Coffee With Amit Agarwal – India’s first professional blogger
Hi Guys,
Its time for another interview on Coffee With Sundar! This time, it is none other than India’s first professional blogger. Please welcome Amit Agarwal to Coffee With Sundar. Its indeed a great honour to have Amit on this blog. Amit holds a B Tech Computer Science degree. He worked for a brief while after that. He then took up blogging as his profession. Needless to say, I am one of the many many followers of Digital Inspiration – http://www.labnol.org/
Without further Ado, its over to the interview.
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Coffee With Amit Agarwal
Me: Sundar Rajan G S
AA: Amit Agarwal
Me: Hi Amit! Welcome to CWS! When did you start blogging? Why did you quit a mainstream job and take up blogging as a profession? What is it about blogging that you liked the most?
AA: I started blogging some four years ago and quit my job around the same time. I was very active on forums like Experts Exchange. So blogging was just an extension.
Me: Digital Inspirations has made a lot of strides over the past few years. One of the top rated technology blogs, Indibloggies award for technology 2006, 40th most favourited blog on the web to name a few. How did you accomplish this feat starting from scratch? Can you share some incidents? What are the some of the mistakes in this path, that you could have avoided?
AA: I guess being consistent all these years helped me build a good audience for the blog. Secondly, these offline conferences like the barcamps also help me stay in touch with readers.
I have made tons of mistakes in these years but the biggest one was starting my blogging career on a blogspot domain. Ah!Me: I agree with you! 
Blogspot is quite a pain.
Me: What are the blogs that you read? How do you manage the information overdose on the internet?
AA: Information overload is a major issue as I have couple of hundred feeds in my reader but all the “must read” feeds are in one folder called “0 Day” (it’s always on the top in the list because of that 0) – When I am in a hurry, I just mark everything read except articles in that 0-Day folder.
http://labnol.blogspot.com
AA: Make sure you have something to fall back upon. Don’t give up studies for blogging. If you are in a job, get some decent work experience before making the jump. It’s fun but there are risks involved. http://labnol.blogspot.com
Me: Hmmm…. I agree with you.
Me: You have been blogging on technology which is generic enough for a large community to follow. What do you think about personal blogs? It probably makes sense to one person or a small group of friends of the writer. What are your views on such blogs?
AA: Agree, it is relatively easy to develop readership in the tech domain but you know what, some of my favorite blogs are actually personal blogs.
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Thanks a lot Amit. Those words should be very motivating for a lot of bloggers who write personal blog. Readers, Hope you enjoyed this edition of Coffee With Experts. This is another proud moment for me and for my blog!
For the previous episodes of Coffee With Experts, please click here and scroll down.
nice 1 really informative do include some other interviews of fellow bloggers on their tips to the aspiring bloggers
@ anonymous,
Thanks a lot! Do watch these episodes.. I will try to bring a lot of interviews..
I dont think blogger is a pain at all… Its fabulously simple, very user-friendly. It may not be the best solution for a more advanced kind of weblog, but its not a pain.
I use wordpress and blogger, and while WordPress is awesome, blogger is great for someone with simple needs.
Good interview. While blogging as a income stream in India is still growing, Amit is a role model for all the blogger who wants to take blogging as their profession.
Afrin,
I meant that blogger is a pain from the perspective of a “professional”. However, it is much much better if you r a beginner and want to get your hands dirty!
Thanks for this nice Article !!
Really Amit is Gr8 !!
Very cool to have to originator, very insightful!
Amit Ji is Super hero of blogging and have succeeded after lot of hard work in the career of blogging .
Here by reading his interview , I got new education of blogging .
But one thing , I did not understand
” I have made tons of mistakes in these years but the biggest one was starting my blogging career on a blogspot domain ”
What are main draw backs of blogspot domain .
Please tell me
Amit we all are proud of you and would like to know how to start a blog and what needs to start a blog
Please share with me…
Insightful writing. I will take some time to examine your blog.
Hi there,I like your web site and it looks definitely interesting and effortless to study,actually!.
I’m from Ghana. I really the Soccer and cannot wait till 11th June, can you?.But there is a issue camming from FIFA. It can be that doesn′t choose the very best teams in this planet for the World Cup which it need otherwise don′t call the Entire world Cup a final, in the event you wish to play soccer towards the soul of competition then go for the olympics games. definitely is exactly what the Planet Cup is turning to, and it su…, ire required to beat france being in and is not, jap beat lowly teams as bahrain, qatar, kuwait, to become in, is this justice I dont feel so, just simply because that you are inside the World Cup it doesn′t imply that you just have the high quality to become in like jap can attes. Any way, I expect to see a wonderful final on 11th July and my preferred winner team is Ghana,and my preferred player is Del Piero.Really weblog and maintain going.Cu!
Perfect facts! I have been looking for something such as this for a time now. Many thanks!
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