In the past few weeks we have seen the blogosphere enter an aggregator war, or maybe it should rather be termed a mine is better than yours battle. There could be a slight in justice here as unfortunately for the Afrigator crowd they are not backed up by a formidable organisation like Mail & Guardian. This could ultimately see the Amatomu boys sneak the prized mantle piece of being the number one aggregator developed locally. However one could argue that the two services are focused on capturing two different markets. Amatomu is targeted at SA bloggers while Afrigator has gone continental and targeted the African continent on a whole.
A plus side on the Afrigator case is that it has already been ranked as one of the best startups by www.killerstartups.com. One could say that this means Afrigator already has one ball in their court.
As in any war of words time will deliver a result and it is very hard to predict the numbers that will sign up on both services. With the financial backing and the other mediums in the Mail & Guardian with which Amatomu can be flogged, one could expect to see the Mail & Guardian based Amatomu to dominate the local blogosphere. Who knows maybe their next port of call could also be in direct competition with Afrigator on the African soil.
2 comments:
thanks for a great post. i think its the first time that i've ever heard the m&g -- a small independent media company -- referred to as a "goliath", but we'll take it as a compliment. Also... amatomu.com has actually been an independent project, largely done in our own time, after hours and without M&G resources. we havent even linked the m&g to it... yet...
I think the most important word you use is yet, because I am sure that the M&G will get involved soon as they see Amatomu's uptake.
And with there backing it is unlikely to see any real competitors on the South African front as it would seem other media houses might have missed the boat in terms of an aggregator war.
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