“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

Info Overload has been a recurring theme in this blog for the last 2+ years. Info overload is nothing but a heap of nonsensical stuff that you read/write(blog) online everyday.

NY Times has wake up call for bloggers and I'm sure it should also include blog readers and web wanderers.

Too many blogposts on a single blog makes no point. As the information gets more and more duplicated over the web, some one has already written about what you want to write about. The ad revenues or the number of people reading your blog feed is not significant than one's health.

So as said before, don't read this blog and more inportantly take it easy.

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Anil Dash from Movable Type wrote a blogpost that took over its competitor, Wordpress. He explained with pointers as to how Wordpress upgrade is getting tougher by the day and not as simple as advertised. Wordpress founder, Matt Mullenbeg responded on his twitter that Six Apart(Movable Type's company) is getting desperate and dirty.

While it may be true that Movable Type has some of its users to the Wordpress blogging tool, it doesn't mean they can't strike back, taking their competitors head-on. Anil's post didn't have a single loosely written line. While there may be factual errors or not, he did not behave like a cheapo. Matt did. And he is pissed.

Matt is pursuing Typepad Users(a part of Six Apart) like Seth Godin to move their own domains and install Wordpress to run their blogs. When Matt is adopting public/no-so-public ways to attract users, shouldn't he be ready for the same methods by his competitor.

BTW, I like Wordpress as much as, and sometimes even better than, Movable Type. This blog still runs on Movable Type for the last 4 years. The irony is that it runs smoothly because of Akismet spam catcher which is a product from the Wordpress company. Tells us that none of these guys are perfect yet.

The web market is still nascent. The perfect blogging platform creator is still playing soccer at Madison or Florida or Madras and hasn't the heard the word, blog, yet.

lazy geek | # | Comments (1)

WordPress.com has been hosting free blogs for more than 2 years now. With their sheer development effort and bringing the best features out to the users, I think they have already taken over the blogging scene.

They aren't the largest blogging network yet. But they seem to understand the cutting edge of this technology and its going to only a span of few years for them to snatch the best content management tool award from Movable Type. Blogger ? Those guys are now history.

When Google took over Blogger, we were all certainly excited but nothing big has happened since then. Its a pity that they don't even have a tool to import content from other blogging softwares. And people have been asking about this since 2004. I'm not sure why Google hasn't been concentrating on Blogger as much as it has done to its Feed Reader.

WordPress.com started offering free uploads upto 3GB per account from this week. But that isn't the big news. Check out WP site to see the blogging community that they are building. Even Tamil WP Bloggers are a strong community there. Just when Blogger.com is filled with spam blogs, I think these WP blogging communities are going to be WP's lifeline in the days to come.

From WP blog -

Today, one of those developments comes to fruition — everyone’s free upload space has been increased 60x from 50mb to 3,000mb. To get the same amount of space at our nearest competitor, Typepad, you’d pay at least $300 a year. Blogger only gives you 1GB. We’re doing the same thing for free.

Our hope is that much in the same way Gmail transformed the way people think about email, we’ll give people the freedom to blog rich media without having to worry about how many kilobytes are left in their upload space.

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A photograph for a tag.

Shot this from Alki Beach opposite to the Seattle downtown. I waited nearly three hours for the sun to go down so that I could get one such shot. This was one among the 15 pictures that I shot and only this came through slightly well. For some weird reason, it was also published in a seattle guide book.

More photos at lazylens.com.

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This is a sticky post. Regular programming continues below.

If you encounter these lines in a blog, please close the browser and move onto the next one. That blogpost would be a pure collection of some mindless posts, which even the blogger who linked to it hasn't read completely. Why in this world would you want to read something that hasn't been even read by the blogger, in the first place ?

The more the number of updates to the post, the more it gets linked. It would stand a big chance of becoming the reference point for that whole issue. Plus it might get insta-pundited or mentioned in some mainstream media.

Apologize my swearing but what the heck is "regular programming" ?

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Spirit of the Desi blogworld

Its amazing how quickly we've all moved on from the emotions of mumbai blasts which only happened a few days ago, its odd that none of have shed any tears for the Tsunami victims in Indonesia, its odd none of us have been reminded of the TN tsunami when reading about the recent Indonesian one. Its odd that all of us have now moved on to the Indian Government's pathetic decision to stop people accessing blogspots within India. The in thing now for all us bloggers is to get on our high horses and scream at the top of our voices about freedom of speech and democracy etc etc until the next big thing hits the headline. Some might say that we are a stoic bunch of bloggers.

This post named, Spirit of the Desi Blogworld, isn't a unique thought. But its the right way and the right time that WA chose to post it. I feel like locating the Wicked Angel and getting her/him a handful of Baskin Robbins. What say ?

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* This is probably the most boring post ever written on this blog. So skip it, if you feel like *

The real change in the book market is not the big guy vs. the little guy, or chain vs. indie stores. Rather, it's the reader's greater impatience, a symptom of our amazing literary (and televisual) plenitude. In the modern world we are more pressed for time, and we face a greater diversity of cultural choices. It was easy to finish Tolstoy's War and Peace when there were few other books around and it was hard to find them. Today, finishing it means forgoing many other options at our fingertips. As a result, we tend to consume ideas in smaller bits, a proposition that (in another context) economists labeled the "Alchian and Allen theorem." Long, serious novels are less culturally central than they were 100 years ago. Blogs are on the rise, and most readers prefer the ones with the shorter posts. Our greater access to books also means that each book has less time to prove itself. A small percentage of the books published account for a large share of the profits, thus setting off a race to track reader demand. Many customers want very recent best-sellers, often so they can feel they are reading something trendy, something other people are talking about. Of course, that's its own kind of affectationand not an entirely pleasing one.

