Blogger Most Wanted. That is the tagline for the largest blogger gathering in Malaysia event organised by MYNIC that was held on Saturday, 14th December 2013. I only found out about the event about a week before so I think to myself, why not. I registered myself for the event just for the fun of it. After all, I haven’t been to any bloggers event for a very long time ever since I’ve been on hiatus from the blogging scene.
I’ve been blogging for about 10 years, since 2003. That was the year, then Blogger, was acquired by Google. I’ve used many blog addresses since. I have bought so many domain names and hosting plans and use WordPress over the course of 10 years. But most of it were lost halfway because I was in and out of jobs and I can’t afford to maintain my website. The only database that I managed to rescue is only up until 2005. Beyond that, all were lost.
In 2009, I stopped blogging completely. Only in 2012 that I found the passion to blog again. So here I am back to square one. It’s not easy to get my fans back from those days. Now I have to rebuild my blog from ground up all over again.
So the bloggers’ event that I went yesterday was worth it. Blogrrr, as they call it, was overall a good event with celebrities participating together and an award presentation for best blogs in their respective categories. The blog award categories are as follows:
- Best Blogshop
- Best IT & Gadget Blog
- Best Art & Photography Blog
- Best Entertainment Blog
- Best Food & Travel Blog
- Best Sports Blog
- Best Fashion & Beauty Blog
- Best Family & Health Blog
- Best Personal Blog
- Best Automotive Blog
- Best of Disability Blog
I wouldn’t know which category I belong to because I blog just about anything like personal, tech/gadgets, food/travel and photography. Never mind then. I don’t think I would ever get listed anyway. I only blog for fun.
The opening keynote was given by my friend, Ikhwan “Tekong” Nazri from Amanz.my. The keynote is obviously about the introduction to the blogging world and about the do’s and the don’ts. There were many new bloggers attended the event. So this is a good platform for them to start knowing more about blogging.
Other than the free seminars that was going on concurrently, they have booths for bloggers who owns an online business to promote their products. The product ranges from clothing, food, online services, blog advertising opportunity, photography, e-commerce, jewelleries, ice-cream supplier and even holiday treats. All combined, there were about 100 booths altogether, give and take. Yes, it was useful and informative.
Talking about seminars, I only went to one. There were about 6-7 seminars or talks that were scheduled to go on but I only managed to attend one. The talk that I went for was conducted by Mr Anderson Cheah from Sym World Innovation Sdn Bhd. It was about making money from Google Adwords. Technically it’s about making profits from online advertisement on Google search. It is much different from Google Adsense. Adsense is where we (bloggers) add the advertisement code into our blog(s) and we get paid either by impressions or by clicks. Adwords is better for those who have a product that they want to sell and have it appear on Google search results as sponsored ads, which usually appear at the top and also on the right side of the page result. SEO and keywords plays an important role for this one. Good keywords can determine whether users will click on your link or not.
The blogrrr event went on the whole day until evening. Next thing I knew, I was seated at the ballroom to take a rest but unknowingly sat in an event that was about to start. I sat through it anyway. This particular event was about blogging as well. One of the talks was given by Nisa Kay, who recently been appointed as a video blogger in Amanz.my. Hosted by Iqram Dinzley, the event went on with some lucky draws and quizzes. Lucky winners won themselves some nice goodies such as powerbanks, Sony BlueRay player, toasters, headphones, portable speakers and many others. Unfortunately I didn’t win anything. Biasa la. I’m always the unlucky one.
Conclusion
There were some bad areas about the whole event that I don’t quite like. Perhaps my feedback here can let to organisers know what and how to go about doing it next time.
My take on the event:
- Bad registration counter – No signs to indicate the registration categories. There were three lines. Online registration, walk-in registration and booth registration. I lined up behind a long line and until I reached the front, I was told to line up in the other line for the one I was on is for walk-in registration.
- Seminars/talks was going on concurrently with the main event and the opening event. Also, the lucky draws at the main stage went on when everyone is in the respective seminar rooms. We can’t be at two places at one time la.
- As mentioned by the officials, the whole event was kind of a last minute thing. But they can do better to promote the event. It has potential. So given the right timing and proper planning, the event can be better.
Anyway. I do enjoy the event. Like I said, it can be better. I do hope there will be more bloggers event coming up soon because to me, blogging “died” for a while because of Twitter and Facebook. Maybe that’s why I stopped blogging too. But hey, who knows 2014 will be a good year for bloggers again. To those attended the blogrrr event, nice to meet you all.
Jumpa lagi lain kali.