Having registered for the BlogCamp Mumbai Style organized at the SJMSOM IIT Powai Campus, I was very much looking forward to being there as it was the first of its kind for me. This time I had one more reason than otherwise to be there – ofcourse it was just a drive away! Now settled with my job life in a happening place like Mumbai, I guess there are atleast a dozen more such events I can simply drive to. Oh yes, Goa was always happening. But somehow there was never a Bloggers’ Meet there. Anyways let me leave the possibilities of having one there for a later discussion.

So how was the “Blog Camp Mumbai Style”, for me? I and Amit were amongst the early birds to flock there. The Blog Camp being a part of BarCamp Mumbai 3rd Edition, there were a lot of participants trying to get their way around. Many like me who just hired a rick from home (yea and there were sexy sportscar owners too) while also with quite a few who had come over with all their luggage there (:p) right from many other places like Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, etc. All in all it was great to see the enthusiasm in everybody. I wondered why I had missed it all this while!

I was looking forward to meet a few online friends here… Deep, Ashwin, Mani and many more. While also few more bloggers like Sakshi, Meetu and some net freaks I only knew by their name or even pseudo names. I am really glad that I got to interact with most of them. And now certainly it’s gonna be more fun following their blogs. Well getting back to how the blogcamp was…

The organizers gave all due respect to the Indian Standard Time for the start with the event ;). Ok I know it happens everywhere. No offence please :). So those who joined in late were probably lucky not to miss anything. After a round of introductions(which we could barely hear) by the speakers for the camp, the sessions wiki was put up on the whiteboard only NOT to be followed :(. Because of which there was a lot of confusion as to where what was going on. As a result we missed Rashmi Bansal’s light talk on blogging. Luckily all the blogging related stuff was put up in one auditorium and we found our way there. We decided to stick there all day as we didn’t get great feedback from others who attended the sessions going on in the other audis. But am sure we missed some good ones there.

Anyways, the one I attended first was Security and Blogging by Rohit Srivastava. Am sure he had some good stuff around to discuss but the 30 mins allotted for the session were all too less. So the discussion often losing direction (thanks to the silly comments and comments over comments :p by the crowd) only reiterated some elementary knowledge over keeping your software versions up to date.

The session was followed by Ankesh Kothari discussing on strategies to employ to make your blogs earn money for you. He believed that 3 was an optimum number to have as the number of blog authors and had some tips to share. Well for those new to blogging and making money through them, am sure they made it a point to listen to everything he said (only if the over-intelligent crowd could allow him to speak). Anyways he presented his point well with some interesting facts to go with them. Yea interesting, that’s all I had to say.

The next session was more fun and learning to be in. Presented by Aditya from theindicast.com on Podcasting and its scope in

India, was very enlightening. Given that its real tough to manage a podcast site for the little monetary returns they got from it, its really commendable that these guys are managing it so well. And are constantly coming up with innovative ideas to publicise and market it. Its instantly got a place in my bookmark list. You gotta check out the stuff.

It was already passed 1:00, so we moved to the open audi for lunch. Well kudos to the organizers that it was all well organized there. Got to speak to a few more bloggers and realized what a great place it was for networking. And even better for the startups crying for attention. Soon after lunch we moved into a session by

SUMBA(Sulekha Mumbai Bloggers Association) of Sulekha.com. The first two speakers (I don’t remember their names though) were real fun to listen to. It was in this session that we realised the real essence of blogging. How our dear elder non-techies find their ways around with blogging softwares and manage to express themselves on the cyberscapes. And for once there was no discussion about how the heck to make evil money out of blogging! I found this session very sweet. All through, I was just thinking about my Mom and Dad trying to blog :p.

We also had a session by boozle.com guys on Unexplored possibilities of Tagging. Am sure the discussion did help the guys a lot to better the product. Do check out the site for more on their free service.

Uske paschyat hindi blogging ko kaise is desh mein badhava diya jaye ispe vichar vinimay hua…(Huh! Cant find an online Unicode Devanagari keypad ;)) Well that’s exactly what Pankaj Tiwari discussed. When most software companies constitute a majority of Indians, we still cant find one concrete solution for flawlessly displaying Devanagari font over the web. There are still so many issues with Hindi blogging (or blogging in any Indian language) which developers smartly turn indifferent to. And for those who believe that there isn’t a good audience for stuff written in Hindi, I am sure they are the same who catch up atleast one Hindi movie every weekend and yet write a review on their blog only in English. Anyways I will probably come up with a blog post on this topic later with a few suggestions of my own. And for those who hurriedly left the session (just because a discussion on their national language wasn’t vey interesting for them), I feel sorry for you guys… you missed some real quality discussion. Its not the dollars that you have in your Adsense cheques that make you a successful blogger, its how well you connect and listen to the problems of other bloggers that make you one.

The next session was super fun. “It took a fall from the sky and 27 fractures for one man to become a successful entrepreneur” as DNA reports about Karamveer or also known as Jim Karter and now a self-confessed JohnChow Hater :P, made some 53k dollars for the month of Feb 2008 from his network of sites. He explained some simple tricks to get to what he does (Creating MFA sites basically) and their work arounds with ranking high in google. Well there are sure many enthusiasts to try this stuff (already saturated business anyways) and many more to simply hate what he does. But at the end when asked of the secret to make money online, our dear make money online guruji did say its all about writing good original content. Oh did we just hear that from you sir? :P.

The next session by Tarun was short and sweet. He probably was lost in the audience taking over the session with little discussions going around everywhere. But the million dollar point he made was that… on one hand there is this guy who makes 53k dollars a month and dosnt care at all about his thousands of site visitors and on the other hand there is a guy like him who cares for even the 10 few people visiting his site and reading what he writes, for himself, for them. Well he got a much deserved round of applause for that. Another interesting point he brought forward was that if earning big money or having a lot of site visitors reading your blog makes you conscious of what you write. And you start writing more for others than for yourself. Good or bad I do believe that it happens.

The last session I attended was by Mani and Ashwin. Both I had known over the net since a long time now. Got to meet them for the first time. Mani had some interesting SEO tips to share and what are the common misconceptions about SEO and a few dos and donts in this business. While the second part on using SMM for pumping a site higher into the SERPs could not be discussed due to the shortage of time and the organizers had to call it a day.

Soon after, there were DNA, Outlook and rediff guys taking interviews of bloggers and to listen to their take on where blogging could move towards in future. I am pretty sure their favourite question though must have been… How much money do you make with blogging??? :P. Afterall its that what makes news today.

All in all it was real fun to be at this event. Kudos to the organizers for putting up a fantastic show. I know a few things went wrong. But hopefully they are left so only to get better for the next time. Just a suggestion… The schedule was changing all day and people sitting inside the auditorium had no clue of what was happening in the other auditoriums. So most of us missed some interesting sessions we wanted to participate in. May be the next time they can put up a screen in every audi of the ongoing session in the other auditoriums. It would really be appreciated… But still good stuff!

Anyways I will call it a post now. Its 3:45 AM now and I need to catch some sleep. All those who missed the show, for sure have got a detailed insight on how the event had been like. Do try to make it there yourself the next time. Its sure great fun to make a lot of friends on whose blogs you have been commenting all this while. It feels different to go and say a hi to them :) . Oh yes! And you can take home a smart BarCamp shirt too!

For pics on the event here are a couple of links:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blogcampindia/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brajeshwar/sets/72157604300813081/