I have been a blogger for half a decade now. What started as an easier way of writing non-personal journals ignited my passion to write many issue-related, often inspirational blogs. Just a couple of months ago, a fellow Negros Blogger Glady Tomulto inducted me although informally to the world of Negrénse blogging culture. While blogging is the consequence of the internet age, the roots have been deeply rooted in the Negrénse love for the latest news and reminiscing recently concluded trips to some parts of the country and the globe. Negrénses are always keen for the latest and adventures, surely a natural-born talented Negrénse would never run out of stories to tell. This is a trait I have found in quite an interesting way. Simple overhears at Starbucks Podium, board room meetings in the middle of Ortigas Center, friendly chats over mounds of sweet treats at Calea in Lacson St. and breathtaking moments around serenely beautiful sugarcane fields of Negros develops quite a story. Some consider the blogosphere as abounding in hearsays and simple thoughts but how does it really contribute to the sweet, rock-solid society in which Negros is built?
While news on paper, online and on air are a daily staple, blogs thread in areas these traditional means of information communication deem unreachable. Prime example would be war developments in Libya to the countless anonymous blogs in restricted China. Blogs relay infos when official means are cut. In a few minutes, you can register an e-mail, sign-up for a blog service account and voila, you are now part of the unlimited information source of the World Wide Web. For an island society that is built in peacetime like Negros, blogging offers another perspective of Negrénse life that is often of limited availability in major media outlets. Even given the lack of publicity about Negros tourism for example, tourist especially foreign tourists flock the shores of Negros to discover attractions North to South. The diving attractions of Southern Negros thrive with foreign tourist even when there is lack of ads from the government. At closer look and interview with these foreign tourists, one can discover that they came to the knowledge of Negrénse treasure throves not from the Department of Tourism but from reading reviews and blogs of native-born Negrénses.
Late May 2011, I finally decided to join the acclaimed Skyscrapercity.com (SSC) forum as I have learned that it is an online forum teeming with information about Bacolod City and Negros Occidental at large. The information posted are by no means meager for many have inside informations about the latest projects rising around the Metropolis of Bacolod City. While information circulate in a small circle inside forum threads, these provide important pieces of information that is helpful for bloggers like me in drafting articles that point to the profitability of business in Negros Island. I have known of some companies whose employees, particularly some General Managers, use forums like SSC to gather starter data for the improvement of a number of facilities notably that of Mactan-Cebu International Airport for example. A number of real estate companies have also been in touch with these forums to have a general idea of where to or not to invest in a city concerned. Like blogging, “foruming”, a consequentially formed new verb, has also been of little note to some expert research until as of late.
As people and a number of institutions have seen the information drive of blogs and online forums, many have taken steps for its development. It is a sure that blogging and foruming have helped developed a completely new society where people are being liberated from traditional media that has since hostaged informations at director’s whim. My hope is that communications experts can at least produce a paper on these two new phenomena. I have since proposed in a group of forumers that they develop a simple pamphlet on the avantages of forums and why people should grab the opportunity to access unlimited amount of information. Gladly, Negros Bloggers are making a headway in promoting blogging among the crème de la crème of the Negrénse intelligentsia with the upcoming Visayas Blog Awards at the imposing Ruins in Talisay City. While blogs and online forums are not celebrities like Facebook or Twitter, I am hopeful in its development as a highly-effective communication tool but until so bloggers and forumers will continue to be a small circle within the Negrénse Intellectuales. Certainly, the promotion, life and preservation of the Negrénse Alta-Sociedad rest in this small group of people.