k r i s a n d r o

The very first popular blog that I came across was Xiaxue‘s back in the days when she was funnier and less commercialized(IMHO). Blogs at that time were a form of entertainment and a way to keep myself updated on my friends lives. Having a steady income back in 2005, I got a webhost and the URL ‘krisandro.com’ without going through what most bloggers go through; Having a free blogging platform like blogspot/wordpress/xanga and then realizing later that they want a self hosted blog.

It wasn’t my intentions to use it as a blog in the 1st place but I eventually hopped onto the bandwagon and started to write. I used dreamweaver/frontpage to design and code my blog and it wasn’t powered by any blogging platform. I don’t have any friends who had a self hosted blog during those times, and without the knowledge of blogging platforms for self-hosted blogs, you can imagine how stupid it was for the period between March 2005 to Feb 2008. I was basically coding everything manually like my archives.

LOL

My traffic back then was mostly made up of my ‘offline’ friends and colleagues and then I start to hear good comments that I was ‘funny’. I then started to write a little more frequently and got ‘tomorrow-ed’ a couple of times. Unfortunately, after migrating to wordpress, you guys won’t be able to see the old entries that I had before Feb 2008.

I had a very long blogging hiatus for a period of almost 6 months because of personal reasons and there are 3 reasons that made me come back to blogging in February this year.

#1 – Friends

KuKuNehNeh knew me better through my old blog archives and after we got together, she kept badgering me to revive my blog. Friends like DX, Ade and my WLNY pals also popped by every once in a while through my shoutbox and say things like…

“YOUR BLOG IS DEAD!!!”
*REMOVE COBWEBS*
“KRISANDO!!! COME BACK! I LOVEEEEEEEEE YOU!!!”

Okay, it’s obvious that I made the last one up but the point is, these people gave me the confidence that they would like me to write again.
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#2 – WordPress

Seriously. Without wordpress, there is no reason for me to update my blog as often as I can now. Everything is great about the platform to the point that I only need to concentrate mostly on content, content and content. Well, in krisandro’s blog, it’s actually rubbish, rubbish and rubbish. But I know you guys like rubbish and rubbish is gonna stay!
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#3 – Ping.sg

I don’t think the traffic for June can match the traffic of May though

Without Ping.sg, my blog’s growth would not have been what it is now. Nice folks do submit my works to tomorrow.sg every now and then but it is Ping.sg that gives me constant traffic. It’s also the folks at Ping who are very supportive of my blogging style and they make up a majority of the ones who leave comments whenever I post something up and it feels bloody nice to have people leave comments.
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This is my 100th wordpress post, and I’ll dedicate this to the 3 reasons I mentioned and all my supporters, including those who are SILENT READERS. You know who you are.. (Cuz nobody else knows who you are…)

As I write on in this little digital space of mine and blog about more stuffs, I see more and more negative comments here and then on the ‘quality’ of my posts. I do appreciate constructive criticism but some comments leave me scratching my head and wondering if I am unknowingly paid to write for you or something.

So these are the terms & conditions of krisandro.com

1. If you haven’t notice, my tagline reads “Life is a Joke, Laugh at it!!!” If you come here expecting to read about serious stuffs, I suggest you try the newspaper instead.

2. Most of the time, I relate my life experience with a little exaggeration thrown in to make it humorous. If you can’t differentiate between fact and fiction from the tone of my writing, I really cannot help you.

3. I know I get tomorrow-ed frequently and any would think that I submit my entries very frequently and sleep with the editors at tomorrow.sg but unfortunately out of the many articles that were featured, only two were submitted by me and no, I don’t sleep with the editors.

4. If you see any material or pictures that are owned by you and you don’t like it that I actually credited you, go ahead and ask me to remove it via comments or email.

5. If you don’t like my blog, don’t read. If you don’t like my blog and wants to suggest something, comment.

6. I don’t delete comments unless it is spam. So go ahead and curse me if you want to, but do not come to my blog and start scolding somebody else. It makes you look stupid. And refer to #4

7. If you see any material or pictures that are owned by you and you don’t like it that I actually credited you, go ahead and ask me to remove it via comments or email. No hard feelings.

