The OPA will fail unless it accommodates all SA web publishers

After almost ten months of operation, there are still no smaller publishing houses named among the OPA membership list, and I know of none that have been approached to join.

When the OPA was announced in May of 2003, I tried to contact them in order find out if there was the possibility of including smaller publishers like Music Industry Online, who couldn't afford the fees (R20 000 per year), yet had much to contribute and are a substantial part of the content landscape in the country. I got no reply to the e-mail I sent to the organisation's secretary and my telephone call was also not returned.

Another young digital media house, which has built one of the most powerful online youth brands in the country, had their application for membership rejected last year because, according to the OPA, there was not enough advertising on their site. God help a media owner who runs a profitable business for not wanting to pepper users with more bloody banners! Silly us for thinking out the box and creating additional revenue streams beyond banner adverts to create a pleasant experience for our visitors. And yes, I have read the OPA constitution and I can assure you that the site in question qualifies in terms of the clause which states that OPA members have "online advertising and sponsorship as primary sources of income, with a dedicated staff driving this revenue." [1]

The aim of the OPA in terms of attracting revenue to the sector by educating advertising agencies about the benefits of online advertising is admirable, but what kind of progress in this area has been made in the last eight months? With all their investments into content management and ad provision and tracking, who are some OPA members now calling to sell advertising campaigns to and recoup their spend? The small website owners like us!

Late last year another niche music community website owner was approached by one of the big ISP's (and an OPA member) to advertise on their own portal's music section. When given the visitor and page impression statistics of the music section, our friend almost laughed as his "little" site served more traffic than this "major player" in South Africa's web space.

The cherry on top for me is around the OPA's recent membership to Proudly South African. I found it highly surprising when the group announced their Proudly South African membership [2] while at the same time awarding the tender for the advertising tracking system to be used by all its members to a global company headquartered in Australia (Red Sheriff) [3]. Nice one folks - send the money out of South Africa to the one country we always want to beat and don't like very much! Even if locally developed offerings didn't quite meet the requirements, with all your power and money, surely you could have helped a local development house create a product through active partnership?

I'm sure it was not a decision taken lightly, but as an outsider it seems that this was an amazing opportunity to pool the financial and technical resources of the sixteen major publishing houses to create an affordable and excellent standard in tracking software. Who knows, in time the product developed could have become an even better offering that that of Red Sheriff and you'd have a wonderful export market to exploit and bring millions of rands into the country! But perhaps this decision makes sense given OPA's discrimination against South African SMME's in the industry.

Now let's focus on what to do about all this, as I hate people who merely complain and offer nothing in the way of solutions.

As a start, I would love for the OPA to actively engage the smaller site owners like myself. If the OPA wants to truly succeed, it needs to be more inclusive and a platform for the growth and nurturing of the smaller media houses into competitive, respectable institutions.

Second, why not create (and actively publicise!) a second and third tier of membership for those who cannot afford the membership fees, but would still like to participate? There is provision made for this in the constitution, but it is hidden from plain view. I'm sure many small website owners saw the R20 000 figure and stopped reading.

Niche web sites like Music Industry Online (www.mio.co.za), run by small companies and individuals continue to expand their fanatically loyal base of users, build powerful brands and work together for mutual benefit. We are watching and learning from the high profile successes and mistakes of large OPA members, and there is no reason why they could not benefit from our own experiences in this arena as well. There are a number of us who have been profitable for some time, have had our fair share of misfortune, and are building sustainable businesses.

The next few years are going to be very interesting indeed and should the OPA choose to ignore the rising independent stars of the content market, then I believe they will ultimately fail in their mandate. That is, of course, assuming that the aim of the OPA is to be representative body for the entire industry rather than a marketing vehicle for a select few.

References:

1. OPA Constitution, Clause 7.2: http://www.opa.org.za/about.aspx
2. Red Sheriff/OPA Press Release: http://www.redsheriff.com/us/news/news_3_97.html
3. OPA Proudly SA press release: http://www.opa.org.za/archievedetails.aspx?id=19410

[Read the OPA's response to Josh Adler, "Response from the OPA"]