Did you find yourself relaxed to read that entire paragraph ? Or did you skip few lines and went straight down.

The above paragraph was just a piece from a larger article. First, I wasn't even comfortable to paste a huge quote because I felt no one would read this entire paragraph. Such is the speed of reading these days. The quote rightly says, how people are more and more interested in consuming smaller bits of information than larger ones.

This is due to the in-famous information overload, being discussed in this blog often. I've been munching my thoughts on this info overload for atleast 2 months now. Resistance if futile. I couldn't resist the information overload. In this speedy world of internet and weblogs and podcasts, books are becoming a heavier by the day. The moment you shut-off from the world and go back to books, you tend to have withdrawal symptoms. By the time one completes half a book, there are a dozen novels to be read, a dozen Mission Impossibles to be watched, handful of blogposts to be written.

At the same time, here is another thought. To write a book, something thats published on wood pulp, takes a long time. The book has to be composed , edited and published. And it takes it's own time to reach the hands of readers. Someone has to read the book and then write a piece of appraisal on it. Only after this, the author of the book gets the first comments from his readers. Until then, its like waiting political parties waiting for the vote count, a grave silence.

Blogs are from a different leaque. I'm now writing this blogpost. I will post this[even without editing] in the next few minutes. Most probably the first comments could be seen within the first two hours. Sometimes, when books are discussed here, there is a grave silence but that is a different issue. So I as a blogger know the comments for or against will reach this blogpost in the next 2 hours. Whereas imagine if someone wants to write this same stuff in a book. It would take weeks/months for him to get the bouquets or brickbats.

At the same time, Blogs are laudatory and ephemeral. Books stand over time. Sidin Vadakut had written the famous blogpost on single south indian men. That was probably the most famous blogpost ever written. Leave out the war cries on IIPM(which were again ephemeral), they just caused some hot air. Now do you think Sidin's post will be remembered 5 years from now. But if only it was a book, it would reach out for years to come. That's just my belief.

May be all the above is just trash. May be we are going through a transformation and blogs are probably the future books. We don't know, atleast me. Neverthless, this urbanised world is rapidly moving towards something. And its causing a lot of information overload. I have no clue how I would survive the load but I wish I could sit tight and read Dickens' Pickwick Papers. Donno if I could it. To hell with information.

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The blog was the perfect bluff for a self-conscious writer like me who yearned for the spotlight and then squinted in its glare.

Blogging had been the ideal run-up to a novel, but it had also become a major distraction. I would sit down to start on my novel only to come up with five different blog entries. I thought of them as a little something-something to whet the palatebecause it was easier, more immediately satisfying, because I could write it, and post it, and people would say nice things about it, and I could go to bed feeling satisfied.

Practically every blogger I know has taken their site down at some point-for personal reasons, for business reasons, for boredom reasons. It's no different from the way we have to turn off our cell phones or stop checking e-mail so that we can actually focus on something.

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There was an interesting discussion[uid/pass] between Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc and Alan Meckler of Jupiter Media on today's WSJ.

While Jason was quoting some amazing stats on how people can make money through blogging, Alan was shooting back with some nice theory. I tend to agree with Alan for the most part. Here is what he had to say -

Take MySpace -- I read yesterday in the N.Y. Times that they have 50 million in the community. Every member can launch a blog with little or no difficulty. Blog growth is and will be huge. But again, while a very select few of the blogs will make significant money, most will never be worth anything because their information is worthless and therefore they will garner few monthly page views.

Blogs are fun for someone who wants a pulpit and does not care about making money. Blogs are really the "diaries" of yesteryear. Social historians of the future will have a field day mining blogs for nuggets of the mores of present day civilization. But in terms of making money from blogs, I doubt they will be anything more than an interesting subset of Internet ad revenue.

P.S. Interesting to note that my spell checker does not recognize "blog."

Blogs are really diaries or microcosms of what is happening in millions of ways in daily life -- ranging from special interests to business specialties to whatever. Obviously there is money to be made with blogs, but very, very few will bring in more than a few hundred dollars per year.

I'm shouting here, I agree. I agree.

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Hot Machi Hot. Yet another Tamil group blog on Election '06. Mikeset Munusaamy leads the sarcastic lot. Funny.

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With just 100 days of blogging[via], Guy Kawasaki could grasp and convey the I and the My feeling so well. Much much better than what was written here.

In his blogpost that celebrates the completion of 100 blogging days, Kawasaki shares his experience -

2. The more a blogger uses the pronoun “I,” the less he has to say. Many bloggers apparently believe that people not only give a shiitake about everything they say, but that these people are hanging on to every word.

And more -

9 a. I don't get this “exchanging links” thing. IMHO, you should link to a blog if you believe it's good for your readership. The other blogger should link to back your blog if she believes it's good for her readership. In a perfect world, linking is about quality, not reciprocation, with all due respect to Dr. Cialdini. :-)

Are u still thinking, who's Kawasaki ? Go figure.

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Blog Blogger-ai Kedukkum(a) ?

