Looks like Ndtv now wants to tap into the much talked about user
generated content sphere by introducing NDTV Blogs & spaces. Though
its a good thing that more and more traditional media companies are
now waking up to the reality of blogs but it cant be still said that
they are now ready to embrace user generated content fully. For
instance, IBNLive.com does have a section called blogs but it is still
run by IBN-CNN employees. Talking about NDTV blogs, the
registration process of the site itself was actually a shock to me.
Not only did it ask me my first name, last name, address, pin, country
code, STD code….and so on but it made me fill these details even
when i am an existing Ndtv user.

"Even if you are already a member of any NDTV.com service, you will
need to register separately for Blogs."agreed that they are running
this service on a different domain (ndtvblogs.com and not ndtv.com),
but to an ndtv registered user its still the same.

Another reason why i found the registration process redundant was that
after having filled in trash in my address/std code and other similar
unneccessary columns, when i finally got to editing my profile it
showed me the same columns and the information(trash in my case) that
i had filled in. Point being that Ndtv could have made the
registration process simpler (also withstanding the privacy that a
blogger would like to enjoy), and still made the user fill in those
details (IF required that much).

However, after having crossed the initial hurdle of re-registering
myself on the site, i was quite pleased to see that my photo didnt
actually take a long time to upload. But bang came the fact that every
post made by the user actually went through an approval process by the
Ndtv Blogs & spaces team!!! Now if i am a blogger i wonder why would i
bother myself actually registering through the tedious process only to
wait for the approval for my post.

All said and done, its quite tough to ignore the popularity of the
site in terms of reach and brand recall and so a blogging platform by
them might just add new blog enthusiasts to the blogoshpere. while
that happens i’d like to see other traditional media companies joining
the race before its too late

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