizlopedia.com
6) Me from right here :)

It was a very inspiring talk.

My take-away point was that all of the people took their passion and gathered the right kind of audience and then made money though it. The way everyone was talking about their projects made an aura in the atmosphere that was pretty much addictive.

Atif from Brightspyre proudly presented the fact that those guys used HR as a SAAS(Software AS A Service), probably the first in the globe to be doing that. And they very successfully are deployed at many clients. Shehzad from Bytesforall was pretty much eloquent about the wrongdoings that have been happening w.r.t the blockage of blogs in Pakistan. Nadir told about how much facilitative their website is, check out their site – you’ll be thrilled.

I was very much excited to hear from Fahim of paperpk.com and Saad from sizlopedia.com, because both of them are earning (masha’Allah) a lot from their online presence through programs like Google adsense.

Google sponsored give-away gifts for the audience and the panelist (Yo, I got a brand-new ferrari-red colored Google mug as well, hehe) Red bull gave away free Red bulls to keep us awake during the session, and Wateen provided the wireless connectivity during the event.

The event was a very entertaining one and more soever, an educative one in a peer-to-peer Socratic kind of a way. As the saying goes that when one teaches, two learn. I was extremely thrilled to meet some bloggers who I probably would never have had the chance to meet if it wasn’t for this beautiful world of blogging.

I hope that such events continue in the future and that by next time we have much more real-time case-studies.

Hey, I almost forgot.

CIO Magazine was one of the organizers as well.

Three cheers for them too.

If I’ve missed up someone, my memory is to be blamed, not my sincerity.

Thanks!

Update:

there are pics available as well!

Register & Come…