Anybody can blog..!

Just recently Blogger Buzz announced that Blogger is now available in Malay! Hoo... Hoo.. Bahasa Melayu - The Malay Language ! Blogger says that it has a large base of users in Malaysia and they are excited to now bring Blogger in our native language.
I haven't really tested the features yet but I think its a good start understanding the commands in Malay let alone getting translations. Bagus tuu... Blogging is often seen as a young person's game. Orang selalu fikir blogging ni untuk yang muda-muda saja. It's not true... anybody can blog! I got to know about blogging in 2005 from Roslan Ramli - an ex-colleague. Mula-mula tu ingat boleh buat duit. Kelakar! Well, the last I checked my paypal account, I have around 7 dollars in it. I think Roslan would fare better than me! Actually, of the roughly 175,000 new blogs that are created every day, very few of them make any money. I suppose one really have to go all out both day and night at it, like a local man here in Silicon Valley who earns his living through blogging. Bill Belew is one of an emerging breed that spends brutal and irregular hours chained to a computer feeding the insatiable blogosphere machine. He takes his blogging very serious and says there's nothing easy about it. He writes for readers on the East Coast of US as early as 4am and has to log on around 4pm to catch Japanese readers. And, he checks his readership statistics as late as 11pm. It is said that he earned 60 to 70 percent of his income from blogging in 2007 totaling around 60 to 70 thousand dollars. Aduh... banyak tuu..tapi letih! Bill is 54. He maintains 4 blogs: http://www.panasianbiz.com/, http://www.risingsonofnihon.com/ http://www.thebizofknowledge.com/ and his own personal religion-heavy site.

How he gets traffic to his blogs, beats me! The number of older generation bloggers including octogenarian, and those who have retired or are approaching retirement are growing daily. The oldest that I read of was ( she passed last month ) Olive Riley, 108 who blogged with the help of her friend. Life of Riley can be found at http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/ . Currently Millie Garfield, 83 is acknowledged by ABC as the oldest blogger alive. She has appeared on the ABC show and her blog is http://mymomsblog.blogspot.com/. You can even see her on YouTube trying to openup 'stubborn' bottle caps.:-) As we get older, our social worlds can shrink and when we retire, there isn't the daily camaraderie of the workplace. Blogging is a powerful antidote for isolation and loneliness. Many believe - including me ! - that blogging is also a form of exercise for your mental health. Even at this age, I forget often and isn't it helpful to put it all in writing..!?
Elaine Frankonis http://www.kalilily.net/ Claude Covo-Farchi, 63 http://www.blogginginparis.com/ Pattie, 53 http://texastrifles.blogspot.com/ Ronni Bennet, 67 http://www.timegoesby.net/