Equal Access Nepal, an INGO working mainly in media development, is in a process of creating MeroReport.net with an aim of making it a network for citizen journalists in Nepal.
The website being built on Ning – the social networking script. The INGO larger objectives on its development is to be give a common platform for people to put on their report; bloggers to promote themselves leading towards a creation of fully functional citizen journalism site.
Will newspapers still be called newspapers if they are not printed on paper? Or will it simply be called something like online news site or news-in-hands or news onscreen?
It is kind of absurd in the Nepali context to think that newspapers are facing a big challenge from technological advancement in the digital form, especially at a time when newspapers are actually growing in numbers and overall circulation. According to an internationally-acclaimed prediction, Nepal is among the last nations from where newspapers would disappear, some 40 to 50 years from now. Continue reading…
On November 4, twenty Nepali bloggers met at a hall of Capital FM in what was named a Blogger Bhela and organized as an introduction programs of Nepali bloggers in Kathmandu.
It was indeed a unique opportunity for me to get introduced to so many new bloggers; and even the gathering of the bloggers made me feel good. It was not only because it reminded me of four BlogMeet that was organized around 2007 with similar purpose but also because I believe that this meeting will lead to many other meetings and hopefully a few events about blogging.
Among those 20 bloggers, only three of us had attended BlogMeet in 2007 – me, Kamal Kumar and Bhoj Raj Dahal.
I received the invitation for the meeting in Facebook and immediately accepted it – thanks to Dilip Acharya, Basanta Gautam, Aakar, Jotare Dhaiba and Roopesh Shrestha for the initiation. I talked it with K P Dhungana of Hamroblog and we decided to attend it and see (he was also one of the men behind the BlogMeet but he could not attend the meeting this time due to traffic jam).
We wanted to ‘attend and see’ for he didn’t have good experience attending an online bloggers meet organized by Dautari.org where when he talked about BLOGAN (Bloggers Association of Nepal – an unregistered loose network of bloggers formed as an outcome of BlogMeet), there are harsh comments. (After Blogger Bhela, Bhoj Raj of NepalDiary told me the same thing, and also that he only attended for he saw a few names from old BlogMeet confirming the attendance).
Our decision behind attending this time was for two reasons: first and foremost, we always wanted bloggers to be united and our presence will be helpful; second, we wanted to share our experience with BlogMeet so that bloggers could move forward from where we left (due to various reasons).
The Blogger Bhela turned out to be a very fruitful one. I talked frankly about all those things and shared experience; Basanta Gautam gave a short overview of Nepali blogging scenario; Saurav Dhakal / Kamal Kumar and many other talked about way forward. There were talks about making blogs and blogging popular using mainstream media.
We all decided to meet again, more formally and in bigger number, on December 18.
Just before I invite all the bloggers and interested people to the Dec 18 meet (we all have to pay for our breakfast and lunch), I want to make clear a point that I also raised during the meeting: no matter what and how you write or how many people read your blog, if you write frequently (may be once a month or once every three months), we all are bloggers. Every blogger invited!
Let’s make Nepali blogoshpere vibrant!
Participants: 1. Aakar Anil (www.aakarpost.com), 2. Alankar Aryal (www.gharaagan.blogspot.com) 3. Bhoj Raj Dahal (www.nepaldiary.wordpress.com), 4. Surath Giri (www.surathgiri.com), 5. Rupesh Shrestha (www.blogstreet.wordpress.com), 6. Ujjwal Acharya (www.nepalivoices.com), 7. Saurav Dhakal (www.storycycle.com), 8. Kamal Kumar (www.kamalkumar.com.np), 9. Dilip Acharya (www.dacharya.blogspot.com), 10. Kailash Rai (www.kailashkokuti.blogspot.com), 11. Jotare Dhaiba (www.dhaiba.blogspot.com), 12. Sweta Baniya (www.swetabaniya.wordpress.com), 13. Prabesh Poudel (www.gufgaf.com), 14. Manoj K.C (www.blogsamaya.wordpress.com), 15. Saroj Koirala (www.sarojkoirala.com.np), 16. Basanta Gautam (www.basantagautam.com), 17. Sujan Sharma (www.sujanacharya.blogspot.com), 18. Pushpa Raj Acharya (www.pushparajacharya.blogspot.com), 19. Sabin Gyanwali (www.nepaliblogger.com) & 20. Pradeep Bashyal (www.pradeepbasyal.com.np)
[This write-up includes experiences of live webcasting/live blogging two events in Nepal and a brief review of two most popular live blogging web services – Coveritlive and ScribbleLive.]
