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| BLOGGING |
UNITED STATES-BASED public relations specialist Brian Berkman describes blogs "as a new medium that has its sails filled by the Zeitgeist". Blogs - short for web logs - have taken the US's cyberspace by storm and opened up new ways for consumers to tell companies exactly what they think of their products, employees and service and for companies to cut through the advertising clutter and reach consumers with specific messages.
In South Africa, blogging hasn't attained that level of usage, either by the public or corporates. Nonetheless, some experts believe this way of holding "cyber conversations" will become both more widespread and influential.
Jonathan Cherry, editor of Cape Town-based blogging site Cherryflava, says that blogging has done as well as it has in the US because Internet access is basically free. In SA expensive bandwidth means the Internet remains inaccessible to the vast majority of the population.
In addition, Cherry says that not many South Africans know about blogging - something he believes will change as it gains more exposure and some of the larger news portals start promoting it, because "South Africans tend to follow trends".
Currently, three "corporate" blogging communities are available, hosted by the Mail & Guardian, iafrica.com and MWeb. Bloggers can post their opinions on a range of subjects for anyone to read and comment on. Other South African blogging sites such as Cherryflava and Joblog also offer forums to bloggers to post comments.
Overall, specialists say that blogging will become more popular in SA. Matthew Buckland, who oversees the Mail & Guardian's Internet offering, says that if the overseas market is anything to go by, the blogging market in SA will become very big because - once people have a computer and Internet connection - it's easy and cheap to blog.
Says Buckland: "Blogging is so popular because it's the most accessible form of online publishing, often requiring very little technical knowledge or financial That's unlike setting up a traditional website, which is much more involved. In many ways blogging is an ideal publishing vehicle for the developing world, as the barrier to entry is lower than that of...