Numbers are always fascinating, especially to researchers, because they seem so reliable and definitive. It's time to have another look at current internet user statistics in Indonesia.

The latest APJII figures (counting up to the end of year 2007) estimate 25 Million internet users in Indonesia. That makes about 10% of the population.

Of these 25 Mil., only 2 Million (8%) are actual subscribers to an ISP. Hmm. The remaining 92% then must be made up of an estimate of multiple users (at home, office, school/university), warnet/wifi users and GPRS /3G users. (unfortunately, APJII doesn't publish the details of this estimate)

As a comparison: in Germany, where about 60% of the population are online, ONLY 5.1% of internet users DO NOT have internet service at home. (This comes from a survey of tns infratest and the D21 initiative)

The figures clearly point to the persistently high importance of the warnet/internet café for Indonesian internet culture, as well as mobile internet services. Perhaps it's this technology that is most useful for Indonesia at the moment, where the special geography makes the progress in establishing a broadband cable network that reaches the outer ends of the archipelago slow.

As Reuters reports in June this year, Indonesia is the fastest growing market for 3G technology in South East Asia. With around 16.3 Million subscribers. The operators are Telkom Flexi (PT Telkom), StarOne (Indosat), Smart Telecom, Fren (Mobile-8 Telecom), Esia (Bakrie Telecom) and Ceria (Sampoerna Telekomunikasi Indonesia or STI). Do these make up the rest of the total 25 Million?

I'm not a numbers person. Numbers confuse me. 16.3 Million seems to be a lot, and Indonesia is the fastest growing market in SEA?! What I make of it is this: Indonesians want to be online, and they want it to be affordable and flexible. They don't want to wait for the colossal Palapa Ring project to be completed to get online. Mobile services might be the way t go.

Hanny personifies the female multitasking talent. She was the project manager of Pesta Blogger 07 , the first nation-wide bloggers' meeting in Indonesia. She works in the PR agency Maverick, writes for the company blog and on top of that, keeps her own, private blog. Oh, and did I mention she also plans to publish a book?

For Pesta Blogger 08, she will return to her position as project manager and member of the steering committee. As representative of Maverick, she will be the link between organizers, sponsors and bloggers - making it all happen! That's why I call her THE PRODUCER. Here comes the interview... beware, it's quite long, but also very interesting! So keep on reading ya... :)


Hanny, all smiles in a Jakarta ice cream parlor

Maverick company blog

Maverick is a PR consultancy. We deal a lot with the media and the issues of our clients, the most of them are multinational companies. Then we realized that in Indonesia, suddenly people started blogging. And issues and complaints, those are things you can post in your blog. If you’re not a blogger, you will never know about this. You will never know when someone complains in their blog. The dangerous part is, when you realize that most of the journalists are also bloggers. As a journalist, in their newspaper they can’t write about everything. They have an editorial position, space limitations. In their personal blog, they can write about anything. So when these people meet in the blogosphere they can pick up things from other bloggers. Whenever there are negative things circulating, the journalists can pick it up and even publish it in their conventional media. So unless you’re a blogger and you play there, you won’t know. That’s one of the reasons that Maverick decided that we have to keep up with this, we have to start blogging and know the people in it. The other thing is that usually journalists write about companies or about PR because they have the media. We as PR consultants don’t have the media. Now the power equation is equal. We can now talk about journalists! That’s what we do in our blog, we talk about the gossip and rumors in publishing companies, and we talk about journalist, who moves where etc… in a way, it makes our relationship with journalists even stronger. We have the ‘click of the week’ at Maverick, where we feature journalists’ blogs.

The Maverick blog started about 2006. We like to understand the emergence of new media. Today it is blogs, we don’t know what it will be in 5 years. As a company in the communications industry, we have to keep up with everything that comes up in the future. Like with youtube and podcasts, we have to understand what’s going on. That’s one of the reasons why we started this blog. Apart from having a good relationship with bloggers, and also journalists’s blogs. We can monitor what kind of issues there are in the blogosphere. The interesting thing linking, you can link a company, or restaurant to our website… so whenever someone talks about us we know, because they link to our blog and we can reply to them! So it’s good, we know what’s going on, we know what people talk about.

