IndiBlogger – Development blog

Bloggers of Chennai! We are proud to have our HQ in this amazingly vibrant and sometimes unbearably hot paradise. ” The City of Blogs!” is what Chennai is and we think that’s well earned considering what transpired at the UniverCell IndiBlogger Meet.

The registration desk was a bit crammed as GRT had some issue with the WI-FI setup. We did everything according to the book ” Managing Events for dummies” and we still  managed to muck up a few things here and there.

Hitler tries again and this time its the UniverCell IndiBlogger Chennai Meet

The chart session was just brilliant! Here is what was written on Karthik’s chart “Roses are red, Violets are blue, This room stinks, Becuz of you”. Definitely the handiwork of a blogger with a good sense of commercial poetry . Renie had “Did someone say Old Monk??” on his chart.

The session on traditional media and blogging was actually a concept to figure out a synergy between both these mediums. For some odd reason the discussion started to get personal. That is when we realized how much this medium of blogging meant to the bloggers of Chennai. **Clap** ** Clap**. Dont get us wrong, The best feeling every morning is waking up to our coffee and the morning newspaper, getting some sun on the balcony! I mean where would we be without print media?, paperbacks rule .

There was also an interesting clash of language. This is a very unique thing in India. With so many local languages and English being the primary medium of communication, some ardent followers were keen on having proceedings in Tamil. When a few bloggers and the media decided to engage the crowd in Tamil,  another set of the audience was unhappy. What could they do when they could not understand the language?. Chennai is a cosmopolitan city and so to over come this language problem IndiBlogger.in has decided to start a new language called ” AjaxMajax”. Kushkush woo woo dingydy ding means ” Dont touch my pants”.

There are a few reviews on the IndiBlogger Meeting page. We agree with every one of you! I guess to get a full picture of the meet we have to look at all these reviews. All those bloggers who took time off to write but not mentioned here can shamelessly self promote in the comments .

Last and definitely not least, UniverCell, I think it was awesome that everyone welcomed UniverCell with open arms. IndiBlogger.in is very happy to be associated with them and we wish them every bit of success on their first baby steps into this quite maddening world of blogging. Bloggers whose passion lies in the telecom industry could have very interesting partnerships/associations etc. What do you think?

During the Initial round of introducing the IndiBlogger meet, I would like to go on record that I deliberately forgot to introduce fellow team mate BalaGanesh because he didn’t flush that morning.

Well, many many many thank you’s to all who attended. Hopefully you will invite us to host a blogger Meet in Chennai again. Until next time, we love you all! And you know that

P.S :- We will put up the pics shortly. For now we can all thank Ram, He has put up a few Pics.

- Anoop Johnson & The IndiBlogger Team

We are back in Chennai for the second Blogger Meet and it feels good! The last Chennai Meet was on 08/06/2008. Time just flies and we have conducted 8 blogger meets across India before coming back to Chennai. We remember the last IndiBlogger Meet in Chennai; quite vividly because that was the first time we had close to 150 bloggers in a blogger meet and we had some family there wondering what their kin was doing sleeping during the day and partying through the night. Lemonade started up proceedings for us in Chennai and was quite involved even during the planning stage and helped us with a lot of gyan.

The 2010 blogger meet for us is very exciting. First off, we can’t wait to meet all the Chennai bloggers! Its been too long my friends, too long! We are looking forward to the charts activity that Chennai has not experienced before. There will some very clever comments and it should be a funny read. The final forum/discussion time has been spiked with an intriguing little discussion between bloggers and traditional media. I hope there’s a riot and we can finish proceedings Chennai style . This discussion will be moderated by Shilpa, an interesting little tweep from Chennai. Her last tweet read “Nothing odd about disliking bad writing. I’m dreading doing the review. Can’t think of one good thing to say about the book!” Needless to say we are looking forward to this little segment. I bet she is doing a mental review of this post right now .

We have a new supporter of Indian bloggers in UniverCell. Their determination to cover all aspects of mobile phone retailing has made them gracious enough to sponsor events such as this and also start their own blog. The Blog might be unveiled during the blogger meet. Very dandy! They do have activities planned with IndiBlogger’s across India and this blogger meet is only the start of it.

