anthroblogia

I went to another blogger party last Thursday (participant observation is such a drag sometimes... ) - for once it was not a Nuffnang party, but one organised by Advertlets (I didn't have a camera, so I'm borrowing some pics from others - sources indicated)


The event was at Envie - a nice little club, with an 'interactive dance floor'. This is the best picture I could find


But actually it's more interesting than that - it's a 'touch sensitive' dance floor, and each square is like a 'pixel' and there are games possible. We played 'Musical chairs' on it (I got a Google t-shirt - uber geek!) - but that was the only game I saw, and I would have liked to see more. They're also a bit sensitive about the RM250K dance floor, and you're not allowed to be holding your drink while on it.

The emcees were the stars of the 8TV series Blogger Boy (I think you can watch the episodes online too) - there was free flow until 10, and lots of bloggers partying, camwhoring, drinking, doing silly things for prizes, and generally messing about I met a few bloggers I know already: kruel74 (who put me on the guest list, thanks!), Tian Chad, and Dustyhawk - and of course the founder/CEO/etc. of Advertlets himself - birthday boy Josh Lim

I also met the sole employee of Google in Malaysia (who provided the Google t-shirts) - he told me that you can now get Blogger in BM, which was news for me. However, a lot of people prefer to use the English version because that's what they're used to already, even if they blog in BM.


It was a nice evening, smaller than the usual Nuffnang event - but with nice people and a good atmosphere as well. There were very few 'Nuffnangers' there - this fits in with previous observations of other meets I've been too: AMBP, All-Blogs, etc. Generally, most bloggers seem to stick with one group: this leads to questions about the 'blogosphere' as whole... Some bloggers have said to me that there is no real 'blogosphere' - what do you think?


Other blog posts about the event (please tell me if I've missed any):
• Bitchy Mitchy: Thursdays full of rainbow
• Let there be chaos: Hatin' On the Club
• Life's Journey: How are we, my Friday feathered friends?
• Mai Tomyam: Malaysian Bloggers Evening 2009: Super Party Time for Bloggers
• nadea.maradana's blog: Malaysian Blogger Evening by Josh Lim
• RowYourBoat Blog: Party @ Envie Lounge
• Stephen's Blogs: Malaysian Blogger's Evening - Party Like A Blogstar!
• Tian Chad @ ???: Envie Club With A Little Surprise!
• Yantz.Yanttie lif3st0ry: EVeninG p@rty for bl0ggErs

I have to blog everyday!! Two reasons:
• As an anthropologist, I need to keep a diary to record thoughts and impressions. Later on, I will refer back to these when writing up my theses.
• As a blogger, I should update regularly. More importantly, as a blogger who is focusing on 'personal' or 'lifestyle' blogs, I need to write about what I'm doing, giving that personal aspect to it all.

And, I am falling behind in my schedule for my research and getting pretty stressed Need.To.Work

Argh!

So, anyway, I have decided to focus only on lifestyle/personal bloggers who have Nuffnang ads. I will not ignore other blogs, but I am finding that the work of tracking blogs takes up a lot of time - about four hours a day or more. Normally I wake up around 6am and am at my computer before seven; typically, with a break for breakfast, I will be reading blogs, archiving, and writing notes until lunchtime. During this time I may or may not have the time to write a post myself. In one month, I have archived 362 posts! This is a lot and basically, I need to focus. So - no SoPo and only Nuffnang.

Why not Advertlets bloggers? Well mainly because I have been with Nuffnang since starting, and I prefer to have the 'Glitterati' status (which means I can't have Advertlets ads) to improve my chances of getting invited to Nuffnang events. Also because the biggest bloggers seem to be with Nuffnang.

Why not SoPo? The two main reasons are: 1) they are not the focus of my research; 2) They don't carry ads (usually)
Exceptions to the last point are Screenshots... and Che Det (for those who don't know, the latter is the ex-Prime Minister of Malaysia's blog, Dr Mahathir (aka TDM))

Interestingly, for those who wonder how much money can be made by blogging, here are the details of Che Det's advertising rate: the minimum is RM300 a day, and the top banner is RM1000/day. So, he can make RM30,000+ a month. That is a lot of money! For non-Malaysians, consider that the Malaysian Trade Union Congress is asking for a minimum wage of RM1,200/month.

I doubt that even the top bloggers such as Kenny Sia are able to ask for R1,000/day for banner ads - my guess is that on the one hand TDM has the most popular blog in Malaysia (average 40-50K visitors/day), and on the other hand he just puts the price higher to have to less requests to deal with.

So, overall in my thesis I will deal with SoPo bloggers, and all other kinds. But for my ethnographic, in-depth aspect, I will focus on Nuffnangers