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I really do want to read nice blogs. Blogs which amaze me, fascinate me and capture my attention.
But the only featured blogs that I see on home page of Indblogger are the usual group of people. I have even seen people leaving generic comments on blog posts just for the sake of an upvote.
Whats your say in this matter???
Replies 1 to 19 of 19
we all know this i guess, personally i dont read indivine
I don't either. I've tried, though...
There is already a voting limit per hour. I think it is something around 50.
I really do want to read nice blogs.
The meaning of nice varies from person to person. 
Thanks for the info, didnt know there is a limit.
Personally, I read a lot of blogs since I am new to this pseudo industry. But ya, it tiks me of that only a certain few people can write "Nice" blogs. Lols Plus, there are guys like rahul suresh, who are leaving generic comments on just about every blog posts that I have visited.
there are guys like --, who are leaving generic comments on just about every blog posts that I have visited.
It is not a good thing to point out specific people on a public forum.
Again, not very acquainted to social media and message boards.
Apologies.
@Sneh - what do you mean by 'pseudo industry'? Just asking out of curiosity...
Why to limit it Sneh? If you find me a dedicated voter/promoter then amend that notion, coz I'm not... but I really feel restrictions are too kindergartenish. Finding gems among million ordinary pebbles is always a daunting task and needs patience and determination... why to depend on a blogging forum for that.... trial and error is the key... keep doing it... I get no more than 10-15 Indivine votes for my posts and I vote for nobody in return... So, if someone is getting 80-100 votes there must be some hard-work behind it surpassing or making up for the comparatively inferior/ordinary (if it is so) content... Better to look at a branch with dewy leaves and blooming flowers... isn't it? [sigh]
I actually like your blogs and photos a lot. And really kudos to your blog revamp. Your efforts really shine through.
Ahh it is blushing time now.......... [Searching for a mirror]
AS 
@AS - Yes I agree with your point that there is tremendous hard work behind getting a post among the top ones from a community of over 35k bloggers. But what Sneh mentions is a trend even I've observed. In fact, I happened to read a post on IndiVine a couple of weeks ago, which dealt with the Technology industry and inspiring people within the industry. This post was not only poorly written in terms of grammar and sentence structure; it was also poorly researched. Right from the year of inception of Google and Facebook to the histories and publicly available facts about Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page, everything was messed up.
Yet this post featured on the top of the list. I wonder how... [honestly looking for an explanation without even a tinge of blame game and/or jealous snide]
Been there... observed things broda... But unless you're on legislative or executive bench you shouldn't spoil your battery charge... please read again what I said- "there must be some hard-work behind it surpassing or making up for the comparatively inferior/ordinary (if it is so) content"
Fair enough point AS... :)
Add the bloggers whose posts you like to your network, and check your "Posts from my Network". This way, you can read only whose posts you like and it will also remove the hassle of going through Indivine for good posts, since you add only those people whose work you liked in the first place
Thanks for the info didnt know that as well :)
Okay guys, then what do people do to promote their work apart from writing quality content. I wish to get maximum people with me on the ride but i dont want to bet on vote hitch hiking.
You need to do a bit of vote-hitchiking, unfortunately. Stay active on the forum, IndiChat, read a lot of posts, comment something meaningful, invite discussions, healthy debates, use Twitter, Facebook and other Social Networking to promote your posts, try to write on current trending topics.
@narasimha wohoo, another idea to get famous makes a slam dunk to the basket. So much work, that sounds potentially fatal. But do elaborate on discussion and healthy debates plz
I have mentioned it many times, will repeat again. Blogging and promoting your blog is a hard work and people who are on the homepage actually put in lot of efforts and many hours for being there. I won't agree that there is a constant set of people on homepage.
I don't think who leaves what kind of comment should matter to a third person. Yes, if someone leaves a generic comment in my comment box it automatically goes into trash and about my comments I think the blogs whom I follow can better answer that.
I will not disagree to the fact that promoting a blog is hard work. That never has been the issue. I will however disagree to the statement that there arent a constant set of people becuase the reality is exactly the opposite. It is only in this week that we have seen some new faces pop up which has been the cumulation of their hard work promoting their content over a span of a week. But then this becomes a trend and to me, seems the only way tp gather maximum number of votes. Because i have not seen any other modus ope***** being followed to get featured on indivine. Please note, indispire, i think is a whole another ball game and requires a different strategy.
+1 to Gaurab.....
Sneh, please enlighten me with Indispire strategy..... [pretending to be humble wala smile]
Good if you find some trick or whatever game you think there is. I feel content is the most important thing. I never voted for post I didn't like and don't vote regularly either but when I post people do read it and I do feature on homepage because there are boggers who value content and value quality. 
At the same time I won't deny there are bloggers who just vote for getting a vote back. 
Wow I did not know 'modus ope*****' would be edited. Why is it?
@anunoy with indispire, there isnt a trend yet because you have to write on a very specific issue. Not many can train and focus themselves on such a task without a bit of training and self control, well atleast not without being offered prizes in return. ; p.
