Blinking blogger rakes in internet fame

New Delhi, July 27 -- Do you know who Govind Tiwari is? Well, no one did till last last week when the 19-year-old Allahabad teen's kitschy blog beat Rupert Murdoch, Justin Beiber and News of the World in Twitter's top trend list. For much of July 19 and July 20, Tiwari's blog was the No 1 trending topic on Twitter in India and number 5 worldwide - all in just two days time.

Although the Norway gun rampage and Amy Winehouse's death pushed the social media supernova's popularity down, the quirky design of his blog with dancing icons, a rotating globe and blinking eyes attracted so much interest worldwide that it almost brought down Photobucket, the free image hosting service that Tiwari used to spruce up his blog.

Tiwari had absolutely no idea about his accidental tweet, which he just posted to impress his friends. In fact, he doesn't even own a computer.

"I had seen a mouse only two years back when I had enrolled for computer classes," Tiwari, who plans to complete BCA from Allahabad University, told HT.

"My father who runs an electrical shop didn't want me to have one because he feared I would just sit in front of it for hours. It was last week when I just checking my mails at a friend's place I saw over 100 messages in my inbox. I didn't know Twitter was as popular as Facebook or Orkut though I still prefer Orkut," he said.

Tiwari - with over 60,000 page views for his blog and a dedicated Facebook fan page - is now the most popular man in Phaphamau, a small town 15 km from Allahabad, and an internet sensation worldwide.

Tiwari, who is still recouping from his new-found star status, has only one major grouse. He couldn't cash in on his popularity.

"At $2 per click, the standard rate for Google's Adsense, Tiwari's blog could have fetched him about Rs 30 lakh for his two day streak (close to 40,000 page views on July 19 and 20)," said NT Balanarayanan, a Bahrain-based social network expert.

But not everyone is impressed by Tiwari's mean streak.

"It couldn't help laughing. His blinking eyes and jazzy blog ended up as the top trend on Twitter. It just shows that quality content just doesn't matter these days," said Emil George, a Bangalore-based social media expert.

But Tiwari is unperturbed.

"Our Prime Minister has also faced criticism but he hasn't given up. I will continue to do my experiments and learn from it."

Despite the "irritating" attention he has been getting, Tiwari is happy his "efforts" have been recognised.

"Girls love my blog, it's a good feeling."

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.

For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at htsyndication@hindustantimes.com