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:

•    Steve, kindly introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual day at work.

Hi fellow Elite Choice readers! Let me first thank you for inviting me to be an Elite Blogger, it’s a great honor. As for my work day, I’m self employed so I get to set my own hours… which really isn’t as much fun as you might think. Being the boss AND the staff, I can’t goof off without the boss knowing what I’m up to. Seriously though, I don’t lock myself into a rigid 9 to 5 schedule but I do try to complete 3 major tasks every day. That way I feel I’ve accomplished something and I clear room for the next day’s projects.

•    To what extent have blogs become an integral important part of the way people now access information? When did you sense an inclination towards blogging? Are you satisfied with the functionality of the blogging ecosystem or think there is a need for revamp?

It’s very exciting to be a blogger in this day & age. Getting in on the ground floor just a few years ago and watching the medium grow in so many ways is like having the window open as history unfolds around you. I’m convinced that the trend away from traditional sources of news and entertainment and towards dedicated blogs will only continue – and that’s a good thing! People who know what they like can go online and get it at their convenience, and those who don’t have any particular interest can browse the web until they find something that DOES interest them. Blogging is democratic in nature, universal in appeal and available to anyone with an Internet connection. One would hope the rest of the world follows down the peaceful path the Blogosphere has blazed.

•    How different is Japan’s culture from countries that you have visited?

From my experience, Japan’s modern day culture is unique. Rising from the ashes of not just war, but nuclear war, Japan has risen to become the world’s second-largest economy while managing to keep much of its traditional culture and society intact. This is a cultural anchor that supports people and helps prevent them from getting swept away by rapid societal and technological change. Things are by no means perfect in Japan but in my opinion, the rest of the world can learn much from observing – even imitating – the Japanese model.

•    Steve, you have been writing a lot about Japan and also international technology. How would you relate technology with luxury products? Do they correlate with each other?

In many cases technology does correlate with luxury products since many people are willing to pay more for something more technologically advanced. On the other hand, today’s technology may be surpassed tomorrow, yet with traditional luxury items like jewelry, gold and fine art there is an intrinsic value that will always be appreciated no matter what.

•    While it is true that most luxury products are assumed elite, and most elite products as being luxurious, we think there is a difference. What do you think?

Well, it all depends on what market the product is intended for. Just like the old cliche goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.

•    Having seen Japanese culture up close, can you tell us why there are no evident signs of an economic recession that has clawed onto this country for more than a decade now?

The signs are there if you look in the right places. Unemployment and even homelessness are up but most tourists don’t visit Toyota City, where many auto workers have been laid off. Also, many full time jobs have been quietly replaced by part-time jobs – the trains may still be full but the commuters’ pay packets, not so much. There’s also been change in the retailing sector: “100 yen stores” (1 yen = roughly 1 dollar) and low-priced chains like Uniqlo have become more popular.

•    We also hear that the Japanese government is issuing a ‘help allowance’ to those living in Japan to help pull through the hard times. Frankly, we have never heard of anything like this before. What’s your opinion — is it just plain bizarre or do you understand the psyche behind this step?

I understand what the government is trying to do: put money in people’s pockets and hope they’ll spend it but it’s more likely people will just save the money. Japan has a very savings-oriented culture. The amount of money being given out is also very small, only us$120 or so. Here in Canada, our provincial government will be giving people up to $1,000 so that’s something I’m in favor of… and very much looking forward to!

•    Is it true to say that technology and gadgets are being produced at a rate that poses a tough time for the makers themselves considering the cruelty of terrorism age?

I wouldn’t say so; people have always looked to distractions from bad news and tough times. In the Great Depression, movies were a favored escape, at least for those who could afford to go. Today people distract themselves by playing video games, using their Wii, fiddling with some new cool gadget and so on – all these are more fun than reading the financial news.

•    Tell us about your ‘must-read’ or favorite blogs?
I’m lucky to write for blogs like InventorSpot, WebUrbanist, Burbia and The Thinking Blog that also feature some really great writers and I’d recommend them to anyone looking for great reading, interesting information and something a little out of the ordinary.

I also read blogs like Japundit and News On Japan that specialize in Japanese content – not only do they cater to my interests but they’re also a source of great topics for my own articles. Last but certainly not least, my son’s blog, Yersys Technology Blog . He’s just 14 and High School is his main focus but in less than a year he’s managed to create a popular blog that features computers and news from the tech world. I really hope your readers will check it out; new bloggers need support but notwithstanding that, he’s done a terrific job and I’m very proud of him!

•    Provide us with your five favorite posts you have written to date over at InventorSpot and WebUrbanist.

I’ll include Burbia and The Thinking Blog in the mix as I’m now a regular contributor there:

“The Top Ten Weird and Bizarre Japanese Soft Drinks”

“Future Past: 173 Radical Retrofuturistic Directions in Design & Technology”

“Pirates Amok – Yo Ho Ho And A Sultanate Of Rum”

“Japan Tobacco’s Delightfully Disturbing ‘Smoking Manners for Adults’ Ads, Part 1″ of an ongoing series

From The Thinking Blog: “Extinct Human Species Smarter Than Us?”

How would you like to be known:
•    Explorer:
•    Blogger:
•    Technophile:
•    Product Reviewer:
•    Entrepreneur:
•    Others:

Well, I’ve had a few different careers over the years but writing and blogging has been the most enjoyable. As far as being “known”, that’s one good thing about the Internet: it gives you a measure of immortality. If what I write is appreciated then it (and “me”) will keep floating around long after I’m gone.

Quick bites:
•    Hours you invest digging the Net: About 6 hours a day, more or less. Usually more.
•    Biggest blogging mistake you made: Not learning how to write for Adsense early enough.
•    One hidden truth: Be nice to people you write about – they just might write about you one day!
•    If asked to post only on one blog (not InventorSpot or WebUrbanist): Burbia , where I’m given the most freedom regarding topics and content.
•    Advice you would have given yourself five years ago?: All blogs (and all bloggers) get off to a slow start but patience – and regularly posting good content – will pay off in the long run.
•    If not a Blogger/Writer, then… That’s hard to say, because writer and blogging isn’t my first career, it’s only my most recent one. If I wasn’t blogging, I would probably be consulting people on how to be bloggers themselves.
•    Life without Internet: I grew up without the Internet but it’s still hard to imagine living without it today. No single technological advance has changed people’s lives as much. If the Internet crashed for some reason and could not be resurrected, I think that would make the current financial crisis look very trivial.

•    Which is your favorite social networking site? Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter or… There are so many social networking sites out there and they all have their pros and cons but I especially like a site called Fark. Posters submit actual news stories with headlines crafted to be humorous. Another feature of Fark is the Comments section, which is a real comedic goldmine.

•    Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and why?

That’s a tough decision because there are so many great bloggers out there, but if I had to choose one I’d recommend Gerri Elder from Absolutely True. Gerri writes for and operates her own blog, is active and popular at sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, and she somehow manages to manage her family in real life. I think she sets a fine example for any new blogger who’s considering starting their own blog and/or getting into social media.

•    Give us your views on EliteChoice.

Elite Choice is a very appealing site for those who want to seek out the best life offers from the comfort of their cozy computer chairs. Not everyone has the time to physically shop for luxury goods – an endeavor that requires much window-shopping due to the high cost of such goods. Why not virtually browse for the best, using your computer’s browser? A clever concept, nicely executed!

•    You can ask me one question:

Thank you Zola. I see that Elite Choice is based in India and the language used is English. How would a non-Indian, English-speaking blogger such as myself gain wider access to the vast pool of young, educated, upwardly mobile Indian netizens? I think this is the one major problem bloggers face today – how to boost readership beyond their home countries. The Internet is International so let’s try and break down those walls!

I hear you Steve and understand your concern. With social media networking/ marketing evolving as a new culture, I believe all your worries would be dumped as it offers you not only international reach but widens your approach towards things. I am saying this out of my learning from my stay at networks like Stumbleupon, digg, twitter and others. Also, I believe that its word of mouth that can drive savvy readers to a blog. Hope that answers.

At last, I would like to thank you for your interesting shot of answers and Vlad and Saba also for equally remarkable questions. Steve, we wish to luck for your future endeavors.

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.

•    Rob, Kindly introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual day at work.
I am one of the privileged who can spend most of the time doing things they like most. In my case that includes exploring the internet. Actually collecting online information has always been a part of my work and after my retirement I continued focusing on news and more general topics. Also, I have ventured into blogging and actively participate across social networks.

