Initially, the word moblogging had sounded pretty alien to me. If I didn’t know any better, I would have expected to hear it in the same sentence as gangsta, hood and bling-bling. The actual meaning of the word however, has nothing whatsoever to do with Brooklyn, the ghetto or P. Diddy.

Stefanie Khaw
 

Moblogging, which comes from mobile blogging, is simply using your mobile phone to publish content on the Internet. That content can be anything ranging from text, pictures, media files or some combination of the above.

All you’ll need to catch on to what tech geeks expect to be the next cyberworld trend is a phone with a camera function and MMS or e-mail capabilities. Many online services already provide avenues for users to upload photos directly from their phone. These include Google’s free blogging platform, Blogger.com and the Flickr.com, a popular photo upload site. Even Nokia has jumped onto the bandwagon with its Lifeblog application.  

So what will moblogging do for you? You can blog while moving around, for one. You’ll be able to post entries on your blog immediately without having to physically return to an office desktop; you don’t even have to lug around your laptop anymore. At the Symbian Smartphone Show I attended in London, there was on-the-scene coverage in the form of a photoblog which utilized ShoZu, a cutting edge application from UK-based company Cognima.

If you’re going on a holiday and want to keep your friends and family updated on your travels, all you need to do is enable international roaming if you’re leaving the country. With your trusty phone, you’ll be making your loved ones envious of the fun you’re having abroad, not to mention impressing them with your avante garde technical know-how.

Moblogging is also set to change the way news reporting is done. During the July 7 bomb blasts in London, the flurry of tube passengers escaping dark underground tunnels was captured by one of the commuters who happened to be carrying a cameraphone. With moblogging, anyone and everyone can be a news reporter, delivering accurate information from the location itself.

Of course moblogging won’t be for everyone. If you’re the kind of blogger who likes writing long, opinionated pieces, this won’t be your cup of tea. Writing a long rant or even a commentary with more substance isn’t going to be much fun when you’re using your thumbs to type it out.  Moblogging is for more picture-based blogs.

But moblogging’s major setback is cost. 3G in Malaysia are still hovering over the RM100 mark while sending an MMS can cost up to RM0.50 for a single, low-resolution photo.

Nevertheless, taking a look at the rapid proliferation of blogs in the country alone, you’ll agree with me that this is all thanks to the IT revolution which resulted in the public’s increased access to Internet-enabled computers. Almost every urban home now has at least one PC which is connected to the Net.

Similarly, if moblogging is to take off in Malaysia, camera phones need to become the norm among all levels of consumers. This is already occuring since the price of camera phones are already falling due to newer models entering the market.

A bigger issue is that of the price of Internet access via mobile phones. This needs to fall to something more affordable. Although corporations will find moblogging useful, the core group which would primarily be interested in this new concept will likely be non-income earning students: Think of your average teenager who insists on shooting all her friends at the mamak on top of artistic attempts of the roti canai she’s having.

So erase any mental images you may have of Missy Elliot typing furiously on her laptop. Moblogging has already made it big in the US; Upon Googling the term “moblog”, I  discovered a myriad, ranging from a sushi moblog to a 2004 election one. I certainly hope that this trend will catch on here in the near future as barriers to entry in the form of high costs are diminishing.