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Updating the 50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia List

Last modified on 3rd May, 2008

It was last year when a Malaysian Minister accused bloggers as liars. According to him out of 8000 of 10,000 unemployed bloggers are women and bloggers have nothing better to do than spreading rumors to disunite the country. Some even resorted to labeling bloggers as Monkeys, Gobloks and Pondan.

Such comments may stem from the lack of understanding of the blogging medium. A medium which may have played a role in the shocking outcome witnessed during the recent general election.

I don’t know to what extent, but it’s enough for the government to reverse their anti-bloggers stance to be the friend of bloggers. For starters, Ahmad Shabery Cheek, our new Information Minister has created a new TV show in RTM inviting bloggers to talk about specific issues about this alternative media.

Anyway, I am not here to talk about politics; there are other bloggers who are doing a better job than me in that respect. I am here to discuss about blogging as a positive medium for information sharing.

Last year I wrote an article where I listed 50 of the most influential blogs in Malaysia based on Technorati Ranks. Am I glad I did that because it appears that the list has become a starting point for those who want to get some insights into who’s who in the Malaysian blogosphere.

In its first episode, the RTM program invited A. Kadir Jasin, a blogger himself, as their guest to discuss the topic “Blog: Apa Itu Blog?” This isn’t new but in case you have missed it, you can watch the episode via YouTube here

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

 

In the program, Mr Kadir Jasin mentioned that only 8 out of the 50 most popular blogs in Malaysia are political blogs and the top of the list is occupied by a personal blog. RahsiaBlogger.com points that he was referring to the 50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia article that I wrote.

While I agree that such initiative by RTM might be the right step towards creating an understanding of openness, I wish the producer took some initiative to really understand what a blog is all about. This would have avoided the “anti-blog” mentality the host seemed to suffer throughout the program.

The first thing that came to mind when I watched the program was what is this guy’s problem? I was like cheer up man, there’s no need to attack the issue with such cantankerous attitude because a blog isn’t a bad thing.

This short discussion only managed to scratch the surface and didn’t do the medium justice but I understand that there was no time to dig deeper into the issues.

That said, I think Mr Kadir Jasin has done a good job in presenting a balance view about what a blog is in all the host’s eagerness to rapid-fire his questions. See if his handling of the second episode is any better from the following videos. You have to watch this, great replies from Raja Petra Kamaruddin.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The fact is blogs are not just about political opinions or something that bloggers use to “memesong fikiran rakyat” which seems to be the accepted view of some people.

Blogging is about sharing information, any information at all from the crappiest of the craps to the greatest of the greats. The democratic nature of the Internet allows everyone to participate in the medium to talk about anything from personal experience, to music to politics.

Like any other medium such as newspapers and televisions, there’s nothing wrong with blogs as an information sharing medium. It’s how you use them that matters.

Now that’s out of the way, I think it’s a good time to update the 50 most influential blog list. It would be interesting to see how the trend has changed especially after the recent general election. Will there be more political blogs on the list this time around?

In addition to doing the research myself, I would like to ask my readers to suggest blogs which they think should be included into the list.

In order to be considered, the blog has to have a Technorati rank of 30,000 or lower. To find a blog ranking, go to Technorati.com and enter the blog’s URL into the search box.

Now, keep your suggestions coming people!