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Quick Summary: I was quoted yesterday in Indian newspaper DNA in a story on whether blogging in India is mature enough to act as a change agent.

I was quoted copiously in Indian daily DNA in a story on whether blogging in India is mature enough to act as a change agent.

A good approach to answer this question is to compare social media usage in India with social media usage in China –

Social media usage in Metro India and Metro China is driven by very different consumer behavior. In Metro China, Creators, Critics and Joiners all play an important role, whereas in India, Joiners are the predominant drivers of social media usage.

Social media usage in India and China also have significant differences in terms of the topics that drive conversation. Richard Edelman has written an interesting introduction to the Chinese blogosphere –

Social media in China has two constant themes: the rich/poor divide and nationalism… The best Chinese bloggers are… incredibly impressive, committed to change, convinced that they were part of a new China where individual expression and frank speaking will win.

Quick Summary: Check out my interview in Indian daily Hindustan Times for ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, my year-long book-as-a-blog experiment in why we choose to consume or not.

‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ is my year-long blog-as-a-book experiment in why we choose to consume, or not.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, you should subscribe to it now, for free, in a feed reader, or by e-mail.

Yesterday, my first interview for ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ was published in Indian daily Hindustan Times.

The interview was published on the front page of the Delhi edition –

– and the city section in the Mumbai edition –

One interesting thing I learned yesterday is that different editions of a newspaper may publish different versions of a story.

The Mumbai Edition published the full story — see text below — complete with my rules and URL.

The Delhi Edition published a much shorter version of the story — also available online — but it was on the front page and I’m not complaining at all.

Quick Summary: Read my interview with Rohit Bhargava, author of the new marketing book ‘Personality Not Included’.

I had earlier promised you that I’ll post an interview with Rohit Bhargava, author of the new marketing book ‘Personality Not Included’.

The interview is part of Rohit’s innovative blogger interview program to promote the book –

If you send me five questions that you want to know about the book or personality, I’ll write you a response on Friday that you can publish on your blog. I will link to all the posted interviews on Friday.

On Monday, I’ll be running a competition on my blog to let readers vote on the Best Interview. The winner will get a signed copy of my book and a gift certificate for $100 from Amazon.

Rohit has spent the last two days doing 57 virtual blogger interviews; that’s 285 questions!

I’m in Rohit’s shortlist of twelve best interviews; now I need your help in the voting.

Quick Summary: Check out ‘Personality Not Included’ a new book by one of my favorite marketing bloggers Rohit Bhargava.

I just finished reading the introduction (download PDF here) of Rohit Bhargava’s new book ‘Personality Not Included’ and it totally rocks!

The basic premise of Rohit’s book is that personality is the key element defining what a brand stands for and the story it tells to its customers.

Personality is the unique, authentic, and talkable soul of your brand that people can get passionate about.

…

Personality is not just about what you stand for, but how you choose to communicate it. It is also the way to reconnect your customers, partners, employees, and influencers to the soul of your brand in the new social media era.

…

Personality is the macro trend. The three hottest topics in business today are how to do more with social media, using word-of-mouth marketing, and interacting more authentically with customers. Personality is the theme that incorporates all of these topics.

Dear DNA,

One of your reporters, Anjali Thomas, repeatedly called me last week for a story on the dark side of blogging in the context of the attacks against Cathy Sierra and Tim O’Reilly’s blogger code of conduct.

I repeatedly told her that the story she was researching was marginal at best and she should instead do a story on how blogging lets people find their voice and become part of a community.

I repeatedly told her that most of the bloggers I know, including myself, have had mostly positive experiences with blogging and I have rarely seen offensive and/ or abusive comments on the blogs I read.

When she insisted that I tell her about some controversial episodes in the desi blogospehere, I asked her to speak to Saket, Gaurav, Sakshi and Rashmi instead and offered to do an interview if she decided to do an objective story on blogging.

After all that, imagine my shock when I saw myself misquoted in this manner in DNA yesterday -