Webdev launches its social network. Names it SHA

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November 7th, 2011

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Last week, Webdev opened its social network to the public. The name Social has been discarded in favour of a shorter and simpler sha.co.zw. SHA is short for the ‘Shamwari’, the Shona word for ‘friend’. There’s already some activity on the site, and I have received a few friend requests from some familiar faces.

The site looks pretty much what it was in closed beta; warm colors and the familiar social network design with a wall (they don’t call it that though), photos section, a friend finder, groups, events and private messages. In addition to that you also get a blogging section, a Q & A, news, downloads and a link to Webdev’s flagship web property, classifieds.co.zw.

Besides tag-lining it “Zimbabwe’s Social Network”, Webdev is not actively showing why a visitor should sign up or what they will get here that they’re not already getting on Facebook or Google Plus. Maybe the local factor alone is enough. I just expected something that says “here’s the new angle/level we’re binging to your online social interactions!” Something that makes the user feel they’re on a different social platform that’s not just a Facebook clone.

SHA has the opportunity to define its unique identity from the onset and set itself apart with an experience users of the service can only associate with and get on the platform. I’m not feeling that identity yet. Maybe the strategy is to not box people up and just let the experience build naturally. I don’t see that working.

But Webdev is not just sitting back and hoping you’ll sign up and start posting updates. No. They’re offering cash for it.

“SHA is giving away a total of $150 every week” says the banner at the top of the site, “$20 for the most interesting/best filled in profile, $20 for the most friends added, $20 for the most amount of personal photos uploaded…” a total of 8 categories!

I think this is a bad idea. Is it even sustainable as an incentive? How much cash do you budget for such an exercise? How long do you run it? I know I definitely won’t get into active posting mode just for the cash. And even if I did, I’d probably stop when the promotion ends, and go back to Facebook where everyone is. A unique experience on the hand, will keep me coming back for more.

Cash incentives aside, the one thing that’s noticeably unlike other social networks is chat. The absence of it. It’s a cardinal sin to not have chat on a social network and for what it’s worth, we hope the team is working on it. The platform also doesn’t have something that’s fast becoming a necessary component of the social media experience; games. The addictive time wasting type that people love. Again we’ll assume it’s coming in the future.

There’s always the question of privacy and the security of data posted on social networks. By default SHA is an open network. That means your profile and all your posts on the network are visible to anyone (including people that are not signed into the network) by default. You have the option to turn this off of course in the privacy settings and have your information viewed only by the people you befriend on the SHA.

It’s only been a week and we imagine some features will be changed and more (chat, games) will be introduced. In the meantime, it’s still a warm place to be and one I’ll personally make a point to visit often in the coming weeks. Who knows, I might win me some Obamas. See you all Shaz there!

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  • Lennex Zinyando

    Looks like Jomsocial just pasted on a joomla site nothing else, wheres my carrot????

  • http://twitter.com/MsFuzzyhead Nikki Kershaw

    Like every social network, online and off, Sha is and will be shaped by its users. It’s new. It’s local. Surely that should be enough for us to go and make it ours, instead of attacking Webdev for their efforts, and for what you perceive them to have done and what they’ve omitted to do?

    We complain so much about our imported goods, technology, culture – but when someone tries to stand up and change that, they get shot down. Yes, we’re all entitled to an opinion, but if we all put half as much energy into supporting our local industry as we do into complaining that local companies are not doing it right, we might surprise ourselves with what we can achieve.

  • http://www.opensource.org.zw kthaker

    wow!! not sure if we’ll have enough noddy badges to go round! well done dude!

  • Aaaaaa

    Newton was right, but these where forces, not pple. You preach constructive criticism, then lead the way. But you seem to be that which you despise the most . . .

  • Aaaaaa

    You go read fo sho, ____

  • Developer

    @Not_taxes, you have no idea what you are talking about.
     You are full of yourself. Give us a list of things you have achieved since 1995…

  • Mukuru263

    The Point Still Remains sha.co.zw is not unique , or at least for now!

