My friend Kamla Bhatt, who hosts the very popular Kamla Bhatt Show, and is a researcher and technology trend watcher by profession, says "A different blogosphe in India" in Financial Express of today. The piece also quotes me a few places..

Even as world-wide, over 10% of Forture 500 companies are now blogging, Corporate Blogging is yet to take off in a big way in India.

Now cut to India and you get a diametrically opposite view of corporate blogging. Indian Companies have barely scratched the surface and discovered the value created through corporate blogs. “It is early days yet and the large corporates are yet to adopt them in a big way, but it has been adopted by entrepreneurs on the other hand,” says Lalwani. And he might have a point there. Lalwani’s observation is echoed by Kiruba Shankar, who helps clients with their blogging needs. Shankar says, “Corporate blogging is still in its infancy in India. Whenever I speak with heads of corporations, they say that blogging is important but very few actually turn those words to action.”

She concludes with a very pertinent question:

Could it be that the profile and demographics of the Indian workplace requires a different approach? Consider this: about 500 million people in India are under the age of 25. What are the tools and what is the medium that appeals to them? Could social media tools like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace be the alternatives for Indian Companies?

Totally, there are no one stroke answers for corporates/ brands - each category and then within that each brand has different needs and demands unique solutions.

Read the story here.