TATA ZICA; Win two TATA Zica Cars, #TATA Zica Marathon
@Anoop, I got to face my fear of writing long stories. My fiction 'Yaariyan' has got a huge traffic to my blog. Also, I got 30 dedicated readers who read all the posts of the marathon fiction I wrote and many others who read 10-20 posts! It's an amazing feeling to touch their lives through write ups. Many contacted me for more information about the trek and are going for the trek this year! A school friend read the story and got inspired to catch up with friends; he arranged for a small get together last Sunday for us! This story has lead to amazing results, which I hadn't even expected in the first place! I loved the concept of marathon. Without it, this story would have just been in my head along with many other ideas! Looking forward to participate in more marathons like these - where the content is in the writer's jurisdiction to ensure it is relevant for readers!
Hey Raj, That is quite interesting. Thanks for sharing. This is sort of what we wanted to achieve for this specific campaign. we wanted people to write about stuff that their readers would be interested in as opposed to shoving a new product down their throats :-)
@Anoop It was one hell of an amazing experience for me!
I have two sisters and both their delivery dates were due in the same month as the marathon, which meant all the responsibility of the house was on my head(including my 2 year old nephew). I don't know how I did it.. I myself can't believe it.. It was that little game of getting on the top of the leader board I guess! :P
What I achieved:
-The biggest thing I achieved was the realisation that I could easily blog everyday. This marathon taught me that it was not hard to update my blog on a regular basis.
- My blog's traffic. It sky rocketed!! But hoarding the best posts for the end was a bad idea I guess... :/ Not many of them could read my best posts.
- I got mails from MANY newbie bloggers saying I was a great inspiration to them. This I will cherish all my life. :)
- I made a LOT of new blogger friends.
- I blogged so much that even my nephew learnt what was blogging. 
- Some of my Twitter friends(who are non-bloggers) got all ineterested seeing my blog post tweets and started inquiring me about what I was doing and how they could start a blog. I guided them and one of them has already bought her new domain. :D
Now the question is, should Indiblogger have more such marathons? BIG YES. It's the perfect motivation for lazy bloggers like me. I don't know whether I'll participate in another marathon but one thing is sure - I will never stop blogging regularly, thanks to this marathon! :D
Hey Bushra, Hey congrats on completing 150 posts :-) As a principle in IndiBlogger we have never liked leader boards etc. This time we wanted to see if people could push the boundaries of their blogging abilities and we took a chance to try and make that happen.
One thing that we have noticed too - Like you said, Saving posts for deadline date for any contest is never a good idea. because if you put up a good post soon enough even in a competitive contest scenario, you can gain immense traction online before the judging process begins. You could get a lot of comments and shares. People could be retweeting your posts etc. All this adds value when someone is evaluating content for contests. Content is relative so judges will also want to know what other people think of its usefullness.
Hey and great that you have found a formula to blog everyday. Its one of the toughest things to do! Thanks for sharing :-)
Bushra, with the kind of personal commitment you've had, it's not a joke. Too good an effort, my hearty appreciations. I am sure the babies will have a new kind of memory for their lives :)
@Anoop
To tell you the truth, when I first saw the contest, I shrugged the shoulders and thought if I should go for the 10 vouchers. After some thought I thought let me go for it. Then at the second stage, it was all about the money and the big prize but finally, after a week or so, the thrill of being at the top of that leaderboard was the only thing that mattered.
It did not matter if the money came or not, or if I won the car or not but just the passion and the adrenaline of seeing my name in the top 2-3 made me write more and more. I wrote at least two posts daily in the jam packed local trains of Mumbai while travelling to and fro from work (it takes me nearly 1-1.5 hours to reach my office from my home and vice versa).
The traffic came, obviously, and I felt a huge sense of achievement. This IndiMarathon also showed me my limits, to be able to write 122 posts in less than a month (I started a couple of days late), was really an eye opener for me.
Also, to be able to stick to only my blog niche (Cricket) for all the posts made me feel extra special as it is a very tough task to write such a huge amount of posts on one subject.
All in all, a big thumbs up to the Inditeam for this very unique concept and I hope to see a better and a slicker version of it next time.
Suggestion: There should be a cap on the number of posts one can submit each day, a logical cap, say 10 posts maximum (will keep the hoarders out and also ensure that posts are good quality)
@DS Hey man! I am like a huge sports man/fan myself. I watch every series or at least record and flip through matches if I cant watch them live :-) There is just so much content in sports especially cricket in India. I saw some of your posts on pitch conditions etc and they are definitely useful to people who dont understand what the fuss about pitches are about! The content is also fresh and new as a lot of tournaments are played through the year and across the world.
