2003-07-01 - 10:17 a.m.

I'll be starting a series of interviews with some of Malaysia's leading bloggers. Among other things, I'll be asking them a few questions regarding their weblogs and their views on blogging. The first in the series is Oon Yeoh, whom some of us knew from his column in The Edge and of course, the inescapable Transitions weblog that was once affiliated to Malaysiakini.com (Oon has since, stop blogging for Transitions).

I am an avid fan of Transitions. I read it almost on a daily basis to get a healthy dose of what is happening in Malaysia and all over the world. I like Oon's style of writing. He writes frankly and seems unfazed to all sorts of comments (positive or otherwise) he had received for Transitions.

Noticed how KLue has become more and more interesting lately? KLue today is not merely a set of directory of what's hot and what's not in the Klang Valley. Now, KLue more than ever is packed with articles and information on films, music and the local arts scene. You can thank Oon for that, for he had worked as the editorial consultant for the magazine for the past six months. He had just finished his work there, and he can be rest assured that he had done a great job to KLue.

And by the way, Oon just started a brand new blog called Digerati that will be very different from Transitions. Whatever it is, I am glad that he's still writing.

Digerati will a media blog of sort. According to Oon, Digerati is more aimed at a general audience whoever might be interested in issues relating to the digital age. He is expected to be more personal in his writing, but don't look forward to him raving about what he ate for breakfast. Digerati, for its namesake, will focus on technology-based issues.

Recently, I had the chance to conduct an e-mail interview with Oon. I gave him the same set of questions I gave to Jeff Ooi (and probably to several other prominent Malaysian bloggers). You'll in all probability get to read Jeff's answers come next week. As for now, just read through what Oon has to say to us:

NZ: Oon, please introduce yourself to our readers. Like, you can start by telling us where you were born and you alma mater perhaps…

Oon: I was born in Kota Bharu, Kelantan but grew up in Penang, USA and Singapore. My primary school years were in the US (Martin Luther King Jr Elementary School). My secondary school years were in Singapore (Raffles Institution). And my college years were in the US (University of Texas in Austin). After I graduated from university I worked in England for a year in the book publishing industry. I moved back to Malaysia in 1996 and started my career in journalism.

I was the national correspondent for Nikkei (the Japanese business newspaper) during the turbulent years of 1997-2000 when our country was rocked by the twin shocks of the Asian economic crisis and our own political crisis sparked by the sacking of Anwar. It was an exciting time to be a journalist.

Most recently I was in Singapore for a year, helping to start up The Edge Singapore. I'm currently a freelance columnist for The Edge (Malaysia), The Bangkok Post and Today newspaper (Singapore).

My hobby is judo. I'm now retired from active competition but I represented Malaysia in international competitions in the early and mid-90s.

NZ: In your opinion, what is a Weblog?

Oon: A weblog is a running commentary with embedded links to external content and extracts from such content.

A simple formula for blogs is: commentary + links + extracts (quotes)

NZ: What do you see the trend amongst Malaysian bloggers, if any?

Oon: Most Malaysian bloggers are into online diaries, writing about themselves and their life experiences. Very few write about what they find online. It's usually about their personal lives.

NZ: Can you list a few notable Malaysian bloggers that you might find interesting? And please explain why you like their blogs so much.

Oon: Jeff Ooi is good because he takes time and care to compose his blog updates (http://www.malaysiakini.com/jeffooi). Of course he has his own views on things, and I don't necessarily agree with his views but I like the fact that he provides lots of links (so I can check out the external content myself) and context and nuances (so I can better understand what he's talking about). This is something missing in a lot of Malaysian blogs.

Odds & Ends (http://www.odds-and-ends.net/photolog/) is a good photoblog. The guy who runs it takes great photos and as added value he provides commentary and embedded links as well. It's not about news or current affairs, rather it's about the things he observes in his daily life. In some ways, it's a very personal blog but it's not self-indulgent unlike some of the online diaries I've seen.

