TATA ZICA; Win two TATA Zica Cars, #TATA Zica Marathon
@Anoop
To tell you the truth, when I first saw the contest, I shrugged the shoulders and thought if I should go for the 10 vouchers. After some thought I thought let me go for it. Then at the second stage, it was all about the money and the big prize but finally, after a week or so, the thrill of being at the top of that leaderboard was the only thing that mattered.
It did not matter if the money came or not, or if I won the car or not but just the passion and the adrenaline of seeing my name in the top 2-3 made me write more and more. I wrote at least two posts daily in the jam packed local trains of Mumbai while travelling to and fro from work (it takes me nearly 1-1.5 hours to reach my office from my home and vice versa).
The traffic came, obviously, and I felt a huge sense of achievement. This IndiMarathon also showed me my limits, to be able to write 122 posts in less than a month (I started a couple of days late), was really an eye opener for me.
Also, to be able to stick to only my blog niche (Cricket) for all the posts made me feel extra special as it is a very tough task to write such a huge amount of posts on one subject.
All in all, a big thumbs up to the Inditeam for this very unique concept and I hope to see a better and a slicker version of it next time.
Suggestion: There should be a cap on the number of posts one can submit each day, a logical cap, say 10 posts maximum (will keep the hoarders out and also ensure that posts are good quality)
@DS Hey man! I am like a huge sports man/fan myself. I watch every series or at least record and flip through matches if I cant watch them live :-) There is just so much content in sports especially cricket in India. I saw some of your posts on pitch conditions etc and they are definitely useful to people who dont understand what the fuss about pitches are about! The content is also fresh and new as a lot of tournaments are played through the year and across the world.
As for your suggestion on the cap on number of posts - The idea is that we cannot find the limits of endurance if we start adding bottle necks on the system. We must remember that we are a communtiy and if someone wants to do more we should just let them. I agree that there are prizes etc that we need to keep an eye out for but there could be bigger rewards to come and we need to aim for that. The only way we can gain attention is by doing impossible things.
Did not know that you are a cricket fan! Thanks for all the appreciation, means a lot! 
Coming to the cap on the number of posts, it is basically to stop people from gaming the system and taking advantage of any loopholes. Some of the people (nothing against them) in the current IndiMarathon were nowhere till the penultimate day and they suddenly jumped up to the 3rd, 4th position by hoarding posts. That takes the charm out of those bloggging and submitting regularly, don't you think?
Imagine if everybody did that? The IndiServer would crash, I think, if everyone tried submitting their posts at the same time on the last day, at the tenth hour. Also where is the thrill of the leaderboard if people are in any case hoarding posts and submitting on the last two days. It is just monotonous, wherein, you are blindly writing like a robot with no set target or goal in mind.
Imagine a 100 m race where every athlete runs as a single person and his time is recorded. The winner is selected on whoever completes fastest. Where is the show in that, where is the thrill? Will it create interest in those watching or even in those participating?
I understand that we can only gain attention by doing the impossible but writing 60/ 120 posts in a day is beyond any humanbeing I have ever known (unlesss they are using the services of a ghost writer, be it a family member or a close friend). Maybe the limit can be doubled on weekends and public holidays but I strongly believe in having a cap.
Alternatively, while writing this I got an idea - sharing it.
Why not have prizes for bloggers who are the fastest to 25 posts, 50 posts, 75 posts, 100 posts, 125 posts and so on? That would take hoarding out of the equation I presume?
@Anoop It was one hell of an amazing experience for me!
I have two sisters and both their delivery dates were due in the same month as the marathon, which meant all the responsibility of the house was on my head(including my 2 year old nephew). I don't know how I did it.. I myself can't believe it.. It was that little game of getting on the top of the leader board I guess! :P
What I achieved:
-The biggest thing I achieved was the realisation that I could easily blog everyday. This marathon taught me that it was not hard to update my blog on a regular basis.
- My blog's traffic. It sky rocketed!! But hoarding the best posts for the end was a bad idea I guess... :/ Not many of them could read my best posts.
- I got mails from MANY newbie bloggers saying I was a great inspiration to them. This I will cherish all my life. :)
- I made a LOT of new blogger friends.
- I blogged so much that even my nephew learnt what was blogging. 
- Some of my Twitter friends(who are non-bloggers) got all ineterested seeing my blog post tweets and started inquiring me about what I was doing and how they could start a blog. I guided them and one of them has already bought her new domain. :D
Now the question is, should Indiblogger have more such marathons? BIG YES. It's the perfect motivation for lazy bloggers like me. I don't know whether I'll participate in another marathon but one thing is sure - I will never stop blogging regularly, thanks to this marathon! :D
Hey Bushra, Hey congrats on completing 150 posts :-) As a principle in IndiBlogger we have never liked leader boards etc. This time we wanted to see if people could push the boundaries of their blogging abilities and we took a chance to try and make that happen.
One thing that we have noticed too - Like you said, Saving posts for deadline date for any contest is never a good idea. because if you put up a good post soon enough even in a competitive contest scenario, you can gain immense traction online before the judging process begins. You could get a lot of comments and shares. People could be retweeting your posts etc. All this adds value when someone is evaluating content for contests. Content is relative so judges will also want to know what other people think of its usefullness.
