julianhopkins.net - Blogs

PPS founders – Part 2

nospam@example.com (julian) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:16:29 -0700

Just an addition to the previous post, What happened to the founding members of PPS? After finishing it, I came across this Wiki page that describes the foundation of Project Petaling Street.

"The document that will track this evolution is the very same one you are reading RIGHT NOW. It is intended to be a dynamic document that will be updated as PPS evolves."

It seems like the Wiki died a quick death though, as it has not been updated since July 13, 2003, about a month after PPS started.

Based on the Wiki, I left out two founders, who were no longer on the sidebar by the time the site was archived by the Wayback Machine. Or maybe they were never on it, I dunno.

• Ditesh Kumar of Gathani.org. A Tech/Personal blog. It’s no longer online, but there’s an archived version from June 19, 2003. It mentions PPS on June 12.
• Mohan Raj of Codeworks. A very short lived tech blog – only seven posts in all, and it has not been updated since July 16, 2003.

An interesting thing for me is the clear ‘Open Source’ format of the Wiki. A lot of the literature on “Internet culture’ seems to take Free/Libre Open Source Software (aka FLOSS) as a model of online interaction. For example, Raymond’s classic The Cathedral and the Bazaar, or Ghosh’s Cooking pot markets… - these have been very effectively critiqued by the anthropologist Kelty in Hau to Do Things with Words.

Although they are not directly comparable, blogs and FLOSS do share a few things though, I think: the importance of attributing sources, and the open and shared nature of the final product. A key difference, though, is that a blog belongs to one person only, whereas OS software belongs to everyone (or no one). PPS seemed to sit in the middle a bit - conceived of as a 'community' resource, it also was a website owned and run by one person. Perhaps because of this, later on, there were disagreements in 2004 and in 2005 about ‘Who owns PPS?’

This debate seems to owe something to the FLOSS ethos, and there seemed to be three stances:

1. Aizuddin pays for and runs the site, so he can do what he wants with it ultimately.
2. Aizuddin may want to run it the way he wants, but why do some get their RSS feeds permanently in the sidebar?
3. It’s a community service, and should be run for all bloggers, by some sort of collective process.

Finally, the founders in the sidebar lost their space, but Aizuddin has kept sole control over it. Basically, he owns it. It reminds me of another point that Kelty made (same source as mentioned above): that the guarantee of the open software is done by, in the last instance, using the (offline) regime of private property to uphold the ability to prevent anyone from appropriating the software and excluding others – “Free Software is protected intellectual property that anyone can use.” (2002:12); this point has recently been tested legally in the US and "Advocates of open source software have hailed a court ruling protecting its use even though it is given away free" (BBC)

What happened to the founding members of PPS?

nospam@example.com (julian) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:48:18 -0700

From what I’ve been told, the founding of PPS was an important milestone for blogging in Malaysia. There were ten original founders, and part of the agreement was that they should have a permanent feed with their latest posts on the sidebar ( AlphaBlogger told me this). So, thanks to the internet time travelling machine – the Wayback Machine , I found a screenshot of PPS on July 24, 2003 (the sidebar is what you can see on the left of this post) and had a look at who were these founding members.

• Screenshots…: the seminal SoPo blog, still around and going strong. Jeff Ooi is now a sitting YB (Yang Behormat – i.e. Member of Parliament, in case any non-Malaysians read this).

• Alphaque.com: a tech-blog I think. Is not around anymore – here’s one post called ’They messed with the wrong girl’ (courtesy of the Wayback Machine).

• technoLAHgy v0.15c : a tech-blog too. Still online, but hasn’t been updated since June 2007.

• Volume of Interactions: a SoPo blog I’d say. Still online and running – this is the blog of the person who runs PPS, Aizuddin Danian. PPS has not been all sun and light apparently, and he discusses a Can of Worms here back in 2005; it was launched on June 12, 2003.

• Narratives @najahnasseri.org: not quite sure how to classify this one – probably ‘Personal blog’, but it has SoPo in it too (these categories will always be somewhat blunt). Still going, since December 27, 2002.

• tv smith's dua sen: hmmm… he calls it a ‘blogzine’ – it’s sort of like a photoblog with a social conscience… (damn these categories!). Still going strong: here’s a wonderful post on monkeys .

• sixthseal.com: a personal blog. Still going strong, after a enforced pause resulting from ‘certain activities’ that were well documented on his controversial blog.

The following four were classified under ‘Gambar2’ – so I suppose they are ‘Photo blogs’.

• Still Life : no longer active.

• VOI Visuals: it’s Aizuddin again! I suppose this was a part of his blog devoted to pictures, but there’s nothing there now.

• Narratives @najahnasseri.org : hmm, it’s her again! I assume it’s the same situation as Aizuddin, as now the link takes us to her main blog instead of a ‘gallery’.

• Odds & Ends: still going strong with impressive photos.

So, conclusions… umm… Well, most of them are still around – that could either be testimony to their inherent ‘blogginess’, or as a result of increased publicity via PPS, or both. SoPo were in a minority, as usual. Photoblogs were quite significant. Apart from that, I can’t think of anything useful to say… Any comments? All information on blogging history in Malaysia is welcomed, as that’s the next chapter of my thesis that I have to write!

