Talking Talking

Ever since people discovered the web, the web has been discovering people.

 Over the past couple of months, I’ve been living a second life… Engrossed in Social Media over the web. Connecting with real people, transcending geographical boundaries, learning a lot of things in the process, broadcasting my opinions, and acquiring a new set of thinking skills. Really, the journey has been fulfilling.

The First Steps

When did my first brush with the Social Web happen? It was three years ago, when I had started a blog on Blogger. Although I don’t remember the URL, what I do remember is that, at that time, I was wondering what to write, and I ended up abandoning the blog with no posts! First attempt… Unsuccessful.

Yet, I wanted to blog. But how? I started rajat-arora.blogspot.com in 2006, and uploaded all the contents of my small book, I Me Myself, to it. However, I wasn’t satisfied with the output and ended up deleting it. The link now points to somebody else’s blog. Second attempt… Unsuccessful.

 Quite recently, in 2007 I started another weblog, herespeaksthemind.blogspot.com, and used to update it – albeit for only some days (over a month, I think). The link is still active. You can pay it a visit and read the posts. Interesting? Umm… quite! Third attempt… Partly successful.

 What I can really say, is that with three failed attempts, I realized what blogging really is. I started to get a hang of things, and with each passing post, I got better. I have always loved writing, and blogging gave me a platform to make myself heard. (It was a pseudo-feeling though. Nobody was reading my blogs at that time!)

Why Only Blogs?

To tell you the truth, I was quite a layman at that time to think of Social Web in general. I knew about the Web going in a different direction with user-generated content, I had heard of the term Web 2.0, and I wanted to be a part of it. However, blogging was the only activity I knew about. I never dared to go beyond. I knew about Social Bookmarking Sites like del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Digg – but never checked them out. I knew about Social Networks like MySpace, Facebook and Orkut – but never created a profile. Neither did I venture outside sites like Yahoo! and Rediff. My online activities were limited, so I never learnt about new and upcoming, killer apps. It was a big, big mistake from my side.

On a Discovering Spree !

Another reason for my web-ignorance, apart from my reluctance, was the fact that I used to connect using Dial Up, which was expensive. The moment I got a broadband connection, I was hooked to the internet, and within no time I was on a discovering spree! I created profiles on the websites mentioned above, got on to Twitter and learnt to enjoy it (You can follow me here). Discovered BitTorrent and made use of it in full steam. Discovered SlideShare, YouTube, HowStuffWorks, eHow, TechCrunch, LifeHacker, ThinkDigit, … the list is endless. Broadband Zindabaad!

Yet, my most useful discovery has been that of Google Reader. 

Apart from writing to my blog, I have developed a passion for reading a lot of them, and I read them through Google Reader. At this point of time, I subscribe to more than 40 blogs, of various shapes and sizes [ read : blogs belonging to various niches. ] And I just love it! The first thing I check when I fire up my PC is Google Reader (yes.. Email is second priority!) Thinking Axe!, The DreamGirl Diaries, Weaving A Web, My Heroes, … these are some of the blogs on my must-read-list. Suddenly, there’s so much to read.!

Twit! Twit!

Ah.. how can I forget Twitter? When I discovered it in February, I did it purely acting upon some newspaper reports. When I signed up, I was at loss about what to tweet. Worse.. I did not tweet anything for two months.! Now, I’m a self-confessed Twitter Addict. Twitter is the place where I found out so many people to talk to. @maverick3400, @JMowery, @Aakriti, @baxiabhishek, @kapilb, @rahul286, … Again, the list is endless.

 What makes me love Twitter this much? Microblogging, of course!

Twitter is a channel of conversation. Twitter makes you answer the question – What are you doing? You answer it, and the world knows it. You can broadcast your mood. You can share some interesting anecdote. You can ask a question. You can disseminate news. You can share your joys, your sorrows. You can market your product. There are just so many opportunities for you to experiment. Twitter is an app the next-gen should be excited about.

If you look at Twitter’s Wikipedia Page, people and companies have been realizing the true potential of the service lately. Moreover, its social justice implications has left me dumbfounded. People are using it to get out of crisis situations, and even the American Red Cross is using it to share information about local disasters. Commendable!

By the way, why am I going elsewhere when a live example is here at home! When serial blasts rocked Bangalore and Ahmedabad, @baxiabhishek was tweeting the news reports live. And he did a great job with that.

Talking Talking

This weblog came into being on May 21, 2008, and I published my first post three days later. This is my fourth attempt with blogging, and I’m determined not to let it fail! This is my twelfth post here, and I can assure you that hundreds more are going to follow. 

Here, I blog about things I like, and things I care for. It is a personal blog, so I like to keep things personal. 

However, there is one first associated with this – Talking Talking is being hosted on my own server – rajatarora.info. I bought this domain name in March, this year. Self Hosted? Gives me a high! 

I bought a cheap Linux Hosting, installed WordPress (actually, at first I wanted to build this site in Drupal, and even installed – but common sense prevailed and I was back to WordPress!). Common sense? Well, I just wanted a small blog, and for that Drupal seemed to be overkill. (By the way, the way I’m using WordPress, even that is seeming to be an overkill!)

That’s for personal blogging. What’s next?

APS2.0

APS2.00 is my latest venture in the blogosphere. Though still on the drawing board, the first post is expected in a couple of days. APS2.00 will be focused about life in my college. And that includes academics. I shall post to the blog each and every thing I learn in college, plus some extras, if required. It will be an all-out-academic-blog, with content from subject like Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science.

Why such a blog? There are two reasons. First, that B.Sc. Applied Physical Science (the one I am currently pursuing from University of Delhi), is a bad course, and is drawing a lot of flak. In the middle of this, the students find it hard to study – there are very less books to refer to, and the course content is just too heavy. It will be a kind service to all people who study, or want to study, Applied Physical Science.

The second – when I write something academic, for a blog, I shall be making my own set of digital notes! I’ll just have to go through my blog archive while studying for a test! 

PS : You might have got the acronym, APS. But what about 2.0? Something to do with Web 2.0? No! I’m currently in my second year, so…

Yeah! The post is just too long…