We have updated the Directory of Best Indian Blogs 2011-2012 today. We have used the same blog inclusion criteria as we used while compiling it in June 2012. You can see all our posts on blog directory compilation process here.
The ITB team is lucky to have discovered some blogs that are so good they can go straight to the Platinum Blogs' list. On the other hand, we have also given chance - as before - to blogs that have content of high quality but are new and with very few visitors and comments and a poor Google PageRank.
It is not that we have no issues with all the blogs in the Directory. Some do have ordinary designs, some don't have to care for design as they are on blogging platforms such as indiatimes, some have messed up navigation with amateurish experimentation... yet they excel in terms of blogging habit and content quality, and we found them of high overall value.
On the other hand, we had to ignore high quality blogs that tend to be irregular. In fact, in the last two years of compilation of the blog directory and rankings, some blogs have come in and gone out of the ITB listings because of their posting patterns. We are constrained to ignore blogs that habitually hibernate after some activity, however good their content may be.
We looked at nearly five hundred blogs and could select only 0.8% of them for the Directory. Let's share some of our observations during this shortlisting exercise.
'The talkative Indians,' as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen described us all, seem to be interested in talking about ourselves - our childhood, family, village that we have left behind, daily struggle, profession, even our lives after death.
Yes, we do have many good blogs on niche areas. Hats off to Indian food bloggers. They write their posts with a lot of care, take photos of their recipes and put them on the posts, are very regular and maintain the blog on and on. On the other hand, we have not noticed many good Indian fashion bloggers and bloggers on health aspects. Tech bloggers, though they have much more technical knowledge than a common blogger, tend to talk of technology without caring for the blogging aspect of it. A new crop of Indian travel bloggers is establishing itself firmly on the web. They work hard to create excellent posts.
As in the past, we have not seen many Indian bloggers monetising their blogs.
We had earlier observed that BJP politicians seemed to be better bloggers among politicians. Now that the first blog in the list of new directory entrants is from the Congress, we reserve our comments on that. Yet, we take the liberty to make a general observation: In India, politicians are still learning to use social media. It seems that the engagement through blogging and other social media platforms suits politicians who are in a position to comment freely while it looks risky to those in government? Contrast Modi, Advani, Mamta with Manmohan Singh / PMO, the new Tharoor.
The Directory now has 564 blogs. The following blogs have joined the existing list of prime Indian bloggers. Our felicitations to them.
The ITB team is lucky to have discovered some blogs that are so good they can go straight to the Platinum Blogs' list. On the other hand, we have also given chance - as before - to blogs that have content of high quality but are new and with very few visitors and comments and a poor Google PageRank.
It is not that we have no issues with all the blogs in the Directory. Some do have ordinary designs, some don't have to care for design as they are on blogging platforms such as indiatimes, some have messed up navigation with amateurish experimentation... yet they excel in terms of blogging habit and content quality, and we found them of high overall value.
On the other hand, we had to ignore high quality blogs that tend to be irregular. In fact, in the last two years of compilation of the blog directory and rankings, some blogs have come in and gone out of the ITB listings because of their posting patterns. We are constrained to ignore blogs that habitually hibernate after some activity, however good their content may be.
We looked at nearly five hundred blogs and could select only 0.8% of them for the Directory. Let's share some of our observations during this shortlisting exercise.
'The talkative Indians,' as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen described us all, seem to be interested in talking about ourselves - our childhood, family, village that we have left behind, daily struggle, profession, even our lives after death.
Yes, we do have many good blogs on niche areas. Hats off to Indian food bloggers. They write their posts with a lot of care, take photos of their recipes and put them on the posts, are very regular and maintain the blog on and on. On the other hand, we have not noticed many good Indian fashion bloggers and bloggers on health aspects. Tech bloggers, though they have much more technical knowledge than a common blogger, tend to talk of technology without caring for the blogging aspect of it. A new crop of Indian travel bloggers is establishing itself firmly on the web. They work hard to create excellent posts.
As in the past, we have not seen many Indian bloggers monetising their blogs.
We had earlier observed that BJP politicians seemed to be better bloggers among politicians. Now that the first blog in the list of new directory entrants is from the Congress, we reserve our comments on that. Yet, we take the liberty to make a general observation: In India, politicians are still learning to use social media. It seems that the engagement through blogging and other social media platforms suits politicians who are in a position to comment freely while it looks risky to those in government? Contrast Modi, Advani, Mamta with Manmohan Singh / PMO, the new Tharoor.
