Loomnie

From the Atlantic Wire: On Monday, the Wall Street Journal’s Jessica E. Vascellaro threw bloggers into a tizzy by proclaiming the dethronement of e-mail as the electronic “king of communications.” Social media, instant messaging and Google Wave deserve crowns now, she said, because they are more suited to the modern expectations of real-time interactivity. While some bloggers found her arguments persuasive, many were quick to defend e-mail’s lasting importance. Continue reading

Last week we commissioned Akin to do a review of the coverage of the Nigerian re-branding excercise by bloggers and he delivered a really beautiful post. Please go over to NigeriansTalk.org to have a look at it. Probably the only group of people who have covered the re-branding excercise very well are bloggers. There are probably are reasons for that, but that is not the point of focus at the moment. If you are interested in hosting a review – a copy each on your blog and NigeriansTalk.org – please send an email to loomnie-at-loomnie.com or nnwachuku-at-gmail.com.

And the guys over at Turenchi.com are doing a really beautiful job. Their site indexes news sources and lists the news stories as they are posted on the original sites. Part of the beauty of the site is that it is uncluttered and very easy to navigate. Plus there is a mobile version at www.turenchi.com/mobile They promise that it will soon move to www.m.turenchi.com News buffs and junkies, a site to bookmark.

Nneoma of Pyoowata and I have started a blog review – NigeriansTalk. It is going to be a weekly review of blog posts on Nigeria/ blogs from Nigerians. From the introductory post:

NigeriansTalk is a weekly review of posts written by bloggers of Nigerian extraction, bloggers living in Nigeria and bloggers who blog about Nigeria. NigeriansTalk seeks to cover the wide spectrum of perspectives on various social, political, and personal issues, issues that affect Nigerians at home and abroad. We would like to recognize those bloggers who through their efforts sustain a much needed dialogue on the state of the nation. We hope that through our collective voices, we will bring about the future we seek for our country.

It is a collaborative project. This means that we will regularly invite bloggers to review blog posts that they find interesting during the past week. It could be themed, in which case a reviewer could choose a certain topic of interest to them – say technology, music, education – and review blogpost on the topic. It could also be about the coverage of a particular news event by bloggers. Or just about the issues that bloggers found interesting during the past week. Reviewers have a certain level of freedom in choosing the topic and the format. Again, from the site:

We hope to involve as many Nigerian bloggers in this pan-Nigerian blogging project. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor for NigeriansTalks.com, please email (Loomnie at loomnie-at-loomnie.com or Nneoma at nnwachuku-at-gmail.com). Becoming a contributor for NigeriansTalk requires a minimal time commitment as contributors will at most post about once a month.

One of its ambitions is to become a site through which people can network: Reviews written for and posted on the NigeriansTalk site will also go on your blog.

The first post, from Nneoma, is going to be on the site on Monday. We look forward to having your contributions.

I should first of all say Happy New Year. I wish you all a great 2009.

This year, I have to get into my dissertation, so much into it that I would only have a few loose ends to tie by the end of the year. I know, it is going to be hard, but no one said it was going to be easy when I signed up for a doctoral programme. No, it does not mean that I will not be blogging, actually, I want to blog much more than I did last year. I have found that blogging offers a good way of clarifying my thoughts and dealing with issues I probably would not deal with if I did not blog. Yea, I live in real life, and though my dissertation is not entirely theoretical, I would not exactly describe it as real life either. So, blogging is going to offer a balance of sorts in my life. To show that I mean what I am talking about, I will let you into a secret that a friend and I have been working on. It is a blog review project, and most of you will be contacted soon to take part in the project. It is collaborative, it is interesting, it is informative, and it will draw a lot of people together. That is the much I can say without getting permission. It is something to look forward to.