Comment by Brajeshwar

At that time, when Problogger started showing off the Google AdSense checks, many blogs also got “inspired,” and AdSense became the default for blogs. I still remember getting my first check all the way from Mountain View, which takes about 30-40 days to reach my home in India. I never encash that one, just like the few others that serve as nostalgia pieces for my Time Capsule: the first DCMA letter, the tiny dollar checks one gets from Apple settlement checks, etc. Of course, the check size grew pretty big, and with other ad revenue that my personal website brought in, it was enough for me to live a rather lavish life in Bombay (INDIA) in the mid-2000s.

Just like Problogger, India has its own — Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal at https://www.labnol.org

In fact, a VC hinted to me that I should, or if I have the balls to convert my personal blog to the “Techcrunch of India” and become Michael Arrington. I wasn’t made for that and never wanted to be a blogger. My blog should be a very personal space. Well, my personal blog became a cheesy mess of personal ramblings with no aim or ambition. :-)

I think Kiruba Shankar attempted the closest to that one in India at https://www.kiruba.com and did succeed to a degree.

Fortunately, my website still enjoys direct links from a few Patents in the USA that reference my articles as a source of truth, as well as a few links from Wikipedia, WordPress.org, Adobe, and a few other well-established websites here and there. Quite a few of the articles were translated into other languages, and I keep getting referenced. Google still sends me quite a handful of visits daily.

I don’t think niche blogs are coming back, because the moment a “niche blog” becomes sustainable and “profitable”, it is no longer a niche blog. It becomes another commercial website or a publication.