Bloggers as Illuminators

Janette Toral, that phenom of a lady who organized the highly successful Top Emerging and Influential Blogs in 2008, says it all too factually–the era of the “personal” bloggers is now gone. The Filipino blogger has now turned more “social”, or that is to say, more sensitive to the needs of their audiences. Last year, those who emerged on top of the blogging heap wrote more about themselves, their experiences and what-have-you. Now, Pinoy bloggers became more sensitive, or the better word is “sensitized”, going beyond discussions about Self, to discussions about “reality” or their philosophical world-view. That is evident with the win of Filipinovoices, a blog by political bloggers. 

Synovate, the world’s leading market research company did a study and found out that more and more Filipinos are beginning to use the internet more often. Most users are online gamers yet an increasing number of people are using the Web to search for information, news and opinions. This validates an earlier Nielsen usage survey which shows that at least 23 million Filipinos go online, with at least 9 million using the web everyday and about 3 million Filipinos maintain blogs or participate in socnets (social networks). This is an encouraging sign that shows Filipino web users are beginning to mature in terms of their approach or views about the Internet. 

This is good news for those who want change in this country. The phenomenal growth in web participation is organic, meaning, there was no “transformative event”  that spurred this thing. Filipinos are slowly realizing the benefits of having a presence in this electronic community. Hence, those who want change can actually use the web as a medium to reach the widest audience possible.

If EDSA dos became a reality thru texting, then, the next EDSA could possibly be realized thru social networks.