At the Advancing Web 2.0 for traditional media in Illovo last week, Arthur Goldstuck painted a positive picture about the state of online media in South Africa.
He explained that the rate of Internet usage has grown from just under 4 million in 2007 to 4.4 million in 2008. "The rate of users with Internet access is rising exponentially. In fact, we haven't seen such growth since 2000," he said.
Goldstuck said that around 2003/4 online media wasn't under great scrutiny and Web sites could get away with displaying error messages, experiencing downtime or being offline.
However, nowadays, companies can lose millions, he said. "The recent incidents by Standard Bank's Internet banking experiencing downtime in June and July, for example, was said to be blown 'out of proportion' by consumers and the media, according to the bank. However, situations like this can no longer be downplayed," he said.
Furthermore, said Goldstuck, in 2006 there were a quarter of a million broadband subscribers. This year, we have passed the million mark, he said.
Goldstuck believes these numbers will continue to grow, especially after the Seacom cable goes into operation in 2009. "Bandwidth will go from a luxury as it stands now, to a commodity," he said.
"Online media has a fairly good idea of where it is going," he said. "The advertising industry has 'woken up' as it moves more and more away from traditional media. There is an estimated R650 million predicted to be spent on online advertising by 2010."
Goldstuck attributed the explosion of online media to Web 2.0 technologies, which have become a very important part of how we conduct business and interact on the Internet.
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