So when I first wrote to Adel Gabot about his Philippine Week in Tech (PWIT) project, I was thinking about the emergence and disappearance of what I thought was a very interesting blog. "Disappearance is a strong word," he says. "On hiatus is better".
PWIT was (and still is) a tech blog composed of a set of locally well-known writers and editors who knew what they were spouting about. Real, honest-to-goodness journalists with grounding and experience who are immersed in their respective industries. "It's a free-for-all news/commentary/mag/rant/rave/ramble blog," Adel continues. "Anything goes, as long as it has some tenuous connection with technology, particularly, but not exclusively, local in context. Serious, whimsical, funny, sad, silly stuff. In other words, whatever."
The blog was inspired by the Leo Laporte's "This Week In Tech" (TWIT). The name PWIT was an obvious play on words. (In the Philippines, the sound is close to the vernacular for the arse.) "It's made for the novelty and shock value. Edgy, a bit naughty." I have to admit, I was a bit uncomfortable with the name as well so I pronounced their title as P-WIT or Phil-WIT.
So, why was PWIT created?
I made it partly to create an authoritative sniping panel of tech commentary, as opposed to random people just talking tech. Also to bring together the various writers from various (competing) magazines, a sort of UN of tech editors.
I started it, and did the admin jobs. I thought of the name, the logo, and invited the guys.
It was a small community that forgot what they wrote for during their day jobs, and we were all in this together. I edited Mobile Philippines (as did Jason (de Villa)), Art (Ilano) used to do PC Magazine, Vince edited T3, Ed did Gamesmaster before, Howard (Paw) edited Game Mag, Butch (Dalisay) - well, he was Butch, Bernie (Janda) and the others were regular writers and columnists for various things. We were working on getting more names in on it, and some were more active than others, but it was fun.
PWIT started out as a blog on Wordpress.com and soon had it's own domain. But when I last checked it out, the site didn't seem to be available anymore. What gives?
Life got in the way. It used to be a small wordpress freebie blog, until with the help of some friends we got us a domain and a host, which came out of my pocket, mostly. It got popular and noticed, but we had lives outside of it. What I didn't forsee was how busy we all get, and how it sort of just petered out after a year if no one took the lead (which was my job by default). That's what happens if you had real jobs. In truth it just went on a hiatus, and I'm bringing it back next month, like I said before.
So, is that the end of what was a rather interesting tech-not-so-tech website? Far from it! Apparently Adel wants to bring it back soon with more writers and more features. They already have recorded four podcasts which will be the main new feature of what he touted as PWIT 2.0.
The re-launch of PWIT is set for April 1, 2008. Hmm, April fool's day. How ironically fitting for what I consider to be a rather fun and funny read!
UPDATE:
Apparently Adel is still swamped with real-life work and won't be able to commit to the April 1 relaunch. Nevertheless, the site will be launched soon! I'll keep you posted with the goings-on of this interesting blog!
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