We cannot wait to meet you guys! And please be on time, we know its Chennai and mama can catch you for license or just because he can. I heard its getting hot too but if we are on time we can have more interactions and that’s the best thing about the blogger meets right?

- Anoop Johnson, The IndiBlogger Team

The fates of about a hundred bloggers were sealed the minute we put the details of the meeting up on the blog. Most didn’t know what to expect, which made it easier because we didn’t have a clue ourselves. To fit a blogger meet in 3 hours was going to take some doing. So we decided to do what we always do – remain clueless. We were banking on the organizational skills of the bloggers, and our friends didn’t disappoint! It was a controlled war zone out there. That’s what happens when you put together about 25 different professions and go one overboard by inviting a doctor. Everyone knew that they had help at hand if they got hurt!

We had Kyra, a nice venue. It was just right for the event. We had Kingfisher, they did not just bring the beer but they brought themselves as well! This was not just a head line meet with a sponsor tag for Kingfisher, they came there with enthusiasm and got the bloggers going. Refreshing! And finally the crowd of bloggers – the moment we saw the room being quickly filled, we knew we were halfway home! A very special thank you to many bloggers for whom this IndiBlogger meet was not their first one.

We got some feedback about the hall at the Kyra theatre being too warm. We think the local electricity department could be the culprit as several power cuts were scheduled all over Bangalore. The “beer is free” menu made a few bloggers ask us about juice, tea and coffee, and we just realised that we had forgotten what it was like to be teetotalers. I guess we were eight or nine at the time. But henceforth, we will remember to cater to all kinds of food/drink diversities. You might be able to get kosher!

We had a good time introducing ourselves, and when our founder Renie Ravin (with alcohol levels dangerously low) introduced his blog that his own mother threw out, we had to laugh! Ha Ha!

The Live and Let Comment IndiChart activity was a lot of fun. Anwin had the first comment with “Fish Molester” on his IndiChart.  A while from there we saw his brother, Edin, walking around with “Fish Molester’s Brother” on his back. That set the tone, and we got to know as many bloggers as we could. Many of the bloggers were writing some hilarious comments like “Lovely fat Ass”, “I came for the snacks” and an accusation “You Just broke a glass!”. I remember talking to a blogger crazy about Manchester United and I shared that passion with gusto, only to write “Man U sucks” on his chart.

One of the topics during the final session was a discussion on finding out the all important question “Why the %#@* do we blog??” . All the bloggers let it rip – passion was a key motivator, money was another and so was sharing personal opinion. We think the answer can’t really be found, the very question, “why we blog?” can only have an opinion as the answer.  The best things in life are when you can make a living doing what you love, while at the same time we can’t expect to be rewarded just because we love to blog. For everything else, we hope there’s master card.

There was some talk about the IndiBlogger community writing our presently non-existent About Us page for us. That’s probably a good idea because we’re not quite sure who we are!

We had most of the members of the IndiBlogger core team in this IndiBlogger meet after a long time. Sitting this one out was stalwart Vineet Rajan (Aka Papu Pager) who agreed to do all our work while we partied.

We thank every one of you for your support. I think we understand each other just like one big family. Many of you ask how you can help at IndiBlogger and we’ll tell you from the bottom of our hearts – you already have!

P.S: If you guys found something funny on your charts, we’d love to hear it!

Pics from the meet:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=indiblr&w=all

Event page, attendees, reviews and comments:
http://www.indiblogger.in/bloggermeet.php?id=68

Fuhrer’s envy, IndiBlogger’s pride (Title inspired by Mr.R)

- Anoop Johnson & The IndiBlogger Team

More info on this event here!

This is a beginner to mid level blogger tutorial – on how to add the IndiRank widget to your blogspot blog in 6 easy steps . I hope it helps

1. Login to www.blogger.com and click on ‘Layout’ under your blog as shown in pic.

1. In the resulting page, click on Add Gadget from the sidebar where you would like to display your Indi Rank Widget. See pic below:

1. You will get a pop-up where you can choose the gadget to add to your sidebar. Select HTML/Javascript gadget by clicking on the ‘+’ sign to the right of the gadget title. See picture below:

1. Now, keep these web pages open and log in to www.indiblogger.in. Then you need to visit the IndiRank page and select the widget from http://www.indiblogger.in/widgets_indirank_customize.php. To copy left click inside white box and then CTRL+C on your keyboard. Picture below:

1. Come back to the pop-up window where you would see a place to enter the title of the widget and also a large space for entering the code. In the larger area paste the earlier copied code from IndiBlogger.in by pressing CTRL+V on your keyboard.