Webcast: a conjunction of website broadcast, information dispersed to a large audience via the Internet which could include streaming audio, streaming video, visual aids or live demonstrations.
Live blog (also liveblog): A blog or blog entry that is updated in real time during a particular event.
Live blogging (also liveblogging): The act of writing text and/or uploading photos and/or integrating video/audio for the live blog.
* * *
On April 24, 2010, online teams of nagariknews.com and myrepublica.com ran a live webcast/blog for the Nagarik Republica Summit that marked the first anniversary of their two mainstream publications – Republica and Nagarik dailies.
Umesh, Krishna, Rishikesh, Ashok, me, Bipul and Binita at Soaltee.
There were photos, video and text for the program held at the Soaltee Crowne Plaza that ran for three hours available at both news website live.
This was the first time that a mainstream media’s website ran live webcast/blog although the bloggers in Nepal had already played with live blogging/webcast in the past.
On April 28, 2010, the team ran similar live webcast/blog for the Decisive Debate on National Consensus for Peace and Constitution from Hotel Yak & Yeti. It was a moderated debate of nine top leaders (three each from Maoist, CPN-UML and Nepali Congress). The webcast carried video while the live blog carried text (and a few photos). Continue reading…
I am pretty sure that this is the first time a media house in Nepal has advertised vacancy for bloggers. Himal Southasian – a regional magazine published by the not-for-profit The Southasia Trust, Lalitpur has the vacancy for bloggers who can write for their blog.
The downside of the job is that it’s an unpaid assignment requiring a blogger to write twice a week exclusively for their upcoming blog.
The perks of the job, according to the advertisement, are: a platform and quality readership to gain experience and furnish skills as a writer; sharing the blog-space with distinguished and well-known writers, the individual will gain the opportunity to build a fine reputation as a blogger and artistic freedom to write on any/all subject that are not offensive in nature including literature, politics, culture, music, economics, society, etc., as they pertain to Southasia.
Deadline for applications is August 10, 2009. Here is the advertisement.
The latest to join the fray is Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.
The much-hyped website is that of former finance minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai.
The almost unknown blogger is former science minister Ganesh Shah.
The ‘Nepali Congress’ leader website is that of Narahari Acharya.
And, ‘coming soon’ is Gagan Thapa.
Probably most of these websites, these websites are not maintained by the politicians themselves but it at least proves a thing – Nepali politicians now understand the importance of online presence and the ‘archival / easy retrieval value’ of website.
Nepal, a Nepali weekly magazine, recently published an article titled “Celebrity Bloggers”.
Here are quotes from the politicians on why they maintain their websites:
“Website has fulfilled my desire to reach more people.” – Dr. Baburam Bhattarai
“People are only listening to me, now I want to hear what they say.” – Gagan Thapa
“I want everybody to know my opinion.” – Narahari Acharya
The possible outreach is the main attraction of the blog and the responses from visitors is something that they are interested in. In coming days, more and more politicians will join the fray and this will, let’s hope, good for us and them.
(or 5 Bitter Things You Must Know Before You Start Blogging)
Last week, I received an email from one of my friends that read: Please provide me some information on how to start good blogging and earn a few bucks from it!
