When I set up Clicks2Customers and incuBeta a few years back, one of our main objectives was to GO GLOBAL.
We considered the South African Internet industry to be years behind the rest of the world, and realised that there was far more money to be made internationally than in South Africa.
I remember a few times meeting with large South African company’s - the mentality was horrendous. They didn’t believe that the Internet was anymore than a poster board, and they laughed at the vision that South African’s would be buying over the Internet a few years down the line. South African’s are starting to use the Internet for more than just information, but it’s going to take a good number of years, education, and a shift in the way of thinking until purchases other than travel, books and Internet Marketing tools gain momentum. The objective of this posting isn’t to go into the postal system, or the difficulty for new online merchants to accept payment from their customers.
What I’ve realised is that South African’s have come a long way in the last few years, but unfortunately, the guys at the front of Internet usage have progressed as well, so we’re pretty much where we were a few years ago. A couple of years behind.
And that means that most of the Internet entrepreneurs in South Africa are not innovating - they’re copying. Nearly every Internet site i’ve seen in the last 2 years, is a copy of a successful Internet project overseas. The latest one which has caught the hype of the blogging community in South African is Mail & Guardian’s Amatomu. And before that Muti. And before that…
Now I’m not knocking these sites - I think it is essential that we have home grown versions of the international success story’s, and feel it’s an integral part of getting South African’s to take up Internet usage at a quicker rate. It’s a great feeling being able to search only South African blogs, or view South African video clips.
But these sites are not going to be able to compete on the international arena, as their competitors have had a headstart AND to be honest, the local versions don’t want to compete. They don’t want the whole world to be using their sites as then they’ll lose their South African flavour. Or they’re hoping that they gain an international following, and then become the 17th or 76th largest site in their niche in the world.
Which is GREAT, as these sites will still make vast sums of money for their founders.
But with a mentality which is still a few years behind the first movers, can South African’s come up with models that are unique and successful internationally. I’ve seen a few business models in the past few months, which show innovation, and the founders have the aggressive ego’s aiming to conquer the world rather than our Southern paradise. But they are few and far between.
I want to see warehouses filled with tons of young passionate individuals sitting on yoga balls, drinking capo’s, coming up with cutting edge ideas that can compete with the best the world has to throw at them.
I want to see the exec’s from google, and Yahoo, and MSN jumping on planes offering huge sums to these innovative founders.
Mark Shuttleworth did it - was he the exception rather than the rule?
Unfortunately, I am highly upset that the few guys I know who have the drive, passion and track records to make it happen, have decided that they will be far better off basing themselves in one of the hives overseas. Not that I can blame them…
But for now, I’m here to stay - I want to see the next 3 year old company who turns DOWN a billion dollars from Yahoo be a South African company.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Nic // Apr 16, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Brilliant Post. I agree with you 100% and am one of those local “copycats” myself unfortunately. But I think that entrepreneurship as well as innovation comes as much with time as it does as a gift to some. I think that we are teething here in SA. we are trying, experimenting and fast realising that we are as capable if not more than others abroad to make the blillions!
I am so glad to hear that you are sticking with SA. I think it rocks (as everyone well knows) and I am holding breath for some great stuff that I truly believe is in the pipelines and on the way very very very soon from South Africans online!!
2 matthew buckland // Apr 16, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Hey eric. great post buddy — but just wondering exactly what you consider amatomu.com to be a copy of if we are just copying overseas sites? Don’t say technorati, because it aint the same (RSS + stats vs search). And if it aint the same, then which site is it a copy of? Also bear in mind, Amatomu is less than a month old and is about 25% complete. We’re holding the best for later
Matt
3 Vincent Maher // Apr 17, 2007 at 12:02 am
What you’re saying is more applicable to Muti and MyVideo which are both clones of US sites. I’d like to see the US version of Amatomu though
4 Eric // Apr 17, 2007 at 12:27 am
Matthew - after speaking briefly to Vincent earlier today, and now hearing from you that amatomu is only 25% complete, i’ll reserve my comments for a few weeks time when some of the additional 75% is public knowledge…and the strategy becomes more clear…
At the moment i see Amatomu as a summary of a few local blogs. (latest postings, a timeline of social trends - the Zeitgeist and the directory - trying to create stickiness)
And what blogger isn’t going to want a few extra clicks simply by adding their blog to your site?
