Blogging about blogs

In reflective mode, Toni Sant discusses the state of the Maltese blogosphere and his pioneering work at MaltaMedia. Who else is better placed to give an authoritive overview of online Malta?

..In some ways it's fair to say that it all started with a rather simple question from David Friggieri in his last post for 2005. He asked (Maltese) bloggers, "are we being read?" An understandable question for anyone who, unlike author Ġużé Stagno, sees blogging as a worthy creative avenue. For those who have truly understood the nature of blogging, like author Immanuel Mifsud, staying away from blogging is probably harder than can be explained in just a few words. Why else would Immanuel start a new blog when he clearly (unlike Stagno) has so many other worthy things to spend his time on?..

Readership of Maltese websites in general, not just blogs, is something I've had a keen interest in since 1996 when I created visitmalta.com for the National Tourism Organisation of Malta. Two years later (without any support from or association with the National Tourism Organisation) I started the MaltaMedia Online Network from Ray Bajada's farmhouse in Gozo and my apartment on the lower east side of New York, after a brainstorming session with Ray over coffee at Xlendi Bay in the summer of 1998. MMON now enjoys an overall average monthly readership of 300,000. Mind you, these are not hits. If we're counting hits, than it should be said that the MaltaMedia Online Network receives about 6 million hits from over 2 million monthly page views every month. This means that during 2005 we saw a total of about 3.5 million visits, which generated about 75 million hits...