R O N I Nammar yasir’s personal blog

Blogger Meet up’s are more than socializing with the pseudo intellects, free red bull and exchange of visiting cards. The advent of Web 2.0 allowed every internet user to easily set up its web blog and publish rants, ramblings and views without the approval of any editor. Some blog about their smelly cat or the latest web application covered in the mashable, a number of bloggers whine about their busy routine (letting it out of the system) while others force their expert political opinion on their readers. Blogger meet up’s allow these pseudo intellects (like myself) to sit under one roof and be in agreement to something for a change.

The latest episode of blogger meet up that took place on Friday March 6^th at Royal Rodale had a similar agenda i.e. activism. Majority of the bloggers that I have the opportunity to talk to started their blog after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination which implies to the sense of responsibility they felt as a citizen of this country. As the blogging culture got popular more and more people indulged themselves in the habit of blog reading and writing. But unfortunately they lost their aim n the way, and started writing about stuff that was more popular then blogging about something they felt passionate about. And unfortunately for the past 3 years politics is the most popular thing in the market. And writing about politics involves the suicide attacks, the insurgency in Sawat and Waziristan, the lawyer’s movement issue and the dysfunctional govt’s of Musharraf and PPP. So tragically speaking the Pakistani blogosphere almost became the replica of the main stream electronic media (Geo, ARY etc.)

I walked in late to the venue with Fariha, Munir and Saqib but luckily got the best seat in the hall. With Teeth Maestro on my left and Jehan Ara on my right I was feeling like a celeb already It didn’t took me long to feel the heat in the air, and the fact that like always Dr.Awab was the target of some non bloggers whose political sentiments got hurt when TM used his right to blog. What I learned that as far as you are non popular and non creative nobody cares if you even post private photos of Salman Taseer’s family. But if you have a following and you have earned that with your writing skills and creativity then you are bound to follow a ‘framework’ or a set of rules that will bound you to express yourself within certain parameters.

Highlights:

1.       Branding Pakistan, Googler Badar Khushnood shared some insightful experiences and emphasised on branding Pakistan on the blogosphere, every forum and especially in your daily life. Highlight the goods and correct the wrongs just not put a question mark on the bad things happening in the country and by pass them.

2.       Corporate Girls: Fariha Akhtar came up with the idea of starting a forum where she will highlight problems and achievements of working class women in Pakistan. I personally find it a very brave initiative as discussing some of the taboo issues can face some serious opposition but I am pretty much sure that constructive matters will be dealt and it will not be a television’s reality show.

3.       Tag places: Another good suggestion coming from Googles only man in the country Badar Khushnood. We all use google maps and similar web applications. Now its time to use these applications constructively by tagging your favourite hangout, local library, park, gym, ice cream parlour etc. I will tag Gulestan e Johars most famous Perfume Chowk

4.       Blogging is no rocket science: Blogging is not limited to wordpress or blogger. If you want to get your voice heard, podcasting is just the solution. But its the responsibility of us privileged to go out and spread the word and enlighten them of their rights and facilities that they can use to help.

5.       Resolution Time: Bloggers were requested to resolute their action plan for this year. Batool Habib resolute to promote Pakistani art and culture on her blog. Shahzad aka dehog floated the idea to put pictures of happy faces and beautiful places of the country, and allow the world to take a peek in the real Pakistan. I pledged to convert more non bloggers into bloggers at least 500 for this year.

6.       Pakistan.wikia.com: All bloggers will contribute to this site and will put up their resolutions on it. Usman Sheikh, a young entrepreneur decided to set up a wiki page to spread Pakistaniyat on the web.

7.       National PR Policy: Salaina made some interesting pointers and promised to roll out national PR policy that can serve as a roadmap for the authorities who are actually paid for this job I am personally looking forward to it.

There was a lot of talk that bloggers should do this and bloggers should do that, my suggestion to them is that if someone is not doing what you like, then there is no point to sit and whine but to contribute to the Pakistani blogosphere. Bloggers like Jehan Ara, Mohtashim, I. Faqeer, Kalsoom, Sana Saleem, Supe etc. have been doing that from day one. So newbies should visit these blogs and learn from the pros.

I would like to thank Rabia, Badar and Salaina (CIO and Google Pakistan) for pulling out another successful event. Wateen for the goodie bag and red bull for free red bull. And after the event we went to bowling alley for bowling. yay!

