About Shashi Bellamkonda

Shashi is known locally as the Social Media Swami, and is responsible for new media and social media strategy for Network Solutions. Follow him at @shashib.

Recent Post by this Author

KikScore Online Trust Survey Finds information Sharing Leads to Trust

DC-based startup KikScore created a patent-pending Confidence Badge and online trust score platform that enables small online businesses and non-profits to demonstrate trustworthiness through data and information. Last month, they released the findings of the first KikScore Online Trust Survey. Kikscore co-founder Raj Malik, a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, said, “The main takeaway from the survey is that website…

A Phone That Is Almost a Tablet – The Samsung Galaxy S II

A few weeks ago, Samsung gave me a Galaxy S II SGH-T989 phone from T-Mobile to test out. I have been an Android fan for a while. My previous phone was a Google Nexus One (made by HTC), which I liked except that the space for apps is limited. Here are my first impressions of…

Filter and Organize Your Facebook Updates With Wisdom

Microstrategy has introduced a free Facebook app called Wisdom to help you organize your Facebook news updates. I have been testing this app for a few months, and here are some of my observations: Wisdom gives you a way to sort and see the most popular posts on your stream by number of likes or…

Organize Your SMS Texts With Uppidy

Ever try to search for a phone number, link, or coupon that was received by text? Until now, it was a lengthy, and frustrating, task. Uppidy, a Reston, VA-based startup, offers an app that organizes your texts for you. Just install the Uppidy app on your Android or Blackberry, and all SMS text conversations are safely stored in the cloud, where they…

Flowtown Reveals Timely.is: Twitter Sharing Tool For Power Users

It’s Magic Well … actually, it’s not. What we do is analyze your past 199 tweets and figure out the best time slots. We then use this info to auto-schedule your tweets and learn as your followers grow. – from Timely.is I have been using Timely from Flowtown for a few weeks now. It came my…

Data Geeks Rejoice at Google Public Data Explorer

This is a good week to be a fan of data. The Economist devoted a issue full to data, stating that: “In recent years Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP between them have spent more than $15 billion on buying software firms specialising in data management and analytics. This industry is estimated to be worth more than…

Wasting Energy? Google PowerMeter API Launches

Wonder how much energy leaving your laptop plugged in could be wasting? Google took a step to try and help by announcing the launch of Google Powermeter API on Google Code. Google PowerMeter is a free software tool that allows you to view your home’s energy consumption. Here are a few points to explain how…

Google Acquires Online Photo Editor Picnik

Yesterday Google continued it’s winter shopping spree as it announced it had acquired Picnik, an online photo editing application. Other recent purchases include the acquisition of social search Aardvark and the acquisition of iPhone email application reMail. For those of you unfamiliar with Picnik, it is a Seattle based start-up that offers a pretty slick…

Google Shopper Finds Goods With Phone's Camera

Google announced this week the launch of its new Android app called Google Shopper. In a blog post Google software engineers Daniel Switkin and Farhan Shamsi said: Shopper lets you find product information quickly by using your phone’s camera. It can recognize cover art of books, CDs, DVDs, and video games, along with most barcodes….

Mobile Device firm LensVector Snags Another $50M for Auto-Focus Camera Innovations

I have a Nokia N95 with a 5MP camera and a great Carl Zeiss lens but I cannot change the lens focus while shooting video so my videos can be blurry. I was excited to hear about LensVector, a Mountain View, California based start-up, is getting additional $50M funding from Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). IVP…

Monster Deal Inked for $225M for Yahoo HotJobs

Monster.com which has been connecting employers with job seekers for the past decade announced today that it is in an: “indefinitive agreement to acquire the assets of Yahoo! HotJobs, a leading online recruitment website, from Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) for $225 million in cash. Monster and Yahoo! have also entered into a three year commercial traffic agreement,…

Google Voice Introduces Chrome Browser Extension

Google Voice is a product that lets you manage your multiple phone numbers by giving you the choice of directing your calls where you want them. Example : If you dial my Google Voice number you may get me on my desk or cell phone or even my home depending on the time of the…

Blippy Social Shopping by Sharing Purchase History

In 2009 Facebook users revolted against the Facebook Beacon a Facebook features that lets users share their purchases with their networks. A year later, I have signed up for Blippy which lets users sign up and link their accounts with companies like Visa and Mastercard Credit Cards, iTunes, Amazon, Zappos and even Netflix. They can…

Nokia Crowdsources For New Operating System

Editor’s Note: This article was written by Shashi Bellamkonda. He blogs at: blog.networksolutions.com and shashi.name. You can follow him on Twitter at:@shashib. Symbian is the operating system that Nokia phones use and in a previous post you will see that Nokia is the largest cell phone company in the world. Scott Weiss user experience (UX) and user…

Facebook Introduces Reply by Email Feature

With Facebook email notifications turned on for my Facebook account, today when I got notified of a comment on a post on Facebook there was an additional line that said: “New Feature: Reply to this email to comment on this post.” Check out this blog post by Facebook which further explains the new feature. This…

Technology Proves Useful in Haiti Relief Fund Drive

Editor’s Note: This article was written by Shashi Bellamkonda. He blogs at:blog.networksolutions.com and shashi.name. You can follow him on Twitter at:@shashib. The Washington Post live blog on Haiti is reporting that “Charitable giving for crisis reaching record totals. Organizations raising money for Haitian relief efforts online say that the early response is reaching record-breaking totals…