My name is Beaton but you call me B. I am a digital storyteller, which basically means that I use the medium of the internet to immortalize myself the only way I know how by WRITING.

When I am not writing I am builder of blogging communities running an online platform that serves to bring together and network bloggers from all over Africa, where the world meets Africa as we like to call it.

The Blogging Culture: A Website means community

I am blogger although technically when no one is around, I call myself a writer with a blog. But what is a blog anyway?

To answer this I will have to delve into a brief history of blogging and WordPress

Blog comes the word WebLog which means literally a log of the web

Blogging started in the developed countries, around the mid to late 90s, when it was mostly online diaries……  By early 2000s blogging had become, A THING a movement even a full time business for some, not just endorsing products and affiliate marketing but marketing and selling their own skills services and crafts as diverse niches of blogs mushroomed.

It no longer was about just personal diaries, but lifestyle, fashion, health fitness, travel, tourism, parenting; the list is endless there’s a type of blogger for everything somewhere on the internet; even those who blog about blogging.

Here’s a fun fact……Did you know WordPress was built and evolved from a blogging platform called B2/CafeLog which had gained quite a huge community count up until the programmer created of the platform vanished leaving a sizeable community who no longer had developer support.

An innovative user of this platform worried about this development came up with the idea to create anew platform integrating the “cool stuff” from there and adding more features and May 2003 WordPress was born

15 years later here we are:

What does this mean?
There’s a huge community of bloggers and its growing and so too has the definition of what blogging is; blogging has no longer has a clear cut simple definition, it means different things to different people.

The official definition of blogging goes something like this:

a website whose posts listed chronologically from most recent to oldest updated regularly usually by one author

I can attempt to summarily define it as:
The online updating of content onto a digital platform

Something as simple as posting a status onto your Instagram, sharing a note on your Facebook, tweeting a tweet or even a video on YouTube or updating the content on your website; blogging is a little like running a magazine.

Blogging has transcended simply being just something you do on the internet; its more than just a marketing tool too; its also a political tool, an awareness campaign raiser, a society watchdog and even custodian of culture. A blog is like a key that opens doors to worlds one can only dream and tap into the community of people beyond the person simply on the end of the screen

A website is more than a conversation; a website is a community and for community to flourish we need each other..

Redwoods trees grow to dizzying heights reaching for the sky and last for thousands of years yet they have very shallow roots

How Do They Do This

The secret to their strength is that their roots … intertwine with other redwoods to create an underground network of powerful connections.

I have kept my personal blog for about five years now and my reach stats look  like this

I did a little research via my peers in the blogging community to see if anyone had any ideas why the blogging culture in the global south is so low  and the most common reasons were as follows:

The Cost of data is very prohibitive Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) released a report in October showing that on average 1GB of data costs 2.5% of the average monthly income; this translates to over two billion people living in a country where 1GB of mobile data is unaffordable… and bundled internet packages make the net be largely regarded as a just social media since all people do is mostly go onto social media

As for people not understanding the blogging culture, that’s part of why I am always encouraging and helping out fellow content creators and building blogging communities it seems like fun but a lot of work goes into having a website and when you put effort and get nothing back that why websites die……

How to support bloggers

•  Number One Read our work
• Subscribe, like, comment If you read and love something or find it useful say so
• If a product is being sold or reviewed why not buy or recommend to a friend
• Share links with your friends
•  If you spot any errors hit the contact tab let us know
• And Pay US ha!

Remember Archimedes’ famous quote; that give me a fulcrum, along enough lever and a place to stand on and I will change the world

 I say to you:

Give me a blog, an audience and an internet connection, and I will move the world.

~Beaton

Thank you!!

~B

PS And while I have you here, I am part of blogging community that picks a weekly blogger to crush on, I am this week’s Blog Crush but you dont have to take my word for how A Blog means community have a quick read at these posts:

Makupsy – Dreadlocks Love Affair

Leo – Dreadlock Rasta!

Ubu – Of Possible Coffee Addiction

Hey Anci – Beaton -the man,the dreadlocked hallmark card and the myth

Life With Dimples – BlogIndabaWednesday ~ B

Tee Madzika – Wednesday share a creative 4

miss chiseche – wednesday creative crush