Hi Friends,

Even as I launch this today ( my 80th Birthday ), I realize that there is yet so much to say and do. There is just no time to look back, no time to wonder,"Will anyone read these pages?"

With regards,
Hemen Parekh
27 June 2013

Now as I approach my 90th birthday ( 27 June 2023 ) , I invite you to visit my Digital Avatar ( www.hemenparekh.ai ) – and continue chatting with me , even when I am no more here physically

Friday 2 July 2021

VIRAL LOOP (THE POWER OF PASS-IT-ON) - ADAM L. PENENBERG

 


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When I read any book, I scribble my comments / notes in the margins


These reflect my views / opinions about what the author is saying – including my disagreement

Often, my comments are in the nature of telling myself :

Hey ! We should try out this idea in our own business ( Head-hunting / Online Recruitment )

Following are my comments re :

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Pg. No. 2

·         May be the reasons Poll-E-Ticks did not work ware:

·         Abstruse

·         Unromantic

·         More like an “Exercise”

·         Needed “Expert Knowledge”

·         Too many to rate.

·         This idea is worth incorporating!

Pg. No. 3

·         Most such “Rating” online, comprise of just ONE item to be rated at a time, by simple clicking, on a scale of 1-5.

·         A dream come true

Pg. No. 5

·         What did the trick!

Pg. No. 9

·         In IndiaRecruiter, “Resume Search – free Text”, we have a column “No. of Times Downloaded”

Pg. No. 10

·         We launched CustomizeResume on 17-11-2009. It is now 16 months old. We are getting, on an ave., 30 visitors / day, and may be 1 jobseeker to register / day! About a 100 recruiters and 1600 jobseekers have registered so far.

·         We are still in the process of removing bugs.

·         We are dangerously dependent upon 3 jobportals for RSS feeds of = 1000 job sdvts / day.

·         My hope is, someday. Our “Job Alert on Mobile” feature, would redeem my efforts.

·         But before that, we will need to “publicize” the site amongst jobseekers – make them aware of it’s “UNIQUE” features of JAM / Free Resume Blast.

·         Hopefully, we will shift our webserver from Reliance IDC to our own new pffice next week. Then I intend, promo emails – which, about a month ago, did bring in, ave – 80 visitors / day. I intend to buy a database of 60 million email ID’s (for Rs. 2000/=) and start the blast (25000 per day). That will take 8 years! If promo-emails work, we will raise the capacity of our current Airtel Broadband from 1 Mb to 2 Mb. In the meantime, my blog / comments have succeeded in getting 39,170 links to point to CustomizeResume – but our Page Rank is still (2)!

·         There is a long way to go and I must not tire / feel frustrated.

·         This is a significant day in my life.

Pg. No. 11

·         CustomizeResume may start-off because jobless jobseekers would want to try “anything” that could get them a job – but, in the long run this concept could sustain itself only if the Recruiters appreciate and send out a clear message to jobseekers of their preference for a Customized Resume.

·         If this (“Wanting”) does not happen, it will die!

·         Candidates are not blastina their resumes because of Low Raw Score in graphs.

Pg. No. 12

·         To be able to “Share” graphs, we are providing [DOWNLOAD] button and encouraging jobseekers to post individual graphs on their Social Networking profiles.

·         We will embed all 8 graphs in candidate’s photo. Clicking on different parts of photo will display different graphs! Now candidate can email to Recruiter (or friends) only photo!

·         Ahi-Ravana:

·         Mahi-Ravan

Pg. No. 14

·         All of us got postcards, asking us to make 10 copies and send out to 10 friends – if we do not want God to frown on us and calamity to fall!

·         In case of CustomizeResume, if there is a groundswell from jobseekers then Recruiters may not be needed to inflnence!

Pg. No. 16

·         We have placed 64 messages on CustomizeResume website – where, only one is visible at a time. With every page refresh, a new one is seen.

Pg. No. 18

·         In our “Submit Resume” form, we have planned to enable jobseekers to embed links to their Social Networking Sites Profiles. In each of the 8 graphs, we have placed a link to CustomizeResume.

·         First we must solve problem of poor RAW Scores.

Pg. No. 25

·         We have FREE TRIAL page, to enable visitors to experiment with customization. Next we may allow clicking on a few SAMPLE CUSTOMIZED RESUMES.

