Vimoh's Blog

This blog of mine underwent a redesign recently. That doesn’t mean a lot by itself, seeing as how I change themes as often as I bathe (Damn it! I did NOT say that). But this last design change was something a lot of thought went into. I like to think that it marks the beginning of a new path for vmohanty.com.

I wanted to do a post on what has changed and my reasons behind making those changes. Also, Patrix asked for it (see his post on the same topic).

Till now my blog has been like an article repository. One that got updated with essays and stories whenever I wrote something worth sharing. To this end, the blog has had a look more suited to a content-powered website. I have traditionally gone for a solid, full, and well-organised look. To cut a long story short, vmohanty.com has been more a site than a blog.

Add to that situation the fact that social media has grown in prominence in recent months. My own presence on Twitter and Facebook has a decent following (I’m just saying!) and I post tons of content there in the form of short text updates, photos, and comments. In the olden days, people did all this on their blogs.

But times have changed and the amount of interaction people used to have on blogs has dropped very noticeably. I share my photos in controlled environments inside social networks and they are viewed by people who care. My blog posts get more comments when they show up as notes on my Facebook profile. I have more followers on Twitter than I have feed subscribers on my blog. I actually get more feedback on my blog posts via twitter than I do in the comments section! Who would have thought of all this a few years ago?

I figured therefore, that I should “plug” my blog into my social media profile, because it sure as hell is not going to be able to stand on its own in the middle of all the other places that define my “presence” on the web nowadays. The blog must become a part of my small extended empire (as opposed to the centre of it).

Much of the new plan didn’t need any work at all. My blog URL is on my Twitter profile, and my posts get pushed to Facebook and Friendfeed via RSS. But what I needed was a way for the blog to share in the feel of the social web.

To this end, I tried to make my blog look more real-time. I let go of the need to categorise my posts into one of my ten clean categories and went for the more fluid convention of tags. My sidebar consists of nothing but a tag list now. This serves many purposes. Firstly, the list is a clear indication of what the blog is ‘about’. Secondly, the list is never static and keeps changing as I make new posts, with old tags coming up as and when I revisit those topics. What’s more? The tags also make for a great gateway into the deeper recesses of my blog.

Next, I implemented the Backtype Connect plugin on my Wordpress installation. It finds mentions of my blog posts on Twitter (and elsewhere) and plugs them into the specific post’s comments area. I found a plugin to do the same with facebook too, but it doesn’t seem to work too well. I have also installed a new Twitter-based microforum app called Tweetboard that shows threaded Twitter conversations right on this page. You can acces it by clicking on “tweets” on the left.

The theme I am using is called Prologue and it is a Wordpress theme to mimic Twitter. I made some minor adjustments to it (added a horizontal top navbar, changed some labels, implemented the post title function, etc). I chose it because it is simple, minimal, and easy to read. In addition, it lets me have a Twitter style display picture near the beginning of my posts.

This is more important than it might seem because a lot of my readership (most of it in fact) comes from Twitter and the display picture makes for a useful comfort element when that happens. I know this because I find display pictures very comforting on Twitter myself. They are like faces of people I know.

I have also changed the default URL structure on my blog so that it is very short and simple now. Only the base URL followed by a 3-digit post ID. This makes the links easy to remember and easy to post on Twitter etc. Yes, I know about URL shorteners, but you and I both know that we all hate them. I want postings on Twitter to look like they came from my blog, not a spam nest. Update: Changed the URLs to a fuller form. Pho Freak made a good point in the comments.

In the long run, I intend to keep posting all manner of stuff here. Articles and stories will continue to show up as before, but unlike the past there will also be a lot of opinion (politics, culture, life in general) just like on my Twitter stream.

I have rambled enough. Feel free to let me know what you think of the redesign and of the blog. If I have missed something, ask away.

Last weekend, when it was raining really hard, I got trapped in the Connaught Place metro station with my horrible friend Gopal Sathe. We were making idle conversation, like we always do.

“I got interviewed by the BlogAdda people,” I told him.

“But why?” he asked.

“Well,” I replied, somewhat haughtily. “They keep publishing interviews with prominent bloggers every now and then.”

“I know that,” he said. “But why did they interview you?”

