As you can probably tell from the title,  I have decided to move my blog (wordplaywithvinay.com) to Abstract-Living.com. If you’ve noticed anything weird going on here over the last day or so, this is why.

I decided on this move for two key reasons:

Personal Branding

I created this blog to document my changing lifestyle and to build my personal brand. I’ve been reading lots about personal branding over the last couple of years (great simple resource to get you started is Colin Wright’s free eBook – ExileLifestyle.com). One thing I’ve found about this blog is that the domain isn’t very receptive to any keyword… there are some famous Indian dudes named Vinay and there is no way I am competing with them. Plus the domain doesn’t really give any feel to the type of blog I am trying to represent.

I have changed my personal branding page to a Posterous page with a domain of my full name vinaypatankar.com. This is already ranking second under my LinkedIn account and above my FaceBook page. I did this as more of an experiment but it seems to have paid off. I now control about half the front page of Google for the keyword “Vinay Patankar” – this blog ranks 43.

Its true that I do have a unique name which makes it easier and I was lucky that my domain wasn’t taken but its still nice to know that the front page is basically controlled by me. We are all going to have more and more of our lives posted on the internet. It is already becoming normal for potential employers to Google you. When I applied for the TEDxBKK event (which I was accepted for but couldn’t make it to) they asked me for a public online profile. Its happening so you better get used to it. At some point, some person / organisation / institution is going to post something about you on the net, be assured of it. If that happens to be a negative comment having control over the front page of Google may save you lots of stress.

Building the Blog

This hasn’t really been a serious blog. I’ve been traveling extensively and had other projects to work on. As mentioned above it was more of a personal branding thing. I have however decided to make a move to build this blog into something a little greater. It took me a while to decided exactly how to brand what I was interested in writing about. A sort of combination of travel, lifestyle design, technology, life hacking, social hacking, personal development and loads of other things. But I decided that I’m interested in these things because I am on a quest to build myself an abstract lifestyle. A life that is different form the standard template of life. A life of travel and exploration. Of failures, leanings and successes. A  minimalism empire builder. A life where I can drink with the rich, eat with the poor and dance with the nasty. A life of EXPERIENCE.

Abstract-Living will be about the things I learn on my journey of experience. Glad to see you here! M7TETTS8W5UV