Democratising news in Africa

Previous Muti logo

One of Muti's aims is to determine if such a model could work in Africa. Before its existence, locating Africa-related information required sifting through hundreds, even thousands, of items on the larger social networking sites such as Digg, YouTube, Del.icio.us and Reddit. www.muti.co.za is still in early stages but already has a large enough user base that the nature of articles is varied and fresh every day.

Direct source

The democratisation is even extended to the layout, such as the choice of the new logo.

According to Newey, Muti has been embraced by the local and international blogging communities as a direct source of African news and commentary. “Muti was the first ever African social networking site,” says Newey. “Interestingly, since then two or three others have cropped up, and one has already closed down.”

Social networking is a new type of web service that focuses on user interaction and contribution. Muti itself does not publish or create any content but is a platform for its members to submit, discuss and rate content. Users are able to vote on submitted items, so that the most interesting items filter to the top, while the unpopular are filtered out.

It is the democratisation of information in its truest sense, says Newey, stressing that Muti has no corporate sponsorships nor editorial control. “Such power in the hands of the readers of traditional media simply does not exist,” he says.

Users growing daily

Newey, who created Muti, and its sibling Newsmap, says that the response to Muti has been amazing, with the number of users growing daily. Newsmap (http://muti.co.za/static/newsmap.html) allows the user to click on any part of a world map and be given a list of stories about that region.as side projects in his spare time.

“Since inception, which was about one year ago, there has not been a single month where there was not growth. There is anything from a 20% to a 100% increase in traffic month to month on average. Registered users (as opposed to readers) have grown at a more steady pace, at 20 to 30% per month.”

But, cautions Newey, the aim of Muti is not to take over the world but rather to create a quality readership and quality submissions: “It's flattering to be compared to the big guns but totally unrealistic.”

International attention

Already Muti has attracted international attention. CNN Money's Business 2.0 magazine hailed it as one of the world's most innovative sites, saying that South Africa's Muti has taken the Digg model to the next level by showing its users where the stories are coming from on a map of the world.

Muti has also taken the Reddit idea one step further by adding a list of key words or tags under each submission to help users organise information. These keywords form a tag cloud that serves as a filter for news within the site.

Currently the content consists of a roughly 50/50 split between blogged items and traditional media items. “The aim is not to support one type of media over another; it is to let the best stuff filter to the top, no matter what type of media it is,” concludes Newey.