Mac-in-Malaysia (http://www.macasia.blogspot.com/) is a good blog for keeping updated on all things Mac. The writer, who is a friend of mine, has followed the commentary + links + extract approach to a T. So to me, it's a very good blog. Plus, I'm a Mac fan so I like it a lot.

NZ: Can you estimate how many Malaysian bloggers we have out there? Do you think we are a bunch of avid bloggers? Are there differences around the world in the way people Blog?

Oon: It really depends on how you define blogs. If anyone who uses a blog engine is considered a blogger, the total number would be equivalent to the entries in the Great Malaysian Blog List and the Blog List in the Mycen.com.my directory. But a quick visit to any of these so-called blogs will reveal that the overwhelming majority of these "blogs" are in fact, online diaries. Actual blogs (commentary + links + extracts) are few indeed.

Are we a bunch of avid bloggers? I don't think so. Jeff and a handful of others are avid bloggers. The rest are mainly exhibitionists who like perfect strangers to know who they dated, what they ate for breakfast and what kind of wet dream they had last night.

The blogging phenomenon we all read and hear about in the US is NOT online diaries. When we read in the US media about an explosion in blogging activities, what they are referring to are news blogs or blogs that comment about the news. Not about someone's personal life. There really is a distinction between the two (blogs and online diaries) but people here don't seem to know or care about that.

NZ: Do you think in general Bloggers are dying for lots of people to read their content, or are they just finding an outlet for themselves only?

Oon: Bloggers by definition want lots of people to read their content. Why else should they blog in the first place? Remember the whole purpose of a blog is to share with others what you've found online. That's the original purpose anyway.

The online diarists will tell you they are just finding an outlet for themselves but deep down inside they are exhibitionists dying for an audience. Why else would anyone publish his/her personal diary online? Why tell people what your favourite masturbation technique is, or how you felt when you found your girlfriend in the arms of another man, or how much you enjoyed the banana split you had for supper?

NZ: To you, what is the definition of a good blog?

Oon: Something that delivers interesting content, provides links to the original story, and offers insightful commentary. The best blogs all do that.

NZ: Would you agree that Weblogs have increased the masses of content out there? But there are so many contents out there, so how does one differentiate between relevant contents and the ones that shouldn't be published in the first place?

Oon: There's a lot of crap out there. Word of mouth is the best way to find good blogs. If someone tells me hey, check out Andrew Sullivan's blog (www.andrewsullivan.com) he's got good political observations, I'll check it out. And if I like it, I'll bookmark it. Going through a blog directory is probably the most painful way to do it. A friend of mine, a journalist who's into blogs, told me he tried going through the blogs in one of the Malaysian blog listings and he couldn't get past the "A" section before falling asleep.

NZ: In your opinion, what sorts of folks normally start up blog projects?

Oon: Proper blogs: People who are dissatisfied with the current crop of news outlets

Online diarists: People who have a pressing need for attention

NZ: What are the advantages of communicating by blog?

Oon: You can learn a lot of things from your readers. I've had many readers refer me to articles and websites that further opened my eyes on a subject.

NZ: Can you tell us how you got started with your own blog project?

I had just returned to Malaysia from a year in Singapore, and had a chat with Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran of Malaysiakini. They had read about blogs in my column (for The Edge) and how many media companies in the US are embracing blogs. So, they suggested that I start one of Malaysiakini. It was supposed to be a three-month experiment but it's lasted twice as long. Six month is a good run.

NZ: What is your blog's mission?

Oon: To make people realize that there's another side to the story (other than what the local media was presenting).

NZ: You seem to be enjoying your writing your blog. Your blog, Transitions are filled with so much information sometimes I wonder where you find the time to scour all the information listed in your blog. It can't be money, because they are all written for free. So, what motivates you to work on your blog?

Oon: As a columnist, I scour the web for articles and opinions anyway, so it's no extra effort for me. The only difference is that instead of just reading an article, if I find something to be particularly interesting, I blog it (i.e. provide commentary + links + extracts). That's all.

As a journalist, it's my job to inform and educate people in an entertaining way. I try to do that with my newspaper columns and I also try to do that with my blog. The main difference is that a blog is more dynamic because I can actually present links, and of course, I can also be more informal, sarcastic and confrontational. I can't do that with my newspaper columns which are necessarily more formal.

