Lahore Bloggers Meetup - Sunday, November 23, 2008
Time: 3:00pm - 6:00pm
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), DHA Lahore, Pakistan
Auditorium SC-4 (adjacent to super store), LUMS, DHA, Lahore

Host:

LUMS IEEE Students Chapter
(in collaboration with CIO Pakistan & Google Pakistan)

Management: Khurram Amin, Adnan Ali, Badar Khushnood

Event InfoHost: Pakistani Freelancers

Type: Meetings - Informational Meeting

Network: Global

Goals:

Socializing offline & sharing the secrets to earning online!
Who Can Benefit From Blogging?
Students: Discover how you can earn your own pocket money.
Housewives: Learn how you can earn & support your family while staying at home.
Professionals: See how you can enjoy a second income while still doing a full-time job.

Event Summary:

The idea was to encourage Internet users & bloggers to meet offline as well. Senior bloggers got a chance to share knowledge & experience. New wanna-be bloggers could learn from the local success stories and network with leaders & professionals in this field.

Success Stories:

Sizlopedia.com (Saad Hamid)
Pinkwool.com (Maryam Nasim)
Sizzledcore.com (Haris Nadeem)

Facilities:

WiFi connectivity; live blogging, twitter, etc.
Give aways from Google Inc. and CIO.

My Views:

From the morning I was very excited about the event. I tweeted a bit also about that where I caught Adnanbwp tweeting there too. Infact I saw some Pakistani bloggers using Twitter. I was in doubt however that there would be discussion at Pro-Level Blogging. I was not wrong yet altogether it was worth gathering and listening to the success stories and watching others having the same passion of Blogging.

12 Things That Amazed Me

1. 2nd ever Meetup in Pakistan arranged over just a Facebook message 3 days prior to the event date.
   Just before 3 days at Face Book this meetup was called and around 100 bloggers from Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad Pakistan responded immidiately, tweeted, blogged, spread the word and arrived in time to attend the meeting.
2. Friends can not sit together.
   This thing really amazed me. As the meeting started, Mr. Badar asked us to split up randomnly because the whole idea was to mix up and get connected with each other and build community rather than just sitting with your friends and listening.
3. I never knew before, that people of Pakistan (including young and aged) could be so much enthusiastic about blogging.
4. There is large number of community of non-bloggers folk using Social Media websites in Pakistan.
   I met a person who told me that he used Twitter and never been a blogger.
5. I realized the potential of blogging using Blogger.net
   WordPress is used for blogging platform widely known comparetively but there is huge potential and own benefits of using Blogger.net as a blogging platform.
6. There are some people in Pakistan who never cared about earning from blogs even they are doing it for past several years out of passion.
7. Twitter was discussed and named widely.
8. Managing 115 blogs
   A lady who was the author and managing around 115 blogs altogether.
9. Earning $1000 US Dollars per month with blogging and Adsense.
   A Really young student who just cleared his 10th grade, was introduced who was earning round about $1000 dollars per month by blogging.
10. The guy who was managing and promoting blogging, never run a blog in his life long and he never knew enough about Adsense either. i.e. How many ads we can place at single page?
    (I hope this will finally bring him towards blogging, If he reads this...)
11. WordPress or Blogger
    This meeting was sponsored by Google and meant to promote Blogger.net but almost all the successful bloggers and major success stories came from the bloggers who choosed WordPress as a platform.
12. A ten years of age little girl was there to have some information about blogging.

What Actually Was Discussed?

1. Blogging and how to start earning from it?
2. Tools for professional blogging! (Blogger.net, Google Analytics, Adsense)
3. Twitter
4. Adsense
5. Other Ads Networks
6. Social Media Websites
7. Money Transfer Ways

1- Blogging and How to Start Earning From It?

Blogger.net was choosed to spread the word of blogging. WordPress was not discussed at considerable level. Different successful bloggers shared their success stories. Following points were highlighted:

• Making money by blogging is possible but there is no shortcut.
• Find Your Audience.
• Thankless hardwork (and sleepless nights).
• Be patient and stick with your goal.
• Gather ideas for the content.
• Write original content.
• Socialize with other bloggers.

2- Tools For Professional Blogging! (Blogger.net, Google Analytics, Adsense)

Different tools were discussed and were displayed in action.

3- Twitter

People were more enthusuastic about Twitter rather then blogging.

4- Adsense

A very important issue was discussed about Adsense there.
A person asked:
Why the user will click at ads at all when he/she is there for your content and you have provided or given him enough.
This question was answered as Google serves Contxtual Ads based on relevancy of content. It means that Ads appear according to your content. You have written something, and Google serves ads relating to the products which are relevant to your content. That means user will have more options to browse related with your content.

5- Other Ad Networks

• Kontera (Click based ads network)
• Tribal Fusion (Impression based ads network)
• Review Me
• Symmetry Ads (Local Pakistani Ads Network)

It was told that Google allows other ads network to use with it for a website. (I would like to add that you should describe it plainly that these are advertisements where you use other ads networks and also have a privacy policy page ready and there include your ads policy too to users of website i.e. explain user about cookies and other information which ads network gather in order to serve ads at your website.)

6- Social Media Websites

Social media websites were discussed i.e. Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Stumbleupon but Twitter was foremost.

7- Money Transfer Ways

Almost every ad network allows Money Cheque way of money transfer but that is very slow process here. Paypal is other option which is not available for Pakistanis bloggers, so a suggestion of BankWire money transfer using a bank account was made for the ads network which does not allow Western Union either. There is Adsense which allows Western Union yet. WU is the very fastest way of money transfer so far.

What Should Have Been There, Included and Discussed?

1. WordPress
2. Adsense (How it works)
3. WiFi internet connectivity (nobody knew the proxy settings, we could not bring the event live...)
4. People were hesitant to communicate and mix up (It was second meetup in pakistan, People are still not much familiar)
5. Nobody wore profile badges and nobody was carrying his ID or Profile cards (including me).

Final Words:

We must keep our hopes high and prepare for the next more enthusiastic meetup. Although this meetup was not a failure. The aim was to promote blogging via blogger.net. If you name blogging and are not mentioning WordPress then, my friend, you gonna miss something huge. Its like a Pizza without cheese. Can you imagine that? There are bloggers including me, who would die for WordPress. We like blogger.net too. Infact I am gonna start a blogger.net blog right away. I am inspired and motivated by its potential described by Badar Khushnood. But we love WordPress. Does not matter we loose our Adsense accounts for loving WordPress. Does not matter we do not get any reward for blogging. WordPress is a passion like Blogger is itself a passion for some people. Blogging is a passion. It is not for money. It is not for fame either.

Anyways thanks Google, Thanks Blogger, Thanks LUMS Pakistan. It is beginning of new journey for Pakistani bloggers.

In The End

And did I mention that there was TEA in the end.

PS:
- I mentioned this event in a light and critical way. Comments are welcomed.
- Original Photo Album of event is here.
- There might be some visual situations which only people can guess who were present at the meetup. If you are not getting something above, ask here?
- Lahore Bloggers Meetup review at MetBlogs

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