NEW DELHI: They’re eavesdropping? Absolutely. Unabashedly. And to make it easier for them to listen in, companies in India are creating the space for a gabfest on the internet in the form of forums or blogs.

“It’s where I get to hear customer insight,” says Mohit Anand, country manager, entertainment and devices, Microsoft India. The company launched its India-specific forum — xbox.com/in — late last year just before the Xbox 360 launch, and Mr Anand is personally very active on the forum, weaving his way from one set of conversation to another more relevant one, finding out what their problems are and stepping in to help when someone’s unhappy. Mr Anand also keeps an eye open for the best among the Xbox community and asks them if they’d like to be Xbox evangelists.

“They are so much in love with the game that their comments really add value and I find it worthwhile to reach out to them — I even seek them out when I need help to train people on the shop floor,” Mr Anand says.

Nokia, which has created a blogging space for Indian users of ‘N’ series phones, has big future plans. “We’re planning more India-specific activities and also trying to make the blog space more public in terms of sharing.

The activities could be related to music, sports or consumer journalism,” says Nagesh PV, head, experiences, Nokia. Besides there is Indiatimes, one of the first to get into blogging with o3. indiatimes.com in 2004.

“We’re relaunching it to make it more interactive and user-friendly, so that there is better two-way communication and the bloggers get to know each other better through chats. Already, there is a big O3 community in Delhi which conducts meetings online too,” says an Indiatimes spokesperson.

Google, meanwhile, is going a step further to promote blogging in tier 2 cities such as Chandigarh, Indore, Bhopal, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. “The next wave of blogging will come from the non-metros, and to tap it we’ve launched blogging in Hindi. Other local languages will follow,” says Sundar K, head of sales, Google India.

Some companies, such as Kodak, feel that they can pick up quite a few pointers from the blogs to build into various products. “We’ve used information from our 1000words.kodak.com to plan our local promotions and offerings. In India, it’s still early days in this area — so we don’t have an India-specific section, but we’re watching this space and planning something from a strategy perspective, definitely,” says Ravi Karamcheti, MD, Kodak.

And for brand promotion — would advertising via blogs be the best way to influence the internet community? “A very bad idea that may boomerang,” says Alok Kejriwal, CEO, games2win.com.

For a company like games2win, it’s the best way to find out what the buzz in gaming is all about. “But you can’t crash into the party or you may get sniffed out — blogging is very sacrosanct to the user and it’s not a space where you can go and blast your advertising.

Of course, you can post your own blog to create awareness of your own product. Bloggers don’t mind that because that’s out in the open and it’s fair,” Mr Kejriwal says. For companies, it’s certainly the best way to be proactive. So watch out — next time you complain, there might be someone listening.

sobha.menon@timesgroup.com