·         Where FURD Museum is located – just outside Detroit

·         Now, even in case of JAM many job-portals are offering

Pg. No. 26

·         So far, along with text resumes, we have not been able to deliver / email “GRAPHS”! And recruiters are hardly impressed with plain text resumes!

·         This is one problem we need to solve – along with the problem of Low Raw Scores in graphs

Pg. No. 27

·         When jobseekers customize their resumes and Apply Online, these resumes will get seen by Recruiters – some of whom themselves, may now register and customize their own resumes. At the least, they may visit our website and conduct FREE TRIAL

·         About 2 months back, we introduced a page called “START YOUR OWN BUSINESS”. This has not clicked so far

Pg. No. 28

·         Unless, we can make a “customized Resume” to be a WIN-WIN for both jobseekers AND recruiters, we cannot set in motion a VIRTUOUS circle. Being able to click on highlighted keywords (by recruiters) is the first step in this direction.

Pg. No. 29

·         CustomizeResume in not designed for FRESH graduates (without any experience) but they are the ones who are great at spreading the word!

·         Majority who have regd. In last 18 months are fresh grads

·         This (human behaviour) can still work with Customized Resumes. If the first few jobseekers who sendout their Customized Resumes, start getting interview-calls (the PAY OFF), they will spread the word on their own.

Pg. No. 32

·         In India, Naukri and our own 3pjobs were amongst the pioneering jobportals in 1997. Today there are hundreds – and all having TEXT resumes only. May be 30 million. Time may be ripe for arrival of customized resume.

Pg. No. 33

·         As loug as only TEXT resume gets emailed when a candidate “Applies Online” (or thru JAM), there is no difference between us and other jobportals. There is NO DIFFERENTIATION! But starting today, we will send promo emails to 3 lakh candidates, promoting JAM. We are also buying a candidate Database of 70 lakhs (Rs. 4000/=) to whom we can blast emails Let us see how much this helps.

Pg. No. 34

·         This was my favorite TV show (1955-58).

Pg. No. 35

·         Last week, identified with cancer.

Pg. No. 36

·         There is practically no awareness JAM amongst Indian jobseekers despite Naukri / Monster / Timesjobs having similar (but somewhat complicated) services.

·         We are trying to do this thru our slogans.

Pg. No. 37

·         I am shifting my focus from “Generation of Graphs” and from “Customization of Graphs”. Jobseekers don’t seem to see any particular “benefit” in these. Now I am trying to benefits of JAM. Let us see if that works.

·         All that we can do is to send-out million of emails to candidates, “inviting” them to take online FREE TRIAL – apart from Press Releases & announcements on classified Advt sites + Social Networking sites.

Pg. No. 39

·         I spent 2 semesters there in 1955-56 and took “Railway Engineering” & Metal Cutting” course under Prof. K. J. Trigger

Pg. No. 41

·         We have his book “Telecosm” in our library.

·         I gave this to Sanzay Passari of Essar Telecom (LOOP) for reading, around June 2010.

·         I hope our Customized Resume bring some “color” to the job-portals.

Pg. No. 44

·         Q: Just because a jobseeker, NOW, can have MANY versions of his cuctomized resume, will that lead to more “Apply online”?

·         Will the availability and EASE of Customization promote greater usage?

·         This has not happenend and won’t happen till we solve problem of LOW RAW SCORES in graphs.

Pg. No. 48

·         For our job-advts database, currently we are almost to tally dependent upon RSS feeds from Naukri. We need to download job-advts from many more jobsites.

·         We do get RSS also from Timesjobs and click jobs – but this weakness is bad.

Pg. No. 49

·         I had one in 1997 – after we launched 3pjobs

Pg. No. 50

·         Which is what we are trying to do in CustomizeResume.

Pg. No. 51

·         HP Labs (SiteonMobile.com) tasklet technology, can deliver JAM SMS Service to India – based mobile phones only. But if I can make JAM a success locally, then I can convince HP to extend it all over the world.

·         Of course that would require Job-Advt RSS feeds from all over the world.

Pg. No. 53

·         Just 2 days back, I saw “GlobalConnect” of Timesjobs.com – which is somewhat similar to VisualCV.com. We have to do better than both!