Being retired I could hardly speak now of a usual day at work, but let me outline what I’m doing in the context of blogging. Actually it is a never ending cycle of collecting, networking, writing and editing. I usually start my day by checking out messages, and scanning the feeds of many blogs and news sites.  When I find interesting stories I bookmark them, for use in future blog posts and if they are really remarkable I submit them to social networks, currently in particular StumbleUpon and Twitter. Later I select a few topics and start writing posts for my blogs. In the evening, my focus again shifts to networking.

•    To what extent blogs has become an integral important part of the way people now access information?

Long before I started blogging I used the internet, including weblogs, already as an important source of information. Obvious advantages of blogs are the timeliness, the wide diversity and huge amount of available content. A drawback of course is not everything is of the same quality and reliability, but the current excellent search and aggregation tools very well compensate for that.

•    Having spent good years in the Department of Applied Physics of the University of Twente in The Netherlands, what made you venture into blogging as after retirement you could have pursued similar interest.

My switch from science to blogging has been a gradual process. After my retirement I first continued some scientific work. The content of that work was completely different from that of my current blogging, but the process was more or less the same: collecting information, working on it, networking and publishing. Gradually I ceased with professional scientific studies, focused more and more on subjects of general interest and started publishing in the form of blogging.

•    What remains the criterion of posts over LinkNotes and ClipsToNote. How are these two different from each other?

The first one, my blog LinkNotes is the one I started with, the second one ClipsToNote, with mainly shorter posts, came later.  A common characteristic of both is a focus on items that are remarkable, surprising and sometimes even bizarre or funny. The subjects are often related to science and technology, but also on design, environment, and more. My writings here are always objective and doesn’t depict my personal view point on a subject. I like to select, collect and share information but not my opinion.

Both blogs have posts of a special format: a collection of clips of other sources. Initially, when I started  LinkNotes the clips were tiny and the post just annotated links. At that time the blog was essentially a collection of bookmarks. Later by increasing the size of the clips, the posts became a bit longer and also worth reading on their own. This, however, raised the dilemma of how to obtain more or less self contained posts without copying too much original content. The solution I found was: clipping from various sources. My posts are no longer based on a single link, but on various links about a particular item. The major values add I consider here is the concise introduction and overview.

Actually I also have a third blog, of the format I started LinkNotes: annotated links of interesting sites:  my pages on stumbleupon. Here my emphasis remains maintaining an interesting blog, thereby enjoying the added value of the networking features of that site. Using StumbleUpon is currently a substantial part of my online blogging and networking activity.

•    Is your blog making enough money or you are engaged in other work-related activities as well?

When I started blogging I thought that making money would be an easy side product of the activity. Soon however I learned that such is not the case. I have tried out a few things, but with no success, probably I am not doing it in right manner. You may see couple of ads running but the profit is marginal. Fortunately blogging is for me a hobby and not a source of income.

•    With the development of green houses, automobile and gadgets, do you think technology is really going green or it is a sheer PR exercise?

Both I think. Fortunately more and more people are aware of the need to take care of environment and our natural resources. The interest in developing green houses, automobile and gadgets is a logical consequence of that attitude. On the other hand, given that it is popular, also makes it a perfect marketing strategy: call your product Green and it will sell. It is clear that environmental concerns are often misused in this manner. This, however, is one of the few cases where misuse does not do much harm. Even if the involved products are not green at all, the marketing campaign can still be considered as a contribution to environmental awareness.

•    How would you define an ideal blog? Which one is your ideal blog at blogosphere?

Just like there is no such thing as ideal music or ideal art, I don’t think that there is something like an ideal blog. A blog can be realized in many different manners ranging from daily reports of someones hobby to periodical scientific essays. In all cases when this is done with dedication and care it is OK. Moreover there is a highly competitive market of blogs where what will survive and become popular finally is determined by the acceptance of the visitors.

•    Tell us about five of your daily-reads’ or favorites blogs?

Initially, I indeed had a few favorite blogs, which were my daily-reads, but also because they were Dutch, it would not be very useful to mention them now.  What I would like to emphasize, however, is that currently I have no favorite blogs at all. In my feed reader I am subscribed to more than 700 blogs and other media which I follow with no particular preference. Some sources that I use often (not all of them are blogs) are:

Mail Online Science & Tech

Science Daily Computers & Math

TFOT-The future of things

Science Daily

Trends Updates

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

My blog Linknotes already contains more that 4000 posts and ClipsToNote about 1000. All of them are a kind of snapshots and I can hardly say which are my favorites. What is remarkable however that a few remains consistently popular. Strange enough for LinkNotes these are not the elaborate ones  but rather some simple small bookmark-like posts like

LinkNotes: Earth and Jupiter viewed from Mars

LinkNotes: Headache Illusion

LinkNotes: Project Free TV

Strange enough, some of the most popular posts in ClipsToNote are a bit longer, e.g.:

ClipsToNote: Alain Robert—French Skyscraper Climber

ClipsToNote: Sneakey Teleduplicationof keys from Photos

•    Name your favorite bloggers (if any) that have won your heart whilst your 3-years of stay at blogosphere. What makes them different from the myriad of bloggers?

Before I started blogging myself, I indeed had a few – most Dutch – bloggers whose blogs I read with great admiration almost every day. Currently, I have no blogs which I read daily and even no favorite bloggers. As I said, I follow a lot of blogs and other media in feeds and in social media without focusing upon any of them in particular.

In general I would say that what makes a blogger different from the myriad is the ability to express complex thoughts or opinions on a clear and concise manner. Online readers do not want to read long stories; they want to be informed quick and clearly. A blogger should attempt to meet that need as much as possible.

•    How would you like to be called as:
a) Blogger b) Retired associate professor  c) Writer d)Social media person

None of them I would say: I still see myself a starting blogger who still has a lot to learn. Being professionally no longer involved with scientific research, it would not be appropriate to call me a retired associate professor. My blogging style is clipping, rather than writing, so I would definitely not call myself a writer and despite I’m often using social media, I would not like to be seen as a social media person. Let’s say that 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.

•    Quick bites:

Biggest mistake you did:
Having starting blogging without any experience, I have made many mistakes. For example in social networking: initially I use to share all my exclusive and latest posts (hardly any other links) with Stumble upon friends, leading to suspension of my account there. Currently I’m doing the opposite: I use Stumble Upon as a social network, sharing many interesting links without any promotion at all.

One hidden truth:
Favorite items for me to blog about are gadgets and design. I must confess, however that I seldom buy gadgets and that in my home you will find almost no interesting design. In that sense I am – like in my former scientific work – a theorist.

If asked to post only on one blog (not yours) which one would that be?
That should be one with short posts and remarkable news on gadgets, design, science, technology etc. maybe the present Elite Choice.

Advice you would have given yourself five years ago?
When I would start blogging again I would – instead of  trial and error -  have  chosen for more systematic approach, with a well defined goals,  subjects and categories, a better webdesign etc.
If you wouldn’t have gone to school of Applied Physics, then

I would definitely have chosen something in science and technology. When I started my career there was hardly any school of learning offering computer and information science and technology. Maybe I would have chosen that if I got a chance.

How long could you survive without the internet:
One, maybe two days

One thing you hate about Social networks:

Hate is not the right word, but a quandary is that when you enjoy it and use it more intensively, it soon starts taking a lots of time.

Count of professions you have been into:
That’s not very exciting in my case. After finishing my studies I started my career in teaching and research on University and I stayed there for more than thirty years.

If asked for giving three tips to a greenhorn blogger, what would that be?
1.    As state above: take some time for a careful preparation: goals, subject(s), categories, layout, etc.
2.    Try to make your blog a bit unconventional (I did it by choosing the clips-format)
3.    Be consistent: a fixed post frequency, length of the posts, style of writing,

•    Your favorites:

City:
I am very happy with my own city: Enschede in The Netherlands, but of all cities I have seen in the world, in particular New York impressed me very much

Music:
No pop and other kinds of contemporary music, but old Jazz: Duke Ellington, Count Basie, … and Classical musid: Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, …

Book:
I read a lot, but almost all online. The last time I really read a book is many years ago. I also have no favorite.

Gadget:
My favorite gadget is my Nokia E71 smartphone.

Movie:
I like movies with much excitement and fun, the James Bond movies are among my favorites.

Color: Green

•    You are visible across all social media sites. Which one is your favorite and also name the one you dislike the most and why?

That I am visible on many social media sites does not mean that I am using them all. I tried out a lot but i am currently using just a few. Initially I used sites like Propeller, Mixx, Digg, Reddit etc. to promote my blogs, but I noted that doing this effectively takes a lot of time. Finally I stopped completely with that part of social networking.

