Why Blogger isn't that popular in the Philippines?

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief August 16, 2008 · 3 min read

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Durante una fiesta de cóctel realizada ayer para varios miembros del equipo de Google Asia-Pacífico, el Gerente de Producto de SEA me hizo esta pregunta: mientras que los blogs son muy populares en Filipinas, ¿por qué Blogger no goza de la misma popularidad? Le proporcioné algunas cifras de memoria mientras él las anotaba. Y aquí están algunas razones por las cuales.

Sí, Blogger también es ampliamente utilizado como plataforma de blogs por muchos filipinos, pero no generó el mismo nivel de popularidad que YouTube en el país. Esto se debe principalmente a otras plataformas competidoras:

Aunque Blogger tuvo la ventaja de ser el primero en entrar al mercado, no disfrutó de tanta popularidad a principios de los años 2000 como LiveJournal (DiaryLand, Pitas, Blogger y LiveJournal fueron todos lanzados en 1999). Filipinas se encuentra entre los Top 10 usuarios de LiveJournal a nivel mundial, ocupando el puesto #8 con 60.961 usuarios. En términos de volumen de búsqueda, Filipinas ocupa el puesto #5 para LiveJournal.com.
Según Google Trends, Multiply tiene 200.000 visitantes únicos diarios desde Filipinas, el doble que hace un año. En Alexa, Filipinas se clasificó en el puesto #5 por los orígenes del tráfico de Multiply, contribuyendo con aproximadamente el 13,4% de sus usuarios totales. Con Google Insights, Filipinas es #1 en búsquedas de Multiply. (Lea mi historia relacionada sobre el acuerdo entre ABS-CBN y Multiply).
Según Google Insights, Filipinas se encuentra en el Top 5 para Xanga.
Friendster también ocupa el puesto #1 para Filipinas a nivel mundial. Las tendencias de Google estiman 1 millón de visitantes únicos diarios al sitio. Se estima que hay 10 millones de filipinos con una cuenta en Friendster. Si solo el 1% de ellos abre un blog en Friendster, eso ya son 100.000 usuarios.

Por otro lado, Blogger.com ni siquiera figura en el Top 25 de países por uso según Alexa. No puedo obtener más detalles sobre el tráfico ya que Google Trends no muestra datos de Blogger.com. Sin embargo, Google Insights clasifica a Filipinas en el puesto #5 para las búsquedas de blogger.com.

Casi todo el mundo sabe que BlogSpot es el anfitrión #1 para los spammers. El año pasado, un estudio encontró que el 75% de todas las cuentas de blogspot.com son blogs de spam. Incluso la empresa de antivirus y seguridad Sophos señaló que el anfitrión número uno de malware en la web es Blogger, con las cuentas de blogspot.com contribuyendo a al menos el 2% del total de páginas web maliciosas a nivel mundial.

También está el crecimiento de una plataforma alternativa (y sin anuncios) en i.PH, WordPress.com, así como la aplicación autoalojada WordPress.org. Incluso existe soporte sin conexión, gracias a los próximos WordCamp Philippines. Ni siquiera estamos contando con las comunidades locales de Drupal y Joomla, ni con plataformas alternativas como TextPattern, Expression Engine y MovableType.

A diferencia de YouTube, Blogger tiene muchas otras plataformas populares competidoras que se utilizan en Filipinas, por lo que no logró dominar el mercado a pesar del auge del blogueo en el país.

Why isn't Blogger as popular as other platforms in the Philippines?

Competing platforms like LiveJournal, Multiply, Xanga, and Friendster gained more popularity among Filipino users.

How many daily unique visitors does Multiply get from the Philippines?

Multiply has 200,000 daily unique visitors from the Philippines, twice as many from a year ago.

What is the Philippines' ranking for LiveJournal users worldwide?

The Philippines is at #8 among LiveJournal users worldwide with 60,961 users.

React to this article:

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

8,010 Articles

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34 Comments

hcg canada kevin · 14 years ago

Do you have a spam issue on this blog; I also am a blogger,
and I was curious about your situation; we have developed some nice methods and we are
looking to exchange solutions with other folks, why not shoot me an e-mail if interested.

Ghanima · 15 years ago

Well I used to write in blogspot. But I wanted to have more control so I used a hosting service with my own domain name and wordpress. It gives me more control on what I really want my blog to have.

skysenshi · 16 years ago

You can do a lot of things with Multiply and WordPress. Filipinos are fond of posting different sorts of things: photos, videos, blogs, links etc. Both Multiply and WordPress can incorporate all of these in one platform.