Hey and great that you have found a formula to blog everyday. Its one of the toughest things to do! Thanks for sharing :-)
Bushra, with the kind of personal commitment you've had, it's not a joke. Too good an effort, my hearty appreciations. I am sure the babies will have a new kind of memory for their lives :)
@Anoop, I got to face my fear of writing long stories. My fiction 'Yaariyan' has got a huge traffic to my blog. Also, I got 30 dedicated readers who read all the posts of the marathon fiction I wrote and many others who read 10-20 posts! It's an amazing feeling to touch their lives through write ups. Many contacted me for more information about the trek and are going for the trek this year! A school friend read the story and got inspired to catch up with friends; he arranged for a small get together last Sunday for us! This story has lead to amazing results, which I hadn't even expected in the first place! I loved the concept of marathon. Without it, this story would have just been in my head along with many other ideas! Looking forward to participate in more marathons like these - where the content is in the writer's jurisdiction to ensure it is relevant for readers!
Hey Raj, That is quite interesting. Thanks for sharing. This is sort of what we wanted to achieve for this specific campaign. we wanted people to write about stuff that their readers would be interested in as opposed to shoving a new product down their throats :-)
Guys since moderation is in full swing now, can anyone tell me which vouchers are on offer? Amazon or Flipkart?
@Shravan, unless otherwise specified, the vouchers are usually of Flipkart.
IB has made us such a way that most of the bloggers’ are probably addicted to FK vouchers’ only, by default. So, voting system also possibly win FK favor only, I guess. IB may try it .
ha ha .. yea this moderation is a nightmare :-) A lot of the posts are really good!! and if people can churn out such posts whether theres a marathon or not it might help. So did anyone feel that writing posts in such quntitities helped in any way? was there an increase in visitors or was it somehow fullfilling in a way or anything else?
after writing 125 posts , only thing that happened was my rank went from 65 to 36 , mozrank stayed the same :(
little concern from me for this contest Moderators, of course.
Top 20 to 30 participants may tell it better about their posts and traffic etc. (I think all of them are taking rest for a month and might reply about it later or once result is announced 
). All top 10 fellows deserve a car each, at least . Let God lift Bloggers in their life via IB too. Tata also should think about it .
Yes, it is useful to blog about this contest (though I wrote very less for this just to grab vouchers) and got reasonable votes / pageviews.
Few Bloggers’ commitment is like, once they published the post on blog and got the URL, they even never ever visit their own post . They are just very happy even when someone rare visit to their post / blog – Cloud 9 feeling here.
@Karthik.. thats odd that your rank dropped that much .. frankly not sure what it is..
@HR .. If only the world had that much money :-) One of the key aspects for us when trying to push the IndiBlogger community is that, marketing folk from other companies keep telling us that theres not enough content on all the blogs at times. For us to push in the high value deals we have to prove immense value. The expectations from them from such campaigns are that it should go viral in some way online. I dont think its impossible to get such high value prizes like 10 cars but we have to do our part in promoting and doing that bit extra and prove value or thats not going to happen any time soon :-)
Thanks Anoop. Hahaahaaaaa…IB and Sponsors may not have enough money for this process but World actually have that much money and unfortunately it has trapped somewhere in a wrong place, most probably, so it affect us/all, as well 
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Guys, listen winning tips from IB / Anoop, also, as below;
Not enough content.
Try to draft rich content, creative, nice presentation and on. SEO is an added advantage though not mandatory. Also, refer some earlier winning posts to get an idea and make sure ‘no copyright violation’.
Immense value.
Yes, need to prove it by presenting each post with quality content accordingly. The terms and condition to be followed perfectly, and blogger’s terms and condition won’t follow by the moderators or sponsors in anyway. Don’t argue with them at a later stage despite writing a quality post.
Viral online.
Try to follow the Digital Marketing concept. Use proper #hashtag to promote your blog posts at couple of social networking sites, on-time. The sponsor normally likes bloggers’ posts to be on Twitter, FB, Instagram and on. Don’t forget to use sponsor hashtag while promoting / advertising it. Try it.Additional tips, FB and Twitter are like online personal diary to show others that you are one of the ‘voice out’ personality. So, try to scrib as much as you can. Surprisingly you will get too much followers international level too, beside few argument, likes, dislikes, free promotes (re-tweets) and silly shouts etc. There are people who spend much time over there and you can turn your post to sponsor’s business too. You can create another account of social networking sites to promote these posts in case if you don’t like to promote them in your personal a/c.
I dont think its impossible to get such high value prizes. Yes, it is possible to get such a high value prizes from sponsor, so, blogger's need to promote each post by doing little extra work or spend around 10-15 minutes to share it to get a big one.
Note: I hope (personally) it will happen soon if bloggers’ filling the requirement of sponsors' target .
