Edong's Dreams: Xtreme Blogging

5 Bloggers
1 Sports Utility Vehicle
30 days
7,100 islands
4,000 kilometers
10 key cities
10 Blogger EB's
10 Extreme Adventures
Thousands of eyeballs around the world

This is (drumroll....)
Xtreme Adventure Blogging!

This idea came up after a long e-mail discussion with Migs, Sassy and Abe. We were talking about how to get blogs sponsored. And this is where the idea continued in my mind ...

5 Xtreme Adventure Bloggers: XBloggers

Start with "auditioning" XBloggers. Ask Pinoy bloggers to write an article(s) on their own blog explaining why they should be chosen to be one of the 5 adventure bloggers. You'd expect all sorts of submissions ranging from the crazy, the makata, the hilarious, the rocker, the cutsie collegiala, the punk, the geek or geekette, the mother, the enlightened one.

Screening pa lang ng prospect bloggers, it will engulf the blogging world na, just like a TV Ad "road block" does. (TV Ad Road Block - an advertising style where a TV Ad is launched simultaneously on all channels).

Selection: Get a good group of prolific writers who can tell a story in many different ways. They'll be going through similar experiences and you'd like them to have a variety of writing styles and blogging styles. You'd also want to have some of them maintain photo, video and audio blogs throughout the 30 days of adventure blogging.

1 Sports Utility Vehicle

We want one major sponsor for the event. That's where the mullah will come from. I'm looking at Ford.

Ford Motors came out with an event last year: "Live in it to Win it". Five strangers, crammed inside a Ford Ranger in a test of mental sanity and nasal endurance. Whoever stays in the Ford Ranger the longest gets the SUV. I think the winner stayed there for 1 month. One measley month's suffering for a Ford Ranger!

If this event was worth the Ford Ranger and all the marketing and logistics of Ford, I imagine that Xtreme Adventure Blogging would create a media salvo too.

I want the event to be good to Ford, so I want to give them what they want. They're into outdoor adventure type of events like driving up to Pinatubo. So I'd like to give them events that will allow people to see different aspects of the Ford SUV in all sorts of adventures in all sorts of places.

30 days, 7,100 islands, 4,000 kilometers

I imagine starting off at Baguio, my home town. Going up to Pagudpud or Banawe, down to Pinatubo, then Clark/Subic, Manila, Quezon Province, Bicol, crossing over to Leyte, Ormoc, Cebu etc ... You get the drift don't you?

10 key cities, 10 Blogger EB's

I want to cover all the major cities. I want the Ford SUV to be talked about and blogged about and photographed in so many places around the Philippines. Just like what BatJay does with Spiderman. ;-)

And, I want to have blogger EB's in the major cities. Why? We want to party! This will also provide media events for the local and national press to cover. And lastly, it's nice meeting people in the flesh when you've mostly seen them only online.

I could also imagine maybe GlobeQuest or Airborne sponsoring these events in their hotspots. I imagine streaming video, or video clips or instant blogs going up during these events. Naalala ko kasi si ppcsurfr Carlo Ma. Guerrero. He was blogging from his pocket PC during the Airfagev Anniversary EB from a newly sniffed Wi-Fi hotspot.

10 Extreme Adventures

And, the center piece of what will attract the bloggers, the major sponsors and the press: Extreme Adventures!

Bungee jumping, skydiving, white water rafting, para-sailing, skiing, whale watching, snorkelling, diving, online gaming ;-), tuba harvesting on 3 storey high coconut trees, coastal cleanups, bayanihan style lipat bahay ... you know, those sorts of stuff...

The idea is to get stories and different perspectives from the 5 XBloggers.

Thousands of eyeballs around the world

This is a chance to find out whether blogging, as a medium, can be used as a major advertising campaign. I know we'll be needing the support all multimedia in the event - like TV, print, radio etc... But I'm playing with the idea that blogging will tell the whole story. And not just one whole story but at least 5 whole stories.

Will the world will watch this Xtreme Blogging Adventure? What do you think?

Post-script

The ideas in this Edong's dream are a cross between some favorite TV shows of my wife and I: No Boundaries, Extra Challenge, Amazing Race, Adventure Racing, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (Ha! did you see that 5 bloggers in an SUV connection?), $100 Dollar Taxi Ride, and the many adventures documented through blogs/websites which were followed closely by online audiences.

For example, there was a cross-channel solo-sailer, a team of climbers to mount everest, and a cyclist who (separately) documented their daily experiences on a web journal. There's even a travelling blogger who gets invitations from around the world to sleep over for a night or two. And that's the centerpiece of his blog and he gets to travel for free! (Readers: if you find the link to the blogs or the news items of the events I'm referring to, please share them.)

I also played around with "tourism" as a central theme for the event. I was thinking of "10 Fiestas" instead of "10 Extreme Adventures". This is still a possibility. Wouldn't it be nice if these XBloggers went from the Panagbengga (Baguio Flower fest) to the Araw ng Dabaw, to the Sinulog, to the Ati-Atihan and the Pahiyas. Wouldn't that be a big string of blogging events? But the timing si crucial. I thought "10 Extreme Adventures" would make the theoretical major sponsor (Ford) happier.

There was also this idea of diversifying the blogs and writing product reviews for different mobile gadgets and services during the 30 day expedition. Like laptops and cellphones and PDAs and Wi-Fi hotspots and GPRS/EDGE internet access. This is still a possibility, but I might make the event less clearcut and a bit cluttered. 30 days travelling and 10 extreme adventures is a whole looooot to blog about.

What to do? what to do?

What is needed to make this Edong's Dream a reality? Well, if I were Donald Trump, it would be easy.

What is needed, maybe, is an event organizer. One person or group who would put together the details of the idea, put together the costs, the logistics, gather the media connections and resources ....

And most of all, sell the idea to sponsors like:

SUVs: Ford, Mitsubishi (Adventure)

Telcos: Smart (AMP, Infinity), Smart ACES (cellphone signal via satellite) Globe (Platinum), GlobeQuest, Globe WIZ, PLDT, EDGE (?), Airborne

Media:
* TV - Digital Tour, Gameplan, Sports Unlimited, Motoring TV shows, Studio 23, ABS-CBN, GMA
* Print - Gadgets, mph, C!, Rev, T3, FHM, Computerworld
* Web - Pinoyblog, INQ7's Infotech, Computerworld
* Radio - Radio Stations (spare me the Love), a nationwide radio network that can follow the Adventure Bloggers in their inter-island expeditions.
* The by-standing Bloggers - The emerging media in my mind. The blogging populace will be both the audience and the medium that will multiply the event a hundred fold when they write about "watching" the XBloggers online.

Gadgets: IBM, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, O2XDA, Kodak, Canon (digital and video cams), iPod mp3 players, CD/DVD players etc.

Cities: Tourism offices of Baguio, Cebu, Pagudpud, Sagada, Anilao, Boracay, Surigao, Davao, CDO, Bohol, Tawi-tawi (!) and others

What do you think? Send me an e-mail or write your comments below.

If there are any event organizers out there, I'd like to audition for Xtreme Adventure Blogging!

Edwin
Whew! Nice to have an idea written down. Now I can continue doing my thesis.