Blogosphere -- Freeworld Or Freewheeling

The old saying goes that
The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword.
In modern Age of Technology,
The Bytes Are Mightier tThan The Bites...

For better or for worse.
Power to build up, power to bring down.

The wielder decides.

It is innocent to believe that all humans inherently will do good with the tools or equipment in their hands.
Many quarters believe Armageddon will take place in the present human beings' lifetime. BECAUSE OF THE PRSENCE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
And who are we to argue this is a mere fallacy?
BECAUSE THE PROBABILITY IS EVER PRESENT as the means to self-destruct is there.
THE UNited States wants to play the role -- unmandated -- of International Policeman, being the leading Super-Power in the world.
The UN on the other hand wants to play the mandated role of International Peacekeeper.

Smaller countries can only lend their Voices of Reason.
And Blogsworld provides a channel for Voices from all nooks and crannies of the whole, wide world to speak out.
The power lies in the hand of the wielder.
I am only one small weaver trying to spin some threads of sanity
in this world full of bewildering forces pulling us in different directions.

This Sunday's INTER:LUDE looks at some aspects of blogsworld development and the growing influence and power of the Internet. I have had occasionwritten in several Posts about the relentless march of Globalisation, rednering this geographical world truly "borderless".

As quickly as I read Howsy and Theels in LOndon, or Sweetspirit in Australia, or Sabrina IN LOTR teritory, or mGf Yan in Sarawak, they can almost in the next instant communicate with Desi via the Net. It's a powerful ENABLER which is hardly two decades old, yet its impact is beyong imagination and deescription.

The traditional print newwspapers ignore their online counterparts at their own peril. Worldwide, circulations of the former represenattiives of the 4th Esate are losing ground -- definitely victim to the fast rising online news providers, often 12 hours or more in advance of their print brethren.

Bloggers, now staking a claim as the 5th Estate, are pushing the reach of a borderless audience. But citing an overly used cliche -- with Overwhelming power comes great responsibility.


Is the Malaysian blog community reaping the full benefits -- or maximising the full potential, of this medium being honed to be the tool of the 5th Essstaters, forseen to be dominating communications for some decades to come?
Are the authoities and bodies rested with the power to enable maximum use of the Internet doing their utmost best to provide access to the villages and kampong? Or is the Internet the privileged tool of urbanites, and even within this class, mainly the English educated?

Are we being left behind if we do not keep informed of where the real competitition in business and knowledge lies?

Are we barking up the wrong tree? Witness the recent lambast by a Minister, well-meaning perhaps, that Malaysians who have studied overseas and NOT returning home to serve NegaraKu might be guilty of being "unpatriotic"? The Prime Minister, through his age-old wisdom,and logic, and common sense, dissmissed this "notion" that Malaysians staying back overseas are an ungrateful or disloyal lot. I promise "hiatus from Politics" for this week, so I shall not tarry here.

Earlier in the week, I picked up two items from AsiaBusinessConsulting, for Desi indeed vbelieves my ER should keep abreast of regional,, even global, business trends. We are indeed Living In a Global Village Now.

~~~~~~~
Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The language of blogs

What is the main language in which blogs are written? Did you guess English?
Well, sorry, wrong!

"Technorati's David Sifry has produced some interesting data on the language of the blogosphere, indicating that Japanese, not English, is actually the most popular language for blogs. 37 per cent of blogs are in Japanese, followed by English (31 per cent) and Chinese (15 per cent)."

The Telegraph's Shane Richmond adds:
"But it isn’t just the blogosphere we should worry about – the Internet at large is being divided along language lines. The latest figures show that there are around 300 million English-speaking internet users compared with just over 100 million who speak Chinese. However, internet usage in China is growing at a terrific rate and it won’t be long before the Chinese internet is bigger than its English-language counterpart."

So well, here we have another disparity - not only geographic but also by language.

posted by JM @ 11:19 AM

~~~~~~~
Global Internet Usage

An impressively high number of youth aged 15 and above around the globe accessed the Internet in March 2006 = 694 million.

This is slightly above 10% of total global population - still a long way to go, but hey, public access to the Internet is not that long available. So let's celebrate those numbers as advancement and progress.

But naturally, there are huge disparities in the usage:

"China, Japan, India and Korea - which represent nearly 25 per cent of the total worldwide online population (168.1 million users). These four countries combined represent a larger user base than the US, which had over 152 million users in March."

Just imagine what benefits will happen if the usage spreads?

(By Asia Business Consulting)

(DESIDERATA's comment at ABC): The growing power of the Internet, hence also Blogosworld, and concurrent emergence of China as the next Superpower to rival the USA. It's just a matter of a decade before the Europeans need to master Mandarin in order to tap the Chinese market, or they prish and fade away ... maybe then my country will wakeup from its 15th cventury dreams of olde worlde Malacca singing the praises of P Ramlee and debating whether to allow the screening of a Communist titled musical documentary by Amir Muhammad!
ylchong | Homepage | 05.10.06 - 8:18 am | #


And this morn I was further pleasantly surprised by an update channeled by mGf in lundun, but often MIA across the English Chanel, that some Global Voices Online deemed Desi's voice of sufficient desibels to be heard, hopefully by some of Howsy's belles2~~~


"" howsy said...

CONgradulashyuns, Desi! Your post on the Lelaki Komunis Terakhir was picked up Global Voice Online. Check it out "here" (link via previous Comments page please!)

8:30 AM


DESIDERATA: So the above demonstrates the power of the bytes. You spend hafl an hour on your PC, and your reach hundreds across the seven seas. Hence, you see when I promote fellow Bloggers' sites with free mention, we do get Rewards Points; Anak Merdeka especially, please note beause she wondered allowed why Desi was so generous in promoting here one time. Desi's altruism hides behind some Maz-ey, Laz-ey Sundae.

Have fun-D blogging -- you never know you may find tthat SOMEONE -- Primrose, Theels, -- who lingers for a Lifetime.:)