The Bolivian blog community webpage, Blogs de Bolivia [ES] [1], has been at the center of discussion regarding the growing phenomenon of Bolivian blogs. Recently, it sought to find out the demographics of those visitors that frequent the page. Its survey [2] found that by far, the two two categories were Bolivians living abroad (46%) and Bolivians living in the country (35%). The other categories included foreigners living in Bolivia and elsewhere.
Perhaps what is most encouraging was the number of responses in the survey, where 282 individuals took the survey. The blogroll of Bolivian blogs, written by Bolivians and by others in Bolivia, continues to rise. Part can be attributed to the amount of attention given to this new form of media, as articles continue to be published in Bolivia’s mainstream press. Gustavo Siles, one of the founders of the Blogs de Bolivia site and blogger at Almada de Noche [ES] [3], was recently published in Los Tiempos, Cochabamba’s major newspaper, where he talked about “Blogs, More Than Just a New Word [4]“.
Several of the country’s bloggers also participated in a forum held in Santa Cruz, which was sponsored by the Centro Simon Patiño in late October. The event titled, “Iberoamerican Gathering of Writers – Blogs: Language and Setting,” which also counted on its own event blog [5]. Sebastian Molina of Plan B [ES] [6] and Juan Carlos Ramiro Quiroga of Ciudadano K [ES] [7] wrote extensively about their experiences at the event. Approximately 15 bloggers attended the event and many also were featured speakers, such as Molina and other Bolivian writers, who also maintain blogs.
As the number of blogs increase every week, it is often difficult to keep track of them all. A list of sorts recently made the rounds and in the spirit of the recently awarded Best of the Blogs award, a top-ten list of Bolivian blogs were released [8]. This raised plenty of discussion on the Blogs de Bolivia site, where many of the commenters were perplexed by the unclear criteria and the manner of voting. Some noticed that they hadn’t even heard of many of the blogs, but were grateful for exposure to new sites. This has also led others to talk about the possibility of launching a more complete and participatory attempt to recognize some of the best Bolivian blogs.