Webdev’s SHA social network down. May come back renewed

L.S.M Kabweza

30 October 2013

Remember SHA the social network? Well it was one of Webdev’s attempt (and one of the many attempts by local startups) at building a social network for Zimbabweans. A more local Facebook if you want. Well, it’s down. The site right now shows an “Under Maintenance” banner. We initially took that to mean they had killed the service, but was later told by the Webdev MD, Garth Drummond, that they’re rebuilding the site for a comeback.

“We are re-deving it with more content and better functionality,” he said in a conversation we had with him today. The site has been down for a number of weeks at least. Based on the Jomsocial Joomla extension for social networks, the site was launched almost 2 years ago to provide more localised social network. The site faced uptake issues only managing, according to WayBackMachine, only about 2,800 members in the two years.

One of the main causes of the uptake problems may have been the fact that current dominant social networks like Facebook and Twitter, are actually full of local content (local content on a foreign platform) so the problem case was probably not strong enough.

Unfortunately, Webdev switched the site off without any warning to members. At least I know I didn’t receive any. Would have helped so that those of us that contributed content would choose what to do with it before the site went down.

Webdev is one of the few companies locally to score some successes online particularly with the classifieds.co.zw website which is the biggest online classifieds service in the country. The company also provides web development services and is one of the biggest firms in that business locally.

Connectivity, Startups

Xiaomi Redmi 13C (128GB, 4GB)

$120
Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G (256GB, 8GB)

$340
Samsung Galaxy A15 (128GB, 4GB RAM)

$165
Samsung Galaxy A05s (128GB, 4GB RAM)

$130

Browse more phones

6 comments

Pindile Mhandu

31 October 2013 18:27

2800 is a lot in zim statistics. lets see what happens now.
Econet introduces more free websites: our take | Techzim

12 November 2013 12:47

[…] in the package. Whilst it’s great that Econet is finally promoting a local website, this site is sadly no longer up as it was recently suspended by Webdev. It would make sense to provide free access to a site like classifieds.co.zw instead. This puts the […]
Tawanda Gorondondo

19 September 2014 01:37

It’s sad to see sha going down but I think our social and business networking for Zimbabwe, growing steadily even before being aggressively promoted, is the solution that Zimbabwe was waiting for: http://www.zimbay.co.zw
Will Wangu takeoff as Zimbabwe's Facebook or its own social network? – Techzim

6 February 2015 18:02

[…] the social media terrain has seen its fair share of attempts, and some, whether successful or not, have been more spirited and organised than others (who remembers SHA). Even last year’s ZOL […]
Will Wangu takeoff as Zimbabwe’s Facebook or its own social network? – Young Zimbabwe

10 February 2015 09:10

[…] the social media terrain has seen its fair share of attempts, and some, whether successful or not, have been more spirited and organised than others (who remembers SHA). Even last year’s ZOL […]
Will Wangu takeoff as Zimbabwe's Facebook or its own social network? – TechzimTechzim

1 November 2015 09:39

[…] the social media terrain has seen its fair share of attempts, and some, whether successful or not, have been more spirited and organised than others (who remembers SHA). Even last year’s ZOL […]

Home