Steve has been on our elite list long ago before Deborah from Life In A Fast Lane could remind us of our missing him. We had always admired his writings over Inventorspot with little knowledge that he has started contributing on other renowned blogs well i.e. Weburbanist. Wish Steve could spare sometime for elitechoice also and breed his creativity here.

Hailing from Toronto, Steve is our first elite guest who is consciously aware of Japan’s economy in and out. Here, we managed to get more insight of Japanese culture from him and also, his take on other areas.

Read further to know more about this self-employed blogger:

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R.J.J. Jongschaap, not a veteran blogger but an active contributor to the development of blogosphere is our elite guest today. You may have known him as a top stumbler and here I suggest you to bookmark his frequently updated blogs LinkNotes and ClipsToNote, as they are populated with quality sources posting the buzz across science, technology, design, environment and others.

Rob chooses not-to-be called as a writer or a retired associate professor but says: “I’m a collector, explorer and an envoy. I like to collect information, explore things and explain them to others. Earlier I did that in science; now in blogging and social networking.”

Go with the flow to know more about this would-be seasoned blogger.

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“Life in the Fast Lane,” a blog has literal roots attached to it as it represents the business of Fast Lane Transport, Ltd. located in Edmonton, Alberta.  But Deborah, our elite blogger and the primary writer of the blog draws no limits to her delivery at “LITFL.”  It features her interest in art, the odd, the unusual, offbeat news, weird sciences, her little business and even trucking-:)

Readers spend minutes at her blog and you will get to see to know her better. Good if you can spare time and she her more active side of personality across social networking communities – undoubtedly a great stumbler!

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To begin with, the celebrating statement of the day is EliteBlogger = Birday gurl Miss Cellania.
I was on my hunt for my next EliteBlogger after interviewing Alex from Neatorama and Shaun from Deputy Dog. And then fortunately both the bloggers recommended Miss Cellania, who is popularly known across blogosphere for her contribution across diverse nature of blogs i.e. Neatorama, YesButNoButYes and Mental Floss. Cutting the long story short, I spent couple of hours getting a fair idea of her deliverables and got to know that she is the Blogebrity of the humorous and offbeat stuff.

The very day I sent her an invite to be my EliteBlogger with a prompt response from her saying: Sure, I will be glad to answer your questions.

And here we have her with us penning down interesting responses to the long-list of questions sent across. Go with the flow:

Cellania, Kindly introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual day at work.
I get the kids off to school in the morning, then surf the web and post items at Neatorama and YesButNoButYes until about 1 or 2PM. Then I do some housework and take a nap. In the evening, I take the kids to their activities, check on my mother-in-law, grab some dinner, help with homework, and try to get the kids in bed by ten. Then I write for mental_floss and my own blog until maybe 3AM.

When did you sense an inclination towards blogging?
I started sending a newsletter of jokes in 2004 to reconnect with old friends and entertain new online friends. When I discovered blogging, it seemed like a much easier way to do the same thing.

Whilst having an email-interview with Alex, he introduced me to Neatorama as the neat side of web. What remains your criterion of post selection that you play here?
The main criteria for Neatorama is that an item be interesting; the kind of thing that will make you say, “Hey, that’s neat!” Other than that, it must be appealing to a wide audience, fairly safe for family viewing, and something we haven’t posted before.

Is there any niche that you maintain while posting “Morning Cup of Links” at Mental Floss or are they random picks that fit well one’s breakfast table?

I try to get a variety every day. Optimally, I’d love to have a science breakthrough, a link or two on history, geography, or language, some news that makes you think, and several funny links. And a kitten doing something cute. But I will sacrifice variety for quality, depending on what’s good that day.

How is your experience to write for a site targeted at men (YesButNoButYes)? Is it difficult or interesting?

Both difficult AND interesting! I walk a fine line trying to be ladylike and give the guys what they want. There have been many times I’ll pass on a great story or link because I think it’s over the line for me, and later find one of the guys used it and had a very successful post. But that’s OK.

How do you maintain stability at writing front as you deliver articles across diverse areas i.e. humor, movies, men, gadgets, and other random stuff?
For my own site, I just collect anything that amuses me. Working for mental_floss has caused me to expand my horizons, so to speak, since I never wrote about gadgets at all until they asked me to do a weekly “gadget report”. And I’m always looking outside my comfort zone to find subjects for my mental_floss features. It keeps me on my toes, but I’d hardly call it maintaining stability.

Japan seems to breed robots in huge numbers. Can you imagine a day when robots are efficient enough to substitute humans for all major tasks? Would you depute one to blog for you?
If I could afford it, sure! In fact, I would hire a human to do it for me now, if I had the money. I’d also hire someone, or a robot, to clean my house if I could.

How would you define an ideal blog? I mean, what special features it must have to make an impact and deliver?
There are no universal ideals, because there is no way to please the entire online audience. There are niches for link blogs, political blogs, personal blogs, specialty blogs, art blogs, etc etc. They all have different standards to appeal to a different audience. Within each genre, they should have 1. Quality content, 2. Whatever it take to make accessing that content easy for the reader, like a pleasing layout, simple navigation, and proper grammar and spelling. Even those things vary, because you don’t need proper grammar on a blog that posts graphics only, and a pleasing layout varies depending on the type of blog and the audience.

