Indibloggies ~ Indian Weblog Awards

Indibloggies 2005 ~ Meet the Sponsors

Sponsors are integral to the theme of Indibloggies. They enable us to reward the winners with token gifts. More than anything else, this signifies to me the ethos of the Internet in general and the blogdom in particular, the intent is the key not the value of the award. Past events have seen fellow bloggers donate prizes, infcat the debut event had no awards other than those coming from the blogdom itself. The theme of collaboration is so rampant in the event, and I am not referring to the bogus voting, that happens ;), even those who donate their commercial products know that this is not perhaps an apt platform for advertisement, yet they go for it. To me this sounds just incredible.

Following people have agreed to be associated with the Indibloggies 2005 event (additional sponsors and details would be appended as and when we get them)

• Dr.Vivek Kochikar has donated Rs.2500/-
• DiFolders Software would be giving away one copy of BlogJet weblog client worth $39.95 each, to the winner of IndiBlog of the year, Best Photo Blog, IndiBlog lifetime achiever, Best Topical IndiBlog and Best New Indiblog respectively. BlogJet is a weblog client for Windows that allows you to manage your blog without opening a browser. Thanks Dmitry for pitching-in this year too
• Jitendra Chaudhary has agreed to bear the postage costs for shipping the award books
• Cory Doctorow would donate 2 copies of his new book: Someone Comes to Town, Someone leaves Town. Reviewers say magical realism and literary iconoclasm is abound in this novel and that should appeal to fans of experimental fiction in a near-future setting.
• Anita Bora: Prize details follow shortly
• Ganesh of Rupya.com would award Rs.500/- to the winner in the best designed blog category.
• Amit Agarwal, author of Digital Inspiration would award Rs 500/- to the Best New Indiblog.
• Venky Krishnamoorthy would give away a copy of the book “Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers” by Robert Scoble & Shel Isreal” to the Indibloggies Lifetime Achiever.
• Dilip D’Souza will give away a copy of the book “At Home in the World : Collected Writings from The Wall Street Journal” by Daniel Pearl to the best Topical Indiblog. Pearl was a reporter who loved the truth. His acceptance and tolerance of differences among people garnered him respect from his colleagues and a position as bureau chief of the South Asia division of the Wall Street Journal. Kidnapped and viciously murdered in February 2002 by Islamic extremists in Pakistan, Pearl gave his life for the values he held as a journalist and as a humanitarian. This book is a memorial to this courageous man.
• Sakshi Juneja would donate 15 T-Shirts to winners in various categories. The T-shirt will carry a custom slogan that will be decided later. Don’t forget to take part in the T-shirt Slogan competition and Win one for yourself.
• Microsoft India would give away a copy of Windows Mobile based smartphone worth Rs.19000/- to the winner of Best Science/Technology IndiBlog. A Windows Mobile-based Smartphone integrates PDA-type functionality into a voice-centric handset comparable in size to today’s mobile phones. Windows Mobile-based Smartphones are designed for one-handed operation with keypad access to both voice and data features. They are optimized for voice and text communication and allow wireless access to Outlook information and encrypted browsing to corporate and Internet information and services. Thanks Deepak for making this possible for the consecutive year!
• Microsoft India would give away a copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition worth $299 to the runner-up of the Best Science/Technology IndiBlog category. Visual Studio 2005 SE is a comprehensive, high productivity professional development environment for building high performance, multi-tier applications for Windows, Web, and common consumer mobile devices. Thanks Deepak.
• Shail would present the following three books published by Penguin India to the winner of the Best Indic Blog (Hindi) category: Shakuntala: Smriti Jaal by Namita Gokhale, Jannat aur Anya Kahaniyan by Khushwant Singh and Hamara Hissa, a collection of stories edited by Arun Prakash.
• Marathi Blog Vishwa would give away one copy each of P.L.Desphpande’s Marathi books Poorvarang and Apoorvaaii to the winner of the Best Indic blog (Marathi) category and another P.L.Deshpande Marathi book Jaave Tyanchyaa Deshaa to the runner-up.
• Indibloggies would present several copies of other books to winners of various categories. Details follow later.
• Kiran Kumar Chava would award Rs.1000/- to the winner of the Best Indic Blog (Telugu) category.
• Amit Gupta will award the winner of Best Indic Blog (Hindi) with 1 year registration for a new .IN domain(worth Rs.750).
• Whizlabs, provider of IT certification exam preparation and skill assessment tools, would offer 3 copies of their Exam Simulators to top 3 winners in the Best Science/Technology IndiBlog awards category. The winners can enjoy the world’s first simulator with ISO 9001-2000 assurance. Whizlabs provides an unconditional test pass guarantee on all its offerings.
• Web1 Solutions would give away two 25 MB hosting package worth Rs.1000/- each to the winners of the Best Sports and Best tagline categories. Web1 is a Mumbai based Web Solutions Company dealing in development of Web Sites, Web Designing, Web Hosting and Search Engine Optimization. Their US based servers are protected by Firewall and DDOS protection. Daily backups are taken to ensure the security of the data, for better security they ensure encrypted remote backups of the data twice a week. More information here.
• Seth Godin will give away three copies of his book “The Big Moo : Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable” worth $19.95. Godin worked with thirty-two of the world’s smartest thinkers to answer the critical question “What does it really take to make your organization remarkable?”

Thanks so much to all of you.

November 14th, 2005 | Sponsors