Image from Flickr user Jorge Mejía Peralta, jorgemejia, used an Attribution 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license. The 2.0 Meeting of Blogs and New Media (2.0 Encuentro de Blogs & Nuevos Medios [es]) took place on the 12 and 13 of August, in Managua, Nicaragua, increasing the value of blogs and new media as citizen spaces for social participation in the country. The event was made possible with support from the Cultural Center of Spain in Nicaragua (Centro Cultural de España de Nicaragua [es]). During its first edition [es] in 2009, the meeting focused on traditional and print media and writers that were migrating toward an online platform. In its second edition, 2010, creators of “native” web content were invited, from independent bloggers to corporations, social activists and even political organizations. The meeting included guests from Guatemala (Stephanie Falla, from Maestros del Web [es] and 120Segundos.com [es] ), Renata Avila (lead of Creative Commons Guatemala, Global Voices author, also involved in other digital experiences), Cristian Cambronero (from FusilDeChispas.com [es], National Journalism Prize for Costa Rica 2010), Monica Brenes (University of Costa Rica, project La Carpio en Linea [es]), Marcela Alfaro (from Cocoa Interactive [es]), and several Nicaraguan bloggers from different backgrounds, locations and with distinct purposes for the Internet. The meeting generated a lot of coverage from the local Twitter community (more information can be found on the site twittnic.com) which voted [es] for the tag #nicablogs10, and followed the event weeks before it began. On traditional media, like magazine Confidencial, the event was covered through various articles on web editions, later listed on the event's official blog [es], including interviews with the creators of the projects La Carpio En Linea [es], 120Segundos.com [es], Group Todo por la costa caribe [es] (Everything for the Caribbean Coast), and even video coverage for an outlet that is essentially a print weekly: Rodney Dávila, collaborating with Confidencial.com.ni [es], wrote: Conversar de blogs es trastocar temas sobre la diversidad, desarrollo cultural, participación e incidencia ciudadana, producción de contenido para nuevos medios, innovadores usos en aplicaciones móviles. Temáticas que fueron abordadas en el 2.0 Encuentro de Blogs & Nuevos Medios, que se llevó a cabo recientemente en la Universidad Centroamericana. Maricela Kauffman, historian for Turkulka.net [es], wrote for the project's blog: El 2.0 encuentro de blogs & nuevos medios demostró que la cibercultura es también una “buena práctica” local; una oportunidad, una plataforma donde las sociedades centroamericanas están promoviendo proyectos innovadores, apropiándose de nuevas tecnologías, difundiendo el conocimiento local en el mundo urbano. Bienvenidos los nuevos espacios en donde “la transparencia es la nueva objetividad” (David Weinberger). — Desde la Galaxia Gutenberg a la Galaxia Internet; la transparencia es el objetivo Emila Persola in his presentation [es] placed an emphasis on the impact of blogs in our context: En ese sentido, yo no creo haber superado aún la idea romántica de tener un blog y considero que en términos generales aún no se supera tampoco en el país. Y no se supera no solo por una falta aún necesaria de conectividad, sino también porque aún falta un compromiso de los blogueros por desarrollar, por un lado, una disciplina de publicación y por otro, aprender a contrarrestar a las coyunturas locales. Javier Barrera, from 1001medios.es, created a podcast episode dedicated to “the small corners of the Internet.” You can download the podcast, in Spanish, here. In the same post Javier reviews the participating blogs and bloggers [es]. Rafael Chacón, Interactivity Senior Producer for BBC Mundo, presented via Skype about how BBC Mundo uses social networks to spread and find stories and sources: Ahora ustedes también participan en la generación de noticias, pero además llegan a ellas de forma distinta: sus amigos las recomiendan y las comparten en las redes sociales, hablan de ellas en sus blogs personales. The comments from his presentation are now part of a post on his editor blog in “Un (BBC) Mundo Más Social [es]” (A More Social BBC Mundo).