NZ: Have Transitions developed in the way you expected? Did you allow yourselves any expectations?

Oon: I had already been following the blog phenomenon long before I started my own blog, so I was already familiar with the dynamism of the format. There were no major surprises.

NZ: What is the most challenging aspect of managing Transitions?

Oon: Sometimes there's no significant Malaysian news to blog on. Then it becomes hard to find a topic because I didn't want to blog about what I had for breakfast and how the road in front of my house has a pothole. I'll leave that to the online diarists.

My focus on the topic of Malaysian current affairs sometimes made it hard to find relevant topics. Because sometimes, there's not any significant current affairs issues to blog about. It would be tempting to blog on other topics unrelated to Malaysia but that was never my intention. So, I avoided it. Some people would argue that I blogged too much about the Iraqi war. "What does Iraq" or "American foreign policy" have to do with Malaysia? Well, Iraq was on everybody's mind at one time. If it's something most Malaysians are talking about, then by my definition, it concerns Malaysia and Malaysians. Besides, Dr. M as head of NAM and as the incoming IOC chairman made sure Iraq was an issue in this country. Don't forget, for a while, every front-page story in the local media was about Iraq. Talk of the war (for and against) was rife in every coffeeshop and taxicab. So, it was a very relevant issue. As for US foreign policy, let's face it; the US is the world's sole superpower. Anything it does will affect us. And how we react to it will affect us as well. The US is Malaysian's largest trading partner and our largest single source of investment. Let's not forget that.

NZ: It's very upsetting when I discovered the news that you'll stop writing for Transitions. So, what's next? Are you really stopping for good?

Oon: I'm taking on a new journalism job with another media company. It'll be more traditional journalism that I'll be involved in, and my focus will not be on politics but IT (which is my main interest, anyway). So, if I do go back to blogging in the future, it'll probably be about technology rather than politics. I'm also interested in the concept of a photoblog, as I like taking pictures.

NZ: What was your most embarrassing blog moment?

Oon: Late one night (around 3 am) I was in the middle of an e-mail conversation with a Malaysian student in the US. He had challenged one of my views on the war and I decided to share our conversation with other readers. Normally, I would just press the Post button to put the update on standby but instead I accidentally pressed Post + Publish, so it went live. Later, the reader sent another reply via e-mail to me and I decided to change the content of my original posting to take into consideration his reply. So, I went back and made some changes. Some readers noticed the changes, and didn't like the fact that I made changes to my original posting. So, the next day, I posted back the original posting, with context on what happened. The moral of the story is don't press Post & Publish until you've finished your conversation with someone!

NZ: I have this feeling that you have thousands of visitors per day, especially when your blog is linked with Malaysiakini.com. So tell me, how many hits do you have so far… how many hits do you have per day? Can you give us some indication of the growth of user numbers over time?

Oon: I don't have statistics for hits or page views, but in terms of unique visitors, we're looking at maybe 500 to 600 unique visitors per day. It's pretty consistent in the last few weeks of the blog.

NZ: Had any negative experiences because of your blog?

Oon: Not really. Just some people sending me insults via e-mail. But I'm a professional columnist/journalist and I'm used to that. It comes with the territory. I'm not thin-skinned like Farish Noor, quitting his columns because someone slammed his views. My personal philosophy is if you can dish it out, you should be able to take it as well. Don't be a columnist if you can't take criticism (or insults).

NZ: Weblogs are considered as - 'Journalism's New Life Forms' by some. Do you think that Weblogs represent a new model of journalism that threatens to render many journalists obsolete?

Oon: I think it's a new form of journalism, definitely, but good blogs complement traditional media, not threaten it.

NZ: Should there be any comparison made to traditional media at all?

Oon: Not really. It's a different form that's unique to the Net. So, it'd be comparing apples with oranges.

NZ: Do you think that Weblogs are just fads… that it will fade and die out one day?

Oon: I think they are here to stay.

Oleh Nizam Zakaria

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