Howzit MSN, one of the largest websites in SA, thanks in part to its status as the default landing page for users of Microsoft’s Windows Internet Explorer browser, has launched a new, dedicated channel for consumers in English markets in Africa. The channel is published by SA’s Kagiso Media under licence from Microsoft.

Kagiso says the move comes in response to growing demand from African Internet users for locally relevant content and from advertisers for advertising inventory that reaches a pan-African market.

The new portal is aimed at all major English-speaking countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Microsoft is redirecting African traffic from its global MSN site to the Howzit MSN African channel.

The African site offers local content covering business, news, travel, lifestyle and consumer technology. The site also offers aggregated content from news wires.

The Africa channel is expected to complement the Windows Live advertising inventory that the Howzit MSN brand offers across 49 markets in Africa.

Howzit MSN GM Marcus Stephens says Nigeria alone offers a potential market of 43m people, or nearly as many people as the entire SA population and up from only 200 000 Internet users in 2000. “Other key markets, such as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Ghana are also all gathering a critical mass of millions of Web users,” he says.

MSN rival Yahoo recently launched its first SA-specific page while Google provides country-specific news websites and other online services for a range of markets across the continent. — Staff reporter, TechCentral