Mujhe kuchh kehna hai…
Jorn Barger is around the same age as me. He coined the term weblog on 17 Dec 1997. Basically, during those days of surfing the net, logging the web would be to leave one’s own imprint on the web rather than merely accessing it. Barger’s weblog became a term to describe a novel form of web publishing. The term was shortened to blog by Peter Merholz in 1999; the shortening process was actually a lighthearted way to pronounce weblog first as we blog and then simply blog.
I was an Indian Navy officer until 28 Feb 2010. From 01 Mar 2010, I joined the blogging community. In Feb 2014, it tickled me to know that I am one of the 172 million bloggers on the net.
In a blog-post titled ‘All Photographers And Writers, No Viewers And Readers’, I brought out that the biggest two techno-social changes that have happened in the last decade or so have affected our lives in a huge manner. Thanks to these two changes, everyone is a photographer now and everyone can write and publish.
Lets compare, for example, shayar (Urdu poets) of yore with the modern day ones. In the earlier days, you wrote when the brainwave hit you; actually since most of the shayars were heart-broken or heart-struck, it was more of heart-wave than brainwave. Now, after writing, you waited for an invitation to a mushaira (a poetic symposium) whereat you hoped to read out your nazm or ghazal amidst shouts of waah waah and mukarrar mukarrar from your audience. Once in a while you got noticed – like Hasrat Jaipuri by the movie mughals Prithviraj or Raj Kapoor – and then life was made for you.
Nowadays, within minutes of your writing you publish on the web. And in case you have nursed your audience, you start receiving waah waah and other accolades straightway. Who are these guys and gals who give you accolades? Well, they are bloggers like you who offer waah-waahs and give the urls of their own blogs so that these would be both ways or many ways rather than one way.
Bloggers on Indiblogger, for example, have excelled in the art of discussion blogs (similar to their personal Facebook Group). By a rough estimate many of these blog-posts wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to write and that too not one’s own writing but – say – quotes picked up from here and there. And then the voting starts; exactly how we elect the parliamentarians or the prime minister. There are ways and means in which you get noticed whilst voting for someone’s post so that he/she would be obliged to vote on your post too.
Nearly three and half years back, after understanding how the blogging community works, I wrote an essay titled aptly: ‘Blogging – Race Or Stampede?‘
In a recent Bloggers Meet, Indiblogger organisation itself brought out proudly how a particular blogger had built up for herself great discussions following. So, whilst Wikipedia describes a blog as a discussion or informational site on the world wide web, most of Indiblogger sites are merely discussion sites. The sheer numbers mitigate against Indiblogger even attempting to assess or encouraging blogs by their quality.
Now, why would you use blogging for the purpose of discussions when better and more efficient means are available such as Facebook or Twitter? I guess the idea is to provide your posts with a degree of permanency rather than most of social discussion sites being transitory; the retrieval is better on a blog – say, by date or title.
I blog differently; it is a means available to me alternate to publishing on the primary media. It matters to me little whether any discussion (comments) takes place on the post itself though I have gone on record that I encourage them. But, I would rather have meaningful comments (however few) from people who have read and digested what I had to say and carry forward the discussion or debate rather than merely complimentary comments.
I run as many as sixteen Facebook Groups and Pages for discussions on varied issues such as songs and music, greetings, poetry, pride in India and its armed forces, quotes and general subjects. My experience shows that majority of the people doesn’t even know what it s liking or commenting on. It is merely what Indibloggers do: you scratch my back and I scratch yours; a reading and writing community all rolled into one.
I have a list of about a dozen blogs (imagine from 172 million) that I seriously read. I don’t leave my foot-prints on those in the fear that I would be counted as one of the thousands of back-scratchers that I have on Indiblogger; with an obligation to vote on, like or comment upon my blog too.
It has been a great discovery with me that there are people who do write to make a difference and are not so much concerned about the web-design, widgets and plugins as much as the quality of their posts.
I go out to eat in restaurants and clubs with the family. Yes, the restaurant decor should be attractive, the crockery and cutlery and serviettes of high and appealing quality, the lighting gentle and soothing and the service prompt. But, over and above all this, the food should be cooked well, tasty and healthy. I never forget that all else is peripheral to the food, the main purpose of a restaurant.
It is the same with me on the blog.
Mujhe kuchh kehna hai…
