They said to show is better than to tell so is the tale of how many content startups we have around us these days in Nigeria.
But why? The answer is simple, Linda Ikeji has a testimonial Range Rover to tell that the “bits” can become “flesh”!
I foresee a continuous growth in our technosphere but we must continue to step forward innovating beyond just to put food on the table.
The bad side for content business is regulation and decorum, falsehood permiates what people post on their various " media" houses. Nigeria as a country does not have enforceable regulation to bring sanity(I may be wrong, help me) They will settle though but we should never settle, we must open new boxes for people to think in/out of.
I don’t agree that there is a content bubble. On the contrary, I’d argue that we don’t have enough great content platforms. There’s just a lot of bad content out there. Very few content creators are creators in any real sense. I believe it wouldn’t take much for new great content creators to make a dent in the Internet space. Look at the guys from My Own Area (I think they are one of the few great content creators); some of their vids get up to a 100k view and I don’t believe they have even scratched the surface on their potential. It all starts with creating great content, and we just don’t have enough of that at the moment.
Exactly there’s a bubble… Yeah the law enforcement is weak. However, the problem is a readership one. Niches are just not large enough. That’s why it’s mostly websites of survival necessity…job sites and everything blogs lib, Bellanaija that thrive mostly. Okay and newspapers(during elections lool). But we’ll definitely get there, its about generating a large enough viewership of your niche’s content.
What I would love to see is a blog that is read as feverishly in Lagos as it is in Cairo, Nairobi and Joburg. I know it’s a big continent but I believe our generation has more in common than we think. It can’t be an easy thing to do and will probably need some significant upfront investment, but that would be a major platform (I’m big on platforms) for marketing things across the continent.
That’s problem in Nigeria. Having said that, the most popular blogs / newspapers in the so called “west” are the trashy like dailymail, tmz etc. Our internet habits reflect the same fixation everyone has on celebrities. We also lack great content in other obvious niches - e.g politics, money/business, sports
I agree with @remi. The problem is everyone wants to know what Omotola and Wizkid wore to the Amaa awards, and so the “content creators” move towards gossip-type blogs. I would personally love to see content from video games, animation, and the visual effects industry. The latter 2 practically don’t even exist in Nigeria as far as I’m aware. :’(
Even the popular blogs don’t create quality content… these blogs are filled with entertainment gossips … even the ones with quality content don’t know how to acquire and retain readers or make use of SEO tactics to increase the visibility of their sites on search engines so that they can be easily found.
Countries like US and UK have trashy websites for gossips but the real websites with quality content are able to overshadow them.
We need valuable, relevant, and consistent content … that’s all!
There’s no diversity in content because content creators (if you can call them that) just assume Nigerians only want gossip and nothing else. The niches ARE large enough.
There’s no diversity in content because content creators (if you can call them that) just assume Nigerians only want gossip and nothing else.
@Nosaaaa it is more than an assumption though, web traffic/stats today validates the position on the gossip content / blog in Nigeria (Folks probably enjoy the comments section more than the actual posts)
The niches ARE large enough.
You obviously run a great a hyperlocal blog (great job!) and know this better than me - I think you would agree that readership of the niches is still relatively small. I’m surprised at the number of my friends in Lagos that don’t know about http://eatdrinklagos.com and http://livinginlekki.com/. Yet everyday they reference Linda / Nairaland like a bible…
LIB-type blogs dominate because there are a shit ton of them, not because that’s what Nigerians love to read by default. I think Radar is testament to my point. If you build it, they will come.
When you build it, you have to cup your hands around the flame and hope it doesn’t die before people notice and add their sticks to it. Many flames die because they don’t come quickly enough. But I agree with you. Sorta.
