tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post114598933994592725..comments2023-10-20T21:46:49.945+08:00Comments on Philippine Commentary: Nine Million Giggles on Bhel Cunanan and Raul LambinoDeany Bocobohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146270102874122902006-04-29T08:21:00.000+08:002006-04-29T08:21:00.000+08:00Regarding the worth and effectiveness of blogs, th...Regarding the worth and effectiveness of blogs, this is what I can add based on my regular peregrinations of the blogosphere, particularly in the US setting. <BR/><BR/>Based on how popular, how often they are linked to, the credibility assigned to their opinions, and other such standards, I do not really see how at the present time, when we know that this blogosphere is still in constant flux, we can know what the magic formula (or –lae) to use to assure gaining stature and prominence.<BR/><BR/>Some very prominent blogs do not even allow comments, two such prime examples are Powerline and Michelle Malkin, both decidedly conservative sites. Some are essentially blogs that do round-ups of other blogs that the blog-owner has kept close to his vest and then some. Such would be the likes of Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) and Real Clear Politics. Reynolds does opinionate in other venues and other blogs. Now, MeMerandom is almost like a different animal. What it does is rate the hot-button issues of the day, based on certain standards such as how often written by blogs, arranges them and enumerates the blogs who have dealt on the subject. The entries are updated as the issues come.<BR/><BR/>Now DailyKos is a joint effort and thus overhauls everybody else in the blogosphere in terms of visits/hits, etc. Members can create their own blogs within the main blog called diaries, and commentaries are practically unrestricted. It is almost confusing trying to navigate through the many mazes within this blog.<BR/><BR/>But consider this little ironic twist. Reynolds’ book, Army of Davids, sells a lot better than hits-king Markos of Daily Kos’ book, Crashing the Gate. The latter could only muster so far sales of less than 5,000 copies. <BR/><BR/>So one asks how does popularity, whether reckoned in hits or visits, translate to patronage?Amadeohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00040096079637569742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146232774873725542006-04-28T21:59:00.000+08:002006-04-28T21:59:00.000+08:00Haha! welcome mike abundo. (Now if your photo is m...Haha! welcome mike abundo. (Now if your photo is meant to impress, i must inform the rest of the comment thread that you've been using that same one for a few years running now...)Deany Bocobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146227992984709292006-04-28T20:39:00.000+08:002006-04-28T20:39:00.000+08:00Excuse me, I gotta go "increase my Internet server...Excuse me, I gotta go "increase my Internet servers".Mike Abundohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12352841305297370494noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146188935949067112006-04-28T09:48:00.000+08:002006-04-28T09:48:00.000+08:00jester,there's no limit on comment length around h...jester,<BR/>there's no limit on comment length around here. It's all free from Papa Google and Mama Blogger.<BR/><BR/>But don't get me wrong about traffic! I would be a hypocrite if I said I wouldn't want 9 million hits a day myself. hehe. But it better not be Raul Lambino's staff over-exercising their forefingers clicking on mice or a clever webmaster who has a <I>programmable counter</I>. It's quite possible they don't even have a a real site counter. and are making it all up as they go. <BR/><BR/>I'll take nine thoughtful regulars over 9 million who stay for half a second and click out because they really didn't find what they were looking for on the search engine that sent them. <BR/><BR/>Also, I guess since even those with ads on their sites made about $12 from Google Adsense over the last year (according to several at the FEAC conference last week) we certainly don't write our blogs for the commercial value. i.e., better not quit our day jobs!Deany Bocobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146187676899220042006-04-28T09:27:00.000+08:002006-04-28T09:27:00.000+08:00to my mind, site traffic is useful primarily to ad...to my mind, site traffic is useful primarily to advertisers, in the same way they look at ratings to broadcast media, and circulation on print media.<BR/><BR/>the true value of a blog (and by context, of the blogger) can be measured (albeit subjectively) by<BR/><BR/>1. how much information it imparts to its visitors<BR/>2. the relevance of such information for its visitors<BR/>3. the ability of such information to stimulate critical thinking and commentary (whatever the topic or theme the blog may have -- technology, politics, art, urban living, and what have you)<BR/>4. the creation of a space for discussion, debate, conflict and resolution stemming from the outcome of critical thinking (hyde park rant melded with the town hall meeting, quite possibly)<BR/>5. the resulting debate fostering a further hunger for information, truth, action, and values<BR/><BR/>1 through 5 may seem cyclic, but one must add a sixth, in order for a blog to be truly relevant:<BR/><BR/>6. what the reader takes from the blog becomes part of his offline (i.e., real, day-to-day) life<BR/><BR/>of course, a blogger can try to be irrelevant by blogging for himself as his sole audience. unfortunately for such bloggers, in a world of more than 5 billion and with more and more getting wired in every day, no doubt he will have a following sooner or later.