Wipro starts Campus Blog! Good initiative But BADLY Executed!
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After starting an Isle in secondlife.com which we analysed in an earlier blog post Wipro has gone ahead and launched a Blog for Campus students at www.wipro-campusarena.com. An initiative which is supposedly aimed at hiring freshers for campus. Wipro was also in the news earlier about starting its own recruitment firm inorder to counter the recruitment crunch situation.
The blog has five sections, Technology Trendz, Learning and Development, Health and Lifestyle, Sports and Entertainment and Fresher’s Talk. Each of these categories are written on by employees of Wipro. According to Wipro Limited’s GM (Strategic Resourcing) Priti Rajora “The blog was created with the dual purpose of providing students their very own forum to interact on a wide range of topics and also with the objective of continuous dialogue with students in order to present them a human face of Wipro”
I must give it to wipro for the initiative and thinking innovatively and using blogs to connect with campus students but as I digged deeper and i was surprised to see that the blog was hosted on wordpress 2.2.1 which is an outdated wordpress version with security flaws. (read here about the major security flaw). Not only that the blog which is claimed to be ’designed by Webchutney’ which has not done much but just taken the same wordpress theme K2 which powers Webchutneys own blog and just changed a few images. Webchutneys own blog is also on an even more outdated version of wordpress wordpress 2.1.2. Besides for the design and the wordpress version the blog also lacked the following features..
1) tags and tag cloud
2) subscribe to comment replies
3) Rss on Feedburner (This helps tracking and analysing reader behaviour)
4) Email it feature (If i want to send the post link to a friend)
5) Bookmarking Feature (this helps users save the posts on bookmarking sites like digg, del.icio.us etc)
And i can go on.. and these are just the basic features.. There are advanced features which help submitting the blog sitemap to google and also auto generate meta tags for each page for getting better google ranking.
The problem i see with most agencies they are trying to become a full service agency whether or not they have the expertise to proide all services! Also clients like Wipro should have done more research and consulted a few blog strategy consultants before jumping on to the blogging bandwagon! Its sad to know that a technology company thats discussing open source is using an outdated version of an open souce wordpress software for its blog (when the latest version is freely downloadable!)! I have nothing against Webchutney infact I personally am a big fan of Webchutney’s viral work but i feel they should focus on their core competencies rather than experimenting with areas where they make clients like wipro guinea pigs!
All in all the wipro campus arena blog is a great initiative as a concept but lots can be improved on all fronts including design, execution of content strategy and ofcourse starting Social Media Marketing and Optimization strategy as well for reaching out to their audience of campus students and freshers!
Relax Rajiv…. Everything is not instant noodles. When they want to use the addon tools you discussed they’ll do it…Its their choice. There are smart guys at infosys too. or you are fuming just bcos webchutney got to make it ?
I take the point tht most agencies are trying to become a full service agency so whats new everyone is… and It dpnds now on who gets the best people. And those chutney guys too have a couple of good bloggers.
You are doing a good job and are on a roll so wait for the perfect opportunity.
Cheers.
Hi Rajiv,
Thanks for the post, and also for pointing out the security flaw, the same shall be corrected very shortly.
However, the following comments, I trust, have been very poorly worded. And, if I may be allowed to say it, sound immature:
While I don’t see the words “designed by Webchutney” anywhere on the blog, The blog does mentions that the K2 style/css scheme “Wipro 1.0″ was created by Webchutey - which, it indeed was - Design & CSS included. Where exactly does there seem to be a problem? That we draw from our previous experience?
How exactly, do you determine the above mentioned as “basic features”? Choosing what features should be included - tagging or no tagging, Third party plugins or no third party plugins, shouldn’t that be entirely up to the client?
While constructive feedback is something that is welcome, your post comes across as largely putting something down, because it doesn’t have “X” feature. It would have sounded much better if it had been put across positively.
Just my thoughts - I rattled off whatever came to my mind after reading your post. Thank you for providing this space.
You are bang on webchutney’s viral work. They are surely not a tech company or even what they consider to be bunch of usability experts.
