Disappointing picture about BLOGS

With so many ways to connect with friends on the internet today, such as Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Plaxo, SiliconIndia, Twitter, Geni, as well as the Yahoo and Google Groups, and now the new Buzz, it appears that blogging has taken a toll.

(There are so many new invitations I am receiving from many relatives and friends to join new social networking sites, that unfortunately I am declining any more! I already am on too many for my comfort.)

Now, some of the social networking sites have also adopted the Group thrust (such as the Stephanian "The Rez" on Facebook devoted to those who lived in the college premises), so the playing field of Blogs, Groups and social networking sites is undergoing a rapid transformation.

It is like the personal web pages transformation in 2002.

I was looking through the links to blogs on my web pages of several people who used to write nice blogs.

I found some have vanished into thin air, others have not updated their blogs, some for a year, some for two, and some of the best bloggers, have not been active for a month or more.

Yesterday, I visited a good friend who has been posted to Oulu from Bangalore. Rajesh told me that although I could not meet him in Bangalore when we passed through, he understood my dilemma as he had been reading our blogs all the while we were traversing that great country.

In my opinion, blogging is the best way to keep in touch with a widespread audience. I have about a dozen blogs, and I update the most important ones either daily, biweekly, weekly, fortnightly or the less active ones, monthly or bimonthly. There are some which I hardly update.

As I recently wrote to a friend, our fortnightly Findians Briefings and our monthly Kooler Talk and Seventh Heaven, web pages which served their purpose from 1996 to 2003, just had to be converted to blogs in 2002 - 2003. The audience demanded it.

But my diverse readers are faithful in that they visit all the active blogs regularly and the readership has been either static or climbing. I did get a bollicking from one of my closest advisors, who did not like me mixing my blogs when I was on the Bharat Darshan, as he felt that he was not really interested in my personal diaries as he was interested only in his focus.

Although I appreciated his point of view, the mixing of blogs was purely for convenience as the link speeds in India to the internet were so slow, I would have been seated in front of the computer for hours on end, trying to upload all my blogs.

The readership blip which I got has also not faded after I reverted to my old model of focus only blogs. People do check whether I am around and about if their focus blog has not been updated!

Last week, the overall readership of all my blogs had shown another jump from 135000 to 142000, and the number who reverted back to reading only their focus blogs had hardly shown a decline - just about 10 to 15 readers!

So I have 142000 on my main blog, about 3500 on the Seventh Heaven Blog, about 2300 on my Kooler Talk blog, and a smattering of people to my other blogs.

A few of you have started to follow my blogs, very much like you follow people on Twitter. That is an interesting new development, but I do not know whether it will last. It is only good and varied content that will draw a reader back to visit a blog! If one puts a series of postings on one fad continuously on a blog, the readership whi are not interested in your own pet perversion, will quickly drop away.

Although social networking is exciting and keeps you in touch, a blog has much more to it than these quick-fix sites. I am not complaining as I do keep up with my family and friends through the social networking sites, but I prefer the art of writing.

I am glad that Facebook and some other social networking sites do display my blog entries, although I do not know where and when they come up. But I do get comments about my blog entries through some of the sites.

I wish my many good friends as Ville (Oulu, Finland), Ilari (Laos), Kasia (Poland), Balu (Bangalore, India), Abe (Chennai, India), Esa (Helsinki, Finland), will step back and think again about keeping their blog sites up and running.

(I especially like Abe's Blog, which is known as "Song of the Waves" as he has a great writing style, is a wonderful photographer and you come away educated after reading his blog!)

It is also very interesting that just one blog entry can get you a whole bunch of devoted readers, who continue to read the blog, even though it is not focused on that subject. An example would be my entry about wrestling and my coverage of Dara Singh, the wrestling giant of the 50s when I was a boy. That one entry has got me a huge readership who consider me to be a guru about wrestling, which I am not. I watched wrestling as a child from the best seats in Bangalore when Dara Singh and King Kong (and the Masked Angel, Flash Gordon and his drop kick, etc.) and a few others dominated the wrestling circuit.

A huge controversy has arisen as a result of my entry with many claiming that there had been two Dara Singhs, one even 7 foot tall! If there was, I never saw him, as the Dara Singh I saw was the one who was just 6' 2", but would have looked 7' because of his dominating stature in the ring.

As I realised, it is only perseverance which builds your readership. And my experience has been that a blog reader is far more interested and interesting than those that use only the social networking sites!

Using a GPS Navigator - Good or Bad Development?

Yesterday I went to south Finland to unknown territory. I borrowed Sunil's Global Positioning System (GPS) Navigator. It is not an expensive one, but has all the basic functions.



After my trip I sat down to analyse whether using the GPS Navigator is a good or bad technological and social development.

It was absolutely superb in that I lost no time finding the half a dozen places that I had to visit. I just followed the voice which told me exactly what to do, and the map on the small screen with the picture of the car pointed exactly where I was.

This development of a couple of metres accuracy for this system had been held back by the Americans for quite a few years as they did not want the general public to get this technology for common use.

The other great feature was that it had most of the fixed radar cameras listed on the highway, and it also warned me if I was above the speed limit when approaching them. I could see which cars had the GPS Navigator fixed, as they would be zooming along, and then suddenly they would slow down from 120 kmph to 60 kmph!

Considering I got a Euro 115 fine a few weeks ago when Annikki and I were on our way to Helsinki, as I could not see a snow covered speed sign, investment of Euro 70 or 80 in a GPS Navigator is certainly paid for in just this as well as the amount of petrol one saves when driving around a new city looking for a location.

I remember on my last trip to Helsinki I drove around 350 km looking for places and spent the good part of a day just missing the right locations!

However, using the GPS Navigator has very serious social implications - - bad ones.

In the old days I had a fantastic sense of direction. I could look at a map and find the location almost with a sense of smell. And once I visited a place, I could go back to it again and again as my brain had registered the coordinates.

That is a human trait which has dwindled over the years. Animals have retained this intelligence, as also many other traits which humans no longer possess. That intelligence will be even further degraded as kids start to use the GPS Navigator as their mode of locating places rather than their brain and the Compass.

The great sport of "Forest Navigation", which is extremely popular in all the Scandinavian countries, will lose its significance and importance as more and more youngsters take to using the GPS Navigator.

The second serious implication is that speed limits on the roads will lose their meaning. As more vehicles get fitted with GPS Navigators, and the speed trap cameras with their radar system are logged on to the system, motorists will drive at whatever speed they want to and slow down when the GPS Navigator tells them that they are approaching a camera and radar installation.

Not only is this a dangerous development but it shows a class divide in that those who are wealthy and technologically savvy enough to get hold of a GPS Navigator will avoid the penalties while the poor will have to be punished, for what sometimes may be just a genuine mistake.

In short, less money for the Government, more danger on the roads, and probably a higher accident rate on the highways!

Technological advancement or a retrograde step in the development of mankind?