Personal Blog

For me, my personal blog came first, I’m into writing. So when I was still in high school I started blogging, it was just like an online diary. I did not have friends who were also bloggers. So it died down. Eventually it started again, in early 2005, it was only for my personal satisfaction. It’s still like an online diary somehow, because it’s me, it ‘s my personal blog, I can do anything I like. The I started to know, that you have to go blogwalking… leave your comments, leave your track to get feedback from others. Then I joined a writing community, we shared our blog address there, people started coming and commenting, stuff like that. Now after Pesta Blogger of course it’s getting more and more popular!

I want to be a writer. I’m writing a novel right now. The blog for me is a place where I can write and experiment with my writing and get feedback. At the same time its like gathering a community, gathering people who like my writing as regular visitors. So one day when I launch my book I hope they will be there!

It’s always good to find out how people perceive a writing, you get to know people’s taste as well. Mostly it is that people start talking about their own experience, like oooh, I felt that too, I know it hurts and all that. I try to touch their emotional sides. Especially now that there is also the Maverick blog… I think I myself am more interested in personal blogs, because it makes you feel like a human, and people can see you as a human. In the Maverick blog people see me as a professional, read my postings as a professional in PR. I don´t want them to see me that way in my personal blog. So that’s why I keep them separate.

Most of the bloggers in my network are also wannabe-writers, people who love to write. Because the way I write is bad, not literature kind of things… most people I know are also writers themselves. The readers are mostly still men. Maybe because more bloggers are men.

Pesta Blogger

The idea started from my boss, Ong Hock Chuan, he’s a former journalist who moved into PR. He is a geek for tech, he has his own blog as well. When we started the Maverick blog we thought, what about if we have a gathering for Indonesian bloggers. But at that time, it was meant to be a small gathering, maybe 20-30 bloggers, only to get to know the people behind the blogs. And then because we’re so busy, we kind of left if behind for more than six months. Until finally, Microsoft calls. They said: look, we have a budget, we’re planning to do something for bloggers. Do you know what should we do? So my boss said, well actually we were planning this thing with bloggers. We were planning to invite 20-30 but if you’re sponsoring we can invite more people! So we invited 100 bloggers! We started with the media briefing, we told everybody that we were going to hold a blogger’s meeting on national scale. And we contacted bloggers, like Enda and Wimar, inviting them to become the committee. At that time, we were just inviting people we know, it was the first time! Anyone, if you want to help, come help!

We invited journalists to spread the news, and then one of the Bloggers, a former journalists as well, Budi Putra, made a special Blog for Pesta Blogger. Bloggers were protesting: why is it only for 100 bloggers? So we said ok, if we can get more sponsors, so we can get more bloggers to come. We started to look for sponsors, from our former clients as well, and Nokia came in. They said hey we have mobile blogging features on our handphones and so why not, we can sponsor this. Then, one week before the event, XL Comindo, came in also as a sponsor. We could have it big! We could invite representatives from other cities as well!

The motivation for Microsoft… It’s close to their business. It’s how they show their support, to show that they care about bloggers. Nokia have mobile blogging, so they try to grab bloggers as well. So does XL. They realize bloggers are getting strong, especially people who love to talk about technology, gadgets, computers, are close to the net and all that. I think they’re starting to realize that.

The sponsors loved it. There was a lot of coverage. You know the minister was there. They were satisfied with it. Actually they said: This year, can we make it bigger? Can we invite more bloggers? XL actually said hey, what about a road show? We will sponsor a road show, have workshops here and there, teach high school students how to blog. I said oh, if you arrange that it would be fine with us!

