Om Prakash Malik (Hindi: ॐ प्रकाश मलिक; born September 29, 1966) is an Indian-American web and technology writer. He founded and wrote content for Gigaom, which he sold in 2015 after it faced financial difficulty. He authored the book Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist and articles by Malik have been published by The Wall Street Journal, Brandweek, and Crain Communications. He is now a partner at True Ventures.
Om Prakash Malik | |
|---|---|
| ॐ प्रकाश मलिक | |
 Malik in 2023 | |
| Born | September 29, 1966 |
| Alma mater | St. Stephen's College, Delhi |
| Website | om |
Biography
editEarly life and education
editMalik was born in and grew up in middle-class family in New Delhi.[1] He graduated from St. Stephens’ College in New Delhi in 1986, with an honors degree in chemistry.[2]
Career
editAfter graduating, Malik had several journalism positions in New Delhi, including with VP Fun[1] and Newsmen Features, where he specialized in lifestyle features.[3]
He moved to London and then spent time in Eastern Europe.[1] He moved to New York City in 1993 to be a writer for India Abroad and then for Forbes.[4] He was also a senior writer for Red Herring, focusing on the telecommunications sector. In late 1994, he launched DesiParty.com, an events site for Indian immigrants. Also in 1994, he co-founded the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA). In 1995, he helped launch the now-defunct magazine, Masala, and its website Masala.com, a South Asian portal.[5]
In 1997, Malik was on the original team at Forbes.com led by David Churbuck. In 1999, he left Forbes.com to work as an investment manager at Hambrecht & Quist Asia Pacific; his stay there lasted only a few months because he decided he preferred being a writer.
In 2000, he moved to San Francisco, California to write for Business 2.0 magazine. In 2001, he started Gigaom, a blog. The website had a monthly global audience of over 500,000, and was among the top 50 blogs worldwide by Technorati rank.[6] It was listed in the Blog 100 Index by CNET.[7]
His book, Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist, was released in 2003. It investigated fraud by telecom companies during the dot-com bubble.[8]
Malik announced on June 12, 2006, that he was going to work on Gigaom full-time, although he continued to be a contributing editor and had a regular column in Business 2.0 until its demise in October 2007.[9]
In July 2006, Malik wrote a post about Twitter that was credited as one of the first media coverages of the social networking service.[10][11]
From July 2007 to March 2008, Malik hosted the podcast The GigaOm Show on Revision3 with Joyce Kim, which focused on technology and business.[12] Malik was also a frequent guest on the former CrankyGeeks podcast with John C. Dvorak.
Malik left Gigaom in January 2014. In March 2015, the company ceased operations due to financial difficulty.[13] In May 2015, it was acquired by Knowingly Corporation.[14]
Personal life
editIn December 2007, Malik suffered a heart attack at age 41, likely caused by incessant smoking of cigars and cigarettes as well as drinking alcohol and eating unhealthy foods. The heart attack forced him to reconsider his priorities.[15]
References
edit- ^ a b c "Om Malik: Pioneering Blogs (Part 1)". June 1, 2007.
- ^ Mukherjee, Arindam (January 12, 2015). "'Proliferation of visual sensors is extreme'". Outlook.
- ^ "In Praise of Dev Anand, India's Gregory Peck. R.I.P!". Om Malik. December 6, 2011.
- ^ Chris, Preimesberger (March 10, 2015). "Om Malik Says 'Goodnight, Sweetheart,' Closes Down GigaOm". eWeek.
- ^ "About Om Malik". 10 June 2016.
- ^ "Om Malik's pioneering tech blog GigaOm shuts down". Hindustan Times. March 10, 2015.
- ^ "News.com's Blog 100". CNET. February 4, 2008.
- ^ Malik, Om (November 8, 2004). Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-66061-3.
- ^ Oremus, Will (March 10, 2015). "GigaOm Was Universally Respected. Too Bad Respect Doesn't Pay the Bills". Slate.
- ^ Tsotsis, Alexia (August 13, 2013). "Om Malik, Father Of Tech News Blogging, American Citizen". TechCrunch.
- ^ Oremus, Will (November 5, 2013). "The First Blog Post About Twitter Got Pretty Much Everything Wrong". Slate.
- ^ "Revision3 Teams With GigaOm For New Show". Wired. July 25, 2007.
- ^ Somaiya, Ravi (March 10, 2015). "Tech Blog GigaOm Abruptly Shuts Down". The New York Times.
- ^ Preimesberger, Chris (May 27, 2015). "Remains of GigaOm Bought by Content Farm Knowingly". eWeek.
- ^ Fost, Dan (January 7, 2008). "Some Brand-Name Bloggers Say Stress of Posting Is a Hazard to Their Health". The New York Times.