After the BlogCon, what’s next?

It has been some weeks after the 1st Philippine BlogCon. Milenyo came and went; power and internet connection got cut and was restored; the billboards flew and were torn down; and Sorsi started blogging with Wordpress.

There remains in me the feeling that it is the Tipping Point. Like the First Contact in Star Trek, where the Vulcans detected the first warp signature from Earth thus paving the way for the first extra-terrestrial encounter of earth. I may be biased since I was there, but still, I believe that history happened right before my eyes and that I was part of it.

And what would be the effects of this momentous event?

Overall, it will have established blogging as the new media in the Philippines.

Some points:

2007 is an election year and i think we will see more candidates using blogging as a tool to reach out and get votes. At the moment, I only know of a few local leaders use like Alvin Fernandez, (my high school classmate), now Vice Mayor of Dagupan (though he has somebody who manages it for him) and Peter Lavina (who does the blogging himself I think). Especially for first time candidates, this is the time to put up a blog and post credentials, activities and platforms. The new political party of Nap Pacheco, Ang Kapatiran also has one. It opens up a lot of possibilities such as interaction, candidness as well as information, contact details, platform, 24×7. Besides, it’s easy and cheap campaigning. You can even start now without fear that it is illegal campaigning (though you better read Comelec’s guidelines on this).

Knowing that there is money in them blogs, more writers will jump to the blogging bandwagon and make a name (and life: read money) for themselves. With the successes of the Probloggers and the others who remain in the shadows, more names will make it big.

MySpace and Friendster blogs will become more popular, as well as Blogspot and Wordpress. So what? My guess is that tweeners, teeners and yuppies will comprise about 90% of these blogs. These market segments are the goldmine of advertisers. We will see more local ad agencies dipping their fingers in the blogging-advertising jar.
SEO will be a standard requirement for local blogs (as well as non-blog websites).

Small business owners will now have a cheaper alternative to having the “corporate” websites through plug-and-play engines like Wordpress.

Local Webhosting services such as Ploghost and Pinoywebhosting will now include setup of blogging sites and will team up with graphics artists and SEO wizards in offering websites to candidates and small business owners and whoever is interested.

Local academe and business will see blogs as educational and communication tools. Teachers can create a blog about his subject and have the students react or comment, bringing the learning out of the classroom into cyberspace. The local corporate environment will use this as a tool to get in touch with their customers better and have a better feel of their business.

Those who can blog in Chinese will have an advantage as the world looks to China as the world’s biggest market. And we already have Chinese-speaking and writing bloggers. (offshoot - blog management/translation).

Many countries have established blogging as a the new media, creating several industries directly or indirectly connected to it. It’s only a matter of time before we catch up.
It’s Blog Time, dear reader. Will you be leading the pack or be content with getting left behind (again)?