April 23rd, 2007
Desi Blog of the Day Redux
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You might have noticed that I haven’t done a Desi Blog of the Day post in the last few days. That’s because I have been asking myself a few questions about the series of late.
But, first, a little background. I started my Desi Blog of the Day series because -
I found myself thinking of the joy I felt when I first discovered blogs, and realized that I still feel it when I read some blogs.
I also incorporated a BlogTipping element in the series -
by offering three compliments and one helpful tips to the featured bloggers
- because even very popular bloggers often focus exclusively on the writing part and don’t really leverage the true potential of blogging in terms of optimizing design/ usability and/ or building a community.
However, I wasn’t really satisfied with how the series was shaping up. Here are some questions I have been asking myself -
Is there any value in featuring well-known blogs all my readers are probably reading anyway?
Should I focus exclusively on new or relatively unknown blogs - ‘Must Read Desi Blogs You Probably Don’t Read’?
How can I increase the involvement of the featured bloggers in the series?
How can I make the BlogTipping element more useful for the featured bloggers?
Here are some of my preliminary answers on how I want to take the ‘Desi Blog of the Day’ series forward -
- I’m planning to break up the ‘Hundred Must Read Desi Blogs’ list into two parts - ‘Fifty Must Read Desi Blogs You Probably Read Anyway’ and ‘Fifty Must Read Desi Blogs You Probably Don’t Read’.
The first list will feature bloggers who are already prominent in desi blogging circles and are frequently featured in DesiPundit or Indibloggies, for instance. This is because no list of desi bloggers will be complete without these bloggers.
The second list will feature two types of bloggers: bloggers who are relatively new or unknown and bloggers who are very well-known in their own niches, like Technology, but are not read by the DesiPundit/ Indibloggies crowd.
- I’m also planning to change the format of the post itself. The posts will now include a small bio/ interview with the blogger to give you a sense of who they are and why they blog, followed by three reasons why they are included in the series and my blogging tip to them.
- Finally, I’m planning to extend the BlogTipping element by offering to help the featured bloggers implement my tip.
The Desi Blog of the Day series will be back soon, but do let me know what you like/ don’t like about the series, so that I can incorporate your feedback/ suggestions into the series.
The interview/bio part should be interesting…
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Spectacular and Useful Blog!!! I have also added you to my Technorati fav’s! Thanks for the visit!!!!!!
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In my opinion it won’t be good enough as we don’t have that many desi blogs for you to do Desi Blog series. Maybe a Desi Blog of the fortnight or month will be a good option.
And as Vi said, interviewing the blogger would be cool.
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i second Ashwin. focus on quality and also end of the day, you won’t be exhausted.
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Interviews would be great, and yes, bringing out lesser known bloggers would be much better than pointing us out to prominent bloggers we already read or know about.
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@Everybody: Thanks for the suggestions.
@Ashwin/ Prasanth/ TGFI (on e-mail): You’ll be surprised at how many really good desi blogs are out there waiting to be discovered. I’m trying out a smart model of doing it daily in the version 2 of the series. Let’s see if it works.
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Hi Gaurav, I think its really excellent that you are working on this. I agree that a lot of blogs dont focus enough on the community building aspect. My blog is starting up with the premise that, although I’m doing a lot of writing for it, the engine that drives the blog is guest writers and swapping of funny and odd desi artifacts. Anyway I’d love your suggestions if you have any…the blog is still in its infancy but already there’s a lot of fun to be had. See you there.
http://remainsofthedesi.wordpress.com/
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