I sighed and waited for the rain to subside so I could distance myself from such a self-esteem destroying influence. If you want, you can read the interview here on the BlogAdda blog.

Perhaps I spoke too soon. Or perhaps the MSM were a little late on this. But be that as it may. Here is a list of mainstream media outlets who have picked up the issue of NDTV bullying the (by now incredibly famous) blogger C Kunte.

Call it a war between a Goliath and many Davids! Blogs are up in arms against NDTV’s Barkha Dutt after the TV channel sued a blogger who attacked her coverage of Mumbai terror attacks.

The blogger, Chyetanya Kunte, in his post named Shoddy Jounralism, had come down heavily on Barkha Dutt for “breaking every rule of ethical journalism in reporting the Mumbai mayhem.”

He had also accused Dutt of “giving away locations in her broadcasts, thus causing Indian casualties” during the Kargil war.

NDTV soon issued a legal notice to the blogger, forcing him tender an ‘unconditional apology’ and remove the post. (Source: Mid-Day)

The matter also found mention in the Pune Mirror over here:

First of all, I would like to congratulate Chyetanya Kunte and Barkha Dutt, that very powerful beacon of free speech on NDTV, for proving that bloggers actually exercise more power than we think.

I had not heard of CK’s ‘blogsploits’ (that can be a new word — exploits on a blog) till I got a forwarded mail about the TV giant asking Kunte to apologise for saying things without proof.

I read the apology too. It sounded cool in its legalese, where Kunte says that Barkha Dutt’s reporting did not result in the death of Kargil soldiers and that she didn’t give away crucial information during 26/11 about hostages.

After reading the apology, I felt CK did not even write it because his writing style on his blog is different. Of course, I have no information to back up my claim, just as CK didn’t have proof to back up his. (Source: Pune Mirror)

If there are links I am missing here, do fill me in in the comments. I have a feeling there will be more mentions of this before all is said and done.

I wrote the last post in anger. Then I started wondering what possible recourse a blogger might have against legal threats from a media biggie like NDTV.

In popped a comment from Mr Naavi. I recognised him as a cyberlaw person (of naavi.org) who was involved in a blogging related case in Chennai a few years ago. I mailed him, asking him what he thought the blogger in this case might have done. He replied saying that Mr Kunte “could have remained silent until the next action.” Here’s an excerpt from his email.

He could have in the meantime shared a copy of the notice in the blog and sought views.

On the other hand he could have also replied back refusing any attempt to defame without apologizing.

Probably no further action would have been taken up by Burkha.

In the worst instance, a case would have been filed and Mr Kunte might have had to find a lawyer and reply to the notice as well as follow up. It is unlikely that the Court would have given any credence to Ms Burkha’s notice.

All this, of course, assuming Mr Kunte received a notice from NDTV lawyers. He may simply have had a change of mind since he made the blog post. Or he might have faced pressure from quarters other than the NDTV camp.

Mr Naavi shares more of his views on the matter here and suggests that the Press Council of India step in.

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. — A J Liebling

Dear NDTV and Barkha Dutt. Hope you are well, now that you have arm-twisted CKunte into submission.

Don’t get me wrong. You have as much right to sue people as I do. Especially when your reputations are at stake. But here are a few reasons why your approach may not be best suited to the present circumstances.

Following the terrorist attacks that happened in Mumbai on 26 November, 2008, many people took offence to the way Barkha Dutt reported the event. Her reporting was called “shoddy” and “irresponsible” (among other things).

Read the rest of this entry »

Let me start by assuming that your name is Vijayendra Mohanty and you don’t have a blog.

Good news is – your name is Vijayendra Mohanty. It’s not a special name by any stretch of imagination. But it is your name. So it is important.

So here you are, online and trying to make sense of the blogosphere. You read up acres and acres worth of beginners’ guides on the web and chat up scores of seasoned bloggers and web professionals. They inspire and motivate but you end up more confused than when you started.

You decide to start by lurking at some select joints in the blogosphere. You pick up RSS feeds left, right, and centre and read (as best as you can) the hell out of them. You give up on all but a few of them a week or so later. This is also the time when you start paying more attention to the few feeds that you are still reading.

You start clicking over to some of the blog posts and see a veritable torrent of comments under each write-up (you wouldn’t choose anything less than a pro blog, would you?). People are speaking their minds, letting the blogger know how wise, insightful, stupid, or short-sighted he/she is.