   Then click on ‘SAVE’. As in picture below:

1. And Voila’ your blogspot blog can now show the IndiRank widget. Follow same procedure for other widgets and badgets too.

Cheers and all the best!!!

Can IndiBloggers make the Difference? – 40,000 kids depend on you or is it just about that?

At IndiBlogger we believe in a code and the code is simple as it’s from the movie Troy; Honour the god(s), love your woman/man and defend your country!

Those days of chivalry are still at hand. We might not fight with sticks and stones any more but we can do so with the power of the collective words towards social causes. Soldiers fighting a war was a social cause and nothing more. India has a huge online community and the huge network of bloggers in the IndiBlogger database is a testament to that fact.

So what are we fighting for? Well its not only the 40,000 kids that GiveIndia promises to educate. It’s the very core of our blogging existence. To understand this, we have to wonder why we started blogging. Was it for the fame or the money or the hits on our homepage or the recognition? We believe it was to make a difference. This is the time for all of us to unite under one banner. We might be from different parts of India, speaking different languages, writing about different things, none of this matters if we can’t help the community.

Over the past two days we have received many blog posts on GiveIndia’s campaign to help win one million dollars that will go a long way to educate 40,000 kids in India. The truth of the matter is that it’s not even close to its full potential. In effect it means that Hector called his troops into battle and 90% of them did not show up. Well, try defending Troy with that.

Imagine the power if we all blogged about this. Words will not be able to describe the outcome of such an event

So here’s what we have to do before the 22^nd of January,

Vote here : http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/338730

Do what you do best! Blog about it!

Do you need more information?: Visit the GiveIndia blog.

Do you want to be sure: Send an email, giveindiachase@gmail.com

Do you want to talk about this with other bloggers? Log on to the forum.

In the words of Achilles (Troy again) “Do you know what’s there, waiting, beyond that beach? Immortality! Take it! It’s yours!”

Well that’s what is at stake and here are some of our heroes contributing to the battle; Please do add your blog posts in the comments so we can update the list accordingly!

- Anoop Johnson

1. http://totalgadha.com/
2. http://craftisland.blogspot.com/
3. http://blogeera.blogspot.com/
4. http://vibgyorhopes.blogspot.com/
5. http://www.dostanamehfil.com/
6. http://thoughtfulrandomness.wordpress.com/
7. http://zombieanoop.wordpress.com/
8. http://tulsidas.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/giveindia/
9. http://vinni.co.in
10. http://www.renieravin.com/
11. http://www.webtrafficroi.com/facebook-giveindia/
12. http://planetphoenix.com/2010/01/18/vote-for-give-india/
13. http://aseems-infinity.blogspot.com/2010/01/one-for-cause.html
14. http://zillion2ndinnings.blogspot.com/2010/01/support-child-welfare-project-on.html
15. http://karansguesthouse.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/an-appeal/
16. http://gopalramanan.blogspot.com/2010/01/help-for-cause-please-vote.html
17. http://geekydood.wordpress.com/
18. http://myamusingmind.wordpress.com/
19. http://rfazli.blogspot.com/2010/01/help-children-of-india.html
20. http://vu-point.blogspot.com
21. http://slishacrazy.blogspot.com/2010/01/give-india-vote.html
22. http://monikamanchanda.wordpress.com/
23. http://paanchwakhamba.blogspot.com/

A very eventful Sunday it was for Birla, the owner of Pot Luck restaurant in BTM layout.

His tweet read “Teaching kite flying and chopsticks to 100 kids, hosting bloggers meet and catering for a bday party. ZZZ..What a weekend!

At the bloggers meet is where we all came in.  25 bloggers came together for a time out and we were pleasantly surprised to find the terrace garden venue extremely refreshing. Dhempe wanted to make it into a film studio of sorts.

