Metroblogging

Metroblogging is a phenomenon that has been gaining good popularity in the blogosphere recently. Bloggers from a city or town come together to write about the latest happenings and the specialities of their places. The Chennai metro blog was started this week and there has been quite a lot of activity so far. Mumbai is the only other city in India to have a metro blog. Surprisingly the IT capital of India is yet to have one.

But what is interesting is that three cities in Pakistan - Islamabad , Lahore and Karachi - have metroblogs and there has been a lot of activities seen in these blogs. To get a brief idea about the rate of activity, here’s a small list of metroblogs and the number of posts in each of them…

Mumbai - 127

Karachi - 1400
Lahore - 800
Islamabad - 300

Washington DC - 2200
Chicago - 1900
New York – 1200

Notice that Karachi has more posts than the commercial capital of the world, New York. No idea about the quality of the posts. What could be the reason for this stunning performance from the Pakistani bloggers….

Is it because there are a lot of tech savvy youngsters, or is it that these Pakistani cities have a very good internet penetration, or is it just that there are a lot of jobless people in these cities (just kidding).

Though these numbers do not have much significance, one thing which is certain that the Internet revolution (which includes internet tools like email, blogs, e-auction, e-shopping, web search etc) will have a major effect on the life of every man on earth and only countries that are able to quickly adapt to the Internet culture will be able to sustain decent growth rates and establish themselves as the super powers in the 21st century.

Metrobloggers are also involved in social activities. During the Hurricane Katrina, the metrobloggers of New Orleans gave first hand information (before any of the media channels) about the extend of the disaster and reported about the terrible state and the immediate needs of the people stuck up there.

The metrobloggers from Karachi and Lahore contributed to the relief operations during the earth quake in Kashmir.

Good Luck to the Metroblogging initiative and hoping to see Bangalore on the map soon.

Cheers,
Agent Pal