Being A Blogger

Amrit is a final year student at the IIT Madras. Besides designing logos & posters, making caricatures and tearing away cooing girls jumping on him, he finds time to spice up his blog with cartoons, strips, podcasts and training videos. He writes ‘phres blogshit’ for his readers at www.vatsap.com and also at the India Infrastructure Blog.

So, who is Amrit Vatsa?
Amrit Vatsa is a living being, a son, a brother, a friend, and a student. He is a rat in the race, and a brat on your face.

How and when did you get into blogging?
Aks. I blame my friend, Aks for getting me into blogging. He told me what blogging was all about. I liked the idea. It was in 2004. I started blogging and never stopped.

Your posts never seem to dry out. What keeps you motivated?

I love my readers, from the core of my heart. Love makes things happen. I write for my readers mostly. Otherwise I would have written very few posts. I believe someone out there is waiting for some more shit to happen at Vatsap. I cannot disappoint that someone. That motivates me. My readers motivate me.

Love Thy readers! So are visitors, comments, backlinks etc. important to you?
Extremely. I keep track of the unique visits daily.

How do you go about promoting your blog, building the ‘brand’?
Google Talk status message. Orkut sometimes helps. But a lot of readers also come through Google. Most importantly, since my site gets updated almost regularly, users who come, mostly stay. That helps.

And branding, I painted www.vatsap.com on a tee and wore it as much as I could. More so, it helps that vatsap is a word people use all the time. So the recall value is real high. I plan to launch a tee business soon. I guess I can sell designer t-shirts. They will help promote vatsap.com further. That is the current strategy

Cartoons, caricatures, podcasts and “How To” videos. What next?
This is a tough question, always on my mind. But I haven’t decided. It’s a free flow. New things always happen. I will continue the “How to” videos though, they bring visitors and also help people.

How did the blog affect your social life?
The blog helped my social life a lot. I know a lot of people through blogs. And, the next time we are close, we might end up meeting. I once blogged about an event called BRTFF (Bangalore roof top film fest), got in touch with them and finally when I turned up at the place, every one knew vatsap thanks to my blog. I made new friends. That was just one example.

Once, someone liked my site so much that we talked about it for 2 hours. He called me up from Pune. He thinks I can be a good designer. This is for a very big mobile communications company. I never knew your blog could get you a job. So a message to all those who are passionate towards something: Please blog about that, show your stuff and what you are capable of. You never know who finds you there and how your life can suddenly take an interesting turn

And the dates?
Oh. They could happen anytime. I did get dates because of my blog.

Do you read a lot of blogs? What keeps you wanting to come back to a blog?
Oh yes, I do. A lot of them. I use feeds in Google reader. I have about 70 feed subscriptions of individual bloggers. And it just keeps going up. I don’t always read full posts, but I always check them out to see if there’s something good.

How would you describe your blogging style?
Shitty. No wonder, I call it blogshit. Phres is just a value add.

Any parting “advice” to potential bloggers on going about building a readership?

Rule # 1: Please be regular. Otherwise it pisses everyone off.
Rule # 2: Don’t write 800 word posts till you are a booker prize winner.
Rule # 3: Comment and reply to comments.

Thank you, Vatsa, for the BlogShit.
Hmm. Well, if you like Vatsap, do let me know.