This is the episode 1 of Joint Blogging. Just like they have Malasyia - $ingapore Joint Issue of stamps where Umno and PAP issue the same stamps in respective colonies, we have simultaneus blog postings on the same theme. In this inaugural episode, the participants are Yang Amat Berbahaya Rajan Seri Elfiefuddin Nieshaem Juferi and yours truly. The topic today being “The Estranged Relationship between PPS and GJ Pingers”.
Yours truly :
Avid bloggers as well as frequent readers would be more often than not familiar with one of the following, the Geng Jurnal and Project Petaling Street. Both are congregation of bloggers trying to increase eyeballs. However, apart from that, they share little similarities.
Project Petaling Street, fondly nicknamed PPS, positioned itself first and foremost as a blog portal, or blogtal. It’s where everyone “ping” or advertise their latest entries.
Geng Jurnal, or GJ in short, on the other hand, works like a directory. Members are listed in a directory, searchable through names, email or even schools. Its space to advertise latest entries ala-PPS is unfortunately under-utilised.
GJ has long tradition of gatherings. To set the record right, those blogger gatherings “graced” by Jeff Ooi Chuan Aun and Ameer Zulkifli are not strictly PPS gatherings as they were organised by individuals. Recently, PPS has organized an 2nd Anniversary Bash.
Both have a core group. While GJ has elected their committee which comprises a full set of office bearers, many of the daily cores of PPS are performed by Aizuddin Danian Izham Cheong alone. The core PPS cronies also each occupies a permanent space to advertise their entries.
Therefore, in my opinion, GJ is more individual-oriented, aiming to foster friendship among bloggers. The focus is on the bloggers rather than the blog entries as it is in PPS, where it is the content that matters.
Once, an hardliner Islamic blogger, a self-acclaimed “Uncle“, was conferred the award pf “Best Dakwah Blog” in one of the GJ dinners. However, being not that close to the GJ core, he felt that he was isolated for most of the night. Perhaps from here we can get a glimpse on their factionism.
Notwithstanding their structural differences, the single most starkling differences between PPS and GJ blogs are their language and content.
Eventhough most PPS pingers are still blog about personal life such as their dining and clubbing experiences, a lot of them do try to start some serious discourses on current issues, for example, during the recent AP saga.
For GJ blogs, the main contents are daily rantings in colloquail Bahasa Malaysia. To illustrate it better, let me show you a paragraph that I have found in Adreen’s old blog, Melawan Arus,
“aku ada pakai 3 line skang - poyo giler mcm la aku buat bisnes juta-juta kan? hehe - satu 012 yg aku pakai lama giler dan nombo lawa giler, satu 013 aku pakai sejak tahun lepas, satu lagi 013 disapot oleh bos aku yang aku jarang-jarang pakai aa…
aku ada 2 henpon, mmg spesis zaman batu punya henpon la, yg nokia 8210 ngan butterfly 8250 punya tu la… yg butterfly tu plak rosak sebab bila org call, depa tak dengar sore aku - sian aku mcm cakap ngan org pekak plak huhu…”
While we don’t jump to the conclusion by saying that there’s no Bahasa bloggers in PPS and no current affairs bloggers in GJ, it is not far from truth.
Which leads us to another question. As raised by one of our Yang Amat Berbahaya Rajan Seri, who has in the past hidden behind numerous masks including Pejuang Bangsa and secretly linked to Menjalara, that Bahasa Malaysia (baku) is not a “bloggable” language. You can use it to write cerpens or poems which are berbunga-bunga, or write official correspondences and statements which are very formalistic, but to express your thoughts in a brief paragraph, sorry. But let’s keep this story for another day.
While there are bloggers who current issues bloggers in GJ, for example, Tok Rimau and Mat Jan, their approach is quite different from the straight forward style which overwhelms Jeff Ooi and co that dotted the PPS skyline.
Lately, PPS has also start trying to be more than just blogs. There are gatherings and awards as seen in GJ. However, nobody will tell us if they were in fact inspired by GJ.
So, who can tell me, ada apa dengan this estranged relationship between PPS and GJ members, that see each other as stealth ?
~*~>< ~*~
Yang Amat Berbahaya Rajan Seri : (link)
I have already noticed this somewhat estranged relationship between Geng Jurnal (or “GeJu”) and Project Petaling Street (or “PPS”) pingers, but lately this “estrangement” has become clearer as PPS moves from its nascent stage of merely being a simple “blogtal” to become a more community-oriented point for Malaysian blogs. This is more apparent with the recently-organised PPS 2nd Anniversary Bash and the awards dished out at this event. Ironically, this is similar to the gatherings (”gath” for short) which GeJu organises every year since its inception.
It should be of course noted that there are some basic differences between GeJu and PPS, but this gap is slowly narrowing. Some of the differences which can be highlighted are:
- GeJu is more towards getting to fostering friendship between bloggers, not neccessarily from what they post. Whereas PPS bloggers are known for what they post and are identified with their respective blog themes.
- While GeJu have in the past organised regular “gath”s and have been consistent in presenting best blog awards annually, PPS is only beginning to jump on the bandwagon with the recent PPS 2nd Anniversary Bash. There were, of course, several informal blogger meetings before the Bash, but they are not officially sanctioned under the PPS banner.
- GeJu has an elected President (Tok Rimau) and committee members, whereas PPS does not have any formal office-bearers, except for recognising Aizuddin Danian (http://www.aizuddindanian.com/voi) as the de facto head of the PPS blogtal.
- GeJu is not strictly a “ping” blogtal per se, but they do have a thriving interactive online forum which member bloggers can participate and a “mini-blog” on their main page whereby members can individually post their latest links to their blogs. This system, however, is much more difficult to do compared to the setup available at PPS, where a simple trackback URL will post the latest link onto PPS with relative ease.
Despite these differences, however, it is clear that PPS is growing to become an English-speaking blogosphere community for Malaysians, whereas GeJu has already established itself as a gathering place for Bahasa Melayu bloggers. Hence perhaps the chasm between the two “superpowers” in the Malaysian blogosphere community. However, we find it disturbing that there has been little or no effort at all between the two to forge some sort of cooperation or recognition to the other. For example, The Star and NST, two mainstream English newspapers, recently highlighted some blogs from PPS, but fail to mention the existence of GeJU which was established much earlier than PPS. The Bahasa Melayu newspapers such as Berita Harian and Utusan Melayu has also contributed to GeJu’s “non-recognition” by failing to report on the blogging community, a step behind from their English counterparts. How to bridge this gap and fostering of friendship, only those who are involved in GeJu and PPS can inform us.
