Dar es Salaam Bloggers Circle--February Meeting Summary The Dar es Salaam Bloggers Circle (DBC) February meeting took

place as planned on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at Cine Club, in Mikocheni, at 6.30 p.m. The meeting was attended by: 1. Ashura Kayupayupa (No One Left BehindTanzania) 2. Biche (ChickAboutTown) 3. Clare Coultas (TheCreativelyMaldjusted) 4. Josh Palfreman 5. Maxence (JamiiForums) 6. Omar Ilyas (OmarIlyas) 7. Omar Mohammed (African Longreads/The Wayward Press) 8. Pernille (Dunia ni Duara) 9. Peter Bofin (Swahili Street) 10.Taha Jiwaji (Vijana.fm) Josh Palfreman was the discussion leader for the meeting. Thanks, Josh, for a job well done! On the agenda was: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Buddypress & Fema Story-chain on VijanaFM Seminar on Social Media Critical Media through Blogs Co-Convener Location of Meetings

DISCUSSION SUMMARY
1. Buddypress & Fema The DBC has spoken often of building an aggregator of Tanzanian blogs. Someone suggested looking into Buddypress, an open source social networking software, to build this aggregator, although it was not clear whether or not this would limit the aggregator to Wordpress blogs. Taha, who volunteered to design the backend of the aggregator, had not yet arrived at the meeting when this discussion took place, so the discussion was postponed to a time when Taha would be present. One of the DBC bloggers mentioned that she was working on a project with Femina HIP that could use the support of bloggers and therefore of the DBC. She wondered if there was general interest in participating in the project. Those present were not interested in participating.

2. Storychain on VijanaFM VijanaFM was hosting a story chain, a series of sequentially linked posts written by different authors to form a logical whole. With three posts in the story chain already written, DBC bloggers were invited to read the chain and to participate by writing a link of the story chain. The general response to this was enthusiastic. 3. Seminar on Social Media At the end of last year, there was talk of having a workshop or a series of workshops geared at providing social media skills/promoting social media best practices among social media users in Dar es Salaam. Due to time constraints at the end of the year, the workshops were postponed to 2012. The conversation was re-opened but no concrete plans made. 4. Critical Media through Blogs The use of blogs for radical activism and as a tool for expressing dissent in Tanzania was discussed at length. Some bloggers felt that this type of blogging, common in other parts of the world, was contrary to the peaceful nature of doing things in Tanzania. Others thought enough was not being done to take advantage of the reach of the Internet and the anonymity that blogging offered. Many thought such tactics were contrary to what the DBC was trying to promote, i.e., the ethical, transparent, professional use of blogging as a medium; while some thought that trying to place such limitations on blogging was simply controlling and elitist. 5. Co-convener Biche, the current DBC convener, called for a volunteer for the position of co-convener, i.e., someone who could convene, run, and report on DBC meetings when Biche was not available. Omar Mohammed volunteered to do this. 6. Meeting Location It was suggested that the venue for DBC meetings change to somewhere more appropriate and more convenient than Cine Club. After discussing several options, it was suggested that the new meeting place be the TANZICT Innovation Space at COSTECH (Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology). Omar Mohammed and Biche said they would follow up on this. The next DBC meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 21, 2012, at the TANZICT Innovation Space at COSTECH, at 6.30pm.