Rags to Riches

en route to a “richer” Internet

1. Swaroop C H, The Dreamer » Archives » Always remember Carpe Diem 05.17.08 / 1pm

   [...] Mrinal pointed to http://www.indimeme.com, a TechMeme for the Indian [...]
2. Swaroop C H, The Dreamer » Archives » Always remember Carpe Diem 05.17.08 / 1pm

   [...] Mrinal pointed to http://www.indimeme.com, a TechMeme for the Indian [...]
3. Aditya Mukherjee 05.18.08 / 4pm

   I wonder if Indian blogs (tech or not) will ever break the global barrier en masse. I’ve seen one or two (like Digital Inspiration) gain readership and momentum, but that’s about it.

   I have a subscription count of 1300+ today (acc. to Feedburner), which is not even a dot in the blogosphere. Maybe spinoff Memes like these will one day get integrated with the mothership, and we’ll get the readers we’ve all been wanting.
4. Mrinal Wadhwa 05.18.08 / 6pm

   Aditya,

   I think the web is fairly democratic, this is not to say that there aren’t any biases but I don’t think there is a bias of location whatsoever .. in short if your content is good and relevant it will be read, gaining reputation takes time though, people who started blogging early on had an advantage because the competition was small but I think its equally hard for any new blogger around the world to gain readership today

   One local factor though is that the local readership is really really small, most people who we meet in real life and can create an impression on personally don’t read blogs .. i speak at so many conferences and lectures but do those hundreds who listen to me talk start reading my blog .. no .. and its not because they are not interested in the content I write but because reading blogs is not something that they do.

   Its not just the local readership that is fairly immature but also the local blogosphere, With the exception of a few blogs the bulk of content is not that great, one glance at Techmeme and Indimeme gives you a sense of what I mean. I think its a cultural thing, blogging is not popular culture in India yet, once more people start blogging the bulk quality will automatically improve

   The lack of blogging concerns me and has some very serious consequences .. especially in the technology world .. I touched upon some of this in the post where I asked the question Is India a software leader?

   I also feel that things are changing in India quite rapidly and hopefully we will see a very mature blogosphere soon.
5. Ram 05.18.08 / 6pm

   Nice points Mrinal, i would like to add some more points to it.
   First blogs talking about a breaking news story are less in India. For example see the techmeme clusters, whether you call echo chamber or what ever. we don’t see that pattern here. Other thing is that i have feeling that we don’t interlink with each other much, particularly blogs reporting on tech news. Unless we have a pattern of linking between blogs it is hard to implement a memetracker.

   One more thing is that Indian Blogs reporting on international news are higher than the blogs reporting on Indian tech news (including me).
6. Aditya Mukherjee 05.18.08 / 6pm

   I believe blogging to be a “monkey see - monkey do” scenario. Unless you start reading blogs, understand their place in current informational media, you will not be inclined to write one. Of course, a fair amount of that inclination also goes to the question “what do I write”.

   I didn’t mean “location bias” when I brought out India, but like you said, the immature blogging scene. It was a surprise when the world of Indian Twitter-ers opened up to me, because I had never seen India as a quick adopter of new technologies.

   “Once more people start to blog” is a very retrospective phrase. We have always predicted that once more people join in, it’ll catch on. The question is “when” will it happen? Blogging was one of the biggest products of the entire Web 2.0 movement. That was about 4 years ago. It hit everywhere … but managed to miss this part of the world. Even today, when people here hear that you write a blog, they look at you as a geek, and not a writer. Most blogs out there are tech blogs, and very vague ones too. There are only about 10-15% like yours or mine that deal with a small aspect of technology.

   That said, lack of blogging doesn’t concern me, because it is not a “necessity” on the web. I think it follows from our education system which focuses on knowledge based on your profession, nothing more, nothing less. There are few passionate enough to embark on their own to find out more about what they like, which means there are few who have anything to share beyond what we already know. See the chain forming?

   Somehow I don’t see big bloggers coming out of India (I’m not counting people like Om) at least for another decade. We are just not in the company of those kind of people, and somehow it feels that the system (be it educational or professional) has everything to do with it.
7. Aditya Mukherjee 05.18.08 / 7pm

   @Ram - Having blogs that break news and share information sound a lot like SEO banter that are just out there to get readers and not really contribute to the quality sphere that we’re trying to set up here. We have enough of Lifehacker and TechCrunch wannabe’s without putting that idea into a new blogger’s head.

