Storipot, a Ugandan-based news and blog aggregation service that helps online visitors discover and read local content from over 250 curated blogs has today been launched.
The online service is a brainchild of Dignited,a blog that’s about news, reviews and analysis of Technology in Uganda and wider Africa.
The team came up with the idea after finding it hard to keep track of a vast amount of local content that is continuously published by local newspapers and blogs.
“There is a lot of great content that is published every day by mainstream media houses and more recently bloggers. However, it is increasingly difficult to keep track of great stories because of the ‘noise’ generated by social media and millions of sites on the web”, David Okwii, the Editor-In-Chief of Dignited said.
Storipot which currently is a web application found at www.storipot.com seeks to find the signal in the noise thanks to clever computer algorithms and human editorial oversight. The new aggregator aims to provide readers with headlines of the latest stories curated from websites and blogs by or about Uganda and help readers avoid the ‘noise’ that internet has become
The website follows a simple, highly textual, minimalistic design aimed at helping users quickly find stories they care about. The design also organizes stories in various categories such as Politics and current affairs, Entertainment, Literature and Arts, Technology to further simplify discovery of stories on the site. The site is initially giving more attention to blogs rather than mainstream media since the majority of great blogs remain largely unknown to online visitors. That is why the site has also included a directory of more than 250 Ugandan blogs in addition to the aggregator.
However, the real kernel behind storipot is a developing community of enthusiastic bloggers who submitted their blogs to the aggregator during a data crowdsourcing campaign the team embarked on 3 months ago.
“There’s a growing community of bloggers in Uganda who are increasingly churning out great local content. However, this content often goes unnoticed because of their small distribution channels and growing ‘noise’ on the web. We hope to solve this with storipot. “ Onyait Odeke, the project manager said.
Storipot hopes to count on its growing following on social media, emailing list and direct visits on the site to help bloggers reach and engage a wider audience.
