OK, everyone knows that Google recently opened offices in South Africa.

Today I went to an event organised by Intoweb (probably the undisputed leaders in South Africa with regards to web design, training and Internet Marketing) where Google presented some of their ideas with regards to search marketing.

I say 'some' since on 'some' questions they were remarkably silent...

Stafford Masie, the Country manager for Google for South Africa gave the following presentation - to summarise:

Their biggest focus in South Africa is going to be

• Mobile
• Maps
• You Tube

Mobile, since a large portion (70% to 75%? - see also http://allafrica.com/stories/200710240684.html) of the population has access to cellphones, but only about 7% or 8% has access to Internet. Google launched Mobile Ads in December 2007, but in a low-key fashion with the idea of testing the waters.

Maps - the idea being to bring South Africa up to the standard of the rest of the world, with all the Gadgets and facilities that are available to other parts of the world. Some great map applications were demonstrated, primarily demonstrating what is available in the US and the UK. One can but hope that we reach the same level of features one day....

YouTube is the 5th most popular site in South Africa (first being google.co.za, second being Facebook, third being Google.com (does that count?), fourth being Yahoo).

Google recently launched YouTube context advertising elsewhere in the world, and Stafford Masie gave a demonstration of how it could work. It is interesting to note that www.youtube.co.za was owned by another company until about July 2007. One wonders if a couple of men with dark glasses, but colourful suits, knocked on their doors at a point.....

Another aside - we actually owned 'www.igoogle.co.za' at some point and then let the domain go since we weren't really doing anything with it!

The points on which Stafford Masie was very reticent were:

- What is Google's staff compliment in South Africa and what is their real strategy

- When will Google Checkout be available in South Africa?

- When will Google be able to make payments for Google Adsense directly into South African bank accounts.

Admittedly, the last two points are not really something that Google has much control over, since dark mutterings about 'foreign exchange controls' and 'reserve bank policies' in South Africa were also heard. It is true that a huge problem in this country is the fact that our foreign exchange restrictions make it very difficult for organisations such as Paypal and Google to operate meaningfully in the country.

One can but hope that the budget speach of Trevor Manual on the 20th of February holds out some light at the end of the tunnel (and that it is not the Gautrain...)

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Comments (1)

Internet Marketing in SA
written by Derek van Oudtshoorn, March 06, 2008

Very interesting site - Trying to make a few Dollars in SA is ridiculously difficult especially when PayPal is the most popular online pay method worldwide. Why? Why prevent the "poor" folks in SA from receiving a couple of bucks. I have numerous affiliate programs that have earned a few Dollars and I have no access to it.

Strangely enough for $50 one can receive funds from PayPal through a third party and even get a Visa debit ATM card and have any funds from anywhere deposited into that account, Why?
Are there powers keeping there thumbs on us?