The involvement of Minister Nuh

Regarding the minister… our Co-organizer is Bubu.com. The CEO, Shinta, she knows the minister closely because she owns Bubu Awards as well. It’s a web design award on a national scale. She has a close contact with the minister so she is the one who took care of all that. Muhammed Nuh is great, as a minister he realized the importance of blogs and he’s very open minded. He’s willing to listen. That’s why he came around and announced the National Blogger’s Day! That does give him a good image around bloggers as well, because he is very spontaneous. We had a ‘favorite blog’ polling during the event, and the minister said during his speech: Whoever wins this poll will get a laptop. People were not expecting that, even we did not know about that. So he’s very spontaneous. It’s great I think!

I don’t know what he has planned for the support of bloggers on a political scale, but it’s great that in Indonesia, compared to Malaysia where you can’t have as much freedom to blog as it is in Indonesia now. And recently, before Pesta Blogger there were some cases of blogs being banned in Malaysia, and the there minister there claimed that bloggers are liars. I think it’s a great statement for Indonesia that the freedom is there, the freedom to blog, express their opinions. I think it’s great for him as well. It could be an appearance for image as well, but I cannot speak on his behalf. We had readers from Malaysia and Singapore comment on our blog saying hey you are very lucky that your minister supports you to blog. I think it’s good for him, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

A lot of media like Tempo and Jakarta Post have their own blog right now. I think they realize that people need two way communication. They know how important blogs are in this era. A lot of their journalists friends are also bloggers. They are also bloggers. They realize the importance of blogs, especially in bridging the image of Indonesia to other countries. We have as much freedom as anyone. We have bloggers, professional bloggers even. I think for the media this was also interesting because it is new, the first national scale bloggers gathering. So the news were there. The minister came, national bloggers day was announced… so of course the media covers this. The journalists tried to get exclusive interviews with the committee with Enda, as chairman.

The motto of Pesta Blogger

The motto was chosen by Enda: New Voice of Indonesia. It means first, blogs are the new media. People who use blogs are the new generation, the blog generation. And then it conveys our thoughts in a new way. It’s very opinionated, very blunt, very honest. In blogs you can be whoever you like to be. You don’t have to pretend.

It’s a new emerging voice. We used to hear the media talking about one issue… but now you have another voice, the voice of bloggers. You can even have an issue start in the blogosphere and spill over into conventional media. For example, we used to have a consultant at Maverick, Nila Tanzil, she also used to work freelance for a private TV station as a host, for a kind of travel, lifestyle show. One day she was invited to a country to promote their tourist destinations there. But then she did not get what she needs as a journalist, she was not allowed to take pictures here and there, so she was like, why are you inviting us here if we can’t report what’s going on, we can’t take pictures, we can’t take in a camera. We’re not tourists, we’re journalists!

She wrote about that in her personal blog and also in Maverick’s blog. So people stared talking… some were sympathetic for her, some were cursing her… so there were lot’s of pros and cons. And that’s how it started, the blogosphere talking about this, bloggers writing about her experience and then one of the bloggers is a journalist. So he writes about that in his newspaper. And then it started to go out. Other journalists and other media started calling and asked her for an interview.

Plans for Pesta Blogger 2008

Pesta Blogger 2008 hasn’t been planned thoroughly. But hopefully we can invite regional bloggers at least, from Malysia, the Philippines, Singapore. Get them to mingle with us, share our experience. This is what bridge blogging is supposed to do. Bridging differences, bridging cultures. Hopefully we can do that.

We try to get them to see Indonesia through the eyes of bloggers. Anyone can access Indonesian bloggers’ blogs. Many of those living in other countries do not know about Indonesia that well. They might be scared about terrorism and all that. But in the blogs it’s like a new world, that we go clubbing, go shopping in a mall, hang out. And people can see that actually, there is always another side of the story.

It can help us interact with others and help boost the Indonesian image outside. I think it’s also good when people blog in English.

A Bloggers’ Association for Indonesia?

The Bloggers Association is still only an idea. But we are thinking about that. What kind of organization could that be? Is it like an ethical association for bloggers, or can we support bloggers who are being sued for their postings? We’re still trying to formulate that.

As far as I remember there have been 2 or 3 cases of bloggers being sued for what they write. But it died down quickly. Because the bloggers were willing to delete the post or to compromise. But you will never know what might happen, so when something comes up… what should they do? Especially when their newbies… the association could be like an advisor.