The Directory now has 564 blogs. The following blogs have joined the existing list of prime Indian bloggers. Our felicitations to them.
| arjunmodhwadiablog | Arjun Modhwadia |
| b00kr3vi3ws | b00k r3vi3ws |
| bbeautilicious | Be Beautilicious |
| bonnenutrition | Bonne Nutrition |
| easiestrecipes | mittoo cooking love |
| everydaygyaan | Everyday Gyaan |
| explainingindia | God Sucks |
| fashion-opolis | Fashionopolis |
| foreverfoodfantasy | From My Kitchen |
| gurcharandas | Gurcharan Das |
| hindicinenglish | Hindi Cinema Blog |
| indiadevelopmentblog | India Development Blog |
| indiasutra | India Sutra |
| indiawildsdiary | Diary - Tales from wild India |
| indyabeauty | Indya Beauty |
| kaarasaaram | Kaarasaaram |
| luciferhouseinc | Lucifer House Inc |
| mashedmusings | Mashed Musings |
| merinautanki | Super Nautanki ke nautanke |
| mindfiction | A beautiful mind!! |
| mycardclub | My Card Club |
| mytastycurry | My Tasty Curry |
| nisahomey | Cooking is easy |
| onecentatatime | How to be rich… |
| passey | Passey |
| rksinghpoet | R.K.Singh... |
| roughebook | Rough eBook |
| shalusharma | Travel tips to India |
| sharmispassions | Sharmi's Passions |
| shoooonya | …shoooonya… |
| speakbindas | SpeakBindas |
| tastyappetite | Tasty Appetite |
| the-shooting-star | The Shooting Star |
| thesongoflife | The song of life |
| tickertalksfilm | Ticker Talks Films Articles |
| tricksmachine | Tricks Machine |
| velsaoc | Vels Arena of Cricket |
| voiceofavillagegirl | Voice of a village girl |
| whenmysoupcamealive | When my soup came alive |
| wotthetech | WotTheTecH |
| yin-yang-india | The Yin and Yang of Life… |
Yay! I see my blog b00k r3vi3ws up there!!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys!!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteIt indeed is a pleasure to be listed! :)
Thank you so much! :D!
I have now added my email id in about me.
It was not easy to locate. I was lost too.
Yippie! Congrats. Glad to find your blog in this list :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for including my blog in the list of best blogs.
ReplyDelete--R K Singh
Thanks a lot for selecting my blog "Tasty Appetite", in this Best Indian Blogs directory. Its truly inspiring..!
ReplyDeleteThank you once again for your wonderful wishes..:)
Congrats to other selected prime bloggers too..!
Tasty Appetite
Thanks for including my blog in the Directory.
ReplyDeletehttp://explainingindia.blogspot.in/
I have the following thought ->
Does it make sense to bunch together individual blogs and organizational or mediahouse blogs?
I mean I am happy to be in a directory with other individual bloggers such as Purba Roy or MJ Akbar ... though again clearly Mr. Akbar is more like an institution in contemporary non-fiction or political commentary writing.
But what I am not happy with is being bunched together with Kafila.org or some automobile blog which has 25 contributors or something.
That's not an individual blog, is it?
May be you can consider two directories in the next iteration.
Just a suggestion ...
Keep up the good work.
Email: sachi.bbsr@gmail.com
Twitter: @sachi_bbsr
Thanks friends for visiting and making comments.
ReplyDeleteDear Sachi, we thought over this when we were first compiling the directory and then ranking Indian blogs. We found that it is not a black and white case; there are non-commercial blogs run by individuals, husband-wife, parent-child, friends, service colleagues, a small society, a big non-governmntal organisation and so on. So, we have not been able to draw a line to distinguish individual and collective blogs, and to discard collective blogs. Yet, when we find that a collective blog behaves more like a magazine or forum than a blog, we ignore it. Otherwise, we apply quality criteria for content, design and regularity, and take all blogs in that meet these criteria. Hope you empathise with us.
On maintaining more than one directories too, we'd be faced with the above dilemma. However, we already have a list of active Indian forums. We intend to bring out directories of best language blogs.
Thank you for adding my blog here. Feels great. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a much belated acknowledgement, but sincere thanks for including me in your list. I am honoured.
ReplyDelete