BTW your own blog suck big time on usability, cuz the colors you have used for related posts, categories, tags and archies are not readable in many of the laptops i checked. Looks like you guys have designed for your team who are all young bunch. *smiles*
FYI: It is good to go with dark grey for fonts. OR use colors which are more readable thruout the day.
@Rochit - Just for your information adding the above features is a one day job. Not instant but still very simple. And this post was about wipro not infosys
@Vulturo - Its a pity that when the work is shoddy the client is blamed with the excuse that they decide which features go on. If the client knew the benefits of features like tagging, bookmarking and others that ive mentioned above it would never say no to them. Ofcourse as an agency its your responsibility to make the client aware. Im a big fan of Webchutney’s work coz they add creativity and do work in virals thats truly international. Infact we have been the first ones to feature webchutney’s viral work and have praised it on WATBlog way before it became viral And possibly thats why im very disappointed at this wipro work. Also disappointed with your defensive answer in passing the buck to the client.
@Dapple - If we were bang on about the virals then we cant be so wrong about this review as well. With regards to our usability we have never claimed we are a great blog on usability. And if we are doing great work for clients and not bothering much about our own blog i think thats fine.. (I dont take money from anyone to run this blog). Also the mention for the webchutney blog was to illustrate the casual work done for a client not to say that their blog usability sucked.
@Rajiv: oh yes.. its wipro.. Just had that Infosys word in my mind.. anyways.. adding more I second Dapple’s views, If your own blog is not good in design how can you get business for corporate blogging @ watconsult if its not the best of your work, Your blog showcases the work you can do…. You can change the light blue font colour to something more readable.
And regarding the time taken to add the third party features…. I am well acquainted with wordpress.
It takes just an hour or two to add these addon features to wordpress and anyway you dont know what wipro and chutney discussed. Its between the client and the agency so its better to stay off that track… It makes good business sense
Just giving some feedback. You can take it or ignore its your choice…
Cheers
See this is what i mean. When its praises no one bothers when its brickbats all and sundry become defensive (and in this case offensive). If the text isn’t readable on WATBlog on WATConsult then im gald you gave me that feedback. I shall look into it. With regards to WATBlog showcasing the work we do Im sure if we didnt do a decent job with WATBlog it wouldn’t have survived till date but if there is some feedback you have in specific i would be open to hear it as well.
Its sad that constructive criticism isnt appreciated. Yes I dont know what happened between Webchutney and Wipro but whatever it was i think the outcome was less than average. And i think there is tremendous scope given what webchutney is capable of.
Rajiv,
Were you party to interactions between Wipro and Webchutney? If yes, your comments could have been valid.
What makes you *assume* that Webchutney did not discuss tagging/etc with the client? What makes you so sure of whatever is happening behind the scenes monitoring/stats?
Forget it. I’m not even sure why I’m commenting here. Once again, thanks for providing this space.
Even im not sure why you are commenting here vuturo. I suggest you take the above post positively (and if possible atleast upgrade wipro blog to the new version of wordpress). We review loads of startups, marketing strategies and other internet happenings on WATBlog as well. You need to realise that when people praise you for good work they will also point out your shoddy work. If incase you think what work you have done is perfect then u should have commented in the following way.. “when we discussed with the client he said we dont want the so and so features.. He said he wants this exact design and hence the blog outcome. But as you have mentioned this feedback on your blog I shall show it to the client and see whether he agrees to improve the blog or he thinks the current blog is ok” But instead what happened was angry offensive remarks where you are pointing my mistakes rather than admitting or clarifying.. Doesn’t hurt me one bit but shows your attitude towards genuine feedback.
Let me start with my first point. This post sucks. Very sad that I have subscribed to such a pure business minded post like you.
Disclaimer: I am not associated with Webchutney.
1. “”" Also clients like Wipro should have done more research and consulted a few blog strategy consultants “”" - What makes you think that Webchutney doesn’t have enough blogging consultants. Do you have their insider information? Without the facts you have absolutely no right to comment about another competitor. Dude, you guys are literally nothing when compared to webchutney. Just look at your annual revenue sheet and then think before writing such a post.