Pg. No. 54

·         Today on all job-portals, TEXT resumes are the de-facto standard. A jobseeker has no problem “pasting” his TEXT resume word file on any jobportals – including ours. “Submit Resume” forms too are nearly identical on all job-portals-so there is not much extra “hassle”. Despite this, there is no way to predict the future of Customized Resume.

Pg. No. 55

·         Can we get a group to form around “Customized Resumes”?

Pg. No. 56

·         I will need to do this.

Pg. No. 58

·         Yesterday, Microsoft purchased Skype for $ 8.5 billion. I suppose, with 170 million registered users, Skype must have a very high “Viral Coefficient”. Obviously MS will integrate Skype into Windows Mobile and even enable video-Conferencing on its mobile platform

Pg. No. 61

·         Our jobsearch has over 200,000 “Sellers” (i.e. job-advertisers) – even if these job-advts are got thru RSS feed. Will that attract jobseekers to register? We should know in 3/4 weeks.

Pg. No. 63

·         In our library.

Pg. No. 66

·         Ad Sense

Pg. No. 67

·         About 7/8 years ago, Jeff Taylor (Monster.com), told audience at Hotel Leea: “I wish I could get each registered jobseeker to pay Monster, just $ 1 / month. That would give me $ 40 million per month”.

·         We did-but I suppose candidates are not using it since they think “Poor Raw Score Graphs” will create a bad impression on recruiters. Last week we added a not on this page, saying Graphs are NOT emailed-only the text resume.

·         We will need to introduce “Free Resume Blast” in order to spread.

·         Getting a job (or even a interview-call) is certainly a very important need-

·         Q: How can we establish that customized resume will fill that need, better / faster, as compared to Text resume?

Pg. No. 68

·         True for job-portals.

·         “Apply Online”

·         We will know in 2/3 months.

·         Remains to be seen.

·         “Challenge Your Friends” might help.

·         As more join, “Percentile Scores” change. We will be

·         Able to offer sharpor “Apple for Apple” comparison amongst co-prafessionals.

Pg. No. 69

·         If we can succeed in aonvincing registered jobseekers to add their “customized resume” to their own profiles on socil networking sites.

·         A longway to go before this can happen.

·         On IndiaRecruiter, we wrote on profile:

·         Profiles: the new currency of Recruitment.

Pg. No. 70

·         We plan to add “PARA-CHAT” chatroom on CustomizeResume.

·         Idea behind customization

·         Co - professianols.

Pg. No. 71

·         And we are encouraging users to “enhance” their Social Networking Profiles by adding their Customized Resume. 8 graphs can be made to “Fade In / Out” to resemble a Video.

Pg. No. 74

·         Will recruiters get more influenced by their “perception” of a customized resume than by the “reality” of the candidates sitting in their front?

Pg. No. 75

·         Will such a generation (of jobseekers) spend 10 minutes to first “Register” and another 10 minutes to “Customize” their resumes?

·         In 18 months less registered-and few have gone beyond BASIC registration.

Pg. No. 76

·         A feature of customization.

Pg. No. 77        

·         In IndiaRecruiter, we took the first step to turn plain text into Graphs (images). In CustomizeResume, we provide the ability to juggle around those images.

·         Just look at children watching TV

·         I hope this works in favour of customization.

Pg. No. 81

·         About a year back, we were sending out emails to candidates, every time a recruiter “opened / viewed” his resume on IndiaRecruiter.

·         We have many-but optional

·         Now we have done this

Pg. No. 85

·         For Naukri / Monster India / Times Jobs etc., it would be fairly simple to offer a “Resume Customization Service”, which is as good - or even better than ours. With their vast resources, they could do this within weeks. And with each claiming to have millions of registered jobseekers, they would have a huge advantage over us.

·         If, however, we remain a “niche” they may simply ignore us and let us live.

Pg. No. 88

·         Be cause of lack of funds, my strategy still remains to send out promo emails to jobseekers. Last 24 hours, we sent out 100,000 emails and, today, traffic is 38 visits so far!

Pg. No. 89

·         We shifted from Raj Ind. Complex to Lok Bharati on 26 Jan 1996 (Republic Day) – and launched 3pjobs.com on 14 Nov. 1997.

