Presenting at the PRCAI conference in Bangalore June 16th 2009

Well ppl it was a very exciting tuesday afternoon that started with picking up Kiruba Shankar at his guest house and showing him garuda Mall about four times from different streets before reaching the Venue at The Enegry and resource Institue (TERI) in Domulur.

I was impressed with the way Shane Jacob from The PRactice went about organizing this. the hall was simply super and everyone who attended really deserved to be there. What followed was a highly interactive session with me getting a lot of questions. I just loved every minute of it!

I tend to be very straight with everyone I meet and this meet was no different and I expected some very tough questions.

When addressing the PR professionals in the crowd, I made a statement saying ” Do not approach a blogger without a blog”

My reasoning for this was that you have to have sufficient credentials to network with people on their preferred platform.  For example, you do need a facebook ID in order to interact with a person on facebook and the same for twitter, linkedin or any other platform.  It takes a blogger to realize and appreciate the effort put by other bloggers. Hell! on an average it takes bloggers a minimum of two hours to write one creative post! not to mention the mental fatigue afterwards LOL! I would never expect a company to approach me without a blog, I know that they would never understand the effort , commitment and creativity required for a blog to be successful. I am not saying that every PR professional should have a blog, all I say is that, if you want to interact with the blogging community and reap its benefits YOU or YOUR COMPANY should be a blogger!

Myself and Kiruba Shankar at PRCAI Bangalore

I also mentioned that “Never pay a blogger to write favorable posts on his blog”

This also prompted a huge discussion as to why it was unethical to pay bloggers to write favourable posts for their company/product/service. You must be kidding me!! LOL! The idea is that every blogger is a brand and it takes a lot of effort to get visibility on blogs. Once a reputation is built , it can be destroyed faster and it will be done by none other than your competitors. If your competitor gets a wind of you paying a blogger cash to write a favorable or neutral post, you will soon recieve an anonymous comment(mostly put by your competitor) that this post is paid and no one should regard this. How many companies or bloggers are willing to take up that risk? Is this business model scalable?  I dont think so!

Along the same discussion I was asked ” Is it fine to pay an all expenses paid trip for a blogger to visit some premises and write about it”

Lets assume that the company is not trying to change the judgement of the blogger. I say hell yeah! awesome and enjoy yourself blogger!!!! The company can make it known to everyone on their blog and explain that they would like to know how the blogging community feels about their product and they feel it is best to understand it in their environment. But lets not send a blogger on a free trip when your product is in his locality LOL!  that will send your competitors on your heels again. if you feel a blogger will learn more about your solutions from London, then send him there or its as good as paying him!

And of course the age old question that will soon rewrite the Ramayana five times over! Why should we blog?

Damn I love fellow IndiBlogger Karthik’s answer to that .. Why Not? he asked ..

There were several other questions but my whole point is that we have reached a stage where we need to understand what is scalable and what should work on a long term strategy and what should never hurt bloggers. IndiBlogger.in’s responsibility and current leader as the largest blogger network means that we will have to do our best for everything that the Blogging community in India stands for.

I loved everyone at the conference and I hope I can provide more straight answers for everyone. I mean, why would anyone make the same mistakes when there are things that have already been learnt and I will continue to provide information that can be used as a foundation to catapult you and your company to newer heights in this age of New Media!

You can see the presentation slideshare.net

IndiBlogger.in – Blogging for PR professionals

View more OpenOffice presentations from anoopzombie.

Thank you once again.

Bangalore Blogger Meet 2009

Hey hey hey! its time for round two of the IndiBlogger.in bloggers meet in Bangalore in as many years! We are very excited, pumped up and are hell bent on making this a very fun evening.

Last year we found that many liked the one minute of fame as it gave bloggers a chance to talk about their blogs and their interest. We had a gala time listening to everyone of you, from the self proclaimed blogger meet virgin Kamal Tripathi, to BlogGanesha, mutiny.in, and to the very funny Parthasarathi , we had a super cool evening.

