Bloggers all over the country just got a new network: the Indian Blog and New Media Society ,launched as an industrial body that will give bloggers a platform to exchange tips on marketing and monetising their blogs, reports Neha Tara Mehta.
Bloggers all over the country just got a new network: the Indian Blog and New Media Society (IBNMS), launched last week as an industrial body that will give bloggers a platform to exchange tips on marketing and monetising their blogs, personal branding and technology, as well as their role in the political, public interest and consumer affairs space.
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Blogging, says IBNMS president Ajay Jain, a professional blogger, will grow rapidly in the country since "Indians love to talk and have an opinion on everything."
He adds, "It's important for a blogger to ascertain the blog's
target audience and editorial agenda. Many bloggers don't do so, and become dormant after writing four posts. IBNMS will handhold them and ensure that they become regular."
IBNMS will work on "win-win" collaborations between new and traditional media,
corporates, PR agencies
and advertisers. The society
is also intended to be a lobbying point.
"A lot of people in the internet space are easy targets for the government. But so far, no unified body has been able to take positions and run advocacy campaigns in the best interests of all involved," says Jain.
A challenge for the society
will be to bring together smaller blogging associations scattered
all over the country. Says IBNMS general secretary Abhishek Kant,
a relationship manager with
Microsoft India, and the co-founder of The Delhi Blog and New
Media Society, "We are looking to consolidate all local groups into one national body. We will also
export information and expertise from big cities to tier II and
III towns."
IBNMS director Amit Gupta, a software engineer by profession, who blogs in Hindi to "siphon off excess thoughts", hopes to bring on board bloggers in Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Urdu
and other languages. "A lot of people prefer blogging in their mother tongue rather than English but don't know how to. IBNMS will train them."