Naspers` Internet portal, 24.com, is introducing a news aggregator that should give this country its own version of Digg.com.
Called "laaik.it", the name follows the new trend of naming social networking sites by using the suffix as part of the name, such as US social bookmarks site del.icio.us.
"Laaik" is slang Afrikaans for 'like` and the ".it" suffix is usually associated as the country domain for Italy. However, the site is operating under the 24.com portal.
The new service, which 24.com says is to enable digital democracy, is part of the 24.com strategy to offer more online services and localise international online successes. 24.com is itself a local version of Web portals such as Yahoo.
According to 24.com, laaik.it empowers users with editorship rights and it also includes a social book-marking service that lets users decide which issues and stories are important (those they "laaik") and which are not (those they "dis.laaik").
Alistair Fairweather, 24.com social networks manager, says laaik.it is important for the South African Internet scene as there is no news aggregator that caters for local tastes or needs.
"Digg is run mainly for [US] West Coast boys and their technology. We will very seldom find stories that are pertinent to SA."
Fairweather says he believes the name is not too ethno-specific and will appeal to a wide section of South African society.
Small market doubts
Llew Claasen, founder of Internet business consultancy Keyjam, says he has doubts about the model, because - while services such as Digg and del.icio.us have proven themselves in a large market such as that found in the US - the local market is much smaller.
"Digg is arranged around a vertical theme, namely the techies and their toys. In the US, it is virtually impossible to keep up with all the news trends, so a news aggregator is a great help. However, we have relatively few news portals in this country and so it is quite easy for an individual to move from one to another and keep up with issues," he says.
Claasen also believes that a better news aggregator would be a US site called techmeme (www.techmeme.com) as it is a newer version of what a news aggregator should be about.
Borrowed offerings
24.com`s business owner and senior channel manager for news, sport, social networking, youth and Who`s Who, Elan Lohmann, admits that laaik.it borrows core concepts from Digg.com and del.icio.us, but says he doesn`t mind as it is about local relevance to the user.
"We believe we can deliver useful content through leveraging our various 24.com audiences... Global players like Facebook have come in and very quickly gobbled up our local audience. In the social media space we believe we can compete with global offerings," says Lohmann.
He says he hopes users will add stories, blogs, videos and photos from all around the local and global Web.
"We are giving the tool to users to do what they 'laaik` with it. In fact, we encourage users to add content from other publishers in SA. This ethos builds a more compelling content ecosystem from which everyone can benefit," Lohmann says.
The beta version of the site can be viewed at www.laaik.it.
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