After diligently keeping track of news stories relating to African ICT progress for a full year, it is time to reflect. But first, a disclaimer. News stories posted on this site tend to come from Google news and Twitter searches for “africa ict”, “africa internet”, and “africa broadband”. Country-specific queries are made from time to time, but some stories may pass unnoticed. Additionally, not all African media outlets have an online presence or are necessarily indexed by Google.

Regardless, each of the 176 news posts has a handful of associated tags. A quick .xml export, data scrub, filter, text-to-columns, and COUNTIF function later, 510 unique tags become visible. A few of these tags overlap, since the tagging process hasn’t been as careful as it could be, but some trends emerge. Especially interesting are graphs of the most frequently used tags, the share of news devoted to each African nation, and the prevalence of larger themes.

On a country-by-country basis there are a few apparent trends. However, we must remember that the number of news stories posted on this site is continent upon their online publishing at all. So, these stats are somewhat limited by the presence of online media in a given country:

• Most of the articles I posted throughout the year originated from the larger nations of South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.
• Despite boasting larger populations than Kenya, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan are missing from the higher ranks of the chart.
• 9 nations represent 76% of the news stories posted on oAfrica.
• More than 38% of stories came out of East Africa.
• Articles from Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Niger, Sudan, Togo, Western Sahara, and most island nations were not recorded.

News stories indexed by Google and shared via Twitter tended to focus most on big-ticket issues of:

• Broadband (general, Seacom, mobile, undersea cables)
• ICT investment (general, China, infrastructure)
• Cyber crime
• ICT education (general, e-learning, digital divide)

In an attempt to analyze trends at a later date, the posts typically use similarly worded tags. Accordingly, it is possible to get an idea of what topics were of interest to Africans over the past year:

• Broadband is essentially the most targeted subject, appearing in 59 out of 176 (33.5%) of news posts.
• Mobile articles appeared in over 20% of news posts.

What will the next 12 month bring? Most likely we will see articles focusing on these same terms. However, it would be refreshing to see the online news presence of smaller nations increase linearly with the number of Internet users.

[For reference, the raw data in table form can be searched and sorted]:

