Saw this via ArZan's blog :

"A very well written article By Darryl D'Monte in IndiaTogether, about the role of bloggers in today's world.

Are bloggers parked? Are bloggers just like journalists? The jury is still debating, but clearly bloggers are filling some voids in mainstream journalism, and connecting to net-savvy citizens in an exciting fashion. Blogs are not about to destroy conventional media, but they are making an impact, notes Darryl D'Monte.

Transmogrified has a good commentary on the article; and so does our own Curios Gawker"

I met Darryl at a recent workshop on effective writing on the web, organized by The New Media initiative of the Comet Media Foundation, where I did a presentation called 'Web 2.0 - How the Internet is getting more Social'. I have to figure out a way to upload this presentation to this blog sometime. It was a fun session, with a great set of people in the audience - journalists, homemakers, publishers, advertising and design folk. Most hadn't heard of blogs and wikis and Voip - and i took them on a learning journey, sharing stories about how I have used these tools to not just 'write' on the web, but collaborate and communicate [note - in my view, writing is more individual, communicating is more social]. I wasn't sure how to introduce myself ... qualitative research and ethnography practitioner? blogger? explorer of the social web? Finally I decided to chuck away all these labels and said hey - I am not a writer, nor a journalist - yet I am, by virtue of being a blogger.

Darryl writes :

"At the same time, it is true that with the mainstream media dumbing down with a vengeance and looking to their bottom line rather than people who live at the bottom, bloggers are very much in business. They are telling it like it is, rather than what media barons decide is politically or commercially more convenient. In the US, the war in Iraq is condemned far more pungently in blogs. But blogs aren't about to destroy conventional media anytime soon. Mehta thinks that the days of the newspaper are over, but this is far from evident. Old media is clearly still strong in developing countries, and if India is an example, may even be acquiring monopolistic tendencies in some instances."

Heh it doesn't matter. What matters is that I think i was able to communicate how easy it is and how effective it can be to share your ideas, preoccupations and opinions freely and engage in conversations around passions and interests. And that it isn't and shouldn't be a 'war' between old school journalism and the emergent new social media. Each has its space and one cannot ignore or dismiss the other anymore. That there are new rules being written ... by millions of 'publishers' all over the world. That you don't need to be a poet or a writer in the classical sense to convey your thoughts and engage in meaningful discourse. That you CAN make a difference and change the world you live in, through this sharing.

And that the old guard is taking notice, as is evident from this article by Darryl. I also showed them how easy it is to set up a blog - I wish we had had better connectivity there - but still, it worked.

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