“The Philippines According to Blogs” at www.pinoyblog.com is primarily a website where members can post comments and updates about their blogs for free. It was an idea started by homemaker-lawyer Connie Veneracion in her highly-popular  blog “The Sassy Lawyer’s Journal.”

“ The Philippines According to Blogs was born at my domain, houseonahill.net on June 17, 2004. At this time, I was already enjoying substantial success as a blogger in terms of traffic and readership. And I knew that a blog with my stats can send traffic to other blogs. So, there were about a dozen or so blogs that I wanted to help build an audience. They were just starting out but really good. Prior to June 17, 2004, I had been featuring individual blogs on the average of one per week. But it was tedious and I thought that there might be other great blogs out there that I just hadn't discovered yet. So, instead of me finding them, why not let them come to me and post links on my blog so they can get exposure?,” The Sassy Lawyer pointed out.

And so, she did the next best thing: Post a notice in her blog for those who want to become a member of “The Philippines According to Blogs.” All they had to do was put a one- to two-sentence summary of the latest entry in their blog and link to it. The names and links of the 12 or so most recently-updated blogs then automatically appeared on the side panel of the index page of  The Sassy Lawyer’s Journal at http:houseonahill.net.

It turned out that The Sassy Lawyer got more than what she asked for, receiving not not 10 or 20 initial responses but 48! This simply indicated that there was a huge number of bloggers out there who wanted to improve their visibility on a common website.

“It was great hosting it on my site until the ‘unspeakables’ entered the picture: spammers, porn sites, and even non-Filipinos who wanted free advertising. The project became so successful that I couldn't police the comings and goings by myself. Plus, the bandwidth usage was going up, up, up and I had to pay for that. That was the time that I started talking to a group of people, all Pinoy bloggers, and asked them if they were interested in forming the core group to create an independent The Philippines According to Blogs,” The Sassy Lawyer revealed.

In the end, however, it was just The Sassy Lawyer and  young tech expert Abraham “Abe” Olandres who pushed through with it. Olandres offered the Pinoyblog domain name which is actually his old tech resource site and also shouldered the webhosting through his company, Ploghost. The two also act as administrators of  Pinoyblog at the moment.

Even though it is not a year old yet, the growth of Pinoyblog has been nothing short of phenomenal. As of press time, it has a total of  1,379 members, 6863 entries and 384,844 page views. As Sassy herself  proclaims: “There is hardly a day when there are no new registrants.”

Aside from giving the online community awareness of outstanding sites and improving traffic on the blogs of its members, the best thing about Pinoyblog is how it has united the disparate band of Filipino bloggers. “ I would like to think that we provide the best service in terms of coverage and interaction among bloggers,” Olandres states.

As a form of recognition, Pinoyblog also features a “Pinoy Blog of the Week” with a corresponding rating for design and content.

Sassy clarifies that “the ‘Pinoy Blog of the Week’ is not exactly a contest where only the outstanding ones have a chance of getting chosen. The original idea was that, at one time or another, every member would have a chance of getting featured. We’re still looking forward to getting the chance to feature everyone but how long before we are able to accomplish that, I really cannot tell.”

On how they do the ratings, Olandres reveals that “Sassy does the site reviews and I do the ratings. I have a simple criteria on rating the design aspect and the technical proficiency of the bloggers. Since blogs like BlogSpot and WordPress engines commonly uses pre-made themes, we put a cap rating to differentiate it from fully-customized themes or designs made from scratch. I've extensively used and configured a lot of these blog engines (WP, MT, Blogger, b2, EE) so at least I know how they work and how easy or how hard it is to set them up and customize them from the ground, up.”

Aside from the week’s featured blog, Pinoyblog also has sections on blogging news, tech stuff and forums where bloggers exchange precious tips and thoughts on their trade. The content needs updating but we certainly found most useful Olandres’ article on “How to Get Your Blogs Up in Search Engines.”

The section on “Pinoy Bloggers Friends Worldwide” was initially put as a come-on for potential advertisers in order to make the site self-sustaining. “That’s something that still has to happen. At any rate, it is a chance to widen the community by providing access to non-bloggers even from other countries. I mean, let’s face it, there are a lot of people online who are really interested in making friends and bringing the friendship beyond the cyber level to the real world. So, why not? ‘Pinoy Blogger Friends Worldwide’ just seemed to be a “natural” adjunct of a virtual community,” The Sassy Lawyer explains.

It is still the long-tem objective of the proponents to make Pinoyblog commercially viable someday, perhaps a business model  of a successful blogging venture which has no equal in this part of the world. “Online advertising in the Philippines is still in its infancy so Pinoyblog will have to be a labor of love for now,” The Sassy Lawyer and Olandres closed.

Next issue: The Sassy Lawyer & what it takes to be on top of the blogging world

(For comments and inquiries, email annalyn.jusay@gmail.com)