Widening the range of the conversation… That I was saying in the previous post. Getting to know and talk to people beyond our own borders. It would be stupid not to do it with a border-less medium like the internet, wouldn’t it? So let’s start this conversation. And let’s choose as first topic Italy’s perception around the web. I think italian bloggers have a responsibility in representing our country on the web. Especially since we blog in english. I would like to hear on this from Emanuele, Paolo, Luca and any other english-blogging italians. Including – why not? – our Minister of Infrastructures (ehm what a name for a ministry) Antonio Di Pietro (if a politician with such a clumsy italian blogs in english, why shouldn’t I?).
Italy’s perception around the web. Well, I hate to start defensive, but I would like to understand why the image of our country is not so good, to the extent that Robert Scoble says in one of his posts:
“…I’ve been getting a TON of speaking requests, including for places like India and Korea and Italy…”
ROBERT: Why is so funny being invited to speak in Italy? Why we are considered on the same level of India and Korea, instead of Germany and Great Britain?
Maybe our Vice Prime Minister begging for a visit to our website helped in this. And now that You Tube is packed with his footage, who tells Mr Scoble and the other people on the Web that Italia is very different from Italia.it?
Homework.
Let’s point out the commonplaces about our country and defy them.
What you italian guys DON’T like to be considered?
I don’t like when they think Italians are lazy. It’s true we are very disorganized, but we also are hard workers and most of the people doesn’t know that.
…
UPDATE 2 HOURS LATER
Paolo Valdemarin jumped in big style with a post on this, quoting a very interesting proposal of Dave Winer. Yeah, Dave let’s do that!
And also Paolo brought in another interesting opinion by Marc Canter, which I remember in Cannes at Babelgum presentation asking smart tough questions.
Somebody else? 🙂
Point is, to me, using the blogosphere to get to know each other better. It’s starting alredy…
Marco Massarotto 
Dave Winer has something do say and a very interesting proposal:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/06/20/italiansWantToKnow.html
Marco, Paolo, let’s get Winer and Scoble in Italy. I bet they’d love to come. It’ll be a great chance for Italy to upgrade its perception among a selected range of opinion-makers, of enormous influence.
Let’s not undertake our possibilities as Italians, once again!
(And bravo Marco for the upfront new style of your blog, keep it up this way!)
I began to blog in January 2006, and switched to English around one year ago, and I was (and still am) one of the few Italian food bloggers that took this kind of decision. That made me wonder many times why… And I arrived to some conclusions:
– Italians (us) are always concerned about who is the best, who has more hits, who’s on top of blogbabel: sad… In the rest of the word they care much less about all this futile things…
– We feel more secure in a little environment: the rest of the world is too big…
– We don’t have enough networking skills to survive out there, in English, speaking to an immense number of people… Some Italian blogger that I knew in person don’t even have enough networking skills to survive far from a computer screen…
I don’t think is so bad to be on the same list as India and Korea: generally speaking, German and French blogs are quite uninteresting…
I think in Italy there is too much ostentation about anything… Many times I felt other “normal” bloggers looking at me as if I was an alien from outer space, just because I blog about food… But I don’t know how many “normal” bloggers can say they found a job thanks to their blog as I did… I’ve never felt this arrogance and envy outside Italy…
Sorry, this is not a comment, it’s a post!!! Maybe I’ll copy it on my blog!!!
🙂
Yaes, Sara. I love your blog. And if blogging in english brought you tio write here, it’s already a good thing. I don’t care about ranking, this is just a personal blog,. I care about relations, getting to meet and know people. And english gives more opportunities, that’s all.
Marco:
I am Massarotto born in Brazil and I live in Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brasil, where there are lots of Massarottos living. I have been engaged in building our family tree, that has now more than 1,000 names, severla of them Italians that left the north part of the country. My gran gran father, for example, arrived in Brazil coming from Vedelago and Istrana. Ohters came from Rovigo and other cities.
Do you have any material or publication about the Massarotto family in Italy. I would really like to link many several branches of the Massarotto family in Brasil, that I am sure came from the same origin. Any information, any help will be really good. Best regards, Carlos H.Massarotto