Blogging

This is my 300th post on this blog. I remember when I shifted to my own domain name last August, after awestruck by the beauty of Patrix’s blog (it is now not as beautiful as it used to be), I just has 95 posts. This blog has traveled a long way since that eventful August, 2006. Serendipity now gets around 150-200 unique visitors each day (Short stats claims that figure to be around 400-500 but I wonder why it’s so high compared to google analytics). Google adsense income is around $ 2-4 per day, which is high by my standards. On few occasions its as low as $ 0.5 but average hovers around $3. Feedburner tells me that I have around 110 subscribers. The google PR is now 4 but predictions are that it will increase to 5 shortly. The most visited post, which will be a surprise to most of my regular readers, happens to be When Munna bhai is overtaken by Veer. (It has been viewed 2158 times)

I think I have achieved a lot in these months, particularly as a personal blog. I know technology blogs have dominated the blogsphere but I still went ahead with a personal blog because this is what interests me the most. I did divulge out many secrets about me in the initial days of blogging but I had nothing better to write. With time and more online friends I slowly started writing about other issues.

I am seriously overwhelmed by the kind of responses readers have shown. I remember once I was ranting about few emotional problems. I deliberately turned the comments off and to my surprise people mailed me to express their support. I thanked them profusely for the support. Recently I have got tremendous response to the series (A sensible boy and the Kar sewaks) on my blog. People have mailed me, scrapped me and even talked to me personally on the matter. I will come up with the concluding post shortly.

I really don’t know how long will this passion for blogging last within me but as long as it is, I want to give my best. Thanks a billion to all my readers. And special thanks to Mohib for suggesting me dreamhost at $22 for the first year, without which I couldn’thave hosted by blog.

Do check out the top posts page. Regular posting will begin shortly after I conclude the series I started as I am too occupied answering emails from people

Digg is one of the most visited website in the world. A story on the front page can earn you 1000s of hits in minutes. Even after every effort by Digg to stop spam, people have manipulated the website to their advantage. There is a site called U/S which charges $1 per digg.

Four and a half hours later, I was the only person who had dugg my story. That’s when I hired a Digg-gaming service called User/Submitter, or U/S. This enterprise, run by one or more zealously anonymous individuals, advertises that it can help “submitters” get Digg stories noticed by paying “users” to digg them. There’s a $20 sign-up fee and each digg costs $1, which gets split evenly between the service and the digger. U/S refunds money paid for any diggs the submitter doesn’t get in a 48-hour period. I put down $450 for 430 diggs, but wound up getting refunded all but roughly $100 of that. (Wired News is owned by CondéNet, which also owns Digg competitor reddit.) [Wired News]

Money can buy lot of things and definitely fame!

MyBlogLog has compiled a list of 10 hottest clicks in the world (yes sadly clicks and not chicks), thanks to their tracking code

Worldwide 10 Hottest Clicks

• The Choice on Iraq
•  Pelosi’s Daughter Targets Evangelicals
• PopSugar
• Hollywood Tuna
• getting married
• her pregnancy
• apparently made her first Oscar’s appearance
• DListed
• Hillary’s Taboo: Has She Ever Heard of the Internet?
• Why So Many Righties Are Rooting For Rudy

They also have country wise listing on their site.

Most interestingly the India list includes links of blogs when blogspot was banned in June last year. So they haven’t updated the list of the popularity of blogs were so tremendous then that it it still carries on?

Abdel Karim has been jailed for blogging against Islam and the president Hosne Mubarak.  Yasmin has a well articulated post which critically examines the fallacy of the verdict.

Amazingly, Chapter Three of the Egyptian Constitution which deals with Public Freedoms, Rights and Duties says in Article 47: “Freedom of opinion shall be guaranteed. Every individual shall have the right to express his opinion and to publicize it verbally, in writing, by photography or by other means of expression within the limits of the law. Self criticism and constructive criticism shall guarantee the safety of the national structure. “

This is exactly what Karim has done. He exercised his freedom of opinion. He took his right of expressing his opinion seriously and believed enough in it to write it on the internet in a publicly accessible blog. In my opinion Karim lived up to both his own true self and principles as well as his religion. In his Blogger profile he wrote that he was looking forward to help humanity against all forms of discrimination. The Qur’an implores believers to speak up against injustice, which is precisely what Karim has done.

The update is shocking

Abdel Karim father announced today that he is disowning Abdel Karim, and that he would like to see Sharia Law applied to his son, in which he would have 3 days to repent at the end of which if he is not repentent, he would be killed. The Father also announced that he intends to disown his son publicly in court- accompanied by his Koran-memorizing 4 other children- the day of the verdict in order to “lift the pressure” that the civil society and human rights organization maybe imposing on the Court. He also called the Human Rights organizations who are fighting for his son’s freedom “Chimps Rights Organizations” since “they are defending a Chimp like AbdelKarim” who is emulating the west in “their thinking and opinions”. Nice, eh?

Why do I have the feeling that this court session will be a circus?

 [sandmonkey, http://www.sandmonkey.org/2007/02/18/abdel-karim-family-disowns-him/]