Cambodia Blogger Meetup
Jul 10th, 2005 by Jinja
Cambodia Blogger Meetup
Forgot my ‘Moto Taxi’ cap!
But people found each other anyway at our first ever Cambodia Blogger Pub Night. The Phnom Penh came two hours early and sorted Cantina’s Wi-Fi connection. Tharum spotted me from my photo. Kampuchea Crossings completely forgot but wandered by for food.
Left to right: Kampuchea Crossings,The Phnom Penh,Tharum,Jinja.
We were dive-bombed by little grasshoppers; summer is upon us. But it was a fairly cool evening, it’s been cool all week.
Great to meet everyone, we compared notes on how we do that thing we do.
Tharum works in IT and has plenty of technical skills. He wants to make it easier for Cambodians to do blogs, and is keen on a portal site for newbie Camboside bloggers.
The Phnom Penh thinks that unicode Khmer fonts are the way forward. I suggested we have a little ‘Cambodia Blogs’ button for our sidebars. (Probably ‘Global Voices‘ too.)
And we all concurred that there should be some directory for our growing list of Cambodia weblogs – maybe a wiki page.
It’s good to see all these blogs starting up in the provinces… the big question is, will they continue? I’m estimating the number of in-Cambodia weblogs at 50 and rising. I haven’t even checked LiveJournal‘s listings yet, we are just getting started!
Many regional blogs are coming out of the Cambodia Community Information Centers (CICs). They are also developing regional portals and are proving to be a valuable resource. Will they eventually become self-supporting? NGO funding is OK for now, but won’t last forever. Time will tell.
We also had some paeleobloggers (‘dead tree bloggers’ quoth bar proprietor Hurley): the Phnom Penh Post and Cambodia Daily. They weren’t there specifically for the story, just hanging out because Hurley’s Cantina is crossroads of the world. Both were interested to get a general understanding of our motivations and aspirations. Not sure how articulate I/we were, we are still just figuring things out!
I think that it would be a real accomplishment to see a regular weblog in a Khmer font – from Cambodia. (Wanna‘s already given it a shot.) However, there are advantages to English – Tharum is being interviewed by the Cambodia Daily and they would never have discovered him if it wasn’t for him writing in a second language.
Is the Cambodian Blogosphere “poised to explode“? Well, it was really just four people meeting in a pub. But it was fun and we’ll do it again. And who knows what’ll come in the future?
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Postscript:
The Phnom Penh‘s Notes on blogger meetup: http://thephnompenh.blogspot.com/2005/07/cambodia-bloggers.html
Cambodia4Kids has some techie tips:
http://beth.typepad.com/cambodia4kidsorg/2005/07/the_first_cambo.html
Global Voices Wiki Page. Blogs ahoy!
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/dyn/globalvoices/wiki/index.php/Cambodia
Where’s this regional blog training coming from? Aha.
http://www.iri.org/progweeklysummary.asp?id=4561230337
P.S. btw If you’re looking for art updates you often see here, a lot of the announcements and press releases – (Java Arts, French Cultural Centre, Sovanna Phum, etc.) I’m forwarding directly to ‘What’s On‘, a dedicated blog for Khmer arts info. French, English, Khmer all welcome.
You have to start somewhere! Looks like you had fun!
Such a pity for me. I was in Siem Reap and was not able to at the meeting… Look forward to next time round.
More blog training: http://virak.khmersurf.com/ is training journalists at the Communication Institute of
Cambodia (CCI).
[Courtesy http://tharum.blogspot.com
Wish I could’ve made it, but i was on my way to Cambodia from BKK. Do you plan to have another?
We’re hoping to make it a monthly meeting. Hurley has offered to give us a good rate on food for next time.
Mexican food may be a little different for Cambodians, but it’s good to try new things!
Wow..looks like fun…and nice picture.
oh, can you post the article with you in it in the ppp?
last time was completely drunk. that’s why i couldn’t go. not promise this time as on Sunday I can be far from Phnom Penh. Anyway see you when i see you. thanks
Hi
I’ll try to make it… my blog is here: http://mythicaldude.typepad.com/
Visit my blog at http://vanndeth.myblog.com