Paul Jacobson

I've seen references to Muti for a little while now and only really got around to taking a closer look at it. What is Muti? Basically, Muti is a South African Digg. This is what they have to say about themselves:

Muti is a social bookmarking site inspired by reddit and Digg but dedicated to content of interest to Southern Africans or those interested in Southern Africa.

Registered users submit links to news stories, articles or any item of interest. Other users have the opportunity of voting these submissions up or down. An up vote will increase a submission's score while a down vote will decrease its score.

Voting is achieved simply by clicking on the arrows which appear to the left of the submitted items. Only registered users may vote. Voting also determines the "kudus" of a user. Kudus (a word play on both "Kudos", and also a southern african antelope) are similar to what many other sites refer to as "karma". Kudus are earned (or lost) by other users voting for a submission. Thus if I submit an article and ten people vote it up whilst three vote it down, I will earn seven kudus for that article.

Muti uses a bookmarklet to submit stories to it from a web browser and from there users will vote on the stories in pretty much the same was as you would vote for stories on Digg. What I like about Muti is its focus on South African content. There is some really awesome content on South African sites and this content is often swallowed up by international content on sites like Digg. Here the focus remains on local content and gives people a chance to see just how lekker local is.

There is an interview with Muti's creator, Neville Newey, on Net Squared if you would like to find out more about the thought processes behind Muti's and its sister site, NewsMap's creation.

Tags: muti, newsmap, digg, reddit, south african, news, content, local, lekker, social bookmarking