Of BAKE and BHH

Sometime ago, Kenyan bloggers decided to come together and form what is now called the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE). This is good news for bloggers who want to do something useful with their blogs (read make money). Individually, it’s hard for one blogger to convince advertisers that they have the numbers it takes, but together we can make a difference. There is also the issue of plagiarism where mainstream media copy pastes content from blogs without as much as an acknowledgment. BAKE aims to help identify these instances and look for the way forward.

So the site, www.bake.or.ke will aggregate content from all bloggers who have signed up (basically your RSS Feeds) and then from there advertisers can choose the relevant blogs they want their ads to go into.

Let me not go into details, there are people working on that nitty gritty stuff but you can ask me questions in the comments section and I’ll try to answer them as best as I can. Issues of content, control, censorship, committees etc.

It looks like BAKE is ready to go, and bloggers were invited for a meeting yesterday evening (Friday 20th May) during which the website was launched.

Anyway, so yesterday I, together with Seth Kigen, was among the first people to arrive, and I found Kachwanya, the ever cheerful organizer/coordinator/don’tKnowHisTitle of BAKE and Wamathai the poet. Shortly after, we were joined by @mawazo_mengi, @anyixbaby, @IddSalim, @wiselar, @roomthinker, @kahenya, @bankelele, @martingicheru, @nj3ma, @shiruakams, @dy-rants and please-forvgive-me-if-I-have-not-mentioned-you-Just-tell-me-and-I-will-add-you-here-immediately.

So business was discussed and beer was ordered. I left early though and wish I’d stayed to chat a bit. It was agreed that we have monthly social meetings/drink ups/BHH. Blogger Happy Hour.

I look forward to BHH. As far as I can remember, Ugandan bloggers have always had a HH and wondered when we’d start having ours!

The next BHH is set for June 3rd but it could change. I’ll keep you updated and I hope to see you there!