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

[Pawan Durani]

Shouldnt the Subject have been "Top Indian Blogger of International repute "
...........???

On 1/8/08, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com> wrote:
>
> 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."
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>