Indian mainstream media has dicovered blogs. And there's a blog rush. Everyone and his publisher are launching blogs.

News channel CNN-IBN was the first to launch blogs on its Web site IBNLive. The channel was a late entrant in the crowded news segment and needed to stand out. It did so by championing the concept of "citizen journalism" and embracing new media wholeheartedly. Almost all the content posted in the IBN Blogs section are made by CNN-IBN employees.



NDTV, the other tech-savvy channel, followed by launching its own blogging site. NDTV Blogs is a blog hosting site where the general public can register and post. But the posts are moderated before they can appear on the site. I could not find any blogs by NDTV employees on the site.



Another news channel, TIMES NOW (Times of India and Reuters joint venture), has its blog called NOW BLOGS. The blog posts are written by the channel and readers can only comment on those.

Like the TV channels, Indian print media, too, has a decent online presence and many newspapers have lively Web sites. Top newspapers have joined the blog bandwagon in the last few months.

Latest to launch is one of India's most respected newspaper, The Indian Express. Postings on ExpressBlogs are mostly done by employees of the Indian Express group. But readers can also post subject to moderation.

Business Standard, a leading business paper, has a blogs section written by its employees and invited authors. Surprisingly the focus of the blogs is not on business blogging. It even has a mobile blogging section where anyone can post by sending a SMS or an email. However, I can't find that section on its site anymore.

The Times Group, which is the largest media hous in India, has a blogging site for anyone to create and publish their blogs called O3. Two of its newspapers, Times of India and Economic Times, have sparsely updated blogs.

Launched last year in Mumbai, the broadsheet DNA has a section called DNA BLOGS. It is nothing but a blog post aggregator where posts on a topic are handpicked from the Indian blogosphere.

I remember seeing the blog site of Hindustan Times called HTBlogs some time ago. But they seems to have pulled it down. HTBlogs was launched early when most of the above media sites didn't have blogs on their menu.

None of the Indian-language newspapers or FM radio stations have yet launched blogs. Many of the posters on the blogging sites of these media properties write with the lure of being featured in the publications or channels. It remains to be seen how many of these newspapers and channels, indeed, use story material from their blogs.

Bloggers are sometimes called the "former audience". It means the readers of broadcast media like TV and print are no longer passive audiences but also take active part in the reporting and creation of news. With the help of blog publishing everyone can be a reporter. Syndication technologies like RSS help in distribution, directories like BlogStreet help in discovery, and tools like Bloglines are for consumption.

Till the number of bloggers and their quality of writing increase significantly enough to warrant a new media ecosystem, traditional media houses and journalists don't have anything to worry about. But bloggers can act as media watchdogs and counter journalistic biases through comments or posts. They have the power to influence opinion as they are seen as a public voice.

With cameras and Internet-enabled mobiles becoming ubiquitous, portable devices are bound to play a pivotal role in new media and citizen journalism. Lets see how new media influences the Indian mainstream media. The slogan of new media is "blogs are mightier than typeset"!