What remains, is a very intensive use of StumbleUpon. As mentioned above, initially I used that for promotion too, but now I just enjoy daily the contacts with many friends. My effort to collect and maintain good content there has  given me there the status of Top Stumbler for a long time already.
•    Whom would you recommend for being featured as my next EliteBlogger and why?

I would like to recommend, one of my online friends, who often has been of great help to me with valuable advice about blogging:  Mihaela Lica, an excellent blogger, online public relations media consultant and founder of Pamil Visions.

•    Give us your views on EliteChoice.
The nice thing of EliteChoice for me is that is covers a lot of my fields of interest: trends, technology, design, and more, in a style that I like: short and clear articles. Moreover it is of interest to me as an example of a blog that performs excellent in certain aspects where for me improvement is needed: a professional approach, a nice layout and very well organized.

•    Your turn! You can ask me one question.
Let me first thank you for inviting me for this interview. At first I thought that what I could tell here would be of not much interest, but after going through it I am glad that you gave me a chance.   It was really nice to become aware in this manner of my motivations and goals in blogging.

What I would like to ask you is: having obtained so much insight about blogging and bloggers with these interviews, if and how you are going to share this insight with us.

Rob, I tend to learn from people achievements and failures, besides my own- And here having interviewed 30 plus famed bloggers, we implement that set of learning to our writings and the way we present them over our blog. Also, it has widened our approach towards discovering prospective feeds and generating visibility for co-bloggers and our savvy readers. Through this series, I have managed to reach all famed bloggers and take pride in having an affirmative response from all of them to participate in this series. What I really like is the transparency maintained by each of my elite blogger that ends up offering various solutions/options to our dilemmas.

I would like to thank Rob for sparing our time and penning down details to questions asked by our curious readers and colleagues. Rob, we wish you luck for your future endeavors in online and offline space.

“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!

Google ‘Deborah Petersen’ and you will get to read

Get away from the every day
Come away with me!
To Life in the Fast Lane
Will take you far,
Far away!
To places
You have never been!
I will show you things
You have never seen!
I will tell you things
You have never heard!
Soar freely
As a bird!
I will make you laugh!
I will make you cry
Tears of joy!
Come journey with me to life!
In the Fast Lane

As recommended by Kurt Kohlstedt from Web Urbanist , I happen to ask Deborah for honoring us by being our elite blogger and my cheerful friend  gave her  confirmation in to time.
Here she goes:

1) Is there any niche that you maintain while posting articles on your blog or are they random picks that complements the unusualness of readers?  Why have you named it “Life in the Fast Lane”? Are the implications sarcastic, realistic or ….?

Basically, anything that I post about is of something unusual in nature — be it arts, places on our planet, science, technology, and even architecture.

The reason for the name of my blog is quite simple, actually. My husband’s name is Layne, and many of our customers called him Fast Layne, hence the name Fast Lane Transport when we formed our business. The blog was initially to be an off-shoot of our business website, so I named it Life in the Fast Lane.

There are only so many things that you can write about that readers would find interesting for the trucking industry, so much to the chagrin of our webmaster, I began publishing posts on topics that were if interest to me instead.

2) What made you create this platform “Life in the Fast Lane” and how far have you succeeded in sharing your business experiences of Fast Lane Transport.
I had hired Matt Keagan in our early days of our business website as an editor for pages that I had written. Between Matt and our webmaster, they had convinced me that I should start a blog.
I had no writing experience whatsoever, but with Matt’s incredible support, I went ahead with it. He was my mentor when I first started the blog, and we became great friends.

I didn’t have much of an interest to write trucking articles, and decided to write about topics that I’m passionate about or have an interest in. Therein lies much of the success, writing about what I’m ardent over — advice I would offer to any serious blogger.

3) How do you maintain stability at writing front as you deliver articles across diverse areas i.e. humor, art, science, gadgets, business, and other random stuff? (assuming you are a solo writer here)

That’s an easier question to ask than it is to answer, as it may have numerous implications. In regards as to consistency or relevance of topics, as mentioned, most anything that I write about is of an unusual nature.
Yes, I am the solo writer, and in that lies the main issue of stability as far as publishing on a consistent basis goes. I have had the occasional guest blogger write articles, but being a ‘one-man-show’ can take its toll over time.

Bloggers frequently feel the need to meet a self-imposed commitment to publish frequently enough for their readers.  My regular posts entail anywhere from 6 to 8 hours to compose from start to finish on average; the more ‘mammoth-style’ posts take anywhere from 2 to 3 days of solid work. Dedication of so much time on a daily basis becomes difficult to meet and highly taxing on many levels. Inevitably, you’re going to burn out, and various other areas of your life may suffer.
I have seen it happen to many others, and have experienced it myself — eventually one needs to take a break from it all. The death of my dear dog a couple of months ago was my reality check. I am currently on hiatus from the blog, drinking in a little more of life, family (including a new puppy), and investing more time in my business. There needs to be a balance to maintain a healthy living and life-style, which is a lot easier said than done

So my advice to others is to not permit your blogging to completely consume you. Write with passion about topics that you’re interested in, but don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers, so to speak.

4) Pen down your five favorite posts written till date.
It’s difficult to really narrow it down, but here are 5 which quickly come to mind, in no particular order:

The Bizarre Underworld and Lunar Landscape of Cappadocia– a very surrealistic and intriguing land of lost cities.

35 Ghosts of Nature – Albino Animals of the Wild — It’s no secret that I’m a huge animal lover. This is but one of the many posts on animals that I’ve published.

World’s Most Bizarre and Intriguing Water Fountains — who doesn’t love the ‘rush’ and sound of flowing water, especially when it relates to unique artworks?

12 Most Astonishing Hot Springs in the World — I feel that Mother Nature is the most incredible artist above all, and she surely doesn’t disappoint us with her picturesque hot springs.

Shih Tzu – Small Heroes Amongst Us last but far from the least — in fact, probably my favorite — is a tribute that I wrote to my dog Daisy who recently left this plane. It’s one of the rare occasions that I’ve ever published anything of a personal nature, but I also go into providing information not only on shih tzu’s, but about choosing compatible companions, finding reputable breeders, and a must-watch video on puppy mills.

5) Tell us about your ”must-read” or favorite blogs?

I think that I would be derelict if I failed to refer to others who are either friends or acquaintances in my niche whose blogs I enjoy, respect, and admire. I do have a number of others that I have not included, so if some of my friends are reading this, please don’t be offended! Here they are in no specific order:

WebUrbanist– A funky site on topics “from urban design to subversive art and strange architecture.”

Dark Roasted Blend—For the weird and wonderful things to complement your daily coffee ritual.

Deputy Dog: Many wild and zany posts on architecture, engineering, or design.

The Daily Green–Home to my friend Brian C. Howard, “an eco-warrior, home and tips editor, and builder of his own social pyramid in cyberspace.”

Neatorama – they now have an ‘upcoming queue’ for which you can participate in voting on the best submissions which are promoted to their front page.

InventorSpot—Every day is a surprise as to what you will find there, but it’s typically light, fun, and interesting.

6) Quick bites:

1. Hours you invest surfing net:
I’m embarrassed to admit what it used to be, but as of late, several hours per day.

2. Biggest blogging mistake you did:
Accepting an interview for a book on blogging entitled Blogging Heroes; I was horribly misquoted several times, as were others whom I spoke to that were interviewed. Despite requests to make corrections prior to publishing, they were not made, although I was told they had been.

3. One hidden truth: I’m a chocaholic.

4. If asked to post only on one blog (not Lifeinthefastlane), which one would that be?

WebUrbanist; they’re a great bunch, and we have many topic interests in common, sharing a similar niche. In fact, I’ve even referred my friend Steve to them, someone whom I respect and admire as a professional writer and on-line friend — a match made in blogging heaven, in my opinion.

5. Advice you would have given yourself five years ago?
Time passes far too quickly. Stop to take time to enjoy the day, and live in the moment. Each minute you miss is time lost and will not return to you again.

6. If not a blogger then.
An entrepreneur; having lived the lifestyle for many years, it’s the one means of earning an income that that fulfills me.

7. Life without Internet: Harsh. Nearly anything you need to know about can be found on the net.

8. First gadget you kept your fingers upon: My first laptop.

9) Which social networking sites you would recommend to an Internet mammal?

While Digg has had its controversies, it’s the one place where I can find breaking news before I hear about it locally, as well as many interesting articles. The upcoming queue is where it’s all at to find the gems. I rarely look at the front page, as certain sites kind of appear to be favored to ever make it there.

StumbleUpon is also one of my favorites, and an entirely different social media site and environment than Digg. The two are the main sites that I spend my online time at.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and Why?