·         And from Lok Bharati, we shifted to Hyde Park on 31st Jan 2011.

·         This continues to be a core issue for all new websites, even to day.

Pg. No. 96

·         We are simply adding a link (CustomizeResume.com) on each graph in the profile. No hardsell.

Pg. No. 97

·         We launched 3pjobs.com on 14 Nov. 1997

Pg. No. 98

·         Let us hope this works for us as well!

·         Will this (emledded name), motivate the jobseeker to email his profile to friends to show-off?

·         We are also embedding jobseekers name in each graph.

Pg. No. 101

·         Today, we purchased a database of 7 million candidates for Rs. 4000/=. We have installed it onn our local intranet server to be accessed by all of our consultants. Tomorrow, I will discuss with Shuklendu whether we can up load these 7 million records on our website

Pg. No. 104

·         Reminds me of my negation meetings with BKS Labour Union (L & T / Powai) in 1982. Once they even asked me to “storm out”! I said it was for them.

·         I remember Cyril installing this on my resi. PC in 1998.

Pg. No. 106

·         May be it was other way around. The arrival of “Tools”, unleased the demand for “Self Expression”. The “availability” pushed-up the usage.

·         Customizing one’s resume, is also a kind of “self expression” / differentiation. So far candidates had to depend upon professional “Resume Writing”

·         Services and pay in advance (irrespective of the outcome!). They might like the “Enabling Power” of our website.

·         No indication as yet!

·         I hope they do!

Pg. No. 109

·         I hope to make “plain Text Resiones” to compete with “User-Created” customized resumes. They can create on their own, fast & simple.

·         Videos equal to 20 hrs of viewing time get uploaded on YouTube, every minute!

·         Today “Resume Writers” are the middlemen. Yahoo Directory lists 700 websites devoted to resume writing.

Pg. No. 114

·         “What will I do with a customized Resume?”, could well be the initial reaction of jobseekers. But it the first few users get interview – calls, things will change.

·         With arrival of 3G, mobiles will be able to send / receive 8 graphs as emails.

·         May be this was / is, a lot of wishful thinking – but unless you wish, how can you make. It happen?

Pg. No. 116

·         Over the last 3 years, I have copy / pasted my blogs on thousands of websites – and thereby, collected some 40, 000 “backlinks” to CustomizeResume.com.

Pg. No. 123

·         Using this argument, we provided a FEERBACK feature in IndiaRecruiter, whereby a job-advt. or gets to know, not only many candidates viewed his advt but even who were they.

Pg. No. 128

·         If CustomizeResume becomes wildly popular, at least some of the smaller job-portals may come up with “copycat” versions. That would be good for us. If bigger ones “copy”, we cantry to capitalize on that!

·         May be we should get some geek to prepare a video where “graphs” are jumping out of his shirt pockets.

Pg. No. 130

·         See my remarks on p: 14

Pg. No. 132

·         By placing link “Courtsy: CustomizeResume.com” on each graph, we are urging-but-silently-users to “alert” their friends

Pg. No. 133

·         On “Free Trial” page, a visitor can shuffle graphs (up / down) to create 40320 unique Combinations-but no one will take the trouble to create 4/5 Combinations. But, suppose each click were to produce yet another unique Combination? People will try many!!

Pg. No. 145

·         Obciously, viral coefficient of CustomizeResume is way below (1) – with no. of daily visitors stagnating at 30.

Pg. No. 147

·         As far as Customized Resumes are concerned, no doubt, we have “First Mover” status. Now we must wait for the users.

Pg. No. 151

·         Our Percentile Scores do tell the users (candidates) about their “Relative Standing” amongst co-professionals: Where do I stand?

Pg. No. 153

·         Now changed to “what is happening?” Focus is no more on “You”.

Pg. No. 155

·         Although not required to be physically shipped, Customized Resumes, are “products” that each user will “Configure” as he wants & store

·         Same with us.

Pg. No. 157

·         Only if you can afford to spend a small fortune for generating demand. Try generating demand without spending a penny! There is nothing more difficult.

Pg. No. 159

·         I spend a semester there in 1955.

Pg. No. 161

·         This is also the idea behind “Challerge Your Friends”.

Pg. No. 166

·         So far, I don’t see much “word-of-mouth” propagation of our website.