It was an interesting blogger meet. It did not have the strength of the Bangalore blogger meet before this as we promoted it only through twitter. But I would say that this is the most comfortable I have been with a bunch of Blogger URL’s in a long time!  A lot of jargon was exchanged in the time allotted for discussions and needless to say, it all flew over my head. In times like this, we like to say that we left our technical brains at Chennai, safely with Renie. Everyone gave us some very good feedback. Mohan from Yahoo gave us his view of the voting process in IndiVine being misused. We will be brainstorming this on priority after we brush up on our php skills, re-learn our code and fill up our drinks cabinet.

This blogger meet was ever so memorable for the IndiBlogger team. Even though we were from different professions, our unique hobby made us realize that we shared similar problems. I mean, we hated “The Man”, we abused a few companies/films, we screwed over a few technologies, we shared stories of the many failed companies/blogs we once started and the camaraderie was just brilliant!

The pagoda blogger meet?? Here’s the good stuff; our man Birla definitely put something in the pagodas to get everyone hooked. I ate three plates of assorted pagodas and 2 cups of coffee. How much did everyone else have? It was a very worthy snack for all of us also considering the fact that Birla was flying kites in the morning, literally!

Well, until we meet again, you’ve been awesome; we’ve been IndiBlogger, Goodnight!

- Anoop Johnson

Remember we said we have another announcement to make in 2010? Vineet Rajan, who was the hero behind our well received blogger meet at Pune in March 2008 is now officially a member of the IndiBlogger team. Vineet is moving out of his job at HP, Hyderabad to open our office at Mumbai – yes, that means we’ll have a lot more activity for bloggers at Mumbai!

Here’s Vineet (aka Pappu Pager), with an Ubuntu logo proudly displayed at a Microsoft – sponsored meet:

We guess we really got to know Vineet after the blogger meet, in some dark smoky pub at Pune. He even took a bus from Hyderabad to Bangalore to join us at the pre- Iron Maiden Kingfisher Heavy Metal Blogger Meet, even though he wasn’t going to the concert!

The halo always appears when Vineet is photographed after a few beers:

You can read more about Vineet here.

Needless to say, we’re delighted to have someone of Vineet’s caliber on our team, and we’re sure he’s going to be an instrumental part of IndiBlogger’s future. Welcome aboard, Vineet!

Our last announcement of 2009 is an exciting one for all of us in the IndiBlogger team.  We have been named the official blogging partner of the third season of Vodafone MTV Splitsvilla, and we have just launched their official blog. This is our first association with a Television series and it’s great to be working with a brand like MTV!

Check out the official blog here.

We have another announcement to make – however we’ll save it for 2010.

Here’s wishing all bloggers out there a Happy New Year – may your blogs be flooded with traffic like you’ve never seen before!

Our Christmas update is here – albeit a few days late!

Our last two Christmas updates were blogger meets in 2007 and the forum in 2008. Considering how successful both these features became, we sure did have a lot of pressure to come up with something really useful. Thankfully, as always, there were bloggers who came to the rescue and told us what they needed. The discussion evolved into a plan, and the plan evolved into our latest feature, IndiMail.

If you’re thinking “who needs another email service?”, allow us to clarify. IndiMail is not a wannabe replacement for Gmail, nor does it provide you with an email address. It’s a simple, private, 1-to1 messaging system that bloggers can use to communicate with each other, similar to the messaging on Facebook . IndiMail can only be sent between bloggers who are on each other’s networks, giving the networking feature a greater purpose than before.

Here’s a screen capture of my inbox with a couple of messages from Anwin, our team’s tattooed bug-finder.

But wait, there’s more!

• We’ve revamped our homepage.
• We’ve made an all-new dashboard. You can use it as a starting place for all your IndiBlogger activity.
• The ETA of the next IndiRank update is now shown on the dashboard.
• Mutual connections are now shown separately on the network as well as directory pages.
• A little email icon now sits beside the mutual connection icon; allowing bloggers to easily send messages to people in their network.
• Notifications are now sent when a post on IndiVine gets a vote.
• An updated settings page allows you to control the alerts you receive from IndiBlogger.
• Fixed an error on the IndiRank stats page: if a new user who doesn’t have a rank as yet tries to access the stats, it used to say that there was an error with the blog’s feed.

We owe a big thank you to Sudama and all the others on the forum who gave us their support and made IndiMail possible. IndiBlogger would be nothing but a simple directory if it wasn’t for all of you.

We hope you all had a great Christmas, and we wish you an awesome year ahead.

Keep blogging!

Renie & The IndiBlogger Team