S is For …
So many countries, so few blogs.
For my Social Media class we are tasked with reviewing blogs from a country that begins with the first initial of either our first or last name. The Global Voices website gave me 22 choices for the letter S, including the Caribbean nations of Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and St. Kitts. Maybe I was dreaming of a beach vacation when I decided to explore the online conversations in those countries. Surprisingly, or maybe not, there were very few blogs, irregular posts and limited topics.
In their book, Naked Conversations, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel write that culture plays a key role because “Some countries are conducive to the openness required in a successful blog. Others are less conducive.” Economics and politics are also important factors.
Since I have always wanted to visit South Africa, I decided to tour that country’s blogosphere through Global Voices. Again, I saw that economics and politics are key influencers. On one hand I was surprised to find limited posts in general but not surprised that the blogosphere heated up around political topics including the Spring elections in Zimbabwe and the recent spate of attacks on foreigners in South Africa. One regular blogger, Muhammad Karim wrote on May 31 that bloggers need to do more than just write about xenophobia. Karim is a freelance writer and South African blogger who dishes on a number of topics including Playboy’s ‘Hottest Blogger’ contest.
Some of the interesting items I discovered was that South Africa has its own answer to YouTube. Zoopy was launched just a few months ago and has already attracted 120,000 visits a month (compared to the 120 million monthly visits to YouTube. Even the Cape Town mayor has gone digital: http://www.zoopy.com/helen.
A posting on the annual South African blog awards took me to thought leader, winner of both the best political blog award and Blog of the Year honors. The blog is affiliated with the Mail and Guardian newspaper, supporting Scoble and Israel’s claim that the most interesting blogs reside in either very large or very small companies.
Politics, religion and criticizing the media were all popular — and frequent — topics. Maybe our cultural differences aren’t so far apart. Even in advertisements. On one post discussing religious issues there was an ad for an online Muslim marriage service followed a few paragraphs later by an online dating site for Jewish singles.
Finding My Voice (or Making It Up As I Go Along)
Students of Garrett Graff know that the first sentence of Chapter 10 in Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s book, naked conversations reads: “No one wrote the official blogging rule book.”
That means that I am in unchartered water without a life preserver as I experiment to find my blogging voice for this blog which is part of my Social Media coursework . Each week I wonder where the conversation will take me as I ruminate on the weekly readings. I am grateful that there are no “blogging police” and that I have free reign to make it up as I go along…as long as I am having fun (class requirement!).
And, with the semester just about half over, I realize that I am having fun. I was skeptical early on about “this whole blogging thing,” and I still think there are a lot of random posts and a lot of random comments out there–in the blogosphere–that make me shudder and say, “who cares?” But then I think that there are a lot of talk radio stations (and people who call in to those shows) and tabloids (The Weekly World News was once a favorite in my office). We all have choices about what we read and what we listen to. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where freedom of speech is our right, and I am fortunate that there are no blogging rules that I have to follow as I seek my own style; my own voice.
Of course, naked conversations tries to guide us so that we won’t to it ‘wrong.’ Or so we won’t do it wrong for our company. Since my first blogging efforts are for my self, I can only hope that I will avoid the “forced and selfish” — or worse — Elvis on black velvet catagories! Moving forward, I will try to “be linky (Tip #9)” and engage in more conversations (so classmates: PLEASE COMMENT!).
