BEFORE he posted photos from this year’s Thingyan Water Festival on his web log, Ko Zaw Zaw Myo Lwin only had 1000 visitors to his online site, balargout.blogspot.com.

Since then the number of viewers has skyrocketed to more than 4000.
He said most of the visitors to his web log, or blog for short, were Myanmar people living overseas who missed taking part in their native country’s New Year celebration.

“Now I write almost every day, about my daily activities, events and memories, and I also post photos, poems and stories as well as quotes I like from books, movies and other websites,” he said.

He added that his postings have become so popular that he can now charge people up to K150,000 to post advertisements on his blog.

Ko Zaw Zaw Myo Lwin’s site is one of more than 200 Myanmar-language blogs that have appeared on the Worldwide Web since 2005, and among more than 71 million blogs around the world tracked by the search engine Technorati.

Now, in order to spread to word to locals who might not have access to the internet, a group of Myanmar bloggers have said they plan to publish a book composed of short stories, poems, articles and technological commentary that have been posted online.

“Some of us who write blogs in the Myanmar language became friends over the internet and came up with the idea of collecting our best material and publishing a book,” said Ko Soe Zeyar Htun, who writes for a local journal and is one of the organisers of the project.

“Some of the work is good enough that the bloggers can properly be called writers and poets but their work has never been published in print media,” he said.

“Our goal is to organise bloggers from all over the world who write in the Myanmar language and to introduce people who are not familiar with the internet to the concept of blogging and teach them how to post their own blogs,” he said.

He said that so far the team of 12 people involved in the project has collected about 130 articles from 40 bloggers.

“We plan to finish editing the book by the end of June and send a draft to the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division,” Ko Soe Zeyar Htun said.

“We would like to officially release the book to coincide with World Blog Day on August 31 this year but if the publishing process is not finished by then, we will at least arrange a ceremony to introduce the book to the public on that day,” he said.

Ko Nyi Lynn Set, who blogs about his personal life as well as about Myanmar history, culture and antiques, said people from all over the world view his site, many of whom post comments with information they want to share with him.
He said he hopes the book will help “double or triple the number of Myanmar-language bloggers in the coming one or two years”.