Gauravonomics Blog

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As you would have figured out by now, I’m never quite satisfied with my blog. As I learn more about the art and science of blogging, I find more and more things on the blog that need to be fixed. Yesterday was my day off from work and I spent most of it working on the biggest tweak on my blog ever since I shifted from Wordpress.com.

The thing is, Gauravonomics is not one blog anymore, I have split it into two separate blogs -

- At Gauravonomics Blog, I’ll write about blogging, marketing and personal development. If you want to read about what I’m thinking about, head over here.
- At Gauravonomics Diary, I’ll write about love, life and pop culture. If you want to read about what I’m doing/ feeling/ reading/ watching/ listening to, this is the blog to read.

I split the blog into two because I found myself writing for two separate sets of readers on the same blog. My older readers wanted more personal posts about what was happening in my life, but the focus of the blog had moved to what was happening in my head, resulting in a new set of readers looking for posts on marketing, technology and blogging tips. With the split, I’ll find it easier to have meaningful conversations with both sets of readers.

Dosh Dosh has a great collection of posts on whether you should display the feed count for your blog.

Whenever I find myself on a new blog, I quickly check the blog’s Technorati rank and feed count to get a sense of the blog’s popularity.

If it is a desi blog, and I like the two or three posts I have read on the blog, I subscribe to it anyway, because popularity metrics aren’t really an indication of the quality of writing on personal or opinion blogs. However, if it is a blog in a saturated niche like blogging tips, personal development, marketing or technology, I do use these popularity metrics as a proxy for how influential the blog is in its niche and rarely subscribe to any blog which has less than a few hundred links or subs.

A lot of blog readers also use these popularity metrics as a filter before subscribing to a new blog and you need to be aware of it before you decide to display your feed count on your blog.

In my opinion, you should display your feed count if -

It has been a week since I put up my thirty by thirty list, and already I have had some early wins.

I’m now writing for both DesiPundit and Global Voices, something I wouldn’t even have dreamed of a few months back. This gives me an unique opportunity to showcase upcoming desi blogs to both desi (via DesiPundit) and global (via Global Voices) readers and I’m hoping that, by promoting good desi blogs, I’ll play a small part in the growth of desi blogging itself.

I’m also trying to help other (desi) bloggers through my blogging tips for beginners - Novice Blogger - series. As you know, I’m not an expert on blogs or blogging. I still struggle with the simplest of code, I still make basic blogging mistakes, and my blog is not even moderately popular in terms of most metrics like number of feed subscribers, number of back-links, or number of comments. However, every single day, I’m trying out new things, both at the front-end and at the back-end, making mistakes and learning from my mistakes. I share my mistakes, and my learnings, in the hope that some of it will be useful to other bloggers, especially beginners. So, go ahead, read my Novice Blogger series, subscribe to my Novice Blogger feed, or bookmark my Novice Blogger resource page, and if you have more questions, feel free to contact me by e-mail or via my contact form. I cannot promise that I’ll always be prompt, or useful, but I’ll try.

I read about four hundred blogs via feed, including about two hundred desi blogs, and, given that I have a sixty hour work-week, my feed-reader always has way too many unread posts.

I have tagged my feeds into various categories - Friends, Favorite Desi Personal, Favorite Desi Group, Gyan, Other Desi Personal, Other Desi Group, Blogging Tips, Technology, Social Networking and Masala - and always read the posts in the same order.

Sometimes, however, I only have time to read four or five blogs everyday. Here are the blogs I read then, these are my five favorite desi bloggers -

- Within/ Without by Neha Vishwanathan

To me, Neha is the undisputed queen bee of desi blogging. Her poems are some of the best I have seen on desi blogs and her fiction fragments always leave me wanting more. She’s perhaps the only one around who reads more desi blogs than I do, and it shows in her contributions on DesiPundit and GlobalVoices.

- India Uncut by Amit Varma

I have been thinking for a while now to start a series of “how to blog” posts for the blogging beginners - “blogging tips, for novice bloggers, from a novice blogger”.

Today, Amit Varma, at India Uncut finally reverted to full feeds, and Darren Rowse, at ProBlogger asked “What makes you unsubscribe from a blog’s RSS feed?”, prompting me to write the first post in the “novice blogger” series on “how to retain feed subscribers“.

I think that before we ask “why do we unsubscribe from feeds?”, we need to ask “why do we subscribe from feeds?”

I subscribe to all the blogs I read regularly. This includes blogs from friends and a specific number of blogs in my interest areas. For instance, as of today, the 200 feeds I have subscribed to can be classified into desi blogs, “how to blog” blogs, web 2.0 blogs and movie blogs.