Steve Levenstein, who writes for both WebUrbanist and Inventor Spot. He’s an awesome guy as a person, and never fails to entertain or give you a laugh with his witty and clever writing style on a broad spectrum of off-beat topics, and whacky Japanese inventions.

9) Your turn! I am ready to answer a question for you.

I would really like to know about how and why you started and continue to interview bloggers. I guess that technically constitutes more than one question, but I’m sure your readers would love to hear it as well!
In closing, I’d like to thank you for inviting me for this interview and the opportunity to be here.

Deborah, it was in late 2005 that I ventured into blogging and with days passing, there evolved a curiosity within me as to who all are the faces behind established blogs, what is their mindset, why they started their respective blogs, how they manage their day and many others. Also, I thought it would be a good way to network with co-bloggers and know them personally as we know today-:)

Continuation was bound to happen as the long gap was accidental. Hope things at my end remain in-tact now so that I can do justice to my ongoing series.

I would like to thanks Deborah on behalf of ELITE CHOICE team for sparing out time and considering our proposal of elite blogger and wish her a happy married life ahead.

Cheers!

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.

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.

We have a strict one-article-per-day policy having to do with quality over quantity so I generally go over the article of the day one last time and publish it sometime during the day, moderate comments and come up with new and (hopefully) brilliant ideas for future posts, spinoffs or ways to tie together various articles or entirely new functions and features for the site. I try to answer site emails regularly but I often get behind (sorry readers!) particularly when I”m traveling. I spend much of my day working on other odds and ends including helping on other sites and working on other projects.

When did you sense an inclination towards blogging? When was WebUrbanist introduced to blogosphere?
I started dabbling with blogging early in 2007 when a friend put WordPress up on a random domain I purchased for no particular purpose. Once I started to get actual traffic and readership I tested out various kinds of content to find a balance of what I enjoyed writing about and what people enjoyed reading about. With that in mind I together with few interested friends started WebUrbanist in the middle of 2007. It became clear fairly quickly that I was the most interested in the project so for many months I was the primary author on the site.

Why your blog reflects only the urban side of design, culture, travel, architecture and alternative art and not lifestyle, inventions or technology?
There are actually three answers:
(1) There actually are some elements of lifestyle and technology on the site, they just aren”t the primary focus per say.
(2) You can only cover so much. Even with the topics already covered the site is fairly broadly niched compared to many other major weblogs. This is both a plus and a minus it means there are always new ideas but it also lacks some focus.
(3) My own background is in architecture and design and I personally love to travel so in some respects the choice to focus on those reflects my own interests and knowledge.

What is number of posts you deliver on daily basis and are you the sole contributor or you have the support of more hands?
We used to produce only two to three long and thorough articles per week. More recently we have moved to publishing approximately one post per day with some exceptions. We are moving toward a more regular schedule right now where we will have ongoing series running on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and feature articles running on Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Currently there are five authors who contribute to the site. We are looking to put up a bio page to tell more about our authors in the near future.

What according to you is an ideal form of art?
I used to think that architecture was the highest form of art the blending of art and science to create beautiful and useful things. In some ways I still do see it that way but perhaps in a broader sense or on a larger scale. Now I might say something like cities as a whole are the most brilliant art form. They are collectively produced expressions of our needs, desires and wills. Every one is unique and reflects the character of those who inhabit and build it.

The post “Urban Abandonments: 7 Deserted Wonders of the (Post)Modern World” is really interesting. I am curious what led to the development of such a well-woven and meaty piece?
Ah I see you dug down deep into the archives and found the original 7 Wonders article. That was simply a strange spark of inspiration. I have always been fascinated by abandonments and wanted some weighty title to convey the magnitude and impressiveness of such structures and ancient and modern wonders of the world came to mind. That article was the genesis of what has become without a doubt the most popular series of all time on WebUrbanist. Subsequent articles covered abandoned wonders of particular parts of the world as well as other non-abandoned wonders of the world. Still, it comes back to that first article it was one of the first on WebUrbanist to become truly popular all around the Internet.

At weburbanist, we are fed with a timely dose of 7-wonders across diverse categories. What do you count as 7-wonders of weburbanist?

I have a real fondness for the country-and-continent-specific articles from the seven wonders series (the United States, the former Soviet Union and Europe) as well as articles dealing with design and alternative art in general from amazing tree houses and strange transforming furniture to strange street graffiti and mysterious graffiti artists:

10 Amazing Tree Houses from Around the World: Sustainable, Unique and Creative Designs

7 More Abandoned Wonders of the World: Amazing American Abandonments

7 Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union: Deserted Cities, Buildings, Bases and More

7 Abandoned Wonders of the European Union: From Deserted Castles to Retrofuturistic Factories

10 (More) Pieces of Clever Transforming Furniture: From Tetris Tables to Rooms in a Box

3 Amazing 3D Graffiti Artists: Street Painting and Sidewalk Chalk Art

The Banksy Paradox: 7 Sides of the World’’s Most Infamous Street Artist

Tell us about your ”must-read” or favorite blogs?
DarkRoastedBlend, Neatorama and MentalFloss are certainly toward the top of that list. Not only is the content on each amazing but the people writing for and/or running each are awesome as well. DarkRoastedBlend never ceases to amaze me. I am exceedingly jealous of Avi’’s uncanny ability to find tons of sources and images related to the most obscure and strange subjects. Neatorama provides an excellent blend of original content and updates about unusual content found elsewhere on the web. MentalFloss as a really interesting hodgepodge of interesting facts, funny lists and all kinds of other stuff. Each site has also been critical to helping WebUrbanist become the successful site it is today. LifeIntheFastLane.ca and Deputy-Dog are also favorites and also run by awesome individuals with a real passion for blogging strange stuff. I could go on but the list would never end.

Provide us with your three favorite posts you have written to date.
A few of them are already listed above (they would be 7 Wonders articles). However, there is one not listed that I would very much like to single out. This article was not very successful and I have remained somewhat disappointed that it didn”t enjoy broader circulation. I think it is perhaps something that is more of a personal favorite and something I perhaps shouldn”t have expected people without geekish obsessions with obscure abandonments to appreciate: Creatively converted sea forts of great britain strange adaptive reuse of military architecture.

What remains your criterion for selection of post to be played at your blog?
It should fit in at least two or three of the general categories listed on the sidebar and has to fit some basic image/text rhythms we have set up for the site. As a rule of thumb we shoot for interesting, extreme, random, funny, obscure and otherwise sensational content. We aim to entertain above anything else but also to inform along the way.

Avi of DarkRoastedBlend: Have you ever been a graffiti artist?
Hah, amazingly no the graffiti aspect of the site was inspired by someone else who worked on WebUrbanist early on though I have since become quite interested and written a lot on the subject. I have however done a fair bit of urban exploration (just don”t tell the authorities).

Do you think green homes are the wave of future in home building, considering the fact that a green home usually has much higher material and construction costs than a standard home? Don”t you think green home will be out of reach for many of us?
I believe green design really is the future. Right now, particularly in the United States, people have become accustomed to absolutely horrific building quality. Many people buy buildings that, over time, will cost them far more in repairs and energy costs than a building properly built up front would cost. Also, as the environment becomes an increasingly front-page issue the costs of going green will go down and in all likelihood buildings will have to meet higher standards across the board, which, in turn, will also make builders more aware of ways to go green more easily. In short: I absolutely believe green homes will become more affordable and even if they cost more up front that cost will be offset down the line.

Is there is any running blog with a similar niche or you enjoy the monopoly of the game?
I don”t think there are any other sites out there with the same strange blend as WebUrbanist. The favorite sites I listed above are all similar-but-different. I think this might be in part because of my own background again I love strange and interesting stuff of all kinds but I am also trained as an architect and urban designer, which focus my bizarre fascinations in that direction.

How would you like to be known as:
a) Urbanist b)Blogger c) Writer d) Graffiti Artist
I absolutely love the fact that WebUrbanist ranks 1 on Google searches for the term ”urbanist” which is itself not a real word. If ”urbanist” were a title like ”architect” the site might be misleading as it stands, though, I like to think that WebUrbanist is part of the definition now of an entirely manufactured term. In addition to that my passion is cities and that is also included in my imaginary definition of ”urbanist.”

