"AIDS FOR KIDS" Winning Entry for Week July 24-30, 2010

[Sly Salesmen. Image: flyyoufools.com]

I. WINNING ENTRY

Statistics:

Number of Blogs updated this week: 19
Number of posts read this week: 44

This is a bit of a side note, but if you'll notice, we just have one extra number of blog updated from last week. Instead of 18, we have 19 this week. And, here's the freaky part; it's same the number of posts as last week. What are the odds it would be exactly the same number?

Best Blog Post of the Week

Winning entry for the honor of Best Blog Post in Delhi's blogosphere for the week of July 24 Saturday - July 30 Friday, 2010 is:

"AIDS FOR KIDS" by Saad Akhtar dated July 26, 2010 at "Fly You Fools."

About the Post: The post is actually a comic strip. Saad takes on the subject of dirty sales tactics some store salesmen use to make you buy their stuff. In this particular comic strip, he takes the example of a toy store salesman who guilt trips a mother into buying some over-priced plastic toy that probably cost pittance to make.

Interaction between the salesman and the lady customer is too funny not to read.

What I liked most about the comic is how the salesman has several modes which he switches to every time one of is sales tactic fails. Hilarious.

[Note: Some might object to this post being a winning entry because Saad's comics get published in Hindustan Times. However, you should know that I have confirmation by the author that this specific strip was not published. Therefore it qualifies to be a winning entry.]

[Saad Akhtar. Image: FYF]

About the Blogger: [ I don't have much information about the blogger. So I paste the following text taken from the blogger's About Page.]

"The author’s name is Saad Akhtar. He is a New Media designer from the National Institute of Design. He works as an Interaction Designer with a software company in Delhi."

Runner-up

This week, like last, we had only one contending blog post for the top pick. And the runner-up is:

"Hurray for illiteracy" by Nimpipi, dated July 27, 2010 at "The Woodchuck Chucks"

The post touches on the issue of how locally produced products have error filled labels in English on it. Something I'm sure we're all familiar with. Nimpipi, relates a personal experience where she offers her writing services to one of her favorite product manufacturing companies and yet gets ignored. Definitely worth a read.

II. STATE OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

I'm afraid, this week we have nothing to report. It was pretty much a quite week as far as Delhi's blogosphere in concerned.

However, if you consider Delhi Speaks Like This Only to be part of Delhi's blogosphere, then I have a major announcement to make.

Public Service Announcement

It is with great pain that I have to inform you that this is most likely DSLTO's last issue.

I didn't think it would happen this fast but, I have happened to come upon a bigger project, which will require all of my available time, leaving none for this blog. I'm really sorry to say it.

I am about to start and run an actual paper of sorts. I can not tell you more about it because I'll be running it under my real name.

Now since I'm the only one running DSLTO as of now, I'm afraid there will be no one to scan and read Delhi's blogosphere to pick a winning entry for next week.

Position Open for Editor at DSLTO

If there is anybody who would like to take on the responsibility of this blog, I'll be happy to pass it on to you. Let me know if you're interested.

Maybe Next Week

If we get someone to run this blog by next week, then we'll come out with a new edition. If not, then just check back later sometime.

I believe the idea behind this blog is a good one. And if I ever get time, I'll start it back again. Just stay subscribed to know when that happens.

Although I won't be scanning and reading the entire Delhi's blogosphere from now on, I do however read many Delhi blogs, and I'll try to highlight good blog posts whenever I come across one, on my personal blog at Abdusalaam.blogspot.com.

Hope to see you there.

Hopefully, until next time, take care and Happy Blogging!

[Read our previous issues here: Winning Entries]

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Our First Winning Entry To Be Announced On Monday July 19 At 8:00 am

This is just to inform you that blog-post considerations for the week of July 10 Saturday - July 16 Friday, came to a close at mid-night. We will announce our winning entry on Monday July 19 at 8:00 am. (Well that's the plan for now at least.)

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Official Launch Date: Monday, July 19, 2010

[WE HAVE A LIFT-OFF. Image Via Flickr]

 Since we have stopped receiving submissions for blogs, we plan to formally launch this blog on the 19 July 2010.

Although the first winning entry will be posted on the 19, we will start monitoring the Delhi blogosphere from today Saturday, 10 July.

How it will work

The idea is that we will announce the best blog-post every Monday. However, we will review new blog-posts starting Saturday till Friday next week, and then announce the winning entry on Monday.

So to give you an example, the winning entry on coming Monday on July 19 will cover from Saturday July 10 till Friday July 16.

How Will We Choose

Now the big question some have asked is how will we make our choice? What will be our criteria?

To come up with the answer to this question, we had to ask ourselves a few related questions.

We asked ourselves, why do people read blogs? What sort of blogs people like to follow?

And in our opinion, people read blogs for two main reasons.

First reason is to learn something new. This is why blogs that offer information and knowledge on any given subject are the highest rated blogs on the net. Tech blogs like Gizmodo and Techcrunch have a large following because they offer the latest tech. information out there.