<BR/><BR/>i believe that blogging is the last remaining means of communication that is free of constraints (save internet access), and is becoming the primary means of getting up-close-and-personal with the audience (sort of like a digital one-on-one conversation). bloggers therefore have a choice -- they can (wittingly or unwittingly) build something up or (wittingly or unwittingly) tear something down.<BR/><BR/>sorry about the long comment -- i just wanted to tell you how i look at that issue.the jester-in-exilehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08355459898911333688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146187234191219312006-04-28T09:20:00.000+08:002006-04-28T09:20:00.000+08:00hillblogger,hope you will post about your travels,...hillblogger,<BR/>hope you will post about your travels, as you know people in the archipelago, including me, know next to nothing about what used to be called Eastern Europe. Do they even still call it that?Deany Bocobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146185756008389272006-04-28T08:55:00.000+08:002006-04-28T08:55:00.000+08:00Hi Dean, hi Everybody,I believe the quality of a b...Hi Dean, hi Everybody,<BR/><BR/>I believe the quality of a blogsite is primordial. <BR/><BR/>The contents are what draw me to a blog and not the volume of hits or whatever followed by the vivacity of the thread, the lively and excellent exchanges - they are my sitemeter.<BR/><BR/>What I like in Dean's site is that he says things that are extremely relevant. They make a reader think. One comes out of his blog not only learning something new but they actually stimulate a person's grey cells towards reflection.<BR/><BR/>I'm still a blog/web ignoramus but I sure know how to read a blog's contents. Is it worth my time? Is it relevant? To me, the worth or quality of the blog are the real indicators of its being a web authority.<BR/><BR/>I enjoy bloghopping (great way to roam the world you get a variety of opinion on one issue) and like most of those that I visit but I am choosy so would regularly patronize some more than others. <BR/><BR/>Dean's blog is on top of my favorites 4 others of in the US plus a couple of British and two other French based. <BR/><BR/>Have fun folks. I won't be visiting you guys here for a week coz am off visiting Czech Republic and Slovakia for the next 9 days.HILLBLOGGERhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05977843513566589811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146183400166746822006-04-28T08:16:00.000+08:002006-04-28T08:16:00.000+08:00Lord Dracula--Look at the biggest Leftwing and the...Lord Dracula--Look at the biggest Leftwing and the biggest Rightwing sites in the US Blogosphere. Then look at a top blogger like Andrew Sullivan (who, in many ways was among the first to cross over from the Main Stream Media and got blogging going)--you will see he links to all the best and the biggest sites. <BR/><BR/>Why?<BR/><BR/>Because a lot of people in the Filipino blogosphere don't understand this:<BR/><BR/>NO BLOG IS AN ISLAND!<BR/><BR/>They are are idolaters of Page Rank, when the reality is, the AGE of your blog is still the best indicator of what your page rank will be, all things being equal. Only a tiny tiny percentage of sites ever get "9 million hits" in two weeks. And most of them are large commercial blogs where NO SINGLE PAGE ever gets all the visitors, even the home pages being just jump offs to where they really wanna go.<BR/><BR/>People in the Filipino blogosphere don't understand SCALE FREE NETWORKS and the POWER LAW DISTRIBUTION of web popularity, which is identical to the distribution of wealth (gap between the rich and the pooor)<BR/><BR/>But someone locally, I think it's Sassy Lawyer, has unwittingly spread these myths around about how blogs grow and what web popularity and AUTHORITY really mean. They read a couple of blogs about "link-baiting" and such -- it's all a false kind of vanity based on misapprehension of network dynamics. <BR/><BR/>NO I don't think it was "well-planned bait" because what really is important about a website is not the quantity of the traffic, but the quality of it, how long the visitors stay, and what they come away with. How the site affects the real world is more impt than some site counter. <BR/><BR/>Don't worry, visiting the sigaw ng bayan site and publicizing will test the MEMES that that site embodies. If people who visit it find those memes worthy of occupying their brains, NOT LINKING to the site won't keep it down. <BR/><BR/>The gravity, the magnetism of a site is in the ideas that are in it. Look at all those weblogs that main stream media newspapers happen to link to. They all get high page ranks, naturally. But do they have high traffic consistently?<BR/><BR/>We should not treat site traffic the be all and end all either, unless we know what the composition of that traffic is, and what they do on the site. <BR/><BR/>I just laugh sometimes. And cry.Deany Bocobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146121688679978942006-04-27T15:08:00.000+08:002006-04-27T15:08:00.000+08:00Hi, DJB: I've taken you up on your offer of a lett...Hi, DJB: I've taken you up on your offer of a letter to the editor. I shot it off to Inquirer this morning. I've <A HREF="http://villageidiotsavant.blogspot.com/2006/04/lies-damned-lies-and-belinda-cunanan.html" REL="nofollow">posted it</A> on my blog.Dom Cimafrancahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02060486314112462681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146051185524877202006-04-26T19:33:00.000+08:002006-04-26T19:33:00.000+08:00hb,partly it must be because the Web has not been ...hb,<BR/>partly it must be because the Web has not been considered a "serious" medium for news and opinion. So any outrageous claims about the net are "allowed" because few have any way of verifying or falsifying such claims. Even the PDI's editors wrote a "serious" editorial in which they palmed off well known WEb legends and hoaxes as "facts" (eg a Filipino named Flores invented the fluorescent lamp!) and it wasn't April 1 either. <BR/><BR/>But that is slowly changing. Even the New York Times has realized their Website is gonna take over the printed paper real soon!Deany Bocobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146050503191619082006-04-26T19:21:00.000+08:002006-04-26T19:21:00.000+08:00Btw, Dean,I was wondering how PDI could have allow...Btw, Dean,<BR/><BR/>I was wondering how PDI could have allowed Cunanan's cunanantic (I like that adjective), preposterous claim of 9 million hits without proper verification - it was not as if the claim was buried deeply in her article, t'was a glaring, can't miss kind of column title.