Quick bites:
a) Biggest blogging mistake you did: Not finding better hosting sooner
b) One hidden truth: There is no such thing as an urbanist
c) If asked to post only on one blog (besides WEBURBANIST), which one would that be? Very interesting question. I really like ReadWriteWeb for providing intelligent content for web geeks and wouldn”t mind adding my thoughts to that sometime.
d) Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Be patient and don”t expect to succeed quickly know what you are getting yourself into.
e) If not a blogger then. An architect
f) Life without Internet: Probably a lot less stressful
g) You take inspiration from? Little tidbits I find online and the city that surrounds me
h) One thing you dislike about weburbanist: It loads too damned slowly anyone wants to sponsor us for a dedicated server?

If asked to give three tips to a novice blogger, what would that be?
Know what you want up front: fame, fortune or satisfaction
Reach out to other people who are successful they are usually nice folks
Don”t expect your first blog to be the one you end up writing on a year from now

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and Why?
Deborah Peterson and of LifeInTheFastLane.ca would be a great choice she has so much enthusiasm for what she does and that is the essence of what it takes to succeed. She is also a genuinely awesome person as well as being similarly fascinated with the strangest of things.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.
You ask a great blend of questions this is probably more information, for example, than people can find about WebUrbanist than people can find pretty much anywhere else on the web.

Your turn! I am ready to answer a question for you.
What is the funniest or strangest answer you have ever gotten in an interview?
Well, there are many. But one such commonality is well-expressed in my routine question: If not a blogger thenI am surprised to see the ”other” side of their personality they wish to don.

And here I thank Kurt for his kind participation and doing the needful. Wish you luck Kurt for your future endeavors.

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.

To what extent blogs has become an integral important part of the way people now access information? When did you sense an inclination towards blogging?
I think generally that blogs get a bad rap and on the whole it’’s hugely unjustified. I honestly think that a surprising percentage of the information consumed by the general public could be attributed to the efforts of bloggers over the past couple of years. I know of info from quite a few articles, researched by bloggers, which a few weeks later have made it to the mainstream press without so much of a nod to the blog, which brought it to their attention. This will change over time though as bloggers slowly build in strength and the big guns realize that a lot of bloggers are just as good, if not better, at ”journalism” than professional journalists themselves.

What made you restrict the canvas of your blog to architecture, green living, engineering, design and phenomenal natural oddities?
It wasn”t a plan really. When I first began the blog I wrote about anything and everything, badly. Then I slowly realized that I kept being drawn back to those particular areas and needed/wanted to spend more time reading up on them. I also think it’’s good to have some kind of focus, no matter how narrow. I can”t imagine how disorganized I”d be if I gave myself the opportunity to write about absolutely anything.

Besides designing and architecture, what other areas interests you?
Most things. I read a lot about music, especially lately, and considered starting a music-related blog recently, in the same vein as deputydog. Then I remembered that I only have 2 hands and one brain and put the idea on the back-burner.

Avi of DarkRoastedBlend: Why the name Deputy Dog?
I like the sound and rhythm of the words. Unfortunately there’’s no clever reason.

With the development of green houses, automobile and gadgets, do you think technology is really going green or it is a sheer PR exercise?
It’’s for real and it’’s sorely needed. It”ll be a slow process but the technology is there to make it possible on a wide scale and that can only be a good thing for everyone concerned. I think the majority of consumers will buy whatever’’s put in front of them so it’’s just a matter of getting these green technologies on the market en masse (and cheap enough) to the point where the public have no choice but to go green.

Pen down that virtual image of design in your mind that you would wish to see turning reality in near future.
The one thing I”m dying to see in everyday life is the flying car, a concept which has been in development in various degrees for decades. I hate to imagine the logistics of low-altitude traffic in a busy city but to walk out the front door and see a hovering vehicle skimming down the road would never cease to make me smile.

How would you define an ideal blog? Which one is your ideal blog at blogosphere?
For me, an ideal blog will consistently dig information up that interests me, to the point where I can”t wait to see the next post. I don”t care whether it’’s once a day or once a month, it’’s all about the quality. The first example that springs to mind is Dark Roasted Blend site that churns out phenomenal imagery at an incredible rate. You just know the next article will be awe-inspiring.

Tell us about your ”must-read” or favorite blogs?
There are so many, some of which I won”t even mention deliberately (I believe most bloggers have secret favourites that they selfishly hope will never be discovered by other bloggers. It’’s sad but true).

My current must-reads are.
DRB
BldBlog
Pruned
Fogonazos
Web Urbanist
Strange Maps
PingMag
Neatorama
ThingsMagazine
Environmental Graffiti

Provide us with your three favorite posts you have written to date.
Top 10 Physically Modified People: Amazing reaction to this post and I ended up chatting with a couple of people on the list. Surreal.

Extreme Rich-Poor Divides: Everyone knows about poverty but to visually see the contrast is fascinating. Plus it took me ages to find these areas.

6 Incredible Star Forts : It’’s incredible to think that I didn”t realize these places existed until I tripped over one of them (so to speak). I”ve never been more amazed by aerial photos.

What remains your criterion for selection of post to be played at your blog?
If it’’s about a subject that’’s already been plastered all over the internet, I won”t post about it.

Is deputydog existence enough to pay your bills or you are engaged in full-time job?
I quit my fulltime job a couple of months back. It took a while for me to get to the point where I could survive through blogging but it was worth the wait. To do it for a living is a dream come true.

Tell us some weird things about you that most of the people don”t know.
I can speak Welsh. That’’s as weird as it gets.

What do you count as the success secrets of your blog?
I like to think I”ve kept the content as unique as possible. People won”t come back if they don”t think they”re going to read something they can”t find on a blog they”ve read since the beginning of time. And I like to think I write in plain English. Too many blogs fall down, not due to the subject matter, but because reading the supporting text is like trying to solve a riddle.

How would you like to be known as:
a) Design Analyst b)Blogger c) Writer d) Weird Hunter
Any of the above. As long as my stuff is read I”m happy.

Quick bites:
a) Hours you invest digging net: Some days 3, others anywhere up to 9
b) Biggest blogging mistake you did: Choosing the wrong server nearly crippled me. Linux is the way forward.
c) One hidden truth: That”d be telling.
d) If asked to post only on one blog (besides deputy-dog) which one would that be? Dark Roasted Blend
e) Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Start blogging immediately.
f) If not a blogger then. A photographer
g) Life without Internet: Ridiculously frustrating.
h) Three words imprinted on your tombstone: Successful, handsome, happy
i) You take inspiration from? Anyone who’’s good at what they do.

If asked to give three tips to a novice blogger, what would that be?
Don”t follow the herd. Don”t give up. Use Flickr to store your pictures.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and Why?
If for some reason you”ve not already got Miss Cellania (she’’s like the backbone of blogs writes for everyone and doesn”t miss a thing) then it”d be the guys at Web Urbanist. They continuously write lists that are actually interesting and that’’s not easy.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.
I”ll be honest I didn”t realize the site existed ”til last week but the interviews you”ve got on there are great. It’’s very interesting to read about the people behind blogs I read most days. Well done!

Your turn! I am ready to answer a question for you.
Which internal organ is your favourite? Why?
My Esophagus as it keeps troubling me after intake of any vinegary dish, which I cannot stay away from. I can”t afford to hate it and hence have developed a soft corner for it.

I hereby thank Shaun for feeding my readers with interesting set of responses and wish him luck for taking Deputy-Dog to new levels of success.

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.

Blogging has earned success in revolutionizing the functionality of the Internet ecosystem. Whilst there were days when search engines like Google and Yahoo use to dominate the homepage but current scenario makes more sense and befits the niche-needs of a person.Engadget, the daddy of technology-driven blogs ruling blogosphere is now seen as the homepage of many geeks’ desktop. No, that’s not a technology bug but a conscious move. And holding the flag high is Ryan Block, editor-in-chief, Engadget who marked fourth anniversary of his stay here this month.

Currently residing in San Francisco, California with Veronica Belmont (his girlfriend) and two cats, Ryan shares that writing for a site like Engadget isn’t as easy as it looks and at the same time it’s even more fun than one would expect.

Technophiles are familiar with Ryan’s voice (remarkable reach of his weekly podcast initiative), bloggers are fond of his coverage of products and events and Media doesn’t take a step back in recognizing and appreciating the efforts he delivers from time-to-time (was honored as one of the Forbes’s 2007 Web Celeb 25) but unfortunately if you aren’t familiar with the he behind Ryan then allow yourself to go through this interesting read about Ryan Block, Engadget, Technology, CES, Blogging & Veronica Belmont.

Introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual day at work?

Well, one of the best things about doing what we do is no two days are ever alike. Even after four years there’s nothing monotonous in writing about technology. That isn’t to say it isn’t difficult and a grind — because it is, and we all work really long hours — but there is always something interesting happening in the tech world, and the crew at Engadget is guaranteed to keep it lively. I think I’ve only taken one vacation and called in sick once or twice since I started Engadget — I just can’t stay away.