Do you think there is any scope left for evolving bloggers to try their luck?
There is room for many more bloggers! You hear about how many millions of blogs there are, but they come in all languages covering many different subjects. And many bloggers don’t need luck, because they aren’t setting goals for their blogs -they just want to write for whoever is interested. Blogging is easy to try out, and easy to quit if you aren’t getting what you want out of it.

Both your personal blogs Miss Cellania and Miss C Recommends seem to be populated with videos. Considering your inclination towards digital technology, can we expect you to enter into the domain of podcasting in coming months?
I don’t have the time or patience to do audio podcasting. I don’t even have the time or patience to listen to podcasts! As far as video goes, I tried that at Neatorama. Since I live in a small town far away from anything interesting, it’s really hard to find good subjects to shoot.

Pen down your five favorite posts written till date.

The LOLcat of Death.
Does My Butt Look Big in This?
The Weirdest Insects in the World.
My Dream Job.
8 Historical Crossdressers: Women in a Man’s World.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something that should go here.

Whom would you count as the top-five male and female bloggers that has enabled blogosphere stand next to mainstream journalism?
I really don’t feel qualified to answer that. There are way too many good news bloggers that I don’t read. I tend to concentrate on the humorous and offbeat stuff, so a lot of good journalism passes me by.

Tell us you favorite blogs across following areas:

1. Gadget:
Coolest Gadgets
Gizmodo
Geek Like Me

2. Political:
Simply Left Behind
Shakesville
Crooks and Liars

3. Movie:
Big Picture, Big Sound
Transbuddha

4. Entertainment:
Neatorama
YesButNoButYes
Bits and Pieces
Phil’s Phun
The Presurfer

6. Others:
Metafilter
Nothing to do with Arbroath
Mental Floss
Science Blogs
Damn Interesting
Cynical-C
Omegamom
Clueless in Carolina
Wulfweard the White
I could go on all day. I love a lot of blogs!

Quick bites:
1. Hours you invest surfing net: 6-8 hours a day. A bit less on weekends.
2. Biggest blogging mistake you did: I spent three years doing one post a day, when I should have done several smaller posts.
3. One hidden truth: It never pays to take yourself too seriously.
4. If asked to post only on one blog (not the current ones), which one would that be?
Hmm, that’s a hard one. Damn Interesting.
5. Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Start writing! It’s what you’ve always wanted to do!
6. If not a bloggger then.A DJ. I was a radio announcer for 24 years.
7. Life without Internet: Lonely.
8. First gadget you kept your fingers upon: A clock! I got attached to one when I was a toddler. My mom says “clock” was my first word.

How would you like to be known as:

1. Blogger
2. Writer
3. Entrepreneur

Blogger is fine. I don’t write as much as I link. And entrepreneur is a big word for someone who doesn’t make any more money than I do.

If asked for giving three tips to a greenhorn blogger, what would that be?

1. Write about things you enjoy, or you’ll get burned out fast.
2. Don’t worry about pleasing everyone, because you can’t.
3. Make friends. They’re the best thing to come out of the internet.

What are the five things you wish to accomplish while you’re alive?

1. Raise my daughters to be strong, confident, independent women.
2. Travel the world.
3. See my grandchildren.
4. Build a retirement fund.
5. Go on a date.

Where do you see the future of blogosphere? Is there anything that you wish blogosphere to accomplish?
I love how the internet is getting so much information to people in the blink of an eye. I only wish that this kind of communication were available to everyone. I see a big dichotomy between computer users and non-computer users, which I am afraid, will only become worse. What I would like the blogosphere to accomplish is to bring people together, with communication between people of different regions and countries, so we may understand how similar we really are.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and Why?

Hoss at Old Horsetail Snake would be a hoot to interview. Jon Swift would also be funny. Or Jean-Luc Picard. They all have wonderfully amusing online personas.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.
This series of blogger interviews is fascinating. I’ve learned a lot about people I thought I knew!

Your turn! I am ready to answer a question for you.
Where are you?
I am currently in Las Vegas

Here, we convey all our wishes to Miss Cellania and look forward to have a birthday cake from her next year on a preplanned schedule. Thanks Celliania for fetching time from your busy routine to enthrall my audience.

If 2002 is what you witness as the beginning of blogging evolution then here is my guest Matthew Sheffield who was well-versed with blogs in 1999. When asked what invited his attention towards blogging, his ready response was: The informality, the lack of pretension, and the approachability of the medium are all things that appealed to me about blogging.

‘NewsBusters‘ can be seen as the brainchild of Matthew in alliance with Media Research Center focused upon critiquing the rest of the journalistic establishment. Read further to know more about this mainstream blogger, who has established an entity of a renowned ‘Media technology consultant’ for himself at blogosphere.

