The concept of “outreach” is something very important that come up in the conference. In an oversimplified way outreach is the way of trying to spread the ability to share voices online to places where it is not common yet.

I had this strange notion during the conference that it is very is to go into this work with assumptions that do not consider the evolution of blogoshere. Yes, I think there is a usual evolution of blogoshperes. For example there is a reason why technology and entertainment sites are regularly more popular and linked. And there is a reason why in many places cultural sharing is not the primary roles of blogging in the initial times. But when the blogoshpere gets stronger topics get more diverse.

The other thing is that it is very hard to encourage just by outside examples. Every people thinks that their country is so different that outside models are just hard to be adopted. It might or might not, but the perception is strong that it is.

So my opinion strongly is that for a successful outreach we would need to help in the growth of the local blogoshpere and other forms of online communication. That starts at a different level and topics compared to than what Global Voices mainly is about. There should be e.g. help provided to generally help blogging especially at the technology and entertainment fields. Establish credibility of the word “blog”. And then and only then will the existence of a blogs be their own incentive. So people won’t ask the “why?” questions, but the “how?” questions and that’s a point where outside example will finally get authentic importance. And we’ll see many initiatives that would be considered unimportant by others, but that is not a problem. As there will something interesting for everyone. If you are interested about technology in a country that you will find, but also if you need info on human rights issues in a country you will have access to people’s views on that also.

The other interesting notion is in getting mobile environment more incorporated (as Stuart Henshall at the conference also pointed out) as it would be more accessible and more easily usable at many parts of the World.

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outreach