That aside, just to keep up with the Blogger SPIRIT - Cheers & Cheers.

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[Clicked by Chandrachoodan]

Chennai Metroblogging went online last week. A quick read of this page would tell more on Metro Blogging. Chennai is the second city in India after Mumbai to have Metro Bloggers.

The idea to have a chennai metro blog was intially brought-up by Chandrachoodan and it had a warm welcome among Chennai bloggers. All of them applied for this concept, few got selected based on their location and now the metro blog for chennai is up-and-running. Other than ChandraChoodan there are other people like Kaps [whats your true name buddy ?], Keerthivasan, Kiruba, Lavanya, Nancy and Vatsan, who write blogposts on Chennai.

I have to say that I'm quite amused by the stuff that's written there. If they are able to maintain this initial enthusiasm, I'm sure the audience base would grow in heaps. Take a spin and you would become nostalgic about Sambars and Buckets.

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A comment is a spontaneous response to a blogpost. In this given world of spambots and texas holdem spammers, the security around blogs have been tightened.

On an ideal blog, commenting has several steps than blogging itself. First you type the comment, the main thing and for that you've to rake your brains to come up with a comment that proves you know everything better than the blogger himself. Then you type in your blogger.com login/pwd and finally type in a word for the screwed-up word verification thingy. By this time your thought on the comment would have changed. After you do you all this, the comment box tells you that the comment will be moderated by the author.

Until the author wakes up in the morning and logs in, your comment is just waiting there, crying to be approved. Assume that the author approves your comment as it talks only good about him and his post. For all you might know, tomorrow the blogger might change his opinion on the post and would remove the post itself. Then, you start thinking philosophically about the need for a social commenting system called blogs. Thats what I'm doing now.

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Dave Winer of Scripting.com, also known as the father of blogs is planning to stop blogging. He reasons it out very rationally.

Just loved every word of it, especially the last paragraph. Couldn't resist quoting the entire blogpost here on the hope that the father of weblogs wouldn't be angry on this fellow blogger. This decision is creating very interesting conversations in the blogosphere.

From Dave Winer's Why I will stop blogging -

I can do it, folks, I have already, in some sense, stopped one of my rivers, and soon, probably before the end of 2006, I will put this site in mothballs, in archive mode, and go on to other things, Murphy-willing of course.

It's been a long time coming. When I started blogging, depending on how you look at it, either in 1994, 1996 or 1997, I had different goals, and happily the goals have been accomplished. Billions of Websites now no longer seems an outrageously ambitious goal. We're pretty close to a billion, I suspect. The goal was also to create tools that would make it easy for everyone to have a site, and then more specifically a chronological one. That's done.

I wanted programming to turn upside down, to have the Internet be the platform instead of Microsoft and Apple. That worked too. APIs on web apps are now commonplace, and a basis for comparison between offerings. While user interfaces have gotten better, of course, there's been a steady flow of new ideas in how my work connects with yours, and vice versa, and we're doing it without a platform vendor controlling it.

I wanted decentralized news. We can do for ourselves what the pros haven't been doing. And politics -- I don't doubt that the House of Representatives will be filled with bloggers, if not in 2006, then surely in 2008. There's no turning back on any of it. The 20th Century is fading and the new century is going strong. There really was a big shift as the calendar rolled over, and I'm totally glad to be a part of it.

So there's the first part of my reason. Blogging doesn't need me anymore. It'll go on just as well, maybe even better, with some new space opened up for some new things. But more important to me, there will be new space for me. Blogging not only takes a lot of time (which I don't begrudge it, I love writing) but it also limits what I can do, because it's made me a public figure. I want some privacy, I want to matter less, so I can retool, and matter more, in different ways. What those ways are, however, are things I won't be talking about here. That's the point. That's the big reason why.

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Wrote a quick guest blogpost named, Blogasm for Gilli.

Kick-started recently by Boston Bala and Icarus Prakash, Gilli is a sort of manual aggregator for the Tamil Blogosphere just like Desi Pundit. This regional blogosphere has nearly more than enough blogs than most Indian regional blogospheres. The kind of variety it offers and rich writing it engulfs is so amazing that I'm following more than 30-40 blogs through Google Reader.

I am staying positive that Gilli powered by the passion of its contributors, Bala, Prakash and now Badri, would take Tamil Blogosphere to the next level by aggregating and spotlighting the best of the best. All the best.

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Anti did inform me about this but it was only today I actually bumped on it. This blog is one among the Top 500 blogs rolled through blogrolling. As of today its on rank 251 with over 237 blogs rolling it. Kiruba's is at 243rd rank.

These are all quantitative stuff. All quantitative and no qualitative analysis would lead to obscurity. So no yaps on the blog being one among top 500. Infact, I'm surprised by the number of blogs blogrolling this one. I have to extend my thanks not just by this blogpost but by this link back page, where there is a reciprocal link. Thanks again.

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[Src - Indibloggies.org]

there is no idea of closing down this blog even though the votes were much against the wishes. Truly, its overwhelming, year after year, to win an award where people who read the blog, vote for it. Makkal Shakthi wins. Checkout the winners of Indibloggies 2005.

Life Time Indibloggies Achiever 2005 is just a recognition from those who read the blog. Thanks. More coming this way...keep coming.

P.S - This blog at Indibloggies 2004, Indibloggies 2003

lazy geek | # | Comments (20)

There is a consipracy theory going on against this blog. And what a way to execute it. Some 'Anon' who was totally bored, nominated this blog for IndiBloggies 2005 Lifetime Achiever .

