By Shabina Khatri

On Wednesday, Qatar added an eighth digit to all mobile and landline phone numbers in the country. Officials said the move is an effort to create more phone numbers in a country that has seen its population double in the last five years.

Hukoomi, Qatar's government website, explains the change:

Under the plan, the first digit of both the fixed and mobile numbers will be repeated.

Thus, if your old number started with 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 all you need to do is to repeat the first digit such as 33, 44, 55, 66 and 77…

All emergency telephone numbers within Qatar, including 999 and 112, will not be affected by the change, and the country code will remain +974.

Numbers beginning with 1, 2, 8 and 9 will not be changed.

Though residents were initially worried that the change would cause widespread confusion, the transition seems to have been made with little incident.

That's thanks in part to several renumbering applications for mobile phones that automatically update users' contact lists.

The apps, however, didn't appear to work for everyone.

On Twitter, @NazQatar said:

Thanks to screw my phonebook with those apps!! it DOESN'T recognize all numbers start with 00974 #Qatar

@omerm27 said:

its getting kind of annoying already. it's only been two hours

Others were more accepting (and tongue-in-cheek) about the new number scheme.

On Facebook, Fahad Qureshi said:

because too many people are moving to this country, they ran out of phone numbers lol….so now the first digit of every number is repeated….if you ever plan on calling me in the future lol…update your phone books.

On Twitter, mohamed said:

The upside of the telco's in Qatar changing the number format is that I will have to speak to fewer people today. #antisocial

And though the change seems to have gone over peacefully, some continue to worry about the inconvenience having a new number would cause.

On the popular social forum Qatar Living, ajmani said:

All business cards, stationeries, resume's, job sites, other sites, etc etc needs to be updated… i doubt if everyone has fixed it already! Hope there will be a recorded message whenever someone calls on the old number, guiding them to add 3, or 4 or 5 or 6…!

Indeed, for the next three months, those dialing seven-digit numbers will hear an automated message advising them of the new scheme.

Whether that gives people away for the summer and Ramadan enough time to acclimate to the renumbering plan remains to be seen.

By Tomomi Sasaki

@MaripoGoda crowd sourced Flickr photos to build Haikyo Tokei, which shows a different photo of broken clocks in abandoned buildings to tell the time every minute. @mazzo shared [ja] his communication with the developer, who acknowledged that the images for 11:02 and 08:15 represent the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively.

By Alexey Sidorenko

YouTube under fire in the Russia's Far East. Photo by mauritsonline

On July 16, 2010, Komsomolsk-on-Amur city court issued a decision [RUS] requested by the city prosecutor, obliging a local Internet provider “Rosnet” to block IP-addresses of five websites: lib.rus (the judge meant lib.rus.ec, a Russian Internet library), thelib.ru, www.zhurnal.ru, web.archive.org, and… youtube.com. The websites were accused of hosting extremist content (several online copies of “Mein Kampf” and a video “Russia for Russians” that accompanied a skinhead-related song uploaded by a user from Serbia [RUS]), while the provider was accused of “not blocking them.” The court decision says:

…проведенная прокуратурой проверка показала, что интернет-провайдер в лице ответчика не обеспечивает должным образом безопасность пользователей в глобальной сети. Жители г. Комсомольска-на-Амуре имеют свободный доступ к сайтам экстремисткой и террористической направленности, которые пропагандируют идеи общественных организаций, содержат высказывания, направленные на возбуждение ненависти и вражды к группе лиц по признакам национальности, отношения к религии, а равно принадлежности к власти, органам управления, а также оправдание террористической деятельности, запрещенных на территории Российской Федерации.
[…]
в целях восстановления нарушенных прав граждан и во исполнение действующего законодательства, доступ к … к Интернет - сайтам … следует ограничить, посредством добавления на пограничном маршрутизаторе правил фильтрации IP - адресов указанных сайтов.

…the inspection conducted by the Prosecutor's Office showed that the Internet provider (the defendant) failed to ensure the security of the users of the global network properly. Komsomolsk-on-Amur residents have free access to extremist and terrorist websites that promote ideas of public organizations, contain statements aimed at inciting hatred and hostility towards a group of people based on ethnicity, attitude towards religion, as well as belonging to the authorities, and justification of the terrorist activities prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.
[…]
in order to restore the violated rights of the citizens and to enforce the current law, access… to the Internet sites … should be limited by adding rules of the IP-filtration of the aforementioned websites to the router.