Similarly, political blogs like DailyKos and DrudgeReport offer analysis and inside news which makes them really popular.

Second reason is for pleasure. Reading for pleasure has many aspects to it. But blogs that offer entertainment are among the highest rated blogs. This is why TMZ and The Onion are among the highest ranking blogs on the net.

Besides entertainment blogs, people also read personal blogs for pleasure. Blogs that don't offer much information or entertainment, as we understand it, but they do offer voyeuristic pleasure. Since man is a social animal, we find it interesting to see how other people live their lives and try to relate to them. This is why so many of us read personal blogs.

However, personal blogs don't usually have a large following as compared to other kinds of blogs. Reason being I think, is because to follow a personal blog, a reader has to be able to relate to the blogger. If they can't, they just move on. And I don't think you can have a lot of people relate to a single person. This is why following for personal blogs are relatively small. And the reason I mention this is because most blogs we have on our blogroll are personal blogs. Blogs that don't have a defined theme. It's just whatever catches their fancy that day.

Since this aspect of reading for pleasure is the most subjective as compared to other aspects, it would be difficult to judge personal blogs objectively. However, since this blog is about Delhi Bloggers, bloggers who share something about their life in Delhi will get weighted higher.

So now that we know what most people like to read, we will choose those blog-posts which offer the most of these two elements: Information/Knowledge and Pleasure. Blog-posts which offer the most of the two elements we've mentioned, will be chosen for the blog-post of the week.

Although we will try to be as objective as we can, it should be obvious, the final decision will depend a lot on the personal taste and preference of whoever is doing the judging. We will try to explain our choice as best as we can.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our selection process, you can write to us in the comments section, or write to us at delhispeakslto[at]gmail[dot]com.

Do remember to subscribe to to this blog to receive updates. Subscribe box is situated on the top right-hand corner of this blog.

Spread the word.

Suggest A Blog

[Photo: Via Flickr (Kristina B)]

If you know of a Delhi blog which is not listed in our blog-roll and you think it fits our criteria for inclusion, then please tell us about it.

Special Note To Delhi Bloggers

Blogs you see on our list are about all the Delhi blogs we know of. If your blog is not on the list, then chances are we don't even know you exist. So whether you fit our criteria for consideration or not, tell us about your blog's existence.

Also, it is imperative your blog have a RSS feed in order for us to follow you in a RSS reader like Google Reader.

Leave the following information below in the comment section or simply write to delhispeakslto(at)gmail.com:

1. Your blogging name. 
2. Blog/Website Name
3. Website address/URL

Mission Statement For 'Delhi Speaks Like This Only' (DSLTO)

[INDIA GATE, New Delhi. Photo: Via Flikr, CC]

The objective of this blog is to scan the entire blogosphere of Delhi every week and then highlight/showcase the best, the most deserving to be read, blog-post.

Just one single blog-post in an entire week, every week.

It might sound like it'd be a difficult task to scan and read all of Delhi's blogosphere every week just to showcase one single blog-post, but right now, I believe it will not be that difficult.

To begin with, I do not believe there are too many of Delhi's residents who blog. And many out of those don't do it regularly and consistently. So, I'm quite confident we will be able to achieve our objective and be able to do it without much effort.

Criteria For A Blog To Be Considered

Only those blogs that are listed on this site's Blogroll will be considered and followed in our weekly assessment of Delhi's blogosphere.

And to have your blog enlisted in our blog-roll, a blog would have to meet the following criteria. (For the most updated criteria for inclusion go here -- Register Your Blog)

First, the author of the blog, aka blogger, must be a resident of Delhi. Resident in this context does not mean legal residency. All it means is that the blogger should be living in Delhi or its surrounding NCR regions; namely, Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad, for some reasonable span of time.

It also does not mean a blog will be disqualified from consideration if the blogger has temporarily moved to a different city outside of Delhi/NCR. As long as the blogger can be considered a Delhi resident, it will stay on our Blogroll.

Second, the blog must have been on the blogging scene for at least a few months with regular blog entries. (This rule is quite subjective.)

Third, there are some restrictions for inclusion based on the subject matter of a blog.

• Any business/company or commercial blogs will not be considered. In other words, if your blog is about promoting some product or service we can not consider it.
• Any blog that incites hate or violence against an ethnic/religious group will not be considered.
• Any blog that deals in the pornographic will not be considered.

For now these are the only rules that will be followed for a blog to be considered in our weekly review of Delhi's blogosphere. We're sure we haven't thought of everything. We'll add more as we go along.

I know these rules are a bit open to interpretation, but as they say, no rules are set in stone. We'll use them and modify them as need be. It's not like we're running a reputed international journal here.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can air them in the comment section below or write to us at delhispeakslts(at)gmail.com

(Note: For the most updated set of rules, please visit this link here -- "Register Your Blog")

Suggest A Blog

If you know a Delhi blog which is not listed on our blogroll, then please suggest it.

Launch Date

I'm still working on setting-up this blog which will take a few more days. Once I'm all done setting it up, I'll announce the official launch date.

Stay tuned...