You can probably do this with blogger but you have to go to Picasa for your photos, Sites for your icons, YouTube for your videos and then cut and paste these into Blogger plugins. The process is kind of tedious…

GameBlogger · 16 years ago

I’m hosted in blogger. So far, nagagawa ko naman lahat ng gusto ko gawin sa kanya. Nga lang, there’s a possibility of my blog getting deleted if I do something wrong. :(

dell · 16 years ago

Maganda Ang blogger pag marunong kang mag html..

used car superstore · 16 years ago

There are certainly a lot of details like that to take into consideration. That?s a great point to bring up. I offer the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you bring up where the most important thing will be

willard “Money Making ideas” · 17 years ago

It doesn’t matter how many blogs you got, the important thing is, it must be updated and blogging must be your passion in life. :)

Reus Christian Ocreto · 17 years ago

I am using blogspot, wordpress at livejournal. siyam nga blogs ko eh

b. rahi koh · 17 years ago

@sequoia

well said. that’s exactly how i see things also.

djSOUNDs · 17 years ago

One of the reasons why Filipinos are not in tune with blogspots its because, no other filipino dares to go somewhere they don’t know about. Unless the majority of the barangay is already a member there. Friendster is popular in the Philippines because 99% of the population in the Philippines is already in friendster, either LIES or TRUTH the information of an individual always has something in common, to get “known” around the world. As well as Multiply, and the rest of the “single-looking for someone rich blah blah blah” forums. Blogspot however is more of a “stable” personal place where good friends can share the truth about the truth. Some blogspot are on Invite Only because they dont want others to be involved in their personal lives and still be online and exchange stories or what have you just like friendster has. In friendster you can not download music, no movies, blogspot have ’em. BIG F…..n difference.

qarla · 17 years ago

Blogger is so powerful, if you know how to unleash it. Most of my readers thought I’m using WordPress.

Hindi sila makapaniwala na custom domain blogger ginagamit ko. Matipid na, favored pa ng Google sa search engine nila hehe..

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spiderye · 18 years ago

i’m using blogger. im pretty sure that blogger will improve in the coming years.

karla · 18 years ago

@yuga,
Your statement on re: stocks could be a reason why Google is not showing stats of blogger or blogspot

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief · 18 years ago

@jhay, I’ve talked to a lot of publicly listed companies — Yahoo, eBay, Intel, etc. and they all say that they cannot give out market-specific numbers.

I guess making the actual figures public will have an effect on their stock prices.

jhay · 18 years ago

Perhaps Aileen Apollo could answer that question or help get those stats? :)

Though I actually started blogging on Blogger.com, I never really stayed with it as within months, I already registered my very first domain, messed around with WordPress and the rest is history.

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief · 18 years ago

@Drew, I was actually surprised that the Product Manager from Google Singapore asked this question. It implied that he *knows* Blogger isn’t that popular in the Philippines; otherwise he wouldn’t pose the question to me. He did confirm though that YouTube is on top of Philippine traffic so that strengthens my assumptions that he has access to actual figures.

Going back to his question, my attempt was to compare not the aggregate traffic but the total user count. This means even private blogs are counted, not just the public blogs. The closest I got was LiveJournal publicly displaying their registration stats. I used Google Trends to check the unique visits to Blogger.com but it did not show it (Google Trends do not show traffic stats of Google properties). Haven’t talked to Dipchand though.

Going back to the social networking aspect, I agree with your observation. The reason why LiveJournal and Multiply innovated and grew was because they added social networking features. Blogger realized this very late and only introduced social features into their site since last year.

The debate on numbers could have been settled if the guys from Google would just share how many registered Blogger.com users are there coming from the Philippines.

drew · 18 years ago

If we start comparing Blogger to Friendster, Multiply, even Livejournal, the playing field is already uneven because in the first place Blogger is not a social network. The stats presented are lacking. When we speak of Friendster, like you say has 10 million Filipino users, even if 1% of its users somehow “blog”, I bet the volume of users who view these blogs is very small. I have only looked at a Frienster blog about 5 times my whole life. Friendster’s traffic relies mainly on its social networking aspect, not blogging. Multiply is the same, while LJ has a little of both. But despite that Blogger.com ranks high at #8 in the Alexa Top 100 for the Philippines. So why isn’t Blogger.com that popular here? I think when Dipchand said that “blogging is huge” here, he meant it as a growing trend more than real numbers. The Philippines’ Internet population pales in comparison to its SEA neighbors. Yes, blogging is huge sure, but not that huge. And that is his answer.

dan · 18 years ago

I am have been blogging for 2 months now and I started out with blogger myself. For newbie bloggers I guess blogger will be the best alternative. Blogger has a strait forward approach in designing and maintaining your blog. Plus you get some refferal traffic of four or more blogger users everyday. It may not sound much but it is a lot of help for newbies like me when starting out.

JC John SESE-Cuneta · 18 years ago

heh, lol. i really don’t like akismet.

false-positives is so high.

JC John SESE-Cuneta · 18 years ago

I use b2evolution not WordPress (the first fork of b2 cafe blog), and I still use Blogger. I also recommend blogger for those who are still starting up (then recommend them to move to b2evolution later).

