Thursday, July 17, 2008 Ng: Organizing bloggers By Wilson Ng Wired Desktop
THERE are probably a hundred thousand to a million people in the Philippines who blog. Of course, that figure may be too many or too little, depending on who you ask.
Blogs are generally online diaries where people write their thoughts or their actions. People also maintain profiles and write articles in social networking sites, like Friendster, Multiply or Facebook. They also post videos in YouTube and pictures in Flickr. Some surveys may also count them as some kind of bloggers.
There are blogs of different topics, and written by all kinds of people – celebrities, teachers, CEOs, writers, professionals, politicians, movie stars, athletes, singers, etc. What is notable and surprising is that people like reading blogs. A survey said that up to 80 percent of people who surf the Internet read some form of blog.
They say that people like the directness of blog in much the same way they prefer reality shows.
Movies and many shows on TV are based on script. But sometimes, people prefer to see natural human reaction in a given situation. This is probably the reason for the huge popularity of YouTube or blogs, as compared to formal media or scripted shows.
As a result, there are now bloggers who have millions of followers. On the same token, many corporations as well as newspaper and magazine websites that have added bloggers to their lineup. (Sun.Star has been featuring blogs for years, so does the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which has a network of bloggers in addition to their formal journalists).
It was said that Barrack Obama’s campaign was bolstered by bloggers. His web presence was an integral factor in his popularity and raising funds that ultimately allowed him to clinch the presidential nomination.
Some movies became huge successes not because they were advertised, but because they were taken up by bloggers. A notable example of that was the Blair Witch Project.
Bloggers in Manila are pretty much organized. Last I heard, so are those in Davao. There have been several attempts to organize bloggers in Cebu, but it seemed that we are more difficult to organize.
When I was tasked to organize the Mandaue Business Month (MBM 2008), I talked to the trustees of the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce to pitch bloggers together with the formal media as a way to bring information to more people.
On Tuesday, during the press con for the MBM, we did not only have press and the broadcast journalists, but also over a dozen bloggers. I hope that by organizing and giving them incentives to launch blogs about Cebu, they will help give readers more choices when they want to learn more about Mandaue and Cebu. Our goal is to have a contest, and hopefully through this, we can make a hundred bloggers bloom.
The Cebu blog contest mechanics is in the MBM website at www.ccebu.net/mandaue. If you are a blogger, or one who has been trying to become a blogger, you can take this opportunity to try your hand in this contest. Some really good prizes (and more are being added on as we find additional sponsors) will be on hand.
I am sure that as we see more of what is happening worldwide, Cebu will not be left behind in the development of this informal news media.
