Techno-irani

A few weeks ago my friend andrei, who works at technorati, asked me if I could tell him what this site was all about. Though I speak decently fluent Farsi, my ability to read it is lacking, and I had no useful input. He asked because it had jumped up on the Technorati 100 and no one knew what it was. I didn’t think much of it… until…..

Today, while reading this interesting Read/WriteWeb post, it looks like there are TWO Persian language blogs in the top 20 (#7 and #17). Is this an algorithmic anomaly, or are there really so many young Iranians blogging and linking back to these sites?

The intertubes are a great place for young people to semi-anonymously and openly express themselves, and I can see how this is especially popular for Iranian youth. While Read/WriteWeb focused on how tech and politics are the most popular blog topics, I think it’s more interesting to think about the political (and maybe economic) implications of such an active Iranian web community.

There’s the obvious stuff about how the Iranian youth are secular and like American culture and all that stuff, but what makes Iran so special w/r/t blogs? Is it that there’s a reasonable sized middle-class with Internet access and no other outlet for expression and speech? Is it just that all the Iranian bloggers link to the same stuff? Unfortunately, I can’t really read the blogs that are linking to these sites either.

I’d love to know what these blogs are about. I’ll ask my family to help, but if anyone is out there and has some insight, please comment.

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