Batir Wardam Blog: 100,000 handshakes, and a goodbye!

Anytime during today or tomorrow the total number of visits to this blog will reach 100,000 which is a fantastic figure and a real source of pride for me. I would love to thank each and everyone who has paid a visit to the blog and especially the readers who have posted 1500 comments whatever their content was. Comments and interactivity make a blog very successful.

However, this moment in time made me re-evaluate my blogging experience and especially the fact that I am maintaining two blogs with two languages as I have the Arabic Jordan Watch at (www.jordanwatch.net/arabic) with 135,000 visits until now. When I started blogging I took the advise of my friend Isam Bayazedi who I think is the God father of bloggers in Jordan and he advised me to have two separate blogs if I will write in two languages.

The experience was really good and I enjoyed it as it proved more professional to have two blogs instead of a bilingual blog. Recently however I started to think about the following questions:

1- Why I am blogging in two languages?

2- Is my target group different between Arabic and English?

3-Is the content different between Arabic and English?

4- Can I afford time to have frequent quality blogs in both languages?

Starting with the last question I KNOW for certain that I do not have the time to blog in quality, especially in the English blog. I really wish I have the time and focus to have at least one quality blog each day to keep updating the content to an acceptable level, but I don't. In my Arabic blog I can post my daily articles at Addustour and then post 3-4 other weekly articles with a more freedom margin than the Dustour articles that is always subjected to the notorious Press and Publications Law.

The answer for Question 1 is that I am blogging in English, in addition to Arabic to have more freedom in writing. It goes without saying that English journalism in Jordan is more free than Arabic. Just look at the Jordan Times and Al Rai published from the same organization. The other reason is that I was hoping to reach a wide audience of international readership. The second objective needs time and effort and good promotion which I do not have.

This brings us to Question two where I think that 95% of my readership is Jordanian and Arab. So, they must all be able to read Arabic. The "non-Arabic" readership is low and there are plenty of other Jordanian blogs with quality content that have better quality of posts and wider audience. I am not in a possession to compete with better blogs like Black Iris, What's up in Jordan, 360 east and many others that reflect the true nature of Jordanian economy, politics and society to the wider audience. So, if my target is Arabic then it is better to focus on one language that I feel comfortable with.

In question three I always ask why I have written a certain Article in English and not Arabic and why I don't translate articles between the two languages? It will be a tedious process which takes time and effort and makes the blog like a mirror of two languages.

I have reached the conclusion that it is better to enhance my Arabic blog with better posts and exploit as much freedom margin as I can get despite the difficulties. I also feel that my kind of thinking and the ideas I have must be displayed in Arabic for the wider audience.

So, starting October 1st 2007 all the updates in Jordan Watch will only be in the Arabic site and the English site will say goodbye with 100,000 thank you messages from me to all the great readers I had in the last 21 months.