World of India!

Indian net users are generally a very savvy breed. Internet usage in India has risen by leaps and bounds since its inception and still going strong. There is a lot of debate about the actual number of internet users in India but its clear that India will soon end up with one of the highest Internet Populations in the world, alongside China.

Check a whole bunch of worldwide Internet usage stats on:http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/index.php?cat=2 , if you are a number junkie.

Blogging always existed here, ever since it became a phenomenon the world over, but recently due to a variety of controversies (like the Indian Govt. banning some blogs), Blogs seem to have entered the common man's mind space, for the first time ever.

All this is good. But there is still some way to go for Indian Bloggers.

Firstly, Blogging hasn't started generating real money here, both for the blogger, who spends considerable time and effort Blogging, if he is serious enough and for also for the Indian advertiser. Many also believe that Indians don't read Blogs with the same interest (yet) as elsewhere in the world and the number of hits on Blogs is not really an indication, that readers seriously read a blog, but merely a reflection of the fact that he has 'landed' on a Blog via a search engine query and then scrams, as soon as he realizes he's landed on a blog and not a 'regular' site.

Secondly, Indian corporates have yet to embrace the Blogging phenomena. Ask an average Indian C.E.O (not related to the I.T, Telecom, Outsourcing space) if he knows what a Blog is and you will likely get a blank look. Which is a pity, since a corporate Blog can become a company's brand ambassador and can help a company in Customer relationship mngt. Media relations, Human Resource etc., just to name a few of its applications. Many companies like Microsoft, Google use Blogging very effectively indeed. In fact Microsoft's erstwhile Blogger Robert Scoble, became in many ways more famous than Bill Gates himself, amongst the Blogging community, at least!

But all's not lost for the Indian Blogger ! There is far greater awareness than ever amongst Indian Netizens and many of them are converting into loyal readers. Some of the best known Blogs in India are, not in any particular order: Indian Uncut, Sepia Mutiny, Vantage Point,Youth Curry etc. Each of these attracts a few thousand visitors a day and the content is top class.

However, with hundreds of Blogs being launched everyday, the big question before a serious Indian Blogger is how to make his Blog visible to the outside world?Many of the Bloggers in India seem to believe in marketing themselves more by traditional methods of cross-linking or Blogrolling. Services like India specific Blog directories,Ranking services etc are still in their infancy here. As Blog content in India and its readership expands, content ranking service like Shoutwire would become more and more important. The limitations of linking Blogs, beyond a point, are too significant to be ignored.

Happy Blogging!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 01, 2006 at 6:30 PM.

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