I've been dreaming to be included in Manila Bulletin's TECH NEWS section, I like the articles and Jerry Liao's story about Tech and people and also Im an avid reader of Annalyn Jusay's BLOG O RAMA, and at first I was dreaming that my blog is featured in that section, but now it has come true and I was super surprised to see Ms. Jusay's email in my Gmail inbox. Thanks for featuring my blog, having it printed in broadsheet is one cool experience, er....with my face hahahahahhahah
http://www.mb.com.ph/issues/2006/08/21/TECH2006082172293.html
Blog-O-Rama
Azrael’s Merryland
.:Annalyn S. Jusay (now blogging at www.annalyn.net)
This week we interview Azrael Coladilla, a graduating student of Far Eastern University who’s taking up Bachelor of Science in Mathematics Major in Computer Science. He describes himself as a freelance multimedia artist, convention and events organizer.
"I’m really hooked with the culture and arts, and my blog’s content is all about toys, comics, movies, events, music and technology." For more about him, check out his blog at www.azraelsmerryland.blogspot.com
Q. When did you start to blog? Did anybody influence you?
A. I started blogging last June 2003 and since then I became one of the active bloggers in the Philippines.A friend named Ariel Atienza of figuritivity.blogspot.com and Jaclyn Ting Lim of jactinglim.blogspot.com influenced me to blog, at first I was out of place when all of my friends blogged, I didn’t get the idea on why we should blog, until they guided me in making my own, then it already became my habit and hobby at the same time.
Q. Why do you blog? What do you like about this activity?
A. I blog because I want people to know that I exist. So that they will recognize me as an individual who is actively participating in different happenings. I can do lots of things to inform and entertain people who are in the Internet.
I like it a lot, especially when I post some personal events in my life, people can know me more by reading all of my post. Publishing my production notes and events diary, for my freelance work,. I boost up marketing and it helps my sideline job to expand. My blog is like a morning newspaper or magazine sometimes.
Q. What benefits do you derive from blogging?
A. It connects me to other people who knows me and people who are strangers to me but later on become my friends. Also I earned money from it too, and thanks to some online advertisers who truly believed that my blog is one big portal for everyone, a perfect ground for marketing and advertising.
Q. On the other hand, what do you dislike about it (blogging) if any?
A. When people crash by and start to bash you whenever you are caught off guard (offline) ,sometimes they do it on a regular basis, that’s why I changed my tagboard to myshoutbox.com, so that I can trace their IP address and block them or report them to their office boss for using their PC to bash me during office hours. It’s okay to have a personal comment in one post or have a natural reaction to one article, but bashing you and insulting your loved ones publicly is one different scenario for me.
Q. Do you still see yourself blogging five years from now? Please explain.
A. Yes, I can see that I may have my own domain and host for all my blog entries. Going indepedent from free web based blogging services. And readers will also increase.
Also having my own TV blog channel. Well it sounds so funny but blogging is here to stay and it is already a part of my life. Its already a time capsule, and my blog will remain here forever.
Q. How many blogs do you maintain? Would you recommend keeping multiple blogs?
A. Yes, I have lots of blogs, around 10 weblogs, all of them are active blogs, some of them are moderated by a group of bloggers. Others are personally built by me. But I maintain TransFormers Philippines (transformersph.blogspot.com), the live action movie is coming out next year. Next is the Philippine Toy Convention blog, (toycon.blogspot.com), the blog of our toy event and also all about the hobbyists and collectible toys, comics and anime.
It’s okay to have multiple blogs, it’s a way of dividing your audience and also the content. But if you have multiple blogs, make sure that you have a lot of time updating it and maintain it well, so that you won’t lose readership in the net.
Q. How do you choose which topics to post? What topics do you most often write about?
A. My topics are about me and the events happening around me. If a talk about movies, I will choose only the movies that I like, and later on make an entry of it or transform my blog into a movie theme. The topic is also about relationship with my life partner, Lace Llanora, she too has a blog ( suzakulace.blogspot.com) and together we sometimes post about what’s going on between us, the fun, the romance and sometimes the fight! hahahahaha.
Most favorite of the topics posted now is my video blog, it’s a new trend in the blogosphere. I tried one, and then later on people got entertained and also got informed about the latest update. Its like watching comedy news like John Stewart.
My favorite post for me is the production notes. People can see around on how I work and organize events and conventions. I can share to them my ideas and insights on the loops of being an event organizer.There they can see how hard it is and how I enjoy it. Readers can view behind-the-scenes of projects and sometimes the latest developments.
Now I am organizing the event for the 4th Annual Manila International Comic Creation Seminar on Oct 14-15 in Megamall. It’ a big production and putting it up on the web really increases the marketing.
Q. Your blogging habits...
A. Well, I post something that I like and upload photos, people love pictures and images, that’s why my blog is graphic intensive. I just share with them what I see by putting pictures. But blogging at night gives me more creative juice, and sometimes I can post 5 entries in one day, depends on the mood.
Q. Can you tell us more about your blog design and what platform you’re using? What makes you stick with Blogger?
A. I already got 4 blog designs when I started blogging and later on I composed my own design just to study all the html tags, but later on I scrapped it out after a long run and decided to download skins in the internet. The current design I used is a skin download and it stays for 2 years already.
I like Blogger, because they are user friendly and my entries and template are easy to maintain and manage. Also I don’t have any problems with bandwidth usage.
Q. In your own opinion, what are the qualities of a good blogger?
A. You should be responsible of what you have write in your blog, being original in all of the entries you posted and also giving credit to the photos and snippets of articles you used for your entry. Just be true to yourself and to the people who read it,so that you can gain more readers because they trusted you and they too rely on your articles sometimes for information.
Q. Can you tell us more about what kind of readers you have? What have been the feedbacks from your family and friends?
A. My readers are very open minded to everything I post. They are the people who supported me since I started blogging and now new readers emerged after googling their interest and then... bam!!!! found my blog. There are famous people who have read my blog, one of them is Neil Gaiman. It was a honor to see his email in my inbox, and later on I thanked him for the surprise letter and reading my blog. My family too, my mom,sisters, brother, cousins and aunts are my blog readers.
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(For comments and inquiries, email annalyn.jusay@gmail.com)
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