Pakistan is Indonesia five years ago, says blogger

Ong, (extreme right) participates in Karachi's blog summit. PHOTO: NEFER SEHGAL

KARACHI: Hack Chuan Ong, a blogger from Jakarta, who arrived in Karachi to attend the Pakistan Social Media Summit, started blogging after reading the book “Naked conversations” by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.

After reading the book, Ong, Technical Advisor at a company called Maverick, decided to start a corporate blog in order to take his company ahead. As a result, Maverick was one of the very few companies that, after realising the importance of blogging, got into it.

The implications of social media, when it came to the scene, Ong explains, was that it removed the need for conventional media for companies to reach out to their consumers. “The companies could talk directly to the consumers,” he says.

Ong describes a corporate blog as a place where a company can clearly put down its own point of view while interacting with its consumers and other stakeholders.

Pestablogger

Ong speaks of how, shortly after entering the blogosphere, he along with 12 other bloggers decided to hold a session, “a talk fest,” called Pestablogger for people to share their views. To his surprise 500 people attended the seminar. In four years, Ong says, Pestablogger’s audience grew to 1,500.

As the blogging world became more organised, they started holding ‘blogshops,’ workshops for bloggers, with the help of the US consulate in Jakarta. As a result the US consulate became very popular with the blogging world. An example of its popularity, Ong points out, is that once when President Barrack Obama was visiting Jakarata, the embassy made a Facebook page for it, which gained 70,000 followers within three weeks.

What to take from the summit

Ong describes Pakistan as ‘Indonesia five years ago.’ He believes that Pakistan is heading in the same direction with respect to technological as well as political progress.

Talking about the summit, Ong says it is reminiscent of the Pestoblogger when it first started in Indonesia. Ong sees energy in the people of Pakistan and believes that Pakistan should open itself to the rest of the world through the use of social media.

Facts about Indonesia and Social media

Indonesia is the second largest market for Facebook in the world with the US on top.

It is the third largest use of Twitter, with Brazil and Netherlands topping the list.

It has the third largest number of people using WordPress.

It is one of the very first few countries that started using 4Square.

People from all over the world are investing in the tech industry in Indonesia because of the facts stated above, says Ong.