Digi.com has an annual Internet for all awards where they aim to with the aim of “showcasing the incredible creativity, ingenuity and entrepreneurialism of ordinary Malaysians using the Internet in extraordinary ways” . A much simpler way of thinking about the Internet for all awards is that it’s just like the Grammys for Malaysian blogs.
Digi have actually increased the breadth of the awards to include categories like
Says.My :: Online shop of the year
Malaysiakini :: Photojournalist of the year
Google :: Most inspiring internet for good Award ; and my favorite
Lowyat.net :: Fave Tech Head
In a moment of shameless self-promotion and drunken debauchery, I submitted this blog right here keithrozario.com into the Lowyat.net :: Fave Tech Head category, hoping that I may be considered as a Fave Tech Head. Of course, it’ll be a difficult task, considering the category consist of people like the legendary Paul Tan, or the immensely successful Hongkiat.com so I actually can be lumped in the “Doesn’t have a pray in Hell” category. Then again this blog has always been about me trying out new things, and trying to win an internet award is a new thing!
I started out this blog on my birthday in 2011 (that’s 8th April in case you’re wondering when to send the birthday cards), I’ve also migrated content from a very old blogspot blog of mine that focused primarily on politics. It’s hard to say why I stopped blogging about politics, I guess I felt I wasn’t making a difference and more importantly blogging about politics never made me feel happy, and in my view hobbies should make you feel happy.
So after an initial investment of $15.00 I managed to secure a domain , and host my very first wordpress blog online. This was pretty awesome. Finally, I owned a domain, and finally I felt like I had a ‘professional’ looking blog. I immersed myself into the world of wordpress, and learnt it’s inner workings. I may not be an expert, but at least I know a thing or two about the worlds most popular blogging platform, and that’s saying quite a bit.
Then on a day like any other, I walked into a technology talk by Amazon on cloud computing, and I was definitely hooked. This new bit of technology was just so far-out — so mind blowing, and yet it made so much sense it was scary. The Cloud Computing bug bit me, and it bit me hard!
Over time, I started blogging about more general tech stuff, and then one day out of the blue, felt like my blog needed focus. I looked at the post I wrote, and tried to categorize them into a maximum of 3 categories– I failed. Then I took a hard breath and even harder decision and decided to focus on 3 categories I felt were my favorite, neglecting everything else to the annals of a desolate blog. Eventually though, I think this was the right decision, and so the page of post you see in the title bar above came into existence. Cloud Computing, Crowdsourcing and Copyright, I left out blogging and wordpress and social media, partly because there were already so many good resources for these already online, partly because I felt I couldn’t write about these 3 categories from a Malaysian perspective, which is what I set out to do.
Eventually though, I must admit, that having the categories all start with ‘C’ was too awesome a coincidence to ignore :).
I can’t tell you how much fun I’ve had this part year contributing the blog. I’ve discovered so many things I never would have even thought of looking at, I’ve developed a small following and most importantly I felt contented–and happy. I’ve talked to so many people, from a lady who just moved to klang wanting to know where the churches were, to at least 10 different Unifi customers sharing with me their personal grief and frustrations with Unifi downtimes and I was even mentioned on national radio.
So far so good, but as a last measure of validation, I’d really like to at least be a finalist for the Lowyat.net Fave Tech Head award, not hoping to win (although I do really need a phone), but at least being mentioned somewhere would be a nice touch for me. This blog has no advertisements not because I don’t know how, but because I choose not to, it’s not about making money, it’s about making a difference and it’s only through public awards like these can I really gauge how much of difference I’m really making.
So if you liked any of the post I’ve written, if you’re a friend, or just a random visitor who’d like to help– could I trouble you for just 2 minutes of your time to vote me the Lowyat.net :: Fave Tech Head of 2012?
To vote, click here or cut and copy the address below:
http://www.wwwow.my/display_entry.aspx?ID=36332e5e-b869-47ee-8df3-3968685e308e
It’s also worth mentioning, that a quick check for 2011 winner was a blog called “The Techno Hut”, which surprisingly has seen it’s domain lease expire and looks to be shutdown , according to iawani (another contestant in the Fave Tech Head category).