Several new bloggers these past few days have become citizens of the Planet. Do not worry, this is not a rant about how Jordan Planet is becoming over populated. In fact this may be the opposite.
I have come to realise the massive importance of blogging lately, especially since the bombings in Amman. Seeing Sabri Hakim’s blog show up on CNN was probably my semi-wake-up call. I was somewhat crestfallen over the state of Arabian blogging in a region where the media does not take them seriously yet ironically they represent one of the purest voices of the Arab street; or at least the most articulate one.
Though I had forgotten that there are millions of other people who are interested in what we have to say and most of them are not Arab. That CNN scenario was just one example of how the western media is becoming more reliant on the people of the Arab world for news instead of the traditional government controled media.
That being said I think the Jordanian Blogosphere is about to overflow the boundries of the home planet: Jordan Planet. And this in my opinion is a good thing. Whether the Planet is able to adjust to accomodate and aggregate the overwhelming majority of Jordanian bloggers is yet to be seen. Jeeran.com‘s new blogging service has certainly helped in opening the floodgates.
In the meantime I would like to see more and more Jordanians blogging and I have been trying to encourage people to become bloggers. It’s my mini campaign to turn up the volume on the Jordanian voice. Something which is also being done with the emerging Jordanian podcasters.
I cannot help but be amazed at the rapid growth of the Jordanian blogosphere. It is astounding to say the least and I hope it continues along this path.
So a warm welcome to Khalidah, Laith Zraikat, Tololy, Nar, Basem and Mazen on becoming the latest citizens of the Planet. We should create some sort of crazy hazing ritual for the newbies (note to self, discuss this idea with JP’s administration).
Also some good friends of mine who just came out of the blogging womb recently: Bo3Bo3 , ProudJordanian and Ammanite
They are still very fresh but I gaurentee you will become loyal fans of their blogs.
You can check out a list of some Non-JP bloggers over at I â?¥ Amman
Keep On!
I leave you with Opus and his own blogging experience…
click to enlarge
bo3bo3!!
am really glad to see him joining the blogshpere.
its nice to see all this amount of jordanians catching up with this blogging thing. we became now one of the biggest bloggers communities on the net.not only with qountity but even with quality. and i think jordanplanet.net encourged most of them to make a blog to be part of the community.
also am expecting for jeeran.com successful future in this business, from what i see till now.
I was just thinking of having a mahjoob blogspot! thatwould be cool :rgs:
Well at least we know now who to blame if this “blogexplosion” ends up in a big mess :p
When going through a journey, it’s good to stop and look what you have accomplished and where you are going to do next. Your post just does that.
Jordanplanet and the pioneer Bloggers behind it have laid the foundation for the revolution we are going to experience. At Jeeran we always had the blogging service in our minds for more than a year. We were not sure if Blogging would pick up in the region. Looking at how sites like Jordanplanet expanded in the last 6 months and the sheer amount of excellent blogs in the MENA blogosphere made having a localized blogging service/community a necessity.
Spreading the Blog virus in the region is a duty for us as much as it is fun and sensible from a business perspective for Jeeran.
The revolution in the next few years in the region will definitely be blogged!
Thanks for the warm welcome message, Nas. I appreciate it.
Nas – Thank you so much for the warm welcome and for featuring our blogs on your post.
Becoming a JP citizen was and still is a major step for me as an emerging blogger and so far; not only the experience is useful, but very enjoyable … networking with the rest of JP population is of paramount importance and once more bloggers join, the power of the Jordanian blogosphere will have tangibe effect on society … I wish and pray for that day to come
Back when the PC revolution started, one of its pillars was a sub-revolution in desktop publishing. All of a sudden, anyone with a PC can create rich documents and graphics, which â??imo- was the real turning point after which pc’s started spreading wildly in homes and offices.
The internet was a revolution on its own, with sub-revolutions like search (Yahoo), free email (Hotmail), e-commerce (Amazon & eBay), and whatever (Google) is doing- I like the term “Web OS” as some people have referred to it.
However, since the OpenSource movement, never has the internet witnessed a revolution made by the people, until blogging came along to simplify “Web Publishing”. Now, all of a sudden, anyone with an internet connection can become published author with a fan base that can span the globe. At Jeeran this has always been our philosophy -empowering people get online and create a presence for themselves. We have had great success with our free hosting service, and putting all that experience into blogs will help us build the Arab Blogosphere.
We hear a lot about web 2.0 and a lot of people trying to explain it in technical terms that most people won’t understand. I simply define it as “the Web re-invented and re-organized by the people” with blogging being at the heart of it all.
Thank you for the warm welcome to Jordan Planet;)
Hummm, so this is where the party is at. Thanks nasnas for showing me the way. Now, and after I take over the word, they can blame you for this mess. 🙂