I'm not impressed with Africa.com - are you?

With great self-made fanfare, Teresa Clarke left a lucrative career as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, where she was one of the few senior African-American investment bankers on Wall Street, to start Africa.com. Her aim - to change the way the world sees Africa!

So far, I'm not impressed - are you?

A month in and she has copied Wikipedia content to talk about African countries and Lonely Planet content to give travel advice among other content recycling. Her blog has 4 entries, with each showing a prominent link to a DCMA notice. That alone tells me that Teresa is clueless about online media. more entries, if still a bit unfocused. See the update below

Worry less about DCMA and more about the 3 key aspects of website success: content, content, content. I want an Africa.com to succeed, but right now its about at splog level still schizophrenic in its target audience. See update below .

October 2010 Update - Africa.com is getting impressive

Low and behold - Teresa Clarke and I just had an hour-long talk about Africa.com. She gave me an inside view into their website strategy and the new features and content that will be coming out on Africa.com over the next 6-12 months.

Coming off that call and looking at the new features already showing on Africa.com, I have to re-assess my initial disappointment. While I do wish Africa.com had started with more direction, I now understand the two goals they're trying to accomplish:

  1. Please the web surfer who is so new to the African experience, they type in "Africa" to a search bar, instead of a country name
  2. Inform the more sophisticated visitor who may be interested in investing in Africa.

Personally, I would focus on the sophisticated visitor who knows Africa is 53 countries (give or take a disputed region), but then I have the luxury of targeting my efforts to narrow niches. I would also get an About page up quickly that goes into a bit more detail about the site's goals and future plans. But I'll stop giving advice now.

Instead, I'll switch from critic to cautious booster. I do see Africa.com changing for the better, and wish it great success in changing the way those newly interested see Africa.

.

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Submitted by Wayan Vota on Sat, 04/03/2010 - 06:43
Wayan Vota's picture

Wayan Vota

Inveneo

Wayan Vota is a technology expert focused on appropriate information and communication technologies (ICT) for rural and underserved areas of the developing world. He is a Senior Director at Inveneo and is the editor of ICTworks

akinyiadongo's picture

Africa.com

Submitted by akinyiadongo on Sun, 04/04/2010 - 13:58

Africa.com...where do I begin! The content on the site is too heavy, for one seeking to peruse any African country. While the concept is necessary, the execution needs to be polished. Granted Africa is always seen as a grave topic, surely there has to be a more fun, light and captivating way of presenting the continent on-line!!

I'm not impressed with

Submitted by okeydoke15 (not verified) on Fri, 05/07/2010 - 12:56

I think the splog characterization is unfair. I just visited the site... They actually have about 15 blog entries, including one from the COO of the South African Chamber of Commerce. Definitely higher quality than many blogs that churn out content.

Their travel content is really helpful too. It seems like there's a lot more than the stuff on Lonely Planet’s own site. I’m surprised they aren’t charging for access to it.

I’m kinda excited, especially if the site’s only a month old as you say. Just my two cents.

Wayan Vota's picture

Still not impressed

Submitted by Wayan Vota on Sun, 05/09/2010 - 00:38

So the site has 15 entries... in 3 months. That's not a website destined to change the world's impressions of Africa. That's a pet project with occasional interest from its founder. A real effort would have a regular posting schedule, a set of writers, and more original content.

Now if Africa.com was launched with less fanfare, or had a less grand objective than "Changing The Way The World Sees Africa", I wouldn't mind so much. But as it is, its a disappointment to anyone who is actually trying to change Africa's perception in the world.

In looking at its Twitter stream, I now realize what this site is - its a promo for the World Cup. Note how every few tweets there is one on the World Cup. No mention of any of the other thousands of events across Africa, but much promotion of that one.

I'm not impressed with

Submitted by Lenley (not verified) on Thu, 08/19/2010 - 20:16

Give it some time, a lot of times sites first launch with place-holder versions to help them get started. Africa.com benefits from a million dollar domain name, and a decent amount of intuitive traffic.

Wayan Vota's picture

Lenley, you're right

Submitted by Wayan Vota on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 08:36

I just had a chat with the Africa.com founder and more content and functionality is coming out. That initial stage I saw it in was the "let's see what works" phase. They're now getting serious about content and direction.

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