That is why have a look at the requirements to get featured on indispire as compared to indivine. To get featured on indispire, you need a min votes of 15 and boom: you are featured. Whereas in indispire, you need a heck lot more. It is all about how the competition plays the game.
To me, i am just curious, are there any other ways which we can use to get a good audience engagement. I want to think logically and get a strategy in place. I, however wont want to adopt vote hitch hiking as too much work is involved. If you know about a method, please do suggest. Waise, even i had a look at the idea of vlogging and it is surprising that we were thinking of the same thing. Just yesterday itself, i shared this with certain people. Another option that comes to my mind is a photo assay and i sure would appreciate to collaborate with you anunoy.
To get featured on indispire, you need a min votes of 15 and boom: you are featured. Whereas in indispire, you need a heck lot more. It is all about how the competition plays the game.
I am confused as to which of the two words should be replaced with IndiVine
To me, i am just curious, are there any other ways which we can use to get a good audience engagement.
There are no readers. There are only bloggers. If you want other bloggers to read your blog, then visit their blogs, comment, like etc. They may return the favour and both of you may become eeach other's regular visitors. If you don't like it, then write for personal satisfaction and forget about visitors. Unfortunately, content is the king is not entirely true.
If your blog is not a personal blog, ( personal blog = stories, peoms, memorirs ) then SEO might help you in getting traffic.
@Sneh - You get featured on homepage through Indispire just by posting a post. You post something for indispire and boom you are in the homepage.
@ranjit that answer is actually very helpful. You actually put an end to the whole debate by merely stating the fact that there are only bloggers, no readers. Sniff!!!
Plus, i appreciate your input that a personal blog cant get traffic unless the author engages with other bloggers, point being personal blog and industrious blog being quiet different from each other. Though i accept your explanation, it actually becomes tedious then to explain why advertisers would specifically target bloggers for an extensive marketing campaign because, personal bloggers only engage other bloggers. Would not that narrow demographics of marketing to a population less than 100,000. Seems like a waste actually.
I was hoping blogging to be more similar to being on tumblr becuase tumblr has such extensive reach to a general audience. Plus tumblr gives access to getting featured on famous portals such as buzzfeed.
Though i have seen cases of bloggers being featured on prominent newspapers as well. Any clues how that happens, getting articles features on internet newspapers??
P.s the first indispire is indispire and the second indispire is indivine. I am on mobile so editing is difficult
Though i accept your explanation, it actually becomes tedious then to explain why advertisers would specifically target bloggers for an extensive marketing campaign because, personal bloggers only engage other bloggers. Would not that narrow demographics of marketing to a population less than 100,000. Seems like a waste actually.
The money they spend on a single campaign is just something around 4-5 lakhs which is the same as the money they pay for a 10 second advertisement on television. 4-5 lakh Rs for 1 lakh bloggers is quite reasonable, isn't it? 
Bloggers can create buzz - a lot - but only when the buzz is about some already popular brand. One surely can't create such buzz around their blog.
What we are talking about is non-bloggers reading stories/poems written by bloggers. If someone is actually interested in literature, I am sure they would prefer reading a novel rather than some random blog. If they are interested in analysis etc, they will read a newspaper or a magazine.
Bloggers contribute a lot to the free information avaliable on the internet but that free [useful] information doesn't include poems and stories. Why would some random person be interested in reading a poem by some other random person?
When we talk about the reach of persoanl bloggers, numbers like 10k visits per month for personal bloggers is very good (some people claim to have visits in lakhs. I bet they are using Blogger stats and not Google Analytics stats) but this number is a minute fraction of the visits other info based blogs receive. People read those blogs not because they like that blogger and because they need information - free information - and information written by everyone is the same when one is doing a casual Google search.
What am I talking about? 
@ranjit brillaintly put ranjit. Though i still dont agree to explanation of marketing campaign. A 10 sec ad costs lakhs more and targets crores. In regards to information based blogs that are actually recieving hits, i know of a few. You can check alexa rank of blogs of ajit vadakayil and media crooks. They are information based blog but they toe the line of personal blogs on more than one occassion. And there site hits are amazing. They are infact the reason for bringing me to blogosphere. To quote a nice dialogue from special chabees "sir, asli kaam toh woh karte hain, hum toh bas... " :)
Media Crooks doesn't fall into the category of personal blogs (as per my definition). It is a news analysis like site and I think it receives most of its traffic from fb (bloggers love liking and sharing controversial / hot posts on fb ) and search engines.
@ranjit I did mention information based blogs. Any clues how they generated such a fan following. I mean from their inception itself, i find it hard to believe that they would have been famous. Neither do i think they resorted to indiblogger type network, so how did they get their traffic of readers?
Or did they rely only on face book. If so facebook is one hell of a publicity engine.
Wow Ranjith. Brilliantly put. It helped resolve some of my questions too...
There are always new guys who dont know the past, perhaps archiving this thread may be the best option available.
@gaurab: you mean to say all i need to do is write an article for indispire and i would pop up on indiblogger home page.
@Sneh - Yes, that is the only thing you need to do. Looking forward to see you in the homepage.