For Comments, I highly recommend DISQUS (http://disqus.com), secondary is Intense Debate (http://intensedebate.com), especially for Blogger/BlogSpot hosted blogs.

Finally, one factor is Blogger/BlogSpot started out as two services, free and paid. With most features under the BlogSpot brand. Then Google only recently updated Blogger/BlogSpot, they’ve long been left behind by the times, and so it contributed in its decline in popularity in the Philippines.

sequoia · 18 years ago

I’m not a blogger but I here’s what I think:

1) Blogger isn’t marketed as a networking site unlike friendster and multiply. It’s a straight-up blog hosting site. Market it as such and you’ll pro’lly increase pinoy traffic.

2) Friendster and Multiply have weak blogging capabilities. Blogger can look into this big opportunity. NETWORKING + POWERFUL BLOG + OFFLINE CAPABILITIES (ex. syncing, FREE SMS alerts ala Twitter) = WIN.

3) In theory, the first mover (one who gains first mover advantage. haha), can only hold on to it for a period of time. It can increase its period of dominance by increasing its product life cycle. Through what means? Innovation. Clearly something that blogger lacks (as compared to WordPress which is open-source and has an active community of developers working on plugins and themes).

MiGs · 18 years ago

Baka mas mag click pa dito sa pinas ang Google Sites than blogger/blogspot…

here’s mine: http://sites.google.com/site/buddymigs/

Kuya Kevin · 18 years ago

I’ve been using blogger for about two years now. I’ve considered switching to wordpress, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. The biggest problem is I’d eventually have to re-post all of my pictures. I’m hoping blogger will keep updating its features.

I have noticed the popularity of blogging in multiply. I was cross-posting there, but I’ve since stopped. Got more comments over in multiply, but it was a hassle to monitor both blog. I’d rather have the traffic come to my own blog.

pinoy web surfer · 18 years ago

blogger already has an updated comment system. check out my blog. its just released yet although you can get it activate it from draft.blogger.com

pero still, the interface is not that good and there’s no built in stats page like that of wordpress.com.

lamang lang ng blogger siguro is that most companies have the social networking sites blocked. hehehe.

lito · 18 years ago

I thought blogger.com is popular here in the philippines.

wriuz · 18 years ago

i agree with jamie. A lot of Filipinos want their blog posts being read and commented by their friends. i’m one of those actually. Multiply is a great platform for such. its not that i’m endorsing Multiply but i’ve enjoyed it very much. plus, a large number of users in Multiply actually earns some money as it integrates some kind of an online store. Even though Multiply is a community site, users have total control as to who views their every post in a way making it private, i.e. for personal, for selected people, for contacts only, or for public viewing.

Friendster Blogs is also a great blogging platform but going around the blog section is not that easy. Blogger is way better than Friendster Blogs in terms of interface, functionality, customization, loading speed (i’ve observed that Friendster Blogs loads very slow maybe because it uses Typepad and has lots of advertisements). But the thing is, whenever someone posts a blog entry in Friendster Blogs, their online friends in the Friendster community are notified without much effort.

But there’s still hope for Blogger. If it wants to be in the center of attention, i suggest it redesign everything including the interface, comment system, and remove the Blogger bar. also, it should have a touch of a community system because bloggers need not be alone.

Jomark Osabel · 18 years ago

I started with blogger before earning millions (just kidding). Yes the interface is not appealing nor the public page. We are already approaching web 3.0 in terms of design but it seems they are stuck with web 1.0.

jamie · 18 years ago

I think Blogger.com is not that popular because it doesn’t have a social networking feature. If you have friends over at LiveJournal or if you blog on Friendster and/or Multiply, whenever you blog, your friends are notified without much effort. It’s kind of lonely to blog on Blogger unless you are popular.

Lyle, RN · 18 years ago

I agree that a great number of blogs in blogger are spam. Casts a bad light to the blogger and blogspot brand if you ask me.

But all of my blogs are hosted by Blogger. Their hosting reliability is unbeatable but all other features specially the COMMENT system is mediocre compared to WordPress.

blozoom! · 18 years ago

i still use blogger. and yes blogger interface is bad and hard to customize. wordpress is flexible. for personal blog, blogger is ok.

ElectronicsLab Philippines · 18 years ago

hindi kasi maganda ang interface ng blogger.

scatterhaiku · 18 years ago

interesting post. :) i’ve only ever tried blogger. makes me wonder if the alternatives offer features i’m currently missing out on.

Jan Alvin · 18 years ago

The reason behind it is its service features. Blogger made a wrong impression of its target market here in the Philippines. Ang gusto kasi ng mga Pilipino ay may full-control sa product na meron sila. And I think, yung distribution process o yung online promotions nila ay hindi nag-work out dito.