Taiwan blogosphere, or TAIWANESE blogosphere?

這次BoF的來賓之一，Rebecca MacKinnon，寫了一篇與會心得，文中提到她自認為此次演講的重點在於：

A major emphasis of my talk was that when blogospheres grow organically, most of them tend to be fairly inward looking (with the Middle East as the major exception, and Africa to some extent also). As Hoder likes to say, blogs can be cafes, they can be windows, and they can be bridges. By my observation, most blogospheres fairly naturally develop into cafes, in which community members who know each other talk amongst themselves.

To blog in a way that opens a "window" into your country/region for outsiders to understand takes more effort.

"Bridges" rarely ever grow organically - they have to be built through concerted, usually difficult effort. Just like bridges in real life, you rarely make money off them - at least not directly - even though they provide an important service to society by which everybody's life is improved.

這段文字，言簡意賅的指出一個可能的危機（cafe、沙龍、部落化），以及，一個行動的契機（bridge、window、對話）。前者往往是在無意中出現的，而後者，卻需要一群人有組織地完成。

這幾幾乎是老生常談了。不過，知易行難阿。

有趣的是，就在這篇文章的回應裡，Michael Turton寫了這麼一段話：

I'm sorry to hear that there is so little interface between the English-language expat bloggers and local Chinese-language bloggers.

看來即使我們同處一個台灣島，可是對於另一群操著不同語言的人，瞭解還是不多阿。這讓我不禁在想，當我們在講「台灣部落圈」時，是指「空間」意義下的台灣社會（Taiwan），還是「種族」意義下的台灣人（TAIWANSES）呢？

說到著，就不免想推薦一下「What's Up in Taiwan」這個podcast，有時候透過老外的眼睛再重新認識自己的社會，也挺有趣的。如果可能的話，辦個交流也挺有趣的。