anthroblogia

Sticky post. Scroll down for the most recent post
Hi and thanks for dropping by - this sticky post is to explain (a bit) the anthropological research I'm doing on Malaysian blogs and bloggers for a PhD in Social Anthropology at Monash University.

If you're a Malaysian blogger, or a blogger living in Malaysia, my research is about YOU!

Please read on if you would like to learn more about my research, give some feedback or even participate in the research. Otherwise, just skip to the post below.
Continue reading "Anthroblogology - Monetisation in the Malaysian Blogosphere"

davidlian (who says many interesting things about blogs, advertising, and public relations, and tweeting) alerted me to a survey just recently completed by a PR firm Text100 (which he also works for I believe). There is a press release, a Global report, and an APAC report.

The press release quotes Prof. Michael Netzley of Singapore Management University as saying

"Very little data exists at a global level allowing us to compare blogger behaviours and preferences at both a regional and even country level. Text 100 offers what might be the most comprehensive data to date about bloggers and how they practice their trade." (here)

I'd agree very much about the lack of comparative data for blogs - it's something that bedevils me somewhat, because I have ideas about how Malaysia blogging practices may be different from elsewhere, but I have no way of checking it. However, I would also like to blow my own trumpet at bit, and suggest that the myBlogS 2009 survey is also a pretty comprehensive survey on "bloggers and how they practice their trade". Though, to be sure, I did not approach it from a business studies angle.

One of the most interesting aspects of the results are differences between APAC and European and American respondents. However, one methodological caveat is that the number of American bloggers is pretty small (the numbers for most answers are: APAC 233, EURO 189, USA 27) - which means that I would not be confident that the USA responses give highly reliable results.

Here are some quotes:

"Globally, more than 80% of bloggers say that they would acknowledge sponsorships of blog postings. Asia across the board is less likely or willing to acknowledge forms of sponsorship.
The cultural precedent for gift giving in Asia as a part of business practice, and not having to acknowledge this, is likely to contribute significantly to this difference." (Global Report: 8 )

However, there are still a majority that do think it's important. There are also less APAC bloggers (75%) who say that they should "clearly state their employer or association if
blogging on issues or topics that relate to their businesses" - the figures for EURO and USA are 87% and 96% respectively.

This is very interesting for me. Recently I was thinking about how there has been little reaction to the monetisation of blogs in the Malaysian blogosphere - you get the odd complaint about over-commercialisation and the most obviously paid-for-blogs (of the PPP/Izea type) don't seem to attract much traffic, but overall people don't seem to mind too much. Then I remembered how when I first got here, I was surprised by how the division between 'business and pleasure' or, more accurately, 'business and social life' is not as clear here as what I was used to in Belgium. For example, WW would get phone calls late in the evening about work; or dinners with friends and/or family would also double up as 'business meetings' where different commercial ventures were discussed; the way I was brought up was that if - for example - you are having a social meal with someone, it's kind of rude to start talking about 'money'.

Anyway. With that in mind, and thinking of other results from this survey such as

"In APAC, 88% prefer an introduction before receiving information from a PR firm or corporation with whom they have not had prior contact, compared with only 41% in the USA... Introductory face-to-face meetings with new contacts are more important in APAC than in Europe or the USA" (Global Report: 17)

it's clear that in order to understand the way in which blog monetisation is happening in Malaysia, I need to look more into culturally-specific business practices.

Which reminds me that I recently met up with classyadele, who is researching corporate blogs in New Zealand, and she also had some thoughts about different business practices in New Zealand. It was nice to meet someone who seems to spend as much time as I do thinking about blogs

It's a very interesting survey, and the APAC report breaks down the results into countries - such as:

"Computers, technology and the internet are the subjects most blogged by surveyed bloggers. Malaysian bloggers seem to be more interested in entertainment/arts/music and culture/community, while the latter is also most popular in Australia." (APAC Report: 10)

There are more comparisons - again, the numbers for each country are relatively low, but still there are interesting results.

What do you think? Is there a particularly Malaysian, or 'Asian' way of doing business which influences how the Malaysian blogosphere is developing?

