More power to the bloggers in 2012!

2011 has been a wonderful year and I am extremely elated to write the last post of this year. As I type, I am re-collecting the wonderful moments that we have experienced in this year. We started with opportunities for bloggers to get published in two different editions of ‘Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul‘. This was followed by our association with Encyclopaedia Britannica where Indian bloggers got a chance to be featured on the official Britannica blog. I am pleased to say that many talented bloggers were noticed by a large audience, when their posts were featured on the official Britannica blog.

Thereafter we announced the next step for Bloggers Social Responsibility. This program is close to my heart and was started with the aim to help the NGOs reach a wider audience, with the power of the blogosphere. I would earnestly request you to atleast publish one blogpost for the NGO of your choice, if you haven’t done so as yet. If you do two posts a month dedicated to one NGO each, it will eventually help 24 NGOs in a year! From child labour to corruption, and from green living to services for the mentally challenged, more than 40 NGOs are seeking blogging support. One post is all they need from you, and I feel, you, my friends can surely do this.

Book Reviews program is the next best thing to have happened in the Indian blogosphere. Close to 40 books, in 8 months of its introduction, have been given away for review, and hundreds of bloggers have received books for free. Sponsored Reviews received a great response, with many people showing interest for reviewing products. We are working to make this program more streamlined. In late 2010, we had come up with BlogAdda’s completely new avatar. We celebrated a year of this new look in 2011. Did you know that we have top stories featured on our homepage across a few categories and are loved by many? We have been adding many new smaller features under the hood. If you have not logged in to your account lately, I would advise you do. You’ll find that you can create lists with your favourite blogs, make new blogger friends and say hello to new friends on their personal shoutbox! As part of this new look, we had started featuring new bloggers on our homepage, and rightly called them Notable Newbies. It gives me immense pleasure to announce that the wonderful team at BlogAdda picked up brilliant new bloggers and showcased 100 Notable Newbies. Many appreciation mails by these bloggers were received by the team and all of us were ecstatic.

While we featured these 100 newbie bloggers and continue to do so, many wonderful bloggers were interviewed by us. We have interviewed over 100 wonderful bloggers till date, and they continue to inspire everyone of us. They are brilliant bloggers and are responsible for what Indian blogosphere is today. Many popular bloggers of various categories like food, technology, personal, political commentary and so many other bloggers who write on different subjects are interviewed at BlogAdda. I am also proud of the many associations and tie-ups of BlogAdda. Our association with MTV Roadies allowed bloggers to exclusively witness their auditions in six cities in India.

Twice every week, our team reads hundreds of blogposts, picks the best from the blogosphere and publishes them in form of Tangy Tuesday and Spicy Saturday picks. A very important part of this feature is that, you need not necessarily submit your post to get selected. The Indian blogosphere is packed with brilliant stuff and BlogAdda took the next step in promoting them. We decided to promote even more posts on our social media channels, which were again handpicked by the team. Close to a thousand posts were promoted on our Social Media Channels this year.

We remember smiling at #perkytweets edition, enjoying the process of choosing best blog posts in the form Tangy and Spicy picks, piling up books in our office and dealing with different courier companies for Book Reviews program and handling appreciation & complaint mails, in this fun packed year of 2011. This year has been wonderful in the history of BlogAdda. I assure you that we will continue to present you with many new and beneficial initiatives. You have been an awesomely supporting community of bloggers, and we hope you will show the same support and enthusiasm going forward. I alongwith the BlogAdda team end the year, with the last post of 2011.

I want to thank the wonderful team at BlogAdda who come up with some awesome ideas and execute things with very little notice. I’m so happy to have a dedicated team who thinks about the blogosphere the same way as I do. Kudos to you!

We have some brilliant things lined up and are looking for awesome people to have in our team. If you are interested to work with us, you can write to me personally at nirav@blogadda.com. Heck, even if you are interested to volunteer or take up some role in leading the Indian blogosphere or have ideas on how we can move forward, do write to me. I will be waiting to hear from you.

At this onset, I and the entire team at BlogAdda wish you a very Happy New Year! Keep Blogging! 🙂

Regards,
Nirav Sanghavi.
CEO, BlogAdda.com