CHENNAI: A regular conference with keynote speakers and question and answer sessions would have been tame to excite bloggers. Which is why 200 bloggers from across the country, not one more and hopefully not any less, are expected to meet for an `unconference' at the TIDEL Park this weekend.

So what is an unconference? Wikipedia, the people-driven encyclopaedia on the World Wide Web, explains it as ``a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organiser.'' CNN Money offers a more spicy description: ``At traditional conferences, the most productive moments often occur in the corridor between meetings; at unconferences, attendees like to say, it's all corridor."

The bloggers have called their `unconference' the Blogcamp, with reference to the barcamps that are ``ad-hoc gatherings born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment."

The event has been in the making in for a few months now. Chennai's strong blogging community played a pivotal role in organising the event but it would only be fair to say that bloggers from across the country have contributed in different ways.

S. Kiruba Shankar, one of the city's established bloggers, points out that every participant, who has signed on for the event in the official wiki (blogcamp.in/wiki), has also been an organiser of sorts. They have contributed by either offering to volunteer, make presentations, participate in the discussions or whichever way they are comfortable in.

Preparations do not end with just coming up with the topics for the sessions: from ``blogging and governance'' to ``blogging and entrepreneurship'' to ``getting geeky'' (which would deal with the technical aspects of blogging).

Bloggers have designed an official logo and have even composed an anthem that starts off with the lyric that should hold true to many netizens — ``I created a blog which nobody read ... " With limited resources at hand, the organisers have limited participation to 200 bloggers on a first-come, first-wikied, first-served basis. A ``houseful'' logo decorates the registrations page. With efforts on to podcast, videocast and textcast the sessions live, interested persons will be able to catch the action live.

To learn more about the `unconference,' log on to http://blogcamp.in.

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