Is South Africa falling off the planet?

Is South Africa falling off the planet?

This might sound like a strange thing to say. But I've been going through business directories making sure my business is listed, and listing it where it isn't, where possible. And most of these sites ask you to state the country you're from.

And fairly often, I've found that it gives as options countries like America, Britain, France, Australia. And no South Africa.

I'm never sure what to do in this case. Often it also asks you for your postal code. I don't have an alternate address in another country. If I did, I'd probably live at it.

Luckily, my services are global and I can usually 'fool' the site into thinking I'm in the States. Sometimes not, sometimes it's too clever for me. And it's supposed to be a global directory. And this line of action is more problematic when you're trying to sell a product which is specifically relevant to our own country. So.. what does one do? I'm not really a patient person and I'm not very interested in writing to people to ask them to include SA, on the off chance that they may reply and may be able to include me. Probably it's some software they themselves have picked up and they don't have much say over it.

It's made me wonder why South Africa isn't included. What's the criteria of these lists? That they are first world countries? That the economy of the place performs to a certain standard? In any case, more and more often, I'm finding we're not there - and it makes me think we're falling off the planet.