Blog-a-Ton: A Blogathon is on!

Here I am, writing a post for the second time in a day, because, again, I couldn't resist. I thought I must share this with you right now:

Search Engine Optimization and Backlinks are very common terms among Bloggers these days and almost every blogger worries about them. More backlinks mean higher Search Engine Optimization [SEO] or in other words chances are high that you are placed on the first page of a Google Search Result. And Vipul Grover is right - Blog-a-Ton is one way Bloggers can enhance their SEO, gaining enough backlinks by participating in it.

What is Blog-a-Ton? It is a very simple idea, adapted from Blogathon. Let's hear what Vipul himself says about Blog-a-Ton:

The idea was simple as I posted on the forum:
We'll choose a day and a topic to blog on. On that day we all will write a post on our blog on the given topic.
After the write-up, we will include the links to the write-ups of fellow blogathon participants.
This will not only help us in making new friends in blogging world but also give us a lot of backlinks.

More than Baclinks and SEO, what I liked about Blog-a-Ton is the people participation. Vipul Grover posted the idea of a Blogathon on IndiBlogger a  month ago. It slowly caught up with people and they launched a blog to take the idea forward in July 2009. The first leg of Blog-a-Ton was on August 1, 2009. The topic was announced on July 12, 2009. About 12 Bloggers participated and wrote on the topic "The Cream and Scum of Blogging"

I know 12 people are nothing compared to the number of Bloggers on the Blogosphere. But Blog-a-Ton has a long way to go and I think they will achieve their target of making it an event where 100 people participate regularly.

As I am writing this post, the 12 posts are placed for review and voting. I have read almost all the posts and all of them are really good, I would say. You gain an insight into how different people can interpret a given idea in different ways. I think the socio-cultural implications of the difference is worth a research.

The votes are kept confidential and the way it is, will be out only on August 4, 2009. I don't really care who wins. I am really happy about the fact that people are participating. And I hope more Bloggers are going to join the Blog-a-Ton Bandwagon soon.

The seven flaws of Twitter?

MarketWatch's  columnist John C Dvorak seems to be too irritated with the news of people looking at Twitter as a new source of news, in real time. He calls the idea of Twitter as a News Source 'Horsecrap". He says: 'The microblog is simply not a news source." He writes off Twitter as 'unpredictable noise in the crowded darkness." in his column "Second Opinion" in Market Watch.

Well, here I have a second third opinion about what John wrote about the idea of Twitter as a potential news source:

1. Elephant Syndrome: I hope John will be kind enough to show us one news paper, one TV Channel or at least one Online News Service that does not have elephant syndrome. I don't know why John does not understand any 'breaking-news' for that matter is an 'elephant'. 
2. Unvested Reporters: We hear this ever since bloggers started writing about issues that matter to the community at large. We hear that bloggers are no good at giving the news. But we have sometimes seen the Big Guys in Journalism depending on the Small Guys in Blogging for News. I don't know if John has purposefully not seen instances where Bloggers have reported better than Journalists. I think John's statement about J-school professors applies to John himself. Let me add a few words and take off a few words from John's own sentence to show how! "The silly notion of citizen journalism propagated undersetimated by J-school professors columnists seeking some excuse for their continued existence is part of the problem."
   
3. Vlunerability to manipulation: I hope John has his history of Journalism right. I don't know if John has heard about the American Government manipulating the news sources before any war. I don't know why John thinks some 'Workers' Party' [??] can manipulate only 'Twitter." The fact is anything can be manipulated, if it can be. 
4. Hoaxes and Goof Balls: John sounds like Hoaxes and Goof Balls started happening only after people started blogging. I don't know why John doesn't know the public will fall over and over again for hoaxes even if Twitter doesn't exist. 
5. Lack of Access: I don't understand why one should have access to spokespeople and officials to report news. There are many instances in history when the Officials have lied and gave false information to the public. News is not just about swallowing the official version as it is. The photograph of a cop beating an old lady might be a useless piece of information to John, but not to people like me.
6. Lack of Analysis: I don't know which J-school professor taught John that news is all about analysis. News is news. Analysis comes after the news. I have a suggestion. Let Bloggers and Twitter users report news. Then people like John who make a living analysing things can go ahead and do their bit of analysis instead of simply writing off Twitter Users.
7. Skewed Priorities. Twitter is about the users himself or herself now. Like blogging was once. Why can't it be about other things too, like blogging is now? 

