The Thumbnails of the contestants

The African Social Networks : How they Measure

Thanks to Alexa Traffic Monitoring we have a little benchmark on this sites to help us see how they compare againts each other. Before I dive into these sites one by one and discuss their strong points and shortcomings

Which I will have to wait for my next post

, Lets take a deep look at what we see in the alexa graphs.


What I can infer from these graphs are as follows

• None of these sites are major presently, as it seems they have yet to make an impact on the web top 100,000 site list. They sometimes make brief appearances, with the exception of Caramellounge.com


• Caramellounge.com leads the pack by far with Afriqueka.com following but quite far behind. The other 2 its kinda hard to tell as they don't have that much stats


• From the thumbnails, Afrinity I would say looks best but on further inspection that is easily disputed


• As am looking at social network scripts it and Phpfox happens to be a popular one. I notice that MyAfricaSite.com has not been redesigned or modified and its just a plain simple installation of the script

African Social Networking - The battle for supremacy

Today I decided to go on a thorough search of the internet for African Social Networks or community sites as they are seldom referred to.Sites that are obviously explicitly dating sites have been excluded. Also sites which are mainly African American are not in the list
I searched the usual places google, myspace, facebook, the tools most webmasters use to promote their wares. After searching far and wide. The list narrowed down o his major contenders

• Caramellounge.com


• MyAfricaSite.com


• Afriqueka.com


• Afrinity.com

My next immidiate review will lookat them one by one

Africa is Speaking (Blogging)

Today I officially became a blogger. Why you may ask? I guess the same reason millions of pther blogger are out there, to earn a living, for amusement, to tackle an issue, to be heard.

Yes TO BE HEARD

Why else, if I go to the streets of Africa with a megaphone and shout will I be heard, Yes, but will I be HEARD No. They'll hear the noise, they throw things at me, some will even listen. But all in all what I speak falls on deaf ears. Thats the power of blogging I will be heard. People will feel what I say , they'll forward it to their friends. They'll come back for more (hopefully).

I went on to Global voices today and I see that, Africa is speaking and the world is listening.

To all my fellow bloggers out there. Keep blogging

Africa, Web 2.0 & Social Networking

Over the last couple of weeks, I have noticed how social networks are prevalent on the new internet era (or could it be bubble). You can make new friends, articles, listen to music, and all sort of other internet savvy things.

The web is back and this time its back to stay. There's social networks for musicians (Pure Volume & (MySpace) , students ((Facebook & (Bebo), for Golf, Cars, Business, Books, Italians in fact almost any imaginable group of people. And these site receive an amazing stream of traffic. It is only rational to start a blog to watch comment, review and encourage social networking as it filters through into African homes, workplaces and ultimately their lives.

What comes to mind first is WHY. Why should there be an African social network? and why the word african and not black. Only thing I can think of is WHY NOT. There's every other imaginable grouping out there, so why not african. ANd the notion of blackness and African are different but alike. In my mind calling it african is not segregating from other blacks but instead an attempt to unite black people all over. Whether caribbean, black british, african american, white south african, a ghanian man, they are all africans. And the african social network brings them all together. So from Jamaica to Johannesburg, where ever you are from where ever you are. An African Social Network is for you.


Surely we have Blackplanet, isn't that enough. Blackplanet? I hardly know anyone outside America who has head of Blackplanet. Web 2.0 is a web movement without boundaries, Blackplanet is an African American Social Network and for good reason. To them their advertisers are more interested in people in the US so why try.

As of writing there's no major African Social Network around, but as we go they will arise. And we will follow their rise and fall. Their triumphs and trials. Africa will speak and the voice will be heard.