Bliss

11th April 2010 was my first day in Hyderabad ever! Seriously, I have never been to Hyderabad before. I was there for the UniverCell Hyderabad IndiBlogger Meet. It was a huge gathering and needless to say that it was a super hit!

Every blogger who is writing a review has used this awesome picture at the beginning of their post. Can’t believe we did not think of this in the earlier meets.  Mostly all the meets end up late and everyone is in a rush to leave, but this time we were able to finish exactly within the schedule. Unfortunately UniverCell’s core team was not able to make it to the meet, but they were prompt in sending their representatives with various mobile phone models  for the Official UniverCell blogger contest. There were some really interesting phones from HTC, Sony, Samsung etc.

As usual, Indiblogger we started the meet with yet another Hitler video. Only this time, Hitler came for the meet but couldn’t stay. That’s a video you can’t miss. Will provide a link once uploaded in Youtube.

I don’t want to bore you on how the meet was because you might already know that it was awesome or you can see that lots of bloggers have already covered the entire event multiple times here.

UniverCell has clearly understood the power of blogging and they have decided to be a part of the community. Whats even better is that they want to engage with the community well and they have huge plans to achieve it. They are running a contest to choose the best mobile blogger to be their “Official UniverCell Blogger“. Beat that!

They had launched their blog http://univercellblog.in in their previous meet at Chennai. Their blog was showcased in this meet too. There were about 8 mobiles on display for bloggers to experience them so that they can go back and write about them to become their official blogger. The Venue was good, it was Fortune Select Manohar and the crowd was awesome but the food was not really that great. I actually didn’t like the combination that was available. Mini Burgers, Dahi Balla and Jamuns.

It would have been awesomer if Ramesh from UniverCell was able to make it to the meet, as “Message from the sponsors” was the only one missing from the agenda. However he was unable to come as his mother was admitted in the hospital. We wish she gets well soon.

Finally, we also managed to take a picture of just the Indiblogger team at the meet once all other photo sessions were over.

I almost forgot, there were quite a few people I saw were willing to work with the Indiblogger team in organizing meets like these and may be more. It was really wonderful to get that kind of support from the bloggers. Indiblogger team is trying exactly that to connect more bloggers with brands like UniverCell and connect both the community and the brands. After all Bloggers are the best evolved marketing force yet!

UniverCell IndiBlogger Chennai meet was held last Saturday at GRT convention center and the more people than you know already know and already blogged / tweeted / buzzed etc about it. So instead of adding to the same thing I’m going to focus on the main purpose of that meet.

1) UniverCell as we know is the biggest mobile chain in India and they are expanding like a blob.

2) They want to connect with the community directly and be a part of the ever growing social media crowd.

Now there are lots o companies these day going the social media way to engage themselves with the community. And as for UniverCell is concerned, they are coming up with some serious plans for the community.

Now ever since the beginning days of blogging, bloggers evolved and there cam a time when people wanted to blog full time. People work, come back home and rant about their work on their blog! If they are happy then blog, if they are sad, they blog, if they had sex, they blog… my point is that people love blogging. So how good is it if you can be a full time blogger? You get paid to do what you love! Now that’s a dream job.

Ever since monetization of blogs cam into the scene, lots of companies started using bloggers to market their product. And as you might already know there are more than one ways to earn from your blog. Ads, guest posts, banners etc… Some (including me, briefly though) even fell for the concept of getting paid for each post where I write about something that I have never seen or used in my life, just because I can make $20 per post. Anoop used to call it spamming your own blog! Now why would you want to do that. I have written about holiday packages that I have not a single clue about. Anyway… but to be an official editor of a brand where you be the voice to the community and blog about what you actually love is something else!

Now that’s the opportunity that  UniverCell is providing to the bloggers across India. In the meet, they passed on 6 different models of mobiles and asked the bloggers to review the phones. And the best reviewer wins the opportunity to become the official full time blogger for UniverCell! Ain’t that sweet?

So I’m all geared up to choose one of these phones and review the hell out of it. Haven’t decided which one I’ll choose yet, but I’ve started my homework. Once you have written about it you can submit it at IndiVine for the UniverCell & Indiblogger team to judge. UniverCell has also started their own blog. We can keep a track of what they are into right there.