Finally did something I’ve always wanted to do before I die, kinda like my bucket list – To take part in a blog meet where I don’t know anybody personally.
And what more perfect event than the third anniversary bash of Indiblogger!
I became a member of Indiblogger a long time ago, but never actually took part in its activities. Back then, Indiblogger was just a directory of sorts, where bloggers could register their blog and edit their profile page. I used it then to search for bloggers based on location, and see how many bloggers were there from the North East.
It had undergone a lot of change after that, thanks to the relentless efforts of the passionate admins. From putting up various badges to describe what kinda blogger you are, new features like IndiRank, IndiVines, forum, occasional competitions with cash prize, incentives etc were introduced. Indiblogger meets were held regularly at various cities across India now and then, including foreign locations like Singapore etc.
Yesterday, Indiblogger became three years old. And to grace this special occasion, the admins decided to conduct the Anniversary meet here in Mumbai! Many bloggers from other cities too actually flew in to attend this meet. The 270 seating limit at the posh Hotel Sea Princess was quickly filled up. I was one of the lucky ones to register in time.
Reached half an hour early, quite hesitantly. The signing in, was truly digital, perfectly apt for a blog meet like this. We had to sign in with our user names
How cool is that.
And there was a live twitter feed on a projector screen informing us who had just signed in. Anybody who tweeted with the hashtag #indimum, their tweets were displayed on the screen too. And of course there was the free WiFi courtesy Indiblogger. Woot! (I swear it wasn’t me who was using an Android based utorrent client
)I met quite a number of bloggers and tweeple I know online, and it felt great finally putting a face to their profiles. We all had our individual 30 seconds of fame where we introduced ourselves and our blog/s to everybody. The organizers conducted a lot of events too.
The bloggers ranged from 16 years olds to 60 years olds. There was even a mother-daughter blogger duo, and a 19 years old travel blogger from Vietnam. Techie bloggers, foodie bloggers, photo bloggers, social media bloggers, P3 bloggers, social activist bloggers, the list was endless.
To me, this was one my greatest moments – getting a chance to talk to one of the more prolific blogger and influential tweeter (apart from being an actress slash social activist) Gul Panag herself, and then taking a pic together
Gul moderated the discussion that took place in this meet, where various bloggers discussed about privacy, journalism and blogging, effects of blogging, social activism, blogging etiquettes etc etc. Many renowned bloggers shared a lot of insightful “two cents” definitely worth remembering, and Gul really moderated the discussion well. She’s one of the few Indian celebrities who is actually cuter and sweeter in real life, not to mention an intelligentsia.
I also finally got to meet Netra, the networking and social media queen
Lovable she is, just like her tweets
Her smile could literally light up the entire conference hall. Meeting her was definitely the best part of the meet. Hugz, Netra. Also crossed paths with many people I follow on twitter (too many to be named) and started following many new ones too.Meeting Indiblogger founder Renie Ravin was another milestone in my books.
Amazing guy, with a lot of charisma. We definitely need more people like him if we want to move ahead in the blogosphere. Also met the other indiblogger admins with whom I have interacted with before – Anwin Joselyn and Vineet Rajan. You guys rock!
Free domain accounts (.in and .com) were also given away by one of the sponsors Big Rock.
All those who attended this meet also received free Indiblogger three year anniversary tee shirts, which I am wearing in office right now as I type this post
I really love the slogan at the back: “Indian by birth, blogger by choice”, which made an even stronger impact yesterday as it was Independence Day.
At the end of the day, I was really glad I went to this event, as I have found a lot of wonderful new blog/twitter friends. We even had charts where new found friends commented or left their blog/twitter handle.
I will be updating this post later today with more pictures of this event, taken by other photographers. The amateur pics that you see right now are from my “crappy” new phone, the Samsung Galaxy S. Ahem ahem…
So, do keep visiting this space for better and clearer pics. Cheers! (something we couldn’t say yesterday because it was a dry day. Haha.)
