New tool reveals heart of SA internet

Cape Town - A locally developed tool can show you exactly what the beating heart of the South African internet landscape is like.

The tool, developed by the IAB and communications agency MetropolitanRepublic, aggregates the top news stories and tweets trending in SA and presents it as a beating heart.

"The platform ingests RSS feeds, categorises the content, fetches tweets for those categories, processes the content for sentiment and renders the output as a WebGL-based 3D heart," said Jonathan Banks, head of technology at MetropolitanRepublic.

The growth in internet penetration reflects a growing need for brands to visually see the stories being shared with a mobile, engaged audience.

Under politics for example, one of the top stories is the government response to xenophobic violence that has tarnished South Africa's reputation.

You can also zoom in to focus on specific content on the platform.

Check it out here.

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