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Here is the Jakarta Globe’s piece on why some Indonesian bloggers preferred blogging in English. I was also got mentioned on that piece [Thanks, Michelle!]. The article also listed Three Popular Blogs Written by Expats Living in Indonesia and Ten Blogs by Indonesians Who Are Writing in English as tracked by Web site Indonesia Matters. To these [...]

The story about Prita Mulyasari, a housewife who has been detained for defamation allegations after complaining over the Internet about a hospital treatment, has created a buzz through blogs and social networking sites. The nursing mother of a newborn baby and 3-years old son has spent three weeks at Tangerang Women Penintentiary. More than 24,000 people [...]

I was just interviewed by Adrian Simpson, a host of Round. The world. Connected., this afternoon at Wetiga cafe, Radio Dalam area, South Jakarta. He asked me about how does Jakarta become one of Asia’s blogging hubs as well as my activity as a full-time blogger. Who is he? His blog tells us: A seasoned traveler with [...]

Curatorial Board of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival has now completed the selection process for the invited Indonesian writers, according to a newsletter I received this morning. The Board, comprising noted writers Melani Budianta (Jakarta), Azhari (Aceh), Mashuri (East Java), Lily Yulianti Farid (South Sulawesi) and Tan Lioe Ie (Bali), have selected 15 young [...]

Hell yeah! Dr Onno Purbo, Indonesia’s most prominent information technology advocate, just proposed another “crazy” idea: do it yourself GSM base-station! By using an open source technology, he explains, we could create our own GSM base-station and provide free telephone call for the people. Withdrawn from the Indonesian civil service and retired as a lecturer seven [...]

Although some 250 million people speak Bahasa Indonesia, the language’s global importance is still downplayed, according to the Jakarta Post. But it’s nice to know that our national language remains important at top US universities, since they always offer Indonesian language courses to their students. However, top US universities including the University of California-Berkeley still offer [...]

There was an interesting development in Indonesia’s political landscape: a campaign team invited a blogger to “cover” their electoral campaigning in Makassar and Palembang. Campaigning season for Indonesia’s third general elections since the fall of the Suharto dictatorship already kicked-off last week. My colleague Ong Hock Chuan wrote: 2009 may go down in history as the year in [...]

Indonesian cigarette czars Michael Hartono and his brother Budi survived the global recession and are now the country’s richest men, as published by Forbes magazine. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are topping the world’s 793 richest people list –five of them were Indonesian businessmen (Michael Hartono, R. Budi Hartono, Sukanto Tanoto, Martua Sitorus, Peter Sondakh). The [...]

Finally, Al Gore, the Nobel Prize and Academy Award-winner, has an official Twitter account — following his fellow Democrat Barack Obama! Al Gore is one of a few persons that I admired most. He played a key role to promote the Internet super-highway in the earlier years of Internet. The former-Vice President of U.S., also an environmentalist, [...]

Yeah, like more than three million people in this planet, I was also used Twitter — a free social messaging utility for staying connected, which are text-based posts (otherwise known as tweets) of up to 140 characters in length — to support and witness Barack Obama — which became the US President-elect today. Obama himself has [...]