For months now, Google Reader's death and the impending alternatives have been talked, in fact we have meted out a literal overdose of it. Well no more!

However Google is not only about Reader and Gmail only, there are so many other applications that most of us don't know about nor talk about. Ignorance in this case is just by default. The developer community too hasn't promoted their tools much and left it there to be explored eventually.

How is a lay user supposed to stumble upon them if it is not made part of the popular web culture?

Facebook is such a vast expanding platform, the giant slice of the social media networking space that everyone and anyone can use. To be have a Facebook account was initially a fun, socializing gesture, limited to friends, family and acquaintances. However, the platform was eventually catapulted to serve marketing and branding functions for businesses. Well that's when being social acquired a whole new meaning.

While some businesses are certainly the masters in this domain, there are others who are still making their way up through the ladder. The important thing is Facebook gives space to everyone equally. That's what makes this such a popular platform for businesspersons, probably after LinkedIn. There are no set guidelines, the crowd is vast and varied, interests can be mixed-n-matched and interaction is real time.

Since the inception of the eCommerce revolution in the past two decades, there has been a clear line of differentiation between an online and offline business enterprise. However, for businesses that have built a reputation just being "brick-n-mortar" stores, the situation at present is fast changing. The need to embrace e-tailing options is becoming inevitable for any modern day business.

It does not matter if you have been operating successfully as an offline store for the scores of years. What is important is to expand your reach beyond the neighbourhood, district and city. That's what makes you a brand, lest you are just one small fish among the many out there. Which business would like that a glutted profit and reach ratio? None.

Analyzing the eCommerce phenomena on a country-wide scale, there are many developed and developing nations that are still not comfortable with conducting their business online. It's a strange affliction to stay away when the benefits to reap are manifold.

The 4th of July marks the Independence Day for Americans. An official federal holiday it marks the successful attempt by the American Colonies to throw Britain's yoke.

Commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the day off is celebrated with much pomp and show as streets get lined with kids touting their patriotic fervor in parades, carnivals, concerts and families gathering around for a reunion.

Well that was a small history refresher for all of us. Coming to the businesses, a holiday technically marks the loss of a day's business. Even eCommerce enterprises face the same situation. The question of the moment is how can business shunt this small aberration? What special can we do on such holidays?

It's almost mid year and your new year resolutions to top the search results and rankings are all over the place. Your online visibility is hitting a lean patch. Add to this the latest Google update to its algorithms.

That's a mini Pandora's box waiting to explode!

Since the business team is the main handler of any problem that they face, what new can they do to enhance their visibility so that the search engines re-engage with you systematically?

Multilingual search marketing is the raging trend in the business world since the global economy is a large well knit unit today.

"Search Marketing" is an effective way to boost traffic and online presence from search engines, both through paid and unpaid means. Over the years, search marketing has become a blanket term for both SEO and SEM, the latter referring to largely to paid search activities.

Since the terrain of operation is vast and unknown, this marketing tactic can go wrong in a many ways. Not only are foreign businesses facing tough competition from indigenous competitors but are in turn becoming agents in the process, since language and culture-sets become problematic.

For businesses selling online, hiring the services of such agencies becomes inadvertant. Here'e what we figured leads to the apparent shortfall despite collaborating with domestic players:

"Digital Darwinism" sure sounds like a heavyweight term.

As apparent as it is this term has its origins in Charles Darwin's social theory. He famously wrote in his seminal work the Origin of Species "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change".

In one of our earlier posts weighing the pros and cons of technology we left our readers to decide how not to become technological slaves. As a follow up, Digital Darwinism seems an appropriate topic to discuss.

What do we understand really by this word?

The mismatch between the pace of technological change and the co-related ability of corporate organizations to cope with changes, paraphrases the meaning suitably.

The title surely seems uncanny, right?

Most of you reading this right now, will reminisce their first odd jobs. At that time having a job was a big deal in itself. None of us thought too much what the "brand value" of the firm we joined was. For most, this is Old school!

This is is surely against the current norm, whereby the youth plan out their futures more concisely when it comes to their career.

In an economic situation hit by meltdown with global impacts, it is the small business that is emerging as the new centripetal force. It is a natural powerhouse of employment for the scores of youth who fail to make the cut at the top firms. Interestingly, it is these small and individualized business ventures that are stimulating the hackneyed U.S economy that's sadly  addled with a record 8% unemployed and 17% under employed population currently.

With the Valentine's Day around the corner, it is hard to resist not dabbling something about it.

We at E-junkie are all about expressing L-O-V-E, but a love of different kind.

We LOVE our readers! We Love minding our own business! And that's exactly what we suggest that E-commerce businesses do this day.

So rather than doing the monotonous "tips to gift your Someone Special" or writing about the sites that offer good deals for the day or coming up with soppy quotes, we decided to keep things simple.

Whether the quality of emotions expressed have much weight or not, sensationalizing the phenomena called Valentine's Day certainly has become the "in-thing".

Rationality and point-range precision are some hi-fi words that get to be used when we speak of the tech world. It is personified with geeks who are math and design geniuses, nothing short of prodigies in their own sense.

