Naspers took the plunge last week when it merged its digital division with MWeb Studios, the division responsible for the development of web-based services, to form local internet portal 24.com.
CEO Kim Reid said the group had been trying to restructure its “digital properties” for a while. “We think the South African internet environment is ready for an offering like this. The internet is probably going to boom in the next few years and we want to be in the forefront.”
The portal will include locally relevant search technology, free web-based e-mail, instant messaging, photo albums, blogs, other social networking tools and online shopping in partnership with Kalahari.net.
“Hopefully Telkom will reduce their tariffs and the prospect will become more compelling. South Africa follows world trends … we can’t remain like this forever. South Africa will suffer if it remains this way. So, we’re putting our money where our mouths are,” Reid said.
Reid said he plans to make searching local content easier and will be “tweaking” 24.com‘s search engine to improve the relevance of local search results. He said it aims to be “better than Google on the local front”.
He said 24.com has a lot of content within the media group and is now “getting things online”.
Instant messaging has become one of the priorities for the portal and it is also “chasing” a MySpace-type product.
Professor Guy Berger, of Rhodes University, said it is a shrewd move by Naspers that should appeal to its advertisers, because they will have access to all internet users from 24.com‘s different sites.
Berger predicts that wide-scale internet access via cellphones will start to emerge in three to five years in South Africa, and said 24.com will need to capitalise on this trend.
Arthur Goldstuck, media analyst and head of technology research organisation World Wide Worx, said South Africa is poised for a boom in internet usage.
He said while the South African internet user base will not increase significantly, the country will be reaching the point where about three million people have been online for five years.
These users will typically go beyond e-mail and browsing the internet, and thus more people will start using internet banking, online media and online shopping. Goldstuck said the first beneficiaries of the boom should be online media organisations because there is no risk involved (for the user).
“Now is the right time for major media houses to have an integrated and clear online strategy. In the past disparate strategies were not necessarily pulling together,” he said.