Matthew, introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual day at work.
I’m Matthew Sheffield and I am the creator of NewsBusters, which I run on behalf of the Media Research Center through my web consulting firm Dialog New Media. I came up with the idea of NewsBusters in 2005 after my work with RatherBiased.com which was dedicated to monitoring the reporting of Dan Rather of CBS. After Rather’s retirement, I figured it made sense to expand my efforts into critiquing the rest of the journalistic establishment so a partnership with the Media Research Center was only natural.

My typical day involves scouring the web for interesting stories, sorting through reader tips, and then blogging about stuff that interests me. I also file stuff away for a weekly column I just started writing for the Washington Times.

You are known to be the creator of the conservative form of blog sites. What led to the infusion of that spark within you and how would you define the term ‘liberal conservative?’
Before I got into blogging, I was working as a web designer and the online editor for my college paper. My brother Greg came up with the idea of doing a small web page about Dan Rather in 1999. With my background in web design, I wanted to make it a much bigger effort. As time went on after our 2000 launch, the RatherBiased.com site evolved into a blog almost instinctively for us. He’s since lost the political bug but I’m still bitten.

Liberal conservatism for me refers to a philosophy that realizes that there are some things that don’t need to change but that technology, exposure to differing cultural perspectives and experience are all things that we should partake eagerly of.

It also means being open to the idea that you don’t need to have a religious faith in order to be a good person or even to be a conservative. As someone who used to believe the opposite but now believes in no faith, I think that it’s important for people to realize that religion is a system of morality but that morality doesn’t come from religion necessarily.

You are known to be a politically minded and conservative person. Are these traits innate or developed during the course of time?
I don’t think politics is something one is born with. The average child thinks politics is boring and that is as it should be. Most of us tend to go along with the ideas that are presented to us whether by our parents, teachers, and friends. There is a lot to be gained from such encounters but in order to be fully actualized I think it requires one to examine all externally provided beliefs against those of others that may think differently.

When did you sense an inclination towards blogging? Are you satisfied with the functionality of the blogging eco-system or think there is a need for revamp?
I pretty much was blogging before there was a word for it. For me it came more naturally as an easy way to report news and express opinion on the web. The informality, the lack of pretension, and the approachability of the medium are all things that appealed to me about blogging.

I think the blog ecosystem tends to get too specialized. It’s important to engage the arguments of those with whom you disagree but on the other hand it requires more effort. I think there is room for more pan-ideological blogs which try to blend things together to foster conversation. Unfortunately that requires money and most liberal and conservative donors/groups are (probably rightfully) not interested in that so this is an area that I think that traditional MSM can fill.

How far NewsBusters is successful in offering immediate exposure of liberal media bias and neutralizing it?
Over the past three years since our launch, we’ve launched a number of stories into the national media conversation, everything from Hillary’s sniper fire, Chris Matthews’s leg thrills to just regular live TV snafus. We’ve had an impact but I will leave that to others to assess to what degree it is.

Point us to other active players in the industry practicing the similar web revolution?
A few other places I think are doing some innovative things are the Huffington Post, Pajamas Media, and Talking Points Memo.

Do you still realize the need of corrections in news media reporting? If yes, which are those?
Being accurate and fair in your reporting is the most important thing a journalist or blogger can do.

Blogs Or Media Sites. Which out of these two is more successful in maintaining the transparency and criticism expected out of media as an institution?
That depends on the site. Both bloggers and regular journalists have varying degrees of ethical standards. One thing where blogs do have somewhat of an edge is that other bloggers are less-inclined to believe you if you make assertions w/o providing evidence. Big media outlets do this on a routine basis.

The reach of your conservative media blog RatherBiased.com penetrated to an extent that it became the first Website that Google pulls up if you search for ‘Dan Rather.’ What all ingredients do you count for its unmatchable success?
It helped to have ‘Rather’ in the domain name but also that we produced a lot of content and marketed it effectively.
Tell us about your association with Dialog New Media. How does it functions and enables you support conservatives and libertarians?
Dialog New Media is a political marketing firm whose purpose is to help clients maximize the ‘bang for buck’ when it comes to messaging. We’ve found that in the Web 2.0 age, the internet is the most effective way of driving regular media because blogs are so important within newsrooms throughout the country. That’s not to say, however, that traditional media outreach and PR techniques don’t have their place. They most certainly do. The way marketing has been conducted has changed irrevocably. Luckily for us, a lot of our competitors haven’t figured that out yet.

What is your take on Traditional Journalism V/S Contemporary Journalism V/S Blogs Evolution?
I’m of the opinion that blogs are what you want them to be. If you want your blog to be a news reporting publication than you can easily do that. Unfortunately in the early days of blogging there was a widespread attitude among older media professionals that blogs were written by unemployed people lounging around in their pajamas.

That attitude exists today more than it should but by and large the ‘old media’ has learned the lesson. Every big media organization has many blogs as part of their web portfolio and most journalists consider blogs an essential part of their media diet. Lots of traditional media outlets have begun hiring bloggers in traditional positions. The New York Times hired a TV news blogger to cover the television business for it, ABC News hired former Salon.com blogger Jake Tapper as an on-air reporter, Time magazine hired a gossip blogger to be part of its Washington bureau and a number of papers such as the Hill, London’s Guardian, and my paper the Washington Times have hired bloggers as columnists.

