Back

Hello all,

Considering the fact that Romania will have most probably a socialist government from now on, and considering the fact that last time when my country was governed by the socialist party there were very serious democracy issues, I decided to come back.

I shall continue posting images and writing about Bucharest, however, I'll try to write a bit more about freedom. In my view, democracy is regressing in my country, and unfortunately quite few people actually do care about it. Most of us just care about our daily ration of food.

With love,

blogging15. Invitation to my Romanian speaking friends

I just launched my online journal in Romanian. I decided a try would be useful.

If you want to read and express your views, you're welcome, my friends.

The link was also added to the blogroll.

With love,

blogging14.

As you can see, the face of my blog changed, as I was not very satisfied with the way the page looked like, lately - it had become a little too impersonal for my taste, looking more like a site and less like a blog.

I hope you will find the new page more personal and reader friendly; I tried to make the text and the images easier to perceive.

I also introduced a voting system for the posts - a thing I wanted to do for a long time now - and I invite you to vote whenever you feel a post is good or, on the contrary, irrelevant.

Do not hesitate to leave comments if you think further changes should be made. I want my readers to feel comfortable on this page.

In the end, the photo of the day: a concert in the Constitution Square, with the Parliament's Palace in the background. The picture was taken with my telephone, back in April 2009. And the one singing was Al Bano.

With love,

To blog or not to blog? My feelings about the 2010 Romanian blogosphere

Gotta tell you this, guys.

I've been spending a few weeks studying in parallel the occidental blogosphere and the Romanian one. In the first case, there were the Blogger blogs of note (January, February and March 2010); in the other, the ZeList Top 50 – a.k.a. the most prominent 50 Romanian blogs. In case you were wondering where all my recent - and ironic - references to the Romanian blogosphere came from, you have a part of the explanation.

So, this is what I discovered, and what I can tell you with the right hand juxtaposed to my heart: unfortunately, the Romanian blogosphere sucks. But I am afraid that word is not strong enough. The Romanian blogosphere, as it presents itself at this very moment throughout its most visible blogs, sucks big time. On the other hand, you can find excellent Romanian blogs - and you can find those that I like and recommend in the Romanian bloglandia chapter. Unfortunately, these are quite few.

Among the 50 most prominent Romanian blogs, there was one only I could like enough in order to add to the blogroll: www.bookblog.ro. It was added already years ago. The others were all very similar, because they all spoke about politics, media and can-can. Very few were actually blogs, and not sites (considering their content and lack of personalization). And that, even if the authors themselves were clever and well-educated people.

Most Romanian blogs date from 2008 and 2009. So, ok, there was a technical delay with the West, and most of the Romanians got to have internet access in 2006 and 2007, but to see that beginning date on almost all the blogs I wondered through made me think that most of the Romanian bloggers chose this activity out of mere opportunism. It was a fashion to have a blog in 2007 and 2008 in Romania, and those who gained success kept it out of inertia. While, you know, there are, for instance, Romanian bloggers who started posting in 2003, never made the mainstream and had writing skills. One of them was linked on this blog until recently, and it was the oldest Romanian blog that I know of. Most unfortunate, she quit blogging. It is a decision I fully understand. I cannot blame her.

Another thing is that Romanian bloggers, blogging in Romanian, don't like using Romanian diacritics, so there are moments when you have to literally guess what they meant to say in the first place. And this is a matter of basic respect towards the readers. Afterward, I did not like the strong/indecent language – which seems to be a sort of standard - and the grammar problems many of the blog authors do have.

But I guess the most disturbing and unpleasant thing is that most of the Romanian blogs I wandered through are boring, boring, and… boring. You have usually the same political or media subject, presented in the very same way, and that is it. So I say it again: blogging is civic, blogging is citizen journalism, so it has to speak about civic matters, but at the same time blogging should not be a copy of the classical mass-media.

Are there any rays of hope for the Romanian blogosphere as a whole? I think so: there are some civic and humanitarian initiatives and campaigns who really add value to it, lately. But I do not know if that is quite enough.

Sad conclusion: I find myself in the funny situation of being unable – with some exceptions - to relate to the blogosphere of my own country.

Traffic

So, last week I only wrote one post. Truly, an important one.

All the blogging rules would say that, under these circumstances, the number of visitors on my blog should go down. So, with a lot of surprise, I noticed yesterday that I had more visitors last week than the week before. Not much more, but still.

Should I understand that if I don't write at all I'll have more visitors than if I post once a day? Now that's a paradox.

To blog or not to blog?

Taking my morning coffee and making a short survey of the Romanian blogosphere, I get more and more convinced we face a process of erosion.

I have more blogs than ever in my reader, and yet the number of articles I can read have fallen dramatically in the last period. The number of good articles is even lower.

People with a say are tempted to quit blogging, because they feel their effort is in vain. Many of those who started blogging a while ago, even if they keep on writing, have lost their "faith" in blogging, they do not expect anything anymore from it, they do not want to change the world anymore. When I was faced to this, I preferred switching the language.

