India is the land out outsourcing and it has many of the ingredients that are helpful for success in blogging. First of all, it is a country with over 1 billion people. Thousands of graduates come out of the Universities every year who are skilled in English language. Their expected salary is just a fraction of America or Europe. High speed Internet at an affordable price is available in most of the cities. India has a flourishing media industry: newspapers, TV channels, FM radios. So, the media culture is there. There is hardly any complain about freedom of expression as it is a democratic country. Still, there are very few successful bloggers in the country. In fact, except Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration, we know of hardly any other blogger from India who is very famous in Blogosphere. Just to be clear, I am talking about the bloggers who are now living in India not the bloggers of Indian origin living in USA or UK.
Here are some reasons Why So Few Successful bloggers from India:
1. The Language Thing: Blogging is something personal and many people love to write in their own mother tongue or first language. The main problem for Indian bloggers is that the language support for their mother tongues just came within the last 2-3 years. Before that, publishing websites or blogs in regional languages was very difficult.
2. Small Market Size: Two things to talk about here. First of all, suppose if you write in Hindi or any other Indian language, the market is very small in Internet. Earning money is a distant thing. Even finding enough readers will be a difficult thing. As a result, motivation does not come easily. The same way, writing about topics related to India in English language does not bring enough visitors or money either. Don’t believe me? Just tell me the names of 10 successful blogs on Bollywood and Cricket (I don’t need to remind you that these two things are like religion in the country).
3. Indian Traffic Does not Bring a lot of Revenue: India has a flourishing middle class and it has perhaps one of the top 3 largest economies in Asia. Still, e-commerce has not taken off in the country. In other words, not a lot of money is transacted online daily here. As a result, major Advertising programs like Adsense are not keen to give good revenue from traffic of India. In fact, Chitika even do not accept traffic from India.
4. Absence of Entrepreneur Mentality: I think that of all the reasons, this should come as number one. When you are in professional blogging then you are on your own. You have to take care of everything- from writing content to uploading, promoting and even finding advertisements. The reality is that for the first one year, you just have to dedicate and sacrifice without much return. So, there is a big risk and that is why, we can find that most blogs from India are not updated after sometimes.
5. Large Companies not Interested: I still remember the day when AOL decided to buy Weblog Inc for $25 million. That happened in 2005. Very few people in India at that time were active in professional blogging. I have never heard that big Indian companies like Tata or Reliance are keen on opening a blog network despite the fact that they can easily afford to invest a few million dollars in this field.
6. Traditional mentality by the old generation: Blogging became very popular among many US companies because they felt that with this medium, they can at last communicate with the customers or potential customers in a very easy and inexpensive way. In India, most decision makers in the big companies are in their 50s and I am afraid that they still have not been able to realize the full potential of blogging as an effective tool for customer service.
7. Blogging not the Attractive Career: India is not a rich country. In fact, most people here are poor. You can find poor people living just next to very posh buildings. So, career is a very important thing for most people here. Hardly any parents dream that their children become a blogger some day.
8. What is blogging: I guess that many people in the country still do not know what is blogging. The media hardly talks about it. People know more about entertainment and sports than blogging.
9. Absence of role models: It is like a vicious circle. Because there are not many successful bloggers in India, so, most young educated people are not willing to take the risk. As a result, there is not many success stories.
10. May be Outsourcing is the Villain: Some how I feel that most Indian educated people have become addicted to like outsourcing. They want that some American or European companies would outsource their works to them and they will earn some dollars. This has taken away the mental attitude of trying something on their own or competing against the American people.
Well, I have tried to put all the reasons here that I could think of. Do you agree with me?
By the way, if you are suffering from Writer’s Block then you can read this entry: Blogger’s Block: Some Tips about How to Defeat It
