Posted on February 25, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
The Afrigator / 24.com Integration – what it means
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So the big news today is the announcement we made via our blog about the integration between 24.com Blogs and Afrigator.
For a few months we’ve been working with Alistair Fairweather and his dev team at 24.com to try and make this work and I think that as a phase one we’ve done pretty well.
I really believe that this is a significant step in the social media space in Africa. For the first time one of the largest media companies in Africa have opened up their doors to work with an independent and at the same time we’re gaining further credibility within the industry.
From an Afrigator perspective this step moves us closer to becoming the authoritative figure within the space as we are now able to easily aggregate blogs from a portal that was once closed off to the outside world. The 24.com platform is by far the largest of its kind in Africa and it now opens the doors for us to apply a similar model to other blogging platforms.
In the blogging space in South Africa we’ve noticed two very different schools. One is the early-adopter space that are generally all members of Afrigator already while the other is the niche, closed communities that are often much larger than the early-adopter one. These closed communities, while much larger, are not really aware of what’s happening outside their space and I think it’s safe to say that 24.com Blogs is one of them.
By integrating with Afrigator, 24.com bloggers are now exposed to a very different audience than before. In addition these bloggers are now able to get detailed stats about their blog which is something that was not possible prior to this move.
I am of the belief that early-adopters need to be exposed to the closed communities in just the same way. There are some extremely valuable and influential bloggers within the 24.com network and we hope that this integration helps shift perceptions and encourage bloggers to interact outside of their normal environments.
I guess time will tell what happens but for now I’m really pleased to be involved in helping to change the landscape.
I am the MD and co-founder of 
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February 25, 2009
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New blog post: The Afrigator / 24.com Integration – what it means http://tinyurl.com/aono83
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February 25, 2009
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I’m rather chuffed with the stats. I’ve never had the attention span to keep myself in check, and the fact that it’s now built-in makes it really easy – and cool!
Looking forward to see what else is going to pop up.
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February 25, 2009
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Hey Justin.
This is a great development- congrats.
Quick question… As an advertiser would I be able to choose whether or not I wanted my ads to be shown on the 24.com blogs?
Congrats again-
G
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February 25, 2009
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Grant – the ads on the Afrigator 24.com pages are not a part of Adgator. These ads come from Afrigator.com and we don’t have an advertising relationship with 24.com yet.
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February 25, 2009
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Ah, sorry mate- I see now. (Still early in the morning for me.)
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February 25, 2009
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Syllable, this is only phase one so watch this space for more cool features we plan to launch!
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February 25, 2009
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Congrats, Justin. Awesome move for you guys!
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February 25, 2009
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Thanks Dolce – now to fix the bugs
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February 25, 2009
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Well written post, Justin. Like the way you’ve explained the “early-adopters” vs “closed community”, it’s good.
Looking at this and Matthew Buckland’s post, seems the “closed community” is having a lot of the slog work done for them. I’ve really struggled in the past to locate information on the 24.com blogs specifically, so hopefully this will unlock some of that value.
As you say, only time will tell.
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February 26, 2009
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The Afrigator / 24.com Integration – what it means http://tinyurl.com/aono83