[Reader-list] Top international blogger of India repute gets heart attack; blogging blamed :)

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

Some Brand-Name Bloggers Say Stress of Posting Is a Hazard to Their
Health


By DAN FOST
The New York Times, January 7, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/technology/07blogger.html?ex=1357362000&en=5ab6ac4566c0cc92&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


Om Malik's blog, GigaOm, regularly breaks news about the technology
industry. Last week, the journalist turned blogger broke a big story
about himself. Mr. Malik, 41, blogged that he had suffered a heart
attack on Dec. 28.

"I was able to walk into the hospital for treatment that night and
have been recovering here ever since," Mr. Malik wrote. "With the
support of my family and my team, I am on the road to a full recovery.
I am going to be O.K."

His heart attack — and his blogging about it — raises the issue of
what happens when a blogger becomes a name brand.

"The trouble with a personal brand is, you're yoked to a machine,"
said Paul Kedrosky, a friend of Mr. Malik's who runs the Infectious
Greed blog. "You feel huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a
lot with your name on it. You have pressure to not just be the C.E.O.,
but at the same time to write, and to do it all on a shoestring. Put
it all together, and it's a recipe for stress through the roof."

Mr. Malik has 12 employees, including a chief operating officer, and
editors run some of his blogs, Yet, "It's his name on the door," Mr.
Kedrosky said. "People want to know what Om Malik thinks. People want
to see posts with Om Malik's byline."

Paul Walborsky, the chief operating officer for Mr. Malik's company,
Giga Omni Media, played down stress as a factor in Mr. Malik's health.
He noted Mr. Malik's incessant smoking of cigars and cigarettes was a
more likely cause.

In his post last Thursday, Mr. Malik blamed a variety of vices.
"Friends and family have purged my apartment of smokes, scotch and all
my favorite fatty foods — I am even going to be drinking decaf," wrote
Mr. Malik. His online avatar features a drawing of him wearing a press
fedora and chomping a cigar, and until he rented an office last year
he worked largely out of a Starbucks in San Francisco.

 The day after his blog, more than 800 people had posted comments on
Mr. Malik's site wishing him a speedy recovery and offering lessons
from their own health ailments. The sympathy rolled in from fellow
journalists, start-up chief executives, venture capitalists, public
relations professionals and, naturally, other tech bloggers.

Despite joining the exhortations that "we need you," Mr. Kedrosky also
warned, "If you come back to blogging before I give you permission,
I'll be at your door to take away your MacBook."

Mr. Malik, a native of India, has written for tech and business
magazines including Forbes, Red Herring and the recently shuttered
Business 2.0. GigaOm started as his personal blog, but he left
Business 2.0 in 2006 when venture capitalists financed his idea to
turn the blog into a business.

It now operates several Web sites, including Web Worker Daily,
NewTeeVee, Earth2Tech and Found/Read, each of which has its own
arsenal of staff and freelance contributors.

Michael Arrington, who founded the popular TechCrunch blog, said he
did not know to what extent stress had to do with Mr. Malik's attack,
"but the stress is crushing in what we do."

 "I was a corporate lawyer and an entrepreneur, and I know about
working all the time. But now, you're always worried a big story is
breaking in your e-mail, and if you wait an hour, you'll miss it.
Every morning when I wake up, the panic hits and I have to see my
e-mail as soon as possible."