Due to the legacy of apartheid South Africa is still a deeply divided country both racially (black and white) and economically (rich and poor). In the past year the majority of top news websites have taken the steps to disable the comments section on their websites due to the constant flame wars that erupts after contentious articles. Here opens a great opportunity to start either a social news site or a commenting platform.
To set this up will require a bit of IT know how but the initial site can be built for less than R1000 using existing platforms.
Process
You will basically setup a website where people can comment on South African news stories. The most obvious choice for the back-end software would be Kliqqi (the successor to Pligg) but forum software such as phpBB can also be used, this can later be built out as revenue comes in. A lot of hosting companies control panels have “one click” installs where you are able to install software that can be used to run the site. The best option to monetize the site would be advertising such as Google Adsense. The benefit of running a such a site is that people often refresh the page looking for new content meaning more adviews for you. But beware you are going to need to moderate the site to make sure it does not get out of hand.
Resources |
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| Type | Service |
| Materials | Domain name Web hosting Software to power the application |
| Supplier | Domains.co.za |
| Setup cost | .co.za Domain: R75 per year Hosting: R59 per month |
| Sector | Internet & Technology, Niche business ideas |
