Amit gave a talk at BCB5, and it was more of a Q/A session

Read on,

1.When did you launch your blog?


I launched it when google started adsense.So, I got monetized.Traffic definitely matters, but what matters is what you know.If you get 1000 visitors a day, consider putting ads.Don’t start putting ads right from beginning, as you might piss off readers.

2.Do you have your own site?


I used blogspot at first, I recently moved to labnol.org which is driven by wordpress. It helps, because when advertisers see that blogspot, it is someone non-professional non-cs guy. If you show that you have traffic to your own site and backlinks then you don’t have to promote blogspot, or google. If you are starting new, you can start with a own domain.

3.Is google adsense only way to monetize?


They were the only company in india that gave results.Amazon doesn’t work because we don’t buy stuff online(Affliate marketing). Lots of advertisement programs like blogads, which are good.Disadvantage with google is,it never shares what percentage of revenue you are getting. But blogads give true 70%. Chitika, Widgetbox,Textlinkads will penalize your google rankings. Indian advertizing programmes like nautanki.tv have a different way of advertising. They play video and a small clip plays before that.

4.Is Adsense good enough?


Adsense rocks, frankly. They have enough inventory. Interms of revenue blogads is good, but adsense is reliable. Blogads require invitation.

5.Reblogging?


Blogosphere - people reblog. We see about X site, we write about X site, and we give link to X site. In this case, the reader may move on directly to X’s site without reading your content, which reduces the amount of time in your blog.Reblogging is nice, but write something original. I wrote about how to clean your mouse, it was a basic tip - but there are lot of people who were unaware about it - but it is new, and good. Best thing is write what you enjoy writing and not which is popular and drives traffics.

6.What do you suggest to a new starter?


If I go by technorati, there is nothing to write about new. Say digital cameras, there are 1000s of blogs about digicams.Think of something which no one writes - say lens of digital cameras.


There are lot of services - google alerts - it is a real time tracking about the recent tracking. Try to create a lot of google alerts and know about what is happening around the world

7.Rules for blogging?


There are no such defined rules, though there are some invisible policies. If some how-to is given in some X site, and if i copy paste the entire thing and paste, it is bad. It doesn’t help in the long run. You may not get healthy opinion about person if you flick contents, though you link back

8.Other than monetization?


1.Direct monetization - money


2.Indirect - You get work,contacts,network and reputation with your blog

In India - Dina Mehta,Kiruba,Gautham Ghosh and myself have taken blogging as our main portfolio. It helps us to get client also, and it pays us back.

9.Video, Audio blogging?


Keep doing unique things. But you just can’t have video blog always. For long - it wont work 75%.

Eg. Youtube doesn’t get good monetization.They had problems. Text ads didn’t work, they are trying CPM of video blog is a whole science - there is a difficult way to calculate CPM of a video/audio and is a vague thing.

10.Podcasting?


I try podcasting,videocasting. Frankly, i can’t afford much time for such less visibility. Better write text instead of making video. Lot of people use filters to get content, so these things will never come into, so we miss lot of potential. I do for interest sake, but i won’t be relying on it.

11.Content? Write blog posts to attract?


Jason Calacanis wrote an Official definition of Web3.0 - and he got links saying he wrote bullshit. It wont work, it would drive away viewers. Eg. People write that Vista sucks even they hadn’t use vista

12.How about getting button ads sponsored?


It is best to link ads and content. Engadget and Techcrunch have buttons and have clicks, but CTR rates are low. It is more for branding stuff.

13.RSS Feeds?


Feedburner might have adsense for RSS feeds. A general policy is reward your regular readers with ad-free content. Give ads for new people. So last 7 day’s of post won’t have ads, only searched contents have ads. Posting a partial text feeds is controversial topic. CEO of feedburner says that people who get full feed get maximum traffic. People scan over the content and find interesting.If it is partial - viewer gets pissed off.

14.What is your opinion about Facebook’s suggested products revenue system?


Eg.If you buy a Phillips TV and you like it, you mention it in Facebook profile, you get monetized by Phillips.

I am not sure whether it will go well.When people click on Phillips TV, and Amazon and then buy it, I may get money. But this may piss of blog readers, may work for facebook.

15.Payper post?


It all depends on what kind of readerships you have?Jay Wok - writes about paid post, his readers take it sportively, but If i start doing it, it may not work. Sponsored posts are not looked good by search engines. It is kind of link exchange programme.

16.Digg and slashdot users?


They are thick skinned - they are quite hard.You should be ready to get blasts if you are starting to digg your own posts.

17.About your Y! Search Vs. G! Search post?


They just saw that i’m praising yahoo, and not google which led to bad comments.The blog is open, but you can’t spit on me. If you do that, i’ll block you. If it is negative, i used to delete it.You can’t please all the people all the time.

18.How do you differentiate between being critisicism and negative comment? How do you draw the line.


Abusive language is always discouraged.Angry comments, are from anonymous people are also taken as negative.

19.If he had left his email?


If it is constructive criticism, it is accepted.

20.Have you added your link to digg?


I have done lot of things that i repent. I used digg,etc and now i stopped doing it, after getting experienced with blogging.

21.For a beginner, it is a very easy to get links via del.icio.us and digg, you really discourage it?


del.ico.us has no-follow so it won’t be listed in any search engine.


digg - a massive SEO site. If you submit into digg, that may get more visits than yours, and the chances of people looking at your site.

23.Social networking sites?


