Has this blog been deserted?
By Kamangir • Feb 25th, 2008 • Category: Blogging, Features, Lead Story, Personal
The matter of fact is that this blog has not been updated frequently in the past couple of months, at least compared to the rate of update which it saw last year around this time. This, however, does not mean that I have deserted this blog.
The Persian companion to this blog, at persian.kamangir.net, is almost one year old now. Its birth and then its rapid growth has been a surprise, even to me, and another indicator that the Iranian youth do seek alternate windows into the events.
As this pie chart shows, the Persian Kamangir has a readership about four times more than the English Kamangir. Furthermore, the chart shown below exhibits the rapid growth of the number of subscribers to the Persian Kamangir, compared to that of the English Kamangir. The fact is, this chart is about a month old, and since then, the numbers for this blog have not changed much, but there has been another 40% increase in the numbers for Persian Kamangir. Other statistics verify these numbers as well (see: Connection Graph of the Persian Blogosphere).
About two months ago, in a conference in Germany, I had the opportunity of talking to a gentleman who works with Persian outlets on the web. In response to my complaints that, “We do not have a working connection with the mainstream media”, he asked me a very simple question, “What do you think that could accomplish? Can you do anything more than what CNN does? Does the Islamic Republic even care about what CNN says?” He then went on with saying, “What is lacking is a stronger Persian blogosphere. That’s what can cause change.”
Well, I did subscribe to that thinking and the readership of Persian Kamangir does prove that there is huge demand in the Persian blogosphere. On top of that, the reactions of the state-run outlets (example) do indicate that what they hate is a stronger Persian blogosphere and what they do not care about is an Iranian writing whatever he wants to in English.
Nevertheless, I owe a lot of things to the readers of this blog. This is where I started blogging and this is where I learned so many lessons. I do need your support and I do care about you. The only thing is, the Persian Kamangir is where the battle is, at least for now.
Posted by Kamangir
Author's email address: arash@kamangir.net | All posts by Kamangir
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Archer
Excuses, excuses.
I know that the main reason of your neglect of your English blog is that you want us to learn farsi. ;-)
Kamangir: Well, that would work too, wouldn’t it? :)
You know you have a siister here in Iran :)
You are doing a wonderful job, I feel happy about your way of filling the gap of communication with Iranians in the Internet. For years I felt there I can’t hear the voice of an Iranian on the net, in a syatematic way, regarding all the limiting factors and here comes Arash the Archer, aiming so high in the sky :) be well my dear, :)
Kamangir: Thanks. It is really an honor for me when you call me your brother.
We’re still here brother. You haven’t been completely abandoned.
Do you count readers using your RSS feeds or Google Reader?
Kamangir: Thanks. I use the counter in Feedburner.