The Mission Behind Caribbean Blogger’s Week 2016

Ingrid Riley Founder of Caribbean Blogger’s Week

Stop right now and name off the top of your head, 5 Caribbean Food Bloggers, how about Caribbean Sports Bloggers, Caribbean Business Bloggers, ok maybe you better in naming some Caribbean Fashion + Style Bloggers or Caribbean Music Bloggers? Then when you’re done with that for the Caribbean, drill down and and ask those same questions about the Caribbean country you are from, then mosey on over and do that for the Diaspora also.

By now your face should be crinkled as you’re trying to recall names and using your fingers to count or maybe you are scratching your head, from what you didn’t just find on Google. Added to that, let me ask you this – is there a central and definitive Caribbean Blog directory to find a list of Caribbean blogs and Caribbean bloggers so you can connect, collaborate and do business with them? Do you know who was the first Caribbean Blogger to turn their blog into a published book? Do you know which Caribbean Bloggers are making money on their content and how they are doing it? Do you know why more than any other time, why it’s important that Caribbean Women Blog? Are you aware of the history of Caribbean Blogging? Ever heard of CUBlogz.com or Cariblogger.com or Blogoria.com? While they all are in the deadpool now, they are still part of our history and I wrote about them here on SiliconCaribe.com from as far back as 2009.

All of those questions and context I just spoke to and the gaping holes of information – all that right there, is the essence of the mission behind with Caribbean Blogger’s Week. My intention is that CBW 2016, encourages the increased production, marketing and distribution of more original Caribbean Content, period. And no, blogs and blogging are not dead. I am not even going to regale you with stats and facts about that, you have Google for that. I will do this however, and that is remind us all about the definition of a blog.

A blog is a discussion or informational website for which an individual or a group frequently generates text, photographs, video or audio files, and/or links, typically (but not always) on a daily basis. The term is a shortened form of weblog. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”

– source Yahoo and Wikipedia

Added to that, most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blogs), photographs (photoblogs), videos (video blogs or “vlogs”), music (MP3 blogs), and audio (podcasts). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts, a.k.a Twitter.

Following on reminding ourselves on what exactly is a blog, if you’ve followed me on Twitter you would have seen my rants calling for more Caribbean Bloggers of substance and for aspiring and current Caribbean Bloggers to take the medium seriously and do work that matters and take on topics that could use a meaningful spotlight. In other words, I’d had it up to my eyeballs with Caribbean party blogs and yes, sorry to say it, the Caribbean fashion blogs. And yes my bias may have been exaggerated by the fact that, I wasn’t finding any or enough of other kind of blogs that could balance the Caribbean Content narrative, that I believe we are capable of delivering on.

You see I want us all, Caribbean bloggers, bloggers of Caribbean descent, to really understand the value of owning a blog, of owning an independent media platform for which you can set your own agenda. A platform where you get to produce quality – text, audio, video content, build a distinct audience and do amazing things. And while there will always be new platforms that have people’s attention such as Instagram, Snapchat or podcasting, blogs and their value in the Digital Content space is here to stay.

The extension of that mission behind our Caribbean Blogger’s Week is about us as Caribbean bloggers and bloggers of Caribbean descent, is this. It’s about raising the visibility of all of us, creating a central directory, so we can be found for connection, collaboration and business.

What I am seeking for us to accomplish most importantly though, is to challenge ourselves to generate and distribute more of our original Caribbean content – to ask questions, to tell our stories our way, in various ways, using various formats (text,photos, videos, audio) and across sectors – fashion, music, sports, tech, health, travel, business, food etc and to do so as excellently and consistently as we can.

We Caribbean people around the world, need to read, hear, see, watch ourselves more online and the World wants to know more about us too.

So through the pending Status of the Caribbean Blogosphere Survey + Report, the scheduled Twitter chats coming up in November, the many How To/ How I did it Articles and Profiles we will be publishing in December here on SiliconCaribe and the Caribbean Blogger Meetups we are having in the Caribbean and Diaspora ( 5 cities confirmed so far) – I believe Caribbean Blogger’s Week is off to a great start to the mission.

Thanks so much all of you , growing in numbers in the region and Diaspora, who are sharing, collaborating, participating, sponsoring our first annual Caribbean Blogger’s Week, happening on December 5th -10th, 2016. I appreciate it, may this tide lift all of our boats.