Blogs in the technosphere

Enterprise technology blogging is emerging as a category in its own right. By Mehak Chawla

Have you ever wondered if a CIO goes on to the Web to read reviews about the private Cloud solution that he is considering? Or if he takes into account the various user experiences that are floating around on the Web for a server virtualization offering? Though CIOs might certainly be sifting through the online world for their purchase decisions, if they are looking for reviews, particularly in the Indian context, chances are that they would not be coming across something that is unbiased or useful.

Enterprise technology blogging is yet to emerge into a well defined space in India. While individual bloggers shooting off their views about enterprise technology is commonplace in the US and other western countries, in India, despite the country being regarded as an important technology market, the enterprise technology blogging scene is dismal.

This isn’t to say that technology blogging isn’t taking place. Technology blogs are growing at a rapid pace in India, and some of them are even making money. However, there is a long way to go before we can call India a serious blogging domain as far as enterprise technology goes. Even though we can pronounce our technology market as a fairly mature one, we haven’t yet been able to create an environment that is conducive to fair and useful technology blogging.

In the hands of biggies

Like technology itself, most of the enterprise technology blogging in India is also dominated by the big players. So, its not unusual to find reviews about cloud infrastructure and business intelligence on IBM’s blog and likewise you can surf HCL’s blog for things like outsourcing or Infosys’ blog for some insight on sustainability.

However, there is one catch. You can hardly expect unbiased opinions from these blogs. Even if you manage to find technological insight from an Indian perspective, though even that is difficult, it is almost impossible to find reviews.

As Nimish Dubey, Consulting Editor, My Mobile and a technology blogger, explained, “In India, enterprise technology blogging is defined mostly by enterprise blogs.” Dubey felt that as of now, in the individual space, we lack the technology blogging culture.

“If I wanted to find a sensible discussion around Linux vs. Windows for an enterprise, it is unlikely that I would find it on an Indian technology blog,” added Dubey.

Other than the enterprise blogs, the other blogs where you can find something on enterprise technology are media blogs. Explained Annkur P Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Pricebaba.com and also the founder of OnlyGizmos.com, “In the enterprise technology blogging space, it’s mostly publications that are present. The focus mostly is not on hardware or technology per se, but primarily on news.”

The reasons for a loosely defined enterprise blogging space, despite the fact that we are churning out a lot of technology writing, are myriad. Unlike the common perception, it is not easy  to launch a technology blog in India. It is even harder to compete as an Indian enterprise technology blogger. The first obvious hurdle is the financial part. In India, selling a blog is a tough task, since most advertisers still prefer to go the traditional media route.

Since technology bloggers are hardly recognized as technology journalists, enterprises too are not keen on talking to them. Besides, as Dubey pointed out, “Most companies anyway block access to blogs, so blogging as a category doesn’t excite their interest.”

As a result, we can’t really boast about a technology blogosphere that is neutral.

Behind the World

One of the critical problems with the Indian technology blogging space is that when it comes to technology, we are behind the world, quite literally. Elaborated Dubey, “We are twenty days behind the world when it comes to gadgets. We also don’t have a leak culture here in India, since gadgets are not made here.”

As a result, an Indian blog is unlikely to create any enthusiasm around lets say an iPhone or iPad launch because, by the time they get to lay their hands on the gadget, the buzz has been created and consumed across the world thanks to international bloggers. Since the Internet as a medium epitomizes instantaneous news, breaking stories in the Indian technology domain becomes a problem given the technology power politics globally.

Explained Clinton Jeff, Founder and Executive Editor of Unleashthephones.com, “The whole concept of technology blogging is dicey in India because few Indian blogs ever break a story. Launch events also hardly ever happen in Asia. In fact, even if there is news happening in India, we get to hear about it from European or American blogs,” he exclaimed.

Enterprise technology faces the same fate as the gadgets. Since most solutions get released, even for beta testing, much later in India, reviewers hardly get to test them out and say something that might add any value.

Even though this is a substantial issue, some analysts feel that it is not a good enough excuse for technology blogging not catching up in India. “Newness of technology is not a big deal in enterprise technology, its implementation is,” observed Sulagno Bhattacharya, a regular technology blogger.

Credibility under the scanner

Nikhil Pahwa, Editor and Publisher, MediaNama.com, gave us an insight into why establishing and operating an enterprise technology blog was anything but a cakewalk in India. “In B2B technology blogging, the cost of creating content is high and payment cycles in India are very long. Also, in niche technology blogging, there is the issue of competency. One has to be considered authoritative enough to give verdicts in this space.”

