Think Global, Blog Local
Jul 20th, 2005 by Jinja
Think Global, Blog Local
An article in Wired (by Matt Reed, writer of the Cambodia Daily article last week) brings yet more attention to the Cambodian ‘blogosphere’. [courtesy Khmerang.com]
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68224,00.html
Pundits weigh in here, here ,and here. Blogger Buzz tags it as well.
Hope Global Voices doesn’t mind if I excerpt one of their recent articles:
Our friends in Cambodia have been letting us know about an explosion of excellent Cambodian blogs, in English, French and Khmer. One of the most widely linked is King Norodom Sihanouk’s website. It’s not quite a blog – no RSS feed, for one thing – but the “daily documents” section is organized in reverse-chronological order and looks like a blog to me. There’s even a photoblog of sorts – a record of His Majesty’s daily activities in pictures. HM is evidently quite a music fan – many of the posts reference compositions or dances in his honor, and there’s a collection of songs performed by the king available for streaming by Windows Media users.
I’m taking a wild guess that the folks at Cam-Blog are Global Voices fans. Their motto sounds a little familiar: “For All Friends! The World is Reading, are You Ready to Write?” The twelve authors listed on the group blog are, providing news and pictures from around the country, as well as a useful list of “Clogs”, Cambodian weblogs.
Representing Cambodian youth overseas (and at home) are the Khmer-Girlz and Khmer-Boyz blogs, which index profiles and links of young Cambodian bloggers, especially in France, but also throughout the world.
I’ve added ThaRum, a prolific and articulate Phnom Penh writer, to my aggregator. His recent post on the importance of local content in Khmer is very much worth reading.
[read more: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/07/15/voices-from-the-wiki/]
Actually, the blogs are already here - we’ve never made an effort to just sit down and count them. In another month I think the listing will double.
We’ll know Cambodia blogs are really effective when there are more blogs in Khmer. (It’s an interesting technical challenge.)
The ’roundups’ (summaries) at Global Voices and other sites are usually by people who don’t know Khmer. What will happen to international coverage then? I guess the blogs that are in French and English (Spanish?) will be seen as ‘bridge blogs’ – weblogs that connect to the international community.
Might be a good idea to have another blog evening. Who would have thought a few burritos at Hurley’s Cantina could lead to such a media frenzy?
Well, now that the world’s watching, I’ll have to try to think of something interesting to say.
Hello,
Great job organizing bloggers meeting. You are starting something wonderful.
While you are at it, why don’t you also create awards, such as best blog site, best design, best pic, blah..blah…, to give to bloggers. Nothing special just a little sticker to let the blogger and the poeple know that the blog is read.
Jinja:
Do you know if the Khmer Software Initiative has a donation page?
We certainly don’t mind you reposting from GV, especially when it’s to highlight the exciting developments in the Cambodian blogosphere. We’re hugely grateful that our Cambodian friends are doing such a great job of making sure local blogs are represented in our wiki, and we’re trying to feature as many Cambodian voices as possible on the site…