Also after being awarded for two consecutive years as the Best Media Indiblog, the indibloggies pushed the blog out of contest due to a rule which read "don't award the blog again and again". Wait. It wasn't that rude. Still, once awarded in one category, the winner cannot be participating in the same category again.

Being nominated for a Lifetime Achiever feels like some old Dharmendra or Poornam Vishwanathan. And after taking the award, I probably should go straight to close this blog. Its the Anon's way of threatening, Mavaney, Inimey Ezhuthuva !!. And a request to vote here, is a like digging a 1024 * 768 pixel hole to bury this blog. So forget this blogpost, have a cup of suda suda coffee and don't vote.

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This fabulously written blogpost, The fourth hand of Vishnu, was written back in June 2005 by Venkat.

Truly stunning. Am not hinting anything else which would take out the suspense. Do read.

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Steve Rubel leisurely wrote a step-by-step hack to read some of O'Reilly's book at Google Books.

Finally Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch had to interfere and comment that all he discovered wasn't hack at all and its just how Google Books and O'Reilly Publishers wanted the book to be available.

Been following these blogs for a long time now and Steve's blog was specially very informative with some fabulous pointers. It was in bad taste to write a step-by-step hack. Especially Rubel has been pointing out to people who are plagiarising his blog and now he has steps to hack a Google site. That sounded pretty childish.

Another reason, I wasn't comfortable with that post was that, people who had no idea about Google Books are waging a virtual war against Google for making the offline world accessible to the online world. While Google is trying to fight out these wars, security holes and such hacks would only increase the dis-belief on the whole venture. And I think a noble cause has to be atleast left alone if not encouraging it.

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Magazines run ads.

Books don't.

What are blogs?

This is sheer co-incidence. Two days before, I decided to remove ads out of this blog. Two days later, I read Seth Godin's introspective blogpost on Promotion, Self Promotion and ofcourse Ads.

If you are a blogger, you are sure to have thought about this, numerous times. Even if you aren't one, Seth's post would hint you the kind of promotional and self-promotional ads run by the blogs. Do read it.

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He just started blogging. Here is timbl's first blogpost, So I have a blog.

Before that, in 1989, he proposed something that changed the world forever. He is Sir Tim Berners-Lee and he invented the World Wide Web. Welcome Vaathiyaarey !!

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Yet another case of E-adichaan blog copy as I found an interesting blogger, while googling for something else. Itz what Varun haz to say ! ! ! is a blog run by Varun Nair. Check out more about this dude here.

Comparisons start here -

- Black review there on Mr.Varun's blog and here.
- Signs movie review there and here.
- On Rahman's Roja being awarded Time Top 100, there and here
- Shucks!! even Google's Birthday note, there and here/here.

BTW, our Nair saab has put up Rang De Basanthi music review. Do check, it could be copied from your blog.

lazy geek | # | Comments (17)

I was reacting to Chenthil's non-commital blogpost on the recent plagiarism accusations on The Hindu. Few arguments touched upon rogue blogging. I have some strong comments on rogue blogging and how blogs can be mis-used as anti-fame machines. Here is the extract from the comments that me and Chenthil had on his blog.

--
From Chenthil's blogpost -

This incident set me thinking about this sharp tool called blogging. Take Mr. Bhaskaran. He has been writing for about 20 years. Assuming 20 reviews a year, that makes it 400 reviews. Even if say, 20 of his reviews were inspired, he will be painted as a plagiarist for all 400 of them. It is a little harsh on him. Again I stress, I am not batting for anybody, just thinking out loud how this tool called blogging can be used.

lazygeek said...

//Even if say, 20 of his reviews were inspired, he will be painted as a plagiarist for all 400 of them. It is a little harsh on him. //

Chenthil, I don't get this logic. How do you say its a little harsh on him. its a matter of integrity when it comes to fourth estate.

Chenthil said...

Guru, the issue I was concerned more here was how blogging can be used to bring down somebody.//

lazygeek said...

Yep !! There are rogue bloggers every where and the idea of rogue bloggings sucks. I agree. Now lets take this analogy to the IIPM case which is very recent. Do you also think that IIPM literally raped by bloggers. Imagine IIPM has been around for a while and they might have given great education even for atleast 200 people, they were ragged by the bloggers for screwing up with one AD on newspapers. Do you think so ?

Also, imagine the tamil nadu police captures so many criminals on a daily basis. do you think they were ragged by bloggers when they were condemened for moral policing with just one hotel.

Are we being balanced here ? If you are saying yes, i'll have a bigger reply.

Chenthil said...

Guru, of course I am not being balanced. I myself have participated vigorously in IIPM issue and Moral Policing. But of late I am getting this doubt, whether we are using blogging as a tool to bring down things. When I was participating in those issues, I could feel the mob mentality engulfing me, making me feel the potency of power without accountability.

In such mobs, some of those who are shouting along with you won't be agreeable to you on normal days. But since all of us are shouting for an issue, we tend to forget this fact. To put it in Engineering College slang, whenever there is a fight in collge, there will be a group who will be standing invisible but creating a big noise. We call that "Sound vidarathu". I am wondering whether blogging is going down that road.

lazygeek said...

