1. Rethabile

December 3rd, 2006 at 11:22 pm

“we in the African blogosphere dont really link to each other and especially do not build on each other’s conversations”
———-
I noticed this some time ago, but never came to any conclusions as to why the heck we do that. Any ideas anyone?

2. soul

December 4th, 2006 at 11:29 am

Actually Sokari..
i disagree on the linking thing.
i know many Naija bloggers who link to loadsa people, some have 77 links and they also link directly to specific posts as well. And carry on the conversations on their blogs as well.

i don’t know how technorati sorts it’s stuff out, but if is also based on people having a profile or registering on technorati then they’d be out of luck, because many do not register on technorati.
I know I didn’t and I have no interest in doing so.

3. sokari

December 4th, 2006 at 11:38 am

Yes I note that there are many Naija bloggers linking - I am aware of the ones you are talking about. My point was that a search for Africa on Technorati will only bring up a few African blogs in the first 20/30 results. I said I was not sure why and that linking did seem to be partly responsible but there were other factors. yes maybe they are not registering their blogs with technorati because they have no interest in doings so and are happy with the communities they have built together with other bloggers.

But there are loads of African bloggers who are registered and would like to be more visible but are still not getting picked up. Like I said “who cares a toss anyway”! People build their own communities and thats great and there are conversations taking place within those communities. But there are also many bloggers who are not part of any particular community for many reasons AND may wish to be picked up by Technorati for various reasons.

4. kwasi

December 4th, 2006 at 11:50 am

I have a bunch of African bloggers on my blogroll. I need more though.

I think the issue there has a lot to do with the fact that we usually do not see ourselves as writing for an African audience.

There are also probably larger issues about how legitimate we see each other’s voices as being,especially compared to non african voices, but that is a much larger topic than I’m prepared to talk about today

5. Sokari

December 4th, 2006 at 12:00 pm

Kwasi@ I also think it has to do with why people blog, what they blog about and what they would like and expect of the end result. Yes who are we writing for is also a question that we need to think about. Regards who has a legitimate voice - that is more difficult and something that was discussed in an previous post. It also has to do with how you yourself feel ie do you feel your African voice is a legitmate one? I would hope so.

Grandiose Parlor mentioned on the African Media post that the technorati issued was proof that there is a need for a more comprehensive aggregator of African blogs and media than is presently available.

6. imnakoya

December 4th, 2006 at 8:08 pm

Your post begets this question- What matters more: A link in a blogroll, or a link in the content posted? These are two different things and serve different purposes.

For the purpose of you post Sokari, I’ll say a link in the content matters more than the other. It is these type of links that will do what you have in mind, and not the other.

Technorati is an over-rated application that is fast becoming redundant, in fact I feel the same for all apps out there because they are not rigged to work for African blogs/content.

7. EthanZ

December 4th, 2006 at 9:23 pm

I agree with you that the Technorati directory gives some pretty odd results. Here’s my understanding of how it works: Technorati invites you to become a member and register your blog. When you do, you choose tags to associate with the blog. Technorati then searches on those tags and ranks by incoming links. The reason Samurai Soapbox comes up is that s/he’s got an “africa” tag in the directory and has a bunch of incoming links… (for that matter, that’s why my blog is up there as well…)

You’ve got enough incoming links that you would rank quite high in a search for Africa within the directory if you registered your site, as would Imnakoya. Perhaps that’s what we should be urging African bloggers to do, rather than some sort of tag-bomb…

There’s another approach, which is to challenge whether or not some of those blogs should be able to use the tag “Africa” if they rarely write about the continent. I suspect that would be a much harder challenge to mount that trying to get folks to register and tag their blogs for inclusion in the directory…

8. Sokari

December 4th, 2006 at 10:07 pm

Ethan@ thanks for explaining how Technorati works but as Imnakoya states it and many other similiar aggregators are not really suitable for bloggers outside of the US and possibly Western Europe. My site has been registered almost since the beginning but I believe there are many African bloggers who are not and of course as Soul states many who do not want to be either.

The tag bomb was just an idea but as you say getting bloggers to register is the real challenge so maybe we can try to start some campaign via global voices and bloggers to get people to register on Technorati. For example I went to Tailrank today and could not find anything on Africa - on the other hand Newsvine has a large amount of material on Africa. The difference being that newsviines is based on people seeding news stories and then entering into discussions whilst technorati and tailrank are basically for the US market.

9. sondjata

December 5th, 2006 at 5:54 pm

I agree with the problems of Technoratti. I recently wrote a post on it here:

http://garveys-ghost.blogspot.com/2006/08/technorati-and-authority.html

The other thing is that technoratti tries to give results based on the last time a site was updated.