Links between blogging and business

I think blogs help companies to interact with their customers in many ways. So when you’re a huge company and people have a complains about you they might call your customer service to complain but then they will go home and feel bad and maybe stop buying from you. But you’ll never know that because it stops there. Great about blogs is when people from the managerial level have access to it. So they can see actual people complaining, or giving input or suggestions, or even thanking them. And they can reply back to their customers. And actually when things happen they can get more insights, more information from the customers. It humanizes your company in some way. You know how frustrated you can get to a company or product and you don’t know who to complain to.

Even though internet penetration is still low, we see that bloggers, or netters, are opinion leaders. Especially those prominent bloggers, they can shape the opinions of othrers. So it’s always important. It starts with a few. But they can share their stories, with their families, even if they are not bloggers. A snowball effect. Not to mention that journalists are mostly bloggers! Those who blog are mostly people who are opinionated, people who want their voice to be heard. I think that’s important to understand.

We try to get our clients to interact with blogs and bloggers. Sometimes, when a certain issue relating to their brand comes up in the blogosphere we inform them, some of them start checking on blogs regularly, blogs that are related to their business. But I think for them to set up their own blogs, or anything like that, it’s a bit difficult because of the bureaucracy. It has to come from the headquarters. So what we do right now is to familiarize our clients with blogs and inform them about the issues generating from blogs.

At Maverick we have a corporate social responsibility program for NGOs. We train them on communications plan, on public relations, so they can improve their communication skills as well. Blogs are also great for non-profit organizations because it’s free, and they can start communicating their activities and be heard.

The NGOs are very interested to start their own blogs, although they are still searching for ways how to manage it. The program is open for NGOs in Indonesia, they can send us an application form and we look at what they have done. And if we think ok they need our help we invite them to our office for a day training, on communication skills, and PR planning.

Restrictions on E-commerce, like Ebay, Amazon and Paypal?

I think it’s because there were hacker’s issues, I don’t know much about that. I think this happened because we do not yet have a cyberlaw that is applicable. People are still misusing. I think like at the Blogger’s Meeting, when you have met these people and you know them, we remind each other. One of the functions of having the Pesta Blogger is to strengthen the community, and as bloggers we can also remind each other not to break the law, behave unethical. And you know, if a friend says that to you, you are much more likely to listen. This is what we can do in the meantime, make the community stronger, like a family. Get them to think I don’t want to ruin the image of bloggers, because they are my friends as well.

I don’t know much about bloggers in other countries, or how they usually interact. But I think in Indonesia, when they have regularly visited their blog it starts to feel like there is a connection, and actually, they start inviting each other to meet up somewhere. Some people say the internet makes social interaction not physical any longer, but I think its just another way of interacting socially. It starts with a blog, and then you have several people commenting there and you feel like you know these people! Then you arrange a meeting, to catch up.

Improvement of the blogosphere

First, the infrastructure of course. Get more people to blog... when you have this culture of writing, you should support that. The literacy is still low in Indonesia. I think infrastructure is a crucial thing when you want to strengthen the blogosphere. Most people here blog from their office because this is where they get free internet. We have to strengthen the community, provide the facilities for gatherings.

Some people are starting to make money from blogging. Some have ads, because they have lots of readers. Some of them get jobs as writers, because a publishing company reads their writing. Or you can get clients through your blog, when you write about your work. There are lot’s of things you can do. There are many ways to make money in the blogosphere.

I haven’t really felt any negative effects. So far it’s been great, really informative. I don’t see any destructive forces!

The private and the professional sphere

One of my business clients knows my private blog and has read it. I think it doesn’t matter. I think everyone has more than one life at a time. Like you’re a student, a sister, a daughter… you play different roles in life. I think as long as my personal blog can also add something positive to my professional life and vice versa this is fine. There are some journalists who visit my personal blog regularly, so when I have good contacts with them, it will benefit me as a professional. Because it’s nice to have the feeling to have met them, to know them. So if I need anything, an information, I can call them up. It has to be benefiting and complementing each other. As long as it is not destructive, my personal blog talking bad about my clients… this would become unethical because I still work for this company.

