A neophyte among experts

Have you ever felt as if you were lost in a vast sea, not knowing where to hold on to?

That was how I felt when I attended iBlog2: The 2nd Philippine Blogging Summit in UP Diliman on April 18, 2006. Everyone around me was like, a true-blue blogger! Good thing I was so interested in the topic that I kept my attention to the speakers and stayed until the very last minute, even if they were all talking alien things (at least to me..)

The 1st keynote speaker, Ms. Rebecca McKinnon of Global Voices, started her address by asking the group how many have blogs, or are interested in blogs. That absolutely made me feel at ease, that I can attend this summit alongside the experts, solely because of my interest, and the fact that I keep a blog (no matter that it is only 2 days old!) Ms. McKinnon's talk focused mainly on how she found blogs important in her job as a (former) CNN correspondent, especially post-9/11. She said that "a blog is more powerful than a webpage," citing a Baghdad blogger who had conflicting feelings about hating Saddam but upset that his country was being attacked, CNN blogger Kevin Sites, and an Iranian guy who published instructions in his blog in Persian to create blogspot accounts.

She also said that audience nowadays want talk back. Bloggers can easily notice if journalists publish wrong information or do not cover events that they think are important. She also said that blogs play 3 different functions: (1) as cafes, where people meet and communicate; (2) as windows, where other people can see other worlds; and (3) as bridges, where people translate their blogs to different languages in order to reach more people.

Another issue she mentioned was that of digital divide, where she said that bloggers who claim that they represent the grassroots, actually do not, because blogging is still elite-dominated, who have computers, internet access, and time to blog.

The Media Blogging track of the summit after the afternoon break pretty much expounded on the same ideas as in Ms. McKinnon's keynote address. Ms. Ellen Tordesillas, a veteran journalist, shared her experiences in using underground blogs to get more information for her articles, especially since they contain inside tips that she can use for her commentaries.

Mr. Erwin Oliva of INQ7 also showed examples of blogs that provided him with stories. He said that bloggers are also being hired by journalists for content, and that blogging has leveled the playing field for all broadcast media, citing the example of an ordinary blogger who was first to publish vidoes of the tsunami in Thailand.

I was in the summit the whole day, and to say that I learned a lot and enjoyed myself is an understatement. After all, I won a globelines broadband kit in the raffle before the day ended!