A 'commune' is a municipality, and at 2042m Saint-Veran is higher than them all; it's located in the Queyras National Park and was easily reachable by car - though in winter I'm sure it's somewhat more complicated.


Here's one view


Tourism and agriculture are the main sources of revenue in the area; there were many guesthouses and it's popular with hikers in summer, and skiers in winter.

It's population is 290, and about 30 children go to the local school.

The Post Office had the altitude indicated in front - I suppose it's probably the highest Post Office in Europe too


and there were a couple of post boxes embedded in the house walls like this one


The church was very atmospheric, and had these pillars in front - they reminded us exactly of the two lions in front of Chinese temples!


a close up - dunno what it's meant to have in its paws. It looks kind of like it's snacking on a baby


Here you can see the typical Alpine architecture - stone base and wooden first floor and roof.


We spent a couple of hours there, dozing, strolling and drinking coffee. Once the sun started going down it quickly got chillier - reminding us of the how harsh the mountain climate must be sometimes.

A short one to at least update something! Got loads to do this week…

Here is the trip we did in France - it was great!


(click for the Google Map full version)

The nicest place we stayed in was a ‘Chambres d’Hôtes’ (i.e. a B&B en français) – it was called Un Patio en Luberon.

This was our room - called 'Roussillon'


and the view from the window


It was named after this village, also called Roussillon


the name of the village is derived from 'rouge' which means 'red' in French, and it is famous for the ochre that is mined there and which colours the buildings

More to come, brief snippets only.

Been travelling for over a week now, and this is the first chance I got to do some updates. It will be quick, and about BEER!!

One of my goals back here is to try as many different beers as I can I didn't take photos of them all, but here are a couple from the UK (OK one is a cider I know )


I found out that Cornish beers/ales are generally pretty nice and smooth. Also, because the weather is kind of cold, warmer ales are much nicer than a cold lager!

Arriving in Belgium, we stopped at the first petrol station for some food, and here was the choice of beers (aaahhhhhh....)


I have to say, I wonder about the wisdom of serving beers in a motorway cafe, but I was not complaining

We had a 'Blanche' and a 'Kriek'


'Kriek' is cherry beer, usually the best type of fruit beer - refreshing tartiness. Note also that each has its own special type of glass.

Next day, to the supermarket - here are the shelves packed full! (and some more were around the corner of the aisle)
Continue reading "Beers!! Delicious! Enticing! Belgian!"

As promised, here is some more analysis of the survey. In this post, I'm going to compare responses to a series of statements that were asked to both bloggers and non-bloggers about their opinions on blogs in general. The idea behind this set of statements was to see whether there was some sort of consensus amongst bloggers and readers about what a blog should be like - i.e. is there an ideal-type blog that the members of the blogosphere believes should be a model to follow? There were some questions on more objective matters (e.g. photos or not, comments or not), and some more subjective matters (e.g. whether a blogger should be honest or not).

For me, often the most interesting questions are usually those that ask people to rate their level of agreement with certain statements (it's called using a Likert scale normally); social science is never an accurate science, and reflecting people's range of thoughts and practices accurately based on a structured questionnaire (i.e. with choices of answers) is very difficult, but this way does give one way of reflecting the many shades of gray that make up human behaviour.

You can see the details of the responses by clicking on the thumbnails below
but what I'll do here is compare them using area charts to get a feel for the trends. The charts compare the responses by Bloggers (in pink; n = 356) and Non-Bloggers (in green; n = 197). If you see more on the right side, it means more agreed with the statement, and disagreements show up on the left; a peak in the middle means more were 'Neutral'. Where there is more of a difference in their attitudes, you can see the colour stand out. You should also be aware that these graphs are not always directly comparable - because the scale on the y-axis changes sometimes.

Functional features
These compare the more 'functional features' that bloggers and non-bloggers prefer.


The clearest preference is for comments - overall just over 80% of bloggers and non-bloggers think that blogs should have a comments function; compared to the chat-box, you can see that there is a lot less interest as to whether or not there is a chat-box on a blog.


There's a general preference for photos, but many are Neutral, and about one-fifth think they are not a necessity. The Non-Bloggers tend to think this is more important.

Continue reading "The 'ideal type' blog?"