Perhaps the problem with the scene is that we are still busy reproducing news. Pahwa said, “ Blogging is not printing news releases. It is analytical in nature and that shift hasn’t yet taken place in India.”

There is also another trend in the blogging space in India. Though we aren’t taking any names, there is a lot of greed around technology blogging. Observed Jeff, “A lot of young technology bloggers are cropping up everyday to make money online and paid reviews are not uncommon.”

Dubey put that in perspective when he observed that “It’s a vicious circle. You need products to review and for that you have to maintain a good relationship with the companies and, in such a scenario, it is difficult to do both, keep on getting the products and doing honest reviews, at the same time.”

Credibility is an important question that is hovering over the head of technology blogging in India.

Consumer is King

The most apparent trend in this space is that the focus of the whole industry seems to be consumer-oriented, as of now. According to Vikas Sah, Owner of Technacular.com, since the blogging space belongs mostly to young people in India, the focus rests on the consumer side.

“Most of the technology blogging in India right now focuses on ‘Tips and Tricks’,” explained Sah. So, whether it is tutorials on how to jailbreak your iPhone or get free books for your Kindle, you can find most of these things sprawled across technology blogs.

The enterprise IT blogging is happening much on the same lines of tips and tricks. It is, in fact, at times, taking a rather interesting turn. Rather than writing about enterprise technologies per se, bloggers are busy telling people how to get past the enterprise. From how to open Facebook in office on a network where the site has been blocked to how to get past the firewall, bloggers are trying to make the employees smarter.

The lines between pure enterprise IT and consumer technology are also getting blurred. Ashish Sinha, Founder & CEO, Pluggd.in, commented, “There is a thin line between consumer and enterprise technology writing. For instance, an iPad is being used both by the consumers as well as by enterprises.”

Sinha, whose focus is enterprise technology writing felt that, no matter the domain, it was important for every technology blog to define its niche audience. “Blogs in India are going far deeper into technology issues than the print media, and that is helping create a category,” observed Sinha.

The category is evolving, albeit with baby-steps. For instance, bloggers are getting a lot of requests around specific areas like setting up Cloud infrastructure, Google Docs for enterprises or apps that organizations can leverage. That is a sure shot indication of people indeed going online to look for some hard-core enterprise technology writing.

Also, in the enterprise space, telecommunications and enterprise mobility are the two domains that are eliciting a lot of content on the blogosphere. Sah said, “Some people are doing work around enterprise mobility but the focus in the enterprise space is mostly around things like Gmail vs. Yahoo or Paypal metrics in an organization.”

Hard-core technology analysis is yet to find its feet in the Indian blogging space.

A category, nevertheless

Even though we might not exactly be talking storage virtualization and Cloud security tricks in blogs, we are evolving as far as technology blogging in India is concerned. A prime reason for the growth of blogging is that people and organizations are beginning to look at blogs from a social media perspective.

There is also a distinguishing line that seems to be emerging between enterprise and consumer technology blogging spaces. Also, since the business dynamics are being sorted out, with bloggers being considered as technology journalists, its becoming easier to access technologies.

Though we lack a blogging culture as of now with even the companies that are blogging mostly harping about their own products, the category seems to be maturing. Also, a lot of heads of big IT organizations (like Vineet Nayar of HCL) are taking to technology blogging and that might help develop this space.

Another factor that is helping technology blogging in India is the existence of a strong programmer community. As a result, there are a lot of blogs around coding and programming meant for a niche but well connected audience.

We are also fast moving past the stage where blogging used to be just a side job that went hand in hand with a full time one. Good examples of this phenomenon are Vikas Sah of Techncular.com who was the VP Technology and Head of Search at  Indigo Consulting and Ashish Sinha of Pluggd.in who left his full time job at Yahoo and took up blogging.

There are many others who are following their steps, but a lot of bloggers are still playing it safe by sticking to their full time jobs, given the uncertainty and the complex financial matrix of blogging in India.

Nevertheless, analysts feel that technology blogging, from consumer as well as enterprise perspective is only going to evolve and grow. So while there would be a lot of bloggers who would leave the blogging space as quickly as they entered it, some would be here to stay, and write all things related to technology.

mehak.chawla@expressindia.com