Alfred Sirleaf and his Daily News board

People often (wrongly) assume that social media is all about technology. Wrong.

It’s not about the technology at all. It’s called social media – not website media or Internet media.  Technology just facilitates the (social) conversation. Simple as.

I came across a post this week from PSFK which highlighted the concept of analogue blogging which reminded me of a piece I blogged a few weeks back.

Alfred Sirleaf gets it.

He runs a news and information service called The Daily News which receives a total of 10,000 daily views – all from his native town of Monrovia, Liberia.

The difference is that Sirleaf’s concept is totally lo-tech. Armed with his mobile phone and a handful of chalk, he handwrites news items onto a few blackboards for passers-by to see as they commute along one of Liberia’s major roads.

The Daily News was originally started as a way to get important news and information into the hands of people who cannot afford to buy a daily newspaper. As not all of his customers are literate (only 57.5% of the population can read), Sirleaf also uses symbols and pictures to convey his messages (a lo-tech Flickr/YouTube).

What’s really impressive is that the blackboards have advertising space around the news articles which local businesses can buy.

The ambition for The Daily News is to take the chalkboard newspaper model to multiple cities around Liberia.

Liberia’s Blackboard Blogger from WhiteAfrican on Vimeo.

For me, this is an amazing testimonial for the spirit of blogging which exists in areas of the world where Internet penetration is very low. In 2002, Liberia only had 1,000 Internet users – a figure which is being dwarfed by the rapidly growing mobile phone ownership (currently 2% of the population).

The community aspect of analogue blogging shines through when you learn that The Daily News is fed content via an army of volunteers from around Liberia who have a direct line to Alfred’s mobile – where the news is transcribed over the phone directly onto the chalkboards.

Truly inspiring…