@HR .. Hey, yea those were the main points . Thanks for stripping them out :-)
In a way it reminds me that a few years ago, promotions on the platform were much more pronounced. For example, when we announced an event, the event would organically trend the previous day on twitter for example. These days that does not happen. We would also find people of different interests attend the event. These days it a bit toned down and we find some really good bloggers staying away. On the other hand very few of the people who attend write. So, in a sense we are not as effective as a community when it comes to promotions as we used to be. spreading the word of blogging is a crucial bit that cannot be left for granted. There was a time when people would attend just to show support for the community.
I am not sure when the next marathon type activity can run because it is a tough sell for us proving value to businesses that there is a lot of traction even if they arent "Hard selling" the product with just reviews etc. Basically when businesses target bloggers they expect a high value, which in a way is good, because for one thing, they see a HIGH value! :-) whether we deliver on that value or not is simply upto us.
Thanks Anoop. I didn't thought this casual response may go to such a continous and indepth detail...BTW...
Is it possible to auto-promote (via code/program) bloggers’ post to few social networking sites (G+, FB, Twitter etc.) while submitting and processing upon criminal record verification, for certain contest or all IndVine posts, if IB and Bloggers’ agreed it?
This successful first IndiMarathon is more than enough to show other sponsors’ to get some more contest as such in the near future. Why not international company’s sponsor for IB like Toyota, Hyundai, Honda and even higher companies (other product / brand too) beside Make in India.
Next, I may go to your ‘Anything’ thread. Have a nice weekend to all .
Moderation is going on in full swing i guess
It would have been nice to know how much has been moderated and how much is pending, how many rejected/approved like Happy hours page
Indistatus has no entry for this too.. btw both my tickets are pending for 2 weeks now . though no response yet :(
You mean 'Marathon for Moderators' also ?
Good suggestion for entry review stats (on new concept of Marathon contest) but lot of work has to do for it (huge entries) compare to earlier IndiVine and HH stat (nominal entries) .
@HR Thanks for quick reply... cheers!!!
You are welcome. Bloggers' enjoyed around one month with this contest and now moderators' turn for a month or more .
I just got the mail that I got approved my entry... well what does that mean? What about other entries? How many got selected and where we can able to see results?
It means, it is eligible for either Rs 350 (if submitted within first 1000 entries), or shortlisting for other prizes, or no prizes if not eligible.
Regarding other entries, yes, you will get an email alert for that too.
Wait for some more time or days or weeks to know the entries selection and results .
They should make a page where we can see how many posts have been moderated n how many people have received their vouchers. (Sorry for being impatient)
Renie, kinda unfair that two of my posts have been rejected with the below reason :
"Posts which appear to be filled with words purely to meet the minimum word count while neglecting the blog's readers do not meet the quality requirements of IndiMarathons."
It wasnt a force fit nor neglecting blog readers. My post was on Top music Apps and i was quite surprised to see it being rejected.
I have blogged about technology and music and top apps before too for other contest.. i'll raise a ticket.can u kindly look into it . Thanks
See, how laziness can be a blessing at times! 
I wrote just one post for the marathon, so even if I'm asked to changed the name in the code, it won't be much of a labour for me though I will still grumble (not that it's very taxing but for someone lazy like me, it would have been a bigggg deal had I got even one more post and so had to change the car's name in both of my submissions) 
Hi5 (**typo - if I'm asked to change the name in the code)
Do we have to change the name in the post as well?
@renie it would great if everyone could see his/her own rank like my number of entries
In case they ask us to change the code , I need to do it 125 times. faints .....
bushra even worse. 150 times. lol.
No, actually, they have been simultaneously moderating the posts all this while. So out of the total 3476 posts, some have already been approved/rejected. But even then, it may still take a couple of months perhaps (or may be more) to go through the rest of the unchecked posts (that's no easy task) and hence for the final results to come out.
Moderation... isn't evaluating a post. So reading to judge and come out with the names of the winners should take a loooooong time.
Woah! Finally the marathon's over. Hats off to all the leaderboard winners for their unparelled spirit. I was there on the leaderboard for about 10 days but then couldn't meet up. And my dear Bushra, take a bow. You made us proud, kudos to woman power. :D All you top 12 people are an inspiration for all of us. :) Congratulations to each one of you. Loved being a part of this innovative marathon. Thank you so much Indi team & Tata Motors for this one of a kind opportunity! Cheers to all the bloggers on IB. :D
All top 10 above 100 post .WOW Hats off to your dedication . Bushra M take a bow .Karthik can have sigh of Relief and Three cheers of "hip hip Hurray" from my side
I am really sad for Sarthak who was on leader board for most of last 30 days . Now he is number 11 . He will be in top 10 after moderation.
Thanks to "Mr. BLANK POST" .
Now i read HACKER THEORY .Someone hacked into his ,not only blogspot Account but also indiblogger Account , Especially for posting for this contest . must be really great hacker who is following this contest. As He decided to do it on last day . I personally don't believe you. I think it is 'caught in act"reaction.
Amit Patnaik deserves the credit for Thorough Investigation & proof collection. :-)
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If a blogger writes the best blog post and made best quality content across multiple entries, does he or she win both the Zicas?
I am assuming this would be a base model. I am also assuming that the winner takes care of the car's registration cost, etc.
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