   It was only a week back that a friend asked me if there is actual real money in blogging. I shook my head in literal disgust (yes, I’m a but dramatic) at how the media (newspapers and magazines) have killed the sanctity of blogging, and made it out to be a money mint to people who don’t know what it’s all about.

   We’ll not see quality blogs, and hence a global presence until we get rid of the commercial mindset.
8. Mrinal Wadhwa 05.18.08 / 8pm

   I agree with Aditya here .. most people seem to be blogging for the wrong reasons .. sure you can make money with blogs but if you start out thinking about that there’s a limit you will hit very soon.

   Blogging is about expressing your views .. no matter what the topic .. and not echoing news we have several other ways of knowing .. If I talk about something new ..I like to link to the original source of the news and most of the times that source is not local .. cannot be because the news happened somewhere else and the people there were the first ones to report it. Somehow there is not enough happening in the local technology world that interests me.

   We do things to get something in return, but what people fail to realize is that the rewards of blogging are way bigger than the few hundred adsense dollars … blogging is about sharing your expertise … and there is reward .. the reward is of being recognized as an expert in your area of expertise .. I can give my own example .. I am currently working on building a company with 2 people I have never met, they live half way around the world and the only reason I can do this because people around the world read what I write and recognize that I know what I’m talking about. That is the reward .. its indirect but that is where the real value is.

   More and more people have to realize this before we see some valuable content coming out of Indian blogs in place of an echo of techcrunch or gizmodo
9. Mrinal Wadhwa 05.18.08 / 8pm

   @Aditya

   “somehow it feels that the system (be it educational or professional) has everything to do with it”

   Very true, its a big cultural/social issue that I hope enough of us will soon realize and make efforts to fix. I had expressed similar disappointment in the “Is India a Software Leader?” post I liked to earlier .. unfortunately I don’t really have any solutions to suggest.
10. Mrinal Wadhwa 05.18.08 / 8pm

    @Aditya

    “lack of blogging doesn’t concern me, because it is not a necessity on the web”

    Well it does concern me because even though it is not a necessity on the web, reading and writing blogs is a necessity if the indian software industry wants to to evolve form a service churning assembly line into an environment that produces innovative new products
11. Aditya Mukherjee 05.18.08 / 8pm

    I read through what you wrote about the Indian software industry. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but our IT sector developed because of the entire “follow, not lead” approach. We were the skilled labour when companies with money didn’t have any. We really cannot complain then, about evolving into “an environment that produces innovative new products”. This is how we marketed ourselves.

    I wonder how you propose blogs will change that. I was going to touch upon the whole “information is power” in the first comment, but thought it might go way off topic. We are still wary of sharing ideas on the web, because we somehow think it’s our idea, so the riches to come to us. I wonder how many detract because they don’t want anybody else stealing it and making money. Again, I’m speculating.
12. Mrinal Wadhwa 05.18.08 / 9pm

    “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but our IT sector developed because of the entire “follow, not lead” approach.”

    Well yes, but there’s no harm in criticizing are somewhat lethargic state and inspiring at least a few people to try and push us up the food chain, many of us are certainly capable of existing/succeeding at that level.

    “I wonder how you propose blogs will change that”

    Because if you intend to lead, you need to know what the latest is and be involved with it .. If you don’t read blogs you cant possibly be aware of the latest in technology .. by the time things are talked about in the print medium its way too late for you to be a leader.
13. vivek 05.26.08 / 10am

    Wow nice thinking and talks about blog and blogsphere scenes in India ….so what left to say
    Beautiful blogs with beautiful writing to grow more …and change the way people think . .

    cheers
    vivek
14. SF 07.03.08 / 5pm

    People in India do blog. They blog a lot. They just don’t call it Blogging. It sounds too techie, does not make sense to people who care to write shit on the web. Take for example http://www.mouthshut.com . People write about their experience on product and services. Mouthshut introduced the “Diary”, for people to write about anything. It’s surprising how the housewives and the college kids are blogging about movies and samosas, but there is just not as much quality content on technology.