The term ‘blog’, short for ‘web log’, was coined in the late 1990s. At the time, it was used to refer to the diaries that people were keeping on the Internet. Blogging has risen rapidly in popularity since then and many different types of blog have emerged, including more ‘serious’ news and issues-based blogs. By the end of 2006, there were about sixty million blogs worldwide. Yet, despite the fact that Hong Kong is one of the most wired places in the world, very few of these blogs were created in Hong Kong. Why has Hong Kong, with over five million Internet users, been so slow to catch on to blogging?

Blogs require time, commitment and maintenance, explains Dr Louis Leung of the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Journalism and Communication. For many people who live in Hong Kong, ‘the lifestyle is so hectic — they don’t really have time to write and respond’. Another explanation might be that Hong Kongers, preoccupied with their jobs and families, just do not care. That is a view held by Angus Ho, who blogs under the name Dukedom of Aberdeen. ‘They don’t think about things around them, like politics, the media, or their community,’ he says.

However, times are changing for Hong Kong blogging. Earlier this year, Next Weekly magazine published an interview with a local blogger, Ronald Soong. The article on Soong, who writes the blog EastSouthWestNorth (ESWN), not only boosted visits to his site to a staggering fifteen thousand per day, but also set off a wave of wider media interest in blogging. When one TV channel dismissed bloggers as mere ‘online diarists’, simply writing trivial entries about their personal lives, the local blogging community was outraged. They launched a letter-writing campaign to the press explaining that many of them were serious bloggers, contributing worthwhile comments and viewpoints on important issues and current events.

The media has since started to acknowledge the importance of blogs such as ESWN, which provides a gateway to local news by providing translations of significant news stories for non-Chinese readers. Newspapers and magazines now provide coverage of the blogosphere on a daily basis, often republishing entire blog posts. The anonymous Central Blogger on blogspot.com says the media is now ‘crazy about bloggers’. Soong calls the media interest a ‘tidal wave’, and it has already had a noticeable effect. ‘I’ve been watching Hong Kong bloggers grow very, very rapidly compared to the rest of the world,’ Soong says.

This media interest has driven many of those who wish to comment on issues and news to take up ‘serious’ blogging. At the same time, improvements in usability have allowed other forms of blogging to take off too, since blogging is now much easier and less time-consuming. Local florist Io Lee blogs for smaller audiences as a way of publishing her creative writing. Lee also enjoys the interactive nature of blogging. ‘You are not talking to yourself. You are not alone,’ she says. Meanwhile, Commercial Radio host Jessie You See Hand sees blogging as another way to educate people. Jessie wants her blog to help young people better understand themselves through discussion and self-exploration. She sees blogging as a positive activity for young people. ‘Some of them don’t like to talk, but on a blog they’re more willing to express themselves,’ she explains.

It seems that the popularity of blogs, whatever their nature, is only going to increase in Hong Kong and around the world. Blog trackers, Technorati, have found that the number of blogs is doubling every five months, with one new blog being created every second. Along with e-mail, Internet forums and message boards, blogs look set to be the next big thing in informing and communicating with people on the Internet.

[Source: Freely adapted from Hamish McKenzie, ‘Brave new word’, URL: http://hk.bcmagazine.net/hk.bcmagazine.issues/bcmagazine_webissue217/22bloggers.html, 5th October 2006.]

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