Free access to everytihing?

It’s a global problem with the net. The best is still to watch your friends, families. It’s the responsibility of the parents to monitor what their kid does. I think the software companies have also provided software where the parents can block some sites. Everyone can participate to ensure the net isn’t abused for anything like that.


Discussion culture

I haven’t heard of anything as extreme as bloggers getting threats to be beaten up because of liberal views, but when it comes to comments, yes there can be very harsh comments. The greatest thing is people can judge by themselves. They can read the comment and say: that is very harsh, I don’t buy that. They can post their opinion there. It opens the chance for an open discussion. Especially in Indonesia, the people are still very passive, so I think in the blogosphere you feel more free because you don’t meet face to face. You can always be honest whether you agree or disagree with something. So in a way it’s good when people start debating over the net, as long as they are still using polite language. Pros and cons are always there.

I think the culture here, most Asian people are a bit passive compared to Americans or Western people. They are hesitant to give their honest opinion about something because they are afraid they will hurt other peoples’ feelings. When you’re in a room and speaker asks: who wants to ask a question? Maybe only one or two people raise their hands. But then when the seminar finishes they will come directly to the speaker and they ask their question. So they don’t have enough courage to ask questions in front of foreigners. In the blogosphere people can do that because there you’re only a thought, an opinion, not a person with all eyes on him. The talk is freer, you can be very honest. You don’t have to be judged. Yes, this can make people also more aggressive. I have noticed that. Several postings or comments can be very aggressive, but when you meet them in person they are more shy and more calm.

Padhang Mbulan is one of the view blogs written not in the official Indonesian language but in one of the traditional languages, Javanese. The blog is concerned with Javanese customs, traditions and events, and written by a group of writes. After an initial euphoric start the blog died down and has not been updated regularly. It’s last entry is from November 2007…

One of the authors goes by the name of 'Q' and has agreed to answer some of my questions via email. Here is a summary of his answers, grouped into thematic blocks and translated into English. Q also is the author of a personal blog.



The concept

The concept from what it started is very simple. To make a blog in Javanese language is still very rare. Even though there are many Javanese speaking people that own a blog, it shows when they use Javanese expressions in their blog that is actually Indonesian, whether it is in postings, comments, or in a shoutbox.

And we did not intend to make a blog with a serious deiscussion about Javanese culture. We only wanted to speak about light things concerning traditions and culture of Java that we have experienced ourselves.

The original concept, when it was just in the form of idealistic ambition, was to help foster the Javanese culture so it would not be simply forgotten and so it’s values can still be benefitial for today’s way of life.

This is our mother tongue, our language in our environment. Part of our contributors actually don’t live in a Javanese language environment, but they are still Javanese that can still speak Javanese and understand Javanese culture up to a certain point.

And to make a blog in Javanese is something quite unique. A blog authors who want their blosg to get a lot of visitors, one of the requirements ist hat it needs to have a unique quiality, that makes it different to other blogs. Even though by making a blog in Javanese it limits the amount of visitors who will come, but never the less some of those visitors can be hoped to become regulars.

Padhang Mbulan menas moonlight. The name was inspired by a Javanese children’s playing song that it very famous that is also called ‚Padhang Bulan’. The song asks children to come play in the garden at the time of a bright moonlight. That fits to the concept of the blog that is like playing, to make light postings like a chat with neighbors while enjoying the moonlight.

The blog was started in 2005. But until now there are only 50 postings. Where 10 of them actually were written within the first month of the start.

In the beginning there were 9 contributors, it can be seen in the part "Ingkang Mbaurekso" : Eni, Isna, Kere Kemplu, Lantip, Nauval, Qyu, Rhay, Siberia, and Wisa (who wanted to be deleted because he stopped blogging). Then the last post her eis a writing that I received from another person, outside of the contributors. They sent a text via email to put it on the blog.