Obviously its going in that road. Remember those days when you had asked why I was keeping off senstive issues. This was the reason. Its because we have bandwith and a keyboard that listens to your whims and fancies, by means of senstive topics and sticky posts, we are just becoming rogue bloggers, to the core.

Ofcourse there are people who react because they feel dejected or upset of some issue. i have to say i felt very dejected when i saw the plagiarism. two reasons. one the lazygeek blog is a victim of plagiarism. donno if you know but the reviews and posts are intelligently stolen and some interesting thoughts are added to it make seems like a original post. second, i am a long term reader of hindu. infact right from the start. so i felt dejected and hence that post about hindu.

There are bloggers whom even you can spot so easily who are just waiting for to kick someone and waiting for a prey. those dudes are pretty new and have no clue of the immense satisfaction blogging gives. if its all about eyeballs and page hits and comments gallore, blogging ceases to exist. but thats what we have today and it really sucks. really sucks.
--

And before you start to comment here is a quick note. These were comments and they were written with an urgency. Hence they may not really bring out the essence of what i mean. I was trying to compare Chenthils' logic of argument in Bhaskaran's case with the IIPM and moral policing issue. My take on moral policing and IIPM remain intact despite these conversations for the sake of an argument. While this argument continues so does the concept of rogue blogging.

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Ganesh a music enthusiast and a singer himself writes about his friend Jay Krishnan who composes music and also give us a sneak peek into Jay's works. I just can't believe that the Panithirai song, rendered by Radhika was recorded in a homse studio. One I'm amazed about the tech wizardry that crawls into your living room and two the huge talents Jay and Radhika. Do listen to the song Panithirai. Pretty Cool.

This superb tiny post of Chenthil, I apologize, sums up the Tamil Nadu affairs for you. Did I link to the post, I Apologize.

Karthik finds Sujatha's Shortstory themes to be repetitious. But he also drafts the reasons for Sujatha's popularity.

Suderman Kamath bangs again with this superb post, Maja and the politics of stardom!. I'm buying his arguments and think the issue people had with Sivakasi can't be explained better. Until someone comes up with an counter argument, Ellarum Majavaa Irunga !!

CCG is blogged-out and hence wants to log-out. I don't think he can.

There's another, yeah another Chennai Blogger Meet coming up. Kribs is doing the roll-call.

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Dilip D'Souza brings to light the latest MSM copycat [Via].

Dileep Premachandran wrote this column, From potential to performance, a note on Yuvraj Singh on Cric Info. A columnist from DNA had copied it and changed a few words, the next day. Its such a screwed up state of ignorance, when people look at their contemporaries for copying stuff. They for sure under estimate the reach of internet and blogs. While its good to write something nice for your paper, you should be wary that copying could cost your reputation.

P.S - Sorry to digress but remember the dude whom I thought was copying reviews from here has recently got into another 'innovative' way that proves he is certainly a full-time plagiarizer. Devuda Devuda Ezhumalai Devuda !!

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The latest meme in blogosphere, is among the techies. I'm sure they are the last people to jump into such childish memes but this one isn't child's play. So what is the GYM Diet meme ? Can you keep yourself from blogging about the GYM trio. GYM ? Yep !! Google , Yahoo and Microsoft. If you can, you are GYM free. I know it doesn't apply this blog as only Google gets featured often.

BTW, the GYM Diet is a brainchild of OM Malik and a bunch if bloggers are already into this. Are you GYM Free ?

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The time of the year, when Hemanth and me are in same building, we walk out for a evening coffee and eventually endup in the Star of Bucks. As we keep rambling, commenting and yapping on the subject which bridges me and him, the cinema, Hemanth said that he was planning to bring back Teakada. But this time with Puthiya !! Niram, Suvai & Thidam.

Teakada was originally a weblog Hemanth had started back in 2003 that would aggregate news on kollywood and cinema. The naming of teakada is got from our roadside nair kada where people of various walks of life walk-in for a single chaaya. As they dip the butter biscuit in that single strong tea, they keep rambling on the latest happenings in the city. This is where new dimensions to common news usually takes birth. Even if not for new dimensions, news that you have missed which is readworthy are often discussed.

While Hemanth was writing essentially on everyday kollywood he also started to include news and some superb commentaries on news, politics and anything concerned with Chennai. Not just that, Teakada was also aggregating blogposts from the Chennai based bloggers. When it was on a all-time high, he put it to rest to concentrate on other things.

Now, Teakada 2.0 is back with more energy and a refreshing look. Its been two three weeks now since Teakada is brought back and the request from me is to go have a look at it and suggest changes if any.

Teakada also wants more speakers-ya-bloggers who can write on anything about Chennai / Tamil Nadu / Kollywood/ Politics/Music/Literature and so on. Just about anything. The spicier, the better. There are no rules except for the arduments and postings need to be logical. Leave a comment on Teakada or send a note to Hemanth at hemanth.kum[at]gmail and he should able to set you up soon. Already a fiery bunch including Ravages, Nilu, Tilotamma, Karthik and Boston Balaji are brewing tea there. Hop on if you are excited.

Over to Teakada 2.0.

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Ashwini's column in Silicon India on CEO blogging opens up a whole new perspective on why CEO and top executives should blog. She drives her point through two top executives in the valley. Anand Chandrasekharan, a friend of mine, co-founder of Aeroprise and more importantly a guest blogger to this blog, talks about his experiences on blog evangelism and its impact in markets. Rajesh Setty, well known for his book Life Beyond Code, also throws light.

