Okay, It’s the Holi day!!! So before I review action for you on the Social Media front, here’s wishing all the readers of my blog a very Holi, full of colors of happiness and love!
There is a lot of action in the Social Media front, whcih I really don’t see calming down any way (I’m a Social Media Evangelist) so I can’t see it calming down 
Well, but more Social Networks?
In the league there already are enough, there is a good community size which is still grappling with the facebooks’ – twitters’ – Myspace’s of the world, and to add onto this collection, well you have a new Social Network coming, itimes, by the Times Group in India.
Advertising happens offline
Times Group does know its marketing good, thus they would be covering the Holi bash happening at the Group’s MD Vineet Jain’s place in New Delhi at the site. Well, a good way to start with the launch and make a splash, but well as in the morning I registered onto the community, I thus present you my review of the community site.
So much for the launch and making a splash, but what’s the value that the community site brings to the already evolving Social Networkers?
itimes brings to you the following features:
- blogs
- networking
- there are groups you can join
- chat
- email
- you can upload your photos
- Videos from YouTube
- Using Open Social you can develop your own Applications
- Fan clubs for stars
So much so, and the site is in Beta right now.
Design and UI
My take on the design and Layout of the site is, well its neat, but they have tied in too many things at the same go. The profile page can be made simpler and much easy to navigate through. The celeb profiles on the right hand column is a disastrous effort in attracting people. I hated the feature.
If someone needs to join a fan club, well, please let him do it by creating a group, the photographs of random celebrities on the page takes away the focus from the basic content of the page and creates a disturbing effect which beats the entire purpose of the profile page.
Linkedin, SiliconIndia and Facebook
Well, if I mention these three Social Networks, I find itimes coming up with nothing new.
I think there is enough clutter in the social network space and how much the market demands another one in the league, well I would not give in. Social Networks now have to evolve as specialized niche offerings to the target markets. Otherwise starting a blog, integrating your photographs, videos, your friends commenting upon it and subscribers following your updates from across the world, how is a vague Social Network, better than your own blog?!
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Wordcamp India. the First ever WordCamp in India.
The two day event concluded today with not much to rave about. I have lots of feedback from real people who attended the event and well, I have lots of inputs for the WCI team.
Two days, a host of speakers, and nothing to rave about! The biggest draw for the event were Matt Mullenweg (Creator WordPress) and Om Malik (Giga Om fame). Well, and both of them were amongst the fewest of the good things to talk about at this event. Matt I think is an amazing guy and am already a fan. He really knows his stuff, and well he can talk and talk good. The best part, the guy is really innovative. Looking at his presentation which contained pictures of the Taj mahal and the Autorickshaw he travelled in, I was glad to see his keen eye for details
Okay, lets come to the point now!
So what did I get from the First Indian WordCamp? Hmmm…lemme think, not much, I’d say (I really have to think on answering this one). There were some really lax speakers, who were speaking on whatever context they liked speaking on. There were product presentations (Radioverve, though I really like the work), and I was told by the event organizers outright (when I asked them for a speaking Op) that we dont really entertain product displays!! Thanks guys!
There were gyan sessions on codes, plugins and some really cool features of WordPress, but I dont really know how much value would they have provided to the people, who are common basic level users of WordPress, who probably dont even know, how to install a version on their own site!
There was mis-management
The event was mismanaged. Day two saw the event organizers coming to the event LATE! and the show started pretty LATE! There were shift in speaker schedules (Do you not call up the speaker a night before, and send an SMS reminder, in the morning)?? Basic things right?
And here we have a Supreme Court lawyer, talking on IP and other stuff and he starts with an example which referred to Priyanka (twilight fairy) one of the organizers of the event as an example. Sir, with due respects, there are better ways to connect both with the audience and the organizers Though Pavan was the only speaker after Matt and Om, who really made an impact.
We will allow you, but we don’t really think your topic is different from 2 others, who are speaking the same
Okay, so I was told by one of the organizers of WCI on day I, that I could take his speaking slot to present what I have with WordPress. And I woke up till 1 am in the morning and mailed him my presentation as I discussed with him. And on the second day, well one of the other organizers, has an objection to it!
What objection – She thinks that my presentation is on how to make money out of WordPress, and well I think she totally missed the point. What I had, well it was not presented by anyone. Anyway, my point of writing all of this is not that I have any hard feelings or anything, but the fact that I would have appreciated, if this would have been communicated to me earlier that I am not up for speaking, so I would really have invested my time on more productive things in life.
Networking – I met some really young and budding entrepreneurs today!
Well, the young crowd really was something that I liked about the event, though the same was a deterrent to the scope of relationships that you could really look forward to, forging.
I know people from the event, who supported my thoughts on it!
Coffee machine was the favorite place to network and talking to many a people around, I got the same feedback that It wasn;t working for them. That they are really not seeing much value from the sessions.
There was no appreciation for SPONSORS!!
So the day one of the event, would really have included a word of thanks to the sponsors for the sponsors and partners to the event, in the opening note of the organizers, which I personally felt was missing.
I think, the event was okay, and nothing special to really have missed and been repenting about. I wish these guys the best for the future events, and hope they do live to their brand!
Clarification
I highly appreciate the Co-organizer of the First WordCamp India, Mayank, calling up, to really give certain clarifications on the event, and I appreciate his honesty.
For the same, I would like to present to the readers of this blog, that this blog has no relations to the fact that I was not given an opportunity to speak (Have a look at my Bio, do you really think, I would write a blog post, for such a trivial matter)?
Hence, the post only reflects my views and of some people from the event, I interacted with, who shared their’s. This post is not meant to point out or hint at any particular individual and is not biased
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