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Saturday, December 31, 2005 |
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Two examples of blogs attempting to build community in India in completely new areas :
Start your query session: You have already completed the first
two steps and are now authorised to start posing questions to or
leaving messages for your preferred advisor, via a special tool. You
will see a response to your question or comment from your advisor,
within a short while. This form of communication,called ëbloggingí,
is private and only accessible by you or your advisoron our site. You
have to be registered on the site, to make use of this service and
start your own Private Blog with your selected advisor.
Ans. Blogging is a new and unique way of communicating. It
involves posting of messages by one person to another by way of sending
messages to a special message box called a 'blog'. It is like writing a
diary on the Internet and inviting others (or select visitors) to post
their comments on what you write. However, it is not to be confused
with chatting. This is because while chatting requires both parties of
communication to be online, 'Blogging' is just a special posting of
messages to another via the blog. For Ex ample. Mr. Prasad wants
to ask Mr. Kapadia a few questions, he accesses a blog with his user
name and password and types his queries on Monday at 7 a.m. Mr. Kapadia
can then access this blog with his own unique username and password and
reply to the same on Tuesday 5.30 p.m. This is a great initiative ... and the
potential to extend the use of this first-step private blog between
visitors and experts into a dynamic community of Insurance seekers.
This weblog has been created by the Dakshina Kannada Police with the
purpose of disseminating police news of the district to those
interested. Authentic and official information of DK Police will be
posted here regularly.
This is just an attempt to create an interface with the press and the
public at large. Your views and suggestions are welcome.
B.Dayananda IPS
Superintendent of Police
Dakshina Kannada District
MANGALORE
Karnataka
Ph: 0824 2220503 (O) 2220504 (R)
MOB: +91 94481 30100
Its
a good start ... I now hope they open comments and encourage dialogue
between the Department and the public. From this article in DNA India, where Mr. Dayananda, the initiator of the blog was interviewed :
According to the SP, the initial plan was to help save time and
resources involved in informing the media about cases and developments. However, after the launch, even the public has responded well. "The
routine process followed in issuing press releases is cumbersome.
Drafting, taking printouts and assigning one motorcycle rider to drop
these at newspaper offices becomes a hell of a job. Now with the advent
of new technology, we can reach everyone simultaneously. Even relevant photos are published on the blog," Dayananda adds. Police staff, working at the computer centre in the station premises, are trained to publish, modify and maintain the blog. Currently though, all matter on the site is being updated by Dayananda himself. Dayananda adds that since the SP is authorised to give information to the press, he didn't require prior permission from higher-ups to start the blog. "There was no difficulty in going ahead with the blog idea,
officially because the Karnataka government promotes e-governance in
administration," he remarks. The SP is hopeful of this trend catching
up in the state. When DNA contacted the higher-up's, Karnataka's Director General of
Police B S Sial said he was not aware of the existence of the
Dayananda's blog, but said that there shouldn't be any problem with it
so long as the blog disseminated genuine information to the public.
Great going I think! It is wonderful to see people using blogs
innovatively as a social tool in building community. The word 'blog'
features in many many publications in India these days. Over the
last couple of days, I've seen the word blog several times. The
Outlook in its New Year issue, (apart from an amazing cover story on Heroes)
has two articles by Jai and Amit, two of our most popular bloggers, on blogs and citizen journalism, which are truly balanced, and one from a skeptic, Peter takes to task.10:32:55 AM  comment [] trackback []
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Copyright 2009 Dina Mehta
