“Be a responsible blogger. Usage of cuss words, communal and racist remarks can hurt the sentiments of many. Please do not use them in order to sound cool or to increase your page hits.”

- Gayathri Vishwanathan

“If nonstop nonsense is what you like, then probably you are reading about the right person. Hi, this is Gayathri Vishwanathan. Waise toh I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but since I have been asked to describe myself, I would describe myself as a friendly, kiddish and intelligent girl err sorry woman. Writing is my passion (which does not include writing sad technical user manuals) and I intend to nurture it to the fullest by writing more frequently.” Says Gayathri a lover of writing who always wanted a platform where she can explore her writing and then she launched “gayathri-vishwanatha” in March 2007.

The blog is a combination of her expression, feelings, experience and thoughts about anything and everything  she like.

Read the interview to know more about Gayathri and her journey as a blogger.

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Blogger’s Detail:

Blogger’s Name: Gayathri Vishwanathan

About yourself: If nonstop nonsense is what you like, then probably you are reading about the right person. Hi, this is Gayathri Vishwanathan. Waise toh I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, but since I have been asked to describe myself, I would describe myself as a friendly, kiddish and intelligent girl err sorry woman. Writing is my passion (which does not include writing sad technical user manuals) and I intend to nurture it to the fullest by writing more frequently.

Age: A 24 year old kid

Occupation / Profession: I work for a telecom company (I hope I won’t be asked about my job description, because for that I will have to ask my boss about what I have been doing in the organization and this time he won’t be able to make use of Google or Wikipedia to provide an answer )

Blog name and URL: Blog name: Me and My Invaluable Thoughts

and its URL is: www.gayathri-vishwanathan.blogspot.com

Blog Focus Area, domain: I had initially started writing about education and society in my blog, but with time my focus shifted towards different kind of topics such as TV, Ads, Films, Politics, letters to politicians and Indra Devta etc. So in a nutshell, I do not deal with any specific area or domain in my blog, my blog is randomness personified.

Blog launched on: I launched my blog in April 2007; the idea was given to me by my classmate gaurav (www.gauravbhat.blogspot.com). However, my blog was dormant for over 7 months as my new job took up most of my time and my office had blocked blogspot. But somehow I did get a chance to read my colleague Pradeep’s blog (http://wabbster.wordpress.com/) and tadaaa I was super motivated to restart blogging again.

Monthly visits on website: No idea, I do not keep a tab on how many page hits I receive per month. I just checked my profile visits, it shows 2,400 since March 2007.

Do you have team of bloggers?: No.

Interest / Activities: I love writing, but besides that I love listening to music (music is religion and AR Rahman is God for me), surfing the net, fighting with rickshawalas and at the risk of sounding extremely frank, I would like to include sleeping for endless hours as an activity too.

Located at: Aamchi Mumbai, India

Contact Details:

Facebook Id: Gayathri Vishwanathan

Email Id: vishwanathan.gayathri@gmail.com

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Interview (Q&A Round):

Q. What motivated you to start blogging?

My passion for writing is what motivated me to start blogging. I am glad that I got a medium to pour out all my thoughts and ideas.

Q. Tell us in detail about your blog? What area or topic you generally cover in your blog, any special reason behind it?

As said before, my blog is randomness personified. I try to write about anything and everything that pops up in my mind. There are times when I get an idea and I instantly switch on my PC and start blogging (provided MTNL gives me support), and then there are times when my ideas stay completely frozen within my brains and cease to come out in the form of a blog.

Q. Why reader should come on your blog…What is the best part of your blog?

My blog is adequately showered with mumbaiyya language, so anybody who loves the famous Mumbaiyya lingo should give a visit to my humble blog. I would definitely try not to disappoint you.

I generously make use of Hinglish (a mixture of Hindi and English). Hinglish gives my blog an informal and quirky feel, which according to me is the best part of my blog. Despite being a student of journalism, I am shameless enough to say that I make several grammatical and spelling errors; I am trying hard to rectify them. Besides this, I also try to include relevant videos from youtube to make my post interesting.

Q. Which blogging platform you are using (wordpress, blogspot, bloggers etc), any reason about it?

I use blogspot. I had started blogging through blogspot and since I found it pretty user friendly, I did not switch to any other blogging platform.

Q. How frequent you update your blog? How many post your blog is carrying at present?

I try to write minimum 1-4 posts per month (I admit it’s too less, but the lazy kid that I am, I can’t really get myself to write anything just for the heck of it). At present my blog carries 52 posts.

Q. What tools you use to increase your blog readership and bring people on your blog? Do you use social networking sites?

I do not use any tool to increase my blog readership. The only way to increase the readership is to comment on other’s posts. Definitely they would visit your blog to either read your blogs or to comment on them. I use Facebook and Twitter, though I would not call myself a regular user. You can surely catch up with me there.

Q. Any specific tips you have for new bloggers who want to make it in the

blogsphere?

Be a responsible blogger. Usage of cuss words, communal and racist remarks can hurt the sentiments of many. Please do not use them in order to sound cool or to increase your page hits.

Q. What you like most about internet and why?

Internet allows me to search for information on every topic under the sun thus enabling me to increase my knowledge. It also provides me with the platform to upload my resume on job sites and get a job instead of standing in a long queue outside employment agencies (hope my boss does not read this) . But most importantly, internet has provided me with an opportunity to connect with my old friends, relatives and other people living in some corner of the world.

Q. What you hate most about internet and why?

The increasing cases of cyber crimes such as morphed photography, fake and offensive profiles of youths on social networking sites, hacking of passwords and siphoning out money are some of the crimes that bother me a lot. The cyber cell needs to look into the cyber law loopholes and must try to resolve them as soon as possible so as to avert or decrease cyber crimes and punish the guilty.

Q. Do you earn revenue through your blog? If yes then how a blogger should monetize his / her blog? If no, then any plans in future?

No, I do not earn any revenue through my blog, although initially I did give it a thought; I did not monetize it as I felt it would dilute my purpose of writing a blog i.e. to make a strong network of blogger friends.

Q. What are your other favorite blogs which you follow, can you list the top 5 such blogs?

It would be unfair on my part to categorize blogs in Top 5 or Top 10 categories, as I read more than 100 blogs regularly and find each of them unique and interesting in its own way. But there’s one blog that I like a lot:

http://parikshith-kumar.blogspot.com/

Oh by the way I forgot to add this before: Thanks a lot WebNeeTech for giving my blog recognition.

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