Marker.ru published [RUS] an interview with prosecutor Vladimir Pakhomov, who said that “a provider is obliged to filter information that goes through its channels to the World Wide Web,” and didn't exclude the possibility of filtering Vkontakte.ru and other social networks.

The court's decision, however, hasn't been enforced yet. The provider managed to appeal [RUS] on time and is waiting for the decision of a higher instance court.

Numerous mistakes (both spelling and factual) in the court decision attracted attention [RUS] of various bloggers, highlighting a low level of computer (and general) literacy of a person who wrote the decision. Besides, the measure of IP-filtering is both expensive and inefficient (for various reasons), argued Rosnet in a detailed press release published on its website. Russian Google said [RUS] the decision might be a serious threat for the development of the Internet in Russia's Far East.

Previously, GV reported on other cases of similar accusations against providers (here, here, and here/a>, and many others that were not documented). Until now, however, prosecutors have been demanding to close only small websites. With YouTube, the technique of content removal/blocking was slightly different. The Russian authorities addressed YouTube directly with demands to delete certain videos, and the service usually complied [RUS].

“Rosnet” cited [RUS] two similar cases that were initiated but lost by the same Prosecutor's Office in April and May 2010. Recently, Sova-center reported on a court decision in Chita region, also in the Far East Region: Chita city court obliged a local provider to block the website of “Russian Zabaikalie” because of the neo-Nazi content. Both Chita and Komsomolsk-on-Amur are within 200-300 kilometers from the border with China, a country with the most severe Internet filtering systems. Besides, Komsomolsk-on-Amur has some of the highest Internet prices [EN] and some of the lowest numbers of social network users among cities with the population of more than 200,000 people.

So what is it? Is it geographical proximity that makes blocking practices so tempting, or a technical backwardness? Or, a general trend towards a nation-wide system of content blocking? Stupidity of the local authorities or the beginning of the Great Russian Firewall?

Both, concludes Anton Nossik, IT entrepreneur and a popular blogger. In his column at snob.ru, where Nossik analyzed [RUS] the unusual expansion of the list of extremist materials [RUS] (which grew from 218 items in 2008 to almost 700 now), he quite cynically writes about such prosecution of “extremism”:

грандиозный замысел опустился на уровень исполнителей, у которых в общем случае никакой собственной мотивации насчет идеологического контроля не было. И система принялась отрабатывать начальственный указ… У милиции и прокуратуры появился «план по валу», предусматривающий выявление и запрет экстремистских материалов на подконтрольной территории, физической и виртуальной. …подобрались «эксперты», готовые штамповать по заказу прокуратуры заключения об экстремистском характере любого поступившего от заказчика материала. Устаканилась процедура вынесения судебных решений. Идею требовать от уездных провайдеров фильтрации запретных серверов по IP обкатало УФСБ по Новосибирской области четыре года назад […].

[…]

В результате этой суеты по всей стране оформился внушительный и нелепый конвейер, продуктами работы которого являются и сам Федеральный список запретных материалов, и недавнее постановление о запрете YouTube в Комсомольске-на-Амуре, которое на нем основано. В работе конвейера задействованы тысячи милицейских, прокурорских и судейских работников по всей стране. Которые в гробу видали и свободу слова, и борьбу с ней, но у них у всех есть разнарядка, и нужно ежеквартально отчитываться о проделанной работе. На выходе имеем то, что имеем: нагромождение нелепых и неэффективных запретов, с нулевым практическим выходом — будь то для реальной борьбы с экстремизмом или даже для локального ограничения доступа к цензурируемым произведениям. Весь этот мартышкин труд осуществляется строго для галочки, для отчетности. А главный стимул, которым объясняется высокий уровень активности уездных бюрократов по этому направлению, — чрезвычайная простота всех процедур, позволяющих затем рапортовать об успешно проделанной работе, в условиях нулевого контроля сверху за ее полезностью или эффективностью.

