Ricardo's Blog

As we go into Blog Day 2006 (tomorrow, August 31st) I wanted to share with you my views on the state of the Mexican blogosphere.  If you have anything to add, please add a comment to this post.  Tomorrow I will place a post to participate at the event.

My blogging adventure started outside of my country, actually while living in Brasil.  I can easily say that the whole blogging phenomenon was not very well known to me until I moved to the largest country in South America.  Brasil is one of the countries that has at points in time being highlighted as one of the top blogging countries.  In fact, Brasil is one of the top countries of social networking sites and sites like Linked In and Orkut are quite popular here.

Blogging in Mexico was not as common when I moved to Brasil more than a year ago.  Few blogs were found back then and many had a somehow modest production behind them.  In addition to that, blogs did not had large audiences as they did in other countries in which blogging were already booming in full swing.  A few initiatives, like the BlogsMexico directory was already there helping get the emerging Mexican blogosphere get developed.

But everything was changed with the Mexican Presidential Election of 2006.  The race was very close, even months before the election.  People from the different parties and political current saw blogs as a primary vehicle to express their ideas.  Blogging became the megaphone that helped ordinary people speak their minds and support their candidates.   Blogging in Mexico after the 2006 election was changed forever.

In many senses the changes were very positive, as blogs arrived and filled a space that large media was not filling. In many cases some bloggers devoted many hours to produce very high quality materials.  The reason behind this was simple, many were following their passion and therefore the time and effort they dedicated was very significant. 

In my particular case, as a Mexican living abroad, I started to get more and more interested on the election months before the election took place.  A simple query opened up my eyes that blogs were really taking off.  As I was looking for the survey results about the election, I struggled to find the information in the newspaper sites. Most quoted their own polls and it was very hard to find somebody that did a good job of showing all of them in one place.  I found a blog that did just that and had all of the surveys under a tag called “encuestas”.  I continued following blogs and found voices that allowed me to form my opinion and that complemented the newspapers and other sites nicely.

For me it is clear that the Election was the killer application for Mexican blogs.  However, I think that those independent and authoritative voices will continue to play a role on shaping the future of my country.  Many of them actually continue to do so. 

The main challenge that I see with Mexican blogging is to transition out of the current political stage that was heavily polarized between the left and right (as the country was).  If bloggers want to continue to be credible post election, many of them need to leave the partisan hats they wore during the election and continue to play a role simply as Mexicans. Mexicans that go beyond a political tag and that dare to be themselves and blog accordingly.  This upcoming transition in the Mexican blogosphere will be a key one to continue to have a strong voice in shaping the future of the country.