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Blogger interview – Xavier Lur, Kid Tech Guru

Let me introduce you Kid Tech Guru,  Xavier, a 14-year-old blogger from Singapore, passionate about technology. In his words ‘Currently, I’m only a 14-year-old student who loves blogging and is keen to share his tech knowledge with you all guys via this blog. Running up this tech blog is just a part of his interest and a place for me to kill time.’

Here is the interview:

Syl: Hi Xavier, first of all, thank you for agreeing to respond to few questions! When did you start blogging? Why?
Xavier: Since July 2008, I have been blogging at KidTechGuru, with great thanks to Mr Alvin Phang of GatherSuccess.com. One day, when I was reading the newspaper, something eye-catching caught my attention. It was the problogger – Mr Alvin giving a complimentary workshop on how he makes money online. I was inspired by his talk and from then on, I started to set up my blog, but with zero blogging experience!

Syl: I will start with a serious question bothering me a lot since I started to work in business ethics – we usually see that social media sites set up the lower age limit for 13. Do you agree with those policies?
Xavier: In my own view, I don’t really agree with that as I feel that everyone be it age 10 or even age 80 can participate in social media sites. As what the authors of ‘Wikinomics’ – Don Tapscott and Anthony D.Williams says, “mass collaboration is important as it changes everything in today’s Web 2.0”. Therefore, I think that we should get the kids involve in these social media sites as this will create some interaction between the children and the adults in the online world. However, some strict rules must be implemented.

Syl: I will be honest with you – when I saw your Twitter profile and checked your site (which is how I learned about it) I was very impressed to see that you are 14 years old and so successful. Do people very often ask you how come you started writing your blog?
Xavier: Oh yes, sometimes loyal readers who are curious drops me an email and ask me how and why I created this tech blog. Most of the people who read my blog are impressed by blogging feat and love what I write about technology (although a minority says that I’m faking my age as a marketing bait for my blog).

Syl: I see that in your about section you receive not only great feedback but also very creative advice. Do you find it useful?
Xavier: Feedbacks and advice from readers are greatly important and useful as you need them on how to improve your blog. For example, when one is a salesman, he needs feedbacks from customers about his attitude, how good is the product, what can be improved, etc.

Syl: Apart from your blog and Twitter so you have other online presences? Which one of those is a primary place for you?
Xavier: Besides writing articles about web tools and stuff in my blog and my active presence on Twitter, I do spend quite a huge fraction of my time in the net on Entrecard. For those who don’t know what Entrecard is, it is a site which enables users to drop and advertise cards on other sites with a so-called blogging currency – “Entrecard Credits”. I find this web service quite interesting as it gives me the opportunity to drop by on cool sites and read their posts. (Let me tell you something which you might not know – the person who created Blogger known as Evan Williams, sold it to Google and founded the microblogging platform – Twitter.)

Syl: Does your blogging affect your private life and/or vice versa?
Xavier: Of course it doesn’t! I just treat blogging as my hobby.

Syl: You have posted the n Twitter link to the most successful, young entrepreneurs. Are you interested in earning money from blogging?
Xavier: I’m interested in making money from blogging by just selling some ad spaces but not into affiliate marketing. My main objective of this blog is to share my tech knowledge with people around the world and hope they benefit from it. As simple as that!

Syl: Your approach toward blogging is very professional, judging on your content. Do you plan to take in to the next level and work in blogging related industry?
Xavier: As I’ve said above, I take blogging as my pastime. Hence, I may not consider taking it to the next level and work in the blogging industry. When I grow up, my main source of income will not come from blogging. My goal is to become a financial investor as I love how the way stocks behave (not the money! lol).

Syl: You mention sports as your additional hobby. Is there something else?
Xavier: Besides sports like soccer and badminton, I’m interested in F1 racing, fascinated by how fast those F1 drivers – Massa of Ferrari speeds on the track! Zoom…!!! Hope I can watch it live and not on TV!

Syl: I am usually posting a part of my interview on my secondary, Polish blog committed to promoting Polish culture in the UK (http://barmleczny.blogspot.com/ ) , and if you agree, I would like to post it there too. Hence my question: what do you associate Poland/Poles with?
Xavier: When you ask this question, the first thing that came up in my mind is that Poland is a leading producer of food in Europe (if I’m not wrong). By the way, you have a nice blog!

Syl: My Polish blog is mainly about culture and cuisine. Do you like cooking? What is your favourite dish and drink?
Xavier: I’m greatly excited when you talk about cooking. Although I’m not a great chef, I enjoy cooking meals for my family once every month. Usually, I would cook stuff like bolognese spaghetti and Chinese cuisine. My mum is a housewife but I can proudly say that she is a great baker. She loves to bake delicious cheesecakes and chocolate cookies. My favourite food is Passionfruit Cheesecake especially made by my mum and my favourite drink got to be Iced Lemon Tea. I dislike drinks that contain soda.

Syl: I don’t want to keep you long. Thank you very much for your answers. Is there anything else you would like to say to my UK, Polish and international readers?
Xavier: If you a kid or teenager like me, try to enhance either your talent or what you’re good at doing. It would be great to start young when your brains are working fast and intelligently. But if you’re an adult, you can either brush up your skills or do things which make you happy and lead a meaningful lifestyle.

0 Comments

  • sylwiapresley

    Hi Monik,I am more than happy to interview you. You see I just started this part of my blog (interviews) and to be honest I am not familiar with lot of younger bloggers – Xavier started following me on Twitter and this is how I learned about his site:)So it’s good to see you here!Hope to hear from you soon!

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