Bloggers Block: In The Hindu Metro Plus
Thanks to Sudhish Kamath for writing this article about IndiBlogger, and publishing our blogging stats on Chennai. Click on the image below for the full scan. Online version here.
Pepsi Youngistaan ka WOW!
The Pepsi Youngistaan ka WOW! IndiBlogger of the month is in its final phase of nomination. There have been over 80 nominations so far and quite a few of them aiming for the 30,000 rupee cash prize. The nominations will be revealed this week, and the contest will enter the voting phase.
Having read through some of the entries, we feel that these posts are some of the bloggers best work yet. There have been some very creative suggestions on the Pepsi game which is live on twitter with #pepsithegame and is promoted through all IndiBlogger.in channels.
We wish everyone the very best for the next crucial phase of this competition. A good tip for getting more votes is to participate actively within the online community. The winners of the previous IndiBlogger of the month contests have always been amazing in using multiple channels to bring the online community closer to their blogs. This enables them to get feedback on their blogging and also give that little inspiration to write a masterpiece next time around.
If you have not nominated yourselves yet, please do so at the contest page on IndiBlogger. Hopefully this contest would have helped some of you improve your creative writing, get some new followers but most of all we hope that you had a great time blogging!
Anoop Johnson & The IndiBlogger Team
The Black hair, Grey Hair & No-Hair UniverCell IndiBlogger Hyderabad Meet!
It was a hair here and a hair there as the first thing noticeable on a hot summer afternoon in Hyderabad was the age range of the crowd. We had everyone from an 11 year old blogger to others who claimed to have grey hairs of wisdom. Over the past few months we have interacted with over 500 bloggers through blogger meets and online contests. We get tons of your support messages and the kind words in some of them are a boost to us every time. Keep your thoughts coming and thank you for the reviews on the UniverCell IndiBlogger Meet.
The thirty seconds of fame was hilarious as always in Hyderabad. It inspired the title of this post. The blogger who said that, please stand up and take a bow. 
We got a lot of valuable feedback in the many reviews we have received. One of the bloggers expressed concern that people could not take note of the credentials of the blogger during the 30 seconds. This is a valid argument. If there are any ideas or better yet if there is some free code that we could borrow/ steal, do let us know and we will figure something out.
The chart activity was a great time to connect with friends! I put my comments on a few bloggers. Some bloggers want more time on it. We are still deliberating logistics, but we agree. BTW what is everyone doing with the chart papers? You guys can put them up too, we’d love to see!
The Quiz by Riyaz Usman was a good little thing for those who had… BRAINS!!! After every question, I would turn around to Renie and ask “What was the question??” Aiyo! Very embarrassing!! There were many bloggers who knew the answers and 10 of them won discount coupons from UniverCell, for the rest of us, let’s form a club. The names of the winners are in this sacred document. As she did with all your sketch pens, Rashmi put this paper in her pocket and sat down somewhere. Kindly excuse the folds. The document was then torn to protect private data.
We also noticed that there was more enthusiasm for the UniverCell blogger contest and we wish you guys the best. This is a great opportunity for bloggers to live the blogging dream, if there ever was one! Anisha @ RCB is doing a great job for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and her work is featured on the RCB website. I am pretty sure that she has tons of fun! The UniverCell contest on the other hand is for gadget bloggers. Staying close to every mobile phone that comes into the Indian market, drool drool!
Many thanks to the IndiBlogger.in core guys and Karthik in particular who got things done in time to make possible this very enjoyable meet. We all felt a little bit different at the end of this blogger meet and a tweet from Sanz4U said it all “Don’t forget Hyderabad”. We certainly won’t!
We hope you guys liked the video prepared just for Hyderabad. We will be uploading it soon after we add a few elements from the meet.
Anoop Johnson & The IndiBlogger Team
Update: The meeting was covered by the Hindu, here’s the online version and the scan is below:
The IndiBlogger Team
This is an excerpt from Mumbai IndiBlogger Meet 2010.
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Naveen Roy (aka “shit happens!”)
