· May, 2009

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...

20 May 2009

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.

19 May 2009

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...

19 May 2009

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.

19 May 2009

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".

19 May 2009

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.

16 May 2009

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.

16 May 2009

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....

16 May 2009

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.

15 May 2009

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.

15 May 2009

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...

14 May 2009

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.

14 May 2009