<BR/><BR/>Even to the not so comp tech savvy people (like me) but who read, Cunanan's claim smacks of INTOX - that's what we say in French for news claims that aren't true. <BR/><BR/>I really, really can't stand that social climbing, ass-licking, pseudo intellectual of a PDI writer.HILLBLOGGERhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05977843513566589811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146049670671098042006-04-26T19:07:00.000+08:002006-04-26T19:07:00.000+08:00Hi Dean,I read your posts in my blog re MT Pangili...Hi Dean,<BR/><BR/>I read your posts in my blog re MT Pangilinan.<BR/><BR/>A batchmate of hers also left a message. I sure hope she starts a blog - will be great to listen to the ideas of the very young, people who are starting to make a difference in that stodgy nation of ours.<BR/><BR/>Am also pleased that there are lawyers ready to defend her in case this dimwit Gonzales goes ahead with his intimidation.<BR/><BR/>By the way, re: "john, your question requires an act of imagination and visualization that I shudder to undertake...it just wouldn't be right to do so!" I have a question:<BR/><BR/>Why don't you want to go through such undertaking? <BR/><BR/>I don't know how old Ninez is but Bhel is in her mid-60s - should still be capable of giving an upper cut. Heheh!HILLBLOGGERhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05977843513566589811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146042786355117102006-04-26T17:13:00.000+08:002006-04-26T17:13:00.000+08:00john,your question requires an act of imagination ...john,<BR/>your question requires an act of imagination and visualization that I shudder to undertake...it just wouldn't be right to do so!Deany Bocobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146040436373398262006-04-26T16:33:00.000+08:002006-04-26T16:33:00.000+08:00off topic, but if bel olivarez cunanan and ninez c...off topic, but if bel olivarez cunanan and ninez cacho olivarez were to fight in a boxing match, who do you think would win?john marzanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08036820667908976630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146039946118373252006-04-26T16:25:00.000+08:002006-04-26T16:25:00.000+08:00ah Corsarius, haven't seen you for a while...must ...ah Corsarius, haven't seen you for a while...must be nice to be a certain age in a certain millieu...so many intriguing personae, so lil time to get to know 'em all! ah, the slipp'ry pen is mightier than...Deany Bocobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146039171370857012006-04-26T16:12:00.000+08:002006-04-26T16:12:00.000+08:00haha! "do tell, madame bhel" indeed, rizalist. gre...haha! "do tell, madame bhel" indeed, rizalist. great commentary. i can't believe they just got it all wrong. simple ignorance on their part, or simple deception? hm...Corsariushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17984493812083953924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146038202914254382006-04-26T15:56:00.000+08:002006-04-26T15:56:00.000+08:00Indeed, that should go into the dictionary, along ...Indeed, that should go into the dictionary, along with Imeldific.<BR/><BR/>cunanantic, n. - a senseless, often ridiculous, act of blind support that goes through all forms of logical contortions to deny the obvious; cunanantics, pl.; also, adj.Dom Cimafrancahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02060486314112462681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146020621692629082006-04-26T11:03:00.000+08:002006-04-26T11:03:00.000+08:00CUNANANTIC! What a gem Ricelander.You know, I get ...CUNANANTIC! What a gem Ricelander.<BR/><BR/>You know, I get even madder when they start to fool around with the laws of mathematics and physics.<BR/><BR/>Fool with that foolish Constitution, but don't you dare fool with Mother Nature! I say.Deany Bocobohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01443168826029321831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1146002407992940062006-04-26T06:00:00.000+08:002006-04-26T06:00:00.000+08:00I am surprised to hear that some people still read...I am surprised to hear that some people still read Bhel Cunanan. You are right Hillblogger. I only read Conrad & Randy at PDI myself.<BR/><BR/>Cunanan is behind the times and shows her ignorance by that column when she said that nine million hits (we know that is impossible)is 20 per cent of our voters. Wrong! Site visitors are not all Filipinos, much less voters. And a single visitor do visit a site not once, not twice, but a lot of times. So the most one can perhaps grant is 90,000 visitors and that is being too generous.Bernardo F. Ronquillohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04054476909603464900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14974164.post-1145992350674642592006-04-26T03:12:00.000+08:002006-04-26T03:12:00.000+08:00But Dean, Bhel Cunanan is all opinion and no colum...But Dean, Bhel Cunanan is all opinion and no column...she doesn't know when to draw or to toe the line (not surprising really... she was like that even as a military wife!)HILLBLOGGERhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05977843513566589811noreply@blogger.com