Saturday, September 01, 2012

My Life in Blogging..

A time comes when you have to just stop where you are and introspect. Look back to what you have done, your mistakes, areas where you made the right decisions, phases you wish never occurred. I have reached such a stage. Not in my personal life, but in my blogging life. I have already published 99 posts and this, my friend, is my 100th.


Time for some introspection. And a walk down memory lane. So ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to my life in blogging:

Phase 1: The Beginning

It seems like a long time ago. Year 2007 to be precise - when I wrote my first post. A post about relations. I described friendship, how it starts and where it leads to. I am sure you might have not read that post as I didn't have loyal readers, or for that matter, even disloyal readers to read about it. I shared it with my friends and some of them replied. I somehow felt I have really achieved something. They say its always difficult to start something new. I say they are right!

Phase 2: The End

The initial excitement led me to write another post in December 2007 and 3 more posts in the first half of 2008. Ironically, by that time, the excitement totally faded away! I had a career shift (getting back to studies after 2 years of corporate life). This made me concentrate too much on the task at hand and slowly I lost interest in blogging. Overall, I wrote 2 posts in 2007, 3 in 2008 and 2 in 2009. That's a total of 7 in exactly 24 months.

Phase 3: The Beginning, again

Then came a sudden rush to revisit the blogging days. I don't remember how. All I remember is that I felt I need to write again. Give blogging another try. Also, my academic days came to an end and I started my corporate life again. The thing with corporate life is that you work for 5 days and rest for 2 days. So, I had time to write again. Also, I was never short of topics as I don't have a niche blog (like food blog, sports blog, travel blog, business blog etc). I realize I need to write on something I observed and I write.

Phase 4: Growth

I wrote an open letter to my blog (as weird as it seem) apologizing for my ignorance and promising that I will regularly update my blog. And that's when the journey truly began. I consciously made an effort to write regularly. I wrote 58 posts in 2011. Now I don't have a target or I don't really compare the numbers but it was evident that my interest in blogging reached an all new high. In the same year, I started promoting my posts through various websites (IndiBlogger), some websites highlighted some of my posts as past of their weekly best collection (BlogAdda). I also registered on many blog sharing sites to promote my blog, unfortunately most of them didn't do me any good. I started gaining many readers mostly due to my association with IndiBlogger. Page views also started increasing.

Phase 5: Consolidation

At one point, I realized that numbers shouldn't matter to me. I mean yes, numbers are an important feedback mechanism to show how your posts are performing on search engines. More comments would mean more readers would like to share their opinion on the post. But I was slowly becoming a person who was obsessed with more numbers and my priority changed from "what I want to write" to "what readers want to read and search". You see, the second approach works well if you are planning to monetize your blog. But, my blog is a personal and an ad-free blog. I decided to abide by the first approach. Since then, I write about topics that interest me and seeks to obtain feedback (good and bad alike) from fellow bloggers.

I am currently in this phase and I intend to remain in this phase for ever.

I am personally having a great time writing posts and reading posts from my blogging friends - the same friends who stood by me through this journey. If I haven't got the amount of appreciation (and criticism) I did when I (re)started blogging, I would never have reached this stage. So, a BIG THANK YOU guys!

Here are some of the posts that I really enjoyed writing, in case you haven't read them (order in which I have published):
  1. The day I met GOD.
  2. Termites came, saw, ate and conquered..
  3. Guest Post: Its a dog's life, after all !!
  4. Guest Post: Grievances of One - Hundred Rupee note.
  5. Wish I had lived those two hours differently..
Feeling slightly nostalgic. Damn, what will I write for my 101st post?

And my life continues..

22 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your 100th!Quite a different post for the 100th one. Retrospection and consolidation of the different phases. Enjoyed reading it :-) And thank you for linking your best ones here, will surely go through them now :-)

    US open for the 101? :-) and oh yes, fabregas over to manu :-)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Jenny :)

      And for some reason, I am not following US open (maybe its the US timing). Also, van Persie went to Man Utd - I so hated it yaar! Leaving your team is onething, but leaving your team to join bitter rivals just doesn't make sense.. Anyways, the damage has been done and just like true Arsenal fan, I will move on :)

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    2. opps sorry, van persie and not fabregas. Oh yes the US timings are tough, but you can catch few of them early morning around 8.

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    3. Hehe.. The impact was the same though - with Fabregas and van Persie. We still love Fabregas :)

      I will definitely watch US Open in the business end of the tournament. The semi finals and finals :)

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  2. Woohoo! Congratulations! 100 is huge and brings with it such a very special feeling! Thank YOU for this wonderful park, I so enjoy reading your works, always innovative and refreshing. Keep up the good work, Binu and may you convert this number into 1000 soon! :):) Good luck!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks a lot Arti! I am glad you enjoy reading my posts. Number 1000 seems a long way away, but definitely not unreachable :D

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  3. Hurray its 100th :D voila what a coincidence we both started blogging in the same year and we have done our 100th also in the same here!!!

    Beautiful journey you have documented here!!! Kudos for coming back to blogging :D otherwise we would have missed reading you!!!

    :) Post more and more love all your posts, and special thanks for putting up the list will surely read each one of your best work :D

    BINU CLAP CLAP CLAP :D PARTY TIME :D for hitting century :D

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    Replies
    1. Thanks a lot Ramya. And that was a great co-incidence - we starting our blogging journey in Dec 2007 and finishing 100th post this year. Long way to go still! :)

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  4. Great going Binu and best wishes on scoring a ton! You took less time than Sachin:) May your blog prosper!

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  5. Firstly, hearty congratulations Binu for the making the century...A toast buddy..:) Your park is a nice one, where not only joggers but everyone with varied interests come and share their views about what you express. It's a pleasure and I am glad to follow your blog...:) The best part about your blog is that, as you have said, is you don't have any specific topic to share (like food or travel or something like that) and that's the USP of your blog. Congratulations once again and wish to read some more wonderful posts from you Binu...:)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks a ton Prashanth for the kind words and wishes. Now is the time to restart the phase again. Now I know the pressure our cricket batsmen go through to score th 101st run after the century :)

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  6. Congratulations with your 100 posts:-)
    I like your blog because you write about so many different things and what you are passionate about. I do not always understand everything if it's sport of India etc. However, you have a different blog and it's good!
    Although I do not write as much, most photos, but it's for my own satisfaction.

    Blessings from Tania in Norway

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Tania for the wishes and kind words :) Even I like the way you make Psalms look even more beautiful with the images..

      Have a blessed weekend.

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  7. When I read the end, in 2nd point, I was lil shocked but I have seen it in case of many bloggers. And since you wrote about blogging platforms, I feel yours has the maximum no of Blogadda's pick, which btw is awesome. Will read your first post and I feel like writing something like this when I hit a century myself.

    Good going, keep blogging, you are one blogger I look upto...:)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Saru. Though you may not have completed 100 posts, you surely have a huge fan following because of your wonderful poems, something that I look up to :)

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All yours..

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