Meet Rajiv Dingra, the founder of WATBlog.com!

is an emerging social media networking site in our country, which mainly hovers around Web, Advertising & Technology. To know about the site and its intricacies, we contacted Rajiv Dingra, Founder and Chief of WATBlog.com and had an email interview with him, which goes as� 1. When and how did the idea behind WATBlog.com originated? Rajiv: The rationale behind WATBlog was thought of around June last year. At around that time I was reading a lot of blogs myself and could perceive that there was a dearth of good quality group blogs that focused on Web, Advertising and Technology. The reason I think group blogs are great is because it brings collective experience and expertise of different people, with different perspective on a single platform. 2. Rajiv, what kind of response are you getting from masses at large? How far have you reached in growing your community? Rajiv: WATBlog has been consistently growing since its inception in July last year. We currently are getting around 2000 unique visitors daily on our blog and we have over 10 bloggers who contribute to WATBlog. Our blog also brought about the inception of WATConsult, which consults web2.0 startups and other traditional or online companies. We have also been quoted in the offline and online media off late. 3. What special efforts are you people making which would be instrumental in making your readers coming back to you again and again? Rajiv: Original content, Analytical review and a personal perspective are instrumental in building good readership. We have conducted some intensive research on various topics related to web2.0 and made it available on WATBlog. We delight our readers with exclusive interviews, analysis and quotes from industry leaders on a regular basis. Besides that we make sure our content is more India centric. 4. Your site hovers around ‘Web, Advertising & Technology’; don’t you think it would be more feasible to integrate more blogs of different arenas into it? Rajiv: WATBlog as you mentioned stand for Web, Advertising and Technology. We feel the focus on Web advertising and technology content is what will be the differentiating factor for us. We see the internet and mobile industry growing and consequently a growth will be seen in people�s interest in content related to internet and Mobile industry. 5. Keeping in mind that the world out here on internet changes with blazing speed and also, everything reaches a culmination point sooner or later, we would love to know your views on the concept of blogging as a whole, how far do you think the concept will enjoy its success (if you really think that the way it has emerged, a success) and what’s fresh waiting to gobble it up? Rajiv: As far as India is concerned Blogging is still nascent. We recently did a 3 part report on Blogging where we have tried to uncover Blogging and its adoption among internet savvy users. I think the concept and use of blogging will continue to grow also giving rise to the number of serious bloggers. Also companies that take a plunge into blogging through the medium of corporate blogs would benefit as well. There are possibilities of various mashups like the recent innovation called twitter which primarily addresses like, what are you doing? form of question and could be classified as micro blogging sort of an engine would come up and be suited for different preferences of users. 6. Rajiv, the whole Internet, of course, as a media, is moving towards Web 2.0. How far do you think the phenomenon has emerged successfully? And where do you find WATBlog.com in this wide gambit? Rajiv: There is still time for web 2.0 to mature in India. Currently, globally successful applications are being adopted by early adopters in India. As far as Indians creating state of the art web 2.0 applications is concerned we have still a long way to go. WATBlog is supported by our web 2.0 strategy consulting arm WATConsult which helps and guides web 2.0 startups and internet companies build better web 2.0 applications. We also work with traditional companies in the areas of corporate blogging and also consult them in building an online engagement strategy with their target audience. Also with WATBlog itself we see that there is tremendous scope in both building a stronger community and better content which will place it in a league of its own. 7. What is the future of this networking? Any predictions on growth pattern? Rajiv: Internet has a dynamic environment so any individual or company who has the ability to foresee trends would be able to exploit them better. Even in networking one needs to look beyond what every other person is doing. The growth of networking in India would depend on how the businesses can drive value from it by reaching out to its target audience or by using networking themselves to benefit business. 8. Finally, we would like to have your thoughts on the Instablogs News Network and all its related sites. Which one is your favorite? Rajiv: It�s a good site which brings together different types of content on a singular platform. Before signing off, I�d like to thank Rajiv for this excellent interview and would like to wish him luck for all his future endeavors.