The master plan made it down to the level of executives, who actually didn't have any motivation for ideological control. So the system started working on the order from the bosses… The police and the prosecutor's office got an [overall plan] that foresaw the exposure of extremist materials on the territory they control, virtual or real. … “experts” appeared, who were ready to replicate assessments recognizing as extremist any material they received from their [superiors]. The practice of issuing court decisions also became routine. Novosibirsk region's Federal Security Service was the first one to try out the idea of demanding IP-filtration of banned servers from local providers four years ago […].

[…]

As a result of all this mess, the country got a significant and absurd production line. The federal list of extremist materials, as well as the recent decision to ban YouTube in Komsomolsk-on-Amur are its products. Thousands of police officers, prosecutors and court employees are involved in the work of this production line all over the country. All these people couldn't care less about freedom of speech or about suppressing it, but they all have a plan, and [every three months] they have to report about the completed work. And we have what we have: a pile of absurd and inefficint bans with zero practical result - be it in the fight against extremism or even local limiting of access to the censored works. All this futile activity is being carried out only for appearance's sake, for paperwork. And the main stimulus for the local bureaucrats that could explain the high level of activity in this direction is the extraordinary simplicity of all these procedures, the ease of reporting a successfully-fulfilled job, and no control whatsoever of its usefulness and efficiency from the above.

Nossik concluded that Russia's police “are able to bury any disgusting totalitarian idea,” be it censorship or total surveillance. Although the reality described by Nossik is somewhat true, the case of the first YouTube ban in Russia is the result of a steady and consistent development. Blog or video platforms (like YouTube) are becoming more dangerous for individual bloggers, since the attempts to ban LiveJournal or Facebook after they hosted questionable material are becoming increasingly probable.

By Alexey Sidorenko

Habrahabr users discuss [RUS] the latest Akamai's “State of the Internet” report. According to the research, 12 percent of all the Internet-attacks in the first quarter of 2010 were carried out from the territory of Russia, while the U.S. hackers took the “second prize” for 10 percent of the world's aggressive Internet-traffic.

By Portnoy Zheng

Tetralet complains about his recent experience with Microsoft [zht] about how the software giant emailed and called to threaten that if Tetralet does not welcome Microsoft to “help his company on software property management“, Microsoft would report to superiors and “what's going to happen is not predicable“.

By Veronica Khokhlova

RFE/RL's The Power Vertical reports on the alleged plans to merge Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service with the Federal Security Service. Scraps of Moscow writes about the newest “sexy Russian spy” scandal.

By Janine Mendes-Franco

“The Commonwealth of Dominica has gone virtual with great alacrity” in order to promote tourism; Repeating Islands has the details.

By Alexey Sidorenko

LiveJournal, Russia's still most popular blog platform, recently fell under severe criticism for several “innovations”: purging suspended and “inactive” accounts [EN] and closing OpenID registration [RUS] (allowed LJ-users to comment in other blog-platforms). Blogger sviridenkov observes [RUS] more and more bloggers switching to stand-alone blogs, while Artur Welf says [RUS] disappointed users would rather prefer Facebook.

By Milton Ramirez

Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa has been known for promoting Open Source Software. To prove this, he has created a blog where he explains economic matters didactically, so that people can understand the economic analysis, charts and concepts. He has been posting since May 29, 2010 in the multimedia blog Economía en Bicicleta [es] (Economics on a Bike). Correa explains the reason behind his blog's [es] name: As a bike runs, “anyone can quickly have the necessary tools to not be fooled by the usual fakers,” referring to the media in Ecuador.

By Laura Vidal

Venezuelan NGO Aliadas en Cadena [es] (Allies in Chains) has created the program Aliadas en Tecnología [es] (Allies in Technology), which sees in technology a window of opportunity for empowering women affected by poverty in Venezuela. Through classes and workshops, many women who saw computers as strange and intimidating objects now find in them a tool for work, learning and self-fulfillment. The program recognizes the training of women as one of the main strategies for overcoming poverty. These “Allies” organize workshops that spread the use of new technologies, together with other self-improvement workshops to help fight violence against women and teach them about the importance of challenging and questioning the identity that tradition in Venezuela has given women.

In their YouTube channel [es], a video in Spanish explains what the project is all about.