From Ashwini's column, Logged out, Blogged in -

While blogs have caught the frenzy of many CEO’s and top executives, it has also entered the world of news. Traditional Web columns and e-newsletters have moved to a blog type columns allowing instant comments and feedback. When you blog, people read. But what happens when you get blogged. Aeroprise, a mobile workflow management company found itself in a middle of heavy Web traffic!

On another note, Anand's Aeroprise also made it to SiliconIndia Top 100[PDF]. Anand, Three cheers for the next stuff.

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Recieved an invite from Wordpress.com to setup a blog in Wordpress hosted site. This is the Wordpress version of Blogger and MT's Typepad. So you can use the Word Press interface to maintain your blog while it will be hosted by Wordpress, free of cost. Atleast now, they are sending invites for free Word Press hosting. Not sure what their plans are, as of yet.

I used my invite to create a blog, lazygeek.wordpress.com, to feel out WP hosting. Very similar to Blogger/Typepad, the WP hosting have a set templates from which you can choose from and do some minor changes. I don't think they still have a method to import posts. That would be a wonderful option to allow people to move from other service. But seems like they are in the testing mode and when they open up, there will be many takers.

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InstaPundit's intial post on Gaurav Sabnis issue seemed that IBM was being unfair with him. This superbly written letter which was later published as an update [via] in InstaPundit's blog was written by an IBM employee. The IBM employee points out the case as IIPM Vs The Indian Blogosphere and not IBM Vs the Indian Blogosphere, with enough arguments.

The letter from the IBM employee is re-produced here from InstaPundit's site -

As an IBM employee I was very interested to read about IBM vs The Indian Blogosphere, however if you read Gaurav Sabnis's post you'll see that isn't actually the case, or at least it shouldn't be. Rather it's a case of IIPM - The Indian Institute of Planning and Management - and their reprehensible tactics in attempting to silence a critic. As far as I can tell much of the brouhaha on this issue re:IBM has arisen from the article you linked to on Global Voices posted by Neha Viswanathan. That article excerpts Gaurav Sabnis's blog post where he announces that he's resigning from IBM, however it does so without mentioning why he left, loyalty.

It seems that the Dean of IIPM contacted Lenovo (IBM) and threatened them with a student protest where IBM Thinkpads would be burnt in front of the IBM offices in Delhi. In the face of what could only have been a public relations disaster Lenovo demanded that Gaurav do...nothing. No pressure was brought to bear, no demands were made, there was no "counseling session" where it was darkly hinted that any failure to mollify the demands of IIPM would go on his permanent record, nothing.

In fact Gaurav decided to resign because out of appreciation and a sense of loyalty to IBM. He wrote, "The second thing dear to me is IBM's well-being. IBM has been a good employer to me. I have no complaints about them. Even in light of these events, they did not pressurise me to go against my principles and hush the matter up. Yet, IBM was being dragged into this unnecessarily. It was being made a target of bizarre pressure tactics. If even one Thinkpad laptop was actually burnt, it would cause a lot of bad press and nuisance for IBM. So I did not want IBM's well-being to be compromised in any way."

To me that is the big story, that any corporation can still inspire such loyalty in it's employees that they'd rather leave the company than see it get hurt is, these days, nothing short of wondrous. That there are still people like Gaurav Sabnis who stick to their principles, even when it means making the tough decisions, is marvelous. I'm sorry I never got a chance to meet the man, or work with him, as he's exactly the kind of person we need to keep.

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When I read Gaurav's note on the law suit, few days back, I was thinking, thats just an email and what could it ever do to him. I wasn't sure that this would be more worse than Mediaah !! closure on acount of lawsuit from the famous news corporation(!!).

With the Indian Blogosphere heading to a war with the false claimants, I feel sorry for Gaurav who resigned from his job. At the same time, how much ever Nilu's note makes sense to me, it's a brave decision by Gaurav to stand by his post and not take them down. Many of us, put in that situation would have not reacted in the same way. And that's a hard truth.

With the bloggers figting back to justify their stands, one would expect that THEY GIVE UP !!

- Following the Dilip D'Souza way, No links or even a mention of THEM(!) . I am not giving away free advertisements on my account. They already have enough.

- Nilu has been writing hilarious posts on this issue. I am ROTFL since morning.

- Instead of releasing your anger gas here, please leave comments on Desi Pundit post which serves as a repository for this issue. I am closing comments, on this post, for this specific purpose.

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Not me but Heather Burns at The Pine Log writes -

Blogs aren't just stupid, they are crippling our social skills, and there is nothing better than human interaction, trust me.

Believe it or not, there is a world outside of the computer. No joke, it has trees, popcorn and drive-thru liquor stores.

Blogging is worse than being on facebook. Nobody wants to know if you have cramps today or if you sold 1,000 pounds of Nicaraguan cocaine to Chico and the man.

The people in your life like friends and family do care if you show up to the party and do a minute keg-stand or date that really cool guy from Nicaragua who is friends with Chico and the man.

To lay it all on the line, blogging is a waste of time. Why spend time telling strangers your innermost thoughts when you could be out making memories with those you care about most?

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Newspapers became -> Blogs becoming -> Newspapers. We are pretty much 'there' and the cycle will continue. Just a borrowed thought/truth. No revelation here.

