Making a blogosphere

Here is a sketchy version of what I'll be talking about in BlogNashville conference in May 2005. It's based on my experience in making and keeping togethere the Persian blogosphere in the first few months.

Making a Blogosphere

How to form a local blogosphere in a community, based on the experience of Iranians

By Hossein Derakhshan

The success of Iranians in creating a hyper-active blogosphere in their own language could be implemented by other developing countries. Weblogs have had social, political, and journalistic functions in Iran, a country run by an authoritarian, Islamic regime. Studying the process of forming such online community can help many in developing countries to shape their own version of blogosphere.

Ignite

Someone should start it first; preferably a well-known figure among tech-savvy users. She should reside in the country or at least haven't lost connection with the society, culture and daily lives of the people in her homeland.

Display

No one would have an idea about weblogs if she couldn't see it. Only writing a daily weblog in the local language (using Unicode character-set) on various interesting subject matters and showing different uses and various styles of writing could inspire people. If people can't get the idea of a weblog, next phases would prove very difficult.

Teach (How-to Guide)

A simple step-to-step instruction in the local language would be the most important phase. The guide must be prepared for primitive computer users who usually are not very comfortable working with computers.

Don't forget the looks

Bloggers want their weblogs look distinctive. There should be some basic templates available in the local language, enabling bloggers to manipulate and modify colors, typography, etc with the use of properly created style sheets (CSS).

List new bloggers

Keeping a complete list of all new bloggers and carefully maintaining it is very important.. If they know they have already dozens of readers everyday, they will write more frequently and enthusiastically.

Count visitors

The biggest motivation for every blogger is the number of her readers. There are several free services giving bloggers reports about the number of their daily readers. The main guide should address that.

Support by links

More popular weblogs should constantly support fellow bloggers by linking to their interesting posts. Linking to other blogs make the community bigger and stronger.

Provide technical help

Changing templates, working with HTML and CSS is not an easy task for average bloggers. There should be an online forum (such as Yahoo groups) in which people can discuss technical questions.

Drag celebrities

Only local celebrities can spread the word about weblogs beyond the geeky typical Internet users who usually make up the first wave of bloggers.

Keep technical updated

Technological advances such as new CMSs, new tools and services not only would make the community more colorful and diverse, but also more attractive and addictive to those already blogging.

Make directories

As the number of bloggers rise, keeping manually maintained lists of them would become very difficult. A simple website to which bloggers can submit their blogs in proper categories will be very important.

Get press

Celebrities could get the attention of the press to blogging. The press could, in turn, bring more bloggers and more celebrities.

Make local services

No one can better understand the special needs of a community other its own members. Encouraging local software developers to create tools and applications to answer the local needs can be very useful. Persianblog.com is a big example.

Note: A timeline for the Persian blogosphere will accompany the final article.