The Hindu Business Line : Your voice on the Web

THE Internet is a boundary-less information broadcast channel and one of its unique offerings is the weblog, the virtual equivalent of a diary. Weblogs, commonly called blogs, have been around for some years now. Most people express their opinions through their blogs. Posts, or daily write-ups that you upload to the weblog, could be about movies, books, cricket, politics or economics.

People surfing the Internet can read the weblogs and use them to learn and share local information.

Anurag Jain, a management student from Bangalore and avid blogger, says, "I blog on events and activities taking place in the city."

According to a survey by Technorati, a blog analyst firm, almost as many bloggers post to create a record of their thoughts (31.55 per cent) as they do to become a visible authority in their field (33.86 per cent).

Corporate weblogs, such as those by Hewlett-Packard's top management, are used as tools for marketing. David Gee, Head of Worldwide Marketing for management software, blogs regularly. In his blog, he writes on the opportunities and challenges of software marketing, comments from customers, competitors, and analysts.

Yahoo's R&D unit in India also uses blogs to reach clients. A company spokesperson says, "Various product divisions of Yahoo! maintain blogs for communicating and getting feedback from customers."

People from all walks of life have taken to blogging. With the increasing penetration of broadband globally, more people have access to and can create such logs on the Web.

According to a report by US-based public relations firm Edelman and Intelliseek, 20,000 new blogs are created daily. The option to view, comment and contact other bloggers has also enabled interactivity between previously unconnected individuals.

Bloggers form groups based on location and interests. One such group is `BlogBang', headed by Arka Mukhopadhyay, a freelance theatre artist.

He says, "The group was created as an attempt to bring city bloggers together. It is one of the few comprehensive groups of bloggers in our country." Out of the 115 people in the group, more than 50 belong to the IT industry. Some organisations such as Sun Microsystems and Yahoo! encourage their employees to blog.

There is no governing body keeping a tab on blogs. Yet recent events have made many realise that blogs need to be taken seriously. Consider these two incidents: When David Gee, of HP, removed a comment from a disgruntled customer from his blog earlier this year, he was not aware of its repercussions. When the customer detected that his comment had been removed, he spread the news around. News travels at the speed of light in the blog world. The response was indignation by thousands.

The HP blog author immediately replaced the comment and added a note saying he would ensure the matter was taken care of. This is just one instance of a blog creating bad press for a company.

Blogs can also make you join the `ranks of the unemployed,' if you are not careful. Michael Hanscom of Microsoft was fired from the company when it was discovered that his blog contained company-sensitive information and a photo of the campus. A Google employee too was given the red slip on account of a blog. Most bloggers are unaware of the power of their blogs.

The legal implications of what you write on the Web call for a serious discussion. Currently, many companies are either unaware of their employees' blogs, or choose to ignore them.

It might be wiser to lay down some rules, such as Yahoo India. According to them, clear guidelines have been given to employees about handling confidential information. Companies might need to underline a blogging policy for their employees. This will not only protect the company against discontented employees, but also the bloggers themselves. Many countries still have no clear-cut laws involving blogs. With the new Right To Information Act in India, we might see a change in the way the Internet is used.

The recent case of a B-school, the Indian Institute of Planning and Management, wanting to take action against the blogging community had it coming out in support of Rashmi Bansal, editor and publisher of youth magazine JAM, and Gaurav Sabnis, an ex-IBM employee. JAM published recently an article in which it claimed that the institute was advertising wrong facts. Sabnis provided a link to the article in his blog, http://gauravsabnis.blogspot.com. The IIPM reacted by sending an e-mail notice against the bloggers.

Helping hand in hour of crisis

Blogs such as the SEA-EAT blog, http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/, following the tsunami attack, form the equivalent of news channels in a time of crisis. They give an accurate picture of what is needed by the victims, as against what is sent. According to one of the authors of this blog, Suman Kumar, blogging offers people an interactive medium to publish relevant information.

The Cloudburst blog on Mumbai floods also is a Web site that helped many citizens by giving relevant information. Other blogs that sprang up in crisis situations are http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/, http://katrinahelp.blogspot.com/, http://ritahelp.blogspot.com/, http://quakehelp.blogspot.com and http://smsquake.blogspot.com/, which allowed bloggers on the field to use short messaging service (SMS) to post updates from the quake zone.

The Mumbai Help blog offered information on hospital locations, maps of rescue routes, addresses of doctors and medical workers, volunteer organisations, food and water points, safe roads and railway stations. In these cases, blogger activism was even commended by the traditional media.

Blogosphere

The collection of all weblogs on the Internet is called the Blogosphere. The Technorati survey also showed that when looking for product information, 62.85 per cent of bloggers turn to other bloggers rather than company Web sites. This goes to show that Blogosphere is evolving into a social network.

Are blogs the new GUI of the Net-savvy vox populi? We believe so.

preethij@thehindu.co.in

Picture by K.K. Mustafah

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Your voice on the Web

Growing by the day

Waiting to be filled up

Hitch while installing software

Unable to voice chat

Flying high on software

Lending weight to the fight

Software piracy a `middle-class' crime?

Real vs reflection

No missing the bus

Quiz

Women embedded in technology spaces

Cartoon

Up for sale