It was not the first time I have been asked in that way. I had a few requests from people who want to begin blogging and earn. Primarily for them, here is my list of 5 truths about blogging:
1. Setting up a blog is easy
Setting up a blog for you is as easy as opening an email address. There are free services such as wordpress.com and blogger.com which lets you begin a blog for free. Just click on sign up button, fill in the details and your blog is ready.
Writing a new entry [or post] for your blog is also quite easy. Click on new post button after logging in and write down the headline and text and click on post/publish button.
2. … but running a blog is very difficult
Setting of a blog is very easy but then having the passion to run in for a long time [which is necessary if you want something – little money, fame or recognition – from it. As many other bloggers in the world, I have myself, despite being known among many as a pioneer blogger, have found it hard to continue maintaining blog.
Sometime, we don’t have time, sometime no subject to write on and sometime when we have time and subject, no energy to write it. A lot of time, especially if your blog is not very popular, you question yourself why are you writing.
3. Blogging does not give instant cash [or sometime does not earn at all]
Money is a big attraction. Some bloggers earn their livings from it; but a very large number of them earn very little or nothing from their blogs. If you set up blog in WordPress.com, remember you cannot put advertisements on it and thus earn nothing.
My experience with Google Adsense is not very encouraging one. I earned about US$10 a month from this site in its early days [and that was the time when I used to write regularly]. I then decided not to put it on this site. Even with UWB!, an immensely popular blog during the Royal Regime, I don’t remember getting a 100 dollar check in one month, so if you are looking for money from your blog, think of other business unless you have a very concrete plan to do something to earn.
4. Blogging is not about money
Therefore blogging is not about money. If you read my article about why people blog in Nepal, you will know what can be motivation to blog.
5. Blogging does not make you famous
And, one more bitter truth about blogging – it does not make you famous. Well, there are every chance that a few dozens of people will read your blogs and will comment on your writing, there is no guarantee that blogging will make you famous [sometime even after blogging for many years]. One thing, for sure, is that if you maintain your blog for a long time writing consistently on some specific topic, you will have thousand people knowing you.
Becoming famous is to cash on the opportunities. Bad events are good opportunities – like the Royal Takeover was for me and many others; Tsunami was for many bloggers in Asia.
Now here are some links to my previous entries that could prove useful in understanding/getting more information on the topics I mentioned in this entry:
If you want to add anything about blogging or link to things/your blog entries, you are welcome!
I made a presentation on Blogging & Media in the one-day seminar for the media persons today. Download my presentation here.
It was fun and I really enjoyed as I knew a few of the participants personally. The seminar was jointly organized by FOSS Nepal and High Level Commission for Information Technology.
Thanks to Bikash Karki for the photos.
Kathmandu Pragya Kunja College has become the first college in Nepal to offer free web space for blogging to the students. It is one of my initiatives after beginning teaching mass communication and journalism to the undergrad students at the college. Continue reading…
Nepal Smiles is a personal project of collecting smiling faces of children of Nepal that I began in 2006 with an aim of giving people a reason to smile.
It was a blog on Blogger.com and became somewhat popular in short span of time but then I lost the interest primarily because it was very difficult for me to get into blogger account to update. I do not know why Blogger looks so crap to me.
Smile, it is the key that fits the lock of everybody’s heart.
On first week of January 2008, I enjoyed looking at the photos myself and I wondered why I stopped that. I started looking for a good alternative for it and I tumbled into tumblr – the free tumblelog provider.
For Nepal Smiles, tumblelog looked beautiful solution and a chance for me to look into the newest variant of blog. Now, I have restarted Nepal Smiles with an aim.
I aim to update daily! I want one photo a day there. (Maybe there will be days I can not do it, so I have softened it down to 300 photos by the end of 2008!)
In the past, I have received a few photos from Puja Maharjan and Tapas Thapa, and a few from other visitors. To achieve my aim, I need more of such support and I hope that my friends and visitors will help me to keep the project of smiling stars running.
Give yourself a reason to smile and relax! Visit Nepal Smiles!
