Now ExpressIndia Joins The Blogwagon

Blogs are hot, hip and happening in India. The Indian Express Group has launched “Express Blogs“, reports exchange4media. Employees of the Indian Express Group have started things off, and the posts are tagged and categorized. Readers can also submit posts, probably using the page titled Recommend Blog (why not ‘Submit Blog Post’?). User submitted posts will be moderated because, according to Mohit Bhakuni, Online Head, Express India, they want to avoid any frivolous posting since theirs is a “serious newspaper”.

Podcasting and webcasting are in the works. One thing I do like is that users can add posts to Del.icio.us, Digg and Yahoo! My Webs, which could get Express Blogs traffic. Users can also rate posts. Bhakuni adds that they plan to allow serious bloggers their own space at Express Blogs; a brief of good blog posts will also be published in the print edition. Express Blogs already have advertisements in place.
It’s been well over a month since I wrote about NDTV Blogs, and I think it’s time for a status-check. It looks like they never did implement moderation: the website is a complete free-for-all with random posts, copy-pasted email forwards and product plugs. All this fine for blogs, but at least full posts (114 lines) shouldn’t be on the aggregation page; that beats the purpose of aggregation. No ads have been implemented yet, and I’m wondering if this is an abandoned project. It’s still in Beta, though.
Related:
NDTV Launches Its Own Blogs In Response To CNN-IBN

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