The man who was there at the beginning, and the man we hope will be there at the end. Commitments of an extraordinary nature have kept him from IndiBlogger for a while now; but we’ll never forget that he’s the one who taught us what blogging was all about in the first place! Only recently realized that Saturdays are just as bad as Mondays. |
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Anwin Joselyn (aka “The Fish Molester”)
The man who once said – “blogging is the next big thing in India” and started the whole conversation which led to IndiBlogger.in being what it is today. He’s the guy behind the scenes, the one who puts ideas in people’s heads before sitting back to watch what unfolds. He only recently realized that the handlebars on his Royal Enfield were the most atrocious things Bangalore has ever seen. |
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Diana (aka the Gate-Keeper)
Our super strict moderator. Everything on IndiBlogger, right from the forum to IndiRank to IndiVine, hinges on what she does; she religiously moderates over a hundred blogs everyday to see if it complies with all our guidelines. She still hasn’t realized how much power she has in her hands. Let’s hope she never does. |
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Nafisa Patel
Our event manager who has nothing to say on twitter ’cause she’s too good for the rest of the world. She’s the one who makes the very, very detailed lists on Google docs before every blogger meet, ensuring everybody gets their jobs done on time. She even calls bloggers to make sure they land up on time! Without her, #indimum would have been a lost cause. She only just realized that fish tend to die without food, even if you talk to them everyday. |
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Anoop Johnson (aka “Where’s my drink?”)
I’ve known him for far too long to say anything that can be publicly said – expect that he has a nose like a bloodhound and the memory of an elephant. He knows what’s going wrong, long before it becomes apparent to everyone else; and he can recall embarrassing stories about your childhood you blocked out a long time ago. He only recently realized that you never, ever walk out into the middle of a party leaving your pants behind. |
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Karthik DR
You never know what’s going on behind those glasses. He can juggle multiple clients, women and a million other woes in one hand while drinking rum with the other. Reliable as a rock and accepts no praise. Still hasn’t realized that those Nunchucks he carries around everywhere will never be used except in his fantasies. |
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Balaganesh (BG)
Always out to prove himself – BG’s the one who will quietly do his thing and lo-and-behold, a few trips later, the job is done; He’s handled the media coverage of IndiBlogger since our very first blogger meet, and the results speak for themselves. Still hasn’t realized that there are some things you just should not roll on an airplane! |
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Vineet (aka “Pappu Pager” and “Sir-Craps-A-Lot”)
Vineet was the blogger who made our Pune Blogger Meet possible. The video he made, dedicated to the blogger in all of us, speaks for the passion he has for blogging and IndiBlogger. He now represents IndiBlogger in Mumbai. His offer letter was a bottle of whiskey at Bangalore – and thanks to him, we’ve been able to pull off this great meet at Mumbai. He still hasn’t figured out how to get the point across in 50,000 words or less. |
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Rashmi Devaprasath (aka “Goms”)
The queen of logistics. If it was not for her (and her OCD) , we would have been running around like headless chickens all through the blogger meet. We really didn’t have much to do except for manual labor, which she graciously allowed us to do. She calls bloggers and tells them what shoes to wear to a blogger meet, and she’s still wondering how many threads there are on the carpet at Sea Princess. |
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Edin Joselyn (aka “Eddie”)
The man who once said “Blogging is boring” – and he’s been paying for it ever since. This newbie blogger is patient, persistent and provides our development team with good Single Malt like a good little soldier. Watch out for him ’cause he’s an upcoming star in the IndiBlogger ranks. Only just realized that Gul probably remembers him as “Coffee Boy”! |
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Shilpa Rathnam (aka “Umpa Lumpa”)
The one who is very, very picky about whom she follows on twitter, Shilpa is that little extra ingredient that’s needed at every event. Sharp as a tack, yet insane as a cuckoo clock, she keeps things ticking away with the sound of her voice. She only just realized that there is at least one person in this world who doesn’t want to be hugged by a Shilpa. |
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Nandita Thomas (aka Nanny)
The good sport; the go-to person when you need something done, no matter how crazy it is. She would watch the proceedings behind those half-closed eyes and yet know what’s going on better than most of us. #indimum was her first blogger meet, and we hope it’s not her last. Only just realized that airplanes tend to take off even if you’re not on it. |
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Simi Balaganesh
The one you cannot photograph without a smile on her face; this may have been her first blogger meet but you wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t told you so. She can say something that makes you feel good about yourself; 5 minutes later you’ll realize that she was kicking your sorry behind. She only just realized that we all do something other than drinking! |
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A personal note
I shut down my first venture in 2004 when I realized that I could do very little by myself. Three years later, I realized that everything I was looking for has been prancing around in front of me for more than 20 years. It’s a rare occurrence when you can make a “startup” work – it’s a 1000 times more valuable when you can achieve it with people you’ve known since you learnt how to ride a bicycle. |
Hitler wants to attend the Kingfisher IndiBlogger Meet @ Kyra, Bangalore
More info on this event here!
The Pagoda IndiBlogger Meet
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! See the official meet page here.
Vineet Rajan joins the team to run our new office at Mumbai
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!
IndiBlogger.in – Official blogging partner of Vodafone MTV Splitsvilla 3
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!
Launch of IndiMail
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
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