Monday, February 27, 2006

15 nanoseconds of fame: 3. About my blog


Here are the links to all of "15 nanoseconds of fame":

Intro

Metaphors for blogs

The state of Indian blogdom

About my blog

My blog, 'Nanopolitan', has a mix of long opinion pieces and short posts containing one or two links accompanied by brief comments. While it covers many different topics, it has a recurring theme: India's higher education system. Just how popular is my blog? Well, it attracts about 100-300 visitors every day (while the top Indian blogs get daily visitors in the range of 1000 to 10,000). Not a bad record for a blog which has very little to offer in politics, movies or sports.

What have I gained from my blogging experience? First and foremost, several tens of regular readers. All said and done, a blog is a medium of communication, and this medium is worthless if there were no readers. My blog's regular readers (together with their thoughtful comments on my posts) are the biggest return on my time investment. Thanks to blogging, I have also come to know -- and regard as friends -- quite a few people that I have yet to meet. Remember the articles you used to read in newspapers about pen friends? Well, I never had pen friends, but I now have quite a few 'blog friends'. And, of course, I get a minor thrill every time I see my blog featured in the top two or three pages on web searches (you might want to try googling 'cost of IIT education' or '100 dollar laptop').

7 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    It has always been nice to get an academic feel on reading your posts.My best wishes for all the efforts you have been taking to blog interesting academic aspects.

  2. Anonymous said...

    Hi Abi,
    Read the entire series.. Nice article!
    Why '15' nanosecs of fame?.. jus curious :)

  3. Anonymous said...

    Though I rarely comment on your blog, I regularly read your blog. In this days of news readers and aggregators site counts dont really matter. I dont remenber I when I last visted your blog physically but I havent missed a post of you yours since I started reading. I really like your posts on education sector. Keep up the good work.

  4. Abi said...

    Rama, Aswin, Kuttan: Thanks for your supportive comments.

    Aswin: '15 nanoseconds of fame' is just a variant of '15 minutes of fame'. I use this expression everytime (which is not often!) when my name gets splashed across (okay, okay, let me change it to 'mentioned in') a magazine, newsletter or newspaper.

    Kuttan: I do realize that site counters don't really matter, and I am not overly concerned about how many hits I get. The reason I present these figures here is to let the readers of CSI Communications know the kind of traffic I attract, in relation to some of what the top bloggers get.

  5. Anonymous said...

    Excellent piece on blogging. Thanks for posting it here! =)

  6. Abi said...

    Hi Surya: Thanks. And, welcome back!

  7. Doctor Bruno said...

    //Not a bad record for a blog which has very little to offer in politics, movies or sports.//

    .... You forgot to add Gossips and Sex in the list !!!