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What does the world out there think of an average Pakistani? Post 9/11 this question would have a very different answer but things drastically changed for the land of green we all call home. So what went wrong? Not any of the attackers in 9/11 were Pakistani. Osama Bin Laden was in Afghanistan at the time of the attack. Saddam Hussayn which was danger to United States was the President of Iraq and not Pakistan. For the past 8 years we ‘supported’ US in their war, we practically took back our stance on Kashmir and sincerely started peace talk with neighbour India. And despite incidents like Samjhota Express where a service office was involved in the Killing of Pakistanis, we hardly ever confronted the Bharat Sarkaar for their demanding role in this relationship. For all these years our president taught us the lesson of moderation and we tried not to be extremists and evolved as Enlighten Moderated Pakistanis Muslims (if there is such a term).

The above para might sound irrelevant to this post but it surely defines the time line in which the Pakistani blogosphere was born. So to understand the psyche of an average Pakistani blogger one needs to go and study the post 9/11 Pakistan. Last Sunday bloggeres from Karachi were invited to t2f (the second floor) to meet Nick Fielding who is associated with immediate.org.uk. Nick is a senior journalist, public speaker and co-author of Masterminds of Terror. As a senior reporter of Sunday times he covered the repercussions of 9/11 from Afghanistan.

The agenda of the meet up was to have a perspective on the use of technology and new media and how an average Pakistani is getting benefitted from it. He was amazed to find out that we Pakistanis have a growing network of bloggers. He knew about teabreak which came as a surprise to me. But this clearly reflects the quality of the blogs that are the part of our network. On his question of what an average Pakistani blogger thinks; my answer was; that an average Pakistani blogger is a patriot who scribbles its quill to show the world that this country comprises of hard working men and women who have nothing to do with terrorism or west perceived extremism. We don’t regard Taliban or Alqaeda members as our heroes nor find the US (drone) attacks and intervention in the country praiseworthy.

In the end we agreed to advocate blogism and found it obligatory to spread the word. It was encouraging to witness that an average powerless Pakistani blogger can actually help to improve country’s image; a duty which payed ministers and bureaucrats failed to perform.

Photo credits: Madam Jehan Ara

People who showed up at the event: Jehan Ara,Sabeen Mahmud, Mohammed Nawaz, Farzal Dojki, Munir Usman, Fariha Akhtar, Sahar Ali, Nick Fielding and RONIN

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From day one, Teabreak Network has worked not only to bring its users on one platform but to come up with solutions and features that make their blogging experience worth every dime. Teabreak made it to AlltopPakistan after a few months of its release and got its first TV review from none other then Ms. Rabia Gharib .

Teabreak has managed to establish a special bond with its users who have crossed the 674 figure most recently (ie 674 blogs have joined Teabreak’s extended network). It’s quite commendable that Pakistani blogging community is maturing and individuals from different walks of life have decided to raise their voice and share their point of view and everyday experiences.

As I have mentioned many times before that we are aiming to make Teabreak a whole blogging suite and in the process a lot of features and modules have been added in the past few months, all the credit goes to our development team Asim (co-founder teabreak) and Assad (the new kid in  the team )

Here is the glimpse of what we have been cooking for you guys:

Hot Tea (Teabreak’s Blogging portal)

• Blogs in Pictures (coming soon)
• Blog Feeds of  network added blogs
• Teabreak Box Office for video bloggers (coming soon)
• Micro Blogging Tool and discussion forum
• Hot Keywords

News Break (Pakistan’s first News-Mesh)

• News Break is a unique news aggregator that helps you visualize the ever-changing news scapeby using different color shades, font sizes and box size. E.g. the most recent news has the darkest shade.

Features and Services

• Morning Tea
• Twitter Tea Service
• Featured Section

Social Media

• Facebook
• Twitter

I am planning to write a series of post on each feature and how bloggers & blog readers can benefit from it.

If you want to promote your web-blog/site, would like us to review your blog/site/application or give your valuable feedback click on the link below:

To subscribe to our blog feed click on the link below:

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Its not that I vowed not to blog, but there are times in life when commitments or ailments in the real world take over your daily activities in the virtual world. Anyways a lot is going on in the real world like I have found new love in the face of table tennis, which I play a lot these days. And guess what I have improved my forehand. I also took a programming (VB 6) task at work which involves development of a very simple desktop application, but for someone who has no clue of swimming, even a 10 feet pool is huge.

In other news, I took an (unintentional) break from the internet; 4 days are like 4 decades for some one who has to regularly reply to the emails, twit (whine) his daily activities and tag fugly photos of close friends on facebook don’t you love bullying people on FB? I simple love it.

Last and most importantly teabreak development team have been working their asses off on some AMAZING new FEATURES & PORTAL that we plan to launch soon. So stay tune to my blog posts, twits and Facebook updates.

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