neweurasia.net at educamp almaty 2009
DESCRIPTION
presentation of Neweurasia.net project at Educamp Almaty 2009 - New Media Weekend seminar.TRANSCRIPT
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Central Asia civil journalism project:
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• Uzbekistan
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
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www.neweurasia.net
“neweurasia is a network of weblogs coordinated and written by bright young individuals from Central Asia together with their peers around the globe”.
neweurasia has many faces, but one uniting aim: bringing together young, committed people from around the world in the hope of offering these young thinkers space to publish their ideas on Central Asia and being heard”.
Ben Paarman, 27 y.o., the founder.a former student of Development Studies at Cambridge University
and Development Economics at SOAS. Currently resides in The Hague / Netherlands, where works
as a political analyst focusing on emerging markets.Contact Ben at [email protected]
http://www.paarmann.info/
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Who were we?• Founded in 2005 by US and EU students to report from and on Central Asia;
• Original principle: one country, one blog; main site as the «hub»;
• Teamed up with Transitions Online (TOL, Media NGO from Prague) in 2006, employed «bridge bloggers» - paid bloggers who head the country sections;
• Funded by Hivos and OSI.
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Who are we?• Strong voice of bloggers writing what they think important in 3 languages (Russian, English, local) and being quoted by foreign blogs and media;
• 6 languages and county different pages;
• Main site as a significant starting point and a «hub»;
• Great team!!
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Weekdays, weekends
Chris and Ollie are having a ‘polite’ discussion about site re-launch
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Achievements• Steady news flow, increasing visitor numbers, launch of Russian and Kazakh/Kyrgyz/Uzbek/Tajik language versions;
• Twitter launch in English and Russian;• Blocked in Uzbekistan since summer 2006;
• Altogether 50+ training sessions, seminars and conferences (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) reaching 600+ people;
• ‘Best Blog’ contest, specific country highlights, mainstream media attention.
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• Training sessions
• Traffic
Unique pageviews
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• International audience
• Kazakhstan blogs dominant
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• Current technological limits– Multi-install Wordpress hard to maintain;– Few (useful) «Web 2.0» features;– No clear navigation between languages;– How can we highlight the various forms of content we
have?
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Difficulties • Are we a blog? A news-site? A webzine?• Who do we publish for? Central Asia or Europe/US?• What’s our editorial mission?• How can we make sure there is real dialogue between the readerships?
• How can we retain our position as the «region’s premier blogging network»?
• Do we want to «spin off» successful local language blogs into separate and independent projects?
• Finally, where will we be in one year’s time?
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• Modifying neweurasia.net– New one-installation Wordpress blog hub uniting all different country sections;
– More «newsy» look, clear hierarchy of stories;– New theme-based navigation;– Better and cleaner photo, video and podcast integration;
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Before Christ, i.e. summer 2009
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After the re-launch
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After the re-launch
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Modifications: tech/managerial• Change towards more «quality blogging» - original stories + exclusive
photo/video content;• Clear hierarcy:- Managing editors (Russian, English)- Country editors (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan)- BridgeBloggers- Bloggers;• Better integration with diff.types of media: developing stories out of blog
posts, offering monetary and development rewards to bloggers;• More translations -> more flow of information between the different
audiences;• Day-by-day development and exchange: newsletter, sharing results, real
team work!! (twitter, flickr, etc.)
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• Gmail• Gtalk• Skype• Sms
Weekdays, weekends
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• Showcasing the potential of «quality» citizen media by compiling and editing a book of 60-odd best posts
• Further monitoring of the local blogospheres and cooperation with Global Voices
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Blog with us!
Interested in blogging for NewEurasia.net? Get in contact with Managing Board:
Christopher Schwartz [email protected] for EnglishYelena Jetpyspayeva [email protected] for Russian
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Thanks to HIVOS foundation for «our happy childhood»!