Macalua.com

First read this excellent article by Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine.com. The entire article can be shortened to this:

• Content is not king.
• Distribution is not king.
• Trust IS king.

Now let’s apply that to the Filipino blogosphere.

The Filipino blog explosion is astounding. The breadth of topics/depth of discussions is really something else. And the frequency and speed by which bloggers create and release this information…amazing.

But being in a country where 90% of our daily collective lives can be summed up in a 1-hour news program, there’s really not much to talk about. With just so many news-worthy topics to blog about, chances are you’re “sharing” the topic with 20 other Pinoy bloggers. As far as opinions go, you have 3: you can bend left, right or stay neutral. Add to that the fact that most of us just source topics to blog about from the major Filipino online dailies. The possibility that you have the same opinion on the same topic is high.

Distribution is not a problem either. There are a lot of free blog publishing services online. Nowadays, the only investment you need to start blogging is your grey matter and time.

Pretend two authors write about the same topic, have the same opinion and have similar editorial styles. Whose article do you think people will notice more? The blogger they trust, of course. Take for example the whole Hello Garci scandal. Every Pinoy blogger must have written something about the tapes in one form or another. But if you’re not one of the elite Pinoy bloggers out there, your content, no matter how cleverly worded or researched it may be, amounts to pretty much nothing (in the grand scheme of things). Because nobody knows you, nobody trusts you, and because of that, nobody cares. The inverse is also true. A well known and well liked blogger can put up a carelessly written post about a so-so topic and get all the oohhss and the aahhss almost instantly. Think BMW and Daewoo.

Copywriting, design and SEO will get you places but it is the “trust among the technorati” that will ultimately determine your blog’s relevance. Build a brand your readers can trust and invest in social currency for your site, and they will come.