I published a post today on Indivine. Got 28 promotions, but just 4 visits from Indiblogger. So the rest visited in the hope that I will see them on the Dashboard and promote them back
Such farce !
There are very few bloggers who take the time to read and comment on other blogs. Personal bloggers, I'm talking about. The tech / info blogs and those that are devoted to established brands etc are whole different thing.
If as a personal blogger, you don't spend time reading & visiting other blogs you are doing yourself a disservice. Scope around and find bloggers who you like to read, then become regular readers. "Follow them". Engagement is the key. I use the word conversation a lot.
I admit that finding new readers is exciting, but at the end of the day, unless you plan to make a living out of blogging, the more pressing need is to build good content that you yourself enjoy first or foremost. If any one else reads and enjoys it, that's just a massive bonus.
I agree with Ajesh !
I find it funny that the word "modus ope*****" is being censored because it contains a hindi swear word :-)
hmm... I wondered about that!
Definition of 'nice blog' varies from person to person. If it is fiction that you want and only indieblogger then you know you can go through indivine via the category of 'offbeat and personal'. Otherwise there are lots of other sites that deal with creative writing.
@Subroto - can you mention a few sites, I'm interested in visiting them. 
I'm delighted to get 24 votes for my latest photo in Indivine, breaking record of 10-15 range.... I'm getting vine-popular too or what! [smile of discovery, cynicism and disbelief]
I guess you are getting popular , but =! Traffic =! Money
Miglani saab now what does these '!' and '=' mean? Some programming language lingo? [Sigh]
= means equal
!= means not equal to
( ! means not )
@Gaurab sure but it seems I'll have to type them out as I can't paste them 
www.shortbreadstories.co.uk a mixed bag but some really good stories
www.short-stories.co.uk aka east of the web - I like this site
www.thenarrativemagazine.com -you need to register but its all free - then again the archive is great with authors like, can you imagine, Alice Munro
www.narratoraustralia.com - (ok shameless selfpromotion here) a site where I've published
The relationship between a blogger and a reader is that they happen to be the same person.
So Sneh, if you really wish to read good posts, just go by your intuition and read random posts on randomly selected blogs and then form your opinion as you move along... you'll soon have your own special list of blogs that you will keep going back to. Do comment when a post demands it.
Now comes the difficult part... the reader in every blogger also wants others to become readers on his/her blog. Well, if you're reading and commenting enough, you'll soon start getting visits by people. Then there will always be a few posts you write that will turn out to be better than the others you've written and readers will come as word spreads.
@ Arvind, any suggestions how one can broaden a following so as to get featured on an online daily? You seem to have experience :p
And Sure, I do drop by comments when I really like something. But then, I am very picky at what I like, maybe even haughty, though good at heart like the food critique in rattatoie. So I dont see that strategy leading me anywhere near to a following as some of the regular people on Indiblog.
If you follow the other thread "Do we go back check our comments on other blogs to see if there is a reply (I've paraphrased) ?" the answer is - we do. And we are disappointed when the blogger is so busy chasing readers that s/he has no time to moderate comments and actually address the readers who did come by to read.
Exactly I agree !
DVD, you seem to have got what I was trying to say. Sneh, you have a pretty well laid out blog, but how often do you go into to moderate the comments readers are leaving you?
I was there - left comments, and days later no comments appear. Isn't this limiting your readership options? Why would I go back to your blog, oif you are not interested in having a conversation with me. I'm not even asking you to visit my blog. I mean on YOUR blog.
@ Ajesh, Funny, you should ask this now, because I published your comment just today and left a reply as well. The reason, I took my sweet time in replying to you was due to making appropriate changes as per your suggestion. And that is why I changed the about me page as well. I must ashmadely admit though, that I only visit my blog when I need to make a update. I will be sure to frequent more often and moderate properly.
I hope this is going the rigth way,But yes I do make a point in replying even if that means i was flooding my mail box , but we can always have rules in mailbox.No I am not pointing towards anyone , I am just saying its all about habits how people manage their things.Some will give priority to commenting and some will give to replying.so its all about how u manage.
Well Sneh... there are plenty of other bloggers and non-blogging readers who are equally 'picky' and 'haughty' and who will shred your post mercilessly. Do welcome them when they come along. :)
However, most people love constructive suggestions... and they do respond by reading what you write.
About getting featured in an online publication... well, you can identify the ones you like and approach them. They are generally open and looking for articles. however, this 'search' needs to be initiated by you... and I'm sure you aren't looking for short-cuts that lead you to some ready-to-serve list, are you? :)
@ Arvind
"Short Cuts are the real path to success" - Albert Einstein
Naah, JK
I don't see any harm in asking for help though in unfamiliar territories :). So regarding contacting an online daily, do we just drop a general mail to the editor or do they have section dedicated to handling bloggers?
And ofcourse the welcome mat is open to all critiques of my blog, just don't complain when I yank the mat while people are still standing on it lols.
Btw, I updated my about me section, feel free to drop by :p
@sneh
Every publication, online or offline, has its own set of steps for submission. You'll need to do this hoework and maybe share the details here for the benefit of others.