Bloggers often seem have that kind of ‘sickness’, enthusiastic and regularly posting when first owning a blog. But then when it has been running for a while they run out of ideas, don´t know any more what to write about, bored because they don’t feel any real value that could motivate them to keep on writing.

Some of the bloggers who were contributors at Padhang Mbulan totally stopped to blog. Maybe because of the reasons mentioned abbove, maybe other reasons.

Then there are others who still sometimes make a post in their private bog, who have just run out of ideas what to write in Padhang Mbulan. That includes myself!

Blogs and traditional culture

I do think it is important to document and make public all the cultures of Nusatengara. From the blog Padhang Mbulan I could increase my knowledge about Javanese culture in the area of yoygakarta, for example, that has subtle differences to the Javanese Culture at Malang, where I grew up.

By an easy approach and a simple language you can raise the interest of people to at least involve themselves by reading.

Benefits of blogging

The Indonesian people are a people that like to socialize a lot. They like to have many friends from various bckgroungs. And through a blog they can make many friends by visiting each other´s blog. Those that are trapped in a routine work everyday where you have to sit facing a computer for hours and hours need a momentary compensation that they can get without going far from their computer, and that´s blogging. They can make a posting about whatever and wait for the comments from their fellow blogger friends, or they can visit the blogs of their friends to leave a comment or simply say hello in the shoutbox.

I´m not a jounalist blogger that writes postings to make a comment on every current event in the real world. I also very rarely visit blogs commited to these topics. I prefer going straight to the website of the media that can be hod responsible, that write news as they happen without mixing in their personal opinions. So I can´t say much about what people say about that one day blogs will be a medium next to newspapers and television.

What I can predict is if all people get used to share an array of issues to the public via blogs, that could become a very huge source of knowledge. But it has to be pointed out that blogs have no filter that can choose between writing that is reliable and trustworthy and writing that is of low quality.

This is slightly off topic, but never mind!

When I first started my research on Indonesian blogs, I came across the Blog Jalan Sutera, authored by Mas Pujiono. I started reading it from time to time and found an entry from November 12th, about 'Olahraga Gado-Gado'. What Puji was talking about is the new mixed-sport discipline called chessboxing.

Well now the funny part is, that chessboxing was invented in Berlin, which happens to be my hometown at the moment. And the guy who invented it, Iepe Rubingh, a Dutchman, happens to be the artists I work for a lot as a designer! So you could say I've been a fan of chessboxing from the very beginning!

Just a few days ago, on July 5th, there was another big chessboxing event held in Berlin. There were three fights that evening. Two fights before the main fight: A German guy vs. a Polish guy and a British guy vs. an Italian. As you see, chessboxing is becoming quite international!


Gianluca Sirci (IT) vs. Andrew Costello (GB), sweating over the chessboard

It's a sport where contestants have to be extremely fit both physically and mentally. The fight starts with a round of chess. This happens on a chessboard inside a boxing ring. The round of chess is three minutes long, after that time the chessboard is carried outside the ring and the boxing round begins. After the boxing round, the chessboard comes back into the ring and the chess game continues. All this happens extremely fast - the fighters have to switch between controlling their pumping hearts and adrenaline level to concentrating fully on a complex and fast chess game. It's not easy, let me tell you!

The main fight


Frank Stoldt (GER) looking grim in the boxing round...

The German defender of the World Championship title, Frank Stoldt, fought against young Russian Newcomer Nikolay Sazhin. After a long streak of wins, because of his experience and excellent skills, Frank Stoldt was beaten by this 19-year old Russian talent. It was an awesome fight and showed that there is now a new generation of chessboxers awakening!


...but finally having to admit defeat to super-talented youngster Nikolay Sarzhin from Siberia!

After the fight, I had a chat and a drink with the lucky winner Nikolay, and we came to the conclusion that it would be a nice idea to transform chessboxing into the true Triathlon of the 21st Century: Round of chess followed by round of boxing followed by round of vodka...

I met Raditya in a busy restaurant at CITOS in what must have been his lunch break. Between slurping down noodles and sipping ice tea, he told me a lot about his early days as a blogger and what has changed now he's, so to speak, a teen idol.

