Global Voices » Egypt: 30 Days of Blogging

Egyptian blogger Shayun Biqalbi ^[1] – Something in my Heart – wrote about a campaign called “30 Days of Blogging”. It is originally Dalia Younis’ ^[2] idea and she wrote about the it here [Ar] ^[3]. People who participate in the campaign should write a new blog post every day for one whole month. It is somehow similar to the “365 Project ^[4]“, but this time it is for blog posts instead of photographs.

Shayun Biqalbi the reasons behind starting such campaign here ^[5];

حملة “30 يومًا من التدوين” تهدف إلى ما يلي:
– زيادة شعور المدوّن والكاتب بالمسئولية تجاه قرائه الذين قد ينتظرون بالشهور لقراءة جديده ثم ييأسوا ويكفوا عن متابعة موقعه أو مدونته.
– إظهار موهبة الكاتب في قدرته على استنباط أفكار من حياته اليومية والكتابة عنها، وليس انتظار مجيء فكرة أو إلهام من العدم.
– تشجيع القراء على القراءة اليومية ولو كانت لتدوينة قصيرة.
– زيادة زوار ومتابعي المدونات الذين ستزداد ثقتهم في وجود جديد كل مرة

The 30 Days of Blogging campaign is meant to:
– Enrich the bloggers responsibility towards their readers who wait for them for months to write new posts, and might sometimes give up and stop following their blogs.
– Force people to sharpen their talent and come out with new ideas to write about, and not to wait for blogging ideas to come to them.
– Encourage readers to read a blog post each day, even if they are just going to read a short post.
– Increase the number of visitors and followers to blogs, who will be more confident to find new posts every time they visit those blogs.

The initiative's rules are as follows:

يقوموا بالتدوين اليومي عن أي شيء ولو كان مواقف الحياة اليومية كما يرونها بأعينهم الخاصة طوال فترة شهر ابتداءً من أول مايو 2010 (وهو بديهيًا موعد بدء الحملة). وفي حالة أن لم تسمح ظروف المدون في يوم بعينه فيتعين عليه أن يكتب تدوينة زائدة في اليوم التالي

They should write a new blog post everyday. It can be on anything, even daily incidents they experience during this month. It will start in the 1st of May – which is the starting date of the campaign, and in case any of the participants was not able to write a new post one day, he can compensate by writing an extra post the following day.

I guess we should wait to see how many bloggers have joined such campaign. Also some have been wondering if they can just start their own “30 Days of Blogging” any time, and not be committed to having started it on May 1.

Finally, we don't know if the idea of “30 Days of Blogging” challenge is really an Egyptian idea, as it isn't new. People like Mary Beth Mills ^[6] and Flights of Whimsy ^[7] have been calling for a very similar challenge way before Dalia Younis ^[3].