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Blogs made a headstart over main stream media because of the personal voice they had in every single blogpost. In the process of getting wider audience and millions jumping into the blogging badnwagon, if they end up being badly written, poorly gestated trashes of email driven culture, someone has to take note of such blogs and vrooooomm !!

- Thumbi, the MP(D) of lazygeek

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Blogger's Park is probably the first no-URL-wrongly-spelled column in the main stream media. Ramya's acquaintance with the Indian bloggers has reflected well in the article that details blogger meets. It was truly suprising to know about the two bloggers who got married after meeting in a blogger meet.

There are many blog sites listed on the article which would probably open up many readers to the blogs. Have to appreciate Ramya, the journo bloggers and Hindu for spreading the blogging magic with well researched article.

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Tilotamma writes on the renown mylapore bookwala Azhwar in a Madras Musings column, Finding Alwar. Enjoyed the read. BTW, Tilo writes irregularly for Hindu, truly loves Chennai & Books.

Meet the Blogger Fans !! says Sujatha in The Woods[As we nick the Woodlands Drive Inn], much to my envy. I missed it. For those who missed it, like me, there is podcast of an interview with Sujatha. And to hell with Desikan who arranged it when I wasn't there !!

Chenthil and Sudish Kamath have given raving reviews for Evam's Indrajit. If you are in Chennai, don't miss it.

I am not sure if Nilu was inspired by Swades. But he did a Swades. Yeah !! he went back. And he says its to find 'himself' [Nilu!! I know, I'm rubbing the wrong side]. But the whole point is, the dude who was rather on-the-face with his comments has softened. I've been reading his Chennai Adventures and the way he puts it is rather soft and not the usual Nilu way. Is that what Chennai does to someone radical in thoughts ? I don't think so. Nilu comeback with your usual gibberish.

Ammani has been making people write good fiction. Her quick tales has inspired and been inculcated by many bloggers. Chandru being the last one as of now. Ammani was also mentioned by Sujatha in his Vikatan column, Katrathum Petrathum. Great going !! I would love it if she called it fast fiction instead of quick tales.

Divya was probably the only one who flew over to Chennai for a blogger meet and went back to meet with Singapore bloggers. That was partly true. Though she flew over to India, it was for her friend's wedding and also her yearly quota. Read her account of Chennai/Singapore Blogger meet, The Legend of Blog Meets. I've asked her for 6 Vithyaasangal between Chennai/Singapore bloggers. Let see what she's upto.

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Picture the blog world as the biggest coffeehouse on Earth. Hunched over their laptops at one table sit six or seven experts in nanotechnology. Right across from them are teenage goths dressed in black and thoroughly pierced. Not too many links between those two tables. But the café goes on and on. Saudi women here, Labradoodle lovers there, a huge table of people fooling around with cell phones. Those are the mobile-photo crowd, busily sending camera-phone pictures up to their blogs.

Business Week gives a huge plug for the blogging community. This well researched/written cover story, Blogs Will Change Your Business, was an awesome read, especially for a blogger. After reading this article, I am sure, a blogger must be walking on air. I did. Stephen Baker and Heather Green who have co-written this article have a reason to paint a rosy picture of the blogosphere. They are also the bloggers of Business Weeks' new blog Blogspotting. Blogspotting in their own words was kicked off to cover the business drama ahead, as blogging spreads into companies and redefines media.

From Statistics to History to Business of blogosphere this one says it all. If you are non-blogger, read this and join the blogging gang. Don't be left behind.

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Chenthil sent me a link about Mediaah!! Blog being closed due to legal issues, sometime/longtime back. Not that I overlooked it but then the mail was drowned into my mail box and I just didn't follow it up. Looking back, I should have responded pretty fast by a post reacting for it. Mediaah which was served a legal notice by a media 'biggie' requesting/compelling /asking/whatever-heck to remove some 19 posts because they were denigrating the company. I haven't read those 19 odd posts but I am sure with the blogosphere's reaction to it, Mediaah was just trying to be unbiased. Now this can happen to anyone of us, bloggers and there should be a clear line of understanding of what's being slanderous and what not. I only hope, Mediaah will be back and I get to read their archives again.

No cribs for Kribs. I am sure, he will be back after a break. Cool off, guys.

Last few weeks, I was busy following Seattle's weather to catch my morning bus and wasn't following blogosphere, closely. It's only when Kribs says,"goodbye", I get to read Sudhish's Kamath's interview on Kiruba's blog. It's exciting to see Sudhish with so much enthusiasm with his fingers pointing the west. More than that his premise for their upcoming films, especially the one named Bad News, triggers my expectations. Good luck Sudhish on That Four letter Word.

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Whoa !! Flickr was clearly a Google animal and they missed the bus. Yahoo announced that it bought Flickr, few hours back. With the announcement of Yahoo 360, it was expected that Yahoo might acquire few small players, whose application, Yahoo might integrate into blogging/social networking utility, Yahoo 360.

Flickr was one of those software applications that was clearly an offshoot in this clumsily imitative internet world. It was certainly a killer app for photo blogs just like delicious was for bookmarks. There were talks on the blogosphere that Google might just go for Flickr.

With Flickr on the Yahoo side, the Googleplex would have been alarmed this rainy sunday to gear up with their next best release of blogger tightly integrated with Picasa. It's going to be long nights ahead for those geeks. Good Luck !!

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So that completes the circle. Google - MSN and now Yahoo. Yahoo 360, a service that looks like a mix of Blogger and Orkut. I should say it more like the MSN Spaces rather than the Blogger + Orkut stuff.

