A while back, we had written that Zuqka was in terrible trouble. Zuqka is a portal site for weekend entertainment around Nairobi, but with a social networking component as well as video, audio and blogs. Sadly, even though it was backed by the powerful Daily Nation, Zuqka had been infested by spammers who had turned it into a lonely spam farm.
The good news – depending on how you look at it – is that Zuqka was shut down recently. Here’s the message you get when you visit www.zuqka.com:
Hi everyone,
We are looking forward to the new zuqka.com coming soon. But this does not mean the good times are over. Our e-mag is still available here: E-Mag and it will be available while we prepare the new zuqka.com for you.
Hope we keep seeing you here.
Zuqka Team
Normally, when one wants to upgrade a web service, they prepare the ‘new version’ and then switch over to it over a night or a weekend; or sometimes they run both old and new as users switch to the new. When the old version is shut down completely and users are made to wait for the new, then you know something went horribly wrong. In this case, the ‘old zuqka’ simply died a horrible spam death. That’s why it had to be shut down and taken offline completely.
Spammers 1 Zuqka 0
Let’s hope Zuqka comes back stronger than before.
LOL
They made a big mistake trying to do user-generated content without the necessary dedication. UGC needs 24-hour surveillance of user behaviour to monitor usage trends, offensive content, and most of all, SPAM. Once you neglect a UGC site, it either degenerates into a flame war a la mashada, a porn site a la KenyanList/eastafricantube, or a SPAM farm a la Zuqka.
Nicely put! 🙂
Zuqka.com is back. Check it out, and let us know what you think