2024, Streamlining and My Semi-Retirement from Content Writing
I started blogging about technology sometime in 2007 when I was university. I was a Microsoft fanboy so naturally I wrote about Microsoft products including Windows, the Xbox and the Zune (yes, I loved that device).
Eventually I wrote more about other products and companies in the tech universe.
Fast forward and we’re closer to 2024.
I took a small break from writing from 2012 to 2014 when I started my business career after college. But I started writing again in 2015 and even launched a new site called Tech Nova to cover tech in Ghana and Africa.
I’ve been doing a lot of writing over the years. If we’re really counting, I’ve been writing about tech for 10+ years.
Lots of things have changed. Instagram, social media and TikTok have changed the way people consume stuff especially tech news.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the biggest thing ever with the ability to write full length articles (as long as it’s not made up)
I wanted to hang up on writing sometime in 2020 but I kept writing. But the writing is definitely on the wall and I think I’m ready to focus on something else.
2023 Overview
The biggest change this year was definitely rebranding from Tech Nova to Tech Labari. When I started the website, I wanted to focus just on Ghana. But overtime, the ecosystems in other African countries was also upgrading so it just made sense to pay attention to them.
With Tech Labari, it was a big push to explore the entire African tech ecosystem.
In addition to content, we also wanted to start working on video and data.
We stepped up by working on uploading videos on our YouTube platform. We’ve started with some explainer videos, but we soon hope to do more videos on other stuff in the future.
We’re just at the surface with our data. Here’s an example of some of the data insights we’re working on:
In terms of numbers and traffic, we actually managed to increase our visitor traffic this year compared to last year.
So, what’s the long-term play?
Everything looks a bit murky. Media is a hard business. Your revenue is more likely coming from online ads or branded content. Subscriptions is a hard sell, especially in the African context.
But we are looking at hosting offline/online events next year.
So with all the energy being pushed in that area, content writing is not as important.
Content is still crucial but when it comes to revenue and traffic, videos and data insights are more likely to drive us to better numbers in 2024.
Just to be very honest, it’s very likely that if I get a big gig, I will ultimately decide to retire from content writing once and for all.
But let’s see how 2024 will go.
