on behalf of somewhere in... , and hopefully also on behalf of the bloggers of somewhere in... blog , i welcome the arrival of prothom alo blog which we have heard quite a lot about.

i am very excited about the arrival of this blog for many reasons. somewhere in... blog pioneered and proved that bangla blogging has a great potential. this inspired the birth of several other blog communities, like sachalayatan , pechali , amarblog and others. however, this is the first time a media company , and the largest one that is, not only has understood but actually acted and launched their own bangla blog community.

first of all, competition is healthy. i expect that prothom alo blog has identified some areas where they want to do better than others. it could be they have identified a weakness in somewhere in... blog, or felt the total absence of some features that the bloggers will love. this will definitely attract bloggers to them and ensure that the rest of us wake up and improve our user experience even more. mahbub morshed , emran and hasin (the two latter who where major contributors in building somewhere in... blog) in prothom alo blog can also save themselves from many of the faults and failures we as pioneers had to go through, as they must have observed the "do´s" and "dont´s" in blogging.

secondly, i expect that prothom alo blog will reach much wider than any of the other blogs, as prothom-alo has much more online readers than the rest of us together. this is very good, as many new people will be educated about and exposed to blog. this is a benefit for us as well, because while trying out prothom-alo blog, they will also be informed about the other blogging platforms through the ongoing debates. let them try all and settle where they feel most at home.

third, if the editors of prothom alo are smart, they will include blog posts in relation to news articles which should be attractive to bloggers. we are learning a lot and still have lots to learn from our engaged community. the observant eyes, sharp pen and collective intelligence of a large blog community would be a very valuable addition to any journalist pool in any paper house.

however, success does not come overnight and does not come for free. it comes with passion, dedication and love for the product and community they establish.

i wish matiur rahman, mahbub morshed and everyone involved in prothom alo blog an exciting future with prothom alo blog. we hope somewhere in... blog will always be a place to inspire you to do better and better.

and the winner is: you, the bangla blogger