Here is a brief on the recent gathering of bloggers @ Techys Lounge Lahore organized by BuzzVines, and is a continuation of my earlier post with the pictures of the event (in the process of giving names to the faces - keep following the pics post). So here goes.

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Venue
Techys Lounge - A place for technology geeks. Along with free WiFi connectivity for anyone with a WiFi enabled notebook, Techys Lounge offers techys with a setting to see, test and buy fancy gadgets like Notebooks, Digital Cameras and a lot more.

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Event Sponsors – with thanks
Techys Lounge: Buzzvines Drinks + Cake
Red Bull: Red Bull Energy Drinks
Google - Lucky Draw Give-Aways: Google Diaries + Google Mugs + Google T-shirts
Horizon Marketing - Lucky Draw Give-Aways: Wireless HDD Case + Wireless Access Point + Web Cam
Bramerz: Pakistani Flag Pins

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Event Organizers
Buzzvines

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Event Coverage
The Nation

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Event Participants
Google – Mr. Badar Khushnood (Badar.com.pk)
Light House – S A J Shirazi
Metroblogging Lahore: Ms Amna Ansari
Buzzvines: Mr. Amer Sarfraz, Mr. Zeeshan Hasan, Mr. Faraz Butt
Ms. Saadia Waheed Raza
Mr. Yasir Munir
Mr. Hafiz Abdul Rehman
Mr. Zeeshan Saleem
Mr. Shaharyar
Mr. Aqeel Zafar
Mr. Waqas Nasir Jamal
Mr. Ali Abbas
Mr. Kumail
Mr. Atif Saleem
Mr. Babar Javed
Kirayadaar Portel Rep
S A J Shirazi’s Son (last but certainly not the least and may be a future blogger !!)

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Happenings
Buzvines.com is a Community Blogging initiative by Bramerz to facilitate public to have a voice on the internet. The idea of having this uneventful event was just to say a Face-to-Face Real World Hello to the active blogging community we so regularly share our thoughts with over the virtual world.

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The event started with the very first entry by Mr. Badar Khushnood (Country Consultant Google), shortly followed by Mr. S A J Shirazi, commonly known as Shirazi on the web and were greeted by Mr. Amer Sarfraz, part of the team behind Bramerz (Pvt) Ltd. & Buzzvines.com.

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Soon after Mr. Shirazi’s arrival, city of Lahore met with a pleasant (or should I say not so pleasant) surprise of heavy rain mixed with a fair bit of hail storm. Unfortunately, the weather gave a big blow to the event and a lot of expected participants could not make it to the gathering. Nonetheless, we did have a turnaround of 19 guests in total. To make things worse, WAPDA conspired against the real world meet-up of the virtual commuters and electricity went off and finally the UPS batteries also gave-in. So the event eventually went quite eventful ?

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During all this, the discussion session was probably the only thing that went quite fruitful. In addition to getting the opportunity of assigning a face to a name, which itself was quite interesting, everyone did get some benefit out of the whole affair. Some of the highlighting topics of the discussion were…

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1. Sharing on-line experiences
2. Taking off the No Commercialization syndrome
a. If we can make money out of our blogs, then why not.
b. Why just write and waste our time (time is money)
3. Ways to monetize the on-line efforts (blogs)
a. Google AdSense
b. AdBrite
c. Review Me
4. Idea of networking on-line
a. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours (links exchange)
5. Getting out of the idea of I, Me, My
a. Focus on Us, We, Our as Pakistanis
6. Why waste our money (time) on promoting International Blogging Platforms like MetBlogs.com, Blogspot.com, Wordpress.com
a. Why are we helping International Forums generate money on our behalf
b. Why not promote our own local Pakistani blogs
c. Promote ourselves
d. Generate money for ourselves

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I guess I'll take a break here. I am expecting the participants of the event to contribute their bit of the event experience here via comments and on their own respective blogs also.

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Cheers
Amer
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