The main conflict today in my view is that old media institutions haven’t become as transparent with their political viewpoints as they should be. While it is admirable to try to remove your personal perspectives from your coverage, a lot of times it’s just not possible. No one is that dispassionate and without a personal history. Bloggers admit that they’re human beings with perspective. Most journalists haven’t been willing to do so yet. They should.

Tell us about your ‘must-read’ or favorite blogs?
A few blogs I read regularly (besides ones I’m directly affiliated with): Ace of Spades, Patterico, FreeRepublic, Daily Kos, Matt Yglesias. There are lots of others I read on a slightly less regular basis.

Provide us with your five favorite posts you have written to date.
1. One of my favorite things to do is to get big media figures and turn the spotlight onto them. They specialize on doing it to others but oftentimes don’t like to be the subject of attention. I was able to do that with Chris Matthews a few years ago when I caught him being hypocritical on the Valerie Plame story by ignoring it after news broke that sort of shattered his grand conspiracy theory about the Bush Administration. The story got up on Drudge and that same day, Matthews broke his hypocrisy.

2. One of the more pervasive questions on the political right of late is how to modernize our public outreach mechanisms. I wrote on that last month that technology isn’t the savior that some people say but rather savvy, principled leaders at the top.

3. I’m also interested in giving wider currency to stories that got missed in the hustle-and-bustle of the news cycle. Here’s a post I wrote about how former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan changed his book from what he originally intended it to be, a defense of the president.

4. Another post illustrating the same spotlight-on-big-media approach I mentioned earlier involves an exchange I had with liberal PBS reporter Tavis Smiley who had made a series of offensive remarks about Republicans, never apologized, and then was amazed that many of them didn’t want to show up to a debate he hosted in 2007. I asked Smiley about the remarks since I knew no liberal journalist would do so.

5. This post chronicling how CNN science reporter fell asleep during a hearing about global warming presided over by Senator James Inhofe was a favorite of mine as well.

Your favorites:
1. City: Miami
2. Music: String quartets
3. Food: Too many to list
4. Book: War and Peace
5. Gadget: Smartphones
6. Color: Green
7. TV show: TBS’s ‘Burn Notice’

What are those principles that blogosphere needs to learn from mainstream media or vice versa?
Bloggers should do more original reporting and research. MSM need to be more forthright about their opinions and be more transparent about their sourcing.

How would you like to be known as?
1. Media Critic
2. Blogger
3. Entrepreneur
4. Liberal conservative
5. Writer
6. Media technology consultant

I prefer #6
Your post on Vanity fair’s Blog Map points to Vanityfair’s selection of blogs residing across four verticals viz. News, Opinion, Scurrilous and Earnest. If Matthew is asked to handpick one blog topping each vertical, which one would those be?

Within the political sphere, I would do it as follows:
News: Instapundit
Opinion: Matthew Yglesias
Scurrilous: Huffington Post
Earnest: Outside the Beltway

Where do you see the future of Blogosphere?
The future of blogs is synergy. There will continue to be personal blogs but more and more people will find out that banding together to produce content is a lot easier way to gain an audience. The MSM will continue to absorb, copy and read blogs. The number of ‘A-list’ blogs will decline as consolidation happens. If Obama wins, right-leaning blogs will become the most popular. If McCain wins, left-leaning ones will stay on top.

Quick bites:
1. Hours you invest digging net: somewhere between 4-8 hours daily

2. Biggest blogging mistake you did: Holding back from reporting on the Dan Rather CBS document story soon enough. We followed the story as it was breaking on FreeRepublic but did not want to report it until we had solid proof that CBS had been tricked. We would have retained our credibility had CBS not been tricked but we could have navigated the line a little better at first.

3. One hidden truth: People who specialize in original analysis and reporting are the people who do best in the blog world.

4. If asked to post only on one blog (neither NewsBusters nor MatthewSheffield), which one would that be? Probably Ace. He’s a friend of mine and a very sharp writer and political analyst.

5. Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Think outside the box. There are so many opportunities out there for people who simply think of them.

6. Life without Internet: Very inconvenient!

7. Count of professions you have been into: 5

8. First post you have written: I wrote a very basic update to RatherBiased.com detailing how Dan Rather was once convinced that the George Bush 41 presidential campaign was behind the Gennifer Flowers accusation that Bill Clinton had an affair with her.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBloger and why?
I’d recommend talking to Josh Marshall of TPM. He has built an impressive web entity without the millions of Huffington.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.
It’s a cool site.’ Your interview series is quite divergent and wide-ranging.

Your turn! You can ask me one question. Where is my free coffee mug?
Well, you deserve more than a free coffee mug for fetching time and feeding my readers with such lovely responses. No I owe a treat to you.

We thank Matthew once again for accepting our invitation and penning down informative set of responses.

