Do something for me: Go out and ask the people around you if they have already heard, or have any idea, of the word “Blog”. I bet after a series of questionings you’ll found out that most, if not all, of them actually have no clue about the meaning of the word.

“Blog? Oo, alam ko yon! Diba iyon yung show sa Studio23? Yung Barkada Log?”

Pinoy Bloggers should know by now that not all Filipinos are aware of the existence of our world. When it comes to awareness on blogging, the term ‘blog’ often registers to non-bloggers as something that can be described as “new” and “unheard of” thing.

Of course, as bloggers, we know that the world of blogging is not really new (It first came to invade the Philippine internet back in 1996, at that time it was called a Journal), however, there is no question that our beloved hobby is relatively unheard of here inside the Philippine shores.

Why is this so? Why is it that only a few Pinoy bloggers are aware of blogging?

Looking at the Statistics

One possible answer is that not all Pinoys have access to the internet. If I were to make a wild guess, I would say that only 20-30 percent of the whole population of the Philippines have access to the World Wide Web. From that 20-30 percent of internet-literate Pinoys, only one-fourth of it are ones who are actually ‘aware’ of blogging.

But what about Friendster? How come it is more widely known compared to blogging? If you would ask around you would find out that almost every single person who has surfed the internet has an idea of what it is. What did Friendster do that blogging has completely overlooked?

The answer? Blogging lacks promotion from it’s users.

What Blogging Overlooked

Friendster grew at a fast rate because its users promoted it to other non-users to increase their number of friends. This became a cycle of promotions until everything snowballed to where it is now. Based from this we would see that the combination of word of mouth with the vote of confidence from the users is a powerful tool to create some buzz around a particular product.

In spite of the differences (in terms of structure, form, etc) of blogging and Friendster, the same method can also be applied to help the pinoy blogging community grow. It’s actually really simple. The problem is, not everyone seems to be doing it.

Tell me, how many friends have you invited to blog? Have you ever tried sharing to your friends what you do while blogging? Instead of inviting just two or three friends, why not invite all of them. Why not your whole barangay? If blogging really is as good as you say it is, then what’s keeping you from spreading the word?

Blogging is a great activity that every Pinoy should get into. It gives Pinoys the chance to express themselves to an online audience and it also gives others a chance to earn a little money. Blogging deserves to be promoted to other Pinoys not only for the benefit of the Pinoy blogging community but also for the welfare of all those Pinoys out there.

But if Pinoys won’t give blogging the vote of confidence that it needs, then how could we ever expect it to grow?

Just thinking out loud. Happy blogging!

Just a little clarification:

I am not suggesting that everyone should blog, I just want people to have an idea about our world.

If people know that the world of blogging exist, it wouldn’t take long before curiosity strikes them and try it out. If they don’t like it, then so be it. If they do, then great. Who knows, maybe they’ll spread the word around and the world of blogging would continue to grow.

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