·         The only reason any jobseeker would register is to “Apply Online”. If he does that, he spreads our “product”!

·         My fond hope was (-and still, is) that JAM would spread the website

·         Jobseekers & Recruiters are.

Pg. No. 167

·         I don’t think a jobseeker posting his resume on Naukri, to go and tell friends about it, but it might be different with CustomizeResume! Dilto with recruiters.

·         Same with us.

·         We don’t want to spend any.

Pg. No. 168

·         We started our promo email blast (Is this your resume?) just a few minutes ago-to 209,000 jobseekers [27 Nov. 2009 / 3:35 pm.]

·         If we succeed in uploading 7 million jobseeker data our website we will repeat similar email soon

·         Same in our case

·         Free Trial

Pg. No. 169

·         Since job-advts that we show in our database, are the ones received thru RSS feed from Naukri, a job-advertiser may get 2 resumes against same advt – one from Naukri & one from CustomizeResume – vastly different.

·         Would recruiter tell candidates to send “CustomizeResume”? Now, I seriously doubt!

Pg. No. 170

·         Once, highlighted keywords in resumes are made clickable, recruiters may start advocating Customized Resumes. No sing so far!

Pg. No. 171

·         Otherday Shalaka said, it was possible to make a candidate’s photo clickable to reved his 8 graphs – can candidate post such a photo on “Submit Resume” form on other job portals?

·         Can he post such a photo at “Global Connect” of Times jobs?

Pg. No. 174

·         We have implemented this in CustomizeResume

·         CAPTCHA

Pg. No. 175

·         Dot com bust.

Pg. No. 181

·         In India 3G spectrum auction would take place in another 2 months. Then, it may take the Operators another 6 months to roll-out 3G services. By end of 2011, 3G handsets may become affordable.

·         By that time, we should be ready to deliver JAM & RAM.

·         If Shalaka could embed text (candidate’s name) in the graph-image, users (geeks) may think-up to embed their own photo in each graph! Who knows, what they might do!

Pg. No. 182

·         Customized Resume also tells a “personalized” story of the candidate. We are suggesting that candidates post these graphs on their Networking Profiles

Pg. No. 183

·         May be we should encourage candidates to post their graphs on Flickr!

Pg. No. 185

·         I am not sure if a jobseeker would want to invite his friends to look-upbhis “Customized Version” of resume, by sending-out links. But may be worth trying.

Pg. No. 188

·         My only hope is to upload from backend, those 7 million candidate recrods-then invite them for EDITING.

·         Shuklendu thinks this “seems doable:. Weshould know in 10/15 days.

·         It is still averaging 2/ day, after 18 months!

·         It would be a breakthrough, if we can get 100/ day candidates to register! Only 6 registered since morning!

Pg. No. 189

·         Rahul tells me, during last 22 hours, our server have sent out 20,000 promo emails (Is this your resume?) since then, some 10 candidates have registered

Pg. No. 190

·         We are allowing each jobseeker to store cat any given point of times max – of 3 customized Profiles. Of course, he can delet & create new ones

Pg. No. 191

·         Is it ever likely that Naukri’s registered jobseekers would bring pressure to allow them to paste their graphical profiles on Naukri? Unlikely

·         If our “Submit Resume” page / form, has prorision to accept links to You Tube Videos, it is possible that some executives (jobseekers) may upload their “Lecture-Videos” and link.

Pg. No. 194

·         We are in the process of sending 200,000 emails can we expect (2000) candidates to register?

·         By uploading 7 million candidate records from backend and then asking them to click a link in email, to come to EDIT RESUME page: will it make it simple?

·         May be we are getting 1 in 10,000!

Pg. No. 195

·         We need to introduce something like this fast.

·         May case too

·         How?

Pg. No. 198

·         In our case, this is equivalent of most jobseekers filling-up all 5 stages of “Submit Resume” to develop 8/9 graphs.

·         Same with us

·         In our case this could happen only when we introduce __ __ $ as currencies for salory.

·         We will also need RSS feeds from forcing jobportals.

Pg. No. 199

·         Beyond just rearranging the sequence / order of the graphs, it is quite possible that many jobseekers may want to “Embellish / Decorate” their profiles in their own way.

·         I would do the same if we can earn some Advt revenue from Adsnse.

