Today we are delighted to have John Biggs, a familiar name over the biggest database on Earth: the INTERNET with us amongst our lively EliteBlogger series. Currently holding the flag of CrunchGear, a daily journal of all things gadget-tastic as an editor-in-chief, Biggs is mesmerized by revolutionary gadgets, gizmos, gears, technology, computer hardware and keeps himself engaged interacting with them via CrunchGear.
Having evolved as a New York-based author and consultant and written articles for publications viz. The New York Times, insyncmag, Men’s Health, Linux Journal, Popular Science and others, Bigg had an honor to work with Gizmodo team as a News Editor before leading the CrunchGear crew. Feeding its tech-hungry readers as a part of Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch Network, Bigg chooses to ignore the labels of author, blogger, entrepreneur, and shares: I’d like to be known as a guy who likes gadgets and writes about them. This is a platform that walks in synergy with the next-generation tech and aims to keep you connected, entertained, and educated.
Here I invite technophiles, techie divas and geeks to know more about this super-secret tech spy:
Introduce yourself and take us to the flow of day at work?
I wake up in the morning and write into the evening. Sometimes I go to meetings, sometimes I eat.
Having engaged with CrunchGear since its Inception in August 2006 and produced 2,430 posts, what do you think is its USP against gamut of other gadget and technology related blogs?
Since we’ve started I think we’re in the Technorati Top 100 and one of the more popular gadget blogs out there. It’s a big horse race and there are a few folks in the lead but it’s anybody’s win right now.
What does your book Black Hat talks about? What made you write this book?
I wrote it as a discussion of security from a layperson’s point of view. Rather than offer advice, I tried to demystify the hacker mystique.
When did you sense an inclination towards blogging?
I became a blogger when I was laid off from print and now I’ll never go back. The magazine I left is now trying to do what I do with considerably more efficiency and speed. It’s quite ironic.
Tell us about your ‘must-read’ or favorites blogs?
BoingBoing and TechMeme are the only sites I visit in a browser.
Provide us with your five favorite posts you have written till date.
Like my children, they’re all my favorites.
Whom do you admire the most in the blogging community and why?
I admire my team. They’re a great group of guys who come from all walks of life to come together to produce an amazing site. We basically come together each morning to cover the tech industry from all over the world. I also really like Joel Johnson, who taught me everything I know.
What all innovations in the tech industry have influenced you lately? What is the extreme of technology that you can figure put in your wildest thoughts?
Nothing. The tech industry is stagnant offering only incremental changes. All it takes is to make something so unusual the iPhone, for example and the whole industry is in an uproar. They worry more about the color of the case than what is inside.
What cell phone do you have right now and what do you love/hate about it?
The iPhone. I hate that it’s not the 3G iPhone
How would you like to be known as?
Author
Blogger
Entrepreneur
Others
I’d like to be known as a guy who likes gadgets and writes about them.
What all-marketing strategies you follow to invite readers?
Nothing. If you build it they will come.
Introduce us to your three gadgetry possessions that you can’t afford to miss while stepping out.
My Omega Seamaster Chronograph, my Kindle, and my keys.
Quick bites:
Hours you invest digging net: 24
Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? I would have told myself to buy a house in Europe.
If not a blogger, then a drinker.
Life without Internet: Unimaginable.
Count of professions you have been into: 3
First gadget you kept your fingers upon: My legos.
Where do you see the Blogosphere in the future?
On the Internet.
If asked for giving three tips to a greenhorn blogger, what would that be?
Try to find an established blog to intern for. Work for free. Get to know the great bloggers. Don’t expect to start a blog and become a millionaire. It rarely happens. In fact it’s only happened once.
Is it good to have an individual identity of a blog or run it as a part of a community?
It ‘s good to be individual. Communities are loud.
What piece of advice you would have given yourself five-years ago?
Invest in pork futures.
Whom would you recommend for being featured as my next EliteBlogger?
Joel Johnson, a freelance technology writer living and working in New York.
Give us your views on EliteChoice.It’s great.
You can ask me one question.
Why are you doing this?
I made a late entry into the blogosphere ecosystem (late 2006). And within months I could feel the loneliness here. Throughout day I use to engage myself playing posts over my blogs and every day proved to be a learning experience for me. Then also, I could sense something is missing. My touch with fellow bloggers! And then I kicked off strongly to do something different and ended up delivering my first round-up of 2007-Elite Blogs.
But still the distance between me and them remained and I ventured into taking my argument further of bringing the hidden faces behind all the EliteBlogs onto EliteChoice. Hence today you are here and in a way I know you with hopes to stay in touch with you. What had you thought about me for bringing forward this initiative?
Here i thank John Biggs for extracting time from his busy sked and writing back to me his interesting set of responses. Wish you luck John!
