With 2007 knocking on the doors, I am wondering what will happen in those 12 months next year in the Nepali blogosphere and what buzz can those blogs create. Off course, I have no study or research to make out predictions, but let me share what I think will happen to Nepali blogosphere next year.
When Gartner, an analyst group, released its ten key predictions for business and IT for 2007 and beyond a few days ago, blogging got a place. According to them, blogging phenomenon will peak next year with 100 million bloggers and then will level out (because people will have experimented with the blogging). Gartner says that there are now 200m ex-bloggers, and that the blogger figure will peak at 100m.
Off course there are people who are unsatisfied with the predictions. They say since only the 16.7 per cent of the world population are the users, 50 per cent of whom are based in North America and Europe, there are plenty of rooms for expansion and that the blogging phenomenon won’t diminish soon.
What about Nepal? We have 175,000 internet users (Sept 2005 – let’s go with the latest estimation of 300,000 internet users) and around 100 active blogs. And, the internet users are growing primarily because the internet cost is coming down and cable and broadband internet are making its way into the homes and offices. With these things on the back of my mind, here I make my predictions on Nepali blogosphere for the coming year.
Off course, there will be more blogs. Blogging has been a buzzword for quite a while in the world but its still relatively new to many internet users of Nepal. Some of them have already experimented with blogs and a very few of them have become the regular bloggers but there are still a lot of new Nepalese, who have the internet access, unknown to blogging.
The biggest catalyst in the increasing number of blogs will be the traditional media. It will be difficult to leave out the buzz of blogs. They will covering blogs and blogging thus promoting the ‘blog literacy’.
The increase in number of blogs will also help in diversity in blogs thus brining in more subjects and issues on the discussions.
So far, except for journalists, other blogs seems to be personal diary of normal people – people vitually unknown. But in coming years we can hope to see blogging by well known people. The beginning of blogging by celebrities, or well known public figures, will be the biggest asset for the Nepali blogosphere. Don’t hope to see politicians blogging though!
And, how long can top online news sites can remain indifferent from the benefits of having blogs? I believe in the coming years, the sites like NepalNews.com or eKantipur.com will certainly will look to incorporate blogs and that will begin the era of professional blogging as the bloggers will be hired (or hired personnel will be turned bloggers).
And also there will be organizations turning to blogs in their otherwise statis websites for giving more information about their activities. The Gurukul Blog, the blog in the site of the most theatre school of Nepal, is already in making.
I don’t know how much Google pays to Nepali bloggers for the adsense but it is safe to stay the amount will be much more in coming days as bloggers look to generate whatsoever possible revenue from their blogs.
However, I don’t see somebody turning professional bloggers based on the advertisement earnings soon (that is without asking for donations from the readers).
And the last one and this, I can be certain of. The Bloggers’ Association of Nepal (BLOGAN) will come into existence and will organize at least one bloggers’ conference in 2007. The unity of bloggers will help in the increment in the number of blogs and of course the ‘blog literacy’. I desperately look forward to attend the Nepali Blog Conference in Kathmandu, somewhere. Wouldn’t it be fun?
Happy New Year!
(PS: During the server change for NepaliVoices.com, I lost this post and the comments on it. I am re-uploading the post, but I have no way to bring back the comments. Very SORRY about that.)