8. If you think a person that I am talking about sounds like you and there is NO WAY that is anybody else…. Yep…

IT’S YOU!

I am breaking many of my personal rules here, but here I am posting another community related post about Ping. I need to address a few issues about my last post, and this will be the last time I am talking about it as a post on my blog.

To address some points that Endoh pointed out and other comments left on the blog, I have the following to say.

Before Daphne spoke to me over msn on this matter, I was already aware that at least 2 people were openly disliking the level of interest in the mundane topic of Daphne’s crush. I DIDN’T CARE, because I am in for the believe that everyone has a right to like or dislike topics or blogs as long as they don’t declare war over it. Like what Uzyn said,

“Everyone’s unique. Every bloggers are unique. Ping.sg is started not as an aggregator for smart bloggers, nor is it started as an aggregator for immature bloggers. It’s started because of blogs and bloggers of Singapore.

Everyone’s unique, and every bloggers have their own readerbase, even before Ping.sg. Ping.sg gives the bloggers a chance to exchange each others readership and naturally, a reader who likes to read sports blogs wouldn’t like to read a fashion blog, but that doesn’t mean the fashion blogger IQ is lower or anything.

Let’s open our arms and accept that all of us are bloggers (I know I’m becoming less of a blogger now due to the inactivity of my blog, paiseh) and all our blogs are unique in one way or the other, ok?

Anyway, here’s a promise. As long as I am able to (unless gahmen say i kenot), Ping.sg will always remain neutral, open and free. That’s my goal and my dream, and I’m sure most Pingsters’ goal and dream as well.”

I believe in that vision and that’s why I don’t care about the indifference towards such topics. Only when Daphne told me she felt really affected by it was when I got very upset. I got upset because, it’s the core community that is affecting her. And I do believe that these people are actually friends with Daphne and they really shouldn’t hurt her like that.

I also agreed in my post that Daphne SHOULDN’T be so affected by it as everyone is entitled to their own opinions!

Now it comes to the part where Endoh and anyone else asks,

“Where is the evidence? Give us names!”

I didn’t care on gathering evidence nor screenshot the shoutbox or twitters as I already know the displeasure of a few people towards the ‘shallow’ topics. Moreover, I regard some of them as friends and my post isn’t about pointing out individuals. If I wanted to do that, I would have approached them through private ways.

Then some say,

“If they are your friends, then why are you trying to attract attention through such a title and make a big fuss over it?”

I used my blog to express my opinion about them because it isn’t my business to approach them about the matter in the 1st place and I would rather voice my views at them while preserving their anonymity. And to those who think I am trying to attract attention or raise my popularity with such a posting, I’m afraid you are right.

Right in the sense that I am a blogger and my posts are made public. I want high readership like any self respecting blogger who admits to it. BUT, I am like what a few mentioned in the comments for the last post.

“I don’t care much for being in the top 10.”

That is true for me as well but I will like to elaborate it so that it is more correct. I did mention to Wishbone sometime back that people with good content who are not ‘popular’ in Ping need not worry. Those with good content will eventually have a fanbase. Why? Because eventually, it’s the content that makes people bookmark/subscribe/visit your blog. If a blogger has poor content and constantly misleads people with his/her title, he won’t get much traffic on days where he doesn’t blog and also in the long run. And I do believe that I have a group of readers that may be relatively small, but they enjoy what I write mostly. Ping and tomorrow.sg may have been two of the driving forces behind my websites growth, but I don’t need to whore myself to get reads. If I manage to get into the top 10, then it’s just a bonus. The loyal readers will still come to appreciate my posts.

The last post was lousy content in my own opinion, why the hell do I want attention to such a post to ‘raise my popularity’. I had common sense to think that the so called ‘popularity’ would actually dip because of it. But I still wanted to say my peace because I have an opinion and I am not afraid to say it with tact.

And if you think it wasn’t with tact, you’ll be amazed at what I really had in mind.

It’s weird but I think the word ‘shallow’ also affected more serious bloggers than the ‘shallow’ ones. I think I could have stepped on a sensitive spot somewhere. I do admit on hindsight that it could be wrong to label it as ‘shallow’. Maybe ‘mundane’ would have been a more tactful word.

