I may be speaking for a few fellow bloggers out there when I say that I am not that comfortable with rules and things about blogging that are way too organized. And when I walked into the GRT Convention Center in Tnagar, this hot, sultry, Saturday afternoon, to attend the UniverCell Chennai Indiblogger Meet, and I saw a crowd queueing up for Registration, and a bunch of already registered bloggers sitting there looking at the big screen, my first thought was, “Damn these guys are so organized. I’m at the wrong place.”
And boy, was it organized well or what? We queued up at the Registration desk in front of a laptop where we typed in our Indiblogger logon id. As each person got registered, his/her Indiblogger profile pic, along with his/her name got listed on that big screen under ‘Arrivals‘. Nifty little thing if you ask me. The big screen was the highlight IMHO. Tweets tagged with #indichn were streaming there, and all the bloggers armed with their mobiles, netbooks, laptops and any other wi-fi device known to man, got busy tweeting. Brave, Indiblogger Team, very brave. 🙂 There would have been close to 200 bloggers there, along with the sponsors, the media and the hosts – The Indiblogger team. And we were pretty soon, underway.
Hitler a Blogger?
The Meet kickstarted with this Video. I’m sure you have seen this on YouTube, but not with this ‘translation’ certainly. 🙂 Enough said, I’ll let Mr. Hitler do the talking. 🙂
30 Seconds of Fame?
I dreaded this… I sure did. But it was indeed neccessary if you had to know who you had in that room. And so it began. 200 odd bloggers, taking turns introducing themselves, with almost no one sticking to the actual ’30 seconds’. To be frank, a few bloggers were indeed funny and crisp. While a few, well, made us sleepy. I discovered my long lost schoolmate, now entrepreneur extraordinaire – @balajil there in the introductions. And I was delighted. I now had a known face to go with a lot of known Twitter handles there. But what delighted me most, was when I stood up and introduced myself and said I blog at Idlivadasambar.wordpress.com, I heard some cheering around which surprised the sanity out of me, and I went ‘What? Really?” 😀 Was delighted guys. You are rockstars. Made my day. And there was still more left.
Bloggers and Backscratching?
And then came the fun part. Socializing. Well, to be frank, I find chatting up in real world a wee bit odd. This was no different. But @balajil, helped me get started and I kinda tagged along. It was a fun little thing. We were ‘Chart-Men’ with a sheet of paper danging in place of a cape, for people to identify us, and leave their urls/twitter handles/and anything else they wanted to say, behind. I had quite a few people who walked up to me and said that they loved my posts. I was surprised, and totally blown away. Those who didn’t know me really wanted to check my blog out. And I honestly think, the title had something to do with it. 😀 This was perhaps the highlight of the evening. The bloggers, and their backscratching. My sheet was decently filled, but my enthusiasm, overflowing. 😀
Sponsor Speak.
UniverCell were sponsoring the event and used the opportunity to launch their own blog. They passed around a few mobile phones for people to feel and touch, and then go home and blog about it. The best blogger would get to work full-time as a blogger with UniverCell. Neato. I did want to try out the Touch Diamond, but sadly the phone never reached me. 🙂
Discussion or Pattimanram?
Ok. I’ll be frank. This was my least favourite part of the evening. It was supposed to be a Traditional Media Vs Blogging, kind of a ‘discussion’. Turned out to be a one to one pattimanram kind of an event with a strong Tamil flavour, and irritating a lot of non-Tamil bloggers as well. The highlight of this particular segment however, was the large screenon the background, that was ticking away with tweets from bored bloggers, venting out their frustration, which ended up as a funny, delightful reminder of why you shouldn’t really irritate, a bunch of bloggers armed with free wifi. 😀 @shilparathnam anchored it with Bala Bharathy from Zee and another gentleman doing the majority of the talking. Could have been a lot better.
Show Me the Food.
And then, the moment everyone was waiting for. FREE FOOD. On the Menu, were delicious Chicken Sandwiches, Paneer Cutlets, Rasmalais, and Mango Ice Cream, to be washed down with a BIG bowl of Coffee. I will not embarass myself by saying how much I ate. But trust me when I say, I was HUNGRY. 😀 Super Food. Loved it.
Tea on My Shirt?
Well… That too. 😉 But when the Indiblogger team announced that t-shirts were going to be distributed, a queue sprang up, faster than you could say ‘me too’. And in the queue, new friends were being made, cards and urls were exchanged, photos were clicked and a solid 3 hours of fun, thus came to an end.
Overall?
Brilliantly done Indiblogger. Organized well, and executed in super fashion. Would love to be back when it is back in Chennai.
A few things I took away from the meet.
1. The Chennai Blogger Crowd is alive and kicking.
2. Tamil Bloggers are in awesome number here. Alright!
3. My blog’s USP is its title. 😀
4. Never irritate someone who is on Twitter.
5. Its a pretty, god-damn, small world.
6. A Rasmalai when in contact with tomato sauce, tastes funny. 🙂
7. When you are talking to a blogger, you better keep it crisp.
8. A full tummy
9. A super tshirt
10. Anything related to blogs, needn’t always be unorganized. 😉
Here are a few pics I clicked on my phone –
Idli Vada Sambar 