IndiBlogger Bangalore Meet?

Righto, I think my presence on this thread is warranted. I was one who was hopelessly lost in the vicinity, who missed a meet that was happening quite nearby itself because of the confusion in the meet venue coz the people at CCD said no other CCD was there anywhere nearby, and also aggravated a headache that had been nagging me all weekend by traveling 4 hours (both ways, 3 buses each time) to get to meet some bloggers like Thousif, Saro, Harsha, Gyanban and The Fool, whose blogs I read, and also meet some new bloggers like Pooja (who I know through Inditalk, which thankfully is back), Tina (through forum) and BeMoneyAware (who I've met at the Samsung meet before.)

Sad to say, poor organization. but I appreciate an initiative taken by the 16yr old Pooja to try and get a bloggers meet on, rather than wait for a sponsored Indimeet. I do agree with TF's views when he says that it is unsafe for a child to be doing such, but since I know bloggers younger than her, who are very enthusiastic of meeting people, (with knowledge of parents, and I know the parents too.), I hope she's not demoralized or anything, and would (with parent accompanying if needed) come for a meet in the future. And that next time, if she's taking the initiative again, to make sure she follows up on it and not disappear out of town on the day of the meet, leaving us attendees hanging. 

Regards the meet details as mentioned by BeMoneyAware, I'm sad to have missed out on the discussions, some of which I'd have loved to discuss. Hopefully, next time, the venue is clear cut and in a central location, and not dual cut with two of the same adjacent, so as to not confuse us attendees. 

@ Leo : So sad you missed it by some meters.... but yes they way landmark was mentioned I had also gone to the other CCD near BDA and then was confused as it was empty and people over there asked me whats blogger meeting! But atleast they were kind enuf to tell me that there's another CCD up the lane and I should check there. 

And I was trying to log into Indi to check if some one has posted anything on the forum etc. but surprisingly Indi had to go fishing at that moment only. :( If atleast they had gone fishing after sometime we could have helped you and if anyone else was also scouting for the correct CCD.

But even after these initial hiccups ( the rick fellow had taken me to Basavangudi instead of Banashankari in the first place) I had a good time with the little group and got to know some excellent bloggers. 

@ Leo, Good clarification from your end, but still such informal meets unless the attendance is more than 20 members in prominent location it can be even a Food court in Mantri, Forum Esteem, etc who have sufficient space, good connectivity, should be chosen.  Secondly most of Indi meets are organised either Saturday or Sunday Noon.  Those organising the meet should reveal their cell nos so that we can interact and clarify doubt before starting from our residence......

Once again I AM REALLY SORRY GUYS. If anyone of you really knew how eager I was to come. I had even gotten ready but one phone call changed everything. I cant come and have fun with you while there is some family trouble. I had to go out of station and I even called you guys and said sorry. 

One more thing guys, just because I'm 16 doesnt mean I dont have rights to organize a meet. What is wrong in getting to know people? Do you want your kids to become Emo and Lonely?? Sorry I'm not one of them. And moreover, Meet takes place not only to talk and chat but to improve ourselves. 

I was really looking forward to it and I missed it. I AM SORRY. 

Even after all this if you want to scold me please add me and scold me in my mail. Dont ruin Indi Page.

Thank you.

@ Pooja - It;s ok dear, I can understand some emergency can come up, you need not say sorry to everyone... I am sure no one is mad at you or is willing to scold you and stuff... atleast you thought of meeting up... so chill!!

Sorry Thousif..Now I will remember (it will have a space in my soul ),

Pooja I hope your family trouble got resolved. And we appreciate you calling us during the meet. Thanks to initiative of 16 year old Pooja we lazy 16+ could meet.  We were concerned about the fact that you are so young and hope your parents are aware. The online world is not so safe..

Looking forward to meeting you in the next indiblogger meet!

No issues, Pooja. I know it must have been something important. Just a little pissed that I could not meet Leo. Anyways meet was worth it. Thanks for organizing. Only thing is keep your parents in the loop in all these activities. I am sure you will have lot of friends at school. Why do you need random adults to keep you from being lonely? You never know what kind of people can turn up.

Leo mentioned I was sounding too agressive on this thread. I am sorry if I have hirt Pooja's feeling or irritated anyone else. Actually I really enjoyed the meet inspite of all its failings. I should have done a balanced review like Money Control. Instead I started off on a negative note. Anyways let me remedy that by giving a detailed reflections from the meet.

After struggling from CCD to CCD, I finally reached the venue and found the group. First thing I was told was Pooja is not coming. Then we decided to take things in control and start off by ourselves.

