Discussion about Indonesian Blogs

It's always a good thing when bloggers meet and got to discuss what we love: blogging. :)

Photos by Hericz

This time the discussion was quite a formal one. Invited and sponsored by Detikinet.com a part of Detik.com the oldest Indonesian Online News Media that specialized itself on technology, IT and Internet news.

Attended by about 20 bloggers, only a fraction of the total estimated 10,000 Indonesian bloggers, the discussion take placed at Detikinet's office [reminding me of the last GVO summit that take place at Reuters's Headquarter].

The attendees represents almost all Indonesian blogging communities such as Blogfam, Blogbugs, Loenpia, ID-Gmail, Merdeka and Blog Indosiar and after short introduction the discussion lead to two main topics that related to one another.

1. How to get more people to blog; which lead to…
2. How we can see more blogs with higher standard of posting and whether blog can compete with mainstream media.

Many ideas thrown to the table regarding the above topics. Each community has plan how to introduce blogs to untouched public segments that has big potential to become bloggers.

Priyadi one of the attended was the one who come up with the ideas of providing a definitive source for blogging information in a wiki based site (in Indonesian). The name ‘WikiBlogia” come up for this Indonesian Blog information center. This wiki will be a place where people can go if they wants to know more about what is blog or how to start blogging.

In the same spirit with Priyadi's wiki, Blogfam [a short for Blogger Family] also planned to launch online blog magazine next week.

From the discussion, he also wrote that Indosiar.com blog communities [a part of Indosiar a national TV station] trying for a more proactive roles to socialized blog where they will visit high schools to promote and introduce blog.

Blog Indosiar.com communities also preparing to launch a Blog Awards 2006 this year to popularized blogging to public.

Hericz another attendee represent ID-GMail and Merdeka, posted about a very interesting idea (in Indonesian) that come up at the discussion is a plan to set 2007 as “Indonesian Blog Year”, where one of the target is to get elementary school students to start asking their parents what is blog.

Detik itself, Hericz wrote, has promise to provide a free online banner slot and 5,000 sponsored free CD's about blogging to be distributed.

On it's own publication, Detikinet's Editors Donny BU who himself a blogger and known as activist in the Indonesian IT community addressed the power of blog as people power (in Indonesian) and cited that some of the Indonesian blogs has in-depth quality that can't be match by the mainstream media because the blogger is an expert on the topic.

He also wrote that the big question after public becomes familiar with blogs and its uniqueness would be how to get it to synergize with mainstream media to provide useful and timely information for the benefits of the public.

Photos by Hericz

About the quality of the blog, Benny Dewanto, Blog Indosiar.com Admin mentioned that blog quality closely related with the blogging process itself. The continuous feedback a blog receives and the support from blogging community will contribute to end result of a better blog.

Blog is the right tools for the younger generation. “It's a self actualization media and a place to practice to speak up so everybody can hear their opinions and thoughts.” he added.

Other bloggers that participate at the discussion and blog about it are #direktif (in Indonesian) and Budiyono.net (in Indonesian)
 

Other interesting thing in the Indonesian Blogosphere this week:

• Angelina Sondakh a member of Indonesian Parliament from Democratic Party and a former Miss Indonesia [2001] start taking on blogging. On her blog Angelina Sondakh's Diary she wrote (in Indonesian) about her love life and her relationship with a fellow parliament member/actors/models Adjie Massaid that receives huge responses.

• Benny Chandra, blogger who live in Surabaya, East Java wrote about his 7 things to celebrate Chinese New Year (in Indonesian) which is a national holiday in Indonesia. His 7 things is rain, parties, cleaning up, Shio [Chinese Zodiac], Ang Pao, oranges and “Gong Xi Fa Chai” that according to him means a wish to be successful and the complete way to say happy new year should be “Xin nian Kuaile” [Happy Chinese New Year].