Born to be a blogger

MULTIFACETED, the furthest you can get from being one dimensional, that's the impression that you get from reading the list of blogs that Kamarul Dzaman Ajmain has had a hand in.

Speaking at a Delifrance bistro, he seems like any other guy enjoying his weekend. Then he starts speaking about his passion with the internet, blogging and micro-blogging.

His honest smile and enthusiasm tells you everything.

"I have no computer background, so I have no programming, no scripting skills, so mostly it was just IRC, surfing and emails," he says.

"My first (experience) with the internet was the IRC (Internet Relay Chat), along with many others, chatting."

From there on Kamarul, or Marul as his friends call him, got to know people from IRC gatherings and then with the advent of social networks he began to develop a small readership.

"I tried a long time ago in 2002 and started a social blog, my own personal blog." It was called "Bibiran," he says. The term is Bruneian for chatterbox.

"My blog was first an online journal, about the kind of stuff I did, it was only open to a number of people that I knew, who came to read," says Marul.

"It was the people I came to see everyday, and it was more personal, then I thought why not make it about what I ate today?"

It marked a change where his postings online became open and started to gain a solid following.

"That one has a really good following and I posted up whatever I ate on the day and also had people contributing, from then on I somehow became known as a food blogger," recalls Marul.

"That was the start, really," he adds that the blogging scene started to really grow and with more and more people getting involved, he embarked on an ambitious project which captured the imagination of bloggers nationwide.

"It was during that time that I was working with Simpur (of DST Sdn Bhd), and I compiled as much as I could about the known blogs, and made a directory and invited people to send in their links."

That became the start of the simpurblogging nation, and was a project that Marul was heavily involved in, bringing other grass roots bloggers to the fore.

"It's my baby, and during my time with simpur I created the content and on a daily basis I would update it, with four or five people sending their links," he says.

At its peak, the simpurblogging directory which is effectively the first time a directory with Brunei's blogs are listed had reached the thousands.

Despite being busy with such a major project, Marul continued to dabble in different social media, blogs mainly. Together with a team of collaborators, they established another blog on shopping and a showcase blog featuring Bruneian weddings.

"Back then we had more time," says Marul, "after that blogging died down a bit."

It didn't stop Marul, who moved onto Tumblr, where his popular "geek-in-white" site is now based.

"At first I thought this will be a good site where I can bookmark the sites that I usually go to," he says.

As before, people continued to visit, and it became popular.

"It was called web 2.0 and was more about tech, then it became geek-in-white after I revamped it," he says.

He even went to register his website name into a dotcom and continued to run with it. What's more remarkable is that all this was done in his own free time and without any financial motivation.

"For geek-in-white, I have quite a number of people putting ads on it, but I don't want it," he points out. "I am quite selective, if you want I can do a post about you but that's it."

He laughs, conceding first hand about the commercial opportunity, "I could have made money, but I felt it would be a bit tedious."

"Even when I was in simpur, all the knowledge was experienced hands on and only had a little HTML and it was just for the fun of it."

His love for the Internet was obvious for the world to see and in 2010 he was selected as one of eight finalists in a competition organised by Borneo Colours. In the end an overwhelmed Marul was awarded 2nd most popular blog in Borneo.

"First of all I didn't expect to be in the final eight, and I went there and I was happy already," exclaims Marul, and confesses that he had no expectations after checking out the competition and seeing that they were very strong bloggers.

Recently he was also invited by the Asean Blogger chapter of Indonesia to represent Brunei at the Asean Blogger Conference in Bali.

These days he maintains two of his blogs, Geek-in-white and Bruneifoodies.tumblr.com regularly.

"I still get invited for food tasting and things like that, and surprisingly the following for Brunei foodies is quite high," he says.

When asked about future plans and trends Marul points to a couple of things.

"I have certainly moved on to micro blogging, it's been a couple of years now," says Marul. He adds that for him captioning and giving his own twist on proceedings.

"For us here, in Brunei, our blogs are more about social awareness," says Marul. He uses his blog to shed light on charity drives, and fund raising campaigns in Brunei Darussalam, "I don't think there's anything you really wanna complain about here in Brunei," he says.

Speaking about his future in cyberspace he says that the trend now, in particular the Bruneian one, is that "you can't predict the trend".

"So I'm just going to carry on as long as I still have the interest and the interest in things to share. I want to promote a healthy social networking environment for us all here in Brunei. Social networking is one of the most powerful ways of expressing one selves now, so it is best to be used positively." he says.

Meanwhile he has started to compile recent videos to Ulu-ulu Temburong, and upload it to my youTube account, and he added that it is another way we can reach out to certain people.

"Not long ago there was a Spanish couple who travelled around the world writing about food and they got in touch with me through the food blog, and we met up and connected."

"I want to promote Brunei through my blog. Now when I see the traffic (of visitors) and where they're coming from, I think (the internet) is a good place (to promote Brunei)," he says.

He adds that social media is still growing in Brunei."And that's what I am planning for next year, to be involved in certain initiatives, and my blog is a good platform to promote these causes."

"It's about social awareness and basically to really promote social media to be used in a positive way," he says enthusiastically.

You can expect no less from a Bruneian blogger done good.The Brunei Times