We cant wait to see everyone again and also see some new faces and characters. Bangalore has always been close to our hearts, it was our first blogger meet back in february 2008 and it it ranks as one of the best.

This year promises to be smashing! with Microsoft providing us with a very cool sneak peak at Windows 7. We have heard a lot about windows 7 on the web and this is a fabulous chance to hear all about it from Microsoft itself. So be ready with your questions on that, its going to be something that we can all blog about and why?, because we heard it straight from Microsoft!

Its great when the community can give something back to the community. Enter mutiny.in, they are giving this rather radical presentation on blogging rights and freedom of speech on blogs. I haven’t heard anyone’s point of view on this before. So if you are a blogger who speaks his or her mind, this is a topic that you need to closely monitor. Recently a 19 year old was directed by the supreme court to take down his opinion on a political party. I say, what the blazes!!??

Microsoft Bizspark is also going to be present, now for all you bloggers who have start ups and are struggling to find means to source your development tools, this is a great oppurtunity to capitalize on what Microsoft Bizspark has to offer.

Overall, with over 70 bloggers registered already this promises to blow the old numbers out of propotion, so if you havent registered at indiblogger.in, this is a good chance to do so. Register here. You can also view the bloggers registered for the meet here. If you you are in the vicinity of Bangalore, this is a must attend meet for any serious blogger.

Looking forward to meeting you all. We cannot wait!

Attention all Bloggers! We will see you in Kolkata!

Kolkata Blogger Meet

21/09/2008 at 16:00

Indiblogger meet at Delhi!

Indiblogger.in braved a hot and sultry day for their sixth indiblogger bloggers meet in just six months! Having conducted similar such meets in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Mumbai, we were really excited to touch-base with bloggers in Delhi. We found a fair share of talented bloggers ranging from musicians, pro-bloggers, political bloggers to a fitness expert and a very shy blogger who just found out that he could orate!

We were helped by IBNMS who have been enabling bloggers in Delhi for quite a few years now. They showed a lot of enthusiasm and their participation in the meet was very well received by all the bloggers present.

THE AGENDA

We at Indiblogger.in have always been known for our very unorthodox approach to hosting a bloggers meet. We have never hosted a presentation on SEO techniques or a “how to” on blogging. We leave that to the professionals and e-learning sites on the internet. At Indiblogger we always try our best to bring out the “blogger” in a blogger and the “indi” in an Indian. We thought the Delhi bloggers reacted wonderfully to this

ideology and fashioned a fun evening out of it.

The evening started with us finding our way to the venue, Chitranjan Memorial Hall
C-405a, C R Park, Delhi – 110019 with a taxi driver who had questionable driving skills. We started the bloggers meet with about 35 bloggers. This we found was quite strange as there were close to 70 registrations on the site. Still, there was no lack of enthusiasm when we played the presentation by Vineet who also hosted the Pune bloggers meet. The agenda for this meet was similar to all the other bloggers meet. We started with the indiblogger team giving everyone a look into our thoughts behind the indiblogger.in initiative which of course involved a bottle of Old monk and selective amnesia as we pondered over the question “Who really made indiblogger?”. The answer – “We don’t know!”. The mystery however will be solved… Soon!

THE 1 MINUTE OF FAME!

IBNMS then took the opportunity to introduce themselves and talk about their initiatives in the Delhi blogosphere. We then moved on to “1 minute of fame”. This particular section was very interactive and gave the bloggers a minute to showcase their blogs and also reveal their interests and the blogs that they visit. As always we found this to be an integral part of our agenda as this gave bloggers a chance to connect with like minded bloggers and also effectively use the networking feature in indiblogger.in to build up their community. Bloggers like Rahi Vidya who was relatively unknown in the blogosphere generated interest through this section. This is in line with one of the indibloggers’ primary objectives to provide more exposure to blogs that deserve attention but for some reason remain estranged.