Raditya is one of those young people that really baffle me with their energy and spirit. Still in his early twens, he is considered and A-blogger, has written several bestselling novels, owns the publishing house Bukune, and is now directing a movie - about blogging.



Raditya Dika (center)


First contact with blogging

I always kept a diary when I was young. When I got into the whole internet thing, I started making personal websites. This was about 1999 and at that point I didn’t know about the term blogging. There wasn’t such a name back then.

I stumbled on the website of an Indonesian girl living in Canada. This site was about her, her personal stuff. I thought it was sooo cheesy, but then the next day, I had my own blog up at blogspot.

I worte about my stories in high school, my friends and stuff. Then I started writing about my crush in high school. Eventually I told her I liked her, and she said I know, I read your blog! I started to feel how powerful blogs are. She googled my name, and she found my blog. After that I started to shift from writing about girls and highschool to my family. I bought the domain kambingjantan.com and eventually told my family and friends about it. And then day by day, there were more followers, they told me my writing was funny… I never intended to be funny, but I began to do it consciously, to write jokes about my family, ordinary Indonesian’s lives or celebrities. I got the best Indonesian blog award in 2003, that gave me the confidence to bring my kambingjantan manuscript to the publisher. (in 2004)

I graduated in Adelaide in finance, now I’m studying at the University of Indonesia in politics, while working at Bukune publishing house. Before that I was at Metro TV for ‘Metro this morning’. No I don´t want to be just a writer. It’s just a habit for me. I just did it learning by doing.

In the beginning I write really sporadically. It was really bad. I was trying to get more and more attention by saying: I got a blog! I used a scandal (two celebrities who had something like a porno video) and wrote their names in the metatext of my blog. So when people searched on google, they stumbled upon my blog. That got my like 2000 unique visitors on one day and some of them read my stuff and liked it. And I also wrote graffiti kambingjantan.com everywhere. I found unconventional ways to promote my blog.

I usually blog at work now. Back then when I started I did it at home. At the time when I was in Adelaide I did it from my apartment. I usually have my notepad and a cellphone so I can take notes and develop them at home.

I use wordpress for my blog. I had someone else to develop it, to put all things into place. Before I started to blog I had a personal website. There I developed my own HTML code too. I did this in my first year at high school. I taught myself to do HTML. My technical background – I get it from books.

From blog to book

My blog kambinjantan was published as a book at GAGAS media in 2005. They were some chick lit publishing house. Very ABG.

The publisher didn’t know about blogs so I explained it to him. He said, this really sounds different, it sounds unique. Long story short, the book was published in 2005 and it became a great success.

I told him the blog has ineffective sentences, many abbreviations, it is really not written in good Bahasa Indonesia. But the publisher said, no let’s not do any editing, let’s take it as it is. Because blogs are a very different culture from writing novels. This way it will keep the soul of your blog.

And that was a predecessor for the whole book industry. Normally we have all these people, who look at the language, the formulas for good Bahasa Indonesia. People saw my book and said wow, this is really a breakthrough to all those limitations before. I wrote some expressions which have never been used in Indonesian language before, like ‘dick’. These words the young people use in their daily language but it has never been in literature before.

There was this whole huge wave of chick lit, teen’s love stories, and then I came out with kambingjantan, with this do-what-you-want/I-don’t-care-what-you-think attitude and it really hit in.

Dealing with success

Of course I follow the statistics. After I became a writer I stopped writing the blog for a while. It all of a sudden was a different feeling, like I was not writing for myself anymore, like I was writing so that other people would like it.

And after the second book came out, I started to change my whole paradigm. I started to think, ah this is really my competitive advantage. So I started to use it to market my books. So very very long in advance, I starred writing, you know, I’m working on my third book… I started posting funny videos, to get the buzz going… and then I had a preorder thing for my third book, preorder it before it actually comes out.