It is sad that writers like John messes up their priorities [skewed priorities?] and blurs their vision about the possibilities of social networking! People like him should be encouraging it!

Blogadda: get your blog listed and let people read you

We all know! Most of us, small time bloggers, keep wondering when and how people will notice our blog and start reading it. In my perpetual search for ways in which one can get a blog noticed, I recently stumbled up on Blogadda. Blogadda provides "Indian bloggers a platform to showcase their blogs."

Let us hear what Blogadda says about themselves:

There are super Indian bloggers waiting for an audience to discover them. Blogadda provides Indian bloggers a platform to showcase their blogs.We've read a lot of blogs over time and continue to do so, and found that there wasn't a single resource to discover blogs of our interests. And this is how Blogadda.com was born.

Joining Blogadda is very simple. Here is what the site asked me to do: First, I registered an account like I would do to join any other site. Blogadda lets you use the site only after you verify your email and add a link to Blogadda on your blog. Once you create an account, verify it from a mail sent to your email address from Blogadda. You can now register your blog with Blogadda. Then copy and paste the html code to your blog. They say that their team will visit the blog to see if there is a link to Blogadda from your blog and they send you an email if your blog is approved. Well, I don't mind that. We are living in a 'win-win world'.

I stayed on the site, after registering my blog, for sometime. A few things caught my eye: One, Blogadda updates 'Recent Posts' every hour so that blogs that are active get noticed. [Well, Iam not going into the issue of one hour time lapse. Something is always better than absolutely nothing at all.] Two, I liked the way Blogadda lets users post useful tips on Blogging and selects and features the best. [Well, I would have loved to read all the tips that members post. I couldn't locate a link that took me to all that members posted. For time being, I feel this is good.] Three, I read a a couple of 'super blogger' interviews. [Well, I liked all that I read. They gave such insights into how blogging is happening in our part of the world and how 'super bloggers' are looking at it.] Four, Blogadda won't permit spam site promoters to be registered with them. [Well, I have no clue if they have spelt out a clear policy about what is spam and what is not. I haven't found anything on the site that tell me what is spam, yet. However, no-spam policy is a good policy.]

Blogadda shows how a good idea can go a long way. I don't know how many have registered their blogs on Blogadda. However, from the look of things, I think Indian Bloggers are joining the site like bees go where honey is available. Perhaps, the only issue is what a comparison between the number of members and the number of people who actually read what appears on Blogadda will show us! I hope as many people are taking time to use Blogadda as their one-stop source for 'Blog Reading' as there are members.

I wish Jaxter had a local number in India!!

The worst thing that can happen to you, as you are making an urgent call, is to dial a number on your cellphone and realize that you are running on 'low balance' or absolutely 'no balance' This happened to me today! That's what got me into searching for someone who offers a 'Computer to Phone' call facility. [Necessity is the mother of all searches.]

I 'stumbled' on many sites that offered a 'Computer to Phone' call facility. Many asked me to download a software to enable this facility. Now, for me, I download software from Internet very rarely for the fear of spyware. [Oh, that's a cool fear! What do they call it? Fear of spyware! Spyware Phobia?] So, I decline. And many of them that offered 'Computer to Phone' call, charged in either Dollar or Euro. To Indian standards, in INR, the price looked four or five times higher than the Call Tariff my Telecom Service Provider charged me. I had no other go.

That's when I stumbled on Jaxter.Now, even Jaxter 'click to call' rates are higher than my normal 'Phone-to-Phone' calls. That's not my issue here as I don't think I am ever gona make 'Computer to Phone' calls from India in the near future. What caught my eye was the Free Call Facility on offer from Jaxter. They have this 'Local Number' facility. All you got to do is to give your number and the destination number to get a Local Jaxter Number. Dial the Jaxter number and once you connect, Jaxter dials your friend's number and you can chat as long as you want. That's something cool, isn't it? I was excited. And I tried. So sad, so sad! Jaxter does not have a local number in India right now. So you can't make calls from India, using Jaxter.

I was sad. I read the Jaxter Blog to find out that they had a local number for Mumbai. Some cruel, cut-throat Telecom Company who provided that service to Jaxter disabled the number. Yes, that is cruel and cut-throat. Because of this the FreeConnect Service from Jaxter is not available for calls placed to/from India. This is what I call the pre-historic attitude of telecom companies. I wish I knew the company that pulled the wire on Jaxter so that I could give them a piece of my mind!