You may have noticed me capturing geeks, technophiles in a significant %age against other niche. But before you apply your judgment, let me tell you it’s not purposeful. The presence of elitebloggers here is governed by their hard-earned popularity of blogs, technorati ranking and above all the choice of elitebloggers themselves. And today we have with us William Barnes, founder, GearCrave who is geared up to carve a new level of success for his blog along with its editor Mike Payne. Lately, I happened to reach William and got the chance to scan the success secrets and future plans about his Mens Buying and Lifestyle Guide.

Here you go:

William, introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your daily flow at work.

My name is William Barnes; I am 28 years old and was born in London. I read Mechanical Engineering at University and now live in Santa Monica Los Angeles. My daily work flow normally involves trying to balance the overload of emails I get and getting to the tasks I have in TO-DO-LIST.

GearCrave doesn’t have any tagline. If asked to produce one, what would that be?

The Mens Buying and Lifestyle Guide.

Time Magazine handpicked iPhone as the invention of the year 2007. What according to you are the prospective candidates for 2008 award in the same category?

Hopefully something like the Tesla the more exposure that gets the better.

With the evolution of green houses and hybrid cars, do you think is technology really becoming green or is it a steep PR exercise?

Some are some aren’t, as with all innovation the price premium it carries is eroded over time. Hopefully mainstream acceptance is possible; VC money certainly seems to think so.

Tell us about WPBGroup. Are you the editor for all the four-sites falling under this group?

Not at all, I have trouble writing the address on a letter, Mike Payne edits GearCrave, Myke Armstrong runs Nerdyshirts and Mali Elfman is the editor for LA.CityZine. There are all-great at what they do and I am very lucky to work with them.

Japan seems to breed robots in huge numbers. Can you imagine a day when robots are efficient enough to substitute humans for all major tasks? Would you depute one to blog for you?

I can imagine a day when robots dream of electric sheep.

What do you count as one factor that attracts readers to your blog besides gamut of gadget-related blogs?

GearCrave; Mike strikes a great balance between finding really cool products every day with, insane editorials, like the GearCrave guide to buying your own missile silo, you combine that with the amazing competitions we run and I am not surprised people come back.

Nerdyshirts: Myke is always releasing sweet t-shirts, they always seem to be conversation pieces. My favorite shirt is “Too Many muth’ uckers“ I am a big Flight of the Conchords fan and every bar I go to people talk to me about the shirt.

LA.CityZine: Mali and her enormous team of writers are constantly finding the cool and quirky of LA, the amount of music and movie coverage on that site is amazing.

What are your other interests besides your work?

Football as in with your feet.

Tell us about your ‘must-read’ or favorites blogs?

Calacanis, Techcrunch, NerdyShirts, Afrojacks, HolyTaco, FluidApp, Twit.tv, Thebachelorguy, todolist.

Provide us with your five favorite posts you have written to date.

How to buy your own missile silo

Family tree T-Shirt

How to buy your own private island

Thalbach wooden USB drives

Flight of the conchords T-Shirts

You’re marooned on a desert island: What gadget you wish to have?

A teleporter?

How would you like to be known as?

Entrepreneur

Quick bites:

Hours you invest digging net: Too many

Biggest blogging mistake you did: I don’t blog

One hidden truth: Not telling

Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Here is the internet, get on with it.

If not a blogger, then Someone like J.Calacanis or Mark Cuban

Life without Internet: Probably work either in a IT start up in London or in the movie business in LA.

First gadget you kept your fingers upon: Tabletop Donkey Kong

One thing you hate about GearCrave: I don’t hate anything about it, I have ambitions for it that are not fulfilled and we are working towards making them happen.

If asked for giving three tips to a greenhorn blogger, what would that be?

Don’t ask me, email Peter Rojas, Ryan Block or Brian Lam, those guys seem to have it down.

What new features can your savvy readers expect in coming months from GearCrave?

Big changes, by Xmas GearCrave won’t be alone, it would have changed significantly.

Besides content generation, networking comes as a part and parcel of a blogging. What are you doing at this front to maintain the popularity of your blog?

Not as much as I should, two years ago I knew nothing about the commercial side of the internet, much less about web publishing, it has been a great learning curve. The downside though of not having worked in the industry and I am very short on contacts so over the next 12 months I am going to make a concerted effort to attend more conferences and events like the techcrunch meet ups etc.

Beyond the human side GearCrave has a lot of the social networking options covered: we have a page summarizing all the ways you can follow gearcrave at.

Do you think blogs are or can be as popular as NYTimes, Time, NewsWeek are?

They already are and in some cases more so.

Where do you see the future of Blogosphere?

Consolidation of commercial blogs and the development of tools to process the second tier of sites.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and Why?

Definitely Cory Jones at HolyTaco, Mike at AfroJacks, or Eric at TheBachelorguy. I don’t know if they have the time, but I always love reading what they write.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.

I like the redesign, I am not sure the interview with bloggers necessarily matches the consumer female demographic that your ads are aimed at, but then I am guessing they are good for link building.

You can ask me one question.

Why do cats hate me?

Possibly, you may have lately developed a soft corner for dogs as well-:)

Here i thank William for giving us an insight about his blog and wish him luck for its upcoming features.

