“Stefano Sessa”

The Muti Bubble

March 23, 2007 · 11 Comments

I have been investigating this theory for quite some time and thought that now is the time to let it loose. I am almost 100% sure that this is going to be seen as very controversial and offensive to the SA blogosphere. Screw it!

Muti Logo

I have to admit, Muti is a great way to get hold of local headlines, and it sure is a wonderful initiative by Neville Newey. I applaud you for your service to ZA internet, however, an SA internet bubble has emerged. Why? You ask. I’ll tell you why.

Let me first explain the bubble: The Muti Bubble refers to the isolation and ‘retardation’ of the South African web user. I say this because if you look at the nature of the ‘hot’ articles on Muti, it is clear that there is bias, which is to be expected seeing as it is a South African headline aggregator, but the fact is that centralising the content so much causes new-comers to the internet to become very SA Internet centric, which is wrong. Oh so wrong. The content I am referring to is not the news articles from local eNewsPapers, it is the ZA blogosphere I speak of.

I am afraid to point people to Muti because I know that they will get very little exposure to what is really out there, they will see tons of blogs from within the SA internet border, but very little from the blogs that are actually the root of all blogs. You see, I believe that aggregating local content causes people to become narrow minded in terms of what they read online and for what they search for. This is not necessarily wrong because it will directly benefit South African webmasters in terms of traffic and thus, ad revenue. However, it will retard the general South African web user. South African content will become their main focus, when in fact, their focus should be global.

Many of you might be thinking that I am a sod for even mentioning that aggregating local content is retarding the readers, the thing is that this is not what I am saying. If the people who submit content to Muti were a bit more internationally focussed, all of these problems would be taken care of, however, it seems that the people submitting to Muti are only submitting articles from other South African blogs. It’s called inbreeding. Of course there are people submitting international content, like me (even though it is minimal, for good reason that is), but these articles don’t get a thumbs up. Because South Africans are well known for being bias and thus causing our internet following to become inbred, retarded, and out right stupid. I dislike reading local content nowadays, because local content has become uniform. Everyone talks about the same stuff, share the same perspectives and are sucking each others arseholes dry.

I suggest that things change before South African internet users become the hillbillies of the WWW.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Categories: Blogs · Controversial · Internet

11 responses so far ↓

  • Shaun Dewberry // March 23, 2007 at 2:29 pm

    I don’t really agree, although I hardly use Muti anyway. Here’s my reasoning: If I want international content, I go to digg.com, if I want local, I go to muti. I believe they have their respective places. Just like when I search google, I search either all of google or SA web only.

    I don’t think Muti is or should be an index of international content, but it can make reference to it. Muti really shines when someone references international content on their SA blog and voices and opinion on it, which is then submitted to Muti, which feeds the discussion and kills off your “inbreeding” theory.

    Certainly though, you do have a point in that everyone talks about the same damn thing – just look at the topic of SA Blog Awards 2007, or Amatomu.com, or Bob Woolmer’s death. SA bloggers love to flog a dead horse. We’re at a serious lack of awesome original content (don’t get me wrong – there is a lot), but I don’t think Muti is to blame.

  • capdog // March 23, 2007 at 2:58 pm

    No offense, but your argument here is completely illogical. The *point* of muti is that it’s about South Africa. This is not ‘retarding’ SA web users, if anything, it’s helping them to see what is available from the local web instead of thinking the only decent content comes from overseas.

    What would the point of Muti be, if it was a clone of Reddit or Digg?

    But I do agree with you and Shaun that very few bloggers are creating original content. However, it’s not a phenomenon that’s unique to SA blogging, I would imagine it happens everywhere.

  • sessa // March 23, 2007 at 3:36 pm

    What I mean when I talk of ‘inbreeding’ is that many new users go to Muti, unaware of Digg, reddit or anything alike and they are then retarded. The thing is that most new comers to Muti would prefer not to go out and check out digg or reddit.

    As I said above, I am mainly referring to the general web user and not the net savvy guys.

    I am just under the impression that Muti stands a chance to retard the new SA web user.

  • Uno de Waal // March 26, 2007 at 7:21 am

    There is quite a bunch of theory on how people can rig Digg, and how it is hi-jacked by an elite, which makes the focus of digg/reddit technology orientated (that was apparently where digg started).
    So it’s inevitable that there will be a bias. It’s like Mike said, you use it for two different purposes. I just don’t really a demand for that purpose.

  • Stii // March 26, 2007 at 7:38 am

    I suppose we’re talking of the same internet users here as the ones that still uses Ananzi to search the internet?! They would be overwhelmed by something like digg or reddit to say the least.

    That aside, I’m a huge supporter of Muti. I’ve seen it grow and change. As new followers gets on board, the content changes, since you submit things that you find interesting. Well, in most cases! The more people adopt Muti, the more the “hot” page’s content will change.

    That aside, the real problem is not Muti. It is the users of Muti, which is the same guys that “flog the dead horse”. The only way to change that is to start using Muti and submit things other than the latest hot topic in the blogosphere doing the rounds on everyone’s posts. Maybe you will not be able to eliminate that altogether, but it would sure give variety to the hot pages!

