blink.lk

After six months this section of the website sees a new story – the first post in what blink means to me was put up on July 2nd, 2009 the birthday of blink.lk.  It was written by Angelo Fernando and he was talking about a concept which we had worked out -  publishing news that did not take real priority in mainstream – news from the bottom up.

alt It is not that we were in any way competing with mainstream media (which is impossible), but it was a concept to fit into an area that mainstream news was not making maximum use of and that is generating readership amongst  focused communities - writing for a smaller audience.

What does this mean?  Our best example of this is the blink caption story "A Baratha Christmas Bash" which is nearing its 1500th hit, barely a month after being posted.

From a mainstream point of view, this story is no heavy weight.  It is about a group of 160 people who were almost family, from the Colombo 3, 4, 5 and 6 areas who met for a Christmas lunch, all within a period of three to four hours, had a good time and then left.

It was exciting for us when the story when the story generated hugh interest - some days averaging  200 hits.

We are almost sure that this news is not consumed by the general cyber-public but we know it caught on like wild fire virally, as it went from one Baratha to another.  And the 30 photographs we posted and the YouTube video attracted a lot of attention.

As the Editor of blink.lk I was not really sure what news from the ‘bottom up’ really meant when we were tinkering with idea in a conceptual stage.  I was only sure of what it was not i.e. not mainstream. Today this idea is taking shape outside the lab and giving blink.lk a position in the new media sphere.

Where it will go from here we do not know, but we know that it is the stories we create that drives this concept and hope that it will become a viable formula for others to follow in the future.

Tyron Devotta