When did you join AOL (earlier Weblogs Inc.)? Take us through the journey of your entry into the network as a reporter and then becoming current editor-in-chief after taking it from founder Pete Rojas.

I started in June of 2004; Engadget was three months old then. We were acquired by AOL in October of 2005, and I actually became, to the best of my knowledge, one of the (if not THE) first bloggers hired full-time (and with full benefits, etc.) by a major media company. There were lots of bloggers then, and lots of professional writers’ blogging, but I think we were on the first wave to cross the threshold of bloggers as media. Pete and I had always worked really closely on the site, so I think we were both pretty comfortable with my eventually taking the mantle. It’s a little different now, of course, but I’m just as proud of what we’ve accomplished since Pete moved on.

What is the number of hands engaged in delivering 24×7 updates at Engadget? Don’t you think the full-time involvement into blogs is more demanding than a regular 9-hours job?

More than a dozen on the US sites, and dozens for our various translations worldwide. It is absolutely more demanding than most jobs, and the expectation is that as news breaks at any hour of the day; it ought to be up within minutes. Granted, we helped set that expectation over the years, so I’m not exactly complaining.

Tell us about five of your �daily-reads’ or favorites blogs?

I’m a big fan of well-run and executed aggregators, so the top of my feeds are sites like Techmeme and BuzzFeed. I also geek out on stuff like Joystiq, Alley Insider, and quirkier stuff like PhotoshopDisasters.

We are impressed with your speedy coverage of CES. Which electronic product from CES 2008 invited your attention the most?

Probably the Optimus Maximus — I got one shortly after CES, it’s unbelievable. Not very practical, but very well done!

And what are your expectations’ from CES 2009?

Lots and lots of products. Very little sleep.

Engadget and Gizmodo are undoubtedly the Wall Street Journal and New York Times of the techblogosphere. Did you ever felt the sense of rivalry with your peers or take it as an alarm that makes you always stand on toes feeding your readers with the latest updates?

I think the supposed rivalry gets played up because people really like that kind of a story, whether or not it’s actually real. There was a time after Peter left Gizmodo where, for a few years, they weren’t really trying to play the game like we were — constant, timely updates; even when they weren’t trying to outdo us, we were pushing ourselves to provide the best possible coverage to our readers. I try not to get too caught up in the specifics though, it doesn’t really benefit anyone. There are a lot of other sites out there, you know?

Can you imagine a day when Gizmodo an Engadget merge to offer a wider platform before technology-driven audience? Isn’t be possibility sensible?

No, I don’t really ever see that happening from a business and ownership standpoint. It probably wouldn’t be good, anyway — the two sites have very different styles and objectives, and any time you take away competition the consumer (in this case, the reader) suffers.

Introduce us to your three gadgetry possessions that you can’t afford to miss while stepping out.
I really only take out my phone (which is an iPhone right now; my last phone was an HTC Hermes) and sometimes my camera (depends on which I’m using at the time). I don’t carry a lot of devices with me if I can help it.

Tell us about your experience co-hosting a weekly podcast. Is podcasting the need of future and can bring revolution?

It was one of my favorite parts of Engadget, but it’s hard to do well without taking a lot of time. I’m looking forward to podcasting again in the future.

Quick bites:

Biggest blogging mistake you did: There have been many! It’s a constant learning experience, and I think I’ve grown a lot personally and professionally in the last few years.

One hidden truth: Writing for a site like Engadget isn’t as easy as it looks — but it’s even more fun than one would expect.

If asked to post only on one blog (not Engadget), which one would that be? Ryanblock.com

Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Never underestimate the influence of Engadget.

If not a blogger, then I used to be a sysadmin, but that takes an entirely different kind of masochist. Maybe one day I’ll retire into design.

How long could you survive without the internet: As long as I need to, I don’t have a hard time unplugging.

One thing you hate about Engadget: The hours and constant pressure.

Count of professions you have been into: Three.

First gadget you kept your fingers upon: Perhaps the NES.

How would you like to be known as? Technology writer and editor.

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

Start writing, keep writing (even when the initial luster has worn off, even if you’re not collecting droves of readers), and with any luck you’ll hone your skill and catch your break.

They say blogosphere (especially tech-blogs) is a male dominated society. What is your take on this?

I don’t know if I entirely agree with that; yeah, sometimes it seems there are more men in tech than women, but I don’t really feel like the ladies are locked out. It kind of bums me out that there aren’t more active female gadget writers, because we’ve been really lacking that at Engadget for quite some time now.

Is it good to have an individual identity of a blog or run it as a part of a community?

Depends on you, your goals, your subject matter, etc. There’s no one answer.

Whom would you recommend for being featured as my next EliteBlogger?

Veronica Belmont

At the end, I daren’t skip Ryan’s interesting engagement with iPhone’s history as he covered the birth of the Apple iPhone, from the earliest anecdote of its existence in 2004 to what he considers the ultimate review in 2007 and counts it as his small personal triumph. We thank Ryan for such an interesting set of responses and wish him luck to take Engadget to another level of success.

Another interesting blog and the multi-talented face behind it aptly fit well onto my Eliteblogger series. The tagline of his blog reads I think I think, therefore, I think I think I am, I think, making us think for a while if it is an extension of Desecrates philosophy but on inquiry David Szondy, founder, DavidSzondyEphemeral discloses that it can be seen as his take on the thought that there’s some thinking going on here, about which he no idea. He says: I’m of the opinion that I probably exist or, at least, I think I might, but I’m not going to commit myself.

Szondy is a Washington-based freelance writer and webmaster for davidszondy.com, home of Tales of Future Past. In the past, David was engaged with chief corporations i.e. Boeing and Microsoft and is also the author of numerous plays; the most lately produced being an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s The Reluctant Dragon in Seattle and is a retired archaeologist.

Delve into the straight responses coming from David’s end:

Introduce yourself to my readers and take us to your typical day at work.
Hello, I’m David Szondy, the founder and webmaster of the blog Ephemeral Isle and its sister site, Tales of Future Past. I am a former archaeologist and university lecturer based outside of Seattle, WA where I now make a living as a freelance writer/editor.

Like most writers, I’m afraid that my work is less interesting to hear about than to read the final products of, as it generally involves many hours of scribbling, staring into space, glowering at a screen and coming up with an excuse to make another pot of tea. My work days tend to veer wildly between the structured and chaotic. When I have a client that needs me to travel, I can be anywhere and doing most anything.

When I work from my home office, my routine is basically to start the day by taking care of my email, scanning the news feeds and alerts for anything that might be of interest for Ephemeral Isle, and sorting out any future projects that are on the horizon. If it’s a a good news day full of interesting items I usually have the blog done inside of two hours. Otherwise, I put my notes aside to work on later while I concentrate on other writing projects and making sure that my two incredibly insecure dogs get enough attention.

Your blog davidszondy.com is known to be the home of Tales of Future Past. Can you elaborate Future Past for us? What is the focus of your blog?

Future Past is my word for how we used to look at the future. Other people have called this retro future or paleo-future, but I’m a bit more specific in my definition. Future Past is that era (give or take a decade) between about 1908, when Hugo Gernsback publish Modern Electrics, the first popular technology magazine, and 1964, when the New York World’s Fair took place and the Space Age was at it’s height. This was a time when people were making predictions about the future (They did is before and we still do that today), but very predictions that, taken as a whole, were very consistent and foresaw the 21st century as one of a very small number of alternatives usually ones that involved flying cars, jet packs, food pills and robots as props.

It’s a fascinating field because so many of these predictions were treated as virtual blueprints for a future world where an article on, for example, a new kind of airplane wing would be accompanied by a detailed drawing of a giant aircraft using that wing that pointed out where the staterooms and loading ramps would be. Or, as in the case of the ‘64 World’s Fair, you had mock up displays of future technologies that looked as if the designers were just waiting for someone to come along and deal with the tiresome detail of making that thing actually work. You don’t get that sort of confidence these days.

Tell us about your experience while writing numerous plays? Do you count yourself as a born author or you have developed this skill during the course of time?
Playwriting is one of the most rewarding and frustrating types of writing. A play allows a writer a lot of scope to express ideas yet, because it’s so much a spoken medium, it forces the writer to really learn how to handle dialogue and pacing. I’ve been very fortunate in my playwriting to not only see my works produced and even win the odd award, but also to collaborate with some very talented people, such as my wife Lela Szondy, with whom I co-adapted The Reluctant Dragon for the stage and Amy Walton, who worked with me on the award-winning Circling the Drain before heading off to Hollywood to pursue a film acting career. It’s also a very heartbreaking job because plays take an incredible amount of work, often over years of writing and rewriting, and with the hard times that live theatre has gone through in recent years one has to stand by and see a lot of hard work by a lot of good people go by the way when a project is abandoned.

