Where are the Indian bloggers lagging?
Style by Kling is Scandinavia’s largest fashion blog that was established in 2007 and is run by Elin Kling. The success of the blog did not only win Elin several awards, but also got Elin, her own TV show! Tavi Gevinson started her blog, Style Rookie at the age of 11. She also appeared in the The New York Times and currently has more than 50,000 subscribers on her site. Scott Schuman is the founder of The Sartorialist. He has appeared in many ad campaigns for magazines like GQ, Vogue Italia, and Vogue Paris.
That’s it about foreign blogs; now let’s talk about India’s blogging scene. With more than a million people, can we name at least five eminent bloggers in any field such as finance, architecture, culture or history? Blogging is a medium that directly connects with people and is a great way to get instant online feedback. It makes interaction quick and reliable. Then why aren’t the Indian audiences making full use of it?
Gurcharan Das, the author of international bestseller, India Unbound stops to think for a moment. “People are so used to reading articles in magazines or newspapers that the transition to reading it online, regularly is yet to take off,” he says. Allegiance to mediums like newspapers, letters or magazines are not the only culprits. Satish Kantheti, joint MD of ZEN Money explains that the slow growth can be attributed to the unavailability of the internet. “In comparison to other countries, only 7 per cent of the population has access to the Internet. Forget that, only 24 per cent have bank accounts, while the rest don’t. Hence, it’s easy to explain this phenomenon,” he says.
Designer Anamika Khanna agrees, but goes on to add that blogging will be huge in the near future. “I won’t say that it’s non-existent, look at Bandana Tewari for instance, but I must admit that its growth is slow,” she says.
Not just Internet penetration, blogging is also new and has yet to establish firm roots. “Take online shopping for instance; people in India would never shop online a couple of years back. One needs to give it time to evolve,” says Pernia Qureshi who styled the characters in Aisha, starring Sonam Kapoor. She further advices aspiring bloggers that as long as you have acute design sensibilities and an articulate writing style you can be a blogger any day. It’s time for the present generation to welcome this means of communication with open arms. Who knows you might end up like Elin Kling herself.
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