DO THE JIG/PIZZAS FOR EVERYONE

It was time for the indiblogger “JIG”. This was our way of demonstrating to bloggers the importance of knowing every visitor who took valuable time to visit. In many cases, the number of readers/comments on a blog or blog post is a benchmark to determine the popularity of a blog, its originality and a promise of reader satisfaction. We read through some of the comments on chosen blogs and the “JIG” was done by the blogger who either posted the comment or the one who was commented on. After getting Jiggy with it, we moved on to grabbing ourselves a few slices of Pizza and some soft drinks sponsored by Microsoft. Many bloggers grabbed this opportunity to socialize with all the other bloggers. We also had a number of bloggers interested in indiblogger’s road map and why we were investing time and money on these engagements. To tell everyone the truth – We honestly don’t know! Our current objectives have been trying to build up the offline and online blogging community, instill a sense of responsibility, promote blogging in general and see where it takes us. We expect only the bloggers participation and nothing more!

CODE OF ETHICS

Once the mingling session was over we got down to some serious business. Internally Indiblogger has been flogging the idea of a code of ethics document for Indian bloggers. The Delhi bloggers meet was the first time that this idea was taken public and quite seriously by any blogging association. Our objective for such a document was to give Indian bloggers guidelines, etiquettes and best practices for bloggers to communicate. In an internet where plagiarism, spam, lack of communication etiquettes is an everyday affair, we found it very important for us to ensure that indibloggers followed some ethics.

The discussion was very open and the Delhi bloggers understood what we meant and what we were trying to achieve. Their interaction helped us understand the blogging community a little better and what they stood for. For example,while some experienced bloggers knew the importance of giving a link back to the original post that they had copied, others did not. This discussion helped us realize that the code of ethics document was all the more important to bring in a higher standard and ensure that every blogger old or new understood how non adherence to such ethics would impact a fast growing blogging community. When the concept finally sunk in everyone had experiences on the lack of such ethics either as a victim or an unknowing offender.

THE CLOSE

At this point, the discussion was heating up. Alas! the day had come to a close and we promised the bloggers to take the discussion online. Even though the crowd didn’t number up to capacity, it was a meet where the indiblogger team took home a lot! And I’m sure the bloggers did too. We can’t wait to be back in Delhi! For now it’s off to Kolkata for us. What we have found out though is that Indian bloggers are certainly unified in diversity. Everyone seems to know bloggers in different states, languages etc and we’d like to think that we had something to do with it .

And here are the pics

Pictures

Bangalore Bomb Blasts Video Feed

Here is our very own commissioner talking about the blasts and advising people to continue working normally and that police are working hard on finding clues.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/videopod/default.aspx

BATMAN – THE DARK KNIGHT – Additional Info

We finally booked tickets to THE DARK KNIGHT and I was very excited about watching the movie.

I remember reading the old batman comics way back in 1988 and this is one superhero apart from the Phantom that really facinated me. There have been many adaptations of batman wrt his psyche, his friends and his enemies.

The Dark Knight -Poster

I found that THE DARK KNIGHT was closer to the true batman story than ever. However there are a few things that I remember from reading those age old comics from DC like the fact that Bruce waynes parents were watching the movie “MASK OF ZORRO” the night they were murdered. Batman is a thug and i even remember in a book he threatens to kill a villian if he did not comply “I will kill you!”. Cold hard threats!! He was one scary crime fighter! There were also a lot of references of Batman drinking a loooot of whisky in his lair!

Harvey Dent is also a very very important character. The movie does not portray these two as very close friends but from my memory, Bruce wayne and Harvey Dent (Now TWo Face) were actually very close friends. They shared a lot of views and beliefs and I remember thinking to myself that Harvey Dent would have become another batman had it not been for his “accident”. The only secret that Bruce wayne had to keep from Harvey was the fact that he was batman, but he came close to telling this to Harvey numerous times. In the movie they portray Harvey’s personality being mutated into Two face with petrol and he burns. This is not how I remember it. Acid was thrown on Harvey Dent during a political rally, by the joker (Man I love that guy!)

