Bloggers in Chennai had a field day

Bloggers in Chennai had a field day
Syed Ali Mujtaba

Chennai: The Chennai Bloggers meet organized by the Indiblogger and sponsored by the Univercell Communication on 20th March 2010, was a red letter day for the Blogging fraternity in this southern metropolis city of India.

More than two hundred bloggers had assembled for four hours Bloggers meet held at the GRT Convention Center, a star hotel in the city. This was the second meeting of the IndiBlogger in the city as it had held similar meeting in June 2008.

It was good to see a large number young enthusiastic Bloggers assembled at one place again, said Reneie Ravin, web architect for IndiClicker and an organizer of the event.

The event started with registration on the arrival of the participating in the meeting. This was followed by the welcome message from the sponsors, Univercell.

Every Blogger after that had an opportunity for self introduction for about 30 seconds. As they introduced, the IndiBlogger team flashed their blog and photograph on the screen thorough LCD projector. As each Blogger stood up for introduction, there was loud applause from the audience.

Then there was a video presentation on blogging and this was patiently watched by the enthusiastic Bloggers gathered at the event.


There was a mingling session where all the bloggers had to wear a chart paper round their neck that was rolled on their back and had to collect signatures and comments from the fellow Bloggers.

This was a fun session and many young and not so young Bloggers made rounds of each other, to collect signatures and comments besides introducing themselves. The one who had collected maximum number of signatures and comments was given a prize.

Then there was a session on Traditional Media verses Blogging where many journalists and Bloggers actively participated.

A journalist from Zee Tamil, one from NDTV-Hindu, a Chennai correspondent from an Australian broadcast participated in the discussion. This discussion centered on integration of traditional media with emerging media like blogging.

The representative of UnivercelL talked about the high cost of advertisement in the traditional media and mooted the idea to give ads to the bloggers who have high traffic to their sites.

The Univercell also announced that they are looking for bloggers to be part of their blog (about mobile phones) to be launched by them soon. It also announced that it is planning to conduct a contest to identify the right bloggers through the IndiBlogger meets at Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Bangalore.

The meeting was followed by more interaction with Bloggers during the Hi Tea. Many Bloggers were seen interacting with each other and enjoying sandwiches and Ice Creams!

The fun filled session came to an end when each Blogger received an IndiBlogger T-shirt, as gift.

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a working journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba@yahoo.com