You realise you can contribute to this conversation. A lot of these people are not really saying anything. You can actually answer some of these questions and probably even introduce angles nobody has raised (noticed?) yet.

So you put the carat in the comment field and type out your point of view. After that, you set right (politely of course) a few of the buffoons that got to the thread before you did. Then you unassumingly sign the comment Vijayendra Mohanty and leave the URL field blank (you don’t have a blog, remember?).

The next day, you go back to the thread. There are more comments. Your heart jumps! People have taken the time to acknowledge your comment. Some agree with what you say and some don’t. But you are present there alright! You even get an @ reply from the blogger.

Pleased with yourself, you learn a valuable lesson – the web is about presence. Brochure-type websites for companies, photo blogs and galleries for professional photographers, tech blogs for those who know their machines. If you don’t blog, your name is your presence.

It represents you on comment threads. It is what you are known as to anyone who has ever been to the blogs you frequent. You are a known quantity.

If all the comments you have ever made on any blog post were to be aggregated on one web page (blog?), they would show a pattern, wouldn’t they? Your interests, you choice of topics, your use of language. Your general way of dealing with disagreement and with other people. Your personality!

Actually, it is not that IF a situation. If you have ever commented on a blog that uses Disqus Comments, you already have a page like that. Here, for example, is the disqus page of Karen Swim – a commenter on this blog. People can even subscribe to your comments the way they would subscribe to your blog (if you had one). There are other comment services like Disqus, (eg: IntenseDebate and SezWho) but I only have first hand experience with Disqus.

Taking comments responsibly can prove to be a powerful pre-launch strategy if you want to start a blog some time soon. But you might want to hurry up and get that vmohanty.com domain that has become such hot property, thanks to you obsessive, incessant, and insightful commenting.

Blogging is an obsessive craft. Some of the most passionate bloggers are full-time bloggers. Perhaps because of the fact that the Internet fosters thinking for yourself.

Most of us were brought up in a world where the majority opinion counts. The surprising thing about the majority opinion is that its roots are unknown. ‘A government job is the way to go‘ your parents and relatives might tell you. Not because they have studied the benefits of government employment closely and compared it to all manner of jobs elsewhere. But simply because that is what they have been brought up to believe. That is what they have been told ever since they were old enough to spell ‘JOB’.

I recently met a youngster who, at the age of twenty, didn’t know what he was going to do with his life. He was a refreshing sight. All confused, and still determined not to go the way everyone else had. He likes talking about science. National Geographic, and Discovery Channel stuff. His biggest grouse with the world is that nobody ‘gets’ him. He would tell his plans (or lack of them) to his friends (people his age – his classmates) and get responses like, “You should get into engineering,” or, “Don’t dream of crazy things,” or, “Come back to the real world.”

Apparently, the real world comprises solely of engineers.

I got thinking about how well-suited the Internet is for those who refuse to let go of their uniqueness. Unlike in the real world, the accepted reality is not what the majority thinks it is. Reality is dictated by the maverick’s interpretation. The web is a catalyst for great ideas. It is a place where a good idea can be itself, prove itself of use to millions and not have to fight ‘accepted standards‘.

What if the 20-year-old I just mentioned were online? What if he had a blog on which he wrote about popular science? What if he had a steady readership of… say… a 100 and grew it to a 1000 through regular and informative posts? He could turn it into a layman’s science journal!

Imagine him networking with other science enthusiasts. Imagine him starting his own science quiz website and getting sponsorship from Nat Geo and Discovery. Or maybe he could get schools to pay him to organise science camps for kids. He could become a resource to TV channels and get featured on science shows as a guest. He could, in time, write books on various science topics.

Even if my optimistic dreams come up a little too short, his career would be more rewarding and useful than most engineers’.

Our schools need to take computer education to the next level. As it is, most kids learn on their own and end up knowing more than the folks who teach them. Talk to a teenager about gadgets and you will see my point.

The current system trains students to use the web like they would use the typewriter. Use Google to do homework. Use email to send your resume. Use chat and social networking to hang out with friends. No wonder Orkut and chat are seen as wastes of time.

We need to learn the web. All over again. The medium is the message.