Interview with Matt Mullenweg by Annalyn Jusay of Manila Bulletin
The full transcript of Matt Mullenweg’s interview by Annalyn Jusay of Manila Bulletin can be found on her blog. Apparently the newspaper cut the interview due to space constraints—another advantage of new media over traditional media!
But let’s save that issue for another day and enjoy how the old meets the new in this interview. Some snippets below. Here is Matt’s first impressions of the Philippines and its people based on our own version of WordCamp:
Q. It’s your first visit to the Philippines and spent some time at the maiden Philippine edition of the WordCamp. First impressions?
A. People love taking pictures here and I prolly had more than a hundred of that in the WordCamp. It just blew my mind. It’s a little bit common in other parts but not the same here. During the event, I saw that Plurk was really big. Everyone was plurking!
Filipinos are very warm, very outgoing. I think it’s cultural. In places like Germany, they’re a little more reserved. Filipinos like talking and communicating. You have big families, it seems. I was hanging out and this person has, like, five cousins in the room. I love that all the warmth and openness creates a very vibrant blogging community.
And here’s his opinion on the divide between blogging/new media and traditional media:
Q. Now that blogging is a big thing and publicists are discovering the bloggers, what can you say about it?
A. There’s a danger if you get started being invited to more events and start to be treated like traditional media. Bloggers, then, become more like traditional media. They’re afraid to publish something because they might offend someone who gives them money or advertises on their blog. And that is dangerous because then, you’re no different from traditional folks.
It’s great that people are making money from their blogs but, just like journalists, you should try to balance the editorial and the business side. Focus on the long term, not short term.
