Dennis McDonald, an Enterprise 2.0 expert based in Washington D.C., commented on my recent post about Gargoyle (the SA Blog search engine), asking why I would be so interested in localised search when I have the all-powerful and pervasive alternatives in Google and Technorati (or del.icio.us from a semantic point of view).
The answer to the question was worthy of a new post. You see, the idea of a dedicated, local equivalent to Technorati or Google has been on the minds of many connected Africans for some time. We get lost in the sheer volumes generated on those sites. Yes, we are living in a global economy. But geographic boundaries still apply sometime, especially from a business perspective. Here's why I want to see a local service that COMPLIMENTS my existence Google, Technorati and del.icio.us presence...
1. I want to be able to see Africa's, and more specifically, South Africa's blogosphere in one place. I want to be able to quantify it. I want the indexed sites to be reliable sources (moderated either by the community or by a dedicated team) to ensure the sites are indeed African in content or authorship (although this does raise some interesting questions about what would be 'in' and what would be 'out').
2. I want a centralised, reliable and objective directory that shows how my blog ranks in relation to the rest of the SA blogosphere. This is for my ego and no other reason whatsoever. I recently graduated into the top 20,000 blogs in the world, according to Technorati. Other bloggers trust Technorati rankings. I want the same here.
3. I want to be able to tell me clients when their customers are speaking about them, with some degree of reliability. I want to be able to set up watchlists for the SA blogosphere, which includes .com domains and M&G or 24.com blogs... a watchlist for Standard Bank on Technorati will produce 99% irrelevant result, whereas a similar search on a platform like Gargoyle will be 90% effective from a brand reputation management perspective.
4. I am frikkin' proud of how we're growing in diversity, quality and size, and would dearly like to be able to visualise and report on that.
Either way the only way any platform for localised content will work is for all sites to be submitted manually and be accepted based on their 'South-African-ness'. This is the biggest challenge, but success will be driven by the desire from within the blogosphere (as is the case with Technorati) to be part of the community - to be seen and heard.
Lastly, no service will ever replace Technorati or Google seeing as I still have readers abroad and require global search. But it certainly could augment these already brilliant services.
Hope that all makes cents.
Tags: Google, Technorati, Gargoyle, search, South Africa, blogs, bloggers, blogger, blog, community
link to original post