Daily Archives: May 11, 2009

On professional Blogging

I got quoted in the article “Taking forward the Business of Blogs” at exchange4media:

A simple Net search will give out all the answers to what is professional blogging, but the question is, why is there an overall ignorance about professional blogging and when will it catch up big time in our country?

Blogger and HR consultant Gautam Ghosh pointed out, “People have realised that having a free-for-all kind of blog is not really helpful if one is trying to build a readership in any sense of the term. I see a lot of professional blogs in India, but a lot of them are abandoned after some time. The big issue in my opinion is that people blogging professionally have high expectations without knowing what competencies are required to succeed as a blogger.”

Celebrity blogs draw in the moolah, but do ordinary bloggers writing or talking about extraordinary stuff rake in the moolah too? It is assumed that people who are widely read or heard on blogs dedicate a lot of time on it. That puts them to the league of professional bloggers, where they need to monetise their space. But how do they monetise and where is the revenue?

Blogger Ghosh said, “In India, bloggers are not able to monetise as much as bloggers in the US, because the readership in India is quite niche and they are savvy in not clicking on the ads. Cost per impression advertising for social media publishers is not so well known. If one is able to build an audience that is a global audience (other English speaking parts of the world), then monetisation becomes easier.”

Ads have and will eventually make it to the blog space, but there definitely is a dearth of ad aggregators and blog ad networks to make the connect between the blogger and advertisers.

The Delhi Blogger Meet and Tweetup

Saturday 9th May was the 29th Delhi Blogger Meet at the Maximum Store at Shahpur Jat, Delhi.

It was arranged by the inimitable Twilightfairy and Mojosanjay (if you don’t know their real names then you’re obviously not a part of the Delhi Bloggers Bloc :D )

The guest was Sam Miller, author of “Delhi: Adventures of a Megacity“.

Some of the other bloggers and twitterati who landed up were Sidin Vadukut, Mayank Dhingra, Saad, Deepak Shenoy, Kishore Bhargava, his wife Jyoti, sister Mala and his son. Others also included P.Jain, Ankur Banerjee, Aayush Soni, Honeytech, and the big twitterati  Vijayandra Mohanty. Some people we missed were Rajesh Lalwani, Palinn and Bhawna Sharma.

Some interesting points that got discussed were:

  1.  A common theme that emerged was that we all seemed to be spending much more time on Twitter and neglecting our blogs. The point that emerged was that twitter was a great medium to just share links and reply to people while a blog was a better place to bring out longer thoughts that needed to be mulled and reflected over. updated: I actually quoted this US recruiting blogger who posted that twitter is a stream of thoughts and context setting is impossible. If one replies to my tweet in the next couple of hours I can get the context – later than that I am unable to figure it out. Remembered due to BombayAddict’s post on the related topic.

    So Twitter is great for context free conversations.

    Blogging for setting the context and presenting a cogent logical argument. 

  2. A concern was expressed by some people that with so much virtual relationships were real world skills going to be lost – were people focusing too much on electronic medium that ‘higher’ things like reading and conversation were suffering. I disagreed with the premise, quoting Clay Shirky’s book – and saying that engagement of any level is better – than say being focused on passive consumption.
  3. Vimoh raised the point that medium like twitter enable him to have conversations with people on broader and deeper issues than the ones he ends up having with real world friends – which tend to be mundane. Guess I should have repeated this tweet of mine here. 
  4. Some others shared how twitter has been a useful tool for reporting out things like earthquakes and terror attacks.
  5. I raised the point that tools are irrelevant beyond a point. One can move from network to network and keep connecting with the same and new connections. Sairee, a friend from Ryze network was there, and though she’s not blogging and tweeting we’re still connected via facebook. 
  6. Sidin shared how he’s going to track the mood of the nation via twitter once the election results come up on 16th May! 

I guess after that snacks and cold drinks and samosas landed up which made everybody get up and indulge in one on one  and network in smaller groups.

Overall it was a fun evening.

Going back, these thoughts came to me:

gautamghosh skills a digital life builds: multi-tasking, audience analysis, meta-cognition, reflection, engagement with larger social processes

gautamghosh if you let technology control you instead of vice versa don’t blame the tech. Blame your own lack of control1 day ago from mobile web

gautamghosh skills a digital life builds: multi-tasking, audience analysis, meta-cognition, reflection, engagement with larger social processes1 day ago from mobile web

TED Fellows Program Accepting Applications for 100 TEDIndia Fellows

This is interesting!
 
