Interview of Pavan Kumar – a tech blogger

Pavan Kumar

A full time blogger, Pavan Kumar runs a very popular tech blog

Blogging has been a common thing among the internet users. Even the starter has a blog, though of only one page. But very few people have an informative blog, and even if they have an informative and regularly updated blog, they are not a hit in terms of traffic. But Pavan Kumar‘s story is different. He runs techpavan.com, which is extremely informative blog containing very useful articles, tips and tricks and lot more. And not only that, his blog receives excellent traffic too. Speakbindas had a cool chit chat with him about blogging and lot more. Check it out.

Speakbindas: Welcome to Speakbindas, Pavan Kumar. Let us start the ball rolling with your origins and family background you come from?

Pavan Kumar: Hi Devang, I am from Southern part of India and stay at Davangere which is some 250kms from Bangalore. I completed my engineering in 2008 under the Electronics and Communication discipline from Visveshwaraya Technological University (www.vtu.ac.in – don’t hyperlink it – bad neighbour 😛 ). I am a cool, intelligent guy but to be open to all, my intelligence is mixed up with low memory and I keep forgetting things easily – I only remember things which are of high priority. It is of no wonder that I don’t remember many of my classmates during my 1st year (its combined course here for all branches, then we split into respective disciplines). Patience is my main strength, and the same acts as weakness many times.

Coming to my family, I currently stay with my parents and good thing about me is being their only son. Yes, I don’t need to share my internet bandwidth with anyone 😉

Speakbindas:  Ok, tell us what is techpavan.com all about? Was it easy to chose this domain or it came after sleepless nights of going through bizarre domain names?

Pavan Kumar:  TechPavan.com is what I started as a diary to keep my computer doubts and their solutions in an ordered manner. Today, it deals with different web 2.0 services, desktop and web softwares, mobiles, VoIP, WordPress, tips & tricks and rarely about adsense, making money, blogging etc.
To be true, that was not a domain which I obtained after brainstorming. I did not have much idea about this entire domain name hunting process and just chose it to start a tech blog. I never had any idea that my blog will reach the extent where it lives today. And to be frank, domain hunting is the tough challenge on my desk even today.

Speakbindas: It’s only Pavan Kumar or other friends too associated with techpavan.com?

Pavan Kumar:  Not at all. If you ask about the behind of TP, its only Pavan Kumar, but the ones who are making it successful are the thousands of visitors who read my blog daily 🙂 Thanks to Mr. Goog, and no social media.

Pavan Kumar

Speakbindas: We know the age is irrelevant when it comes to success in any field. But still, we are curious to know about the success of your blog (techpavan.com), where as the matter of the fact is you are just 21 years, and an engineering student. We know, you wished not be asked anything about site’s stats such as traffic and income. But when I had a look at Alexa stats (http://alexa.com/siteinfo/techpavan.com) of your blog, I was literary stunned, like its worldwide rank is 41,399 (as on June 1, 2009), with 182 sites Linking in. I know, this must have required great hard work. Let the history of it flow out of you with us, Pavan.

Pavan Kumar: Err. Sorry for my mistake in About Page, nearly 3 months back I turned 22, will update my about page as this interview completes. And you read it wrong – I am no engineering student, but an engineering graduate.

During my initial days, I was totally unorganized and irregular in my blogging, irregular I mean here as the topics I dealt. I have written few personal things too on this blog, anyway they have been embedded deep that no one visits them.

Coming to my success, I like to say I am not an expert in building traffic and it all happened automatically, I just created something original. Getting orkut scraps on mobile was the article which kicked me up, I did it at right time and people recognized it.

Main thing about traffic I can say is reading and writing the right stuff at right time. Many sites and books have helped me boosting my blog. There is no end to reading, but what I recommend bloggers to read apart from expert articles are Binary Day (http://binaryday.com/) and Make Money Online (http://makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com/). Well, even these guys are experts and deserve the “expert” title. Binary Day is run by my friend from Mumbai, India and his SEO articles are really informative and holds a clear experience and research in behind. The MMO blog I linked is the one which ranks 1st for “Make Money Online” on Google. His loooooooong articles will cover many lot things about adsense, the content available there rocks.

FYI, 21 or 22 is already late in the online world. There are many people whom you can get aspiration from. Check out people here (http://www.retireat21.com/top-young-entrepreneurs/) and here (http://www.retireat21.com/blog/top-20-young-internet-entrepreneurs-under-21/). I am looking forward at the success of my cousin who is just a 10th passout – he has just entered into blogging along with his studies. Check out his Tweak Daddy (http://tweakdaddy.blogspot.com/) – LOL, he is a Daddy at his 15th age 😀

Speakbindas: Updating a blog regularly with interesting information is indeed a time consuming job. How do you manage the same along with your studies?

Pavan Kumar: Previous question answers it, I am not a student currently. Right now, blogging is my only profession, but soon I will be joining an MNC and I should see how it goes by that time.

Pavan Kumar

Speakbindas: You must be a different and famous personality among your college friends. How does it feel running such a cool and popular blog at this very age of 21?

Pavan Kumar: No way! I am not at all a famous person amongst my friends for being a blogger. And the very reason behind is none of them have good awareness about the world of internet and blogging. Everyone just use it for very basic purposes like emails, orkutting, downloading stuff, chatting etc. I am sure, none of my personal friends read my blog, nor comment. Total number of comments I have received from college friends is less than 5 😀

You know, the most weird thing I feel is when I have to introduce to new people as unemployed, though I am self employed and earn something comparable with a software engineer of my age. Its tough to explain blogging to common people. No one recognizes me as a blogger(its some foreign word :P), they think I simply sit at home and waste all time 🙁 No problem for me, I don’t need any public identity, I just want to lead a life of personal satisfaction.

You might feel it strange, my city has only one fellow blogger who is running a regular tech blog – want to know him? He is here (http://technotip.org/). Any other active blogger from DVG reading this? Sorry, please contact me, I want to know you 🙂

Speakbindas: What future of techpavan.com you have in your vision today?

Pavan Kumar: Hmm, this is the tough question. I just want to say I want to blog and blog more to get TP to a better extent. I am not sure how satisfactorily I might maintain it once I join the company, but its for sure I maintain it.

Speakbindas: Let’s leave blogging aside for a while now, he he. Tell us, are you a movie geek? Which are your favorites?

Pavan Kumar: Yes I am. I love watching movies, but I don’t have much of this favourite genre like thing. Few movies I loved watching are Slumdog Millionaire, Harry Potter series, Anti Trust, Forbidden Kingdom, Mind Your Language(TV series – must watch comedy), Hindi: Jab We Met, A Wednesday and few more. I also watch good movies from Kannada (mother tongue) and Telugu.

Speakbindas: Which are the dishes you enjoy the most, as well as hate the most?

Pavan Kumar: My favourite is Chapattis and I don’t hate anything in particular, but dislike few vegetables (LOL, still I eat them). Just few months left for this love-hate game, soon I will have to think about quick and easy food 😛

Speakbindas: We wish you all the best for techpavan.com to grow further. Any special message you would like to share with techpavan’s visitors / fans?

Pavan Kumar:  Thank you Devang and team for wishes and giving me an opportunity to be here 🙂 I wish all my visitors, readers, fans and friends a great success in all their endeavors.

Pavan Kumar
10.44pm,
1st June, 2009-06-01