BudiPutra.com

Five foreign bloggers, started their Blogging Trip in Bali today. The bloggers are from the United States (Mark Tafoya),  Australia (Anthony Bianco), Singapore (Mr. Brown), Malaysia (Jeff Ooi) and Philippines (Michael Aquino).The trip will end up with the Pesta Blogger event in Jakarta, on Saturday, Nov 22, 2008.

Throughout the trip, they will be expected to post their experience, photos, people they meet, basically blogging about Indonesia and Indonesian people, and join the event.

The first Pesta Blogger last year attracted more than 500 bloggers and blogging enthusiasts from all across Indonesia. This year,  the Committee is expecting to double the number of participants to 1,000.

The Blogger Profile

Mark C. Tafoya is a personal chef in New York City, and the Executive Chef and Executive Producer of the Culinary Media Network. He is also the host of the ReMARKable Palate Podcast, but THIS podcast is all about his life outside of the kitchen! Mark is a graduate of Yale University, and worked as an actor for 10 years.

Anthony Bianco has travelled independently to many countries around the world for both business and pleasure. He is a self-proclaimed ‘travel tart’ whose only reason to remain in the rather dull mainstream workforce is to somehow vainly support his voracious travel addiction. He will go almost anywhere to experience something a bit different.

Lee Kin Mun, aka mrbrown, is a Singaporean blogger well known for his social and political commentary amidst Singapore’s tight media restrictions. He is one of the more notable bloggers in the Singaporean blogosphere. His podcast attracts some 20,000 downloads per day.

Jeff Ooi, is a Malaysian IT consultant by profession, blogger, photographer and politician. My fellow blogger at CNET Asia is an Internet and e-Business consultant based in Kuala Lumpur who’s spent the last four years blogging internationally on the tech scene. He is currently the Member of Parliament for Jelutong in the 12th Malaysian Parliament.

Mike Aquino has worked for ad agencies throughout Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Manila - writing advertising and magazine copy for hotels, restaurants and travel publications, and imbibing the local culture at the grass-roots level along the way. He’s handled clients like InterContinental Singapore and Westin Hotels in his advertising career.

I am going to attend the Pesta Blogger next Saturday (and will be speaking in one of its breakout sessions). See you soon!

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UPDATE (November 18): Shel Israel, co-author Robert Scoble’s Naked Conversation: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers (Wiley, January 2006), called Indonesia’s Blogging Trip of Pesta Blogger 2008 as “Indonesia 2.0” via his Twitter update and pointed out to this post:

First China 2.0. Now Indonesia 2.0. I ahouls have just met up with them & kept going. http://bit.ly/7mei

Thanks, Shel!

P.S. About China 2.0, please read his post.