LJ_India

mood: energetic

Hi All

We took our first step in meeting communities this past week, moving towards a bigger, better and more connected LiveJournal experience for its India users. We are all awake to what India seeks from LiveJournal. And with warm and enthusiastic support from our members, we can see ourselves realising this vision.

This weekend we got an opportunity to attend cyberabad's offline meet held in Hyderabad, which is mostly a monthly affair. I visited there, met a great bunch of Cyberabadis, and came back with a satchel full of ideasJ. They are a set of generous, inviting and fun-loving people. Thanks guys, I had a blast! Read Cyberabad’s update on the meeting here.

 Meanwhile, we got a dip into the pulse of Cyberabad, not to mention a heartening mix of satisfaction with what has been and zeal for whats to come. Some of the brilliant ideas that brewed include:

·        Generate inter-community activities – among those formed on similar criteria (e.g.: city based like delhi and cyberabad); as well as those with varied, albeit intersecting, interests (e.g.: theatre and cyberabad). This would lead to more conversations and help sustain the communities

·         Perhaps, offline meets as an idea can’t be generically applied, but offline-online inter-activity is a good idea. Also, offline engagement would give a better picture of the specificities of various communities. To work closely with the maintainers to understand the same

·         Introduce some posters/merchandise

·         Organise some contests; prize being paid accounts is a great idea!

·         If target audience is youth, focus on campuses. Organise LJ meets + merchandise around their central events (like annual fests). Have an online component to the event. Synergy between communities and events

·        Some influencers to set up communities. For instance, someone offered to promote PFA (people for animals) through LJ. If LJ takes up initiatives like these/tie ups; people would join in. Dual benefit and greater activity

·        RSS aggregator tool, greater search options, pop-up e-mail service, integrated feeds, friendlier voice-posting and the like to make LJ more user-friendly

 A number of suggestions made during the meet are now on the table, to be discussed and implemented. We are hoping to see some results soon as well!

If any of you are willing to connect with us as communities, face-to-face or virtually, we’d be more than glad.We’ll be thrilled to meet, thrash some ideas, and enliven this space more!

Any thoughts or responses to the above pool of insights? Leave us a comment below or on the survey here. We are intently listening J

Cheers

Manpreet

Team Blogworks for LiveJournal India