"Aliadas" (Allies) used with permission from Aliadas en Tecnología (Allies in Technology)

In the blog ¡No le tenemos miedo a los ratones! (We are not afraid of mice! [the computer mouse]) [es] they discuss and inform about the changes women have experienced in the workplace. In one of their posts [es] they question the common perceptions about the value women bring to the workplace, and they criticize the forms of male dommination that are hidden in very simple acts:

… Desde que somos pequeñas nos enseñan a estar sujetas al control masculino, tanto en lo familiar como en lo social, donde nuestro éxito está basado en el cumplimiento del papel de madre-esposa (…)

Basta con escuchar los chistes sexistas en una oficina sobre cómo la presidenta de la compañía llegó a ese cargo o las críticas sobre el traje que utilizó una senadora para dar unas declaraciones en un canal de noticias, para darnos cuenta de las formas (por no mencionar otras tantas) en las que se descalifica y desprestigia a una mujer que tiene poder.

… Since we are little we are taught to be subject to male control, both in family and social spheres, where our success is based on the performance of the role of mother and wife (…)

You just have to listen to sexist jokes in the office about how the [female] president of the company reached that position or about the suit a [female] senator wore to give declarations at a news channel, to notice the ways (not to mention all the many other forms) in which powerful women are disqualified and discredited.

In Venezuela, the role of women as mothers and housewives has prevailed in culture. The basic education women had a right to at the beginning of the Venezuelan republic framed women as administrators in the home and underestimated their efforts in the workplace. Elementary and secondary education in Venezuela is now a right that is offered equally to men and women. However, the traditions and customs perpetuate a limited vision of the female universe, particularly within disadvantaged groups. But the participation of women in community organizations and activities in different training programs –like in Allies in Technology– show how the strength of women inside and outside the home has contributed to the development of the country.

Allies in Technology also follows the struggles and protests against violence against women [es] and promotes knowledge of the laws that protect women in Venzuela that, unfortunately, women know little about:

Entre los principales logros alcanzados durante esta jornada destacan: la visibilidad pública del tema de violencia contra las mujeres a través de los medios de comunicación masivos; el apoyo y trabajo conjunto de organizaciones e individualidades ante este hecho; y acuerdos con [representantes del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia]

The main achivements of this event include: public visibility on the issue of violence against women through mass media; the support and joint efforts from organizations and individuals in this matter; and the agreements with [representatives from the Supreme Court of Justice]

"Protesta" (Protest) used with permission from Aliadas en Tecnología (Allies in Technology). Sign reads: "Sexism kills, and so does silence. No more violence against women!"

One of the remaining obstacles is the ambivalence in the emancipation of women and in what women want for themselves. The doubts and anxieties in the persuit of self-fulfillment that is divided between the family and professional life is still present, like it is in many other parts of the world. Also, the difficult economic situation in Venezuela demands that work in the home and in the workplace be as strong and as productive as possible. Additionally, many of these women are the head of one-parent households which depend on them in an economic, emotional and domestic level.

As part of the self-fulfillment workshops that the women from Allies in Chains call “Skills for life,” several participants gave their opinion about the value of work [es] and talked about their motivation for joining these training workshops:

Yo he trabajado desde los 15 años, ya que SIEMPRE me ha gustado el dinero, no me gusta depender de los demás, es muy distinto a que yo tenga mi propio dinero a que tenga que esperar que mi pareja cobre para que me dé. Estoy en el curso para aprender y también para conseguir un trabajo que sea de lunes a viernes.

I have worked since I was 15, because I have ALWAYS liked money, I don’t like depending on other people, it is very different to have my own money than to have to wait for my partner to get paid so that he can give me some. I’m in this course to learn and also to find a Monday-Friday job.

Trabajar para mí es una decisión importante ya que un día cualquiera me puse a pensar y me dí cuenta que se me estaba pasando el tiempo y estaba dejando atrás todas aquellas metas que me tracé alguna vez, las cuales dejé a un lado con el nacimiento de mi hija.

[In my opinion,] working is an important decision because one day I started thinking and I realized that I was running out of time and I was leaving behind all those goals that I had some day made, which I put on the side when my daughter was born.

Yo no me siento bien estando todos los días en la casa haciendo oficios, yo sé que es mi deber pero quiero servir para algo más y así sentirme satisfecha conmigo misma.

