Project Petaling Street, or PPS as it’s faithfully known, a Malaysian blog-tal as it calls itself, is a blog aggregating site where many Malaysian bloggers are familiar. Most Malaysian bloggers gather their first pot of traffic from this site. It is celebrating its 5th anniversary this 12 June and in their words, “It must have done something right!”

I agree that it could have done something right, but believe it could have done more! This is especially with the huge fan base that it has! So lets begin on what it could have been.

Social Network

PPS is like a de facto for must young and budding Malaysian bloggers to introduce their humble shack to more people. It’s also a place where new bloggers quickly found comfort in the big family. Yet, the only function that the site does remains very simple, displaying nothing but the latest ping that it receives.

What could it have been if you were given the chance to add other PPS users as your friends? Get yourself a nifty profile page – which includes blogs that you run, your entries, your best entries, you history etc? And perhaps the feature for your friends to actually leave comments on those pages/pings rather than your blog somewhere else? Allows a concentrated page view where everything is aggregated and represents you? Imagine the possibilities!

Social Bookmark

Remaining true to its root of blog aggregating, it remains perhaps far too simple! There ain’t even a “Top Ten” or “Most popular” section, or heck even a simple “Editor’s Choice!”

At the rate PPS receives pings from all over the countries, it could have done a lot with the data! Digg.com style digging, personalized feeds reader for each user, filtering, tree view comments, video and picture preview and the list goes on! Yet it remained humbling text based and what are the possibilities?

Community

Moving away from being each bloggers as an individual, could it have not developed further in building a really strong community? Though the first anniversary gathering was a roaring success, what happened to its 2nd, 3rd, 4th and not 5th?

To begin with, the whole site is just too silent. There ain’t much news coming up, the official blog itself is mostly quiet and where are the interaction? Where are all the outings, gatherings and stuffs? A cup of teh tarik over roti canai would be enticing as well. And I won’t even go into podcast, muxtape style sharing etc. for a healthy virtual community.

PPS was simply silently passing away; slowly washed away by time.

Blog Directory

Image courtesy of Delta’s Dark Den of Destruction

About during its 2nd anniversary, there was a revamp. Among others, a blog directory was introduced. It failed. Horribly. Why? First, design was flawed. It was, in short, too Yahoo! 1.0. Google should have been the word then.

Blogging Platform

With so many free open source blogging platforms available, it’s definitely not hard for PPS to actually start a blogging service! Slap in WordPress-MU for example, and we should have seen rojaks.petalingstreet.org instead of rojaks.blogspot.com! It’s not that hard!

Advertisement!

Nuffnang? Come on, could PPS not have slap an advertisement on each and every member’s blogs? They could have, but they didn’t. It thrives to be simple, only slapping a few Google AdSense sparsely on the page and occasionally some full-page advertisements – both un-intrusive. Sure it allowed them to survive, but back to the fan base that PPS enjoys, can you not imagine?

Web 2.0

By the current standard, PPS 5th year seems to look like its 50th. It’s web 2.0 and things have definitely improved! Colors are brighter on the Internet, yet PPS remains dull blue. Pages are more interactive, yet PPS remains static. The simplest form of “Search” function is not available either! PPS, you’re aging sickly, not gracefully.

However…

Though of all the possibilities and perhaps flaws and negligence by the founders, owners and heck the very Samaritans that run it, I must say those are what could have been or allow PPS to be.

But perhaps the one thing that we enjoy about PPS is the fact that it’s PPS. As simple as it is and always been I believe. Though so, I believe improvement should be made. One should not stay in one’s comfort zone for a long period. Change comes with risk, as what the revamp a few years back had taught the founders, but risk can be manage and positive returns are possible.

To start with, PPS could change incrementally. People do resist change, but good things will not go unnoticed and unappreciated. I believe if PPS remains at it is, it will one day fade away despite all the right things that may have been done. Throw in the money and I believe everyone else can build another Innit – but never PPS.

PPS enjoys its status like the Great Grandpa, but should we let Grandpa fade away, no. I hope not. After all, it is a place where I’ve made friends, laughed with, and a place where I browse everyday.

Happy birthday PPS, hope you’ll do well.