Nuffnangers meet for Hancock

nospam@example.com (julian) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:12:55 -0700

Just a quick one, as I really have to work on my upcoming paper (and seminar in Monash, will post details soon – it’s about Blogwars!).

Thanks to Nuffnang, me and the wife got to see Hancock for free on Monday.

It was in Cineleisure at The Curve. We arrived earlyish, and I saw joshuongys and amy briefly before heading up.

There’s a new purikura place at the top now, with an air hockey game which we tried out (the one near the door doesn’t have enough power with the air blowing up… dunno about the others)

Then I went to get the tickets, the indefatigable Robb was there looking, well elegantly coiffed as usual but honestly also a little tired. Anyway, he had Hancock watching over his shoulder to encourage him on

We also met ShaolinTiger, who gave me a couple of useful photography tips. Inside, the theatre was filling up with Nuffnangers and their guests. Looking at the photos, it seems like someone was trying to get my attention on the right… sorry, if you were calling my name – I heard something, then I wasn’t sure if you were trying to get my attention or someone else…

All in all, the film was OK, a different twist to the usual superhero film, and a small moral lesson in how we can make life easier for ourselves if we’re nicer to others. I also met an ex-student which is always nice, so ‘Hi Susan :)’

As usual, it is mostly young people – as opposed to, for example, the Blog House meeting last Saturday. Overall, if I were to guess, I would say the average age of the Nuffnanger is about 25.

See the full entry for a list of links of people who also blogged about the event

Continue reading "Nuffnangers meet for Hancock"

A year for All-Blogs and 100 days for Malaysia (more or less)

nospam@example.com (julian) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:44:25 -0700

All-Blogs started around April last year , Blog House opened in August, and Malaysian politics entered a dramatic new phase 100 days ago (actually 122 today). To celebrate the 100 days, All-Blogs organised a dinner last Saturday.

Given all the heated political happenings recently, you might have expected there to be some serious politicking going on, but the evening turned out to be much more relaxed than I expected.

Soon after I arrived. More people turned up later.

I arrived about 8pm, and after signing in and signing my own cup (part of an effort to avoid wasting plastic cups – good idea ), I got a beer and some of the nice food provided. As the evening went on more people turned up, and I was surprised by the number of YBs there – seven in all: Nurul Izzah Anwar , Mukhriz Mahathir, Jeff Ooi , Loh Kwo Burne , Wee Choo Keong , Ronnie Liu , and Tian Chua came by – I didn’t see him but saw a photo afterwards. Notice the odd one out? I asked Mukhriz Mahthir if he had a blog, and he said no but maybe he would get one...

This gathering really seemed to reflect some of the momentous changes happened over the last year: from ‘stupid unemployed women’, (some) bloggers have been promoted to legitimate political commentators on a national scale, BN and UMNO have been shaken to the core, and the opposition is in the ascendant.

Blogs really are the flavour of the week: when I went to the Blog House opening last year, there was a definite feeling of being a bit ‘underground’, and blogs were regularly being attacked and demonised in the press. And you would not have seen major companies sponsoring them! This time round, a whole slew of companies donated funds, including Air Asia and LG in particular.

In Rocky’s post there are some comments questioning the implication of corporate sponsorship, to which Rocky has responded; and someone has suggested the formation of an alternative bloggers group.

Continue reading "A year for All-Blogs and 100 days for Malaysia (more or less)"

All-Blogs 100 Days event – Before

nospam@example.com (julian) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:15:27 -0700

Source

Continuing with my data collection re the event, below is a list of posts online before the event. I try to find them by searching for ‘100 days All-Blogs’ in Google and Technorati, and checking the first 10 pages of results (Google returns more than Technorati). Then in the posts I try to follow links from commenters and such, and also guessing who might have posted about it.

To be honest, they mostly say the same thing – just announcing the event details, and so on, some emphasising more the ‘Meet your YB’ aspect than others. I guess what is does show how blogs are used for organising events: 16 21 [updated 08/07/08] blogs in all mentioned it, which may not seem a lot, but the collective readership of those blogs will be in the thousands (mostly concentrated on the big names – Screenshots, Rocky, The People’s Parliament, etc.) [& Malaysia Today 08/07/08].

At the end of the event, one of the last announcements was about the protest the next day, saying ‘see you tomorrow… if you don’t know the details, check the blogs’. Not to re-state the obvious, but it the way it was said – so matter-of-factly – it just brought home to me how much blogs are interwoven with contestatory political action in Malaysia, and how effectively blogs enable the bypassing of controls on information that were so prevalent before. They act as essential logistical nodes that disseminate information and provide an ‘always-on’ low-level mobilising tool for political action.

Continue reading "All-Blogs 100 Days event – Before"

julianhopkins.net - Blogs

PPS founders – Part 2

What happened to the founding members of PPS?

Blogrolls and indecisive reciprocity

Nuffnangers meet for Hancock

A year for All-Blogs and 100 days for Malaysia (more or less)

All-Blogs 100 Days event – Before