To summarize, I'd say that, indeed, renewing your blog with each article is a very difficult thing. Finding your voice and having your say is not that easy, after all; and I know it very well myself. But it is not only that. What I feel, in the case of the Romanian blogosphere, is that we changed our expectations about blogging - and that means that we do not see it anymore as a means for changing the society in good. No more ambitions, no more major blogging. Just personal pages and minor blogging.

In my view, this is dangerous.

We find ourselves at a point in time when the society needs its voices loud and clear; and more than ever. Saying that, I am aware that our society is autistic and that dialogue is not one of its constituent virtues (everybody likes to speak, nobody likes to listen) - but this only makes these voices even more necessary. Our hopes that life will improve after joining the EU have turned to dust; our future is uncertain. More than half an year ago I spoke about the necessity of a plan to fight the crisis (which was nothing more than common sense), and NONE of our political parties produced anything resembling a plan. We are running through a nightmare scenario.

And escape is no longer an individual option. We cannot just emigrate, not everybody. We need more than ever citizen journalists with clear heads and documented opinions.

Relevance vs. visibility in blogging - blogging10

I found out last night, as I arrived home from work, that two very visible Romanian bloggers (I shan't name them) had a fight, a virtual conflict that is. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that one of them had just re-arranged his blogroll and the other one was not anymore a part of it. Perhaps not.

I don't know what is the situation regarding this in America. In Romania, virtual - blogging - relations are pretty unstable, much like in real life. My guess is part of it comes as a consequence to the fact that many Romanian bloggers like practicing link-exchange. It goes like this: you promote the blog of the other guy on your blog even if you don't consider his blog relevant, as long as he does the same with your blog and thus guarantees your blog a upper place in the blogging charts. Many Romanian bloggers exist only/mainly because of/for these blogging rankings and for the visibility presumably provided by these tools. If your blog is not located in the top 100, top 50, top 10, or - say, as a minimum - top 500, then - in their view - you don't exist as a blogger.

Is that really the case? In short, no. In a couple of phrases: in my beginning days as a blogger, visibility was not an issue in itself. I wrote - as I do now, actually - for myself, for personal reasons, and for this handful of people who visit this place once in a while. Later, I wanted to become more visible and I started placing my blog on what I like to call the blogging charts. There are a few of these in Romania: in the beginning it was Trafic, then WTA, but the most important was and is ZeList. And, while running for visibility, I began feeling that all my blogging had been reduced to nothing more than statistics, and was beginning to lose its soul. You get to the point where you have a lot of visitors, but you are not a real blogger anymore. The only statistics that I care about now, sort of, is the Google rank of my page, because it is all about relevance. And I repeat, sort of. By the way, speaking of visibility, very good tools are Twitter and Facebook. Why? See here.

So, let's go back and consider this again. Two visible Romanian bloggers had a virtual conflict. It happened a few days before the Easter, at a time when people should try to enter the spirit of this holiday. But let's put that aside. It is a proof of sheer immaturity to start swearing and cursing another blogger, on your very visible blog, even if he did something very bad.

In the end: life is much more important than minor blogging (like the one generally existing at this point in Romania and the western world, and meaning: blogging about every day details rather than about important questions). My sister spent the last three months in bed, as she is incapacitated. She will spend in that bed another month and a half. That is so much more important than the fact that another blogger erased the address of my blog from his blogroll.

So, guess what, guys. I am an insignificant blogger, I am low on the charts, the eyes of other fellow bloggers are not set daily on my posts here, I write only when I have my point and I write primarily for myself. If I link to other blogs and sites, it is because they are good and relevant, not because they are copies of myself and share the same ideas and opinions (and I hope that's not the case, btw). I think it is better like this. And episodes like the one I used as pretext for this post are part of the reasons which made me switch this place to English.

RoBlogFest 2010

As you may see, a new widget appeared on the top of the page - it will stay there until the competition will be over. I found out about the competition a few minutes ago and I decided I would be sorry if I don't take a shot.

If you think this blog deserves a vote, and only if you think that, give it a vote. If not, no.

Otherwise, I want to congratulate the fellows at the RoBlogFest for this event. They are doing a fine job. Since 2007. And ZeList is great.

a glimpse of rebranding - blogging8

Well, this is it.

I changed the title of the blog. From now on, it will not carry anymore my pseudonym, but its own title. And this change means also that the focus will modify, a little bit, as well.

In short, I want to explore - for a while - my relationship with Bucharest. As you (may) know, I was not born here and the image of this city is rather negative in that part of the country where I grew up. Partly for that, partly because of going away from home, when I came here for good, 15 years ago, I was scared and defensive. Maybe for that reason, it took me a good deal of time to fit in.

Slowly, we - the city and I - got closer and closer. I got to know new parts of the city, new situations, all adding to what I already knew when spending my holidays at my grandparents`. It took me 15 years lived here to accept my double identity, and I can say now that I care for this place as much as I care for the place where I was born.