You seem to have a deep relation with pen. When did you sense an inclination towards writing?

I got into writing at a very young age when my boyhood daydreams started getting more elaborate and episodic until I was putting together actual stories. Then I noticed that I was getting irritated by a lot of things I read or saw on television and came to the conclusion that the rubbish I came up with was better than their rubbish and I started putting it down on paper. Fortunately, very little of this juvenilia got into print, so we’re all pretty lucky.

Which all projects you are working upon currently?
I’m still working on Tales of Future Past, which has many more pages still to be added and I’m hoping to adapt into one or a series of books in the near future. I’m also have a couple of other plays in the works, one of which is a comedy about the Normandy Invasion, there’s a panto, an adaption of E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, an independent documentary project on science fiction and technology, and I’m involved in a couple of projects in Hollywood and London that are still in the planning stages.

Your blog Ephemeral Isle seems to be driven by your thinking and imagination. What remains the nature of posts/writings that reside here?
The format of Ephemeral Isle is pretty much my reaction to modern life; specifically, those news items, gadgets, bits of popular culture or even things that happen to me that cause me to go bloody hell! or words to that effect. Having said that, the key to a successful blog is consistency, so I then take items that catch my attention and sort them out until those that remain fit into the major themes of the EI, such as the erosion of civil liberties in Britain, remarkable new scientific or technological advances, cool new gadgets, the threat of Islamic extremism, the absurdity of modern life, and how progress often deserves to be met with a goggle-eyed stare rather than unqualified applause.

How different is its tagline I think I think, therefore, I think I think I am, I think from what Descartes said: I THINK, THEREFORE I AM’?
Descartes was way too cocky when he said that and I hope someone told him so. My take on it is that there’s some thinking going on here, on whose part I’ve no idea, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I’m of the opinion that I probably exist or, at least, I think I might, but I’m not going to commit myself.

Ephemeral literally means short-lived. What made you add a suffix called Ephemeral?
I got the name from James Lileks, who has or had a section of his remarkable website called Flotsam Cove, which he used to toss out ideas that he hadn’t determined were worth keeping. At the same time, Ephemeral Isle was a phrase that had popped into my head that I thought amusing and since my blog was a place where I made my transient observations and rants about modern life, it seemed that Ephemeral Isle fit the nature of the beast quite nicely.

Tell us about your association with corporations like Boeing and Microsoft.
I’ve had them as clients on and off over the years and because they’re such huge companies the nature of projects can very greatly, but I generally find that I’m less interested working for corporations on anything put a consultant basis because they tend to get rather set in their ways.

How many radio plays have you done? How do you find your stay being engaged with radio industry? Which radio plays of yours you like the most?
How many have I done? Not as many as I’d like. Radio is probably the most exciting medium there is for a writer because every single second of a radio play has to be filled with sound and words, so you can’t get away with writing they fight or a badger falls from the balcony and hope that the director sorts it out later. You’re the one who has to make it work by putting the right words in the character’s mouths. It’s also interesting because it’s so different depending on where you are. Britain, for example, has a thriving radio industry with plenty of scope for new dramas, comedies and documentaries while in the States it’s much rarer because the market is dominated by music, sports and talk. On the other hand, the Internet has brought us the podcast, so anyone with a modest budget can set up their own Mercury Theatre On The Air if they like, which is incredible when you think about it. As to my favourite play, I’d say Phone Call of Cthulhu, which is about a collision between talk radio and H. P. Lovecraft.

How you would like to be known as?
Writer
Author
Archaeologist
Free lancer
Blogger

I think I’d like to be known best as a writer because it’s what I always wanted to do first and I feel that it encompasses all the others.

Quick bites:
Hours you invest digging net: I use the Net so much in my work that if it weren’t for my family I’d probably never leave my desk.

Biggest blogging mistake you did: Not having comments on the site from day one. Visitor feedback is absolutely vital.

One hidden truth: To be a real success at blogging you’ve go to feed the dragon every single day. That means being willing to prostitute your private life and embarrass your loved ones by resorting to personal anecdotes when you run out of material.

If asked to post only on one blog (besides DavidZondy.com), which one would that be? That’s a good question. Blogs are often such personal things that I’d feel like I was poaching if I posted on someone else’s. I’ll say eggbaconchipsandbeans because I like breakfast a lot.

Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Listen to your wife.

If not a writer, then Threadbare and penniless. Hang on, that’s me now.

Life without Internet: Horrendous! I’d have to go back to scrounging every secondhand reference book I could lay my hands on.

Count of professions you have been into: Seven, if you count Dialect Coach.

Where do you see the future of blogging in coming five years?
Two things:
1) Its going to be much more interactive with much more high bandwidth content such as video.
2) It will be much more powerful as it cuts further into traditional journalism’s territory.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBloger and why?

James Lileks at lileks. He is the funniest writer in America today and his Bleat is a daily treat, though he is incredibly busy.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.
I never fail to marvel at the human ingenuity your site showcases or the sort of things people are willing to part with good money for.

Your turn! You can ask me one question.
Are people really daft enough to put treadmills at their work stations?
Yes, as long as manufacturers like to play with their wild levels of creativity and come out with such revolutionary offerings’.

We thank David for managing time for us and wish him luck with his “Tales of Future Past.”

Can someone with a deep interest into the comic world be a serious geek as well? I had to face this level of questioning when I disclosed my team about next appearance of the Elite Blogger. Brian Heater, an associate editor, PCMag blogs is a perfect name to this outfit devoting his days’ time writing and editing PCMag blogs and dedicating nights to comic book The Daily Cross Hatch, his absolute non-geeky face. Prior to PCMag Blogs, Brian was deputed as a staff writer at Laptop Magazine, which is sort of like PC Magazine, precisely smaller and more portable. Choosing to ignore the titles of Blogger, Technophile, and Editor, Brian feels contented calling himself a Writer.

Occupied generating content for almost four-major PCBlogs, Brian feels that with growing nature of blogs, blogosphere is now inextricably tied to our daily news consumption. And when at desk you may find him battling with the constant confusion of quality V/S quantity in terms of nature of posts.

So, read ahead to know more about Brain:

Introduce yourself to my readers and take us to the flow of your day at work.
Hey all, my name is Brian Heater �I’m the blogs editor here at PC Magazine, a job that consists of, among other things, writing for and helping dictate the editorial content for the blogs Gearlog, AppScout, GoodCleanTech, @Work, and TechnoRide. I’m probably in the small minority of bloggers who actually commute to work (I take the subway, which takes some of the guilt out of the whole carbon footprint thing). I get to work between 8:30 and 9:00, when the office is still fairly quiet, and spend my first hour or so weeding through blog spam and checking the various mailboxes for our different blogs.

The rest of the day is largely spent either posting or sitting in on meetings with vendors or other folks here at the magazine. I head out around 5:30 or 6:00 and go home and work on freelance stuff or my own comics blog, TheDailyCrossHatch.

How did you get involved with PCMag network?
Hmm, the answer to this one is a bit boring �I applied for the job and they hired me. I used to work at Laptop Magazine http://laptopmag.com/ , which certainly helped my case. As I’ve semi-jokingly said in the past, it was a bit like PC Magazine, only lighter and more portable. I started here as a member of the software team and moved to the blogs when my blogs editor position was created.

To what extent blogs has become an integral important part of the way people now access information? When did you sense an inclination towards blogging?
For better or worse, the blogosphere is now inextricably tied to our daily news consumption. Blogs certainly have their positives over more traditional news sources �they provide a sense of immediacy that’s often lost in monthly, weekly, and even daily news sources. But while skepticism should always be applied when consuming information from any news source, information gleamed from blogs ought to be taken with even more salt.

My move toward blogs is something of a microcosm of the larger medium. I started in print, moved online, and eventually found my way into the blogosphere, and while I continue to produce work for print and other non-blog resources, the blogosphere now consumes the vast majority of my work. Where else can you produce ten stories a day?

You happen to produce 74 posts for LaptopMag. What are those key learnings that you are implementing over at PCMag?
Laptop was really my crash course on the world of consumer electronics. The vast majority of information in the space that I now possess came from my two years at the magazine. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to tell you what A2DP is �it’s as much a blessing as a curse, really.

Brian, your articles at NYP focused more upon music, books, entertainment, about town or to be straight are non-geeky. To what extent do they carry your own personality traits in juxtaposition to your technophile spirit visible at PCMag?

