Blogscapes

This may not mean much to anyone else but me, but thought I’d just like to announce that Blogscapes has passed the 10, 000-hit mark!

Frankly, when I started the blog late 2006, little did I know then, that the compulsion to maintain the blog and write regular posts would be with me, and so it has! Here’s to 10, 000 more hits!

I’ve been reading the book by Ted Demopoulos entitled “What no one ever tells you about blogging and podcasting”:

The book is a compilation of blogging and podcasting tips that  he’s compiled based on his interviews with successful bloggers and podcasters. Ted Demopoulos is particularly interested in seeing how blogs and podcasts add to the marketing/businesss mix of companies.

I have picked up some interesting tips such as using stats counters like Blog stats and Sitemeter (which I have since added) to help provide more info on the blog’s readership, as well some useful reminders about the need to include links and blogroll.

He also mentions an important point about the need to ‘listen’ to what’s out there in the blogosphere as well. All too often, bloggers are caught up with blogging and tend to forget to read others’ blogs. You can only join in the conversation in the blogosphere by reading, leaving comments or emailing the bloggers, and inviting them to read your blog and leave comments too. Thus, disabling a ‘comments’ feature is a big no-no, according to the author and the people he interviewed.

You can also read more about Ted Demopoulos’ thoughts and musings on technology, business and their intersection in his blog, The Ted Rap.

In the book, the writer also shares some useful blogs to read, and I’ll share some of the useful links here with you:

 Marcom Blog

InfOpinions

Buzzoodle

BlogWrite for CEOs

Practical Blogging

Copyblogger

Bloglogic - news from the blogosphere

SEObook

Podcast Roundtable

Talkr - Letting blogs speak for themselves

It’ll be worth your while to check out the above links!

A couple of racist blogs have been taken down by the authorities. The two blogs featured racist comments with vulgarities and negative remarks about Muslims in Singapore. They were apparently started by the same person, presumably a male student in Singapore.  One blog was created in August and the other earlier this month.

The two blogs were hosted on Google’s Blogger site, and were taken down for violating the host’s “terms of service”. 

This reminds me of the case of two racist bloggers who were caught about a year or two back. The case kind of became a landmark one as it highlighted one of the abuses of New Media at a time when blogging was starting to catch on in Singapore.  

While it’s true that New Media such as blogs can be abused and used to express negative and divisive sentiments, what struck me about the situation this time is how the blogosphere and cyberspace seems to have developed an in-built self-regulating mechanism. What do I mean by that?

The one who ’blew the whistle’ in this case is trainee teacher Tanveer Khan who came across the blogs on Sept 9. Tanveer knew that what he read was wrong and would have a negative effect on its readers and the race relations in Singapore, and immediately emailed the Media Development Authority (MDA) to inform them of the existence of the blogs.

His actions resulted in the blogs being blocked on Sept 18 and 20. The authorities do not police the blogosphere but do take action when they receive any specific information that needs investigating. In addition, the blog hosts such as Blogger also take action against users and prohibit certain undesirable content from being hosted on its servers. More details on specific content that violates Blogger’s policies can be found at www.blogger.com/content.g.

Anyway, with watchful Web users like Mr Tanveer, coupled with the proposed changes to the Penal Code stating that a person convicted of causing racial and religious disharmony can be jailed up to three years or fined, or both, it looks like bloggers who wish to spout undersirable sentiments should exercise more restraint.