I don’t feel good doing chores in the house every day, I know that it is my duty but I want to be useful for something else and feel satisfied with myself.

Para mí es importante trabajar porque:
- Me hace sentir que no hay límites para hacerlo, sólo el que uno se pone.
- Mejora mi condición económica.
- Te puedes preparar para el futuro al poder alcanzar tus metas para comprar una vivienda, enseres, obtener beneficios laborales como la pensión, etc.

[In my opinion] it is important to work because:
-It makes me feel like there are no limits to do it, only those one puts on oneself.
-It improves my economic situation.
-It can help you prepare for the future to reach your goals to buy a house, gear, obtain work benefits like a pension, etc.

Fue una decisión importante:
1.- Porque quería ser independiente.
2.- Necesito demostrarme a mí misma que sí puedo, que puedo crecer sola sin que otros estén manteniéndome.
3.- que tengo que tener un buen empleo para costearme mis estudios y lograr tener una carrera.
4.- Que debo superarme para brindarle estabilidad a mi hijo.
5.- Porque quiero demostrarle a mis padres que cuando Yo me propongo algo lo termino y lo logro.
6.- Porque necesito darle una lección a mi esposo, o enseñarle que como mujer soy importante, que tengo metas, sueños, que soy capaz de mantener a mi hijo sola. Que aunque el me dé todo; yo debo ser independiente.

It was an important decision:
1.-Because I wanted to be independent
2.-[Because] I need to show myself that I can, that I can grow alone without others providing for me.
3.-I need to have a good job to pay for my education and obtain a career.
4.-I need to succeed to give my son stability.
5.-Because I want to show my parents that when I plan on doing something I finish it and I accomplish it.
6.-Because I need to teach my husband a lesson, or teach him that as a woman I am important, that I have goals, dreams, that I am capable of providing for my son by myself. That even though he gives me everything; I have to be independent. Post translated by Silvia Viñas

By Onnik Krikorian

A Twitter account for the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has been set up at @AzPresident [AZ] and @PresidentAz [EN]. The account will tweet links to presidential speeches, events attended, and video material.

By Claire Sale

This interview was originally published on Netsquared.org. I wrote this post about a new book called Digital Activism Decoded and followed up with editor Mary Joyce to learn more.

About the book:
Citizens around the world are using digital technologies to push for social and political change. Yet, while stories have been published, discussed, extolled, and derided, the underlying mechanics of digital activism are little understood. This new field, its dynamics, practices, misconceptions, and possible futures are presented together for the first time in Digital Activism Decoded.

About Mary Joyce:
Mary is an internationally recognized speaker, trainer, writer, consultant and commentator on the field of digital activism. She is also the founder of two nonprofit organizations: the Meta-Activism Project, which seeks to find better ways of developing digital activism knowledge, and DigiActive which publishes best practices in digital activism from around the world. She was also New Media Operations Manager for President Obama's national campaign in 2008.

——
Q. How did you get interested in digital activism?
I started off being interested in grassroots political activism in developing countries and everything kind of jelled when I was a Fulbright scholar researching the topic in Morocco in 2005. I was seeing this kind of activism for the first time and was very inspired by it. That same year I went to the first Global Voices Summit in London. There I learned about the rise of the blog, of social tagging, of citizen journalism, and at the same time I was aware of these political activists with limited financial resources who needed to organize and get the message out. I saw a natural connection between these two field and the deeper I dug and the more I learned, the more important and interesting those connections became.

Q. Tell us more about Digital Activism Decoded and what makes it so unique!
This is not the first book to discuss digital activism, but it is the first to attempt to map the field in its entirety. There have already been guides that instruct activists in the use of popular applications like blogs and social networks. There have also been scholarly works that analyze the effect of the Internet or mobile phones on political dynamics, both in rich democracies where politicians “tweet” and under repressive regimes. Best sellers have tried to explain the digitally changing world, including the impact on activism.

This book attempts to bring all those themes together in one place. The book starts with a chapter on Contexts (infrastructure, social, political, economic), then looks at digital activism practices (both constructive and destructive) and finally balances the Effects of digital activism, weighing the opinions of optimists and pessimists.

