There has been a lot of talk in particular on blogs about the influence of blogs on the public sphere, people’s level of knowledge, and their political attitudes. Whatever the influence may be, an increasing amount of people construct, read and contribute to blogs.
According to an article in The Jakarta Post (Indonesia’s biggest English language daily newspaper) there are some 150,000 bloggers in Indonesia. About 500 hundred of these attended the first large meeting of bloggers, the Pesta Blogger (Blogger Party) held yesterday in Jakarta.
At the occasion, the Minister for Communications and Information, Muhammad Nuh spoke. He said, according to JP, that the gathering and blogging were both ‘revolutionary’ and deserved support, and futher that
“Blogs can be educational, empowering and enlightening. That’s why I can guarantee you curbing blogs will never happen in this country,”
That is comforting, and a sign of the general opening up of the public sphere since the fall of Suharto.
At the venue, an important piece of advice was given by Budi, a former Tempo (Indonesia’s best weekly newspaper) jounalist, and now ful-time blogger:
“No one will visit and revisit your blog no matter how cool your blog design is unless you have something substantial to offer”
… Which is probably appropriate for this the first post on our blog.
The link is here: http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20071028.@02&irec=1
Dull Files 
well i don’t know if i’ve something substantial to offer but i did my first posting today referencing indonesian politics. check it out back at the blog if you get a mo. welcome to the wonderful world of blogging.
fpb
http://www.pastapaulie.wordpress.com
Paulie:
Thanks for your response. I like your dolce vita site… sounds inspiring, moving to Italy, changing lifestyle and all.
As you can see, Lars and I still only starting up the blog. We have not yet sent the link to anybody really, as we want to write more continuously first. But I very much appreciate your welcoming us into the blogosphere.
Hopefully, we will get going soon, and have more posts on Indonesian politics and other things. We should be writing something about the upcoming Danish elections, but we will see (vediamo, is it?)
Saluti
Jakob
esattamente jakob! will keep checking in to se how things develop. it kind of gets compulsive.
good posting
fpb