Octubre 13, 2004
Living in Bolivia Update
By now, you probably know that the collaborative website Living in Bolivia has been acting pretty funny. Not ha-ha funny, but frustratingly irksome funny.
You may have also noticed that the Living Network has expanded to include the United States and has also narrowed down to include more countries. It was due to the interest of a few bloggers writing about Bolivia, that lead Living in Latin America to include a Bolivia sub-section.
I was acting as an "editor" by default for the Bolivia page and the other Latin American pages. Basically that task involved answering mail, adding new blogs to the aggregator and a little bit of outreach. Yet, with these inconveniences of not being able to post new articles, I am afraid that the momentum may have been lost.
Like everything, nothing is free. I pay about $60/year for the server space that this webpage is located, which is a mere pittance for the amount of enjoyment and knowledge that I gain. However, with the expansion of new subsections on the Living Network, the cost inevitably had to increase. The previous project was financed out of the pockets of the network creators. There will be experimenting with the placing of ads to generate revenue to help pay for the project.
Right now, the Living in Bolivia page is feeding all of my posts to the front page, including some of the mundane ones (I´d like to think not all my posts are mundane). I do not know how to change that just yet.
Not to be lost in all this talk about ads, money, bugs, and other problems is the overall vision held by the creators. Obviously this entire project was created because of the fascination and the belief that blogging is a powerful information tool. I have learned so much from reading others´ blogs, especially in regards to Latin America.
Hopefully soon, the new software will allow bloggers associated with the Network to directly feed articles in the appropriate sub-sections. In the past, members had to write separate articles in order to be seen in the various Living pages. With the new system, this will be able to be done directly from the respective homepage.
With all this, the Living Network may become a reference point for blogs all across the world. Traffic for individual user pages will surely increase, which often allows for the generation of revenue.
However, I am a bit uneasy with this transition. Whenever money is involved, things seem to lose its innocence. The grassroots approach to the collaborative pages was something I thought was incredible. It sure helped bring people across the world together to share ideas and opinions. Yet, I am not convinced that all this has been lost.
Hopefully this explained things a bit, although this is a summary of two 4--5 page emails that I received explaining these changes. in a nutshell, the powers-that-be are working on the database problems and other glitches; and hope to relaunch everything with the corresponding changes soon.
Thoughts?
Posted by eduardo at Octubre 13, 2004 04:29 PM
Comments
Yeah, and I should've been blogging more about Bolivia, too. I think it'll all work out in the end, though. There's a critical mass of people out there, and it'll only keep growing. I'm optimistic.
Posted by: Miguel Centellas at Octubre 13, 2004 06:36 PM
Eduardo, claro que me gustaría escribir algo sobre los bolivianos que viven en españa, aunuqe no creo que yo sea el boliviano modelo...
También me gustaría llegar alún momento a publicar algo en "Living in Boivia" son sólo artículos en inglés? que se necesitaría hacer?
Posted by: el forastero at Octubre 14, 2004 11:36 AM
I think that is one of the problems we have, the language. I have been trying to push some of my bolivian friends to publish something on Living in Bolivia (LIB) and have not been successful. The language is a barrier. Bolivians who actually live in Bolivia, do not speak English well or not at all.
I am thinking, should the new LIB site become bilingual? or keeping it in English will be in the best interest of LIB?
Posted by: MB at Octubre 14, 2004 03:57 PM
Definitely. When Living in BOL was first created, we discussed making it bilingual, or adding another spanish only section. Once the changes are made, I am sure the options will be there to add that in order to expand the blog pool.
Miguel (en España): Por supuesto, cuando ya este todo arreglado con el sistema, te voy a añadir al equipo de "blogeadores". Sí, cualquiera informacíon sobre Bolivianos en España, no necesariamente tu experiencia, seria muy interesante.
Posted by: eduardo at Octubre 14, 2004 07:53 PM