Q. Digital Activism Decoded is an anthology of works by several authors. How did you choose the contributors and topics?
Many of the authors are young scholars from around the world, while others are activists, private sector consultants, and even futurists. They hail from Brazil and the US, to Greece and Denmark. The goal in assembling the author pool was to bring together a group of innovative minds that reflect the full diversity of digital activism, which encompasses theory and practice, political science and computer science, passionate opinion and meticulous statistical analysis. The topics were decided by the field of expertise of the author and what content I felt the book needed. Many of the authors are colleagues I have worked with on different projects, but a few I have never met to this day…wonders of the network.

Q. What advice can you give to people who are just getting started with online political activism?
Start with activism strategy and layer digital technology on top of it. Many digital activists start with the tools without ever having mastered the campaigning basics like goal, message, audience, and action. Digital media is the last question an activist needs to answer and you won't get it right unless you have answered the other strategic questions first.

Q. Are there any networks or resources available for digital activists to connect or learn?
DigiActive has over 200 case studies of digital activism around the world which present tools in campaign context. The Alliance for Youth Movements will have similar resources, split into how-tos and posts, when it launches later this year. Blogs like Beth's Blog have more granular advice about how to use specific digital tools for activism and I recommend Beth's new book, “The Networked Nonprofit” for a more macro perspective on how nonprofits should engage with the digital.

Q. Is there a particularly interesting anecdote or example from the book that you'd like to share?
It's interesting that you use that term, because one of the arguments in the book is that we need to stop understanding digital activism through anecdote. The wealth of anecdote only fragments our understanding and gives ammunition to both optimists and pessimists who fight unwinnable debates over the value of digital activism, each armed with their own pile of anecdotes. We need to start testing these assumptions and theories with rigorous analysis and data.

Q. What have you learned from editing Digital Activism Decoded?
Actually, it was the single best digital activism learning experience of my life! I learned so much, not only from the authors, who shared their expertise in the chapters they wrote, but from the process. When I was forced to define the field of digital activism on paper I suddenly felt pressure to be much more rigorous, even-handed, and skeptical. It helped me to see not only what we know about digital activism, but the great deal we do not. It was a great experience.

Q. How can people get their hands on Digital Activism Decoded and follow your work?
People can download the book for free at Meta-Activism.org/book or buy a paper copy on Amazon. I blog at Meta-Activism.org/ideas, tweet at @mary_joyce, and my personal site is MaryJoyce.com

By Onnik Krikorian

Ali Resh uses online video tools to interview Baku-based Ruslan Asadov, along with now imprisoned video blogger Adnan Hajizade also a co-founder and member of the OL! Azerbaijani youth movement, live from Tbilisi, Georgia. Resh and Asadov speak about the use of new and social media in youth activism in Azerbaijan.

By Onnik Krikorian

FrontlineSMS says that more than 50,000 alerts on health care service have been sent using its open source software by international development organization Oxfam. The post includes a video report.

By Gershom Ndhovu

The media in Zambia, a country which for a long time has only known the Zambia Daily Mail, Times of Zambia and the Post for stable, corporate-style newspapers and the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation and newer private TV and radio stations, is being turned on its head as bloggers as well as citizen broadcasters enter the media space.

Independent news websites and blogs by Zambians are springing up all the time. On the heels of these is the conversations taking place on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and other forums on Google groups. Membership of these groups ranges from as little as four to thousands of members. These non-traditional media platforms carry contents of all manner which would not normally be carried by traditional media in Zambia.

Also coming up are internet-based radio stations called BlogTalkRadio (BTR). There are three stations run by Zambian citizen broadcasters: Brain Drain run by James Mwape, Zambia Blog Talk Radio, and Lespetty Media. All these three blogtalk radio stations are hosted in the United States of America. Brain Drain and ZBTR are talk show stations on which various national matters are broadcast once a week while the latter is primarily a music station. Occasionally, it broadcasts interviews of Zambians discussing various issues about the country.

Brain-drain host, James Mwape, recently wrote in response to a questionnaire to all three stations that setting up a basic blogtalkradio is easy, free and fast and open to anyone anywhere in the world. There are however, costs associated with phone calls. In short, blogtalkradio is a web-based platform that allows callers to host a live call-in broadcast on the Internet using a computer and a phone.