    You see webdev i myself a consumer or a potential user of sha do not have to think hard about what a product/website has to offer, because that information is readily available,thats what marketing is for hey.

    the fact that slackie you have to explain further what your product does or its objective in a comment says much about your marketing strategy.

    the reason why so many people are attacking this site (lot more not just the ones who posted here) is that your site is not unique and that there is no motivation for them to join it.

    i also think the site is ugly (yes i said it!) i think there are better ways of staying simple and looking good. As a nation we need to move away from such designs. ((Ooh you may babble saying craigslist made it big looking crappy, but a social network/website is like a bar or restaurant or a shopping mall, it has to be visually apealing))just look at facebook or googleplus and see the difference.(or sorry maybe you are unique in an ugly way lol).yes jomsocial is great but in this case u really need to REINVENT THE WHEEL, if u are to be unique, coz thats where it starts.PEOPLE START CODING!! i know some may say it does not make good busines sense, which may be be true if ure targeting a thousand people,but if u really want to make it to a million, you really need to invest some time into real programming.

    Yes Not_taxes you may attack kabweza and techzim saying its not unique either but seriously techzim is a news site or blog and there are thousands of popular news websites out there and i think i visit btwn 8 to 10 a day, on the contrary there are few social networking sites out there (less than 10) and i visit 1 facebook,

    My point here is that uniqueness and creativity is key in the success of a social network thats why thousands fail every month.

    webdev you have a great idea and i think you should keep  working on it.
    But you really need to rethink your objectives with sha, or at least make us see the same way as you

    i hope i am wrong and that one day months later we will be able to laugh off this comment, because every internet user in zim will be on sha!

    and to kabweza and the techzim team keep up the good work, and no to ass-kissing if its crap say it!

  • Sirius the Dogstar

    I think you have issues. go back to bed :P

  • slackie

    Well at least SHA’s getting a lot of publicity. Thank you all for that :) If we can just push it into the top 5 comments of all time that would be sooooopa !

  • http://www.techzim.co.zw L.S.M. Kabweza

    :)

  • D Esq

    Make sure you sort out cross browser compatibility issues and javascript problems on your reg forms, I could not signup, because the login form was interfering with the reg form.

  • Buffdaddy

    Not_taxes you are a muppet – because muppets lack depth and have someone else pulling the strings. ICT industry since 1995 – really doing what, selling cartridges? You have credentials, really?

    Let’s go back in history – the mid to late 90′s Jim Holland (Mango), the Nuersten brothers (Iafrica), Africa Online, Cyberplex, ID, Samara, David Behr. Those were the pioneers of many things internet in Zimbabwe. Were you involved in any of those or with those people?

    There is no rule that say criticism must be constructive. My comments were by way of advice but the idiot that you are, you interpreted that as a punt for a long dead site or a criticism. 

    If I really wanted to criticise sha.co.zw I would go on and comment on it’s cut an paste job on privacy and terms and conditions. 

    I would ask how they will dislodge newzimbabwe.com, eatout.co.zw and zimbojam.com as the premier players in their field in the Zim webspace. 

    I would ask what their business model is – any startup freely declares that. 

    I would ask them whether they know how many Zimbabweans are on the net and how many they expect to sign up on their site. 

    Et cetera, et cetera. 

    So climb back into your little web hole and play will joomla and all things that have been made for you by others and let the adults talk. 

  • Aaaaaa

    it seems to have issues with signing up thts true D Esq, the developers need to look into that

  • Aaaaaa

    I think Not_Taxes gets the point now,lol(the hard way i must say)

  • ngth

    I see a trend with the comments on TechZim, people seem to skim an article and then attack the developer as a copy cat.  This was most evident with the ZOL startup challenge and this sha article.  I would like to encourage the readers to at least look into the products before giving a knee jerk reaction.  One of the most obvious differences with sha is that everyone’s activity is public (unless a private message) this in my opinion is a huge difference to facebook and other social networks, it means the content posted is meant for public consumption it is meant to address a larger audience than your friends it is even more open than twitter where, while public, you only see people you look for rather than everyone.  Is this a winning strategy? I dont know but for a country as small as Zimbabwe I like the idea so lets wait and see.

    I am not saying do not criticize I personally am not the biggest fan of the name and the look, while distinctive and fits the webdev brand can be hard to pick out details.  But i would like to see more constructive criticism rather than immediate flogging without looking into the details.

    I hope sha works out, I see a use for it, but only if people use it to its potential, if they see another facebook it will fail, so it is up to webdev to get unique, public content on the site to attract people to the site.

    How about techzim contributing links and article stubs to the blogs and groups sections?  It could be a win win for traffic to both sites.  Anyone else I would encourage to contribute your content as well, at least for a month, lets see if there is merit in their approach.  These kinds of sites live and die on their content, similar to classifieds sites, webdev’s is the most successful because they attracted the users and advertisers not because it was orginal, prettier or more user friendly than the competition.

