I am a senior writer for Business 2.0 magazine in San Francisco. This is my personal weblog where I ruminate about broadband and its impact on our lives. I joined Business 2.0 in April 2003 and have been writing telecom and broadband related stories for the magazine since then. Here is a link to all my articles published in Business 2.0. I also blog at Om.Is.Me.

Prior to that I was a senior writer for Red Herring focusing on the telecommunications sector. My first book, Broadbandits: Inside the $750 billion telecom heist, was released on May 15, 2003. Before joining Red Herring in July 2000, I was part of the founding team of Forbes.com where I was a senior editor. My writings have also appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0, Brandweek, and Crains, New York Business. In 1999, I left Forbes.com to join Hambrecht & Quist Asia Pacific as an investment manager, thus crossing over into the venture capital business. During my tenure as a venture capitalist, I met and worked side by side with many CEOs, entrepreneurs and investors, and was privy to the inner workings of Silicon Valley.

However, few months in the VC business made me realize how much I missed the world of writing and reportage, and I went to work for Red Herring where (at least I thought) I could apply my extensive knowledge and insight into the world of venture capitalism and cutting edge technologies.

As a technology journalist and a brief tenure as a venture capitalist, I have witnessed and documented firsthand the rise and fall of the Internet and telecom industries, which has given me unrivaled access and insight into this world. I graduated from St. Stephens’ College in New Delhi with an honors degree in chemistry in 1986. St. Stephens’ is akin to the “Yale of India” and has produced several of today’s brightest Indian business, economic and political leaders.

I have also contributed to several Indian publications including the Economic Times and The Week, India’s leading news weekly. My early career highlights include a position with the Quick Nikkei News, New York-based news service that followed technology stocks for Japanese institutional investors.

Additionally, in 1995 I co-founded a South Asian portal, Masala.com. Of course I have several other tiny projects including Desiparty.com; which arguably is one of the oldest Indian websites left standing after the dot-bomb.

Updated Disclosure: I don’t own stock in any public and private company, but I am a venture partner at True Ventures. True recently invested in Socialcast, a provider of communication-centric social networking services for enterprises, and as part of that deal I have joined the SocialCast board. Should anything else change in the future, I will update this page to reflect those changes as part of the full disclosure policy we have instituted inside the company. (updated on  April, 6 2009)

Awards

• Excellence in Journalism (Feature Writing (non-daily print) for Vinod’s Time) for 2000-2001 from SPJ, North California
• The gold award from American Society of Business Publication Editors in the Individual Profile category for the February 13, 2001 cover story, “Vinod’s Time.” The piece discusses the role of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla in helping create the optical networking industry and why he just may be the best venture capitalist on the planet.
• Briefings Editor Lee Bruno, Senior Writers Michael Copeland and Om Malik, and Writer Chris Locke were recognized by American Society of Business Publication Editors in the Single News Article category for their September 1, 2001 “Enron’s Burnout.” The story examined Enron’s unique “hub and spoke” market system and concluded that Enron’s empire was a house of cards — a prediction that proved prescient when the energy giant filed for bankruptcy three months later.

In The Press

I have often appeared on several television shows such as Business Week Television (on ABC Network); BBC Television & Radio; CNNfn; CNBC and TechTV. My comments have been featured in several print articles as well.

• Wall Street Journal: The recent purchase of online photo site Flickr.com by Yahoo was foreshadowed by PubSub’s search engine, Mr. Wyman said. On Feb. 23, speculation about the deal first popped up on Gigaom.com, the blog of financial reporter Om Malik.
• Wired News: Heartaches of Journalist Bloggers.
• Online Journalism Review: Om Malik, a blogger, author and tech reporter for Business 2.0 magazine, laid into the Silicon Valley 100 last month when it was disclosed that 100 influential members of the Bay Area’s tech community are periodically offered products or services — or schwag, as Malik terms it — to tout or not tout as they please. “We all trust each other in this business,” Malik said. “When an industry analyst promotes a company to boost his employer’s stock or a venture capitalist touts a company he’s invested in, we’ve learned the hard way to take that with a grain of salt. Now it’s going to be more difficult to know whether there’s a hidden agenda in what people are telling you.”
• Journalism.co.uk: Micro-Pubs, a model for the future.
• BBC.com: Bankruptcy poses broadband debate
• TechTV: Silicon Spin – Intel Pulls Ahead
• Time Asia: Coming To Amrika:The spectacular success of Indians in the U.S. smashes old stereotypes and adds a dash of spice to the American melting pot … more
• The Rich List: Industry Standard’s: Laura Rich tracks the movers and shakers of technology business. So what am I doing on this list?….more
• From Writer to VC: An awfully generous article by Bala Krishna of Silicon India.
• On Desiparty Zone, South Asian Hip Hop: In my previous life, I started and then sold Desiparty.com which caught the attention of the grand ole lady of global media — The New York Times
• Rediff.com’s Desi Riffs: Rediff.com gets into the party mood and covers the fourth anniversary party of Desiparty.com, still the very best desi party website in the world.