The ability or the freedom to express yourself freely, it will take a generation to understand the true impact of it.
History is written by the victors, industries are known by the big companies in that space. And this mindset always makes us judge the success by the size. What is the success of blogging, number of hits, amount of money you make, ranking in technorati ??? But think about it the true power of blogging is that it has given the distribution channel to all of us small people who would have been lost. We are small but we sure have unique insights and unique ideas and using this platform we can share these with those who seek such unique things.
Think about it, 10 years ago the only way of distribution was broadcasting. The basic idea behind that was or still is, one thing fits all or to have content that majority of people like. But with this new medium we can have a narrowcast, you can make content for specific audience. The mindset is turning around. We are the people who propagate one size fits one or fits few.
There has been a lot of debate about traditional media Vs the new media. There have been a continuous tussle between the two. I think the reason is that ... or let me put it this way, people who are older than 40 - 45 years they have spend better years of their life getting to know about world and other things through TOI (newpapers) or other magazines, so most of them dismiss new media. People of my generations have spend a mixed time on getting updates through traditional and new media, so there is a tussle. We have to accept that we are part traditional and part new in our approach and in our upbringing. If you talk to youngsters and kids they hardly read newspaper or follow TV, that in the generation of broadband, online games, online streaming and they follow the world online. For them traditional media is too slow and not up to their unique taste.
Coming back to blogging as I said at the start that we all are trying to make sense out of this big phenomenon. People keep scratching this surface in their unique ways. A lot of people have found ways to make money out of this platform and they keep innovating. Innovation has not only been in the ways to make money but in the way to interpret this phenomenon and thats why we have different flavors like photo blogs, Podcasts, video blogs and latest of all micro blogs and mobile blogs.
We always tend to look at big blogs and stigmatize small successes. If your blog gets 10 hits a day you will be labeled as failure. But isn't it a nice thing that you are able to share your thoughts with 10 people, 10 right people, who actually want to read what you write. That's the magic magic of blogging where you can be yourself. As the number of reader grows on your blog you tend to become generalist saying things so as to suit the masses. I think most of the bloggers here would agree that they wrote best when they wrote for themselves or for those few who cared.
This is all I had in my mind and it stayed in my mind. One tip to myself never stand up to talk unless you have sorted things out in your mind :) Life has its unique ways to make you learn!
Updated:
You can find a good coverage of Blogcamp Mumbai Style on Deep's Blog.
Tarun Chandel
Life, Learning and Technology
Posts
9 comments:
Nothing to do on a lousy weekend, so blogs make good read and write. So here is my opinion or ranting as well...
It is said that "Word is God". It is through words that a man lends comprehension to world around him,both physical and meta-physical. Minus the words and there is no knowledge.
Bible says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This is obviously has theological interpretations but it goes to emphasise the importance of words from time im-memorial. It is in man's nature to propagate the words, either through oral or written traditions. It is through conversations (collection of words) that a meaning is arrived at. So this part has not changed. What has changed and will keep changing is the medium or "technology" to record and spread these words. The power of word is so big (it was with God!!), that "authorities" have always tried to control it. And authorities have varied from tribal leaders to kings to Governments.
The first ever recording
(written media) of words was using tree leaves and then stone tablets. Their exclusive nature meant that they were not to be mass medium. Words were in realm of few men who used and appropriated them. The world remained pretty much the same for many many millinea untill Printing press was invented. That perhaps was biggest technology invention for recording and distributing words cheaply and on larger scale. Similarily oral tradition of knowledge evolved from folk singers,story tellers to radio and finally TV.
Last century has seen unparallel technological growth in form of Internet, mobile phones and digital media. After Printing press and wired phones, Internet and moible telephony have had the biggest impact on how words were recorded and disseminated. In my opinion it is not web1.0, web2.0, blogging which have revolutionised anything but it is the Internet, the technology of interconnected devices which was major shift after printing press. Blogging, prodacsting and futurecasting etc etc were/are merely waiting to happen and will keep happening for sometime. If you lay human civilisation like a roadmap, Blogging is not an innovation, Internet was, Blogging is merely a milestone.Blogging is result of evolution in internet tools. The democratisation of words and infrormation happended when somebody put up first web site.
