Blogging in Papua New Guinea

By Goroka Bogger, Robert Schilt (http://www.trupela.com/)

I have been an avid blogger since early 2005 and although I have never attracted thousands of regular readers nor created layouts to blow your mind, I have thoroughly enjoyed the process and have remained reasonably consistent as far as the frequency and the content that I publish.

What triggered the whole blogging thing for me was when I decided to come and work as a volunteer in Papua New Guinea back in early 2005, I was seeking a means to share the adventure with the family and friends back at home.

A so called Blog (or Weblog) seemed like the perfect medium for achieving this need and so this is when blogging for me got of to a flying start.

There are currently thousands of online articles, news feeds, websites, and of course blogs available for the Blogger (just ask Google!) - from tips and techniques, to customisation guides and of course a myriad on the esoteric topic of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Blogging can be as simple or as complex, as fun or as serious, as little work or as time consuming as you want. In the end and if you decide to start your own blog - you and only you can decide the what, the when and the how’s - the means, the guidance and resources to do it are generally widely available.

Believe it or not but there are folks around that have found a way to make a comfortable living out of blogging.

Whether it’s designing blogs for another people, writing stories, or even those that have found a way of creating an unattended blog - one that is capable of automatically “pinching” stories/posts from other websites/blogs/newsfeeds and then re-publishing them as their own, these blogs normally carry adverts which of course make money for the owner.

There are times I wished that I was in a position to immerse myself into blogging full-time - then again I’m glad that I have other responsibilities in my life which drag me away from the potentially addictive nature of this cyber past-time.

Although my basic reason for blogging remains the same as it was back in early 2005 when I started out, the interest and curiosity in the incredibly diverse selection of tools available to bloggers has really caught my fancy.

There are many times when I can see how caught up I have become in the periphery tasks associated with blogging such as customisation, SEO and function.

In the end it’s the quality and content that attracts the readers plus it has always been my intention to preserve uniqueness and individuality of my web presence.

When I reflect on this I always end up making a decision to drop the nerdy/techo stuff and refocus on my primary reason for blogging: the writing and the sharing.

This post was inspired by the following stories I read recently by PNG journalist Malum Nalu: “How PNG can benefit from Blogging” and “Blogging offers endless possibilities for PNG“.

You can read Malum’s stories and other quality articles by him on his blog at: “http://malumnalu.blogspot.com/”

I set out to write “10 Tips for the Newcomer to Blogging” but got carried away with the above - a future post will give 10 tips for those wanting to setup a blog and don’t quite know where or how to start.

Stay tuned!!