Ask any blogger running an established blog the number of posts he features during a day, supporting hands behind it, editors on job and you may not be wrong anticipating an overt two-digit response. But there is always an exception, which in this case is well exemplified by WebUrbanist. One post a day, five authors, one lead editor is the master plan behind the success of WebUrbanist.

Kurt Kohlstedt, Founder & Lead Editor, WebUrbanist stands firm on their policy of featuring one-article-per-day, identifying the want of quality over quantity. Besides this jumbo post, Kurt keeps himself engaged working on spinoffs and ways to tie together various articles and plugging in more valuable features following the rule of thumb: “Interesting, extreme, random, funny, obscure and otherwise sensational content.”

After a long oration, I propose you to read further to know more about Kurt and his Urbanist Den.

Introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your urban flow of day at work.
My name is Kurt Kohlstedt and I am the primary founder and leader editor of WebUrbanist, a weird and (hopefully) wonderful weblog about everything urban (culture, design, architecture art, travel and more) and some things that aren”t.

I used to be the primary author for the site but as it has grown we have brought a number of new writers on board and with them a healthy diversity of styles and subjects. I usually start my day as most people probably do: by checking my email. Back when it used to crash regularly, however, my first task was always to make sure the site wasn”t down.

Read the full story »

He calls himself ridiculously disorganized and smilingly derived his blog’’s name by getting influenced from sound and rhythm of the words. Lately, he quitted his fulltime job and is happy to reap the benefits via the surging popularity of his blog. Had he not being a blogger, you would have noticed me introducing you to an Elite Photographer. But who is this he?

Focused upon bringing forth the implausible paradigms of the world’’s most mesmerizing architecture, green living, inspirational design, phenomenal natural oddities, Stands Deputy-Dog, an active blog maintained by a pro-active face: Shaun Usher! One thing that he wishes to see is the discovery of the flying car, a concept that has been in maturity in various degrees for ages.

As recommended by Avi from DarkRoastedBlend, the passing weekend I happen to ask Shaun for sparing time and his participation here and to my non-surprise his kind and timely response is the reason for his worthy presence here.

Roll over to have more interesting insights about Shaun and his Deputy-Dog!

Introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual flow of day at work.
Hi. My name’’s Shaun and I run deputy-dog (and more recently wordepletion), a blog about stuff. An average day begins with a couple of hours reading the enormous list of bookmarked websites I”ve built up over the years – I”ve never been one for the whole feed-reading experience as I find it far more satisfying to visit the site itself. I then just get on with starting/finishing posts ready to publish. I have about 100 posts that need finishing all in various states of completion – as I”m ridiculously disorganized and have the attention span of a peanut. I seem to constantly begin new posts and then start another one after a couple of paragraphs. It’’s frustrating.

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The big question that remains unanswered even after ages has found a challenger today. Yes, following the enduring mystery behind egg and chicken’s birth, it is impossible to answer whether Web 2.0 has led to the evolution of search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine optimizers have discovered Web 2.0. But let’s not discuss the impracticality now as we have Neil Patel, a deserving elite blogger with us today. Neil is fortunate to have experienced diverse traits of business (SEO and Web 2.0) during his graduation days and today is found engaged amidst Pronet Advertising, ACS Social Media Optimization Agency, QuickSprout, CrazyEgg and holds a strong view point about social media.

Roll over to know more about Neil, a perfect example of a young and successful entrepreneur.

Neil, kindly introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual day at work?

I am the CTO at ACS . My usual workday consists of talking with clients, managing employees, and talking with potential clients. When I have spare time I try and write a blog post or two.

Other than that, there isn’t much more to Neil Patel. I finally graduated from college, which means work is my life. When I am not working, I am usually watching TV, eating, sleeping, or traveling.

What led to the inception of ACS? Why you named it as ACS?

I started ACS with my brother-in-law in 2003. The main reason for starting it was that people I knew needed help with SEO, so I thought I would create a company that would provide the service.

As for the name, I have no clue on why it was picked. The easy answer was that my business partner and I were typing random stuff into Godaddy.com and it recommended Advantage Consulting Services. We decided to pick it because we couldn’t come up with anything better and it started with ACS, which means it would be at the top of most business directories. Sooner or later we realized the name was too long, so we changed our name to ACS.

What strategies do you follow to promote a particular website as a part of providing Internet marketing services?

There are a lot of strategies I would follow, but here are a few:

1. Have a good product or service first. A good marketer can’t market crap.

2. Write great content. As we all know, content is king. The more you have, the more links and traffic you will get.

3. On page SEO. It is amazing on the traffic increases you can get from modifying your website code/structure.

4. Link building. You can never have enough quality links.

When did you venture into blogging and why? Is growing traffic or link building the indicator of a blog’s success?

I ventured into blogging around 2 years ago. I did it because I wanted to share my knowledge with others. I measure a blog success by traffic, links, and RSS subscribers. Once you figure out your blogs stats, you then want to compare them to your competition and see how you stack up.

Is it important to have an individual identity of a blog or run it as a form of a community/network?

Ideally you want both. A blog should have an individual identity, but you also want a community around your blog. If you are able to do both then you will succeed in the blogging world.

