A unique association, Association of Bloggers, Singapore (ABS, in short) was born just before the Chinese New Year. It came with quite a bit of fanfare, including a multi-page media interview with My Paper.
Immediately after the establishment of the association, many Singapore bloggers voiced their opinions, most of them negative.
I thought that was quite normal to have some negative views when you start something. That's typical of Singapore, full of skeptics. Then when I came back after my Chinese New Year holidays, alama, 8 out of 10 of the founding members of the association quit! From birth to death is a bit too fast for this association.
In my opinion, the idea of having an association is not bad, but it is the execution the went wrong. As you may have guessed, it first has to do with money!
To be a member of the assoication, you have to pay a one time entrance fee of SGD$60.00, and an annual membership fee of SGD$50.00. This is a bit steep in money terms. If the membership is SGD$10.00 per year, I think the story will be different.
The second reason is related to the 'vision' of the association, which is to 'accredit' Singapore bloggers. People like to blog because they can write anything they like (almost anything). It does not matter whether they have readers, supporters, whatsoever. There is no authority to tell them what they can do, what they can't (in general). They don't have to go for a test to get a license like driving.
Now, all of a sudden, some unknown persons came out to tell the rest of the Singapore bloggers that they need to pay, and they need to get their accredition. Of course, it will make some of the bloggers furious. People will ask who are you? How many hits do you actually get each day? If you have less than 100 hits a day and you want to be the authority to 'accredit' other bloggers who may have hundreds, thousands of hits a day?
Well, let's see how it develops. Give new things a chance.
Their site is available at: Association of Bloggers Singapore
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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huh? I didn't know such of thing called ABS! Somemore their website does not even have a proper domain name, is getting a free sub domain from wordpress! yet they still want to charge bloggers?? Oh I know the president.. :P nice lady anyway.
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