Facebook helps in publicizing your posts. Facebook is better than orkut, because it has a stream of activities in your friends.

Amit also answers in his forums.

Below post was typed on Nov 21st.. posting it today :)

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Today i met one of my friends after around 6 months…

Actually he met me at my work place and we started walking out to find a joint where we can sit and talk.



Near my office, there isn’t many joints… there is an icecream parlour nearby and if we walk down further, there is a juice shop.



As we were walking, we came across the icecream shop first and then i said,”oh..we can’t go there. icecreams are not good for me”. He replied,”what, you are on diet again?”.

I smiled and said,”Yes. i have lost couple of kgs.” and then added,”i know there is a huge scope…but this is a small step”.



He smiled and said,”I am really amazed at the perseverance with which you keep on trying. Maybe a day will come when you will realize that it’s not a big deal to be a bit fat”.



I didn’t reply anything.



But his point really made me thinking. I couldn’t understand one thing though…

When i realize that it’s not a big deal to be a bit fat, is it a failure that a person can never become slim and hence accepted defeat or is it a success that a person has overcome one obsession?

Recently i felt 2 particular television ads to be really annoying in their own ways.



1. It’s the ad for diamonds. Marriage between 2 individuals is happening amidst 6-7 people. Bride is wearing diamond jewellery. As a final act of marriage,the Groom applies tilak on Bride’s forehead and Bride tells the Groom,” You may now kiss the Bride”. Groom looks at the Bride with such a pathetic look.



Is the Groom puzzled as why the Bride replied like that or is he giving a teasing look to the Bride? Answer is Neither… it’s one of the pathetic looks as a response.



I really fail to understand the intention behind this ad. There is no logical relevance between Diamonds and the Bride’s reply.



2. Next is the Raymonds ad. Wife/ Lover has left a new Raymond suit to her husband/ lover with a note that she will be working late. Husband/ lover wears the Raymond suit and meets her with a red rose at her work place. Then the ad goes on saying that it feels like heaven and so on…



Problem with this ad is, the whole situation is a complete copy from the movie “Shall we Dance?” Infact this is one of the most romantic scenes in that movie. Seeing the same in this ad, that too in such an irrelevant context is highly annoying.

Just as I was browsing thru today’s Economic Times newspaper, I came across this article about the head of ESPN asking John Abraham to promote EPL and also his movie Goal. Now as mentioned in the article, he says the viewership ratings have increased a lot for the EPL matches. This is certainly a welcome change in a country like India where the sports mantra seems to be only cricket, in fact its a religion.



Football viewership in India has always been very selective. In my college, though there are a few football fanatics. Srikkanth, Pradeep and me belonged to that elite club. Since all of us are in the same department, we used to discuss football right thru the classes much to the annoyance of others. Unfortunately I am a die-hard Man Utd supporter and the other two are Arsenal fans. So there used to be a tussle everytime a topic comes up concerning both the clubs. There are also others like Aravind Thayat who supports Liverpool with all his heart, C who supports AC Milan and Lokesh who fancies Chelsea to be his club of choice but these people are not maniacs like us, sitting throughout the night watching every EPL, laLiga, Serie A or Champions League match. You can say because of football, we changed our activities to more on the nocturnal basis.

Football as discussed in my previous post, is slowly picking up viewership in India. But is it loosing its sheen and style as it was before is the question now posed…



There used to be a time, where some players were magicians, out of nowhere could they create magic and lift all the hearts watching them play. There was Maradona, Pele, Bobby Charlton, Johan Cruijff, Di Stefano, George Best, Beckenbauer, Lev Yashin etc. But when we look at the current crop of players, how many would you think would fit into the shoes of these players. I dont think we can ever find the next Pele or George Best ( yeah, even though some “people” said Hleb is the next George Best which is one of the most stupidest thing I have ever heard or seen, those “people” must have never seen George Best play !!!). We can see the names of upcoming young stars like “the next Ronaldinho, the next Kaka, the next Zidane” and so on, we can never compare them to the all time greats.

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. —– The Alchemist

After writing my first post, I feel more confident enough to venture into writing some other posts as well…



My friend ,Roshan and I saw Azhagiya Tamil Magan on tuesday. Fondly dubbed as ATM by the tamil media, who seem to jump to different conclusions right after the promos and hyping it beyond barriers, much was expected from the movie. Well, to say, when a scientific flavour is inducted into a tamil movie, we all know what would be the result. Rightly so, the movie was yet another has-released ones (barring the fact vijay did a double action role, having esp to predict calamities - final destination anyone? , fighting villains the matrix style, and both our hero and heroine trading punch dialogues in the climax) the climax or to say the anti-climax was the major highlighting factor. It is arguable to state that the climax was suited to preserve the image of vijay, but it was a huge let down for many.



Actually, Om Shanti Om was touted to be a better movie among the diwali releases but that shall be verified only after november end… Till then, its ATM all the way !!!

Hi…

This is my first post, so gotta be more informative here (at least)…



I am Sayee Prasaad hailing from the Land of Temples - Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. I am basically a chemical engineer, which is why one of the reasons why my blog seems to have the title Alchemist, the other being my other “chosen” names were already chosen.



My passions are reading books (OK, Alchemist is included in here too…), watching football (or soccer as my dear american friends would call it), listening to music (sometimes, no particular preference on the genre), play computer games (hell yeah, AOE 2 rocks !!!)… I do try to play football in my leisure time, and I support Manchester United with all my heart…