1. The newbies: Every person joining twitter starts from here. He has either heard of twitter from a friend or seen a friend twitting and so joins out of curiosity. Some of them do survive in long run but most of them get lost in the crowd after first 20-30 tweets. Those who stay glued, get divided into some subcategories.

2. I need followers: They are constantly on look out for new ways to get extra followers. They will follow random people so that those random people too follow them. They will use those tools to increase number of followers, will RT any damn tweets thinking it will give them more followers and they will ask everyone to follow them whenever meeting anyone online. The first thing they will say to fellow twitter is “I’ve got 1500 followers. What about you? How many you have?”. Only apparent reason being opportunity to cash in the number of followers sometime through sponsored twits or apps like magpie.

3. I want to follow: They are not really concerned about who follows them. They just go ahead and follow hundreds of people. Trying to gain maximum knowledge through tweets of these people. These people won’t twit much on their own but will read others’ tweets very regularly and consciously. Not sure if they end up learning much stuff.

4. I need to follow that chick: The first question they will ask to a fellow twitter is “Whats twitter handle of that girl we met in last tweetup?”. They will follow each random girl on twitter and immediately add everyone on facebook, linkedin, orkut and possible every social network available. Probably even hi5 and wayn too… I suppose girls are smart enough to recognise these types quickly.

5. I don’t follow whom I don’t know: They will start following you only after you meet at some meetup and speak for atleast 5 minutes. Following someone they don’t know is big NO NO for them. I wonder if they got real meaning of twitter or probably they are the only ones who got *real* meaning of twitter.

6. The protected ones: Simple way to identify them is by the lock that appears next to their snap. They keep the account protected by the fear of either employer reading their tweets or by the fear of partner. Or they think they are celebrity. You never know, some of them might actually be celebrities in their own field.

7. I want to maintain the ratio: They are always concerned about their follower:following ratio. And they make every effort to keep the ratio at particular level. As soon as ratio goes below the level, they will start unfollowing people and ask people to follow them. Other times, they are cool and will twit in their own ways.

8. The divine ones: They don’t care who or how many are following them. They will follow whom they feel like following and they will twit what they want to twit. They won’t ask any friend to follow them. They won’t even follow someone just because he is a friend. And they will surely not think twice before twitting something. They will go ahead and twit whatever they feel like without thinking what the followers want to read.

–>Alok Kejriwal – CEO Games2win.com
–>Beerud Seth – Co-founder & CEO of Webaroo
–>Mahesh Murthy – Founder and CEO of Pinstorm
–>Sameer Guglani – Founder – Morpheus Ventures

As a part of MumbaiBloggers team, me and @unitechy were live twitting from the event for the benefit of those who could not attend the event. Here is the discussion in form of the live tweets.

# Recession is a gr8 time to start a company..
# No business plans survives in 1st contact with consumer. Continue innovation is necessary..
# We need online companies that solve real problems. Like irctc
# We need to break the commission system to extract better from digital media.
# The courage of stupidity is very necessary
# not all digital media spends through agency’s
# Money is not the way to get good results from online media.. Brains is the way..
# There isn’t enough ecommerce in india. Thats one reason for no big success
# internet will evolve much in mobile platform more.
# You can’t just copy ideas from west.. You need Indian pattern..
# By virtue of not using online media, the marketing people are actually missing the big opportunity..
# Orkut and twitter is much bigger than IPL in India.
# Sasteme kardenge is what has so far worked in online media
# product needs culture.
# One difficult thing for entrepreneur is knowing culture of ur audience
# Teenpatti is big deal in India than poker. You need to know the people for whom you building apps
# Just staying online is not the best thing unless its some site line traveling based
# Having data is not enough. How to monetize it is also important.
# Pure online can’t be the buzz word in India
# work for bread and butter don’t care about jam
# Venture capital is new in india and not very positive results. So they are still worried about investing money
# only pathetic product needs to spend. good product grows
# You need to spend on advertising only if you are pathetic product. If you are good product, you don’t need advertising
# User generated content is good thing. Creating money from it is important.
# Getting funded at the top of the buzz raises expectations and can be harmful
# Markets have cycles and you need to understand and live with that.
# High valuations come with high money and high expectations.
# A loss making company can not go public in India by law. This restricts opportunities for entrepreneurs
# what happened on web will happen on mobiles
# open platform FTW
# india still in voice penetration state. operators still selling voice
# Its a big challenge to change the ecosystem in India
# India VAS much behind in terms of software
# The consumer thinks of what he is paying and not what are company’s internal charges
# There will be more money coming if you can deliver through by platform
# never go to bigger companies. go to companies who want to make it big.

Also check unitechy‘s post about the panel discussion here.

