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Now optimized for non-English language, low-bandwidth

October 23, 2009  »  UncategorizedNo Comment

After some moderate tweaking, oAfrica.com is now ready to better serve an abnormally diverse audience. Naturally, it seems that people in closer proximity to Africa have a greater interest in the developments of African networks. Over the past week the breakdown of visits by continent was as follows:

Continent % Visitors
Asia 38%
Africa 30%
Americas 21%
Europe 10%

Surprisingly, however, the language (as set in the browser) was predominantly (75%) English. In the hopes of providing a better viewing experience, three methods of language  translation are now available on this site (with the help of Google):

  1. Menu bar: Google Translation for the 12 most popular languages of visitors. Click a flag to see the entire page translated. All pages visited during the remainder of the session will be automatically translated by Google.
  2. Below every article: A ‘[Translate Article]’ link will appear following every post. Click and select one of dozens of languages to see the article in your language of choice. This option will not translate the entire page, and it will not translate posts on the index page. Use the menu bar option for that.
  3. Mobile/low-res version: French and Swahili translations are possible when in the mobile mode. More may be added in the future.

Even though very few visits came from mobile devices, and only 1% came via dial-up access, the mobile feature has been re-instated, in addition to the iPhone plug-in. The site will automatically detect when you view oAfrica.com from a mobile device and will serve up a text-only page. The mobile site (sized at only 29kb!)  is currently 18 times smaller than the desktop version and loads roughly four times faster. Click the link either below the logo or in the footer to alter between the two versions of the site.

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