It became the number one bestseller of all time for GAGAS media and number two bestseller of all Indonesia (Kompas version). Since then I maintained my blog, but purely for that purpose. I get about 2000 unique readers a month. Page view itself, maybe 20 000. The sad thing is the more and more people read my blog, I have to pay more for maintenance… it passes beyond it’s bandwidth limits…

I don´t follow up all the comments anymore. I get so much feedback, also via email, it´s really too big for me too handle! and my friendster is really growing too. I pick one or two from the comments, to comment upon…

Some people buy my book because of the historical value of the book. You know, the first blog that was turned into a book in Indonesia! And you have people who say: oh I want to publish my blog like Raditya Dika did, and then others will ask, who is Radyita Dika?? And it just spreads from there…

Sometimes I write in my blog about my books, sometimes I take an idea from a blog. So it’s difficult to differentiate whether I’m a writer or a blogger. But people see me more as a writer, in the sense of someone who writes a book.

People who come to the tour, to the show of my book, are ABG people, mostly girls! I never thought my readers would be this young! On my blog it’s basically the same people. I don’t think there’s anyone over 30 who reads my book and blogs.

A whole new genre?

In a way I guess I’m inspiring people to blog, so I can get blogging to get bigger. I have been called upon to do seminars on blogging, that it can be profitable.

Gokil, Dr. Ngocol, Cacing Kepanasan, and there are two more blog books that I know of. It’s just business as usual. Especially Cacing Kepanasan, (also at Gagasmedia) also with an animal in the title, this was like ‘ do we have a Radit No. two here’? But I said ok, it’s good to have some competition. But after the book came out, it flopped.

And the same thing applies with other book blogs, the only thing that works was Dr. Ngocol. So they try the things that work and do it over again.

In my movie there are a couple of scenes which mention blogging. Some scenes where I’m writing a blog on the screen. It has one funny scene of a blogger’s gathering. Because the gatherings are a very popular thing for us to do.

My publishing company is trying to keep up with the pace of young people. I’m trying to integrate the whole young people hype into a much higher context. It’s called Bukune.

Indonesian blogging culture

Before my book got published, I spent more time reading others peoples’ blogs, commenting, but now not anymore… I feel like I’ve been left out a bit in the blogosphere these days. I don´t keep up with all the new stuff. When I go blogwalking I find really cool stuff. An elementary school kid writing about politics and stuff… a person writing from the perspective of his cat…

It is in our culture to exchange words. You can see people hanging out, we really like nongkrong, ngobrol, this is the basis of our culture, to be among other people. This is how blogs work, looking, leaving comments, interacting…

In Australia, people like to blog in live journal because they can keep it private.
In Indonesia, we really like chatting. Just passing information around. The mentality is: I write for other people.

I think blogging in other countries is not as much a hype as it is in Indonesia, I don’t know I really feel that way. I have been to Australia, and talked to friends from Singapore, from Malaysia, from Hong Kong, and it’s nothing like in Indonesia where you have these small groups of bloggers, alle connected. Here, when a bloggger says I’m coming to Yoygakarta, he will have a whole group of bloggers waiting for him at the airport. They will say, you’re my family now.

Mas Enda is my friend as well, he said he just forgot to invite me to Pesta Blogger!

I´m connected to BlogFam and Blogbugs. But I’m not much into Blogfam because Blogfam is more for mommies and dads. At one of their meetings I was like the youngest person there. Blogbug is a lot younger.

Ideas for the future

I think we have to get more space in traditional media. Maybe some columns based on blogs, some TV show based on blogs… I think we can exploit blogs in a much much more diverse way than just a person writing, and that’s it. Television could integrate Vlogs…

We should have international / Asian wide Blog gathering parties…

If Indonesian people write more in English, people from other countries can see Indonesia through our own eyes. This could eventually benefit Indonesia.

And also, blogging as a function of citizen journalism, could be a function of control to this already biased media. Like Metro TV, it is owned by Surya Palo who is big in Golkar, and TPI is owned by Suharto’s daughter… blogs are really the front line of citizen journalism, to control the news itself to create a second opinion.



Thanks Radit! Good luck with the shoot in Australia...