The latest episode of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Pinoy Pod features several top Pinoy bloggers: Manolo Quezon, Abe Olandres, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, represented by executive director Sheila Coronel, Rickey Yaneza, and Bryan Boy. The “Portrait of the Filipino as Blogger” segment is too short because Pinoy Pod squeezed in two topics for the episode: Pinoy bloggers and two Fil-Am filmmakers.
Central to the very short discussion is the political blogs v. gossip and showbiz blogs issue. As you can see in Pinoy blog rankings like Abe’s Pinoy Top Blogs, showbiz-oriented weblogs hog web traffic.
Manolo told Pinoy Pod: “I was never upset about it unlike some other people because you just have to realize that it will always be a smaller percentage of people interested in politics day in and day out.”
Manolo also talked about the contending points of view in the blogosphere: “there’s so much that can be achieved by approaching a question from different perspectives and I think we have to make more of an effort to do this because when it works it really works and it’s a tremendous thing.”
Rickey Yaneza, the top Pinoy blogger based on the Pinoy Top Blogs ranking, started blogging to write about things that interest him. He eventually found an audience—a huge audience that pays off with ad earnings and wishlist purchases. Yaneza, according to the show, has turned blogging “into a part-time job.”
Bryan Boy, on the other hand, lives up to his blogging persona, telling Pinoy Pod: “I mean I’m just one big attention whore.” I enjoy Bryan Boy’s blog, when you do visit it, check out the entry on his visit to his grandma’s grave.
It would have been great had the show been longer and in a format that would allow the Pinoy bloggers to interact with each other. But all in all, it’s a good episode.
Max is a journalist and blogger based in Cebu. He has written and edited for such publications as The Freeman, The Independent Post, Today, Sun.Star Cebu, Cebu Daily News, Philstar Life, and Rappler.
He is also a mobile app and web developer and co-founded InnoPub Media with his wife Marlen.
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