Mwape disclosed that the station’s listeners who have a Skype account can call-in their shows for free, adding that without this feature, a BTR operator is only allowed about 6 lines, a costly budget for listeners calling from outside the US.

BlogTalkRadio, according to Mwape, has a counter that counts the aggregate number of: live listeners, callers, and archived shows at the end of each show. Listenership of more than 27,000 is not uncommon and he estimates that more than 30,000 people listen to their shows assuming that more than one person is listening from a computer.

Mwape, however, disclosed that he has personally financed the operations of his station for the last two years of its existence and has not, thus far not received any financial support from anyone.

Mwape informs subscribers to his radio station through a weekly newsletter about upcoming shows. He also uses Facebook, Zaningi, a Zambian social website, and the radio’s website to publicize shows. He also tweets every live show.

Zambia Blog Talk Radio (ZBTR)’s Nathan Nkhama reiterated that starting or setting up a show on Blog Talk Radio is “free and one needs only to ‘sign up’ like we do for most e-mails or online blog accounts.”

However, he added that budget still determines the operative activities in terms of advertising and phone calls, depending on target audiences and guests respectively.

Writes Nkhama:

For us at ZBTR majority of our guests are connected from Zambia and Europe. We also have a weekly e-mail we sent out using Constant Contact (an email advertising tool) with a mailing list of more than a thousand. This requires a monthly subscription, in spite of the cost it is necessary for us since our show (ZBTR) is done weekly (Saturday- 9am EST New York, 1400hrs GMT or 1500hrs Zambia ). We also have a website which also requires an annual subscription.

Nkhama states that at the end of each show, a statistical report indicates participation by live calls and actual computers logged into a show.

He also disclosed that their operation costs are supported by themselves and from donations of friends who believed in their cause/work. ZBTR has accounts both on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Nkhama says:

Facebook … helps to announce/inform friends of the show about guests coming to the show, whilst listeners can follow on Twitter by contributing to the discussions and even ask questions. As for traditional media, The Post has once reported on one of our shows, Daily Mail and Times follow our shows and have promised to report some topics of interest. We’ve been in discussion with Radio Phoenix, Radio Icengelo, etc for them to start airing some of our shows either live or recorded.

Lespetty’s Kalinda Shachinda effectively summarized the essence of Blog Talk radio as a unique technology and seamless integration with leading social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Ning empowering citizen broadcasters to create and share their original content, their voices and their opinions in a public worldwide forum:

Today, BlogTalkRadio is the largest and fastest-growing social radio network on the Internet. A truly democratized medium, BlogTalkRadio has tens of thousands of hosts and millions of listeners tuning in and joining the conversation each month. Many businesses also utilize the platform as a tool to extend their brands and join the conversation on the social web.

Shachinda said Lespetty Media initially embraced the technology and ran with it but once traffic to the site increased, they moved to more advanced software for which she and co-founder Peter M’tanda are paying for an initial investment of about $30,000 which will allow them to broadcast 24/7.

She stated that Lespetty Media radio is an online Zambian-American radio whose main objective is to promote Zambian music, artists, actors to Zambian citizens mostly.

Kalinda stated that audience numbers are determined by the feedback they get on their contact page and traffic which is in the thousands monitored by their web page. She also stated that their operations are borne solely by the founders and but that they have recently been receiving advertising revenue including voluntary donations from their listeners.

Like the two other blogtalk radio stations, Lespetty relies on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to draw people to their shows. Lespetty has also of late received free air time on radio stations in Zambia like Radio Phoenix, Qfm and others through media interviews.

On whether Lespetty Media pays royalties for the music it plays, Shachinda indicated that for now most of the music is provided by the musicians themselves who have allowed them to use it for promotional purposes after featuring them on their shows.

With these developments in citizen broadcasting, it is the Zambian government which has a bigger fight on its hands in its attempts to control journalists through statutory regulation. With fast moving development in new media technologies, citizen publishers or broadcasters need not need be Zambian-based, they can easily do it from anywhere on earth.

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Lebanese blogger and freelancer Mir explains what FTP (File Transfer Protocol) means to the non-technical people in this post.

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