When Brunei social blogger RanoAdidas [1] celebrated his eight year anniversary last month, it was an event which was well-covered by the mainstream media. It's an indication not only of his popularity as a blogger but also his success in promoting social media in Brunei.
The Brunei Times recognizes [2] the popularity of the blogger whose blog traffic is an average of 5,000 to 6,000 hits per day and 20,000 to 25,000 hits per month
Ranoadidas [1] has over 6 thousand followers on twitter (@ranoadidas [3]) and his facebook fan [4] page is less than 200 clicks away from 8 thousand likes.
Last month, Brunei's celebrity blogger, hosted his 8th year [5] anniversary in style. He rented out one of the halls at the International Convention Centre and had booths set up for clients and sponsors to partake in the event.
[6]Ranoadidas with young fans
The four day event was launched on Thursday 26 May, 2011, and was packed with performances and contests. Everyday Mr. Rano was giving away vouchers and gifts and balloons for kids and adults alike.
[7]Ranoadidas balloons
A special hash tag was created on twitter #ran8adidas [8] and featured a photo contest for Instagram [9]and MyTubo [10].
Local blogger, emmagoodegg [11] or known on twitter as @emmagoodegg [12], who is a weekly columnist at local newspaper The Brunei Times, paid tribute to Rano's success [13] by doing a feature on him,
When we think Bruneian Blogger, we think Ranoadidas. And you'd be lying to yourself if you thought otherwise.
Another local Blogger, Nonnie King [14] or known as @kisich [15] on twitter, blogged about one of the highlighted events, The Food Eating Contest [16], hosted by two local food [17] outlets, @kapowburger [18] and @kitarojapanese [19].
Live streaming of the event was also possible with the help of the guys from @CornerGeeks [20] who helped [21] set up live video feed via UStream [22].
Ranoadidas has proven that blogging is not only a potential source of income but a viable platform to influence public media as well. He faced many struggles [23] in the past 8 years but he didn't lose his belief about the power of blogging to become an important social empowerment tool in Brunei.
Aside from covering various events sponsored by private and public institutions, he also gets involved in charity whenever he can. He recently partnered with another celebrity blogger Reeda Malik [24] of anakbrunei.com.bn [25] and raised money for a charity event [26]hosted by HSBC.
Earlier this year the two of them were also invited to attend the first ASEAN Bloggers conference [27] in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Indeed, Ranoadidas’ success is an inspiration to many bloggers in Brunei.