• if you want to start a company, get fired..
• entrepreneurship is a journey with no start and no end.. Its about constantly challengin urself and fulfilin the challenges..
• being an entrepreneur is like being pregnant. You have to deliver in the end..
• be ready to do jugaad if you wanna make it big..
• entrepreneurs are disrupters
• journey for an entreprenr is tough full of failers n rejections n lonely
• you need a destabilizer in form of mentor
• don’t fall in love with ur idea.. Develop several ideas and compare to get the best..
•  find a hole that needs repair and that you can do well. Get out of technology comfort zone and enter sales..
• have fun while working on ur vision.. Money always follows..
• its about a dream to succeed.. The success should not be defined in terms of money..
• don’t talk of valuation before value creation..
• you need to find your washing machine to make lassi..
• don’t always go for new tech. At times you can use existing in better and efficienet way..
• failure is entrepreneurship.. Blame is on you if you fail and its ur responsibility to rise up..
•  you are brand ambassador of ur company as entrepreneur..
• entrepreneurship is not an event.. Its a process.. A longer one..
• don’t generate problems just to provide solutions just cause you want to be entrepreneur..
• entrepreneurs knows how to handle problems.. If you think you need to exit, you are not entrepreneur…
• ideas can be simple.. Ideas can be silly.. But they will pay more money than serious ones..
• observation is the key to any entrepreneurship.. You can’t succeed without observation..
• simple observations add to the biggest of the breakthroughs…
• value is always about the benefit over the price for customer.. An entrepreneur is to provide that..
• Entrepreneurship is about always betting on something new.
• Stability is dangerous for any enrepreneur.
• If you can’t implement any idea in a better way than the existing one, better don’t implement the idea.
• Early success is necessary to keep the team motivated. The team have to have trust in the entrepreneur and his beliefs.
• Being an entrepreneur is like being pregnant. In the end, you have to deliver.
• Do with speed what you can’t do with strength.
• Making mistake is ok. Repeating them is crime.

With Mr Nandan Nilekani, Ex CEO of Infosys

In the Snap: Dinesh Soni, Nandan Nilekani and Amol Shah.

Here are just couple of snaps of the group…

Update: Snaps are uploaded at Picasa.

Become a blogger friend

Pathetic cartoon I know. Anyways, the post isn’t about the cartoon. Post is about my blogger friends.
How would you define a blogger friend? “A friend who is blogger” or “a blogger who is friend”? If you talk about first category, I would like to mention Karthik who is a hardcore rock fan. And rock music is one thing among others he writes about.. Also there is another friend Prateek who is a hardcore techie but doesn’t blog. Am continuously poking him to start a blog.
And talking about second category, I would like to quote two people here. First is skyn3t {Real name: Neeraj Pattath} who is a specialist in computer and network security. We affectionately call him as hacker. He isn’t too frequent with blogging but when you talk to him, you will realise he has so much to share with friends.. Another friend I would quote here is unitechy {Real name: Apurva Chaudhary}. She is quite regular in blogging and its always fun to read her writings.
Well, if you were expecting me to write something about their blogs or review their blogs, then this is not the right place I guess. Reviewing is something which I’m gonna do through mumbaibloggers.net. As of now, I would just say that having blogger friends is a great thing.

Btw, I always wonder how to make your “not-so-active-in-web2.0″ friends to read you blog? Think of it.. Maybe someday I will dedicate a complete post to the topic.

You can register your sessions or register yourself as volunteer. You will have to do either of these if you wanna be at the barcamp.

See you all at the barcamp..

Barcamp Mumbai 4 poster

Off for d barcamp venue. Wil b meetin @skyn3t at andheri stn.. 

Met @delltechie at d camp.. The camp is takin some time to start. Very delayed..

Also met @manan. He is plannin sum twitter meet here.. 

The camp here is kinda borin so far.. Hopin tht it gets interestin wid time passing by..

#Campicarus Shashank talkin abt visual advertisin..

#Campicarus demo on adobe photoshop by rahul..

#Campicarus expectin @preshit here..

#Campicarus good session for those who don’t know photoshop..

#Campicarus second session goin on. About fundin d startups..

#Campicarus this guy talkin very nice about d management stuff..

#Campicarus the guy who talked abt d finance thing is alumni of my own coll.. Feels gr8..

#campicarcus unofficial discussion goin on about indian porn industry.. 

#campicarcus the audiance strength has reduced significantly aft lunch break. Juz 10 guys..

#campicarcus am still thinkin to give d session or not.. D audience no is definitely not motivatin..

#campicarcus @manan @preshit and @skyn3t still around..

#campicarcus finally started wid d session of “meri bhi ek website hogi”

#campicarus session paused in between coz many ppl comin in..

#campicarus am sure tht d session is goin borin 4 these engg kids.. Saumil is talkin abt settin up wordpress n all.. 

#campicarus and @manan takes over where previous person left..

#campicarus am done wid d session on podcastin.. Now @skyn3t is havin d interaction session..

#campicarus I call this session as “the useless talk by @skyn3t“. And this session is gettin far more useful.

#campicarus final session. About use of technology 4 mass publicity..

#campicarus nitin showin his software. Sounds really interestin..

#campicarus only 12 ppl now in d room. @manan, @preshit n @skyn3t still hangin on..

Venue: Pinstorm Café, Santacruz.

