New iafrica.com coming - legendary SA portal gets new look

The new site follows closely the industry (both locally and internationally) best practices and innovative trends with some great nuances of its own. The site is fresher, with bigger pictures and far more content ‘above the fold' to keep users thoroughly entertained. The new site possesses the gizmos that modern sites need to have but has kept iafrica.com's respected and classy feel. The content is also packaged in a more entertaining way.

There was no doubt that the previous iafrica.com, whilst liked and well used, needed to be redesigned and updated to suit the modern trends in the industry as a result of better internet access, improved technology, faster internet access and an increasingly web savvy audience. Previously iafrica.com could be seen as unwieldy given the depth and width of its content. The new site sees the content being repackaged into a more manageable 12 sections from an unwieldy 12.

The various communities have all been upgraded thanks to great new alliances and partner deals so sections like sport, business, travel, motoring and lifestyle are as good as any that you will find on the internet and all tailor made for South Africa and iafrica's audience. There is also a greater emphasis on original, entertaining content in a strategy to move away from the generic content that is ‘out there'.

The content is sharper, more entertaining and easier to find on the new site. What also makes the new iafrica.com so exciting is the fact that the front page (and the indepth sections) are all customisable – in other words the users can each choose what content they would like to see in what format. If you add in a revolutionary scroll that displays more content and the attractive Ajax technology then you have a very dynamic new iafrica.com. It will set the standard in South African portals.

Says Primedia Online CEO Nikki Cockcroft, “We have needed to revamp iafrica.com for quite some time but getting it right was to us more important than rushing it. We have done extensive research and come up with a really advanced site. We are very excited by the product that we have come up with both in terms of design and content. There is a need, we feel, in the portal market to start differentiating one's content from all the agency content that proliferates our front pages, whilst adding in the best and most practical of the technologies available.

“As is always the case, some users will be put off by not seeing the familiar iafrica.com one day, but we would ask them to just have a look around as it is a great, exciting product but with all the elements of iafrica.com that users have enjoyed and gotten used to.”

The new iafrica.com will be launched on 21 April 2008.


About Primedia Online: Primedia Online is an online division of the extensive Primedia Group that boasts extensive media properties particularly in cinema (Ster Kinekor) outdoor and radio (eg 567, 702, Highveld, KFM) as well as sports marketing (MegaPro) and other assets. Primedia Online publishes leading websites such as the 365 sports stable (eg Rugby365, Sport365) and the flagship, iafrica.com.

Iafrica.com is South Africa's oldest web portal and has become an institution in South African web browsing with it always being ranked in terms of user base in the top few South African websites. It also has an extensive overseas user base and is one of the country's most respected internet brands.