You cannot consider Bucharest an ugly place after getting to know it. Bucharest is just a city with a great deal of bad luck, if I may say so. A great deal of bad luck, yes. The ugliness we can see each day here is less the ugliness of the city itself than the ugliness of those who are supposed to run the place -and maybe the carelessness of some who live in it. I know a dictator and two (post-revolutionary) mairs of the city who were not born here and made decisions that greatly impacted the city. And now, it is about to lose its soul.


PS. I had the occasion to see a while ago the house situated at Aviatorilor 92. It was a jewel. A recently demolished jewel - now, a 4 level glass faceted building will take its place.

blogging7. What did I get from WBF2009?

I think everybody who participated at the event asks himself this question.

I do not know if the World Blogging Forum brought new things for the A list bloggers invited, but for me it surely did. I was faced for the first time with the whole range of issues concerning blogging, from freedom of expression to monetization, the use of branding and social medias. Thus I came to a better understanding of the strong points and weak points of blogging.

At this point, in my view blogging means different things for people who find themselves in different situations throughout the world (it wasn't like this before the event). In the western world, it represents perhaps a posibility to become noted and eventually to win some money - so monetization and the ethics associated to it are important here. Meanwhile, in other countries throughout the rest of the world, the simple fact of expressing your views on a blog is no less than heroic (and a very good example is Yoanni Sanchez), so freedom is the important subject there - and some associated matters, like the free access to internet.

Unfortunately, the Forum did not discuss very much the last subject - the subject of free access to internet. There were some words of the bloggers from the Caucasus and the presentation of Zhou Shuguang from China - and that was it. While, you know, for me the greatest tragedy in the online world at the moment is that there are countries where there is no access to internet at all. Such is the case of North Korea, and an almost similar situation is that in Cuba. In my view, this is the absolute priority, and it should get much more attention. On the other hand, there is a false normality in countries like China, Russia or Egypt (and the excellent presentation of Wael Abbas addressed specifically this issue of false normality). Our world is definitely not as democratic and free as it should be, and credit for this is due in good measure to ourselves.

It is for all these reasons that I believe regulating blogging is not only very complex, but also extremely difficult. How can we put in the same document rules regarding freedom, free access to internet, but also monetization and its ethics? Don't we speak in this case about issues of different order of importance - or, if you like, different degree of priority?


As for specific points, you may have noticed that a new box appeared on this page immediately after the Forum - the Twitter box. This has a story. I knew about Twitter quite a while ago and I considered it, in the Romanian context, rather a fashion mark than a true social media tool. I still believe this is partially true and can always be true, if Twitter will be used for completely irrelevant topics (like, for instance, you know that you're ugly if....).

However, I had the opportunity to catch in one place Matthias Lufkens, Pedja Puselja from Serbia, and the legendary Ramon Stoppelenburg. Oh, and also Eric Dupin. It was during the dinner at the Carul cu bere restaurant. Very impolitely, I interrupted a discussion about social media and asked them why should I use Twitter. ALL of them were categorical and fast about it: Twitter is the best tool to promote your blog, your views and your ideas. Ramon Stopellenburg even .... twitted about it, asking his followers my question. So, this is it. Topic closed.

I also had a small conversation, during the first day of WBF, with Nadia Dincovici and Petru Terguta about the current situation in (The Republic of) Moldova. They both believed there will be pre-term elections. The events that took place this week (on December 7th, the elections of the president of the Republic of Moldova failed due to Communist opposition) proved they were both right. Well, that means new parliamentary elections in the summer of 2010. I came to believe it is the best solution to the current situation. The funny thing is that the political situation there will be more and more alike to that in Romania, with 3 main political parties - the democrats, the liberals and the liberal-democrats, as the communist will most likely vanish (the process already started, and it will gain speed during the next months).

This is, for the moment, my last post on blogging and the WBF. And I take this oportunity to address you this invitation: feel free to comment any issue concerning blogging on this blog.

blogging6. The World Blogging Forum - session 2 - afternoon

The afternoon session is about Online journalism.

14.41 Introduction by Petrisor Obae (Pagina de media).

14.42 Onnik Krikorian speaks about the two bloggers from Azerbaijan who have just been sentenced to two years, and two and a half years in prison respectively, and about the subject of censorship. He feels that the draft declaration concerning their case is not strong enough.

14.47 David Sasaki from the USA speaks about the 185 bloggers under arrest around the world (search Threatened Voices), then speaks of responsibility of bloggers. He thinks that everything we publish on blogs and social medias is because of self-interest. He also believes that, yesterday, Romanian bloggers lost a wonderful occasion to ask president Basescu about sensitive issues, knowing that presidential elections are just around the corner. Well, this brings us again to the issue of the participation of Romanian bloggers at this event.

15.09 Jeff Jedras speaks about credibility and the need for standards in blogging.

15.29 Jakub Gornicki addresses social media and its development in Poland. His most recent project is a live video talk-show.

