DBM’s


DBM XXII – the first ever Delhi tweetup 16

Time for the next meet – DBM XXII – which is also the first ever Delhi tweetup.

Before we go ahead – let see what this confusing jargon is 🙂 (for those who are unaware of it).
A tweetup is a “twitter meetup”. Twitter is a tool used for microblogging. Microblogging is blogging micro updates.

That was twitter in short. One can update these microblogging updates through IM, sms or web. There are also several desktop clients to do the same. Through twitter one can choose to “follow” people and get to read their twitter updates. Similarly ppl who “follow” you would get to read your updates. Twitter is quick and easy, very good for bloggers who dont have much time to update their blogs 😛 :).

Some of us are on twitter already. Some ppl like Hillary and Obama are also there :D. It doesnt matter whether it is really them or their proxies but they are very regular there. Those who aren’t yet on twitter, but would like to be, can quickly join in. Once that is done, you can follow “delhitweetup” – the id created for delhi twitter meets. This id is currently following some of you already. So the twitter updates of Delhi twitter users would also be in one place.

Now for the real thing:

When : 16th March’08 (sunday)
What time : sometime in the evening – 4-ish.
What : get acquainted with each other. Demystify twitter for those who dont know it yet.
Where : you decide .. This would depend on the number of ppl willing to attend the same.
Please give your ayes and nayes here (or you could tweet them keeping @delhitweetup in your confirmation tweet).

Those who wish to follow me on twitter, my id is twilightfairy.

Happy tweeting!



DBM XXI (4th Anniversary celebrations) 20

On 13th Jan 2004, a group of bloggers in Delhi decided to get together and meet offline for the first time. The excitement, apprehension, curiosity of meeting total strangers – all culminated in a rather successful meet and the formation of a community which has lasted all this while.

It’s the 4th birthday of our beloved community. It’s great to have lasted this long in the online world, certainly no mean feat this one! 20 official meets, a couple of unofficial meets, history walks, photography gyaan, book reading, kite flying, link-ups, print/tele coverage (BBCRadio/ Delhi Times/HT City/TodayPlus), flame wars, exercises in blogging outreach and endeavours with NGO’s ……….we’ve come a long way together.

The group has had as its members, people from all walks of life..techies, journos, students, activists, photographers, lawyers, doctors, guys who make their living off blogs!!..and we’ve walked a few steps together. A few in our group have moved on, relocated to other cities, but are still a part in spirit, and try and stay in touch. As the old saying goes “Once a DelhiBlogger, always a DelhiBlogger!!”

We are celebrating our 4 years in this online world and keeping a simple meet this time with no frills and fancies – only fun unlimited, which includes shooting a video of delhi bloggers. If you wish to join in on the fun, please append your name at the meet registration link or write to twilightfairy at gmail dot com (mobile # nine eight one one five one one seven one nine). Please keep your calendars blocked for 13th Jan 2008, 4:30-11pm, Blues, Outer circle, CP, New delhi :). You can drop in any time at your convenience.


The mystery 2

The mystery of where I am, unfolds dramatically. I am very much here. This has been the longest ever gap in my posts … and an unplanned one at that. Lots has been happening even in blogging terms, but the action has been on flickr since quite some time now. I am a self confessed flickr addict. Here is a glimpse from 20 of my pictures that made it to flickr explore at some time. Flickr explore is a way devised by good old flickr ppl to showcase 500 of the best pictures in a day. The algorithm to do that is a bit skewed up though, but it’s fun anyway.

Hit a score!
The individual links of the pictures are here as well. 1. Rubies are red, 2. Reflections, 3. Mooning over the sun, 4. Where’s the party, tonight?, 5. Hold on, 6. Bala Quila, 7. The Ceiling, 8. Don’t let the sun go down on me,

9. The first step, 10. Venus approaching the moon at twilight, 11. Safdarjung tomb, 12. Clouding over, 13. Sway with the sunset, 14. Tootsie!, 15. Flames, 16. The Delhi bloggers meet – XI,

17. Heavens throwing light, 18. Symmetry in the petals, 19. More lighting, 20. And then God said, let there be light.

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

Apart from this there have been umpteen blog meets with Delhi bloggers happening. Lots of collaboration being done for lots of things. Sigh, so much to do, such little time. Thanks to all those who have been regularly visiting and reading through the archives. Yes, there’s a whole lot out there to keep you busy for quite some time :P. And here’s another first – anyone who wants to write directly can write to me at twilightfairy at gmail dot com. I am quite curious to know who has been reading this bloggie regularly from HSBC, Singapore 😛 🙂



DBM XII

The Delhi blogger’s meet (XIIth) concluded on 29th July’06 in Cafe turtle, Khan market. Some highlights :

