bcb4.text.out
11.30 PM IST - I went with Woke, Ujj and Jerry for Pizza Corner, the initial plan was to rip me off but mercifully each one paid up. And we dropped in at Jerry’s. For now, that’s the last update of BCB4 from here. Ciao, compadres!
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06.45 PM IST - Wrapped up @ BCB4, and the good news - BCB5 is November. Can’t wait :–)
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05.15 PM IST - There was another interesting session on this startup - babalife.com. Yet to explore the site in detail. The CEO, Sean, talked about the tie-up with Baba Jobs and linking the lower-income groups too. I see potential, not much to comment on it yet but why not have a look and shout back?
The enthusiasm is slowly dying out, or maybe it was the rice in the lunch? Either ways, there’s a presentation here by Umesh Gopinath with animated expressions, on how to make your blog more popular and get more visits, get more comments, etc. The basic rules are re-iterated here - provoke, add masala - the usual stuff. Umesh has done a decent job of listing this common sense on a powerpoint and talkin about it.
And he even has a bullet point on his slide that says ’shameless self-selling’. ‘Be shameless’, he says. Tell people about your blog. Tell them when you’re speaking about it.
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04.15 PM IST - The photoblogging session is done, and the verdict is out - Bangalore definitely needs more photobloggers. Rest assured, yours truly will be lined up to photoblog about this city - the self-plocraimed metro that he loves and hates with equal intensity.
Meanwhile, Mutiny interviewed Thejesh GN of EventsBangalore.net. Watch the video here.
And there’s a session on how to make money from the websites. Affiliate links, PayPal ads, referrals, AdSense, FeedBurner RSS feeds, and stuff like that. Oh, if you’re a quality blogger, you can always ask for a free beer. Or maybe i-Phone. Or maybe a buffalo. I shall stop here, although the BCB4 Bloggers are still pitching in with their absurd ideas for ‘blogger alms tips’ :–)
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03.45 PM IST - Arun’s back with a session on photoblogging, which is something I personally am looking forward to. Thejesh was just done with his session on SEO. First off, we’re trying to clear the confusion between photoblogging, blogging and moblogging, and what’s the difference between photoblogging and blogging with pictures.
Arun’s photoblog is here.
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03.10 PM IST - We lunched - the first time I lunched with many mutineers around - as Dumbledore put it, we’re nicely fed and watered. We’ve got some pics clicked as well, and an interview of Himanshu. Hoping to catch Thejesh soon, he’s the chap behind Events Bangalore and is also slated to speak on SEO sometime soon, and if you didn’t notice, when you google ‘Events in Bangalore’ his site is thrown up first. So that’s something that everyone who wants to be Mr. Top in the search ought to learn from.
Subbu took an interesting (and rather interactive) session on mainstream media versus blogging. It sparked a lot of input, especially in regards to metroblogging, and there are talks where an offline version of featured blog posts might be available on print media. He looked around for input on that, and the general consensus from us was that we’d love to have an evening daily-ish kind of paper compliment our posts online.
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12.30 PM IST - Arun is now doing a live-demo of moblogging, or mobile blogging. He uses a quick tool called Shozu which lets you select pictures, add some quick text and publish it directly to wordpress. His moblog is right here. He says it’s addictive, he himself moblogs while he drives and that’s a bit scary for other roadsters :–) I definitely see moblogging as a strong tool for empower the ‘freedom of expression’ initiative, this is one step for man and one mighty leap for Citizen’s Journalism.
Shozu supports videos as well, but he hasn’t had a good experience with Airtel. Thej is now talking about doing the same without Shozu, via e-mail
Did I forget? Angel’s got here sometime back too.
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12 Noon IST - Bikram is giving a presentation on protecting images, and the discussion spawned into an interesting debate on the need to protect at all in the first place. A lot of enlightment happening here in terms of rights, Arun suggests he doesn’t see the need to protect images unless you’ve reached a threshold, and gave us some really nice tips in terms of respecting the original owner’s. But he doesn’t believe a lot of effort really needs to go into the blog, because if someone wants they’ll be stolen anyway.
What if Microsoft whacks your image? How many of us are willing to sue them? My advice to you is this - create more masterpieces that can be stolen
Unsurprisingly, there were few who disagreed but AJ still believes he will go all the way to sue anyone who might flick his images after he’s protected. Valid point too. Thej informs us that, irrespective of putting copyright disclaimers and the works, any content/image that a blogger or an online journo publishes on the website is copyrighted anyway, your identity like your birth.
Yes, even in India.
Arun’s in the hot-space talking about mobile-blogging now. He’s a speaker that ought to be heard, so we’re hearing :–) Meanwhile, Shweta’s arrived.
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11:04 AM IST - Just done with breakfast, coffee and ‘unbriefing’ and we’re looking forward to another fun day. The startups collective has had a major surge in popularity, and the heap/stack trace ones have lost a room owing to the startup taking over. Looks like the nation might have a lot more memory leaks.
Enough geek-talk, I guess. Swami is talking about how to setup PodCasts now. Looking forward to it.
Oh, and the t-shirts look cool - we’re creating an impact, atleast that’s what Arun thinks. FYI, he’s one of the organizers.
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08:22 AM IST - Startups? Blogs? Photographers? Bikers? They were pretty much all there yesterday, and they’re all the same - zero attitude. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, you fit in this crowd easily. And that’s why I think this nation needs it more. We’ve been conditioned to typically addressing seniors as sir, building a hierarchy, not crossing our ‘aukaad’, but this kind of open culture promotes participation and mixes it with fun. Without bureaucracy, and that’s cool.
Met some rather interesting folks yesterday from the Blogger community. Will be posting their profiles soon.
Oh, and looking at today’s schedule got me all turned on for BangAjax. Here I come.
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08:00 AM IST - Okay folks, we will soon be live at BCB4 coming to you from IIM Bangalore. A lovely Sunday morning that does little to flush out yesterday’s excitement. Yes, we’re enthu all around.
Watch this space for updates.