15.39 Dvorit Shargal speaks about her blogging experience and her blog, Velvet Underground. She believes the success of her blog is a result of two reasons: the initial anonymity of the blog and the fact that journalists like to get feedback.

15.53 Erkan Saka from Turkey addresses the issue of online journalism in Turkey: Youtube is banned in the country (as are a good number of sites and blogs), and freedom of online expression can be improved. Erkan Saka is, almost, the only blogger from Turkey speaking about Turkish political issues in English.


Break.

The second part of the afternoon session concerns The influence of blogs upon civil society. It is a short session, taking merely an hour.

Jakub Gornicki brings up a Polish case of assistance for a girl in need for an expensive surgery. In order to help, a match between Polish bloggers and artists, with fund-raising purposes, was organized. She got to the surgery (70% of the funds raised via online activism) and is healed.

Helge Fahrnberger speaks about the activism of Austrian students and their lack of satisfaction concerning the Bologna process. He mentions their site www.unsereuni.at and the model of organization of the students. He also raised the question of difference between online and real support (which is much lower, unfortunately), and I think this is an important issue.

Next, Giovanni Rugerri describes his activity in support of Father Zosim Oancea and the museum of icons on glass organized in Sibiel, containing 600 icons. Go see the website of the museum, it is a must-see and I added it on my blogroll. I really enjoyed this presentation, the more for the fact that Giovanni Rugerri addressed his speech in Romanian.

Also, presentations of Onnik Krikorian (he mentions a conference in Yerevan about social media and social change, to be held in april 2010) and Ramon Stopellenburg. The internet connection and the power source felled down, which is the first and the only bad thing of the event. I am happy that I don't depend on the wi-fi here, but on my own mobile connection.


World Blogging Constitution & Declaration of support for detained bloggers all over the world

In the very end of the Forum, a debate on the drafts of the documents proposed by the organizers. The space created for their popularization and editing is here, and anyone can come with suggestions and ideas, so my invitation for you is to go there and have you say. Because this is what, in my opinion, would determine the success of the Forum: if bloggers will consider these documents seriously and make them count.


On a personal key, I want to apologize for getting low with the live blogging in the afternoon session, as I became more and more tired after two days of such high intensity. My congratulations and reconnaissance to the organizers, for the possibility granted - to take part directly to this event. The organization was above my highest expectations, so a big thank you goes to ASLS and Miss Mihaela Draghici personally.

There are still some very interesting things I have to write about regarding my participation to this Forum, so stay close for my conclusions.

blogging5. The World Blogging Forum - session 2 - morning

Good morning, everyone. This session is about the future of blogging.

I arrived here as Loic LeMeur was holding his speech, so I did not open the laptop. I noted my observations on paper and shall include them progressively during the second part of the morning session.

09.30 Loic LeMeur spoke about a variety of topics. What kept up my attention was the discussion concerning Facebook versus Twitter, the first being private and the second public. Under the pressure, the first reacted and became public too. Another subject was e-commerce. If I understood well, the idea was that all the applications which became popular did so because of the commerce.

Loic LeMeur also spoke about Twitter and how could it be used. For instance, talking to a restaurant by Twitter; on a lower key he believes dating won't work on Twitter. About what is to follow, he thinks Google won't buy Twitter. For monetization on Twitter, more and better applications are necessary. On a different level - answering to a question of Petru Terguta - Loic LeMeur does not think that an application similar to Google Translate would work on Twitter.

The main idea of his presentation is that, the more we share, the more we get.

Some tips he gave, for a situation where you have ~ 20 followers on Twitter and you want to change it: dont't be scared. Don't think, just share. Failure is OK. Don't overpromote yourself. Don't be too rushed, it can take a long time. Twit in English (the best way to promote yourself on Twitter).


10.00 Matthias Lufkens (he is German, representing Switzerland) does not consider himself a blogger. He describes the social media relations of the World Economic Forum in Davos. His idea is that you have to be on all the media, you have to be everywhere. Also, we should share on Twitter/Facebook and he recommends Creative Commons - a new way to share contents. Also, mention is made about sharing by live-stream and video-blogging.

About companies and Twitter, Matthias Lufkens believes it is vital that companies have an Twitter account, but it has to be personalised and it cannot be outsourced to the PR department. As well as citizen journalism, there is a CEO journalism.


10.30 Dario Gallo from Argentina brings three bad news about blogging:

1. blogs won't bring money;
2. governments will use blogs for political interests;
3. social networks will make blogs have less success. The more popular gets Twitter, the less is blogging.

Then, he speaks about blogging in South America. Bloggers are payed by governments, in certain cases, to attack other bloggers. Writing a blog is like writing a tango - you have to suffer. Blogs are fundamental because they help people open their eyes. It is more important that blogs defend liberty, than gain money - this should be the objective of the mass-media.

