Caught in the Crossfire!!

Me getting back to writing has had varying reactions from different people who have navigated to the site.  Some cant understand why I did it, and if there is any hope in writing a blog in the first place, when our time can be better spent ‘doing stuff’.  Others have been a bit more supportive.  Though I am not sure how much is lip service and how much is genuine.   

I think writing is not an ability that everyone possesses.  However, the emergence of blog and vblogs and mblogs etc, have provided people with the ability to stick their thoughts on the web without much rethink.  It does have its up-sides since we all get our release, but the downside is that it the whole thing starts looking a bit like a gutter with quiet a mishmash of thoughts going nowhere.  But then, not everything in life needs to run with a bottom line attached.  It can be a stagnant cess pool with no cross currents driving across them.  It can be bog that boggles the mind and the mindless.  Eventually, someone will find a business idea that can string these together and make enuf money to line someones bank account or a boat.  Little wonder that sites like Blogspot  and Youtube are going great guns.  

While writing may be for the active mind, the rest of the divided world needs to let some steam off too!!  During one of my chats with a friend on strategies to drive Internet traffic, he suggested that I should pose questions or queries for the reader to respond to.  According to him, everyone wants to be heard and want to give their opinion on everything under the sun.  This should have a cascade effect on site traffic.  I have been using Yahoo Answers, and it is exactly the same phenomenon.  I posed some random queries about Cameras, Golf, Relationships etc.  It is very interesting to see how the world at large reacts, and wants to be heard.  Sure enuf there is a business idea lurking there too.  Maybe sites like TrinTrin, Arzoo etc that wanted to get into Social/Open networking systems were ahead of its time and went under.  However, more solid business models like CollabNet are staying afloat.  As the CollabNet website boasts “Today, more than 800,000 developers and IT project managers use CollabNet to collaboratively develop software and deliver better products.”. Now that is a thought

Quite recently, one of my mentors, had a peek at my blog, and sent me a note in his rustic style (laced with the chosen expletives) While the note itself made interesting reading, he liked the fact that I am trying to retain my sanity thru this.  Indeed, it takes 10 minutes of the day to keep the system unclogged.  In case you still have doubts about the insane world, check the body copy of this advertisement from IBM  “In a world flattened by globalisation and collaboration, where the riptide of commoditisation threatens to pull us into a sea of sameness, the key to staying on top is to do something no one else does.To do something special.  That’s where IBM comes in….”  Q.E.D  (ROFL :) )