  • http://twitter.com/KuraiMGT KuraiMGT

    After reading all the vitriol being passed around, I had to visit sha.co.zw to see for myself. It looks a bit clumsy, too many things without a clear trump card and the feeling it gives is like you are in classifieds (they are sisters after all). But, not taking anything from them, they have put some on the table and obviously the are going to refine it according to feedback and their growing experience. Kudos Webdev.

  • Maston

    Well done to webdev for coming up with shaa.. half a loaf is better than nothing

  • http://www.facebook.com/marwa.mutemasango Marwa Trust Mutemasango

    Dude this is a waste of time and resources. these are high school or college projects for a company like webdev to release a social network site only tells me they have a child  at the top calling the shots. Companies should be thinking big and global and not wasting their time reinventing things there are over 1000 social network sites in the world all offering something different I cant see this becoming a success

  • http://www.facebook.com/marwa.mutemasango Marwa Trust Mutemasango

    I think its ugly what world are you from?

  • Developer

    @9aa7d99738af3d2dbe46be08306642a9:disqus i know KISS when i see it, visit mukela.com and zimcarsales.co.zw to see it. Not everyone has the same business model, so i wouldn’t waste my time and money building a social site. There is virtually no income from in the short term. Nothing. I can list for you the sites i hav created that are currently doing well.

    On another note, i believe criticising something doesn’t mean u can create something better than it. If BMW brings a bad model, should we keep quiet cse we can beat them? I dont think so…

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  • Anonymous

    Dude KISS AND PLAIN UGLY!!! THAT THING IS UUUUGGGGGLLLLLYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

    Simple!! There is no Kiss to anything here. Joomla template bloat and that what you call Kiss

    Kiss and Cheap bzzzzh Shoot me

  • Anonymous

    before you start designing and devloping something that a user should look at for long hours you dont even think of a Bright color.  Let alone the colour of the SUN!!

    Design is art and art comes from nature. Facebook devs didnt just wake up thinking blue looks cool, they obeyed the rules of UX and UI.

    Anyone can look at a blue sky for hours on end and feel relaxed, No one can look at a Orange piece fo newpaper and last for 10 minutes without being insane! :-)

    Its not about just going n the internet and pulling the free joomla extension and template buying a domain and claiming you have Facebook Shaaaaa amaihwe!

  • Anonymous

    users want networks with unique agendas and real value addition. “THATS WHAT THE WEB IS ALL ABOUT”

  • Anonymous

    loooool yah that drived the point right in.

  • Anonymous

    I have been developing systems in Zimbabwe for the Zimbabwean market for about 10 years now…”

    No need to read the rest of your post. Yes you are still in your 1st year of development coz yes in 2000 such a crappy site was acceptable!!!!!!!!!!! now go back to the caves

  • Anonymous

    Nothing is SASSY there. You talking what we now call nullShit

    Zim style ended when we stopped burning ZIM dollars this is the web and supporting such Ugly stuff makes me look even uglier . I will never support such ancient ideas. No no no

  • Anonymous

    Dude its null-shit to tell us of working in the industry since 1995 who cares. The web is today !!!!! and shally live even after you. If you stick to these ancient ideas of 1995 looking sites you will look dumb to some of us the kids on the web doing awsome looking stuff, call me Mr Web 3.0 ill simply call you ancient

  • Anonymous

    Dude you have too much time on your hands put to waste go start your own blog and we wont come at it :-D

    Dont shoot @kabweza:disqus  please he supports these guys in the first place and some of get the fun part of it. He simply writes things that shoot us in the foot and shoot not him but the creators :-) well enough I think thats what I do.

    Kudos to you Mr @kabweza and I have to say if you are going to write critic posts I wont at all even think of reading your posts. I only read things controversial enough to sound like null-shit and I shoot out in critic comments.

  • Anonymous

    Gues bad publicity is good. Ask Microsoft if their shares are going up

  • Anonymous

    Lol Mr K what else could you say. Down in your heart you know sha is null-shit

  • Anonymous

    You think they can do that ? when they are masters of copy and paste

  • Anonymous

    The developers or the Joomla modules they used you mean.

  • Anonymous

    But then is it a real eatable loaf or not

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