2. Do you think Wipro is a fool to invest money before proper thinking? Do you think they are fools to select a company like Webchutney before proper research?
3. What is wrong in using a old version of a software. We all use XP instead of vista right. And security flaw which is a simple redirect thing that can any damn software, even the one you are running. You want to call that as something bad?
4. All the features that you mentioned are not rocket science. And they are not innovative in any way. Let me ask you this. Having those features is going to make the blog spread like a viral throughout the user community. The fact that wipro has come out with an out-of-the-box thought itself should have been appreciated. Infact, if wipro extends this and allows even its employees to blog for sometime daily, that is a welcome move.
Having said this, if you want to keep your name and fame, please stop writing stupid posts like this.
Happy Blogging!
Prabhu
http://www.prabhu-s.com
Thanks Prabhu. Appreciate your feedback.
1) My post never compared us to webchutney. But in anycase thanks for doing that and paying us a huge compliment.
2) I agree with you wipro’s effort to actually start needs to be supported and I am glad they did what they did and thats why they deserved an entire blog on watblog.
3) I think very highly of webchutneys work and thats why i expected them to do the same when it came to this particular blog. Infact i was very shocked when i saw webchutney’s name in the end of the blog.
4) Its a pity genuine contructive criticism (by me) is projected and pulled into looking like something else (by webchutney and so called non webchutney guys). I have the greatest regard for Sidharth and Webchutney but that doesnt mean i like everything they do. In the same way im sure people dont like everything we write. After all its personal opinion based on our experience.
5) I sincerely feel bad if you felt this was a stupid post and apologize for have disappointed you. But in the end i have a right to an opinion and thats what i expressed. Im glad you expressed yours and hope you continue doing the same
PS: I just like your point by point reply so thought of answering you in the same way
hope you wont sue me for that 
For point 3: why should you feel shocked for seeing webchutney’s name? Have they developed any porn kinda site? or should they develop sites for only nasa and not for wipro?
For point 4: What is so constructive here man? I have just started blogging. Please read my post about rediff here. http://desistartups.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/open-letter-to-rediff-from-prabhu/
Let the community decide, which of these two is constructive.
Appreciate your reply. I was expecting my comment to be removed!
Shocked because im an ardent fan of webchutney and we have been the first ones to cover their virals. It was just that i expected more from them. The thing about WATBlog is that we always take a stand ! We stick out our necks and say this is the way! We may get thrashed and abused but what the hell we arent gods to believe what stand we took is gospel. Thats the very reason we dont delete comments which are against our point of view. We love them. Contrary views help in dicovering deeper insights and also help us be more humble. And we are more than glad at hearing whats wrong with what we write. For us learning is a continuous process and we thank everyone who contributes to our learning. Will surely visit your post and try to learn something new.
Hi,
While interesting to read the post and the comments, as an amateur blogger myself, I must comment that just because a feature exists doesn’t mean a blog has to have it.
The Wipro campus blog is elegant, neat and am sure is made with a particular idea in mind for an objective that Wipro is aware of and working towards. What surprises me is how can you review a blog and claim it as feedback when you are providing competing services. That by itself is unprofessional and unethical especially to readers who come to your blog.
It would have been a different story if you were hired to do so (review and develop). It is like one thriller film genre director reviewing another director’s thriller film. U dont see that happen too often !
But one thing is proven for sure is that the internet has taken freedom of speech to an entirely different level. U might be valid in some of your points to do with security etc but views on 1.design ( as a surfer is fine but not as a competing service provider)2.features (just because you clutter your blog to show people you have used the feature does not mean everybody has to use it) and the manner in which the post is put up seems like the reactive act arising out of professional jealousy.
Any visitor will now wonder if your posts have an ulterior business motive to them rather than pure professional views (You should visit at least one other technology blog which got 17 million page views in 2007 and is run by an Indian to learn how to view and review. Can you guess the blog I am talking about ?)
hai
i think this would be the best place
for freshers to enter and know
many,many new more things
mailme new information to
shravan.cse@gmail.com