Free Faud – Dean of Saudi

The Saudi Arabian judicial system has imprisoned Faud a prominent Saudi blogger whose activism is a model to all bloggers. He criticized certain establishments in Saudi Arabia and those criticisms as i understand it  were legal within the constitutional framework of Saudi Arabia.There has been no official charges against him, correspondingly keeping him in prision is denying him the rights he is due as a  human being.As a member of the blogger community i  request the Saudi Government to expedite his  release from prison.Here is a website which acts as a vigil group  whose aim is to pressurize the Saudi Government for a speedy release.  http://en.freefouad.com/

Indian Blogger Activism

Hmm,

Reaching out to the Indian blog community as a whole is a task mightier than most professional social networking experts can handle, so the an attempt in that lines would at best be scoffed at. Given the multitude of languages and cultural , socio economic and political differences one would  doubt whether there could be anything  common between most indian bloggers.Reality paints a less different picture about Indian blogging. Iindividualism is yet to be considered a glorifiable virtue in our social relationships. How ever collectivism is an established  virtue in many indian communities- The ‘Ayn Rand’ style ‘Individualism’ and a Richard Stall man like openness has been trademarks of blogging community across the world. I miss that terribly in Indian bloggers.

I am yet to have an accurate impression on whether we have matured enough to take active steps in social building including political and community activism.Has the Indian blogger community readied itself to handle the election paranoia which is very close. Or are Indian bloggers more of nerds ,whose primary interests are in establishing their ‘Intelligentia’ credibility in a non dramatic social setting.

When compared to the western blogosphere ,specifically those who use the latin character set these has been less environmental issues , less  music , less  art , less politics discussed amoung UTF-8 bloggers , less of real issues that bloggers has campaigned for.

My blogger experience is mostly centered around the ‘Malayalam Blog Community’ with which i mostly had a love-hate relationship , my perception of it   is that of a dominant collectivist environment with infractions dealt with a stoic antagonism.Frankly i miss the fun, the vibrancy of individualism.Infact that is one place where malayalam bloggers show  some promise of being activists , it’s   ability to transform itself into an agile political action force cannot be under estimated .There is a whole lot of activism going on within the community,which helps the soldification of the bloggers into transforming itself into a force to reckon with. Whether that would lead to  any better social solution is debatable in the true kerala fashion over a masala dosa and coffee and i would be surprised if it lasts beyond the  minute left overs are dumped  in the  garbage bin.

Have bloggers in India got a definitive view of the psyche of indian community as a whole or are we in our own little fiefdoms, the success of Indian blogging would depend upon it’s ability to sense the commonalities that ties our differences together and tranform it into  a single larger national identity, If something of that sort exists. Without the ability to turn itself into a catapulting fire ball indian blogging would remain a less virile attempt at Individualism.

I am doing my own little attempt to know more indian bloggers  in a purely open setting, and looking forward to transform  my own blogging  more into an open activism.Checkout my site http://www.mobchannel.com and this blog for more. The  stuff is being built this is more of a primer…

The mobchannel community and its aims

Some of you are aware of mobchannel and it’s activities but not many of the philosophy , and our vision for the blog community. To put it short we aim to become what wordpress is in blogging – an open source , powerful content mash up provider  which uses unique ,state of the art technologies in natural language processing and social networking to bring a best of the breed but completely open sourced aggregator , currently we are an unfinished product an idea to be incubated, the same way word press was an idea when they started. We aim to convert blogging into a very open form of journalism with an opportunity to convert content to other medias for distribution. At present bloggers are at the mercy of ad providers for revenue and that increasingly is becoming an unattractive proposition for bloggers especially from the journalist community. Journalism is becoming more of a social and community activity and we see the future of journalism as a public  community activity than as a corporate media frenzy. The future of journalists as we see it is that of a community activist or of an evangelist , this is not to say corporate media is irrelevant and they would die down soon, such thoughts could only be described as fanciful thoughts of a deranged mind, as in any real world business, corporate media brings in professional,qualified and managed content. The challenge before the blogging community and journalist  community is to replicate that level of professionalism and enthusiasm into internet publishing and take charge of their own lives and career. The software industry is doing it , the music industry is doing it, so  the time is ripe for  community journalism .