Blogging Kazakh style.

Karim Masimov, the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, ordered his ministers to start blogging on the government site. He decided that this would be the best way for the people of Kazakhstan to get in touch with the government. His own blog received 152 comments after posting a welcome message. A large number of these were, of course, complaints.

I thought this was worse mentioning because this is a story about a fomer Soviet republic embracing Web 2.0. Considering how few governments have embraced Web 2.0 in the so-called developed world, this is a huge technological leap forward into the 21st Century. And this is a place that was a bit of a backwater in the not-so-good, old Soviet days. Before this, its major technological claim to fame was Baykonur, the Russian space launch facility.