LET'S CHAT: Afrigator and Adgator issues - bloggers forum

I HAVE huge respect for the Gators who started Afrigator – Africa’s largest blog aggregator, and Adgator – a unique advertising service for bloggers. However, things appear to have gone a little pear-shaped in recent months to say the least.

Both services have been awarded and honoured in the press - and deservedly so. It would seem that the steady growth of Afrigator was something unprecedented. Unfortunately, it also appears that the Gators were unprepared for such (perhaps unexpected) growth. While Afrigator may be winning the popularity contest among the aggregators, it could be argued that it is fast losing popularity among its users.

Downtime, site crashes, delays with the fetching of new content, the slow death of Gatorpeeps, and the inability for bloggers to access their blog statistics, are all happening all too often. I found my own blog crashing and behaving painfully slow in recent months. This was until I removed the Afrigator badge and tracking code. I see that several bloggers have done the same.

Afrigator issues

I tried to reach the Afrigator blog for comment, but it failed to respond. I do have it on good authority though that the Afrigator blog hasn’t seen an update since June last year.

And then there’s Adgator – an advertising service that showed (and will hopefully re-show) much promise. Adgator has made a few bloggers some decent pocket money since its launch, yet lately there seem to be more disgruntled Adgator users than satisfied ones.

On the plus side, the Gators seem to be doing really well with finding new ad campaigns and offering these to bloggers on a regular basis. Every time I hear of a new campaign that’s applicable to my blog category and location, I think “this is it! This is the one that’s going to make it big!” Then I visit my Adgator dashboard a few weeks down the line, often to find an impressive click-through ratio yet a lump sum of about 50cents.

Adgator earnings

December dashboard

Ad impressions worth zilch

I fully understand that not all the ads offered by Adgator are “paying ads”, and that there is a difference between the Adgator earnings and the Ad: Dynamo earnings. However, I can’t shed the feeling that something still isn’t quite right.

I make a real effort to better understand any issues, and the Gator team are really courteous and speedy with their replies. But when bloggers are constantly told that there is a “discrepancy between figures and stats” this doesn’t really offer much by way of solution.

I’m sure the Gators are painstakingly working on such issues and that they mean well. I’m sure they’re also probably sick of being e-mailed complaints and held to accountability. Of course, it’s fair to give them some time and be patient about the whole thing. But, it’s also fair to talk about it and appeal for answers. Perhaps others don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them so to speak.

So let’s get some discussion going. Am I alone here? Do any of the Gators care to respond? Any good news for your users in 2011? I sincerely look forward to hearing from you soon.

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Well I’ll tell you what’s in mine ...

IT'S that time of year once again to do my bit to promote some of the other great blogs out there. These are essentially the ones in my blogroll, which you should be familiar with by now, but for any new-comers (welcome) these are what you may be missing out on:

• Gottaquirk operates in the realm if eMarketing and is an online child of Quirk – Africa’s largest eMarketing agency. Published upon their great wooden desk design are posts relating to everything from online reputation management and SEM to web development.

• Justin Hartman is one of SA’s great and fearless online leaders. He is the MD and co-founder of Afrigator - Africa's largest social media aggregator, which spawned several Gator offspring, such as Adgator and Gatorpeeps. Justin has a knack at explaining complex online strategies to entrepreneurial and eager young minds in easily-absorbable ways. He often shares his well-illustrated presentations on his blog.

I’m confident that 2oceansvibe needs no introduction. Winner of the 2009 SA Blog Awards, 20ceansvive has reached the top of the charts on SA’s blog aggregators, and deservedly so too. It’s updated several times a day with sexy photos, videos and really entertaining pieces. It’s creator is local celeb and all-round nice guy Seth Rotherham, who lives by his motto, “Work is a sideline, live the holiday”. You may want to increase your cap before visiting Seth’s site as you’re likely to spend a few hours perusing his content.

• SA Rocks. There’s no doubt about that. How great to create a blog about all the positively South African people, places and events that make South Africa rock. Nic Haralambos has done just that by punting positive action on his blog SA Rocks, which will always leave you feeling proud to be associated with SA.

• Shaun Oakes is quite a character. One can never be sure where he is or what he’s going to blog about next, but with his cheeky and sarcastic sense of humour, he can make anything sound entertaining. He is an inspiring novelist who has conjured up convincing characters such as The Girlfriend and Some Other Guy. A little grotesk at times, shaunoakes.com is not recommended for sensitive viewers or alien life-forms.

Cape Town is home to the most popular bloggers in SA and Cape Town happenings is often what’s hot in the blogosphere. Cape Town Alive brings you all the events going on in the mother city in a witty, entertaining way. It is also the domain of one of my favouritly-humoured blog writers Kyle Stroebel (a.k.a. stroob).

• The Art of Manliness offers something completely different on the blogosphere - a blog dedicated to uncovering the lost art of being a man. It may sound a little silly at first, but the husband and wife team behind this tasteful creation have done a fantastic job. They delve deep into the history of manliness and research the lives of great men to offer articles on helping men be better husbands, better fathers, and better men.

• The Art of non-conformity is my best find on the blogosphere to date. Its founder is Chris Guillebeau – role-model to the world. Chris has travelled the globe, done volunteer work, published books and is on a mission to help people live unconventional lives, make their own choices, and change the world. Chris’ selfless, bi-weekly blog chronicles his writing on how to change the world by achieving significant, personal goals in the field of work, life and travel all while helping others at the same time.

If you’re a whizz in the kitchen and are keen on learning some new recipes, you need look no further than Cookbook.co.za. It is by far the best cooking blog I’ve come across that is extensive, user-friendly and 100% free. It has recipes for baked goods, chicken treats, Chinese cuisine, yummy desserts, drinks hot & cold, fish, meat dishes, pasta, salads, sauces and soups.

• Web AddiCT(s) offers a daily dose of tech – more specifically posts on web and cellphone applications. Quite technical by nature, don’t feel bad if a lot of the content offered here goes over your head - you're bound to find something to pique your interest. The site recently underwent a re-design and is looking pretty sweet.

• The above are some of the top blogs (and bloggers) in the South African blogosphere according to our great aggregators. All are listed in my blogroll to your right.

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