After Bloggers are booming in Cambodia during the last a few years, no one knows that who is the real first Khmer Blogger. Even me; I always asked myself who is the first one. By the way, I have sometimes asked other Cambodian bloggers about it but no one knows real answer to my question.
Recently, The Phnom Penh Post published its headline “Cloggers, the King Father and online dissent”. At that time, I knew that the retired King Norodom Sihanouk is the first Khmer blogger. The King started posting regularly on his website since 2002.
The Post reported that “The retired King was enjoying a global revolution in online self-publishing that has been likened to the invention of the printing press. Armed with easy-to-use software, always-on connections and increasingly powerful mobile devices, bloggers, the theory goes, have become active media players- enabling dissent, enhancing freedom of expression and broadcasting democracy.”
In the interview by Bath Kanter, she posted article saying that “Meet Tharum: Cambodia’s Second Most Famous Blogger”. She added that Tharum became a celebrity blogger when his blog was feature on the front page of The Cambodia Daily.
Lux coined the term “Clogging” (as known Cambodian Blogging). He became interested in blogging and is a pioneer of “Clogging” . At the present, he formed a team, named “Personal Information Technology Workshop” with five Cambodian bloggers: Khmerak, Deedeedoll, Kalyan Keo, and Trajoke.
At the same time, Open Forum of Cambodia is providing Blog Training to students, NGOs staffs, journalists, and other youths about how to create blog, how to write articles and how to use Khmer for blogging.
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Vutha, I gree with you may his majesty king’s father is the first blogger. Do you have any ideas how many blogger are there??
In my recent interview with an AP reporter i provide my guesstimate of around 1,000 but most of them are inactive. Is my number close to the real figure?