 
If you are interested then contact TEDIndia directly
 
For more information about how individuals may apply for a TEDIndia
Fellowship, please visit http://www.ted.com/fellows/apply. TED Fellows may
apply or be nominated by another individual. To nominate a candidate, email
the full name of the candidate and their contact information to
fellows@ted.com
 
Organizers of the TED Conference today announced they would begin the search
for 100 TEDIndia Fellows to participate in the TEDIndia Conference in
Mysore, India, following upon the successful TED Fellows program launch at
TED2009 this past February in Long Beach, California. The TEDIndia Fellows
program will accept applications for fellowships from April 20, 2009 through
June 15, 2009.
 
The TEDIndia Fellows program is a part of the larger TED Fellows Program, a
new international fellowship program designed to nurture great ideas and
help them spread around the world. This year, organizers will select 100
promising individuals from around the world to attend the very first
TEDIndia Conference. At the end of the year, organizers will select 20
individuals from a pool of the TED, TEDGlobal, and TEDIndia Fellows to
participate in an extended three-year Senior Fellowship, bringing them to
six consecutive conferences. The principal goal of the program is to empower
the Fellows to effectively communicate their work to the world.
 
Benefits of the Fellowship include conference admission, round-trip
transportation, housing and all meals. Fellows will also participate in a
two-day pre-conference with the opportunity to present a short talk for
consideration for TED.com, elite skills-building courses taught by world
experts, social opportunities and surprise extras.
 
The TEDIndia Fellows program will have international representation with a
distinctly South Asian majority, with approximately 75% of the Fellows
representing the South Asian region, and 25% representing other regions of
the world. South Asia is defined as including the countries of India,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, Myanmar, the
Maldives, and Sri Lanka. For the global pool, applications will also be
sought from the other five target regions: Africa, Asia/Pacific, the
Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East, with consideration to the
applicants from other countries.
 
The program seeks remarkable thinkers and doers who have shown unusual
accomplishment, exceptional courage, moral imagination and the potential to
increase positive change in their respective fields. The program focuses on
innovators in technology, entertainment, design, science, film, art, music,
entrepreneurship and the NGO community, among other pursuits. Applicants are
generally between 21-40 years of age, though anyone over 18 and over 40 may
apply. They must also be fluent in English; though moderate fluency will be
accepted on a case-by-case basis.
 
The program was inspired by the TEDAfrica 2007 conference in Arusha,
Tanzania, in which 100 fellows participated in a first-of-its kind gathering
that featured trailblazing, entrepreneurial individuals vested in creating
change on the continent. The TEDAfrica fellows brought with them new
perspectives, enormous energy, enthusiasm and ovation-generating talks.
Propelled by their energy, TED decided to develop the full-scale TED Fellows
program, which debuted at TED2009 in Long Beach, California.
 
“TED2009 was a transformative experience for me, and several of my peers,”
said Pragnya Alekal, TED2009 Fellow and now TEDIndia Fellows Coordinator.
“For the first time, we were in a supportive community of enthusiastic
innovators, all working to make the world better. And after only two months,
so many new collaborative ventures and initiatives have come out of it.
 
“I want to share TED with other people; I want more South Asians to
experience what we Fellows experienced. I would like the world to know about
the genius brewing in this part of the world, and I look forward to them
meeting their counterparts from around the world. I believe this will be an
important launch pad for everything that is good for the future of India,
South Asia, and the world.”
 
About TED
 
TED is an annual event where some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers
are invited to share what they are most passionate about. “TED” stands for
Technology, Entertainment, Design — three broad subject areas that are,
collectively, shaping our future. And in fact, the event is broader still,
showcasing ideas that matter in any discipline. Attendees have called it
“the ultimate brain spa” and “a four-day journey into the future.” The
diverse audience — CEOs, scientists, creatives, philanthropists — is
almost as extraordinary as the speakers, who have includedBill Clinton,
Nandan Nilekani, Bill Gates, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Ashraf Ghani, Jane
Goodall, Frank Gehry, Bono, Sir Richard Branson, andStephen Hawking.
 
TED was first held in Monterey, California, in 1984. In 2001, Chris
Anderson’s Sapling Foundation acquired TED from its founder, Richard Saul
Wurman. In recent years, TED has expanded to include an international
conference, TEDGlobal July 21-24, 2009 in Oxford, UK; media initiatives,
including TED Talks and TED.com; and the TED Prize. TED2010, “What the World
Needs Now,” will be held February 9-13, 2010, inLong Beach, California, with
a simulcast event in Palm Springs, California.
 
CONTACT: Laura Galloway for TED, +1-213-948-3100 or +1-212-260-3708,
laura@gallowaymediagroup.com

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