Blogpane is a smart embeddable widget, that you can be used to track all the blogs from any educational institute. To use it, you have to first get your blog added to your alma-mater’s blog list by sending an email to the Blogpane guys. Once thats done, go to this section of the Blogpane website, select your institute form the list (the list currently includes all the IITs & the IIMs only), generate the code and put it into your blog’s side-bar. The pane does the rest- you can now navigate the tree menu and drill down to the different blogs that are listed there. Blogpane is the endeavour of two working software professionals who graduated out of NIT Calicut- Ajith & Antony. The webapp is currently under developement and they aren’t necessarily planning for a business out this at this stage. BlogPane’s punchline is “Trees connect people” and it certainly does justice to the proof of concept.

The idea is refreshingly original, simple & works well; but it does not seem monetizable to me, except through online advertising. Some quick feedback-

– getting blogs enlisted through email is cumbersome; a web based interface with self-signup would be much better

– no point in restricting this only to educational institutes; once people have left their alma-mater the hangover wears out making the list less relevant as time progresses; the same idea can be extended to organisations, groups, specific communities etc. A web interface where people can start and add their own lists is possibly the way to go. Though students certainly are a good way to start this off.