There was one Pavithra from a commercial website Common Floor. I was a bit sceptical about her. But she was the one who brought lap top that helped us all see each other's websites and she did not waste too much time giving her company pitch. And anyways useful website - on renting and buying real estate. 

Then there was one Viren who wants to start an education guidance website. He had started it a year back and is not in use now. He is planning to revive it soon. He was the SEO Guru of the meet. He gave tips on how google caches pages and frequency of spider visits, SEO within site and outside site. He is yet to register at Indiblogger though. He is the one who has collected all out e-mail ids and has taken the photos as well. he has promised to mail us all so that we can stay connected and also mail each other out blog links. He has also promised to send us a SEO for Dummies article. Still awaiting the same. He wanted to organize the next meet in a very structured manner with specific discussion agendas on the technical aspects of blogging. 

Then we had Sibi, a IRS officer. He was driving force of the meet, offering his able leadership to the group. he does book reviews and his book review of Paulo Coelho's book has been quoted by Paulo Coelho himself. Seems he got 1000+ hits when Paulo Coelho linked to his site. He has also published a book on sociological aspects of taxation. He has promised to give me a copy. I am looking forward to review the same on my blog.

We also had moneycontrol of course, the champion from Indiblogger, who has won 3 contests. She says the secret of her success is her children. Like Lewis Caroll (Alice in Wonderland was for his daughter) and Salman Rushdie (best book Haroon and sea of stories was fot his son), her writings are meant to be for her children and they review it comprehensively before she posts. She writes on finance related topics for techies and other folks who suffer due to not paying sufficient attention to financial aspects. She has even written a book on finance for children. The book is available for free dowload on her website. Looking forward to review that as well. She alos gave us copies of her lates blog post on paper work related to inheritance. That was an interesting thing to do.  

Then there was Satish - a person who blogs on relationships and social issues. He was mentioning he had blogged in India Rocks and then later moved on to have his own word press blog. He felt he got better readership on Indiarocks than his own blog. He was showcasing some of his most popular posts, one on love and one on global warming. The rest of us offered critical feedback to him on developing niche and giving credits for picure. 

We also had a tech blogger who has bought his own domain. (Forgot his name somehow) He was mentioning he had acuqired 3-4 domains when he got them as a deal. We were also discussing how tech blogging is a too competetive fields. He was showing us some of his posts on tips to use a SLR camera.

There was a Mr.Rao who was talking about getting his kid nephew interested in blogging. He was showing some of his posts where he has scanned drawings made by his nephew and posted them along with his blog posts. He also was planning to develop a blof for music downloads.

The last person to arrive was Tina. She showed us her travel blog - Sunny side of life and her newly started cookery blog. We kind of rushed through her blog as the battery was running out on Pavithra's laptop.

And last but not the least, we had Thoufiq with his soul space. He was mentioning the objective of his blog was to bring out humurous incidents from his life. He showed us some of his KFC posts. 

In general, we discussed about Indi blogger folks liking posts without even reading and the scratch my back game bloggers play. We appreciated some good bloggers on Indi who genuinely read and comment on other's posts. We discussed about how some people consistently hit the Indi blogger front page for almost all their posts. We discussed about the commercial contests on Indi Blogger and whether they are a good trend. After some good discussion, we ordered everything the CCD had for lunch. 10 of us totally cleaned off CCD. Wonder what CCD would have done if all 34 who registered had turned up. Then we closed off the meeting 2.5 before schedule and back home. While we were at the meet, tried to post on Indi for Leo and anyone else who got confused on location. But Indi had gone fishing. 

Attendees were:

CommonFloor

The Fool

Sibichen

Satish

Tina Basu

Bemoneyaware

Who were the other 2 indibloggers?

You are right it is <a href="http://www.indiblogger.in/blogger/40399/"> Guruprasad </a>

here r the pics from the meet :)

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/195/20120108153431.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/842/20120108153413.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/192/20120108153241.jpg/

:)

aila!!! another Kirti??? 

And so...

Since we have had some learnings from this event, let's put it to good use...

Let's talk about the next Bangalore meet(formal/informal) 

My suggestion:

Saturday, 4th February, 12 NooN

Venue: Koramangala Park, right next to the Bethanu High School, 6th Block, Koramangala.

Based on number of people who come it the park (its a beautiful & huge park btw), we can decide where to do lunch/coffee/etc.

Just to pretend that we're serious people, we can even have an agenda for it 

Thank you so much Pooja for being the motivation and for taking the initiative!! You truly Rock!!! 

What say???