When that is the accepted picture, why do "myths" come -in waltzing in this territory where they have no business to be.

Well exactly , that's the catch-phrase - its an unwarranted and forceful element that is purposely floated to change the flow of things for business gains.

But who's the "Biggest Loser" in this duel ? The common users like U and me.

These pun-intended lines by Poets of The Fall instantly recur at this point :

Yes! you caught that right- BRAND Beatles rather than BAND Beatles!

Wondering what's the correlation between rock music and business?

I am a Beatles junkie. When that thin line between an offhand listener to an ardent follower happened, is impossible to track. That's that!

Just take a second and think what made a band of boys from Liverpool the most popular rock band of all times. Fan or no fan, everyone knows "B-E-A-T-L-E-S" till date. Their music was shunned as unoriginal and un-befitting the rock genre. Surely the current breed of metal fans would be nodding their heads to that. But throwing "verbal" stones will not change history of the phenomena dubbed as "Beatlemania".

"Every contrivance of man, every tool, every instrument, every utensil, every article designed for use, of each and every kind, evolved from a very simple beginnings" - Robert Collier

Beginning an enterprise is the most difficult task, isn't it? And we don't mean the collection of tangibles to get started. Something called as the 'driving force' is what helps most entrepreneurs to imagine an idea and then execute it into reality.

The hard reality of the present times is that the Gen Y wants a quick life- be it jobs, money or relationships. An absorbing insanity is slowly becoming a by-word for what our yesteryear pro's call the "spirit of entrepreneurship".

"Corporations no longer try to fit square pegs into round holes; they just fit them into square cubicles"~Robert Brault

Gone are the days when this was the accepted tenet when it comes to office space design. Design outlay ranks way higher than mere utility nowadays.

In one of our earlier post about Office design, we metioned this fact. We at E-junkie have a fetish for bringing for our readers the best of the best artistic things.

In one of our earlier posts by guest author Jennifer, we raised the issue of venturing into the Google+ arena. Today we just want to engage a little more on this.

If your are an entrepreneur or a content marketer, this is just the thing you should be watching out for. Launched in 2011, Google+ is quite an under-rated phenomena.

The social media industry is abuzz with the proxy Cold War between Facebook and Google to rule this niche.

While Facebook scores a brownie point in terms of communication and connectivity, Google has for the score of years been the best search engine. No two ways about each of their achievements.

Having said that, the other fact is that Google+ is Google's much needed vent to capture the social media sphere in terms of providing an interactive platform to both the businesses and their clients. Well that's how Google describes its initiative- "a multilingual social networking and identity service". Currently it has more than 500 million registered accounts of whom 235 million solely function on this network. Google further adds that it is a "social layer consisting of not just a single site, but rather an overarching layer which covers many of its online properties". Sounds great, eh?

"L-I-C-E-N-S-E"

So what do you  figure on seeing this 6 letter word?

Guns? Cars? Church Wedding?

And are any of these obvious options correct?

We say nada!

License or permits are like dog-tags that businesses need to compulsorily wear before trading off for the clash-of- the-markets duel.

A piece of paper that gives you the 'Go-Ahead' to legitimately conduct a commercial exchange is what's called a License. Well what most of us believe is that, this is a prerequisite thing needed by only large MNCs or those quaint street shops we visit for groceries and essentials.

Got a artsy hand and want to make good of your talent kids? Well here's a real opportunity brought to you by Google.

Google Doodles as most of us know are creative, commemorative and fun designs that the search engine floats on its homepage regularly.

It recently announced its eponymous Doodle competition open for kids in the U.S who can "think big and redesign our homepage logo for millions to see".

This year's theme "My Best Day Ever..." allows kids K-12 to exercise their talent for creative endeavors. Entries from all the 50 States shall be adjudged by a group of 8 leading personalities from various walks of life like journalist Katie Couric, renowned photographer Deborah Feingold, Oscar-winning director, producer Brian Henson and others.

Most of us have heard about Marx's Communist Manifesto or John Lennon's controversial Imagine Peace but what's this Peanut Butter Manifesto?

Are you one of those busybodies who has no time to pen down a note or send a personal card to your dear ones this Holiday Season? Well you are fairly in the normal breed of procastinators then.

With people and Businesses becoming environment cautious, electronic greeting cards or e-cards as they are popularly known, are becoming the haute monde.

Some may argue that e-cards although being a easy way to communicate accross a larger section of people at one go, does take away the personal touch. Does it ?

What makes the corporate world different? Besides the obvious tight schedules, target-oriented business operatives, fat paychecks and the chic looking 'pinstripe tycoons and coiffured dames', it is the corporate jargon that has come to define the "culture" as we know it. As hilarious as it may sound, your employees and colleagues surely won't take pleasure in going bonkers for too long. There exists a mini industry of anti- jargon slingers who totally despise this mind boggling "exploitation" !!

Karen Friedman, author of Shut Up and Say Something: Business Communication Strategies to Overcome Challenges and Influence Listeners, opines that "People use jargon because they want to sound smart and credible when in fact they sound profoundly dim-witted and typically can't be understood, which defeats the purpose of speaking".