Now, How Would You “Channel” Your Blog on Afrigator?
April 5th, 2007 by Imnakoya
“Afrigator slides into the water”, “Afrigator- snapping up African contents” and “Steve Rubel digs Afrigator” are some of the “best rated posts” listed on Afrigator - the newest content aggregator for the African blogosphere.
Several bloggers have commented about the site, and from the look of things, it appears the future is bright for Afrigator.
The “channel” - one of the main differentiating elements on the Afrigator - is one that several of these bloggers (including myself) have applauded; however, it confused me while signing up on the site last night.
“Channel” is a listing of countries, duh! It looks simple, but some clarification could help sort things out better.
Is the channel:
- The country of residence? Using Oluniyi David Ajao’s style, a Nigerian blogger who has channeled his blog using Ghana - his country of residence.
- The country of affiliation? One could adopt Ethan Zuckerman’s style who “channels” his blog using his “country of affiliation”? Ethan is now officially a Ghanian, thanks to Afrigator! (I would have been utterly disappointed at Ethan if he had chosen another country
.
- The country one blogs about the most? Many bloggers have broad focus and cover several regions in their writings.
- The country of birth? This is the approach the majority of bloggers have adopted regardless of their countries of residence or affiliation.
There are several blogs on Africa that are not authored by Africans. These group of bloggers have contributed immensely to the social, economic, and political conversations on our blogosphere. What happens to them? As I noted on Afrigator last night, only African countries can be selected as channels.
The blogosphere is a space where emotions tend to run lose and site metrics are vital. It will be good that when one looks at the “Afrigator channels”, it’s clear what it means.
7 Responses to “Now, How Would You “Channel” Your Blog on Afrigator?”
Using the criteria you listed above, folks should be able to identify with a particular country, more than any other one. I’m cool with the country “channelization”.
Niyi, I hope they see that! The buttom line is to getting “Afrigated” !
Your post made me smile, and while I accept at face value your brief moment of confusion over which channel, was there really any doubt what channel you’d choose? Close enough seems good enough to me.
I’m quite excited about Afrigator. Most Americans don’t have a clue about Africa, and perhaps that realization is dawning on more of us. One of the first things we notice with this dawning realization is that Africa is a huge continent. Afrigator’s channels encourages this more expansive view. I like the practice recognizing the maps too.
Afrigator is an accessible way for people to get into the conversation going on about African issues. I suppose in one way Afrigator is competition to Amatomu and Mashada, but all these sites fill a different niche. It’s so great that the link to Muti is right there by the posts on Afrigator, because that adds value and diversity to Muti. I love African Path too.
My home town newspaper has a a former US ambassador in several African countries as an editor. So there’s semi-frequent mention of African issues there, but hardly enough to make much sense. All these new channels: Muti, African Path, Afrigator, et al. are wonderful for people outside Africa to gain a better appreciation of the people and news of Africa. These sites also encourage and support the blogging and citizen journalism there.
With all that bloviating, the way I answered the question of channels was not to register. After reading this I just might register on the Ugandan channel:-)
You got my
draftdrift John!Make sure you get that farm land in Uganda soon, you would need it now that you have become a citizen!
It is a good point you raise Imnakoya. I was born in Africa, lived there for the first 20 of my 31 years, but live in the USA now, though my blog does feature a lot of Southern African topics. We do an Afrikaans Podcast (Potgooi) which is clearly directed to an African (South African) audience, so clarification would help, and perhaps creating some sub channels.
Hey Imnakoya, thanks for your insightful post and observations. Right now I believe the vast number of bloggers registered on Afrigator have selected their country of residence as the default channel for their sites - although we are well aware of the limitations therein as you’ve pointed out.
Ideally we’d like to get to a point where you can select up to three different channels for each site, and assign a role to each channel.
i.e. country of birth, country of residence and primary audience could be the roles assigned to three separate country channels. It is on the cards - let’s hope we can get it up and running asap.
very interesting point of view, has never been conceived of this
elbow