Question about Yoanni Sanchez (Generation Y), the recent developments of her case, and blogging in Cuba. Remember, there is a link to her blog in my blogroll.


11.00 Eric Dupin from France has a dense presentation about product design and online marketing.

Break.


11.36 Ritchie Pettauer speaks of the future of blogging and of the monetization of blogs. The problem is that if you want to monetize, you should know what the readers want, and that is quite the opposite of blogging. Another fact is that the only way to monetize is increasingly by the content, not by banners, for instance. Monetizing a blog is a very experimental process.

11.59 The moderator of the session - professor Dorina Gutu - reads the draft of the declaration of support for the bloggers trialed today in Azerbaijan.

12.01 Emin Huseynzade announces that the two bloggers - Adnan and Emin - were sentenced a few minutes ago. He continues speaking about how blogging should evolve (towards a more colloquial form), tagging and mobile blogging.

12.09 Ramon Stoppelenburg thinks sharing income with your readers might be a good development. On a personal level, we should include more people on a blog, because it strengthens blogs.

12.15 Luca Sartoni speaks about reputation and about the fact that being online is much more important than your reputation.... Reputation is connected with participation, which can be achieved by sharing. Give back value.

12.26 Pedja Puselja speaks about microblogging and social media as the future of blogging. However, Blogger keeps being important. In Serbia and Croatia there are about 5 million internet users.

12.37 Andrea Vascellari thinks future cannot be predicted properly. He discusses (personal) branding and new advertisement methods, with emphasis on honesty, transparency and being human.

Comments and discussion about the importance of visual images and the topic of not being perfect on blogs.


13.06 Lunch break.

blogging4. The World Blogging Forum - session 1 - afternoon

Before going through the second meeting, my short impression on what happened so far. I liked especially the presentations of Michael Reuter, Wael Abbas and Andrea Vascellari.

I had a short discussion with Emin Huseynzade from Azerbaijan and I asked him what can be said about the issue of freedom in the Caucasus. He told me of some cases of harassment by the authorities, but I think more important is the emphasis he put on self-censorship. The issue was also raised, in his presentation, by Zhou Shuguang from China.

I am very disappointed by the low participation of the Romanian bloggers. A handful at most (and none very well-known in the Romanian blogosphere) - which is absolutely heartbreaking. Update: I spoke with some of the organizers and they explained me that, from the very beginning, the idea was that only 2 bloggers from Romania ought to be invited to hold speeches. OK, I understand that, but I think I should explain a bit further my disappointment: there are (tens of) thousands of bloggers in Bucharest and very few actually applied for an premium invitation.


14.40 Introductory speech by Mr. Dumitru Bortun. The theme of the session is "E-democracy. Blogs and freedom of expression".

14.47 First presentation, Giorgi Jakhaia from Georgia. He speaks about his blog, written in Russian, which covers problems concerning the city of Sukhumi, and the regions of Abkhazia and Osetia. His aim was to counter-react to Russian propaganda. After some attacks on his blogs, he had to move his blog on a Blogger domain.

After, he speaks about conditions and problems of blogging in countries such as Kazakhstan and Russia, then compares the situation of the blogosphere in these countries with that in Georgia.


14.58 Emin Huseynzade from Azerbaijan. He speaks about internet access and infrastructure in Azerbaijan and - on a larger scale - the countries of the Caucasus, and then he addresses issues concerning freedom of speech and online access to information. The first time when bloggers understood their power was when a terrorist act took place (for the very first time) in Azerbaijan. Other blogs spoke of corruption in the universities. Some blogs are banned (in the case of Armenia, 2 blogs).

The price of internet access is very high in the countries of the Caucasus. During the Georgian-Russian war of 2008 sites from Azerbaijan were also attacked, because they provided information in Russian. Buying domain names starting with a certain letter was also, in some cases, forbidden.


15.11 Parvana Persiyani, also from Azerbaijan. She is not a blogger, but she wants to present the case of two bloggers of Azerbaijan (Adnan Hajizada and Emin Mili), who were recently beaten in a restaurant in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and then accused of hooliganism and trialed, because they uploaded a film on the internet criticizing the fact that some donkeys were bought from Germany with 41,000 euros each by, as I understand, Azerbaijan officials, using public funds. The next term of their trial is tomorrow, so their case is in progress at this very moment. A video concerning their case is presented.

15.32 Luca Sartoni from Italy speaks, in a few words, about digital identity and how companies should address topics such as freedom of speech (in this case, the issue of criticizing companies).

15.43 Coffee break.


16.28 Start of the second part of the afternoon session. Introduction by Mr. Dumitru Bortun, on media agenda vs. public agenda. The question is if public agenda generates media agenda, or viceversa.

16.32 Mihaela Onofrei, a Romanian journalist active mostly (but not only) as a correspondent in Transdniestria, speaks about her experience as journalist in a secessionist area during the '90s and during the last decade, but also about stereotypes about the region and recent changes. As a comment to the presentation, Mr. Dumitru Bortun makes a short history of the secessionist region and discusses the ethnic and the social aspects of Transdniestria, such as the rejection of the market economy by the relative majority of the population of the region.