The service isn't active yet but looks like Beta service will be launched very soon. I haven't seen many interesting blogs on MSN Spaces. So what is yahoo trying to do when they have a killer app like Blogger owned by Google, which rocks. Doing for the sake of doing doesn't help anyone, I say.

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Blogger's latest release includes updates to their commenting system, which I think is one of the most ought update from the bloggers.

Now you can have your Blogger powered blog with pop up comments and profile image on the comments. This narrows down the gap between Blogger and other Blog software providers like Movable Type and Word Press.

I am eagerly waiting for their next update and I expect it to be blogposts import/export option. If only they provide it in their next release, I will be the first one to move from Movable Type to Blogger. I promise.

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Bought lazygeek.com, finally, I mean finally, after a long long wait. Intially when I was looking for a domain two years back, lazygeek.com was booked by someone so I had to settle down with lazygeek.net. Then the domain got released but was locked by the registrar. I had to talk with the registrar and bought it for an inflated price. Thanks to enom for that.

If only IE never had a control+enter shortcut key for .com domains, .com would never be felt as the lovable single child of internet domains. Other domains are now made to look as orphans. I am prey to that shortcut key.

For time being, I'm planning to re-direct lazygeek.com to the current site [lazygeek.net] itself. You don't have change bookmarks from your blog at all. To do a permanent switch, I am searching for tools that can change the links on this blog and repoint appropriately to lazygeek.com. Do let me know if you are aware of such tools.

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With all the hungama swirling around, Mark Jen chose to talk yesterday about his termination from Google. Mark Jen's termination came from his blog posts relating to Google's financial information and future products. Though he took them out when he realised it was classified, it was all over.

From Mark's entry on his blog, Ninenty Nine Zeros,

i was just too excited. i felt like i was joining a small start-up family; i thought i was going to start new initiatives and improve existing ones; i thought i could jump in the deep end and immerse myself in the revolutionary development environment; i thought i could make connections to real people in the outside world and get first hand feedback; i thought google would love it. i thought wrong.

Personally, I think Google should have given him a chance but then their recent IPO and their quarter offerings have made analysts sensitive to any information about them. And Google probably wanted to show their stand on blogging-about-work policy. It's definetly shocking for this news came from a company that promotes the number one blogging software, Blogger.

After all, didn't some one say, Google after the IPO isn't the same venture capitalists funded company run by a couple of young dudes who love technology, as it was a couple of years back. Now, they are answerable to their share holders and those who have stakes in them. We are getting to see that coming right.

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Whoa !! Thanks to everyone who took time to read and vote this blog as the Best Humanities(Arts) IndiBlog 2004, for the second time. It's certainly an extra dose of inspiration served as an award. I am sure there are many other blogs on arts and media that are covering some amazing stuff who also need to appreciated now.

Thanks to Debashish(Indiblogger) who did a great job of showcasing the best of Indian blogs through the IndiBloggies Awards. Congrats to all other bloggers who won Indibloggies.

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Indibloggies is the Indian version of Bloggies. These are awards given away for the best blogs during the year. This blog, lazygeek.net was the Best Media Indiblog, last year. This year the name has been changed to Best Humanities(arts) Indian Weblog. Am not sure why they had to change it ?

Anyway, this blog is nominated again. Unlike last year, there are more competitors this year. If you think it's (still) worth it, do vote.

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The US media is now bloated with the news about Blogs. A survey by PEW Inernet & American Life Project named as State of Blogging[PDF] in America, has done all the good to float the news about blogs and their mammoth growth in the year 2004.

Interestigly the report conveys,

Blog creators are more likely to be:
� Men: 57% are male (An older report says bloggers are mostly women)
� Young: 48% are under age 30
� Relatively well off financially: 42% live in households earning over $50,000
� Well educated: 39% have college or graduate degrees

And as BBC sums it up -

Blogging in America -
Blog readership has shot up by 58% in 2004
Eight million have created a blog
27% of online Americans have read a blog
5% use RSS aggregators to get news and other information
12% of online Americans have posted comments on blogs
Only 38% of online Americans have heard about blogs

In India, its still a long way to go. In the urban India, we desperately need broadband available, broadly and ofcourse cheaply. Then let's teach the kindergarten kids about googling. Even if they start blogging at 3rd grade, we can have some classy writers at teens. We are awfully short of children literature in India. In Tamil, the genre of Tamil Children literature is nearly extinct. Probably those teenage bloggers can bring that genre back to life. I dream of that.

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There are bloggers and there are bloggers. ABC News declares People of the Year: Bloggers. A trivia that's very interesting is that a new blog is created every seven-and-a-half seconds. More than 10,000 new additions are added to the blogosphere each day. Thats a huge number.

This title of ABC could be hugely attributed to the Blogger's active participation in the US Presidential Election of 2004 and also other global issues like the latest Asian Tsunami attacks.

This week, their influence has become readily apparent. Dozens of bloggers have been filing firsthand reports from the areas devastated by southern Asia's deadly tsunamis.

"There is kind of an immediacy that people can relate to — can't help but relate to that in a very intimate way," said Jardin.

Bloggers around the world have made themselves useful, encouraging donations to relief groups, posting the names of the missing, and expressing sympathy for the victims.

Read more Internet Phenomenon Provides Unique Insight Into People's Thoughts.