Stories about Technology from May, 2009
Cuba: Blossoming Blogosphere
“A lot has changed in the ‘Made in Cuba’ blogosphere,” reports Generation Y, for whom there is “no greater happiness than to see the rise of so many plural, different and free spaces.”
Macedonia: Seasoned Journalist Talks About New Media
NGO New Media Center provided a video recording of the presentation entitled “New Media Vs. Old Media” given by retired Time journalist Barry Hillenbrand on May 5, 2009, at American Corner in City Library “Braka Miladinovci” in Skopje [MKD], Macedonia. The video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Bahrain: Activism Widget Generator Launched
Mideast Youth has launched a widget generator to raise awareness on imprisoned bloggers, journalists and activists. “Setting up campaigns is not an easy task if you don’t have the right tools. There was one tool that we at Mideast Youth always felt was missing, and that was the ability to...
Malawi: Twittering Malawi Elections 2009
Seven candidates are running for president in the fourth presidential elections in Malawi, including the incumbent Bingu wa Mutharika for the Democratic Progressive Party and the main opposition figure John Tembo, standing for the opposition coalition. Voters are also choosing their members of parliament. Anyone interested in the elections can follow updates from Malawian micro-bloggers.
Pakistan: Use of Soical Media Tools In Activism
Tamara Palamakumbura of DigiActive took an interview of Pakistani blogger Dr. Awab Alvi where they discussed the use of social media tools in Pakistan by citizen journalists in reporting the 2009 long march protests.
Malawi: Listen to Malawi Election Bloggers
Malawians are currently voting in the presidential and parliamentary elections. A group of Malawian bloggers were trained by PenPlusBytes, an International Institute of ICT Journalism in collaboration with New Media Institute to monitor and comment on the elections using blogs, twitter and mobile phones. Let's take a look at their blogs, which are hosted on The African Elections Portal. The African Elections Portal provides comprehensive election related information on the various countries in Africa.
The IndiBlogger.in State of the Indian Blogosphere 2009
IndiBlogger.in is a vibrant community of Indian blogs with some excellent features like a topic-wise directory with ranks (IndiRank) and a meme-tracker (IndiVine). I have put together the highlights of some interesting data from the 7895 blogs that the aggregator crawls in an "IndiBlogger.in State of the Indian Blogosphere Dashboard".
Peru: Launch of New “Contenidos Locales” Site
Enzo Abbagliati of Cadaunadas [es] announces the launch of the new “Local Content [es]” site that collects much of the content created at the varios public libraries that part of the Biblioredes project in Chile.
Manifiesto de las Comunidades de Internautas de Bolivia | Palabras Libres
Mario Durán of Palabras Libres [es] publishes the “Manifesto from the Internet Communities in Bolivia” that was created to coincide with Internet Day and the Digital City held in La Paz. The document promotes greater digital inclusion for all Bolivians.
Vietnam: Bloggers under attack
Le Trung Thanh, a university student and blogger, writes about how bloggers are censored and harassed in Vietnam.
India Votes for No Change: Indian Bloggers & Twitter Users React to #IndiaVotes09 Results
The results for the month long Indian Lok Sabha elections are out and India has voted back the incumbent Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) into power with a decisive verdict, surprising many observers. The Congress supporters are jubilant, and the BJP die-hards are understandably glum, but most neutral Indian bloggers and Twitter users are happy with the verdict, for more reason than one.
India Elections 2009: Tapping Into The Twitter
As the results of the Indian Parliamentary Elections 2009 came trickling in since today morning, Indians from all around the world were glued on to their TV or pc screens to see the updates. The Twitter tag “#indiavotes09″ became the number one topic on the trends list of Twitter search as more an more Indians voiced their opinions and disseminated information about the election results via Twitter.
Africa: The Grid and Mobile Phone Documentary
White African writes about the Grid, a mobile social network in Tanzania and Hello Africa, a documentary about mobile phone culture in Africa.
Ghana: Sponsor Maker Faire Africa
You can sponsor Maker Faire Africa, “We’ve been asked by a number of people if they could sponsor Maker Faire Africa as individuals. Amounts that range from $25 to $100. This is a good idea, and in line with the type of event that this is.”
Egypt: Court bans Porn Sites
Lawyer Nizar Ghorab (Ghorab translates to Crow in Arabic) filed a lawsuit calling for banning porn sites because they destroy the core values of the Egyptian society. The Administrative Court in Cairo ruled in his favor. Between anger and sarcasm, Egyptian bloggers react to the ruling.
Nigeria: Digital Lifestyle of Connected Nigerians
Oro writes about a survey conducted by the Centre for Information Technology and Development in Nigeria, “the Digital Lifestyle of Connected Nigerians.”
Japan: ‘Yoshiharu Habu and Modern Shogi’, an Open Translation Project
A volunteer translation project sprang up and translated all of Mochio Umeda's book "Watching Shogi from Silicon Valley - Habu Yoshiharu and Modern Times" into English in under a week.
South Africa: Social network that tracks your location
Vincent writes about the Grid, a social network that tracks location of mobile phone users in South Africa.
Azerbaijan: Bloggers speak about Baku youth protest, detentions
Following a terrifying shooting spree at a Baku university which left 13 dead, students took to the streets to demand that a national day of mourning be declared in Azerbaijan. With the request falling on deaf ears, several youth activists, among them some bloggers, planned to protest the inaction, and specifically a festive holiday of flowers scheduled for 10 May. Many were detained.
St. Lucia: Walcott Reactions
As St. Lucian Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott withdraws from the race for Oxford Professor of Poetry, Repeating Islands posts an update: “The nearly unanimous response…from newspaper reporters, commentators, and bloggers has been one of regret and of condemnation of the tactics that pushed him to that decision.”
Arab World Reacts to Jordan's Twittering Queen Rania
After her debut on YouTube, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan is now courting microblogging service Twitter, allowing the world to catch up with the 140-character messages of the self-described mum and wife “with a real cool day job.” With 41,217 followers so far (she is only following 31), reactions from around the region on the Twittering Queen's adventure pour in.
