Monday, October 10, 2005

Blogs got balls, maan!

When the Jain&Jain versus Mediaah fiasco happened earlier this year, some Indian bloggers, including myself made a little noise about how big, bad Jain&Jain had bullied poor PM into shutting down his blog. And then when we discovered that we bloggers amounted to nothing much, we just carried on narrating tales of our rather insiginificant lives. Insignificant, because that was the term used in the first threat I got in a comment for this post. Well, not exactly the first threat, but because the other ones were made by Friendgirl in various states of rage, they can be ignored. Sure, I totally admit my insignificance in the grander scheme of things, heck I'm just a worker ant (who has a shitload of work to finish mind you). But, I do happen to have spawned from some rather significant blood.
I find the way IIPM's management (they're all rather petty guru's it seems) have taken on the Indian blogosphere very disgusting - some of the comments they have left on some posts are in extremely bad taste to say the least. However, this time round, the Indian blogosphere seems to have gotten some collective balls - thanks mainly to the fact that we do seem to have a rudder thanks to Desipundit. You will find a host of blogs which destroy piece by piece IIPM's tall claims to fame linked through this site - A would like to holler a big 'Thank You' to all the folks over at Desipundit, because I know many of you have regular jobs to do, and I'm not saying this because I want more traffic over here, but because I genuinely think you guys are doing a great job (funny threats to shut down blog would be welcome though!). Again if you notice the comments in my last post - Swati (this is a great post on her blog, by the way) has even questioned the credibility of some the claims made by AC's dad! Now, this has gone beyond the 'any publicity is good publicity' phase for IIPM. You know, if they had just kept quiet this matter would have passed right by, and tall claims would never have been questioned. I wonder if HT deleted that story (HT had a bad habit of deleting their web storage every two years) they had once printed in their Nation page questioning IIPM's placement record (Hey, how tough is a 100 percent placement record if you hire 50 percent of your grads yourself).
Some quick clarifications - Mr Management 'Guru' is one of the biggest buyers of ad-space in the mainstream media - he also is one of the biggest buyers of 'MediaNet' at Jain&Jain and paid features elsewhere - he however has nothing to do with the ToI Group or any media group for that matter, and he pays Sachin Tendulkar shitloads of money to endorse him and we know that Sachin has endorsed dubious brands (Hometrade) before (A cricketer endorse something out of the goodness of his heart?). The less said about his magazine the better - but in a recent advert they claimed circulation of 57,000 copies! I asked around at the Wheeler stores in Bombay train stations and they said that it hardly moves - and with some of the analytical gems they throw up, I really begin to wonder why, but 57,000 copies is serious circulation (Heck it would come close to out-circulating Business India) - I wonder what the multiplier here is (or is it like the 'Free Laptops') and I have never seen a single B&E correspondent at any presser till now. I should ask the PR trade how seriously they take it (Phone Call made, the person laughed at me, I think he is still laughing).
As I said I have a shit load of work to finish, so I'll take your leave. But I don't think this matter is going to sleep anytime soon. Keep up the threats and feel free to speak to my editor, if you know who he is.
EDIT : This blog might be a good read - the Times bit is false but the rest is pretty much readable. And so are the second and third parts of JAM's story.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

looks like u've taken the threat very personally ... K(ane) and A(bel) ... ;-)

Anonymous said...

ah k, i do wish this person would complain :)

Anonymous said...

Sorry for OT commenting, but I really dont have any other way to communicate with you

I've been admiring your writing ever since Shivam pointed me to your website, and I have a suggestion.

Your blog *desparately* needs a makeover/change of theme. The readability in its current state is very poor.

K said...

Thanks, Vulturo - Hmmm.. let me get a decent theme and work on the blog!
Cheers.

Anonymous said...

errr ... ummm ... K, u are famous now ;-)

cheers.

Anonymous said...

At Desipundit, we try and present the best of the Indian blogosphere. And that also implies dealing with issues that sullfiy the very nature of the blogosphere.

Thanks for your kind words. We appreciate the support.

Ash
www.desipundit.com

Anonymous said...

Came here for the firt time and yes, we all should support the good folks at Desipundit.

Anonymous said...

K, thanks a lot for the plug :)! And thanks for clarifying the matter with ponytail and J&J. Great series of posts by the way.

To digress a bit, it is almost impossible to get financial information on these massive privately listed companies. Apparently CMIE has a firm-by-firm analysis which you can pay to access.

Anonymous said...

Yes I agree all important news items of HT web disappear into oblivion after 14-15 months. Technical glitches or loose ends -- the web team is equally hassled about it.