Category: ugandan blogosphere

th-th-throw your (…) hands up

Last week Reuters launched a new Africa-focused news site called (what else?) Reuters Africa. The site features pages for each country (check out Uganda’s) that, in addition to regular and business-focused news content, include this:


Yep. You know what that means? We just got ourselves an audience. Global Voices Online already gets 300,000 readers each month, but the new partnership will expose GVO content to about 7.6 million more.

A lot of you have already been featured on GVO — in the last month, Degstar, Inktus, Dennis Matanda, Baz, Pernille, Ivan, Mr. Magoo and Zack and Joshi have all been mentioned. The Uganda section, which Josh edits, follows the big stories and conversations coming out of our part of the blogosphere — our stories. And now, those stories are going to be shown to over 200,000 people each day.

I wrote earlier about the importance of blogging in Uganda and why I think UBHH and the awards are a good idea — it’s important that we talk and argue, laugh and listen. Not just among ourselves, but to the rest of the world.

Well, the world’s listening. What are we going to say?

Other intriguing articles about Reuters Africa:

Uganda Best of Blogs update

Josh at Global Voices just posted a mini-review of the eight blogs nominated for Uganda Blog of the Year, which is excellently written and serves as a neat little guide for those of you who haven’t voted for the Uganda Best of Blogs awards yet (or for those of you who are new to the Ugandan blogosphere and want to check out some of the best examples).

Some people have voiced concerns about the fairness of the voting process — specifically that you can vote once each day, which means that someone with unfettered internet access and the will to win could, theoretically, vote him or herself to the top.

I modelled our system after the South African Blog Awards, which allow voting each day. JKB pointed out that the Canadian Blog Awards do the same thing. So do the Asia Blog Awards, the Business Blog Awards, the Deaf Blog Awards and the Weblog Awards. The way I see it, if you’re dedicated enough to vote every day, then you must be a pretty serious blogger — well done, you.

There are only eleven days left to vote for the 2006 Uganda Best of Blog awards. Have at it.

February UBHH

Last night’s Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour was attended by almost 20 people, both bloggers and the blog-curious. As Dennis says, we were sitting at an L-shaped table, which for some reason inhibited my picture-taking desires, but Pernille has an interesting photo up.

Nominations for the 2006 Uganda Best of Blogs awards are in, the results have been tallied, and the candidates are listed for your voting pleasure. Awards will be presented at the March UBHH, which will be on Thursday, March 15 at 6:30 PM at Mateo’s. My apologies to the few of you who asked for different days/venues — the consensus seems to be that the current time and place works best for most people. If I’m wrong, hit the comments below and let me know.

Thanks to everyone who came last night. It was great to see the returnees and meet those who came for the first time (including the Peace Corps volunteer we attracted with our fetching sign):
Star of Bethlehem
A Crooked Mile
I’ve Left Copenhagen for Uganda
Uganda Scarlett Lion
Kelly
K Spencer
Carlo
Dee
Chantal
Ivan (200 Coin Has Fish)
Dying Communist
Mark & Jan
Dante
Building the Nation

2006 Uganda Best of Blogs

Nominations for the Uganda Best of Blog awards are in. Voting will take place between now and midnight on Saturday, March 10. Awards will be presented at the Happy Hour on Thursday, March 15. Vote, tell your friends to vote, and check back to see how your choices are doing.

Thanks to everyone who submitted nominations. Some categories didn’t get enough nominations, so I’ve eliminated the in Uganda/out of Uganda distinction and combined those nominations with the Blog of the Year category, expanding the choices from 5 to 8 to accomodate everyone who got more than one shout-out. Congratulations to the nominees!

All nominations are in alphabetical order. Here goes….

Voting for the 2006 Uganda Best of Blogs is now closed. Come to Happy Hour on Thursday, March 15 at 6:30 PM at Mateo’s for the awards.

linkathon

Lots of goodies this week. Commenting on them all would take more time than I have, but I want to put them out there for discussion:

  • Country Boi makes an excellent point in his comment on my post about blogging and anonymity. He’s right — blogging is self-publication, which means that you’re never entirely anonymous. Even if you blog under an assumed name and keep personal details off your site, you’re still putting your opinions in the public sphere. This gives anyone license to debate and reference these opinions and anything else you post using your pseudonym, which is exactly what Dennis did in his article — he didn’t connect anyone’s pseudonym with their real name if that name isn’t published in connection with the blog.

    That doesn’t mean I don’t take issue with some other things in the article, of which I’m only going to mention a few: The majority of bloggers do not use pseudonyms (in fact, only 28.7% do, while 92% reveal detailed personal information). Not all comment threads degenerate into snide blame-throwing. Above all: my name is not, nor has it ever been, Jack Fruity.

  • LeftVegDrunk has an brilliant post about obstacles to peace in Uganda. Go. Read. Comment.

  • There’s an all-female peacekeeping unit in Liberia (via Congogirl)

  • Uganda and Southern Sudan are signing a bilateral trade agreement. Way to through more fuel on the fire of the LRA’s complaints.

  • The Daily Monitor’s reporting that the UK planned to assassinate Amin at the 1977 CHOGM. Isn’t that old news?