Bloggers' Day Out: Chennai to witness bloggers 'unconference'

Asit Ranjan Mishra
August 28, 2006

Putting the episode of the Government imposing a blanket ban on blogs following the Mumbai blasts in July this year behind them, bloggers are back full steam and have also caught the attention of the mainstream media courtesy the all-India bloggers camp at Chennai scheduled for September 9 and 10, 2006.

What is touted as the India’s biggest and most comprehensive blogging camp, the event is open for all blogging enthusiasts. And those who can’t be present there physically, can join through video conferencing.

The seriousness with which the meet is being taken is obvious from the fact that that Yahoo! India has lapped up the opportunity as the platinum sponsor of the event.

Based on the theme ‘Living The Blog’, the ‘unconference’ will be a rich mixture of workshops, practical demos, presentations, interactive quizzes, lectures, iron-man challenges, debates, group discussions and games. It will also organise Live blogging, T-shirt designing, and odcasting competitions, among others.

The organisers, including well-known Chennai blogger Kiruba Shankar, have created a website, www.blogcamp.in, describing the details of the camp. “We hope to provide a forum where bloggers can share their stories and be inspired by innovative and successful blogging experiences. In the spirit of blogging and no barriers interaction, the two-day event will be in an ‘unconference mode’. Participants will have the choice of simultaneous workshops and sessions that will be held in small groups and use relatively informal ways of engaging each other, in conversations around the various themes,” the website says.

Estimates show that there are more than 40,000 bloggers in the blogosphere who disclose themselves as Indians. An interesting point is that there are 81,000 bloggers worldwide from the technology sector and from India alone there are 8,000 tech bloggers, which means one in every ten tech bloggers is an Indian.