SA's biggest websites and blogs

Holee crap.


Here is my 2 cents worth(less) review on the local blogging scene, as per the amatomu top100 dredge list. (Did they just google "inurl:/wp-content/ site:.za" by any chance and randomly rank it that way ?)

1. keo.co.za - I can like to make a blog with grinning cartoony faces, many banner ads, and thinly veiled articles about sport.
2. rugbyDUMP.com - No need to say anything further
3. Carblog.co.za - This site has redeemable qualities
4. Coke Zero Fest 2009 - This is an advertisment. Not a blog. meta generator = yet another "web 2.0" marketer making bucks using wordpress.
5. Times Multimedia - questionably redeemable quality, such as appealing to people who like magazines like "True Love", "People" and "Huisgenoot"
6. adii.co.za - I can like rock. A star. On wordpress. Writing letters'n **** yo.
7. Thoughtleader.co.za - Good writing, decent content, and perspective. A win.
8. Times Multimedia - hey look, newspapers can like to blog too. Overall - survivable content and writing.
9. MSFT.NET Blogs (ZA) - oh wait, thats donet.org.za. Damn, we got confused. But we still would like the msft.net url. Oh wait, uhm. What were we talking about again ?
10. The Samsung Blog - Advertiblog.

<rant>
I just refuse to go past number 10, because it's already been a waste of my time and bandwidth looking at the paltry offerings there are in the top 10.

If this crap is the BEST of the local content we can produce, then I really can understand why Telkom and everyone else is charging so much for bandwidth - local or not. Really. Just pinging a random IP address on the internet is a better use of bandwidth than is the "Amatomu" top 10 blogs. At least with a random ping you get an idea of what random IP addresses are in use. With the above blogs (aside from the few exceptions) you may as well have eaten a bowl of Namib sand and wondered why the heck your bum is itching.

Because realistically a bowl of Namib sand probably has more interesting things living in it than any of these blogs. In fact. A bowl of Namib sand has more "local" content in it than 50% of the HTML on all these wordpress-look-a-sites. Hey, I have a blog too. It's my little soapbox, and it's wordpress driven. Before that it was a simple Wiki. It's got some content that will appeal to an extremely limited crowd. And I don't care. I just don't pretend to pass it of as a top web site.

If this is the best, then South Africa doesn't deserve the internet. I can understand people using wordpress as a personal blogging tool. But for chrissakes. People building whole INDUSTRIES around it in South Africa under the banner "web 2.0" is just ludicrous. All that Amatomu.com has done is become a cooler, alternative "cgi web hit counter" script. Except, it's probably 100% more biased. I can like to trackback you.

http://mirror.ac.za/'s file listing is more interesting than 99% of the crap that's been spewed on the amatomu top list.

Where are the science blogs? Where are the debates (aside from the my ball is bigger than yours) ? Where are people writing about things-not-yet-invented, or at least reporting on the recently invented? Where are the people discussing history, invention, science, politics, and bitching about whether Hitler was right or wrong ? (Oh wait, there's always MyADSL's "Current Affairs" topic, fantastically interesting actually) The South African blogosweer is just a pimple on the arse of the internet. It's not worth reporting on. Never mind RANKING on.

All the South African blogosweer is, is just a poor regurgitation of the commercial crap and happenings in sport, cars, media, crime and entertainment
We're actually WORSE than the Americas, and that's probably due to the fact that we only have about 4 million people with internet access. I reckon ICANN should just revoke the entire .za TLD and write it off as a bad investment of two characters.

In the end though, what I want to know is - why is the mystery "guitar" blogger that Stafford Massie from Google cut a cheque for $250k for not on the top of this list? Because that would really rock. With like dollars and **** yo.
</rant>
 
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With our bandwith so expensive it's amazing to see sites like YouTube in the top 5.I guess I just under-estimated the depth of South Africans pockets.
 
CalmD said:
With our bandwith so expensive it's amazing to see sites like YouTube in the top 5.I guess I just under-estimated the depth of South Africans pockets.
Click to expand...
I don't find it that hard to believe, most people are getting on to 10GB or 15GB packages these days. The only people stuck on 2GB are those using ridiculously priced HSDPA solutions, and even then you can afford to visit Youtube every now and then without killing your cap.
 
That article is really badly written. Who still uses Amatomu for ranking? That site has been plagued with problems since they moved it around. Its better to look at Afrigator as they use different algorithms to determine blog popularity. Rudolph I thought you would have known that ....
 
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