Freedom Day – 26 April 04

Hello, howzit and welcome to Cybersurf – the Freedom Day edition. This is your weekly web window, when we wax lyrical on the best of the Internet – I am your Cyberhost Steven Lang.

Yes, tomorrow is Freedom day so today is a good time to find out all you can about all the events taking place.

If Freedom day means we have to feel good about being South African, then there is no better place to visit than the South Africa info site – which can be found at www.southafrica.info.

The site bills itself as the official South Africa gateway– and it was put together by the Big Media web site design company for the International Marketing Council of South Africa.

Overall the site has a fresh, modern look and feel. It has the texture of a happy news site – plenty of press releases that look like news articles. All the content has something positive to say about South Africa – particularly about South Africans abroad.

Lead article is about how South Africans are going to celebrate 10 years of freedom in Trafalgar square, London, the second story is about Ushaka – a South African musical touring Europe; New York celebrates South African film and in Boston, a South African wheel chair athlete is feted as guest of honour at a baseball match.

There is a section inviting you – the reader - to write to Fifa explaining why this country should host the 2010 soccer world cup.

The South Africa – Alive with Possibility is truly an excellent site especially if you need to find out the positive side of this country.

If you click on the link to “Ten Years of Democracy”, you will see more stories and links about the many events that will celebrate our freedom day. There are links to stories such as: Newtown celebrates ten years; SA’s gay community celebrates ten; Cape Town Opera 10 for ten and profiles on nine South African families – makes you wonder what happened to the last one.?

There are also links to other - Ten Years of Democracy sites such as the UK based Network South Africa which you can find at www.sa2004.co.uk/ - which looks quite a lot like www.Southafrica.info – and then there is a truly excellent history site at: www.sahistory.org.za – it is visually a little sombre – having no fancy graphics, but it has very good content – and always remember “Content is King”

This advice should have been heeded by the people who designed the government web site for ten years of democracy. They even got their own dedicated domain name http://www.10years.gov.za – I really don’t know if they were still contructing it when I looked at it last Thursday but the main page offers you a choice of two sections – “Documents” or “Statements” – I think it is one of the most boring sites I have ever seen.

Anyway, I am quite sure that tomorrow’s celebrations won’t be boring –

If you would like to read the script for this program – you will find it on my personal site at www.stevenlang.blogspot.com . Thanx for listening and remember to keep on surfing