It hasn’t been too long since blogging took off, in a big way, in India. Although a lot of interesting debate can spark off on which one the oldest Indian Blog might be, we ask, does it really matter? What matters is the evolution, the way the blogging scenario shaped in this country. From regular banter of a frustrated comp geek to physics lessons by self proclaimed Einsteins to marketing lessons by today’s leechers and spam bloggers to the genuine ones like us (hoping you echo our voices too), the blogging culture has evolved a lot. It is no more an alien phenomenon. What the heck! A few days ago, I even discovered a 4 year old kid blogging away to glory!

It was InstaBlogs who first realized the importance of forming a guild (of sorts) for the Indian bloggers. It was sad to find no other volunteer for the cause, until it was August 2007 and IndiBlogger was formed. The idea behind 5 men (Renie, Anoop, Balaganesh, Anwin & Navin) to get together and form the “association” (if I can call it so) was to enable bloggers to network between themselves, to get themselves known and also learn about the habitat outside their realm of suitability.

IndiBlogger had been trying hard, for the past 1 year, to get themselves noticed among the bloggers, form a sense of brotherhood between themselves and also organize Bloggers’ Meets in various prime cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi - to help the bloggers create the online-offline synergy that has become so very much essential in today’s survival strategy in the online world.

I, myself, had been party to the Kolkata Meet, and I must say, I was impressed. The élan with which the IndiBlogger folks conducted the meet with a bunch a amateurish bloggers and a few online marketers, it reminded me of Lincoln’s words, just a little twisted, “of the newbies, by the newbies, for the newbies”. I liked their idea of allowing bloggers themselves to take initiatives and arrange for the meet while they just provide the infrastructure and funded by sponsors. Looks like a win-win situation.

What is IndiBlogger all about?

As per what it seemed to me, IndiBlogger aims to be the hub of all Indian Bloggers who would like to network between themselves and, obviously, gain out of it. All a blogger needs to do is apply for his/her blogs and Renie, in his own words, checks every single blog manually before giving them the green ticket.  Of course, their methods do sound pretty primitive but the fact that they have decided to go offline too, with their initiative, gives them a renewed piece of respect.

IndiBlogger seems to expect every blogger to dig into their archives and check out each and every blog. Well, it should have hit their heads that today’s smart asses rely more on micro-blogging tools like Twitter and Plurk to figure out their allies and unless it is an employer looking out for potential bloggers, no one would hardly ever care to get their hands dirty within the huge pile. As of now, I am sure the IndiBlogger guys are happy that they at least have a “huge pile” created. Of course, the tough part is to reach out to people. The tougher part of retaining them can be thought of later, but fast!

Good Things About IndiBlogger -

1. I found a lot of potential in the idea and the team, both.
2. Since most of the crowd that turned up at the Kolkata meet were amateurs, I have a feeling that they could very well organize seminars and workshops including the big-wigs in the industry, educating the rest on how to manage blogs, earn revenue through it, tips on SEO, how important it is to network with fellow bloggers and the likes. I am sure serious bloggers shall be happier to pay a few bucks to get easy education, something the rest spent years of experience on.
3. Since they are still self-funded and are in no hurry to scout for VCs (partly ‘coz some from the team still retain their day jobs), it is an wonderful opportunity to try and shape their enterprise they way they wish, and fast, before the green starts crunching it’s teeth into their reserves.
4. IndiBlogger plans to come up with what they call “Ethical GuideLines for Bloggers” by surveying bloggers themselves. If they manage to become a forceful authority and come up with the idea of ‘badging’ the blogs that conform to those guidelines, it just might end up with people willing to pay up a premium for the badge, which in turn shall also help in maintaining qualities of the blogs, in general.
5. This very initiative from IndiBlogger and the fact that they are still happy and pubbing after their Bloggers’ Meets proves that blogging in India has finally come of age.

A few not-so-kind words for IndiBlogger -

1. The very first thing that made me feel that the team is very unprofessional is that it’s been almost 4 days since the meet and yet there has been no account of the meet on their official blog. For all those who couldn’t make it to the event, I can understand how frustrating it might be, for them, to still be ignorant about it.
2. Although it’s a very young team (or probably especially that’s why), it’s high time they started figuring out a revenue model for themselves because it’s the time when they should rather be thinking about innovating and revolutionary ideas than worrying about the reducing reserves, when it comes (touch wood!).
3. I realized, despite so much of running around, their visibility is still very limited because they have a fan following among the little known on the blogosphere and even if they get blogged about, not many gets to know about the events, other than the community itself, thus restricting itself within a vicious circle, unwittingly. IndiBlogger’s team needs to be enterprising and form alliances with media houses, social networking platforms and the likes to be able to spread out their reach.
4. While it is important for the bloggers to network between themselves, it is also very essential for the team to keep networking with the who’s who of the web 2.0 market. The web 2.0 scenario is almost equivalent to the Page 3 poopers where you always need to attend parties and be seen with the hot shots unless you do not wish to die next year, of starvation.
5. More importantly, set an example! If you promise more visibility to the bloggers that come to your shack, you must first get visible yourself!

On the whole, the Kolkata Meet was a very good experience for me, personally, and shall be looking forward to more of the same. If you wish, you can also check out their official Flickr stream.

Lastly, I totally dig for IndiBlogger’s slogan, “We Blog, Therefore We Are!”

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