Actually, to be totally honest, music writing was my first love. I’ve written on the subject for the aforementioned weekly as well as Spin, The Onion, Entertainment Weekly, and a whole slew of lesser-known music magazines. The move to films, books, etc. was a fairly straightforward transition. I continue to write about all of those topics in different capacities. I’m pretty sure that devoting myself to one would drive me a little crazy. It’s a way of keeping things fresh and helps me hone my craft.

Further, your different facet of personality is apparent via your personal comic blog. What is the purpose behind its existence?
When I launched the Daily Cross Hatch a little over a year ago, I honestly didn’t know what to expect �really, I wasn’t even sure the thing would make it as far as it has, but people took to it really quickly, and it’s established a pretty good foothold in the world of alternative comics. I launched it initially for the sorts of reasons I spoke about before �to keep myself constantly writing and to tackle a subject that I’m passionate about but don’t necessarily have a regular outlet for.

Comics are getting more and more recognition in the national press, but stories on the subject are often treated as novelty pieces. Mainstream outlets still seem to find humor in headlines like, Comics Aren’t for Kids Anymore. Fair enough, but there’s so much more to the medium than such simplistic statements. I honestly think that graphic novels are at the forefront of creative thinking around the world. The manner of boundary-pushing work generally attributed to more highbrow mediums, like the novel or painting, is occurring with an absurd frequency in the pages of books that the majority of the American public still regards as throwaways.

The Cross Hatch was born out of a genuine appreciation for this medium’s artists and for my own desire to write constantly. Since its launch, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and interact with many of the top minds in comics, and it’s proven a fairly consistent pleasure for me. Where rock musicians can be every bit as arrogant as their stereotypes, I’ve found cartoonists to be nearly universally down to earth and eager to discuss their craft. They’re also more than happy to provide instant feedback for my own work on the site. Cartoonists will comment on the blog �that’s something you rarely get with musicians.

What remains the nature of your posts at PCMag and Gearlog? What do you want people to walk away with?
It depends on the post, really. The material runs the gamut from straight reports on new products �with little room for subjectivity �to lengthy opinion pieces and even some investigative journalism. But hopefully, you’re getting a piece of the writer at the same time, however it happens to filter through.

How would you define an ideal blogI mean, what special features it must have to make an impact and deliver?
There are a lot of great blogs out there that are great for entirely different reasons. The key to being a good blogger is the key to any other creative endeavor: Establish your own voice in a sea of people vying for a spot at the forefront. For me, there’s a constant battle between quality and quantity. Is it better to post more or make better posts? It’s a question that each blogger must answer himself or herself, but I think ideally the solution rests somewhere between the two poles.

In this age of terrorism, how true is it to say that technology and gadgets are being produced at a rate that makes regulation difficult?
Well, we’ve all heard the stories of air travelers being pulled aside for attempting to bring a Macbook Air on board, so yeah, that’s certainly a concern. How that specific device was mistaken for an implement of terror is beyond me, but I suppose that it’s easy to criticize such things from the sidelines. In a case like that, most people are likely of the better safe than sorry mindset �just so long as people aren’t having their personal privacy impeded upon, a key concern as the advent of new technologies seem to be becoming more and more invasive.

You are an active contributor at GoodCleanTech. I am curious if technology is really becoming green or it is a steep PR exercise?

That’s a good question. To be honest, I was a little suspicious when, in a matter of months; it seemed as if every new piece of consumer technology carried some manner of green claim. There’s certainly a fair amount of green washing occurring, and there will continue to be, so long as the issue remains at the forefront of consumers’ minds (which will hopefully be a very long time �this problem isn’t going away). But there are unquestionably some really amazing breakthroughs happening in the world of environmentally friendly devices.

That product can simultaneously be groundbreaking and beneficial seems like a no-brainer, but until recently, thanks in large part to a corporate stranglehold on popular opinion, we’d rarely seen products that hit both points. The unprecedented success of the Internet in general and blogs in particular has played a large role in advancing a much more diverse array of opinions. It’s certainly made it much more possible to voice a desire for technologies that don’t harm the earth, and now that it’s popular to feel that way, the corporate world can’t help but listen. It’s one of the inherent beauties of the capitalist system �companies have to adjust to this demand or else risk falling behind.

We are certain that you read plenty of blogs daily, but for now we want you to pick five must-read blogs browsing which you start your day.
In no particular order:
Boing Boing, The Beat [Publisher's Weekly], Engadget, Stereogum, The Daily Kos.

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?

I’d nominate the Flip Video camera, the Asus eeePC, and the Palm Centro �where the iPhone is almost a piece of art, these devices demonstrate how great technologies can be both functional and affordable �sort of a democratization of consumer tech. These all actually came out late last year, I believe, but we’re only halfway through 2008, so it’s hard to say

Do you think blogs are going to be as acceptable and popular with masses as NYTimes, Time or NewsWeek are?
I don’t think these categories need be mutually exclusive. Smart new outlets have already adapted themselves to the Web �of the three organizations mentioned, The Times serves the best example. But certainly those who continue to fail to use the resources at their disposal to adapt to technology are doomed to a continually shrinking readership.

Darren Rowse from Problogger has talked about five emerging trends in blogging. Do you agree with him or feel the need to update the list? Please do the needful. Also, point us to the features that are missing in present-day blogging.
Certainly multi-author blogs have seen incredible success �in fact, most of the successful blogs these days are written by multiple authors. Multi-topic blogs is a bit tougher �I think it’s important to figure out your niche and explore avenues within it. Blogs often suffer when they attempt to be too broad. Blogs converging with other types of sites �I think Rowse is referring to multi-media here, which is certainly true. Portal-like design is a tough one.

When you lose that blog format, can your site really be considered a blog? That’s a debate for another interview, I think Indirect monetization: sure, we all want to write a book or host a TV show, right? After all, it’s a very small percentage of us who can actually make a living on blogging alone. No one can blame a blogger for such project, just so long as they’re honest with their readers. Off the top of my head, I’d add furthering the engagement between bloggers and readers. Blogs are all about instant feedback, and a good blogger embraces this fact.

Which all male and female tech bloggers you admire?
Guys: Cory Doctorow.
Gals: Xeni Jardin, Katie Fehrenbacher, and Emily Chang.

I’d have to go with Salon or Slate.

Which all male and female tech bloggers you admire?
Guys: Cory Doctorow.
Gals: Xeni Jardin, Katie Fehrenbacher, and Emily Chang.

Provide us with your one favorite post you have written till date from: Tough, but let’s give this a shot
a) NYP: Selling NYC’s brand of comedy to the masses
b) LaptopMag: Night in the Box
c) Gearlog: Hands-, Oatmeal-, Chilli-, Pudding-, RedBull-, and Cheetos-On with The Belkin Washable Mouse
d) PCMag: Web Celebs in Full Force for 12th Annual Webbies
Video [I'm including all of the video interviews at gearlog ]
e) GoodCleanTech : Sex, Drugs, and Carbon Credits: Cloud Cult and the Greening of Rock �n Roll
f) Appscout: To Kill a PaperClip

How would you like to be known as?
a) Blogger
b) Technophile
c) Entrepreneur
d) Editor
Can I have a fifth option? I usually just call myself a writer.

Quick bites:
Hours you invest digging net: Most of my work hours are spent on the Web �so, like ten hours? Wow, I need to get outside more
Biggest blogging mistake you did: Let’s just say that a few bad HTML tags can make a full site go haywire.
One hidden truth: I haven’t owned a working TV in six years. Daily Cross Hatch
Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Buy some Google stock!
If not a blogger, then. I’d probably be hacking away in print.
Life without Internet: I’d definitely be tanner.
What’s on the cards after Blogging: Working on those book deals. Agents and publishers, you know how to reach me
First gadget you kept your fingers upon: My Super Nintendo [sheds a single tear].

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and why?
If it’s strictly Tech, I’d say Joel Johnson at Boing Boing Gadgets �they’re doing some terrific stuff over there.
Otherwise, I recommend spreading out into the wonderful world of comics blogging like Tom Spurgeon at Comics Reporter, Heidi MacDonald at The Beat, or Dirk Deppey at Journalista �there are so many more, but I think I’ve gone well over my allotted space

Give us your views on EliteChoice.
Keep bringing the cool gadgets �and tough lines of questioning.

You can ask me one question. Just One?
-:) Am all set to answer even a list.

Here we thanks Brian for sparing time for my elite readers, technophiles, geeks’ and my dear blogger friends’. Wish you luck and keep writing about such geeky stuff.