| There's a little conundrum built into writing this column. On the one hand, it's uploaded onto the Business Standard website, occasionally makes its way to other high-traffic sites (like Rediff.com, with whom BS has a content-sharing arrangement), and is read by people who know the Net like the back of their palm tops. |
| But my brief is to target readers who aren't especially blog-savvy and for whom almost any information would be new and useful. Result: negative feedback flows in from both ends of the tech-knowledge spectrum "� from "How can you review a site like Boing Boing, everyone is familiar with it!" to "Your column is too esoteric for someone like me who's Net-illiterate." Sigh! |
| However, I've decided to throw in my lot with the underdog now, and so this week let's look at one of the most well-known blogs around. I'm talking about a site that has even added a new word to the dictionary "� if you ever lose your job because of something you've written on your personal website, do send in an application for your "I've been Dooced" T-shirt. |
| Dooce (http://www.dooce.com/) is the pseudonym of 30-year-old Heather B Armstrong, who became a cyber-celebrity in 2002 when she was fired for writing about colleagues on her blog. Interestingly, though the incident was Armstrong's ticket to fame (she was subsequently interviewed by the New York Times and the BBC) and it would be easy for her to be smug about it, she acknowledges that it was her fault. |
| "My advice to you," she writes on her site, "is Be Ye Not So Stupid. Never write about work on the internet unless your boss knows and sanctions it." (Incidentally many Indian bloggers I know would do well to heed that advice: too many of them naïvely believe their blogs are their own "private spaces" and they can say whatever they want to without repercussions.) |
| The posts that implicated Armstrong were written nearly four years ago but you can still find them on the website, archived under the category "Dooced". However, the reason for the long-term success of Dooce.com is that it's a well-written, regularly-updated site. |
| As Armstrong herself candidly puts it, "This blog chronicles my life from a time when I was single and making a lot of money as a web designer in Los Angeles, to when I was dating my husband, to when I lost my job and lived life as an unemployed drunk, to when I married my husband and moved to Utah, to when I became pregnant... to the birth, to the aftermath, to the postpartum depression I currently suffer." |
| Dooce has all of that, but the key to its popularity is that it balances the personal dear-diary entries with piquant writing on topics of more general interest. Categories include "Mormonism", "Parenthood", "Email", "Kitchen Remodel" and "Boobs", the Flickr photo facility is used to good effect and there's enough trawling here to keep you occupied for many days. |
| It isn't too surprising that when Armstrong's husband resigned from his job, the ad revenue from her blog was enough to support the family! |
| Jai Arjun Singh, aka Jabberwock, blogs at http://jaiarjun. blogspot. com |
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