Being A Blogger

First time I am interviewing someone whom I personally know. Though we have not met personally we are from same college and have played a lot together. Kaushik Gopal is the first human I played a warcraft, long before I became supreme warlord of warcraft and dota at iitm [exaggeration alert]

So Kaushik, tell us something about yourself and your blogs?

Hmm this is one of those toughies. But i suppose i’ve summarized who i am in my about page.

Some quirky traits my friends and I have noticed about yours truly:
# I’m a complete sucker for doughnuts and cup-cakes(physical kind included).
# I like complex-words.
# I HATE hackneyed-wannabe-marketing words like “ostensible”, “win-win”, “impactful”,”24/7″. I consider the most serious form of torture: being seated in a chair, forced to listen to the idiot uttering such drivel, without being able to apply a choke-hold on the b******.
# I have a fetish for making to-do lists and efficiency time-tables.
# I’m an agoraphyllic.
# I’ll reserve the rest for my autobiography.

As for my blogs: I run two blogs primarily. One is more of a tech blog (glog = geek log) which i plan to move (one of my unfortunate weaknesses) to wordpress pretty soon. Out there i write about anything useful that can be achieved through a computer/gadget right from excel/css cheatsheets to removing annoying sounds on XP to pimping an iPhone … The other is my personal blog. This is like a danger zone, anything and everything that comes to my head – worth penning down- goes here.

Why do you write/blog?

Writing in general has always been a passion for me. Should another finanicial crisis hit and I’m thrown out of my current job, without a wink I would try to become a newsapaper editor or a journalist. The power of language and communication fascinates me. This keeps my clock ticking. If i’m in my car with the radio on and some reporter on BBC has a take on something, my mind explodes with thoughts and I suppose blogging serves a therapeutic effect to this regard.

Is there something in your mind that you want to achieve via blogging ?

I don’t suppose I will be keeping any goals as such for blogging, but I suppose if i can get more readers and an audible voice online, that should suffice.

What is you most memorable experience with blogging?

I know this kind of crazy and narcissistic but it was the first time I was able to beat a shrink(ok with due respect a pschycologist)who shares the same name as mine in the top google search results . He’s at a close number 2 now go ahead.. hit a search on “Kaushik Gopal”

What kind of people read your blog? Offline contacts or online friends? Do you care if someone is reading your blog?

Oh most definitely. It’s kind of sad if you have zilch people following your blog. My glog seems to have a slightly more larger following, considering the search results that get there through Google, but my personal blog is usually visited by only people that know me more closely, both online and offline. Definitely working on improving the latter situation.

Do you benefit from blogs financially?

Hmm.. I tried Google Ad sense and i got 32 cents in 6 months. So it’s going to take me some time before I become a Buffet through blogging.

But if you consider the costs that would otherwise have been incurred through therapy, yup HUGE financial benefit

Who are your top five favorite bloggers?

That’s an easy one: Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Scott Adams, Lisa from All and Sundry and Malcolm Gladwell in no particular order.

Seth and Guy must be particularly with interviews on BaB as they are quoted as favorite blogs by every other blogger.
What is your observation or column or post that has gotten the most powerful reaction from people?

Well interestingly the first time i clearly noticed a big boost in the number of comments/visits was on my brother’s blog in a post where he wrote about the death of batman. Obviously I closely follow my brother’s blog cause he writes some spiffy stuff, it was interesting to see how a strong opinion on any subject can illicit such pronounced responses .

What do you think of “blogging is the next BIG thing”?

Oh I thoroughly understand the power of blogging. People keep saying blogging is the next big thing. Blogging is going to raise the stakes. Well Blogging is already the next BIG thing and already occupies one of the biggest chunks in public-media. The beauty is that fame through blogging entirely depends on content. If the blogger writes good stuff, people follow. It’s as simple and plain as that. The fake steve jobs blog a beautiful case in point. It runs on a free blogger hosted account (blogspot) and at one point had a jurassic following. You could be a nobody, but start a blog with good content and become one of the biggest somebodies of today. All it required is good content, no finance whatsoever.

You have also got a blogging life, how has it directly affected both your personal and professional life?

I wouldn’t say “affected” but rather changed. People now know me as a different person. You tend to writes thing you truly believe in , in your blog. This helps people in forming a better opinion of who you are. This is a double sided razor edged sword and can work both ways. But in the long run, I think it’s only fair that people understand who you truly are and if they feel you are/aren’t the person they think of you to be, it’s better for both parties to deal with it appropriately.