Having carved a success story for yourself by establishing ACS and holding the flag of CTO for the company, do you still feel the need to continue with your bachelor’s degree?

I don’t think it is important, but I just graduated. I only had 1 class left for over a year, so I decided to finish it so I could get my degree.

How active are you on social networking sites/engines viz. Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon or Reddit? Which one of them is the great traffic-puller?

I used to be very active on all of them, but do to my traveling schedule I am not active on them anymore. The best traffic puller for me is either Digg or Yahoo Buzz.

Do you think RSS feeds will have a great future?

I think RSS feeds will have a future because they make life easier. Instead of going to thousands of sites to read their content, you can now do all of this through RSS.

What are your daily-reads or favorite blogs?

Everyday I visit TechCrunch, Gigaom, and Venturebeat. There are tons of other blogs I read, but these are the three I read most frequently.

Pen down five favorite posts written by you till date

This is a tough one because I am not sure if I really wrote any great posts. Either way here are my 5 favorite posts I have ever written:

Little is the new big: Why you shouldn’t brush off the little guy

What Does Your Business Card Say About You?

Whose Shadow Are You Standing In?

It’s on me!

How to be as famous as a porn star. (Without taking off your clothes)

Blogging has moved from experimental to mainstream. What social or technical features would you like to see enter the world of blogging?

Tough question because I am not 100% sure on the exact features I am looking for. None-the-less, I know that I want blogs to become more social. Ideally as a blog owner I would like to put a face on every visitor that visits my blog. I know MyBlogLog does something similar, but it doesn’t do it for every visitor and it doesn’t provide as many stats as I would like.

If asked to give three tips to a novice blogger, what would those be?

Write great content, write great content, and write great content. I truly feel that content is the most important thing for a novice blogger to concentrate on. But if you want three different tips I would recommend: write great content, create a conversation with your readers, and create baity content.

How would you like to be known as?

Technophile

Writer

Blogger

Young Entrepreneur

SEO expert

I would love to be known as all and hopefully I will one day.

Quick bites:

Hours you invest digging net: Used to be 2 hours a day, now 5 minutes a day.

Biggest blogging mistake you did: Writing content for the sole purpose of increasing my traffic instead of writing content to provide value to others.

One hidden truth: One way my blogs became popular is that I had other popular bloggers blog about my blog and tell their readers to subscribe to my RSS feed.

If asked to post only on one blog (not PRONetAdvertising), which one would that be? Quicksprout.com, my latest blog.

Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Write more detailed blog posts.

If not a blogger or SEO expert then venture capitalist.

Life without Internet: I would do something related to television or film.

First SEO project you took: Elpac.com

What are your interest areas besides networking, software, technology and the Internet?

I love anything related to television and films. One of my first jobs was working at Hollywood video and to this day it was my favorite job. Other than that I love basketball.

Your clientele includes TechCrunch, AOL and many others. What chief services you have delivered to them and how was experience in working with the major players in the internet industry?

Most of the services delivered to them were related to SEO and helping them increase their search traffic. It was fun working with them, not only because they are great companies, but they also taught me a lot about their space.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.

EliteChoice seems like a cool blog and concept. I think it will do well as long as you can figure out how to create more buzz about it.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and Why?

If you already have not interviewed him, I would recommend Stephen Spencer. He is a great Internet marketer, entrepreneur, and father.

You can ask me one question.

What is your goal by interviewing all the top bloggers?

Two reasons! To bring all elite bloggers under a single umbrella wherein they can share and learn from each-others’ experiences. And secondly, I am hoping that the community of elite bloggers would offer lot of meat to evolving bloggers, hence making the blogging medium as strong as any other form of media.

We thank Neil for sparing time for our readers and wish him luck in his journey to explore more hidden geographies.

We are running in 2008 and if we sit back and recall the evolution of blogging almost eight-years ago and measure its deliverables then the medium has achieved unrivaled success. And thanks to bloggers who now find themselves addicted to the system. Cherishing the tendency to get addicted to the blogging mechanism, here comes another addictive blog with a difference. Curious what am talking about I am in a addicted mode huh..and to give you a dope is the face behind Dark Roasted Blend (DRB)– Avi Abrams.

Avi, founder and writer, DRB offers a good coffee-break and visually its a feast for those tiring eyes, sick of being glued to PC for long stressful nine-hours. Likewise Jen, associate editor, PCMag is the weird hunter of technology world, it wont be fallacious to christen Avi as the weird hunter of the lively routine world minus politics, religion and celebrities. DRB has an eternal relation with “Thrilling Wonder Stories” science fiction adventure pulp and hence having made up amongst top 300 technorati blogs and standing at No.8 in the compilation of the most popular Blogger powered blogs, it is overt for Avi to be my Weird yet wonderful elite blogger

Roll over to know more about efforts invested for the current appealing form of DRB:

Avi, kindly introduce yourself to my readers’ and take us through your usual day at work.
I am the owner of the website “Dark Roasted Blend“, a fun place online devoted to all things “weird and wonderful” that you can check out during your coffee break – so it’s a safe-for-work, highly visual environment… like a large-format coffee table book. Read here to learn more.

