Blogging in zaLand

When I started this blog at the beginning of this year there was very few South African blogs that I could find but things have certainly hotted up in the last five months. We now have a decent size core of regular bloggers from all walks of South African life and with that in mind we’re going to have a quick tour around the local blogs.

Before I start I have two disclaimers. Firstly I am going to miss a number of blogs so if your favourite blog (or your own blog) isn’t listed here please give it a mention in the comments field below. Secondly it goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that just because a blog is mentioned here does not mean I agree with what they’re saying.

Links will open in a new window

Probably the busiest (in terms of number of postings) blog is Commentary run by Wayne and Laurence who call themselves conservative:libertarian. They write on everything from politics, sport, time travel and more.

Two great photo blogs are Cherryflava and the recently launched Frozen Motion. Both regularly publish excellent photographs.

SA2010blog is a blog set up when we won the right to host the 2010 World Cup and plans to track the process all the way until the winning country in 2010.

Farrago was the great site with the dancing penguin but he’s now closed it down effective yesterday – pity as I was encouraged by his attempt to stop smoking.

Rethabile Masilo is a Lesotho national living in Paris and he has two blogs. The first, on lesotho, is about the small land locked country of his birth whilst the second deals with Sesotho - his mother tongue. His third blog is a South African webring for local bloggers.

Sourthern Cross is writen by Andrew and Murray who're at Oxford but the blog has gone a little quiet as of late - maybe they're enjoying the English summer?

Mzansi Afrika is written out of Gautang by Bronwyn and covers an exceedingly wide range of topics.

Golgi's Cell is a new blog with some great links, awesome quotes and wonderful pictures.

NjaloNjalo is run by Nick and has his thoughts on South Africa and the world in general.

Way South disappeared for two months but is now back and also has some great local pictures.

PoliticsZA is written by Farrel Lifson and is currently doing his MSC at the University of Cape Town. The slant of the blog is 100% local politics.

Fifteenminutes is our resident right winger (I know he hates being called that but I am a loss as to what else to call him).

Kitsch'n'Zinc is another newbie from Cape Town focusing on food and with mouth watering pictures.

Gauteng Blog focusing on providing an amazing selection of links on a regular basis.

Brandon Hamber and his friends post about most things South African with lots of links on books and as an avid reader this is great.

Natal Fever, everything on my home province now called KwaZulu-Natal.

YBLOG ZA is another eclectic blog looking at the world and South Africa.

Africans, I'm not sure if this is a true blog but it is wild, wacky and always worth a read.

Codblog also has a picture section and a wide range of postings and is run by Damien du Toit who is currently in London but originally from cape Town.

Vaz's lube posts on almost everything.

The corner office is run by Colin Pretorius and has as its main slant computer programming but he also posts on music, politics etc.

Joe Moore's Newswire is a The Onion style blog. A great original read and completely different from most local blogs.

Lastly is the recent launch of free blogs for MWeb members but frankly we find the method of finding blogs confusing and have not as yet really been able to find many gems. You'll find them here. The most interesting statistic is that they have 446 blogs but only 70 have been updated in the last 30 days, 40 in the last week suggesting what I suspect is a world wide trend. Starting a blog but not following it through.

That's my list of local bloggers for now. I must admit that when I started this posting I did not think the list would be as big as it turned out and that has to be great news!

Comments

[hedmekanik]

Hey people;

Great list.

I have myself a...hmmm...varied blog which has fairly regular updates on it.
Content? Well, anything from rare remixes to topical news items, links to interesting photo sites, hell, just about anything that tickles my fancy.

http://hedmekania.blogspot.com

Cheers

[Anne]

another great SA blog I just found

http://www.stuckintheduck.blogspot.com/

[DA supporter]

A blog for the DA supporters

http://da-mal.blogspot.com/

[VVG]

Also check out my london based blog kwailawai* - it's about news and reviews of south african film, music and culture.

[Michelle]

Allow me to introduce myself as another SA blogger! And thanks to Rethabile, am about to go check out the SAWebRing thingy and see if I can join.

[Black Lotus]

Hmmm, Visit http://www.lotuszone.blogspot.com for varied topics as "Music Controlling Our Minds" to "Biochemical Engineering of Food"

With seven contributors and lots of flaring views... don't miss out. Hell, apply to be a contributor.

A Londoner dedicated to SA film and music.

http://kwailawai.blogspot.com

The FishBowl

[FARRAGO]

Great to see the number of new South African blogs!

Way back when I started FARRAGO, Mike Golby's blog (YBLOGZA) was the only other South African Blog I could find. I guess Mike was our first South African blogger!

Cheers to Mike!!

Isangqa, A south African photographer currently in the USA.

[Farrel Lifson]

I've found a whole bunch of other SA blogs that were resident on blogspot. Check them out on my site.

[Rethabile Masilo]

Sorry, that was me.

The Fishbowl (http://jontyfisher.blogspot.com) has just joined the SAWR. Check it out, everyone. It seems to me that there's a blog from our region per week. If this continues...

[Golgi]

Have you seen this one?

http://missinglink.typepad.com/joblog/

[Vaz Lube]

I am glad that ZA blogsphere is growing. I had to google really hard, as recently last year, to find one.

BTW, I've used your list on my for my forum post.

[zaBlogger]

Farrel, apologies. I found a bio that said you was still studing. An yes how could I forget Keo.co.za - it must be the busiest blog in SA.

tx

[Farrel Lifson]

Also check out Mark Keohane's Rugby blog at http://www.keo.co.za . Judging by the amount of comments he gets for each story I would guess it's the most popular blog in SA.

[Farrel Lifson]

Correction: I WAS doing my M.Sc. I'm a workin' man now...

[Cherryflava]

Awesome roundup zablogger. Reminds me that the South African blog links on Cherryflava need some serious updating. The good thing about the SA sites is definately the content quality.

It's all good stuff.

Well done guys!

[Rethabile Masilo]

Excellent. Exactly what I should have done when I said i would do it. I like the informative comments that seem quite right for all the blogs I've been to. Now, if only all these folks would visit http://sawr.blogspot.com and join the Southern Africa Web Ring, things would even be dandier!