Nigerian Blogging Scene

The Nigerian blogging scene

As the world is getting along well with blogging,the face of blogging in Nigeria is changing surely but slowly. At the time of writing this piece there are not many (home based) Nigerians blogging especially when looked at in relationship to the number of people using the Internet in the country.

A few Notable ones are, Timbaland , Trae Days, Chipplas Blog, Naija Jams Kazey's Journal. Kayode Muyibi is the creator of the Nigerian Bloggers Aggregator. As well as his personal blog, Timbaland created and manages the Nigerian Weblog Ring (NWR). However, most of the Nigerians on the blog ring are Nigerians based abroad.

A number of factors could be said to be responsible for why Nigerians resident in the country don't blog. The main factors are those relating to issues of availability and cost of access. However as internet use is quite widespread I believe the lack of blogs has more to do with poor awareness about what blogs are compared to the popular use of the email and chat amongst users. Also it takes maybe 5 – 15 minutes to check email or have a brief chat with friends whilst blogging requires far more time and research online which is very costly in relation to the average earnings particularly amongst students and young graduates who the majority of internet users.

Because of the above constraints, active Nigerian bloggers are either very technical or web savvy individuals who can still afford to stay more on the internet. Hence, its should not be surprising if you see a Nigerian blog talking about technology. The same reason goes for why some Nigerians put their blogs on their personal domain names. The other category of Nigerian bloggers are those living abroad ( Timbuktu Chronicles, Dusky Thoughts who incidentally has just returned to Nigeria for one years National Youth Service, Black Looks and Soul on Ice) and who do not have to contend with issues such as unstable electricity and phone lines like home based Nigerian bloggers have to.

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