16.52 Petru Terguta, a journalist from the Republic of Moldova. First of all, he states that the language of his speech is Romanian, not Moldovan.

Blogging in the Republic of Moldova is an alternative to official media. A problem is that a majority of the blogs in the republic have an emphasis on political and national topics, keeping a national paradigm. He speaks of a competition between journalists and bloggers and mentions the initiative of some Moldovan bloggers - www.privesc.eu - which has a bigger success than many TV stations active in the Republic. He also mentions the false freedom of expression as an actual issue in the Republic of Moldova - mainly a result of the action of the former Communist power - and the division created by language or political orientation.

The journalist counts the problems Unimedia had with the former government in late 2008 and early 2009, culminating with the events which took place in april 2009. He mentions the role of the alternative medias, like Twitter or Odnoklasniki.ru. Then, he adresses the question of the (low) monetization of the Moldovan blogosphere.

In the end, some allusions are made about the Moldovan bloggers in Romania, mention being made of Stela Popa or Vitalie Cojocari. Then, Petru Terguta complains about the low culture of blogging in the Republic of Moldova and the similarity of topics treated.

A very good presentation, really.

17.10 - comments - Malina Paun (a.k.a. www.newdada.wordpress.com) asks about the blog of InConstantin, blogger from the Republic of Moldova established in Romania, who enjoys a (very) good image among Romanian internet users. Other bloggers worth mentioning in the Republic of Moldova, in Petru Terguta's view (excepting Stela Popa, who is widely known): Soacra Mica and ceziceu.


17.15 Onnik Krikorian from Armenia speaks about blogging in this country, internet penetration and dis-/misinformation on the Armenian blogs. He calls for empowering people. He speaks of Azerbaijan blog on a high note and demands for attention on the Georgian blogosphere.

17.25 Mr. Dumitru Bortun makes a synthesis and asks for the possibility of a joint declaration in favor of bloggers who face trials and jail because of their run for freedom.


17.28 Pedja Puselja from Serbia speaks - in French - about blogging issues in Serbia. He emphasizes a lack of a blogging and democratic culture.


17.35 Ritchie Pettauer from Austria speaks - in a few words - about the results of blogging and the need for international coverage as guest posting on blogs - an idea similar, as I understand, to that of Michael Reuter.


17.39 Helge Fahmberger of Austria speaks about the cease and desist letters and their effect on discouraging freedom of expression on blogs. Michael Reuter brings some German examples. The discussion moves then to the fact that in most cases these letters are not made public because the authors of the letters ask for this.


17.51. End of the session. The next one, tomorrow, starting at 9.00 am Bucharest time.

Keep in touch, everyone. Have a good evening.

blogging3. The World Blogging Forum - session 1

09.30 OK, here I am, I arrived and installed my hardware, and I hope my mobile connection shall not cause any trouble. I took the first contact with the Parliament's Palace, like an hour ago, and I had the same feeling of amazement and being-crushed-like by the absolute hugeness of the building as the last time I visited it, last year. My impression still is that this Palace is so huge that is is not quite functional. I had to walk like 10 minutes to find the coffee shop. [Update 11.00: so far, I like the organization of the event. Minor, if any, inconveniences. The organizers even brought a string quartet for the coffee break.]

Some of the big names arrived and I feel just like a rookie among them.

09.37 The Romanian President, Traian Basescu, came. The event started.

09.38 Welcoming speech by Mr. Dumitru Bortun. Next, the Romanian President holds the first speech on the subject of the Forum, in Romanian.

The President speaks about the new communication medias, then about the Romanian blogosphere. The number he gives is 100,000 blogs in Romania, with about half of them using publicity. A big part of the Romanian blogs discuss political subjects, many of them with a very good analysis. That because - the President says - many journalist prefer to discuss political matters independently on a blog, rather than submitting their work to media holdings and to their control. The President did not miss the opportunity to attack media holdings and their owners, thus praising the independence the internet provides.

Next, the President speaks about the question of freedom of expression on the internet and the recent virtual wars in Estonia and Georgia, as well as the mini-revolution in Chisinau.

In conclusion - the President says - as well as liberty, responsibility is an important issue on the internet, both being essential to the functioning of the new medias. You cannot ask for responsibility without freedom, you cannot speak of freedom without responsibility. The main concept the president wants to propose is self-regulation. Also, a few words on technology - it should not be used as a mean for surveillance.

In the very end, the President speaks against violence on the internet, demanding for the establishing of a set of rules by the bloggers themselves.


10.00 Speech of Mr. Daniel Buda, president of the Juridical Commission of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies. He speaks of the freedom of expression and pluralism, and wishes the best to the Forum.

10.05 Speech of Mr. Gabriel Badescu, president of the Romanian Agency for Governmental Strategies. His speech concerns civic associations, civic involvement and democracy, transition and how Romania evolved, stating that differences on this matter still persist between Romania and the West. He also wishes the best to the Forum.

