Nov 18

Written by:
2010/11/18 08:13 AM 

A guest post by Jade Scully

The phenomena of blogging has hit South Africans hard with artists, businessmen and mothers all jumping on the internet bandwagon of daily updates, sharing and comments. But is this a craze that spans across our diverse and colourful ethnicities, our educated and non-educated, and the different generations?

The annual South African Blog Awards is evidence enough that Facebooking, Tweeting and blogging have really taken the country by storm with the online community all a flutter for the tense few weeks before nominations and the awards ceremony.

It is a small community with most bloggers and tweeters following one another’s stories and daily messages, commenting and linking to one another constantly. A good portion of the South African bloggers are young personalities in the media such as Gareth Cliff, a popular DJ on the well-liked local radio station 5FM or musician Louise Carver.

If you take a look at the Top Ranked Blogs in South Africa you will find a variety of categories from lifestyle, technology, politics and entertainment to fashion, marketing and Afrikaans news. What’s also interesting about some of the most popular blogs is that they cover more than one category with top-spot holder 2OceansVibe covering music, technology, videos, celebrities and the press.

Most of the bloggers (in the top ranked SA blogs) are young, white South Africans who seem to have a good grasp of the English language, as well as an attitude or persona behind their writing. It seems South African blog readers like a ‘personality’.

The older generations seem somewhat shy of (or unable to navigate) the online world with few grandparents and even parents from South Africa making a name for themselves. The few mothers who do blog are often in their mid-30s, but cooking blogs are very popular with most of the “chefs” mixing their daily menu posts in with some “personal diary” posts – Cook Sister! is an example of this.

While the South African blogging scene is definitely alive and well (and juicy and sometimes even scandalous), there is still quite some growing to be done (and not just in the form of add-ons and widgets). For now though, some interesting RSS Feeds often keep bored-at-their-desk employees entertained for at least their lunch hour and a coffee break or two.

About The Author

“Jade Scully is a copywriter, blogger and online marketing enthusiast who has published her work on a series of online publications and websites including Leeulekker who provide a range of advertising and marketing resources for southern Africans”

 

 

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