The South African blogging community has not begun to hit its potential, as less than 10% of the population has access to the Internet, says SA Blog Awards organiser John Cherry.
He spoke to ITWeb after the annual awards event last night, in Cape Town. Cherry said the fact that fewer than five million people out of a total of almost 50 million have regular access to the Internet, means many people still have to experience how important blogging is as a means of self-expression and to keep in contact with a wider audience.
This also means South African bloggers are white and characterised by those who come from wealthy backgrounds.
"We are hopping that, as connectivity costs and the costs of technology fall, then many other people will begin to blog too."
Cherry hoped to have an African language category this year, but not enough credible entries were submitted to make it viable.
Part of the Blog Awards requirements is that entries must be by South Africans, living at home or abroad, the writing must have local relevance and be in a South African language. There must also be at least 10 blogs nominated for a category. Readers nominated the entries.
"Most of the entries we received for the African language category were in English and we felt this did not meet the need of the category," Cherry noted.
This is the fourth year the SA Blog Awards have been run and there were some 10 000 nominations for the 22 categories that range from humour to politics.
Cherry said the number of entries received from that sector shows the traditional media's interest in the electronic medium as more and more professional writers and journalists begin posting blogs.
He believes the advertising industry is coming around to seeing blogs as a medium. "However, they are still worried about the uncontrolled aspects of it."
The Mail & Guardian's Thought Leader blog was named the best Weblog of the Year. A detailed list of the winners can be found here.
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