Secret Dubai diary - intrigue and adventure in the United Arab Emirates

Blogging is a hobby. But the experience has been so useful and informative that I actually find it useful jobwise.

I wanted to record a kind of travel journal about my experiences as an expat working in Dubai. Initially it was mainly for person use, I only had a couple of people reading it when I blogged on LiveJournal. When I moved to Blogger it suddenly attracted a much bigger audience, and that somewhat changed the nature of it for me. In good ways and bad.

Nearly five years. I don’t really think of it as “working on” though! It really has been for fun.

Around 1,000 unique visitors according to Sitemeter and Statcounter.

I have Google ads on, but the return is minimal. The amount it generates would be enough to pay for hosting and a web domain (if I didn’t want to use Blogger any more) but not much more. I have never really tried to seek ads as the blog is not intended to be commercial. I had one independent advertiser approach me to put on a text link ad, but other than that nothing. I have had zero approaches from any local Dubai companies, which in retrospect is a disappointing reflection of the state of the Arab online ad market. There are several local blogs that would be ideal advertising mediums for local cafes, or nightclubs, or services targeted at expats. But companies and ad agencies in the Middle East are extremely backward compared to those in western countries.

Anyone living in Dubai or the United Arab Emirates, or interested in living/working there.

It varies greatly, but on average 30 minutes on my own blog. I also contribute to other community blogs and comment on other people’s blogs; that takes much longer. It can be hours, but I don’t do it every day.

If you’re interested in Dubai and quirky stories coming out of the Gulf, then it is worth subscribing to. It is totally UAE-focused: this was a decision I made early on.

Forget about yourself, and find a subject that is interesting. If you want to write about personal feelings and so on, consider doing that in a separate or private blog. And don’t quit because you haven’t got time to blog every day: I know several excellent blogs where the authors went quiet for anything for a few months to over a year, then just started up again. It does not have to be a daily commitment. You do it as often as you want to, as often as you enjoy it and as often as you feel that you have something interesting to say.

This blog can be visited at http://secretdubai.blogspot.com