TAG	COUNT
News	175
south africa	85
nigeria	81
kenya	77
uganda	49
ghana	42
rwanda	33
Broadband	32
east africa	30
ict investment	21
tanzania	21
zambia	20
cyber-crime	16
e-learning	16
fiber optics	14
ICT education	14
seacom	11
zimbabwe	11
mobile broadband	9
wimax	9
liberia	8
china	7
eassy	7
google	7
infrastructure	7
microsoft	7
mobile internet	7
tunisia	7
west africa	7
cloud computing	6
fibre optics	6
india	6
malawi	6
namibia	6
digital divide	5
icann	5
ICT Policy	5
Mobile	5
rural ICT	5
safaricom	5
Sub-Saharan Africa	5
WiBro	5
burundi	5
egypt	5
ethiopia	5
sierra leone	5
africa tech	4
angola	4
broadband cost	4
mtn	4
senegal	4
social networking	4
ushahidi	4
vsat	4
african union	3
algeria	3
cameroon	3
domain names	3
facebook	3
guinea	3
ict growth	3
ict infrastructure	3
internet security	3
it skills	3
itu	3
ivory coast	3
main one	3
mauritius	3
morocco	3
mozambique	3
open source	3
social media	3
submarine cable	3
sustainability	3
undersea cable	3
wikipedia	3
4g	2
ace cable	2
adsl	2
africa ict news	2
africa technology	2
african internet news	2
backbone	2
bandwidth	2
botswana	2
broadband prices	2
burkina faso	2
cape town	2
central africa	2
children's safety	2
crisis mapping	2
cyber security	2
digital village	2
digital villages	2
drc	2
e-commerce	2
e-waste	2
farming	2
fiber optic	2
fiber optic cable	2
fibre optic	2
fibre optic cable	2
france	2
gabon	2
gambia	2
gender and ict	2
glo-1	2
google africa	2
government	2
ict budget	2
ict conference	2
ict development	2
ict prices	2
ict training	2
ict transparency	2
ict4d	2
intelsat	2
internet cost	2
internet growth	2
Internet penetration	2
israel	2
it training	2
korea	2
libya	2
local content	2
madagascar	2
mobile banking	2
mobile payment	2
ncc	2
Nepad	2
netbooks	2
north africa	2
onling gaming	2
satellite	2
satellite internet	2
science	2
SMEs	2
sms	2
software piracy	2
somalia	2
telecom investment	2
undersea cables	2
vodacom	2
vodafone	2
WACS	2
wireless internet	2
women and ict	2
youth and ict	2
youth and internet	2
zamtel	2
.eastafrica	1
2009 ict	1
2009 ict roundup	1
2010 predictions	1
3g	1
activists	1
adsl prices	1
afribiz	1
africa 3.0	1
africa broadband	1
africa electronic fraud	1
africa hard drives	1
africa ict	1
africa ict week	1
africa internet tourism	1
africa.com	1
africa.inx	1
africaconnect	1
african business	1
african facebook	1
african ict policy	1
african interconnect charges	1
african internet exchange	1
african investments	1
african isps	1
african newspapers	1
african population boom	1
african renaissance	1
african social networking	1
african software	1
africa's image	1
afrinic	1
agra	1
anthropology	1
appfrica	1
apps4africa	1
asia ict model	1
avu	1
bbc news	1
benin	1
blended adsl	1
bosco-uganda	1
bpo firms	1
broadband caps	1
broadband competition	1
broadband hub	1
broadband investment	1
broadband myths	1
broadband penetration	1
broadband pricing	1
cable landing	1
cape verde	1
carbon emissions	1
career expo	1
cck	1
cctlds	1
cellphone	1
cherrypal	1
children	1
chuch and technology	1
comesa	1
commercial ict	1
computer games	1
computer hardware	1
computer importation	1
computer studies kenya	1
computer village	1
crowdsourcing	1
cyber cafes	1
cyber crime africa	1
cybercrime	1
dar es salaam	1
dem rep of congo	1
democratic republic of congo	1
digital curriculum	1
digital dividend	1
digital revolution	1
digital sense forum	1
djibouti	1
domain registration	1
eabs	1
e-applications	1
ebooks	1
e-books	1
e-brain forum	1
e-business	1
economy	1
ecowas	1
eghana	1
e-government	1
elearning	1
empowerment	1
entrepreneurs	1
e-skills	1
ethioopia	1
etisalat	1
europe	1
european connectivity	1
facebook nigeria	1
failed ict projects	1
family planning	1
fiber optic cables	1
fiber optics training	1
fibre backbone	1
fibre cable	1
finland broadband	1
firefox	1
fixed broadband	1
foreign investment	1
francophone africa	1
freedom fone	1
funding	1
g8/g20 summit	1
gauteng school	1
gdp	1
gdp growth	1
glo	1
global ICT	1
gmail	1
goodluck jonathan	1
Google Earth	1
google flu	1
google maps	1
google sms	1
google swahili	1
google university	1
green energy	1
green future	1
green telecoms	1
health sector	1
hewlett packard	1
hewlett packard grant	1
home networking	1
hotspots	1
huawei	1
ibm	1
icow	1
ict	1
ict awards	1
ict backbone	1
ict benefits	1
ict bill	1
ict centres	1
ict diffusion	1
ict efficiency	1
ict entrepreneur	1
ict exam	1
ict exhibition	1
ict expectations	1
ict forum	1
ict gender	1
ict industry	1
ict job growth	1
ict language	1
ict magazine	1
ict mall	1
ict maturity model	1
ict ministry	1
ict opinion	1
ict outsourcing	1
ict regulation	1
ict schools	1
ict software	1
ICT spending	1
ict stakeholders	1
ict survey	1
ict sustainability	1
ict tools	1
ict waste	1
ihub	1
indian investment	1
in-flight internet	1
infodev	1
infostate	1
infraco	1
integr8	1
international calls	1
international funding	1
internet access	1
internet cafe	1
internet cafes	1
internet capacity	1
internet crime	1
internet dating	1
internet exchange points	1
internet fraud	1
internet literacy	1
internet outage	1
internet privacy	1
internet providers	1
internet speed	1
internet writers	1
interview	1
investment	1
ip backbone	1
ip development	1
iphone	1
iphone 4 africa	1
ipv4	1
ipv6	1
it donation	1
it drive	1
it education	1
it opportunities	1
it outsourcing	1
it spending	1
itu report	1
itu statistics	1
IXP	1
IXPs	1
japan	1
kano ict park	1
kaspersky africa	1
kayak.com	1
kenet	1
kenyan google searches	1
kenyan outsourcing	1
kenyan software	1
kenyan tech	1
kie	1
kigali	1
kigali city	1
lagos	1
laptops	1
lca africa	1
lesotho	1
libraries	1
linkbook	1
linux	1
lion	1
lion cable	1
lion2	1
live stream	1
london internet exchange	1
madonna malawi	1
mAfrica	1
makerere university	1
mali	1
marketing	1
m-commerce	1
media explosion	1
m-health	1
microsoft and nigeria	1
microsoft office	1
microsoft office africa	1
millennium village	1
mobile applications	1
mobile apps	1
mobile health	1
mobile market	1
mobile phone skills	1
mobile roaming	1
mobile security	1
mobile south africa	1
mobile telecom	1
mobile web	1
mpesa	1
m-pesa	1
nairobi tech	1
nethope	1
network outage	1
nigerian stimulus fund	1
nigerian university	1
nokia	1
nyanda	1
olpc	1
online auctions	1
online education	1
online photos	1
online security	1
online shopping	1
open source africa	1
outsourcing	1
p2p caching	1
pan-african network	1
peace corps	1
physically challenged ict	1
PIDA	1
pilot pasha centres	1
power production	1
price war	1
price wars	1
printing industry	1
reading culture	1
regional carriers	1
regional tld	1
republic of congo	1
rural internet	1
rural kiosks	1
rwandan national dialogue	1
sa broadband	1
samsung	1
sandton exhibition	1
sasatel	1
sat-3	1
satellite broadband	1
scam emails	1
schools	1
sentech	1
siera leone	1
silicon valley	1
skype	1
small enterprise	1
smart mobile phones	1
sms costs	1
social sites	1
software developers kenya	1
software exchange	1
solar cafe	1
solar power	1
south african websites	1
south korea	1
southern africa	1
swaziland	1
tanzania facebook	1
teams cable	1
tech jobs	1
technology for development	1
techpreneurship	1
telecom competition	1
telecom growth	1
telecom industry	1
telecom reach	1
telecoms	1
telecoms licensing	1
telkom	1
tenet	1
tld	1
tld registry	1
transparency	1
twitter	1
u.s. investment	1
ucc	1
un report	1
under-served communities	1
unesco	1
universal access	1
uspf	1
vision 2020	1
VoIP	1
wananchi	1
web 2.0	1
web browsers	1
web colonialism	1
wedding site	1
west africa internet governance forum	1
wifi	1
wireless africa	1
wireless network	1
women ict	1
women's rights	1
world bank	1
world bank books	1
world cup 2010 ict	1
world economic forum	1
world wide web foundation	1
youtube	1
zain	1
zesco	1
zinox	1