Nudjit. South African Gadget Review.

I am officially impressed. No wonder Hartman has been so busy.

Rohrig. Hartman. Haramlambous. They've just released Nudjit - a South African gadget review site. Take a peak...


Wordpress has really gone up a notch in my books. The sleek silver design will take on most content portals in its range. Lots of RSS output. Lots of quick aggregatory inputs. And all I can really think about is how hideously easy it must be to post content once the initial work is done. Gone are the days of bloated CMS.

Now. All very impressive, but the tricky bit lies ahead. Here's my tri-axial analysis.

1. Content. The 200 strong local blogosphere is only going to get you SO far... You'll have to keep quality content appearing daily. These are the fast and furios days of Engadget after all.

2. Adveritisers. South Africans are 80% clueless about the benefits of online advertising. You'll see web companies and small businesses start to take advantage of Google Adsense, and there are some good examples of large service-orientated corporates (like Outsurance) splashing banners all over the place (and most importantly, backing it up with an actual phone call when you click!). But, by and large, we're still a naive, young market. How to get, keep, measure and reward quality advertisers is a challenge.

3. The Passion. It's an odd situation that's developing in South Africa. Because we have a decided lack of VC - entrepreneurs have to hold down a day job, while populating multiple blogs, keeping up with social networks, doing intelligence scanning and launching startup at night. That's a daunting task. If you chaps can keep up the passion - this might just have a chance.

There's nothing wrong, at the end of the day, with a crummy room, loadshedding, pizza and some code 'n content.

I wish you the best of luck! It certainly fills a gap in the SA market. And for my 2c - gut feel on design is EXCELLENT. My suggestion: MacBook vs MacBook Pro Review. Coupled with the best prices you can get in SA. I'm a little pre-occupied with that topic at the moment :)

Comments

  1. Andy, this is a great review and I think you've encapsulated the online market in its truest form.

    Let me address some of your comments in your post - for clarity's sake :)

    1. Content
    We are not engadget or gizmodo or any other normal site. If we're going to try and compete with them we'll lose and we are of the opinion that we'd rather post quality rather than quantity.

    2. Advertisers will be problematic I agree but I'm not overly phased by this just yet. For now I'm happy to wing it and wait it out until we've shifted in the online space.

    3. Passion
    Now you're talking baby! I agree 150% with what you're saying and it's somewhat of a sad thing. That said, neither of us are doing this to become rich. We think there is a need for this site and we do it because we love new toys. Making money is a byproduct at best.

    Thanks for your support and detailed post - I do appreciate it!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You've always gotta think you're going to get rich. There are plenty of ways to monetize nudjit...

    1. google ads (slow)
    2. buzzfuse.com
    3. syndicate the content for cash
    4. pay per post reviews
    5. get free media tickets / gadgets for review purposes (ok, not cash but cool anyway)
    6. affiliate marketing, purchase each product you buy
    7. lead generation / affiliate purchase agreements with online malls (jump.co.za / digital planet).
    8. selling the comments / statistics of certain reviews back to the local branches of tech companies as "customer feedback"

    and THAT's just off the top of my head.

    should make a post of it...

    ReplyDelete

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