Send me a few notes on your background: name, age, where you`re from, etc....

Well, my name is Svetlana Gladkova, I am the editor of the blog Profy blog. I live in Novosibirsk, Russia. I graduated from university there, specializing in international relations. For several years I was engaged worked in international marketing and promotion working for a large aircraft manufacturing company. And finally last year I joined Profy’s founders – mainly because of my wish I wanted to work with a young entrepreneurial team on an innovative Internet project.


How old is your blog and why did you start it?

The two main reasons that Profy’s founders began developing their own online application are that The city of Novosibirsk is a scientific center of Russia and it haswe have a lot of talented software and web developers there. And oOf course, the research base in Novosibirsk is very powerful, here as well. These are two main reasons for Profy founders to start developing their own online application. And But in the process of development in the meanwhile we have decided to get to know our potential users better – that was the reason for us starting blogging at first a little over five months ago. -


Would you like to share your first post with us ? URL please.

Sure, the first blog post was one I wrotewritten by me and was intended to describe our intentions for the Profy group blog and invite bloggers to join our group blog. That attracted It brought us a number of bloggers who joined Profy in the blog’s early stagesat our initial stage. Of course, the blog has already changed immensely over since that time. T, the progress is really visible.


What is your motivation to continue blogging?

The best motivation is I have is the feedback. I receive positive comments daily – by email, in our MyBlogLog community, on StumbleUpon, and on other social bookmarking services. And weAll of us at Profy are so pleased enjoy it very much that there are people who actually enjoy what we are doing and , who share our thoughts or are passionate enough to argue with our opinions. What I am very especially proud of as the Profy’s editor is that we have a very loyal readership;: whenever I see a new MyBlogLog avatar among Profy readers, I know perfectly wellcan be certain that I will see it again – and soon.


What do you wanna achieve with you blog?

Well, first of all we want to build a friendly and supportive community of web professionals. All of us areWe are now all seeing tremendous changes now in of the way the Internet influences our day-to-day lives, our workflows, and even the way we communicateions with family and our friends and families. Everyone hasAnd we all have the power to determine the future of the Internet to a certain extent. We believe in the power of every single blog user and every single blog reader of a blog. We see individual actual people rather than instead of the general “market” or “audience”. W, we try to answer every all the emails, to review every all the start ups that contacts us asking for a review, and we never leave an unanswered comment on a post unanswered. What matters to us is people, and is what matters for us and we believe that all of us together can have real we will be able to actually impact on the way online communities and online businesses are developing right now.


Are there a special kind of reader who are reading your blog?

Well Yes, of course.: Oour blog is intended for Wweb 2.0 professionals – startup founders: founders of various startups, developers, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, early adapters adopters, Internet journalists – in short, everyone anyone for whom “Web 2.0” is not a buzz word but an industry. These are the most tech-savvy people from around the world, and we are glad that we can to be able to provide them with the Web 2.0 news they actually truly need for their work.


What was the longest time without a new post on your blog?

In the very beginning we used to plan to take a day off during every weekend, but even then there was hardly a weekend that we didn't work. but that rarely happened even then – Now, and we never leave our readers without another article or two even during over the weekends now. People need stability and if they want to visit Profy and read a couple of articles there daily, they will should be able to do so. T, that’s our approach to blogging. Besides, with a team-based blog it is easier to achieve continuously publishing of new articles, – though it does take longer to establishing s a smooth work flow when the blog is published by a team.


How much time do you spend on blogging?

Well, for me it is a my job, so I spend some 10-12 hours daily working on Profy, though strictly speaking it is not not all of my time is spent strictly blogging. Most of it is spent on my , it is actually working as an editor: researching for new topics, requesting articles from our authors, working with the CEOs of various Internet companies, networking, etc. – all of the types of activities that are needed to run a successful group blog.


What is the reason for visitors to return to your blog and become readers?

It’s That’s very simple: they can rely on the Profy’s information. T, they come to us searching for news and they stay because our news are is timely, our reviews are objective, and our commentaries are reasonable and substantiated. We all know by now that the first (and the most important) factor for a good blog is high-quality content. So we focus on content and on the strengthening the feeling of community through with our additional features, such as the job board, the directory of Wweb 2.0 companies, and relevant industry events – all of these are added by our readers and for our readers. By the way, all of the above Profy services are absolutely free services Profy provides. We are building a community here and we simply want our readers to benefit from coming to Profy again and again.


Do you use any widgets? Which ones?

Well, we have a very highly customized WordPress installation actually – you can tell see it by the additional sections we have for our readers. We do all the customization ourselves. O, our developers workare continuously working on improving the look and feel of the Profy website. But we have two third-party widgets that are really important to us: Sphere It and MyBlogLog widgets, which – they are actually adding add further value to the Profy community. The MyBlogLog recent readers widget makes you think that you know your readers in person., I really think theat MyBlogLog is the widget that adds incredible value to any blog. The Sphere It widget is of course more difficult to get but after install once we installed itation we realized how truly valuable found how actually precious context is for any blog post, and Sphere is what gives you (and your readers) this context.


Which communities do you like? Why?

If you are asking about other blogs I read, the list is very simple and can be found in the lower left corner of our Sphere It widget: Venture Beat (I love reading news from the VC world), eHub (Emily Chang often offers precious valuable findings on her blog), and Scobleizer (Robert Scoble is very skilled at getting his readers to thinkful in thought-provoking). As for the virtual communities I actually participate in and use both for business and for relaxation as well, these are LinkedIn for business networking, StumbleUpon to enhance my surfing experience, and Flickr – simply because I enjoy photography.


Your URL: http://www.profy.com/