In conclusion, I admit that I am shallow(like always… but i am extremely proud of it), I might have mislead people to think that I am waging war against certain people. But there is nothing I disagree on when I look at the post over and over again. I may have been seen as being exaggerated or making groundless accusations but I still stand true to my opinions.

Sorry if you still want me to post pics here and there and to link here and there to point fingers. I still won’t do it because it wasn’t my main purpose in the 1st place. My biggest point is still,

“There is nothing wrong with shallow bloggers/posts/topics. Good content can still come from it.”

I know I could have unwittingly created discomfort or discord amongst certain bloggers but so be it. If the relationships are that fragile, I don’t think the affected bloggers should be sad of losing a friend or two. And I still welcome and cherish whatever friends that I have made in wonderful communities like Ping.

Lancerlord provided a link to a website called omy.sg that claimed the following.

“7 out of 10 Singaporeans are bloggers.”

If the far-fetched claim is true, then it is really scary. Imagine who could be ruining your name right now on his/her blog!

1. The 5 year old kid whom you snatched the ice-cream from yesterday.
2. The 80 year old auntie selling Char Kway Teow that you pissed off when you wanted more hum last week.
3. The 14 people in the MRT cabin that heard/smelled you when you farted on your way back from work.

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I digress too much. What I want to say in this post is that the statistics omy.sg provided may be over the top, but it is absolutely true that more and more people/Singaporeans are blogging as time goes by. Therefore, it is even more important to support the bloggers that you like, so that he or she will stand out amongst the crowd to get the appropriate recognition or traffic with your help.

I put recognition as one of the things bloggers look out for as I do note that not all bloggers care about traffic. Bloggers to me, are like writers.

But. some might say,

“You crazy ah! Writers are PROFESSIONALS! They don’t tYpE LykE tiS oR spELL lyKE dAt or raINBoW cOLoR thEiR foNts loR!!!”

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To me, every blogger are like writers, who puts in effort to produce articles and needs your recognition! Even the ones who COPY and PASTE stuffs also need to use effort to press ctrl-C and ctrl-V.

So, these are some ways that you can take part to help the blogger that you like!

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#1. Visit their blog often

Some might say that,

“But he/she seldom update their blog!”

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Maybe they don’t update as often as you like, but you can always still visit their blog, scroll through the archives and re-read some of their articles or discover gems that you didn’t read before. Even if the person have not updated their blog in YEARS; Visit THEM! Show them that people are still visiting and would want them to write again!

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#2. Comment, comment, COMMENT!!!

If there is one point that I have to choose for importance in this article. It would have to be this. In my opinion, there is nothing more gratifying to a blogger than reading what YOU think of the post. A comment should be related to THAT particular post and it can be of your insight, an acknowledgment of a good read, constructive criticisms or even pure “I HATE YOU AND YOU SHOULD STOP BLOGGING AND KILL YOURSELF” kinds.

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#3. Subscribe

Click here to subscribe to my website.

All bloggers should have feeds to let readers subscribe. Feeds are overly explained on the web and I shall leave it to your Google skills to find out what it is. For those that know what it is, good for you. Feeds are a great way to keep you informed when a blog is updated.

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to subscribe to my twitter.

Some bloggers have Twitters and you should also subscribe to them if you like.

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#4. Take Part in Their Blog’s Interactive Elements

Allowing comments is the very basic thing that every post should have. Most bloggers have other elements that allow readers to participate. Awards, contests, polls and ratings are the few that I can think of right now.

Some of the examples that this very site has are….

Ratings to tell me how much you liked/hated my post

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Polls to ask for your opinion

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#5. Link/Nominate/Vote for Bloggers that You Support.

Click here to submit a post.

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Click here to visit krisandro’s Ping page.

If you like a post you can submit it to tomorrow.sg, you can go to ping.sg and give the post a pong, you can go to a relevant forum and share the link to that post. You can even post a link on YOUR own blog to share a good read. Just remember to ALWAYS credit the original author!

Another good way to help promote your favorite blog is to nominate it/vote for it at blog awards. Ping’s 2nd Anniversary is coming. Will they be holding another blog awards?

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All the above methods will really help bloggers to keep writing. It is the little things that you can do to give encouragement to a ‘writer’.

Support your favorite bloggers today!

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