No of people attended: 13

Things discussed during the meet:
• Need for a site for bloggers from Mumbai
–> As a platform to discuss issues related to blogging
–> As a platform to arrange online and offline blogger meets
• Agenda and contents for the site
• How can we inspire people to start blogging?
• The celeb status achieved by blogging: with Aamir, Amitabh and Salman coming into blogging
• The power of blogging and twitter as a medium of information exchange

Take away from the meet:
• The existing site mumbaibloggers.net is to be redesigned n restructured.
• Promotion of the site so as to develop this community and create awareness about the word Blogging.
• Involve famous bloggers and internet marketers (blogcamp gang) so as to have a better coverage.
• Use services of colleges and few startups around to create awareness at the ground level.
• Get maximum inputs from blogosphere to promote this community.
• Bloggers should meet atleast twice a month for discussions

PS: Expect the review of the event by tomorrow

Venue: CCD, Carter Rd, Bandra (W) Pinstorm Cafe, North Avenue, Linking Road, Santa Cruz (W)

Contact: 9890774748

Kindly give a call to above number or drop a mail to blog@dineshsoni.com if you are interested in joining in. Kindly spread the message across to your blogger friends.

PS: This is an unofficial casual meet. No Sponsors.

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The idea I presented at IdeaCamp Pune

SlideShare Link

This is the presentation I gave at IdeaCamp Pune.

Does it happen to you that you are out with friends and you feel like having a pizza. But you don’t know where exactly pizza hut is located in the area? Well, to solve this problem, we can embed a telephone directory / yello pages in the mobile so that findig a particular store / shop in an area won’t be troublesome.

Possible uses
1. To find particular service provider in any area (listing can be done as per area or as per service)
2. To find emergency services like blood bank, hospitals, medical shops etc in any area
3. Stores and shops can use it for advertising

How to implement
1. Through an application which will be be installed in the handset
2. Through a wap site. The data will be fetched on mobile though GPRS
3. Through SMS enquiry {This will cost the end customer for each enquiry. So this should preferably be avoided. Also JustDial already has similar service in operation}.

Possible Shortcomings
1. Maintaining existing database and maintaining the new additions
2. Will work only on high end mobiles
3. Any more….?

IdeaCampPune is a self-organized gathering to share ideas and see them shape by applying divergent thinking. The objective of the camp is to get people from different roles like designers, entrepreneurs, financers, creative minds, technology evangelists, product managers and marketers together to bandy ideas from everyone’s viewpoint. Ideally by end of the gathering we should have ‘proof of potential’ for our ideas.

If you want to be a part of this ideation event, register here. Alternatively, you may like to have a look at the “Ideacamp Blog“

If your blog gets 10 hits a day you will be labeled as failure. But isn’t it a nice thing that you are able to share your thoughts with 10 people, 10 right people, who actually want to read what you write

His point was evidently that it doesn’t matter if you have 1000 hits a day. One should rather prefer having few but loyal readers. Who will get back to your blog often and often and appreciate your good writings and at same time criticize your bad ones. Of course, the word is totally incomplete without critics. A guy from Subhiksha.com sulekha.com made an interesting point in the regard at the event. He said that we often put good comments on someone’s blog with the expectation of he visiting our blog and putting a nice comment on our blog at a later stage. And so, we often fail to provide the real critical view on the post.
Another interesting point was by Rashmi Bansal who talked about why to blog? Her point was you should think of what the readers want to read in case of magazines. But why to get stuck with the prototype while blogging too? You should write about what you really want to write rather than what your readers want to read. It doesn’t mean you should comepletely ignore the readers and write anything crap. But yes. That should not be the top priority..

The other sessions too went kinda well. We managed to gain something new out of each session. Rohit gave quite a good insight of Legal aspects of blogging and same with Aditya who talked about podcasting and its future aspects. Ankesh went quite long while talking about blogging tips and he could never come down to the actual point. He was more into what to do to run a successful blog, rather than exactly how..
Pankaj Tiwari illustrated the importance of Hindi blogging and the problems ahead in very much effective way. Really very impressive. His Hindi was kinda fluent and still understandable in spite of being into IT industry. Karamveer (a guy who made 53k $ in a month from his blogs) shared few tips to make online money.
Then as people started getting sleepy, Tarun came and threw the session open for public discussion by some reaction about previous speakers’ words. It was indeed a smart way of throwing the session open. The last two sessions were not much impressive and if my memory goes well, one was about this site called bloozle and another about SEO. I personally feel there is lot more to SEO rather than just discussing how to do it. Moreover, people think only google when it comes to SEO. (Its obvious with the 70% + market share of google).
So.. That’s it. Thats how the event went. A bunch of people, who came with al open minds to grasp the maximum knowledge, to freely discuss the ideas, to meet new people and to create a higher network.
Now I’m just waiting for next barcamp to be announced.

PS: Check out Deep’s views on blogcamp at this link

Am trying to upload few live images. But the wifi here isn’t working too fine. Well, hopefully I will manage to upload the snaps after few minutes.

PS: I finally managed to put up few snaps. More at This link.

Those who are interested in technology and have some free time tomorrow, don’t miss out the event. Its worth attending..

More information available here