The Machine is Us: iblog 2 Conference

Some of the Philippines' Blogging elite congregated in the UP College of Law yesterday for the 2nd iblog conference. If the government had wanted to get rid of all dissidents in the Pinoy blogosphere, security in Malcolm building was incredibly lax.

I was surprised by the variation among participants. There were 20 years olds as well as 60 year olds. Men, women and all else in between. The average seemed 30ish and male, more likely to be wearing spectacles than not. It was a lively bunch, the literary/personal blogging sessions more so than the political/legal ones -- some serious as well as tongue-in-cheek railing against the evil government went on over there.

MLQ3 delivered a presentation entitled "Blogs and the Battle for Ideas: Personalities and Issues." Like Randy David, he is much more charismatic and funnier in person than those snippet interviews shown on TV.

Among those spotted were: Filipino Librarian, Village Idiot Savant, By Jove, Ellen Tordesillas, Yugatech, Mikey (of Man Blog), Manuel Viloria, Dean Alfar, Atty. Punzi and Dean Jorge Bocobo (who was seated next to me, but I was completely clueless).

I was hesitant to speak to anyone because their first question tended to be "What's your blog?" and I still want my blog to remain anonymous. I have learned the hard lesson that things can get hairy when your cyber persona and real life bleed into each other.

The Pinoy Blogosphere is growing and becoming more relevant as more Filipinos get wired. This is only the 2nd iblog conference and it seemed succesful to me. There were probably 200 to 300 attendees (my estimate from around 10:30 am to 4:30 pm). Hard-core, fanatical bloggers they all are. Blog on!