Friday, September 12, 2008

R.I.P. Indian Tech Blogosphere

Have I missed something?

I mean.. I have been reading Alootechie.net, ContentSutra.comMedianama.comPluggd.in, StartupDunia.com, WATBlog.com, Webyantra.net every single day on my feed reader. All of them claim to cover the Startup / Online Media / Internet / Web 2.0 space.


And yet, not one of them has blogged about the TechCrunch 50 event (Sept 8-10, '08) or the Demo '08 Conference (Sep 8-10 '08). These are the Sundance and Cannes for Internet / Dot Com Startups. You had some of the best startups demoing at these events - more than 100 of them. These startups showcased products and technologies that will be shaping the future of the Internet. But no f#$%ing coverage in the Indian tech blogs?

The best part is that TechCrunch 50 (the better of the above 2 events) was streamed live over all three days. Anyone who saw it would have been inspired. The startups demo'd in front of a 1500+ audience and were judged by top executives from Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, Thomson Reuters, Charles River Ventures, Clearstone Venture Partners, Fenwick, Founders Fund, Mayfield Fund, Sequoia Capital, and more. I still don't get it... how could anyone in the Internet / Tech space be completely ignorant of something as big as this?

Merely publishing Press Releases and writing about where their friends in the Industry have moved would be an accurate job description for the guys writing at the Indian tech/online media blogs I have mentioned above. I can't help but declare that the Indian technology blogosphere is dead. R.I.P. They would do well to create a memorial of their blog at Footnote - Facebook for the deceased (BTW, that was one of the many interesting startups that demo'd at the event).

P.S.: Even the Apple conference (during the same time) announcing the launch of the new iPod was not covered anywhere.

6 comments:

Yash Asher said...

I agree completely. Despite TC claiming that a significant % of their traffic coming from India, I still think the market has not reached any sort of maturity at all.

I would call this sector thoroughly unorganized.

Great job with you coverage! Keep'em coming!

Nimish V Adani said...

Yup, I think there is ample space for a good tech news blog - just on the basis of the quality of stuff on these Indian tech blogs. Pluggd.in seems to be the best of whatever exists but even they seem to be going the Alootechie and Contentsutra way.

Priyanka Dalal said...

How did you find out about Tech Crunch and Demo??

Nimish V Adani said...

i got to know about techcrunch pretty much when it started... 3+ years back... i had just stepped into the internet space then and was trying to dig and read up everything about startups to point me towards the trends.

demo i started following because of my interest in a startup called riya.com (now operating as like.com)... while there was a lot of talk abt them on the blogosphere they first demo'd their product at the demo conference 2-3 years back...

Nikhil Pahwa said...

Nimish: I just came across this post, and wanted to clarify MediaNama's position on this: we don't cover TechCrunch50 or Demo. The startup ecosystem is not a part of our current focus, nor was it when you wrote this post. We're limited by the resources at our disposal, so we've refrained from covering this segment, choosing to focus on larger businesses. You may disagree with the choice, but that's what it is.

Before clubbing all the sites together as you have, please realize that each is different. MediaNama has identified its content focus, limited as it is. We'd rather do a few things well than try to be everything to everyone. It's naive to say that we're ignorant of these conferences, or the iPhone launch.

Frankly, I'm quite offended by your description of "merely publishing press releases and writing about where their friends in the industry have moved". If you've read our site, you'll know that we do more than that.

Nimish V Adani said...

Hi Nikhil, apologies for putting Medianama in the same bracket esp. when it comes to coverage of Startups. I made certain wrong assumptions about the direction Medianama would take when this post was written. The content on your site has obviously proven those assumptions wrong.