I am a blogger
Perspektif Online
24 September 2006
Yesterday I got an important revelation from a blog expert, the premier writer on IT lifestyle in the country, Mr Budi Putra. He writes for Tempo magazine and CNET and recites web concepts as more than terminology. My revelation came when he (and the television show we appeared on, 'E-Lifestyle' @ Metro TV) called me a blogger. Roy Suryo, the host, said in the opening, 'tamu kita sudah sangat dikenal, dia adalah bla bla bla, tapi dia disini dalam kapasitas sebagai blogger.' Omigod! Am I really one? Felt like rushing somewhere to confirm this, and found this screen shot instead. Not bad for you to see what I mean.
So, they call me a blogger. I feel like John F. Kennedy who came to the Berlin Wall in 1963 and said: Ich bin ein Berliner.. Now I can say, Ich bin ein Blogger.. Thank you Budi Putra and Metro TV. Thank you my webmaster who set me up and sets me straight. I am a blogger. Hell yeah, I am.
Actually it would not be suicidal if the legitimization never came. Recognition is just the icing on the cake, but icing is great. There is always something to do in the blogosphere. In answer to Roy Suryo's question as to whether I blog for fun or for serious, I said I always do everything for fun. But when people take it seriously, I try to be serious. Being called a blogger is definitely for fun, keeps you from taking yourself too seriously.
I have for years visited, studied and enjoyed blogs made by countless people. They are all good, excellent in fact, and I could not be disciplined like Budi Putra and identify the best ones at any given time. But I can talk about the most recent ones I visited and share with you what I found. As I am not a Web2.0 expert or even Web expert, my judgment is almost totally based on content. Here is what I found from Devi Girsang on 'It's My Life'. First, a useful blurb that says,
Those who have read everything are thought to understand everything too: but it is not always so. Reading furnished the mind only with materials of knowledge: it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
Hmm really very true. Btw, this what they mean by collective intelligence. Now Devi's intelligence is absorbed, at least in part, and it can boost up mine. Bloggers are such socially inclined people, and they are so connected in networks, no wonder blogging is really seen as social networking. And that is why Web2.0 - although they may call it a buzzword - is really social networking leveraged by a Giga factor into the most promising form of social order stronger than any terrorist network. The strength comes from the fact that anyone can be part of the blogger community.
Devi Girsang writes a really neat piece about public libraries, the presence and absence thereof, in Jakarta. Receiving reactions from a blog posting in which she said that there are no public libraries in Jakarta, somebody told her about the National Library. So Devi writes,
Thus I decided to experience myself how a public library works here. The one on Salemba Raya 28 is pretty far from my residence, but whatever… my curiosity was driving me crazy! LOL.
My first impression when I found the building; okay, it has a wide parking area and esthetical fountain in the middle. Nice.
The rest you should read for yourself, try it.
Actually Devi Girsang's website was obtained from something Marsha Siagian wrote in a mailing list on Conan (not the Barbarian and not the standup comedian-cum-talk show host).
There is also a link to a blog-in-hiatus by Kristee. This must be our current Miss Indonesia. Is that right, Marsha? So, this posting ends with an off-topic parting shot: Who says beauty queens are dumb? Two of the smartest women I know were in the Miss Indonesia contest, Marsha Siagian from North Sumatra and Kristania Besouw from North Sulawesi and now Miss Indonesia. Look her up in the Miss World website.
As for Marsha? Three days after the Miss Indonesia contest, she left for London. Nowadays I spend productive hours reading her blog, from which I shall not quote. Just look it up yourself, it gives an overall sensation of positive energy which you do not find in many blogs, although negative-energy blogs certainly have an important place in the blogosphere also.
Bad blogs, good blogs, just-so blogs. Power blogs, sentimental blogs, poetic blogs, militant blogs. Blogs with a mission, blogs abougt nothing. In a pluralist world, all have their place. The world is large, The Long Tail provides niches of time and place for everyone. Hell yeah it does.
Update September 29, 2006: Budi Putra
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