FT Day, KL and Metroblogging

Technorati tags: Kuala Lumpur, Metroblogging, Blogging

Yesterday, February 1, was Federal Territory (FT) Day, to commemorate the day Kuala Lumpur achieved independence from the state of Selangor, after a long-fought secession war of terror that culminated in the building of the great archway of Federal Highway. And some years later, to be followed by the liberation of Labuan and Putrajaya...

Celebrating independence from the clutches of state rule...
(Photo credit: The Star)

Okay... so it didn't quite happen that way, of course. Nowhere close, and nowhere as dramatic. But imagine telling the fable above to someone born after 1974, with a straight face. Isn't revisionist history fun?

In any case, revisionist history is not what this post is about. Nowhere close, and nowhere as educational. No, it's about Kuala Lumpur, the city Walski calls home. Not about the city per se, either - no, it's about one little thing that we can do to help put KL on the world blog map.

Incidentally, 1974 is when Kuala Lumpur was established as a Federal Territory. So this year marks the 33rd anniversary. And as with most official occassions in Malaysia, today's FT Day is usually commemorated with officious and stodgy parades, in KL and the other Federal Territories of Labuan, and Putrajaya. To whom this is supposed to be appealing to remains one of those mysteries of life...

Oh, and also with fireworks. Which is undoubtedly a lot more fun.

Anyhow, a few days ago The _Earthinc came up with a great suggestion that Kuala Lumpur, too, should be part of the Metroblogging group of blogs. You can find out all about Metroblogging on their website, but in a nutshell, it is a grouping of blogs, each focusing on a particular city around the world. Singapore has one. Bangkok, Manila, Bangalore... 50 real cities worldwide. And even one imaginery city - Azeroth (a place familiar to the WoW-heads out there). But not Kuala Lumpur. Yet.
(more on Metroblogging in the full post)

And so, being that Kay Ell is home to a number of us bloggers, how would you like to join __Earth and Walski as volunteers to set up KL's own Metroblogging blog? The minimum number of bloggers required is 8, and at present we are still five short. Walski, by the way, has already said YEA, in case the point didn't come across to you.

If you're interested, either let Walski know via the comments, or e-mail him, or via The __Earthinc post mentioned above.

There are a few reasons why Walski thinks this is a great idea. First off, every other major city in the region (with the exception of Jakarta) already has one. Second, it's a great way to promote KL to the world, with the help of citizen spokespersons like you and Walski - sort of gives a better person-on-the-street perspective of what makes KL special to us. Third, like every other major city, there's always that little-known corner stall which serves great tasting food, which probably didn't make it to the mainstream papers food section, or little known facts, etc.

From Walski's understanding, each volunteer needs to post at least one article a week to the blog, which shouldn't be too difficult a task.

So, if you're interested, you know what to do...