As for your suggestion on the cap on number of posts - The idea is that we cannot find the limits of endurance if we start adding bottle necks on the system. We must remember that we are a communtiy and if someone wants to do more we should just let them. I agree that there are prizes etc that we need to keep an eye out for but there could be bigger rewards to come and we need to aim for that. The only way we can gain attention is by doing impossible things.
Did not know that you are a cricket fan! Thanks for all the appreciation, means a lot! 
Coming to the cap on the number of posts, it is basically to stop people from gaming the system and taking advantage of any loopholes. Some of the people (nothing against them) in the current IndiMarathon were nowhere till the penultimate day and they suddenly jumped up to the 3rd, 4th position by hoarding posts. That takes the charm out of those bloggging and submitting regularly, don't you think?
Imagine if everybody did that? The IndiServer would crash, I think, if everyone tried submitting their posts at the same time on the last day, at the tenth hour. Also where is the thrill of the leaderboard if people are in any case hoarding posts and submitting on the last two days. It is just monotonous, wherein, you are blindly writing like a robot with no set target or goal in mind.
Imagine a 100 m race where every athlete runs as a single person and his time is recorded. The winner is selected on whoever completes fastest. Where is the show in that, where is the thrill? Will it create interest in those watching or even in those participating?
I understand that we can only gain attention by doing the impossible but writing 60/ 120 posts in a day is beyond any humanbeing I have ever known (unlesss they are using the services of a ghost writer, be it a family member or a close friend). Maybe the limit can be doubled on weekends and public holidays but I strongly believe in having a cap.
Alternatively, while writing this I got an idea - sharing it.
Why not have prizes for bloggers who are the fastest to 25 posts, 50 posts, 75 posts, 100 posts, 125 posts and so on? That would take hoarding out of the equation I presume?
I wrote 10 posts and all my 10 posts are accepted :D I tried my best to weave blog posts keeping qulaity and my blog's theme in mind :)
Congrats Knitha that's quite a feat in itself
Hey @Knitha, hey thats great and good to know. Sometimes big single pieces of literature sometimes win over quantity. "The Lord Of the Rings" wasnt written in a day you know :-D
When I first started writing for this "one of its kind" marathon, I was clueless what to write. I started with a series called "Trophy wife" wherein I thought I will present the different elements as called "Rasa" in hindi literature to give a twist and bring a new creative concept. But as I started penning, I thought, what if the idea doesn't click with judges or may not essay the "core" of the marathon?
Sujata Tawde used to remind/ coax me to write and growing nos of the leaderboard- an idea that did not compel me as I am little reserved about my writing and tend to write something more meaningful than mere churning any content. [Besides, 99% of posts are written in my head but never makes to blog. Time to invent new tech- mind to blog AI]. Some people are talented and they could do it but I wasn't in.
Then I started thinking the "keywords" and thought so many things makes like "Fantastico", shows navigation, music and more. So I started building them around multiple stories and elements around. from hair to juicer to the poem and more. Hmph, I could have written more posts but then Lord Bernard Shaw enlightened me, again :) 
[Besides, 99% of posts are written in my head but never makes to blog. Time to invent new tech- mind to blog AI]
So I am not the only one in the boat
The top 10 positions on the leaderboard haven't moved much
Finally, all my 11 entries have been moderated, and after a couple of initial shockers, I believe, the moderators have gone quite lenient in the judging process, as after a couple of initial rejections, all my entries have been approved, and I believe, others too must have felt the same. Now the wait for the vouchers begin. Rs. 350 x 9 vouchers waiting for me. 
I had written 5 posts for this marathon and all of them got accepted. :D I'm more than happy today.
I feel like after recieving enthusiasm and excitement of people in advance, this contest 
has now gone into sleep...
Thanx for sharing this update Anoop :)
Topic is not clear, what is it???
Quick update - we're through about 90% of the process, IB is currently conducting it's own quality checks on the results and clarifying a few things with the good folks at Tata. I presume that this won't take more than a week. Thank you all for the patience!
Thanks for the update. Not that I'm going to win a car, or any of the 20K vouchers, but it took a lot more time, and with the thread locked and no updates, there was no way to know about the status of the results, hence the frustration. 
This is going to be big. I am waiting with abated breath. Exciting.
Thanks for the update, Renie. I am sure the most deserving would win the prizes. Since almost all my entries have been rejected, on some grounds or the other, here's wishing the prospective winners a big round of applause.
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