My wife and I have two sons, aged 8 and 2, so my typical day at work consists of finding some actual time to do some actual work. We also travel an awful lot, so finding a place with a good wireless connection is part of the job. In the past I’ve been a computer animator, music video editor, electronics engineer, played in a rock band and wrote some science fiction – so I guess I am used to juggling various activities.

When did you sense an inclination towards blogging? Are you satisfied with the functionality of the blogging eco-system or think there is a need for revamp?
I wanted to start a site that would provide quality online entertainment, without low-brow profanities and/or haughty agendas.

A happy place, full of the “sense of wonder” and discoveries about our world and beyond. The internet in general is an awesome compendium of fascinating things (take Wikipedia, for example), but many people do not have time to wade through user-submitted content and various aggregator sites. They just need a “daily dose of awesome”, short and sweet. DRB provides just that.

Our articles, however, tend to be more in-depth than just a few links and an image. We provide a new themed article every other day – and in that we are different from link-aggregator sites like BoingBoing or Neatorama.

Elitechoice team is a savvy visitor of “weird and wonderful things” covered here. What made you expand this idea?
The fact that many people today have a broadband connection and can enjoy larger-format images together with a thought-provoking article. We try to combine great textual info and mind-blowing visuals in one package – all on one page. You can call it an “added-value content” concept, with a good measure of fun. It’s certainly fun to put together our daily posts. It’s also fun to read cool and educated comments we get on every article.

How do you define “”weird and wonderful things”?
I don’t. They are weird and wonderful – surprising and wild. You cannot “tame” or define “the sense of wonder”. One thing we guarantee, however – we steer away from crass, profane and idiotic, no matter how sensational it might be. Think of it as large-format “LIFE” magazine, devoid of politics, religion and celebrities, married with “Thrilling Wonder Stories” science fiction adventure pulp.

What remains the criterion of selecting a prospective post on a particular day considering the blog covers diverse random subjects?
I have an associate hamster editor, that gets either excited or not about any particular post. Judging by how agitated it becomes, and the speed of hamster wheel rotation – the post either gets selected or dumped into “Fark /College Humor” pile. I noticed that the hamster does not get excited about various political agendas, cynicism, dark horror or pointless displays of angst. It likes exploration, photography, art, cool technology, beer, cheese and intense deep poetry.

What initiatives do you make to maintain the consistency of the popularity gained by DRB?
We keep posting on a regular basis, looking around various international sites for cool things (not just English-based, but also many Japanese, Russian, Israeli and Dutch sites). If the day would have 48 hours, you would have twice as much cool content on DRB. But we’re also looking at expanding our writer base.

Tell us about your ‘must-read’ or favorite blogs?
I totally love Neatorama, WebUrbanist, DeputyDog, Fogonazos, Modern Mechanix, DamnInteresting. Recently Reddit became more manageable resource, as you can now filter out the content you don’t want, and it moves much faster than Digg. Basically every site on our blogroll is great to visit: some coolest favorites include Bldgblog, Ectoplasmosis, PreSurfer, Treehugger, PaleoFuture and the list is endless.

Provide us with your five favorite posts you have written to date.
Kindly visit Most Popular/Hidden Gems, it lists our favorite DRB articles, and even cites the coolest stuff on internet we discovered during last year. It’s hard to chose, as I strive to make every post “the best” and do not publish it if I’m not completely happy.

What other areas interest you besides blogging?
DRB has sister sites: Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Experience, also our music recordings, travel photos and surreal writing. I try to play some groovy keyboards regularly and carve out more time for reading.

How would you like to be called as:

* Blogger
* Graphic designer
* 3D artist
* Writer
* Entrepreneur

None of these. I’m just looking for wisdom and beauty, everywhere it takes me. Plus, I am my kid’s dad, ‘enough said.

Quick bites:

Hours you invest digging net: I spend 8 hours a day running the site – it’s important to limit it to only 8 hours.
Biggest blogging mistake you did: Reading too many Reddit and Digg comments.
If not a blogger/writer, then. Song composer in the good old Merseybeat style.
Life without Internet: Ask the Amish, they seem to like it.
Number of bloggers behind DRB: I run the site and write the majority of posts, but we have contributions from 3 to 5 other writers.

What is that weirdest thing you have featured over at DRB?
The one thing too gross and weird to feature on DRB, so we had to publish it elsewhere is “Trepanation open up your mind, or…not!”. That has got to be the most shocking article ever written.

Is there any subject/area left for a prospective blog that a novice blogger can venture into?
Just follow your heart, and all comments / opinions be damned.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and why?
DeputyDog seems to be an interesting character, or the guy behind WebUrbanist.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.
Good job you do here. A wonderful outlet to feature some internet personalities who all too often remain inside their blogging caves.

You can ask me one question.
The name Zola sounds Italian… do you often visit Europe?
Not very often and I consider blogging addiction as a biggest obstacle to my earlier persona of a Rover. And I feel contented with my present role.

I thank Avi for sparing time for us and wish him luck for taking DRB to new, weird and wonderful levels of success.