@Rinko: Thanks for dropping by. I guess sometimes it’s easier to ignore them and sometime’s it’s not. Again like in our small community where events and friends overlap, it’s not that easy.

@Natasha: You and Walter are probably expressing the closest sentiment to what I’m thinking. The community/audience will decide for themselves who’s full of crap and who isn’t, and decide where the value lies and who to ignore.

@Walter: True that. I remember the IRC days and instances you’re talking about. Such a pity that using IRC when I was 14 and now 10 years later nothing has changed. Thanks for the positive comments, we’ll definitely keep doing just that. If we were to stop, then these people win, right?

@Cneil: There have been some instances where it does look like they’re just being sensational and generate hits out of it, and sometimes it seems to be purely malicious. I don’t claim to understand it either.

I don’t understand the fighting. Does that happen because you are competing for sponsorship dollar or are trying to be sensational? I was under the impression that after a few nasty flames you all went out and partied together and bragged about how many hits you happened to get from the tussle. Just like some celebrities who believe there is no such thing as bad publicity.

When Internet Relay Chat (IRC) first became popular with early servers like pacific internet and cyberway being hosted, there were also politics and bad blood spilled between friends, which subsequently led to the closure of several popular channels. The same thing occurred with forums like icered, and different online bulletin board groups.

What is unique in Singapore is that the social media scene here is largely focused on personalities and relationships rather than special interests and professional areas. Other than food (which is a national pastime), you can barely find people who blog consistently on specific topics. And we all know that whenever you put people together, an inevitable end result is politics.

I think you and your friends have done a great job in pushing ahead with social media breakfast, and furthering the agenda for social media in Singapore. What you should do is to treat those negative comments with a pinch of salt and just move on.

Don’t be too sad about it. Backstabbing occurs everywhere.

As in the case of other media, individuals have to be discerning in their assessment of the information they consume.

If you think a blogger is bullshitting you, feeding you lies, you stop trusting them. I don’t think you stop trusting everyone who blogs.

If businesses do think in such a limited and simplistic manner, perhaps the work is in letting them see it another way. Blogging is an expression of free thinking, it’s a chance to say what you think.

Sometimes this possibility scares people. But the truth, about your breakfasts or about how good OSIM’s new massage chair is, will be revealed by how good people’s experiences of the thing itself actually is.