1. Cafe turtle is a cosy place (read it’s good for twosomes or even threesomes but not 22somes).
2. I had made reservations for 20 ppl which was double the number I had expected to turn up and the eventual number overshot even that. As they say, the merrier it was.
3. After making the reservations I was informed that the cafe closes at half day (read 7:30 pm) but nothing could be done at that point of time. “Shaadi cards already distributed” kind of situation. Though we have had the experience of changing the “shaadi venue” just before the “pheras” earlier too.
4. The organiser who got us to hold DBM XII got stuck up in a crisis at his workplace. Eventually he never turned up. Do you ever remember being in school and a certain teacher not turning up for class? How noisy was the place? How was the organised chaos with no agenda on hand? I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that we resembled a bunch of school kids creating ruckus. We even had backbenchers!
5. Some old timers came after a long long time. It was like the DBM’s of yore all over again.
6. There were bloggers, former journalists, future journalists and even theatre artists. Thankfully no sting operations.
7. The ppl at Cafe turtle surely got boggled when I made reservations. I spelled out “Delhi bloggers meet” for them because they just couldn’t understand the words I was uttering. Eventually I got a call from them confirming the “Daily bogglers meet”.
8. During the round of introductions, where everyone was supposed to start with “I am xxx and I blog at yyy”, the restless mind-boggled waiter silently shimmied on to the terrace like Jeeves and introduced himself in a jiffy – “I am Jason and I am here to take your order”. Do I need to add, he was the most sought after member of the evening. Oh and Nikhil ordered himself yet another fan, but this time it was the sorts that creates a current of air.
9. We had our own share of celebs in this meet. “NDTV called me””CNN IBN asked me to express my views” were very common phrases uttered quite frequently. We will soon have our own P3 coverage too. :p. Unfortunately, this time our cameraman was busy taking footage of the food instead.
10. The back benchers were having a mini blog meet of their own. Some updates anyone? :).
11. Masala chais, coffees, cakes and pastas. These were a few of the favourite things that the bloggers ordered. Who says you need booze to make you feel like you are having fun?
12. I spotted “Lazy lunch” and “lazy pasta” in the menu while Lazylump spotted “Fairy cake” in the menu!
13. I finally got to meet toinks after 3 years of virtual interaction! The grand mommie of rediffblogs is onto blogspot now.
14. At 7:25pm a bill was duly waved under my nose. All and sundry paid for their own consumption and some more (read tax).
15. Those who were still interested in hanging around moved over to the Yellow brick road .
16. A good turnout and a good funfilled DBM!

 



DBM XI 1

Delhi blogger's meet - XI
This meet was a much looked forward to affair because of the sudden interest of Julian, the producer of the BBC World Service Technology programme Digital Planet, Gareth who is the presenter of the same show and Bill, one of Britain’s leading authorities on blogging and net activism; in the affairs of us delhi bloggers, so as to assess the extent of net activity in India, how it differs from other places and to record a special edition of the programme just about this splendid country. To quote them, they were trying to find answers to questions like “Do you have a particular view on the use or effectiveness of your blogs? What do you think about the use of IT in India or its potential? The country is often seen as being in the grip of a technological boom, is this the case from your experience?”

The meet was held at India habitat centre, (a venue which I think is suitable for brainstorming and cultural stuff) on 6th May. Somehow a pub doesn’t seem like the right place for such things though I realise that for a lot of people, perhaps, their brain starts working when they have some alcohol numbing it :p. I reached the venue when I thought the discussion would have gained appropriate momentum. In other words, I wasn’t there from the beginning. I introduced myself to the trio and then met around with a couple of old timers while the discussion was ongoing in full swing with about 30 people. People had already given Bill, Julian and Gareth (though mostly Bill) an idea about the kind of net activities we have here like business networking (ryze), caferati, live blogging after the Tsunami, the IIPM episode etc. We went on to talk about the indexing in the desi blogworld, ongoing plagiarism in blogworld and otherwise, tech blogging (here Julian and Gareth were admittedly thoroughly bored of geeky stuff), news blogging, link blogging, revenue generation through blogs etc. I pitched in with some things about the blank noise project as a response to how blogging can make a difference. There were other means of course, for eg. live updates during Rita, Katriina, mumbai floods and blogging for social causes etc. There were also some discussions about the legal aspect of plagiarism in the blog world, how we (delhi bloggers) are trying to “make a difference” or trying to “bring about a change”. The scope of that “change” could mean different things to different peope – it could be personal growth, indulging in ones hobbies with fellow enthusiasts, honing ones writing skills, indulging in networking, rooting for social causes or getting instant help in case of emergencies. In that context that change or growth has been happening from day one. To a question put up by Bill, asking everyone if we, as a community, were growing and yet moderating ourselves, enough, to “make a difference” – I replied in the affirmative and added the above mentioned thought. I also added, that now “differences which are visible” are also beginning to happen. It’s interesting to note that not only is the community (slowly but surely evolving) but the whole aspect of blogging and how intertwined it is getting with our day to day life – is also evolving.

We eventually had Julian and Gareth record the radio show they wanted. They chose some intriguing observations they had come across in the evening. So they interviewed some people – a blogger who’s an IIT-ian and quit his job to take up blogging full time since he makes more revenue than he would in an MNC (that’s *so* unheard of), a blogger who’s organising an online reality show where a person travels on a modest budget and blogs about it as (s)he does, a blogger who’s part of a community blog – bribe Delhi which has been featured on NDTV as well and then from some aspect of how/when it all started and some stuff about Blank noise – yours truly was also chatted up with. It didn’t feel like an “interview”. Much after the recording got over, we were still in that mode, with Gareth asking me if I had ever imagined some years back that so many things would happen with this community or about blogging in general, how it has grown, changed etc. He also asked me how things were in other metros, whether people were as active there, if there were similar “communities” or “individual islands“.

They all wanted to explore Nehru place for some reason where I guess they got fascinated with an open market (mandi more like) for all kind of hardware. They also told us about their not so great experience in trying to interview some folks there. I emphasised on the fact that they should surely write a travelogue about India (not just because of the British background but also the interesting experiences) because people who aren’t from that place would always notice things that the insiders would probably feel normal about. The 3 most outstanding things in this category being, the way people drive around, the cows minding their own bovine business on roads and the heat (not that we can’t notice the heat. It is anything but ignored.)

By this time, most people had left, some had retired to Eatopia after which they proceded to All American Diner and then Turquoise cottage. I tried to individually meet the remaining members, which is something that happens in every meet but barely happened in this one. Some of us exchanged business cards with the trio. I explained why I wasn’t joining them in the pub, since I had a party to attend in Gurgaon. I described Gurgaon and Gareth showed signs of recognition because they had been exploring the malls the day before. Overall a very very interesting experience and I surely look forward to more such happenings.