African social media aggregator Afrigator held a launch party in Johannesburg last night and unveiled the beta of the team's beautiful new website. Several thousand African blogs, podcasts and videos are already indexed and viewable.
The site offers services for both readers and content producers. Visitors to the site can sift through content by keyword, country, time, hot items or hot sources.
Hotness is determined by an algorithm that combines traffic, Afrigator user ranking, Page Rank and incoming links. I'm excited to see some traffic help flesh out the rankings, I've already enjoyed watching several of the top videos.
The ranking is most easily understood by starting with a comparison to Techmeme, I think - but that's clearly a comparison of limited worth as Afrigator is a very original site that goes beyond what Techmeme does in content and the algorithm in this case isn't a black box. In some ways it's like what Technorati is trying to do with its move to multimedia, but better executed in this case.
For blog writers the site offers a whole suite of analytics gathered by a javascript badge you drop on your site. The analytics display is very eye catching and includes inbound links, a list of Afrigator blog blogrolls you're included on and your ranking in the system. I can't help but wonder why Technorati didn't offer this sort of service in its early days. Afrigator also offers OpenID login, a very nice touch for ease of use.
Site design is a real highlight, though there are a few usability kinks to work out in the Beta and an on-site media player would be a big improvement. South Africa's Charl Norman has a more detailed review of Afrigator, which as of this morning my time was at the top of Africa's Digg-like social news site Muti. Norman was an enormous help in writing this post.
Here at ReadWriteWeb we're huge fans of developers working outside the US. Afrigator is a particularly well executed example of just the kind of service that any region or niche could use to aggregate and filter the growing number of social media sources around the world. This is a project worth spreading the word about.
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Excellent post Marshall, thank you for your input!
Posted by: charl | November 28, 2007 12:27 PM
Hey Marshall
Thanks for the review. Of course, you graciously omitted the toughest questions - monetization and growth - but I'm pleased to report that we have plans around both (that extend beyond banner ads).
It's been an amazing project to work on - last night at the 27dinner launch party (27dinner.com) the four Afrigator team members were in the same room for the first time ever - it's been an eight month dev cycle from conception to Beta and we'd never all met simultaneously. Pretty exceptional I think.
We're hoping to continue improving the site - we absolutely love what we're trying to do with Afrigator and despite the fact that we all have day jobs our collective spare time (especially that of dev team Justin Hartman and Stiaan Pretorius) is completely dedicated to constantly shifting the feature set and functionality up a gear.
We'd appreciate any feedback your readers would be willing to provide, positive and especially negative, as we continue to grow the project. We can best be reached at dudes(at)afrigator.com.
Thanks again,
Mike Stopforth (www.mikestopforth.com)
Marketing Dude
Posted by: Mike | November 28, 2007 12:50 PM
Wow Marshall what an awesome review of our site. I am ever greatful that you find some real value in it and I think it's awesome that you gave this little continent we call Africa some great exposure - I'm humbled.
Posted by: Justin Hartman | November 28, 2007 12:51 PM
I am a proud friend of the designers/owners/creators of this site and it is magnificent to see them recieving kudos for their achievement. I was present at the launch and Justin did a great job of explaining everything.
I personally think that for the African market, Afrigator is ahead of its time to some extent, what with limited broadband availability. But regardless of this fact the site is sure to push Africa in to a new era. The service is there now Africa needs to use it.
There is a video of the presentation on the Afrigator blog too. Definitely worth a watch although the quality was somewhat lacking in recording!
Great write up and great to see Africa and South Africa featuring on a global scale!
Posted by: Nic | November 28, 2007 12:53 PM
Great post Marshall. In a segment of our site called Africa 2.0 we spotlighted the Web 2.0 movement in Africa. We too, have been impressed with a lot of the innovations coming out of that part of the region. Thanks for the global picture!
Posted by: Markus | November 28, 2007 2:08 PM
I like the design. It's always interesting to see how different cultural influences interpret the online social networking phenomenon. I'll be watching to see how it develops.
Posted by: Matthew Griffin | November 28, 2007 2:25 PM
Thank you very much for this review. I'm pretty stunned and proud. It is one amazing project to be a part of, not only because of what we're trying to achieve, but also due to the team members who all share an equal passion for the Gator. Thank you to all the supporters/users! Its all about you guys after all.
@Nic thank you very much. Really appreciate it!
Posted by: Stii | November 28, 2007 3:22 PM
Thanks for all the comments, Afrigator crew and friends. Good luck with the project, I think it's great!
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick | November 28, 2007 5:59 PM
As the son of a South African I'm proud to see some inovation over there. When I was visiting I was struck by the slow internet speeds. I was there two years ago so maybe things have changed.
I did notice a bunch of spam on the site.
Posted by: Yosef | November 28, 2007 6:50 PM
South Africa has ALOT of talent and there seems to be much happening here...
well done guys
Posted by: Arno Nel | November 28, 2007 10:30 PM
Nice one guys. The site looks great. A real corner stone of SA development!
Posted by: Foxinni | November 28, 2007 11:44 PM
Yosef seems like the recent post on RRW attracted one or two spammers to our system but we've nuked them :)
Posted by: Justin Hartman | November 29, 2007 12:56 AM
Wow thanks for some awesome feedback Marshall. Glad you like the system and it's design.
Posted by: Mark Forrester | November 29, 2007 1:27 AM
This is great stuff, proud to see our guys out there in the world doing us proud.
You guys and Mark Shuttleworth are like the geek Springboks. I can only salute you and learn.
Thanks RRW for highlighting African and South African excellence and achievement.
Posted by: Mario Olckers | November 29, 2007 2:44 AM
Been using Afrigator since its inception and loving it. Good work guys and keep it coming.
Posted by: South African | November 29, 2007 8:21 AM
I have to chime in here too. The new beta is an excellent example of some of the amazing innovation taking place in South Africa. It is one of a number of services that are increasingly being noticed outside our borders and this is something we are all so proud of.
What also makes a huge difference is that Justin, Mike, Stii and Mark are a great bunch of guys who have done so much to develop the local development and blogger community. Great job guys and all the other developers working on similarly dynamic projects here.
Posted by: Paul Jacobson | November 29, 2007 10:29 PM