10.10 Short welcoming speech of Miss Mihaela Draghici, president of ASLS, the organizer of the Forum.

10.11 Speech of Mr. Loic LeMeur, blogger and entrepreneur.

He speaks about his work, the companies he created (Seesmic) or the events (LeWeb, Paris). Then, Loic LeMeur speaks about the steps communication took throughout history: telephone, telegraph, cinema and TV, and finally the internet (for the very first time there is a possibility of both conversational and mass communication at the same time). Professional media has lost its dominant position, for the very simple reason that there are more bloggers than journalists, and for the fact that information is transmitted faster on Twitter, for instance, than on the classic medias. Then, speaking of recent news (the shooting in Texas), Loic LeMeur calls for responsibility and respect of privacy. Information should, too, be treated with care.

About blogging, on a lower key: it is complicated, intensive, takes a lot of time; also, in politics and enterprise blogging mostly failed because it is not authentic.

(Short) Conclusion of Loic LeMeur: anyone should build a community and a brand online.

10.30 Break

11.00 The break is over.

11.05 From China, Zhou Shuguang, in English. His presentation is called "Across the Great (Fire) Wall". Some of the slides are in Chinese, and thus they are more difficult to understand.

He speaks about the status of the digital media and censorship in China. Numbers: 340,000,000 internet users, 40,000 internet "policemen", 500,000 websites, 80 people in jail for the last year.

He speaks about URL filtering, self-censorship (IP blocking), the control of mainland hosting and the blocking of the overseas independent sites. For instance, Chinese from the mainland cannot acces overseas Chinese sites. Some overseas hosting IPs are blocked in China, and some popular Web2.0 sites are also blocked.

In order to access news from China, proxies are necessary, but also normal methods, like RSS, which is very important, since Twitter for instance is blocked.

11.20 Questions, one concerning Google search and the other concerning the Chinese Twitter and the freedom of use on it. The third question is a demand for an example of problems that can determine the blocking of a Chinese blog by the Chinese authorities. The answer of Zhou Shuguang is that most of the social problems can determine that measure.


11.30 Wael Abbas from Egypt. He begins by saying that he cannot hold a proper presentation, since it is impossible to bring a laptop or electronic devices over the Egyptian border as an independent blogger.

The Egyptian media is controlled tightly by the State. Access to the Journalists' Syndicate is difficult. At times, papers are delayed in the printing process, sometimes the videotapes are confiscated from TV stations, some papers are closed. So, there is a need for a new media in Egypt, since the internet is less controlled.

Wael Abbas speaks about blogging in Egypt, its advantages (like interactivity and independence, including financial independence), about the fact that the Egyptian printed press, at a time, took materials from the blogs without concern for the rights, the fact that the Egyptian bloggers imposed to the media important subjects (such as torture, sexual harassment, discrimination towards minorities). One Egyptian blogger was condemned to 4 years in jail, others were character-assassinated (including Wael Abbas), some bloggers were arrested for 2 months for participation in different events.

As a conclusion, Wael Abbas thinks that recent crackdown on Egyptian bloggers is not a reason for optimism, but at the same time, the impact of Egyptian blogs upon the society is not to be neglected, as Egyptians are better informed about their rights and some changes are visible exactly because of the activity of the Egyptian bloggers.

11.55 The moderator concludes: a case of false freedom of expression was made clear by the presentation of Wael Abbas. A question concerning the Egyptian NGOs.


12.05 Jeff Jedras speaks about blogging in Canada. He gives a description of the Canadian trends in the blogosphere, about some challenges (transparency issues, some conflicts with the press).

12.13 a question about Facebook (it is very popular in Canada), coming from David Sasaki - could this popularity be a reason for a lower extent of blogging? / another question about activism in Canada. Jeff Jedras speaks about the question of visas - demanded now - for Mexico and Romania.


12.21 Michael Reuter from Germany (Munich) speaks about blogging in Germany. One issue is about the small reach that most of the blogs still have, and thus about the need for aggregation platforms with specific content.

Three ideas:

1. we should have in freer countries platforms with content about situation in non-democratic countries;
2. we should try to aggregate content on platforms, to have bigger platforms with more reach;
3. (political) bloggers should be able to monetize from their blogs, so that they have the possibility to live from their blog and thus to be protected from external pressure (example: The Huffington Post).

12.31 questions: about credibility of monetized blogs addressing political issues.


12.36 Ramon Stoppelenburg from The Netherlands speaks about his experience with monetization for specific travel purposes and his website - www.letmestayforaday.com. That gave him the possibility to visit 18 countries without spending any money at all, to communicate with people from different cultures. His idea is that the more we share, the more we understand each other.

12.46 questions / a comment about a Romanian blogger visiting Mongolia in a similar way (www.mongolia.ro).


