I started blogging as a hobby and up to now, I am still blogging as a hobby. Too bad I never got to monetize my blogs during blogging's golden years. Well, it's just a hobby so I really didn't expect much from it.
However, I did received a lot of perks and VIP treatments especially when Nuffnang Philippines is still operational. Back in those days, I would always get movie tickets and invites to such events as Blogopolis and even Blogapalooza.
Most of the movie tickets I got were to such high-end cinemas like Resorts World in Pasay City as well as Rockwell Center and Shangri La Cinema in Mandaluyong. These are sponsored by such big brands like Cadbury and we often get lots of loot bags and giveaways.
I also visit the Nuffnang Office in Bonifacio High Street before to get some goodies for review and even get to be invited to high end clubs and venues. Some were held in Novotel in Cubao, and bars in BGC.
Aside from that, my blogs did earn some money through ads from Nuffnang and Google AdSense. I have a full-time work back then so I only do all these stuff and blogging during my spare time.
I also met some fellow bloggers during these numerous events like Alex Dizon, Kumagcow, Leo Mendoza, and even models. Those were the days.
However, when Nuffnang Philippines closed, invites to events also stopped. It was like the end of blogging in the Philippines. I still continue blogging even without these perks and goodies because it was a hobby anyway.
However, these events and promos were also sources of materials to my blog. My blog is all about local travel, events, and some personal stuff like gaming (Ragnarok, Dota), movies, food and restaurant. Typical ordinary guy stuff.
Doing blogging as a hobby really doesn't focus on the site visits, views, etc. Blogging for me is more of a public journal of the things that I'm doing and things that interests me at the time.
So when short videos started popping up via Dubsmash and Musically, I just continue blogging. I seldom took videos and upload them on the YouTube because vlogging is a different thing.
Then came the time of propaganda and fake news during the campaign period of Duterte. I could have go with the flow and started a political blog but I have little time for that. Then all these influencers and troll armies rose to fame.
A few years ago, TikTok dominated the social platform and it now rivals Facebook in terms of popularity. Everyone's into dancing and short videos and it seems that people's attention to the written words were gone. People's attention span only gotten shorter.
It's sad to see that most bloggers before were no longer actively writing and that their blogs were discontinued. I remember reading Mikael Daez's blog before. Good thing is, I will still keep on writing on my blog.
At the same time, I'll try to learn these new social media platform. In fact, I also created a TikTok account and did upload some videos and tried these available template. I still have lots of things to learn to be able to master this new platform and be a certified TikTokterist.
I will continue blogging since it's easier to search for stories on blog. Also searching through TikTok seems to be the norm these days, it's still convenient to search via Google. The search results are still from blogs, websites, etc.
Also, it's easier to search for blog articles by date and keywords compared to pots on Facebook. In fact, I only get to see the posts I made on Facebook if it's being displayed via it's Today On Facebook algorithm. Searching for previous post on FB is a pain in the butt.
The thing that's happening to blogging right now is exactly what happened to film photography before. Less and less people are into film but it didn't die out completely. It still has followers and enthusiasts even though digital and mobile photography is the dominant "species" these days.
Blogging I believe will not die out. It will just have less and less readers but it will go on. Same way that painting is still around even though there's cameras that can take real life photos. Blogging is not for everyone but it still has audience, aside from myself. So I'll keep on blogging since I started it as a hobby anyway.
Kudos BTW to The Coconuter, Recycle Bin of a Middle Child, and The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything for still being around. These are blogs that still exists up to now. I guess I should stick around with these bloggers and still be part of the blogging community.
No comments:
Post a Comment