I know when I started some international blogs a few years ago, I searched for every blog directory and submitted, so that every post i did would be indexed and added to all of them, which gave me a few clicks from each one for each post i did. (not to mention the additional incoming links)
I see the challenge in getting the traffic to your site from the general public - not a once off look, but a real reason to return.(other than bloggers coming to look at other blogs). Guess that’s where M&G behind you comes in handy?
And when I compare Technorati for the global blog picture and Amatomu for the local South African blog picture - i see different bells and whistles but the same objective - so that’s why I’ll wait to see what the other 75% reveals…
having said that, you guys have done a great job so far - and have pushed the South African boundaries.
But my posting emphasised trying to find a South African company that created a global concept that was original. Thawte did it a few years ago (although I can’t remember whether Verisign came first, and Mark used that as a guide for developing Thawte), and I currently know of a few South African company’s that are ATTEMPTING to create concepts that are global and innovative in the Internet space.
Is Amotomu going to be one of these?
5 Vincent Maher // Apr 17, 2007 at 1:02 am
Eric, what we need for local innovation is a better economic climate, better investment, more skills, cheaper resources and so on.
When I was heading up the New Media Lab we got a grand total of zero rands from industry to research innovative media and publishing models over a 3 year period - who invested? European NGOs, not Shuttleworth.
So I don’t think the issue is a lack of imagination, its a lack of support.
6 matthew buckland // Apr 17, 2007 at 11:08 am
Thanks for your reply, Eric.
Just to emphasise — the amatomu.com concept is completely unique in terms of functionality and general aim. If there are other versions of Amatomu out there (I am sure there are), we certainly are not aware of them and the building and concept of Amatomu was homegrown brainstorming
Already in just 12 days the site has generated 32 000 clickthroughs for the local blogosphere and tracking upwards of 70 000 page impressions per day… which has been wonderful to see. The South African bloggers should be thanked for making Amatomu what it is and our sole aim is to give back to the blogosphere.
But it’s early days and there are huge challenges still around the corner. We need to keep the data presented in a meaningful way as the site grows, as more bloggers join and as the splogs start attacking.
Once we have the full business model up and running (the other 75%) and the site into beta, then we’ll look elsewhere. That might be small thinking in some people’s books, but we call it focus.
The buzz around the site has been great — we’ve even (the site is just over a month old) had approaches from the US and from the Middle-East would you believe. But at the moment we’re focusing on South Africa as that is the market we know and have networks in.
Also, we are not trying to do everything ourselves. We are looking for partners to help take it to the next level with us, locally and internationally. Collaboration and partnerships are what make these things successful!
7 Eric // Apr 17, 2007 at 11:13 am
Matthew - do you think Amatomu is a completely different concept and unique compared with afrigator? If so, how?
8 matthew buckland // Apr 17, 2007 at 11:20 am
hey eric… can’t really comment on Afrigator, besides saying that I like the overall concept and I think Justin has a good product there. I have no idea what their strategy is and I haven’t studied them in any detail yet since they launched a few weeks after amatomu. Cheers Matt
9 Eric // Apr 17, 2007 at 11:26 am
hope you’re kidding about “haven’t studied them in any detail”.
sure hope you’ve have been watching closely what they’ve been up to, and vice versa, hope they’ve been watching you closely.
and also watching what the international news readers are up to - as it’s only a matter of time until they add directory’s / consolidated feeds to their offerings…(they’re doing it to a limited extent already).
10 SA Rocks » Blog Archive » Innovation in SA - does it exist? // May 17, 2007 at 12:50 pm
[...] I have to admit it also got me thinking because web-based innovators in South Africa are often called copy-cats for their apparent lack of [...]
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