A Cliché. But Local Really is Lekker

By December 2013, MTC had close to 800 000 active mobile broadband subscribers.

15 July 2015, Team Namibia, a non-profit organisation, launched a mobile application to keep a younger audience informed about Team Namibia members and their products.

The discussion on finally moving from the lack of local content to that of local digital content is finally taking shape. I believe the consumption of local digital content is growing by the day. Through social media and the low-cost internet access (thanks to TN mobile for putting MTC in its place), many Namibians are now using Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter to communicate and share information. A closer look at the communication patterns reveals that Namibians tend to patronise groupings that one deems local. Look no further than the case of Whatsapp users. Most belong to groups that are either composed of family members, friends, workmates or acquaintances.

The Team Namibia team is playing it smart AND SAFE by testing the water with this digital approach.

Fine, I will confess, there was never a lack of local content. I mean, Namibia has +-15 newspapers, a huge number of radio stations, and the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation, which is reaching the most number of Namibians, has been the only media institution to openly confess that they are struggling with local content. This little problem is only one you will notice in traditional methods. Newspapers are filled with reoccurring sad stories, radio is annoying with all those jingles and repetition of songs, NBC *sigh* well, ya’ll know NBC.

For the most engaging content, look no further than digital media. 20th of July 2015, the president of Namibia posted on Facebook a post that gained close to 2000 likes and over 500 comments. Namibians are predisposed to value information from within their community. They will always want to know what is going on within their space. We may be using services hosted outside the borders of Namibia, but inherently, the content is local. I am really impressed by The Namibian Sun’s approach to curate stories via the WhatsApp messaging platform. This is when it hit me that Whatsapp has replaced the use of the burdensome traditional methods.

As the fibre network spreads all over the continent, creating a vast network of broadband availability, digital access hardware costs will drop, making it easier to use. The country might experience an upward surge in data demand which will drive new content generators such as Team Namibia to produce fresh content that matters. For the dreamers, this will be an excellent opportunity to set up locally based content creators.