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March 8 1999 |  |
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Top of the pops A music site that's as solid as South African rock
URL: http://members.xoom.com/samusicd/
Together with buddie Warren Rohner, this enterprising, self-taught webmonkey also used his high school days to start a company called Orbit Webdesign. "I designed the SAMD website to give our company some exposure and to let our potential clients see what we were capable of doing. Our company never took off and so I just continued the site by myself because I felt there wasn't much on the net at the time relating to SA music and it was only just starting to take off in a big way." Today the comprehensive database, which started out in 1997, stands as a non-profit venture in support of the music industry. Du Toit captains his own baby, remaining as webmaster. He maintains the site as a labour of love, collecting and coding all the information himself. The SAMD has recently been relaunched with a spanking new design and additional features -making this site one of the most solid around. A busy "scrawl wall" attests to the popularity of the free-access database - which is stocked with an alphabetical list of musicians and bands, labels and contact info - and is complemented by album reviews (six albums are reviewed per month), a classified section, free downloads and a comprehensive list of rated South African music links. Although visitors are able to nominate contenders and then vote for their own Top 10 charts, this system appears to be the least patronised aspect of the site. A selection of local radio charts might prove more useful. And a gig guide certainly wouldn't do any harm. Du Toit's future missions on the sonic frontier include a notice board and a full South African album review database. The SAMD has a slick, trendy interface, efficient navigation and is quick to download. Despite the recent rush of all-encompassing local music hubs cluttering up the Internet heavens, this ship remains one of the best in the fleet. Beam me up, any time.
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Double data: The home page
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he internet is kid's stuff, right? Just ask 19-year-old super-geek
Damien du Toit, who was still in his school uniform when he trekked
into cyberspace and conceived, designed and launched one of South
Africa's premier music hubs. The stuff that Microsoft myths are made
of...
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