Next things in Blogging : Just like internet has social, political, legal and cultural implications which are not fully understood, so does blogging, prodcasting, videos or any other content riding on internet. Most of blogging (dare I say 90%) is harmless noise made by individuals keeping online diaries for friends and family. Narrowcasting has always existed (Mast Ram porn magzines, college mags, professional mags).Blogs, casts and many such tools will create a long tail of content, most of which will be din of words and opinions over opinions over opinions. Traditional media would start using new tools and boundaries between traditional media and emerging media would blur. Bloggers who are journalists would be bought by media houses through online market place. Some blog networks would become popular and start acting like so called "traditional media house". It is said that new always emerge to challenge the old and in process end up becoming the old once it has vanquished the old. Tools like technorati and other search engines would become more powerful and better. Rating systems would also evolve to rate better content. Afterall, when the whole society suddenly starts talking in a massive set of online conersations, the word which was with God would be finally and truly be appropriated by men . The situation would be like tower of babble and tools which could look into mess and noise to extract the useful knowledge would be needed. There would be online groups (e-greenpeace) educating people about danger to internet caused by e-pollution from dead blogs,orphaned sites, nonsense and heavily recycled opinions. The huge data centres where these conersations would be recorded, would cost huge money in power and space bills. Blog burrial sites might be a good business idea ;) But eventually Blogosphere would lead humanity into Omega point of conversations.
By the time Tarun, you are like 90 years old walking to yet another barcamp (possibly done somewhere on Moon), you would balk at idea of your grand kids using newly launched "telepathic messengers" to send messages to their friends and you would be agonised about them using implanted bionic google search chips to write exams instead of learning it "the hard way" by reading their cariculum blogs err..e-books in old good e-library!!
The comments seems to be longer than the original post.. lol
Nice way of expressing your thoughts. In simple and clear words.. :-)
Your post makes much more sense of what you were trying to say at the barcamp. I guess your last line is a lesson to all of us! :-)
On a more personal note, I was a little intimidated by the flood of thoughts on ways to make money and optimize searches. Personally, I fell in love with the power of expression blogging gave me, years back and I'm still coming to grips with that. I've a feeling this is far bigger than most of us can envision.
To be fair, u were making a valid point. But the whole discussion was hijacked to as different level!!
Another learning point could be how to bring the hijackers back to the fold!! :)
Your talk also helped me in defining my own "promise statement" for my blog. Blog is different things to different people and it's important to understand what it is to U.
You thoughts seem more clear on the post than what you were at the Bar Camp. Probably Because u are not interrupted ... or may be I am hearing it all again....
however, you lack the passion with which u spoke at the bar camp.... Eg: The statement abt 10 people was communicated effectively among the audience at the bar camp.. however It could have been presented in a much better way in the post...
Hi Tarun,
Thanks for your presentation and the follow up post that clarifies on your thought.
I was one of the people who may have hijacked your presentation at the camp... apologies for that. It was the heat of the moment. If I were smarter, I would have made my comments after you were done speaking. Maybe even privately to you if no time was left.
To re-iterate what I said during your presentation, forget expressing yourself. Think persuasion instead.
Only by having a persuasive mindset can you distinguish yourself from amongst the 35 million+ blogs popping up every year.
If you have something worthy to say, why be satisfied with just 10 pairs of ears? Why not aim for a million pairs of ears? And try to help everyone that you can?
50 years back, people who wanted to express themselves wrote letters to others. People who wanted to change the world started newspapers.
So my summary is: if you just want to express yourself, use BCC emailing. Or maybe Yahoo Groups. But if you want to change the world with your thoughts and words, start a blog.
And never be satisfied by the number of people your blog reaches and touches. Always aim for the stars.
Thank You.
I agree with your thoughts and I think you conveyed it pretty well at the camp but may be because of the money making sessions before it people just did not want "blogging for passion". Blogging as you only said is something that we are trying to make sense out of, so each one has its own way of interpreting it. Going by your blog I know it is not for making money or any domain expertise, it looks more like a platform where you express your thoughts and that's what I guess it is for a lot of people. What you are saying will strike a chord with them (the right ten) but rest may not understand.
I don't believe you have just 10 readers though ;)
Ah so this is what it was all about :)
You can give yourself a pat Tarun.. yours was the most involving discussion among the ones that I sat at the blogcamp.. and coming at the fag end of the day it was in its own way refreshing..
and about the topic itself .. there can never be an answer set in stone for it.. blogs in its essence are becoming publishing tools geared to make content rich websites rather than good'ol journals.. at the camp you were caught between various sections of people who were using blogs for altogether different purposes..and hence the hijack..the goal of the blog defined the perception of blogs for each and everyone who spoke their mind... which like I said before could never find a common territory and frankly it need not..
Hi, it was good to learn about Mumbai Barcamp 3 from your blog. I was wondering if there are any audio recordings of sessions---could help geographically challenged people like myself listen in.
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