The blogging phenomenon kicked off in late 1990s- but
in Tanzania was picked up by news reporter Ndesanjo Macha -a decade ago. As Ndesanjo (pictured below) campaigned tirelessly for Swahili
blogging, running workshops and attending world wide conferences while
maintaining hold on his Jikomboe blog very few understood the meaning of the word, let alone using the internet as
feverishly as today. Those days, Ndesanjo confessed he was blogging for love arguing
this was the future of global communication.
Other local bloggers started getting noticed after
the vicious murder of a Tanzanian couple in the USA September 2006. Suddenly we were dependant on Michuzi and internet Radio Butiama to get information that was not readily available on
mainstream media. I personally began
blogging in 2007.
How things have changed since!
Ndesanjo’s Jikomboe site is no more; he is currently, leading contributor (with over
4,200 posts) of the interactive Global Voices. Last year he was named “Africa blogger of the
year.”
Meanwhile, Tanzanian bloggers are flourishing with
diverse themes, as well as social networking sites such as the influential Jamii Forums, created in 2006. Some are educational –e.g. Award winning Mwanamke Na Nyumba (openly
discusses sexual problems) and Al Hidaaya analyse different aspects of the
Quran.
Sites have
mushroomed in hundreds. And within this ascent are big bucks. Whispers that certain bloggers are earning as
much as ten thousand dollars a week might be exaggerated but companies are
using blogs to reach their markets. This has made Tanzanian blogs (specifically)
hard to scroll through as pages are crammed with massive advertisements.
