We are proud to introduce the Afrinnovator News feature. For any one who remembers what Afrinnovator.com looked like before we revamped it at the beginning of this year, you’ll know that we basically had a map showing African startups, hence ‘Putting Africa on the Map’. We’ve longed to put up some ‘mappy’ feature since the beginning of the year and finally we are introducing Afinnovator News or AfrinNews.

Basically, we’re aggregating selected, top notch news and information sources from all over the continent into one place where you can come and keep up with what’s going on and where the latest action is at. We then present these ‘news’ item in easy to consume ways (including maps!). Let’s take a quick tour of afrinnovator.com/news

First off, you can access the news page from the home page simply by clicking on the ‘news’ link on the top bar. This will open a new tab/window on your browser. The initial screen is a bit like a dashboard:

• The top right bar is like your ‘command center’. You can use the options there to change the viewing mode etc
• On your left you have a list of ‘feeds’. Feeds are basically sites we are aggregating
• In the middle you have your reading area
• The right side shows different kinds of information including statistics and the like

The Command Panel

There are three viewing options:

1. Page view (default): Gives you a list of articles with fairly long teasers.
2. List view: Gives you a list of articles with short teasers. This view allows you to see less detail at a glance but then you have many more articles displayed per page
3. Map view: This is a cool map overlay showing where articles are coming from

The map overlay is pretty cool. When you click on a shaded area it pops up a little panel with a list of articles that are related somehow to that region.

From the command panel you can also get an RSS feed of whatever section (feed or channel) you are looking at and also get a printable version of the articles in that section.

Channels

Channels are basically collections of articles from multiple feeds. They are like ‘topics’. In other words it’s articles that have been placed under a common heading. For example with channels you can view articles about startups or mobile or general tech news etc. Each channel page also has a map overlay on the bottom right of stories in that channel.

Sharing

Of course, what is the use of online content today if you can’t share it? The news site supports sharing to Facebook, Twitter and Email. Each article has a little green ‘+’  icon next to it which allows you to share:

Feel free to send us feed back on this new feature! We’ll be working more on it especially in terms of design and ensuring you get the best content about African startups, tech, events and more from Africa.