The jokers personality was just spot on and Heath Ledger fronting such a character could have just messed with his head (RIP Heath!).

I felt Tommy Lee(in Batman forever I think) was closer to the part of TWO-face cause Harvey Dent was always the over the top , loud mouthed politician . He was fiery and exteremely outspoken and i remember the vibe from the comic book that he laughed like a maniac even when Two face was Harvey Dent!

As for Lucious fox.. I dont remember him being a black American. But thats called adaptation i guess and morgan freeman does a solid job.

Few other things that i remember are batman being seriously injured. I believe BANE broke his back and I remember a string of episodes after that, where Batman was incapacitated and Robin was in a world of trouble fighting crime on his own. Batman goes into depression/ Bruce wayne goes into hiding. The city starts doubting the commitment of batman. I remember a few episodes of complete mayhem!!

And I remember this little birdie called HUSH! Hell!! that was a brillian comic book that I, to date have not forgotten its implications. Apparantly (from what I remember), Robin dies by the Jokers hand (man.. cant get enough of the Joker). I believe this was the second Robin (yes there were 2 Robins and if am not wrong one more after that). This was vintage stuff because Robin comes back from the dead as HUSH and he becomes the only villian who knows batmans true identity! I didnt have the last few parts of the comic! waaah!!!!!, So I still do not know how the darn thing ends!

A mention about Frank Miller .. that guy is a super story teller. I read THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and man he can spin a killer yarn!!! Frank miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS is a must read for all Batman fanatics.

Well, All these i remember from the days of yore when DC comics were a luxury in India and I just had very little of that. So my perceptions might not be true to the letter neither are the story lines, but i’d like to think that I am closer to the true batman story! The truth is out there…. on the internet of course and I will do some research (when i have the time) to see how much of what I have written is closer to the truth!

P.S :- Watch the movie! Dont worry about the reviews on violence and other negative vibes that you may get on the net. This is a true superhero movie!

Alice cooper is back!!!!!!!

I remember the old Alice cooper album Trash that my late uncle Deepan gave me. Hell! I freaked out on that album so much , played that tape over and over again until it kept getting stuck in my cassette player! A few other great albums later my friend is back with ALONG CAME A SPIDER! Like all cooper albums the melody is there, the intensity is there, the passion is there and he is still that wicked bastard! Theres only one difference though, this one is a concept album about a serial killer.

You can trip over his tracks live at his official myspace http://www.myspace.com/officialalicecooper . The lyrics are brilliant too and in the words of the tambourine man Bob Dylan himself, “I think Alice Cooper is an overlooked songwriter”. I totally agree!

So I sent a mail to Alice cooper just like I had sent one to Iron maiden to visit India. here it is!

Dear Mr. Cooper,

We in India just adore you. your album TRASH has been over played and abused to the extent that the reel used to get “chewed” in my cassette player and POISON still plays like mad in Pubs in Bangalore, India.

Bands like Iron Maiden, megadeth , pantera etc have already visited here to a minimum of forty thousand screaming metal heads! and a certain dimwit named shakira managed only a few thousand. Now you know where the allegiance of the die hard Indian rockers lie!

Wish you all the best for your new album and hope you can find some time to rock the fuck outta us in Bangalore, India.

Thanks,
Anoopzombie

*****Fingers crossed*****

IndiBlogger.in and Microsoft – blogger meet at Hyderabad

After a successful Indiblogger meet in Bangalore, the indiblogger team headed off to Hyderabad and started off with the second leg of the blogger meets. We didn’t know what to expect in Hyderabad except that we were going to be ordering a few more pizzas than we did in Bangalore. We were not disappointed! In came a crowd of about 70 odd strong, extremely verbose and quite young. The difference between the Bangalore meet and Hyderabad was the fact that the bloggers here came in communities. This was quite an exciting development for us, as we now understood that blogging communities like the IIT blogroll team were quite interested in this association. They felt that they needed to reach out to more people and Indiblogger.in could help them gain the necessary exposure.