    People that all get onto a popular topic and throwing their own 2 cents worth to the controversy is quite natural. If you have an opinion, you want to give it. What buggers me is that we all advocate that we should be able to give our opinions, yet when it happens we moan that everyone is talking about the same stuff. Lame. Yes it could become irretating reading about the same old dead horse like the SA Blog Awards on every blog that you see in the SA blogosphere. At least when that did happen, every one had his own opinion. Go onto Technorati, take a hot topic and see how THEY (as in the US or EU blogosphere, as in other than SA) flog a dead horse! Appaling! They simply create a pingback, not adding their own opinions for the sake of being part of something popular to get some exposure/ad revenue! No, we’re still in a healthy condition locally.

  • stii.za.net » Blog Archive » How healthy is the SA blogging community? // March 26, 2007 at 8:27 am

    [...] has been said in recent times about the state of health of the South African Blogging community. Most people complained that everyone is talking about the [...]

  • Uno De Waal // March 26, 2007 at 7:14 pm

    can’t muti grab the stuff I send to delicious?

  • Neville Newey // March 26, 2007 at 10:09 pm

    > can’t muti grab the stuff I send to delicious

    Yes technically it can, this is not hard to do as delicious provides a very fine api. However I am not really sure that this is a feature that muti needs. Delicious is a (very good) online bookmark storage system, while muti is (currently) a news filter. It is unfortunate that sites such as Digg and delicious get grouped under the umbrella of “social bookmarking”, as they are in fact two very different animals. One is for storing your bookmarks online, (delicious and friends) the other (digg, reddit, muti etc) is for filtering news or other items of interest. (admitedly there are a few features of the one camp in the other but that is not their primary focus)
    Having said that you are not the first to suggest such a feature so it *may* be coming, (big may) I am just not convinced that it is the correct direction for muti to head towards, but I may be wrong. Note that none of the Digg/Reddit camp seems to be moving in that direction either.

  • sessa // March 27, 2007 at 6:55 am

    Interesting Neville,

    Perhaps if Muti implemented some functions unique to Muti, it would differentiate it a bit more from the rest of the guys? I also like the idea of send delicious to Muti because I could use the nifty firefox plugin to send to delicious and muti, simultaneously.
    If you want to limit the type of content that comes through, you can take all bookmarks on delicious with a Muti tag. Then I would tag my ‘bookmarks’ and the ones I tag with ‘Muti’ would then also be posted to Muti, saving me the trouble of doing it twice :)

  • LeOgAhEr // June 19, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    I Love you girls

    Buy

  • BlackerHatter // July 9, 2007 at 12:23 am

    Admin, This Topic will contain Free Speech About Webmaster Affiliate Marketing, Check Back for updates

    [color=red] [b]Affiliate Marketing Is Dead[/b] [/color]
    Many friends with websites have reported VERY LOW INCOMES from their sites. Large sites make money because they have the resources to build large, keyword rich sites and get lots of links.
    [color=red] [b]But You can Compete With Them![/b] [/color] By CHEATING! I can generate a huge relavent site for you keywords, plus get all of your linking done.

    [color=red] [b]With a few hours work per week you can very easily make $1000 per day.[/b] [/color] . Thats not a bullshit promise, you will see :lol: If you want me to go for it you can easily generate several times that amount.

    [color=red][b]SERVICES AVAILABLE [/b] [/color]

    [color=red] [b]Bronze Package[/b] [/color] (target Income $1000/day)
    Cost $300
    Includes
    - All necessary Keywords
    - Generating of massive website based on keywords. Your website will be huge, thousands of pages. More Keywords=More Pages = More $
    - Instant* indexing in google (dont wait for 3 months like a Schmuck, you got money to make
    - “Safe” hosting accounts for your Black Hat Site. Hosting for 3 months included to get you started at no extra cost
    - ~2000 links to your site pages. Its all about those links baby

    [color=red] [b]Silver Package[/b] [/color] (target Income $2000/day)
    Cost $600
    Includes
    - All necessary Keywords
    - Generating of massive websites based on keywords. Your websites will be huge, thousands of pages. More Keywords=More Pages = More $
    - Instant* indexing in google (dont wait for 3 months like a white hat Scmuck, you got money to make
    - “Safe” hosting accounts for your Black Hat Site. Hosting for 3 months included to get you started at no extra cost
    - >10000 links to your site pages. Its all about those links baby

    [color=red] [b]Gold Package[/b] [/color] NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
    Cost $2000
    Includes
    - All necessary Keywords
    - Generating of massive websites based on keywords. Your websites will be huge, thousands of pages. More Keywords=More Pages = More $
    - Instant* indexing in google (dont wait for 3 months like a white hat Scmuck, you got money to make
    - “Safe” hosting accounts for your Black Hat Site. Hosting for 3 months included to get you started at no extra cost
    - >10000 links to your site pages. Its all about those links baby
    PLEASE NOTE I can only take 1 gold client at a time as it requires me to work very hard. I am currently setting up a Gold Client so this is currently unavailable. Wont be long until I finish though.

    email me or contact via Messenger, because I wont regulary check this forum.
    Its called blackhat my friends coz that is a black hat.
    Ciao fghj

    MSN blackyourhat@hotmail.com

Leave a Comment