So while most of my posts have Africa and Pan-Africanism tags you won’t get me on the first page of listings even though the entire blog is about African people and Pan-Africanism.

Heck I have a long post commemorating Kwame Ture and It’s been knocked off by posts on ‘Kramer”. makes no sense.

10. Anni

December 5th, 2006 at 7:16 pm

It’s a shame if African bloggers don’t link to other African blogs. I for one have found it difficult to find African blogs, and I agree that interlinking does make a huge difference.
But I think the same could be said for bloggers from other continents. I’ve noticed that many European bloggers for example are very keen on ripping off other bloggers’ posts (usually without credit links) without adding any value themselves. Perhaps they don’t link because they have stolen the content, or maybe they are very competitive and don’t want to send their readers to another blog. But even if they do include a credit link, I personally think that that type of linking is pointless, and only there to artificially boost their blog rating.
As for Technorati and other so-called social bookmarking, I find communities such as Carnival of African Women along with general search engines far more important and relevant.

11. Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Africa: technorati bomb

December 6th, 2006 at 3:06 am

[…] Is there a need for technorati bomb for the African blogosphere?, asks Black Looks: “I am not sure some sort of “TECHNORATI.COM BOMBâ€� (as in google bomb) type exercise with the tag AFRICA + add your country tag irrespective of topic on every single post for the next 6 months might work? Could work but then again maybe it just doesnt matter and who cares a toss anyway?” Ndesanjo Macha […]

12. Grandiose Parlor » Blog Archive » Thoughts on African Media and Blogosphere

December 8th, 2006 at 7:45 am

[…] Sokari of Black looks writes about the poor linkage among African blogs and their poor ranking on most blog search engines, particularly Technorati. She even contemplated bloggers doing a Technorati tag bomb. […]

13. Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Africa: thoughts on African blogosphere

December 9th, 2006 at 1:21 pm

[…] Grandiose Parlor weighs in on Black Looks’ post, Technorati Bomb for Africa. Ndesanjo Macha […]

14. Azuka

December 10th, 2006 at 11:22 pm

Actually, the problem is simple, or rather the solution is. Most blogs don’t ping popular blog services. Pinging Bloglines should get them listed on almost every other ping server including Technorati.

Most Nigerian and African bloggers use Blogger which automatically turns pings off. You, I and others who use Wordpress have the rpc.pingomatic server pinged by default.

I’m currently doing a tiny blogging series and exposing some things most people don’t know. I’m discussing pings and trackbacks in my next post. I hope people pick it up.

15. » Africa, Global Voices y el anglocentrismo cool deUgarte.com

December 12th, 2006 at 10:30 pm

[…] Por eso, cuando Sokari proponía el otro día hacer un Technorati-Bombing con la palabra Africa simplemente no entendí nada. Es verdad que pocos bloggers africanos se identifican como tal. Pero no nos engañemos, el Africa de la que habla Sokari es el Africa anglofona, una realidad muy particular. La que viene a reflejar, en buen rollo All Africa, que siempre ha tratado (dando mayor o menor juego al Africa Francófona) de apropiarse de la identidad continental. […]

16. El Oso, El Moreno, and El Abogado » Blog Archive » Africa, Global Voices, and “Cool Anglocentrism”

December 23rd, 2006 at 6:44 am

[…] Which is why, when Sokari proposed the other day to make a Technorati-Bombing with the word Africa I simply did not understand it at all. It is true that few African bloggers identify themselves as such. But let’s not kid ourselves, the Africa which Sokari speaks of is anglophone Africa; a very specific reality. That reality has come to be reflected in All Africa, which has always tried (giving a larger or smaller nod to Francophone Africa) to take control of the continental identity. […]

17. Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Gargoyle: Channeling the African Blogosphere

March 9th, 2007 at 6:25 pm

[…] Black Looks reacted to the post with her own observations and suggestions: So in the first 20 there are actually just 6 blogs from the African blogosphere listed - check out who the remaining 14 belong to! […]

18. Jikomboe » Amatomu: “Technorati” ya Afrika Kusini

March 22nd, 2007 at 11:48 am

[…] Afrika Kusini wanaelewa somo. Somo la Teknohama (teknolojia za habari na mawasiliano). Majuzi tulisikia kuhusu Gargoyle. Sasa gazeti la Mail & Guardian wamekuja na Amatomu. Amatomu ni kama Technorati. “Technorati” ya Afrika Kusini. Technorati imekuwa ikilaumiwa kwakuwa teknolojia yake ina upendeleo fulani kwa wanablogu wa nchi za Magharibi. Soma lawama hizo toka kwa Africa Media, Blacklooks, na mchango wa Grandiose Parlor. Katika mazingira kama haya, ujio wa Amatomu tunaushangilia. […]