We made a few changes to the agenda this time around. We worked on some of the feedback that we got in Bangalore and decided to set a time limit for the blog introduction. We also looked at giving the bloggers more time to socialize. As the evening wore on it was quite evident that everyone was having a good time. Some experienced bloggers however seemed weary of the fact that this could be a one-off meeting like some other local meets before this. Before indiblogger there was really no one who had this level of focus and maturity in dealing with blogger meets. All the more reason for the indiblogger team to return quickly to Hyderabad for another smashing meet!

It’s off to Pune now for the indiblogger team. We hope to spread the word and ensure that aspiring bloggers like Balaji (who organized the Hyderabad meet) have something concrete to work with in-terms of building the blogger community, educating them and finally the ulterior motive – making the difference! As for the indiblogger team, with 120+ bloggers from two cities alone and a flurry of new registrations, we have contributed to encouraging new bloggers, giving purpose and a roadmap to the more mature ones and finally giving everyone an identity and a place where they and their ideas will always be welcome! Now that’s Indiblogger.in!

IndiBlogger.in and Microsoft – blogger meet at Bangalore

IndiBlogger.in embraced the opportunity to connect to bloggers, outside their comfort zone (which is typically a laptop, an internet connection and a stimulative beverage).  We did achieve most of what we set out to do. Our first priority was to help bloggers realize the power of collective efforts towards common goals and IndiBlogger.in would help them achieve that. Bloggers are a very diverse community and the bloggers in the meet were no different. This posed a challenge with respect to the type of content that we were going to showcase during the meet. We decided to go with Leadcap (http://leadcap.org/), an NGO with the promise of a unique leadership movement in India. We did expect bloggers to be patient but intent listeners on the subject, but instead there were immediate questions that required rather intelligent answers. What transpired was a huge discussion, with the bloggers coming out with different views. We then realized that there was much more to this blogger meet than expected.

We did have the bloggers introduce themselves and their blogs. There was nice variety in the 50+ bloggers who attended. The point most interesting to note here was that everyone had a passionate view of their blog and also a deep sense of pride. It gave IndiBlogger.in an opening to connect to these bloggers on a more personal level. With the expectations that come with a web 2.0 initiative, it was important for us to serve as a networking platform for these guys to exchange information/ideas/ideals and we did just that! We also prepared a skit to encourage the bloggers to join our fight against spam and entertain we did! Renie, the founder of IndiBlogger.in has already implemented some ideas/suggestions from the bloggers. Some of these ideas were so insightful that we had a new respect for the level of experience and initiative that these bloggers had.

Microsoft supported us with the environment for the meet. This gave Microsoft an opportunity to stretch out a hand towards the blogging community, and spread awareness on their blogging tool Live Writer. There was a lot of feedback that Microsoft took home and it gave them a first hand experience in understanding their position in this intellectual and diverse community.

All said and done, the efforts of IndiBlogger.in were very well received. Several of the bloggers took the time to blog about the meeting and what they learnt from it, which has sparked off a slew of registrations for the next meeting at Hyderabad. We left the venue with a sense of quiet satisfaction, fully aware of an even greater responsibility on our hands. Every blogger had something to say to us at the end of it all and some of them held onto that line on the IndiBlogger.in T-shirt – “We blog, therefore we are”

Anoop Johnson, the IndiBlogger Team

Why Indians wanna go to the Iron Maiden Concert

1. Aces HIGH!

2. Am tired of protecting innocent people!

3. Endae Bharthavu “Gelf”in allo (my hubby is in gulf * read with mallu accent*)

4. Iron maiden official transport – non AC – one wheel short – 1 1/2 meter charge

Cud Chewing, farting, public urination and fornication will not be frowned upon

I like the rock band KISS, read between the lines!

IM new album review – pressing charges for damage!

I’m British!

Eddfest Mascot – eddie kuppuchami from Valliyoor

I’m Indian!

Get down to Some serious head banging!