12.52 Mattias Dobo from Hungary speaks about social media in Hungary. The question he raises is about how to get attention, because much information is actually lost and freedom of speech does not mean very much anymore. He thinks blogs can get better attention by addressing business matters primarily, and that - now - bloggers are too small to act for themselves, so specific applications are needed.

13.05 comments


13.14 Andrea Vascellari from Finland asks the word. He speaks about citizen journalism and a personal recent experience he had (concerning a shooting in a public school), and also about the ethical aspects of being a citizen journalism (he refused for instance to interview people affected by that situation, and mainly to do anything else than reporting on the situation).


13.34 Lunch break. For the afternoon session, I shall begin a new post.

blogging2

Good morning everyone.

Do not forget that in less than three hours from now the first ever live-blogging marathon session (as it will last almost two days) will begin on this blog, so keep an eye around.

20 years ago, the Berlin wall felled down. It was the event that marked the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe, and the whole world could see it. Now, there are problems in other parts of the world that are supposed to be taken care of, and if I speak about it, it is because my feeling is that these two days of gatherings, debates and meetings in the very core of Bucharest have the primary mission to connect blogging with freedom.

Well, see you there :)

blogging1

Right-oh...

5:58 am in Bucharest; a white night behind me. And, I hope, a beautiful day ahead.

As some, many, or most of you might know, next week the capital of Romania will host an event which, for the blogging world, is ambitious, should be quite interesting and, hopefully, it will prove to be important. For, ladies and gentlemen, from November 9th to November 12th, the first edition of the World Blogging Forum will be held in this dreadful city; yours truly will attend to the debates and will live-blog here for the very first time.

I must say that I am eager to attend, and impatient, since A list bloggers from + 30 countries will be here as well (at least they were invited) and will have their say on the topics proposed. Speaking of topics, they include establishing principles of the citizen journalism or of the freedom of expression on the internet. I am especially interested in the next discussion themes (and I quote from the official site):

- Blogs & citizen journalism – global trends;
- The influence of blogs on the civil society;
- Freedom to differ – ideas worth fighting for;
- The future for blogging – what’s next?;
and
- Science blogging and sharing ideas.

For more details, click on the (most recently added) banner on the left of the page.

I think, this event should help the Romanian blogosphere overcome its isolation. Of course, Romanian bloggers and internauts read foreign blogs, but openness is not the main key of most of the blogs in Romanian. I never had the curiosity of studying the entire list of blogs on zelist (it would be an Sisyphean effort), but at a guess, less than 5 % of the ~ 35,000 blogs listed there have on the blogroll one or more foreign blogs. No, I should correct that. Less than an optimistic 1 %. And these limitations are unfortunately visible in the topics.


But this is not the subject of this post; it is just its pretext. What I want to establish now, for me in the first place, is (a part of) what blogging means to me before attending this forum. Next week, my task will be to determine what blogging means to me after the end of it.

You see, I blog for some two years now and I avoided strictly, so far, thinking and speaking about "how to/ how not to" anything about blogging. If I had questions, I usually solved them on the spot. So, here I go: this is, partly, what I can say about subjective blogging.


1. for me, blogging is not about the money. Given a certain number of unique visitors per day, adds and reviews to products are possible on a blog, but they should not be the core of the blog, of the writing and such. It is why you don't/won't find any adds on this blog, and if I post a promo once in a while it is non-paid and based only on my taste.

2. blogging is not about getting to be known. Of course, I blog so that my ideas and/or preferences get to be acknowledged and circulated, but I don't do it in order to become a star or a public person. At the same time, blogging is not - primarily - about attracting as much visitors as possible, but about attracting people with specific individual profiles. It is why I like very much reading science blogs.

3. in my view, blogging is not a full-time job and should not be treated as such. For a very simple reason: I believe it is very wrong (socially) to spend most of the day in front of the screen. Not to mention it is unhealthy.

4. blogging doesn't bring you closer to people. I shan't speak from theory here, but from experience. In more than 2 years of blogging, I never acquainted a friend on the blog first (or on the internet in general) and in real life afterward. Of course, it can happen, but it is the exception, not the rule.

5. blogging is not about keeping an online diary. I believe it is more than that. I believe it is about things with a social (not individual) relevance.


On a positive note,

1. blogging is, happily, personal. Blogs are inherently placed in the realm of subjectivity.

2. if a blogger wants to practice civic journalism, he/she must observe all the rules of the classical journalism. Plus one: to escape the impersonal feeling mass-media often implies. A blogger is not less responsible than an journalist; on the contrary. But he/she is not a journalist employed by an impersonal entity; he/she speaks out his/her own mind.

3. blogging, if done properly, should bring sense, both to the blogger and to the readers.

And so on. There are (many) other things to be put forward here, but they don't cross my mind right now. So a second post on this topic is on the way. Disclaimer: These are just my two cents; nothing less and nothing more.


PS. My laptop will make a pit-stop to the service today, so blogging could be impossible for a few days. See you around.