Pg. No. 200

·         In “Job Search”, users (i.e. jobseekers) are choosing / selecting the “TYPE” of advts. they want to see – (someday to be delivered as JAM).

Pg. No. 205

·         Read my “TOP 10” note & U/I, written 4/5 years back.

Pg. No. 206

·         Every jobseeker has his resume on all 3 major job-portals. Ma be our “implementation” (Submit Resume in 5 independent stages) would attract them.

·         It did not. But if up-lpading 7 million records works well then next would be a data. base of 10 million fresh grads

Pg. No. 207

·         In our case too, percentile score depends upon the No. of people who completed a particnlar Profile.

·         We must wait & see, if this will apply to us.

Pg. No. 208

·         Eg: - Candidates having graduated from same college in same year {OR} Executives who worked for same company at same location in same year.

·         Customized graphical resumes will become a distinctly different “CATEGORY” – where, being the pioneer, we will set the standards.

Pg. No. 209

·         Promo emails / Press Releases / Classifieds etc. are fine – these are needed to create “Awareness” – but, I suppose, potential users will depend upon the buzz about our site, amongst their friends.

·         I have created a new page “Your Friend?”. We will upload this, after uploading 7 million records. Hopefully, this may start a buzz

Pg. No. 210

·         Although we uploaded CustomizeResume on 14-11-09 we started our promo email + Press Release only on 17-11-09. Despite this Google ranks us [# 1] pages on search term “CustomizeResume”. Amazing.

Pg. No. 211

·         Now I understand that this “Keyword” is very rare. Hence our high ranking.

Pg. No. 212

·         If those 14 candidates who registered over the last 2 days, apply online & them start getting Interview-Calls, they are likey to talk about us to their friends / colleagues.

·         I might consider same, if uploading 7 million records fails

·         I had prepaned a note on this 8/10 years ago – outlining my own Version / U-I.

Pg. No. 214

·         Read my note: Horuscope-and otherequally fictitious stories.

Pg. No. 215

·         I am sure some jobseekers may want to present their 8 graphs (and their photo-and their text resume) to Recruiters in the form of a “Slide Show” – especially if it can be posted on bloggingsites.

Pg. No. 219

·         Although I have no plan to charge jobseekers – now or later – they have, as now, nowhere else to go, if they want a graphical, customized rssume.

·         Unless recruiting managers start preferring “Customized Resumes” over “plain text resumes”, candidates, themselves are unlikely to go for the same. we may think we are “adding value” by forming / displaying graphical analytics, but jobseekers don’t see that way!

·         They must be asking:

·         How do graphs help me get an interview call?

Pg. No. 221

·         For Job-Advts, initially, I plan to add the feature (found on many sites): “Push my Ad to the Top” – later charge for this.

Pg. No. 222

·         If this be the case, how will Google Adsense, earn us money? Nothing lost in trying.

·         For some unexplained reason, Google rejected our application for Ad Sense!

·         We will try again.

Pg. No. 223

·         This is never an issue with jobportals because jobseekers are “Searching” for good Advts to interact (viz: View / Apply) – but which one, if there are 253 results? Here JAM comes into picture

Pg. No. 224

·         JAB (Job Advt Broadcast) would be an SMS job-alert that goes out, within seconds of a “Suitable Job” being posted. Just-in-Time.

·         “Recommondation System” based on frequency of selection of “Job Search” & “Resume Search” parameters

Pg. No. 229

·         We can

Pg. No. 231

·         This is the amount Jeff Taylor (Monster) wanted from each registered jobseeker.

Pg. No. 232

·         This could also be in our case if we implement “Docu Burst” or “Text Arc”, described at VisualComplexity.com

Pg. No. 233

·         Can this tell us what is “Viral Coefficient” of CustomizeResume?

Pg. No. 236

·         Job Advt & Resumes

·         Apply Online (Jobseekers) / Resume Download (Recruiters)

·         Too early to say about our site.

Pg. No. 239

·         Rahul

·         We need to create mechanism whereby a jobseeker, having “Customized” his resume, can email that link to a few friends, saying:

·         [Seems like “viral strategy” of most sites is “Invitation”]

·         “Hey! What to see how my Customized Resume look like? To surprise yourself, click

·         [MrXYZ/Customized Resume]

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