Skip to main content

A blogger community

 



Indiblogger was a blogger’s paradise once upon a time. The bulk of my readers came via that platform. Each of my posts used to get over a hundred votes in those days. Now the posts feel nostalgic about a double-digit vote which comes rarely. Quite many bloggers have abandoned this community. Understandable. There isn’t much happening here anymore.

Back in the heyday of Indiblogger, hundreds of bloggers thronged the platform every day. There used to be a lot of activities and gifts too. I got gift vouchers worth thousands of rupees. There was a time when I didn’t spend a single rupee from my pocket to buy all the books I loved because Indiblogger’s gift vouchers kept coming like an endless bonanza.

Good days don’t last long. The gift vouchers stopped altogether. The regular meets of bloggers arranged by Indispire in different cities stopped too. Soon the platform metamorphosed into the ghost of its earlier being. It continues in existence and a few bloggers like me have retained our loyalty though there is little benefit. I’m happy to be in touch with some old timers like Rajeev Moothedathu, Deepak Amembal, Vincent Augustine D’Souza and Sreedhar Bhattaram who keep submitting their posts at the site faithfully like me. I am also happy to have Jitendra Mathur coming to my posts via Indiblogger though he is not as regular with posts as he used to be.

I have often wondered why a platform like Indiblogger, which was one of the best of its kind, just petered out as it did. Was it because some people flocked there with intentions that were not bona fide?

That question brings me to the quality of writing we find nowadays in such public domains as blogs. While I accept the freedom of each and every individual to write, I am often left bewildered by the kind of stuff people put up for others to read. I wouldn’t dare to insult the public with that sort of writing. That’s the least I would like to say in this regard.

I’m happy Indiblogger continues to exist. I’m happy to meet some serious bloggers there too. I’m grateful to the person(s) who keep the platform alive just for its own sake. Not everything is done for the sake of profit.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 428: Shouldn't we be grateful to Indiblogger for keeping this platform alive? In spite of.... #Gratitude

Comments

  1. Hari OM
    Not knowing that platform, I cannot add anything. I had the great privilege of meeting Deepak before departing India; he was one of my earliest commenters when I began blogging and we have remained connected through our blogs. I have enjoyed reading posts by Rajeev and Sreedhar over the past couple of years.

    As a rule I find places such as this, Blogchatter, NaNoWriMo and so on, great for refreshing one's inspiration, but ultimately, we all blog from an entirely personal point of view... unless we are among those who are seeking to commercialise. As one who is a loyal commenter, I have found that very few are prepared to reciprocate and build proper connection. It may be that which ultimately reduces the value of these platforms. The illusion of community drops away.

    I guess the same is true 'in the flesh'... ultimately, there are few people with whom we have a genuine and lasting, deep and meaningful bond. No matter how much of a social butterfly we might make of ourselves. (And I am definitely not the latter!) YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the community feeling that you mention is at the core of the issue. I've seen that working at Blogchatter to some extent especially among certain members. That spirit disappeared from Indiblogger.

      Today too many bloggers are interested in monetization and that affects too.

      In my case, I'm conscious of the distance many people feel with my political views.

      Delete
  2. The real reason for several active members abandoning this once very popular platform is that its administrators have left it on auto-pilot mode or left to fend for itself as no technical issues are resolved now, no grievances are addressed to now and no communications sent to the administrators (via email or twitter) are responded to. Any problem once propped up never gets resolved (say, never heeded upon). That's the issue. The administrators (or the owners) must still be earning from it without doing anything for it. An esteemed Indiblogger - Parwati Singari had written a post on the same lines some time in the past. I visit your posts regularly but comment only when feel that I have something to say in the given context.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True the admins or founders abandoned Indiblogger. But what could be the reason? If it was commercially profitable they wouldn't have. So what went wrong? That's the real question, i think .

      Delete
  3. Nowadays, the majority of money-making applications in India are liberal in educating you how their apps function. In-app lessons are common and can help you understand how things function fast.

    https://gromofinance.wordpress.com/2022/10/10/the-best-indian-money-making-applications-online-money-making-app/

    ReplyDelete
  4. I remember a time when I was new to blogging and had thought about joining that platform, though never did ( it was the inherent laziness in me wrt to blogging at that time). It feels like and end of an era but no?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For me, personally, it's the end of an era since no other platform gave such a fillip to my blog.

      Delete
  5. Your post leaves me guilty because my blog also grew during the initial days via indiblogger. I met you via indiblogger too. I hardly get time to share my posts there or anywhere for that matter but it affected my blog too. My writing became irregular but as you said I tried to maintain the quality. I will surely restart sharing in indiblogger.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I remember your regular presence at the community. You were missed later.

      Delete
  6. Yeah now I remember. I am no longer able to share my blog there because the Url of my both blogs changed and I am unable go

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser