Jobs of the future are hard to predict. ...

Jobs of the future are hard to predict.

What will we all be doing in 5 years? Who can tell.I studied to be a journalist. No, I studied to be a print journalist. And now I work in and around mobile social networking strategy and development.Let's just quickly repeat that: Mobile social networking strategy and development. I am almost 100% certain that when I started studying at Rhodes University in 2003 that my current job didn't even exist.There is one job in particular that is going to need a lot more focus in the coming years:New media sales and advertising.The reason that I think this job is becoming increasingly important and increasingly neglected is because there is a marked lack of skilled and experienced people to fill this position.

What does this position entail?

Sales and advertising has traditionally (back in the old days) been about selling and advertising products. Getting people to buy in to your product or getting advertisers to place an advert in to your publication, on to your store walls or on your car and so on.Sales and advertising is becoming a much more complicated and intricate art. You cannot just sell banners, text links, full page adverts, splash screens, in-video sponsorships or product placements. Social networks and new media businesses need to have a salesperson who understands every aspect of the business. This person needs to be able to cross sell, integrate campaigns, work on new media, old media and media that might not exist yet.

What does this person need to succeed?

This person needs to understand CPC, CPA, CPM, CPSA and how to make these models work. This person needs to not only know what CRM stands for but what it actually is and how to make it relevant to the client.This person needs to know who the client is or should be and how that clients business or latest campaign fits in to the business of a new media business.Sales is shifting as fast as media is shifting and technology is growing and developing. The trick here is that technology, websites, mobile content and advancements can push forward as fast as they like but if there is no team able to monetize the products, there may as well not even be a product.It's time start thinking about integrated salespeople, sales teams, sales in relation to your core business and if sales actually might be your companies core business.

Is mobile, hyper-local, location-based n...

Is mobile, hyper-local, location-based news content the way to save mainstream media in the USA?I think it might be. I have been watching closely over the past few months as newspaper after newspaper has fallen away in the US. It's a very scary and very sad situation that American media finds itself in. Resistance to change over the past few years has positioned many papers in a dire situation where it's a matter of shit or get off the pot. And many are shitting themselves.Boston Globe is a one example that I have been watching withe extreme interest. Boston.com is a great resource that has not been used effectively enough to pull Boston Globe out of financial trouble.The resistance to change coupled with a severe drop in advertising and circulation (with thanks to a recession and online media emerging as a force in the media industry) has left the Boston Globe almost crippled. Many people are set to lose jobs and Boston, the city, is set to lose it's competitive media market. If Boston Globe closes down the city of Boston will be left with a single daily newspaper. This defeats the purpose of mainstream media acting as a democratic watchdog or fourth estate. With one media organisation remaining things are not looking good.Enter hyper-local, location-based news content fed to mobile phones produced by hyper-local citizen media producers who put content up via cellphones on to hyper-local portals.This is what Martin Langeveld of Nieman Journalism Lab had to say on the topic of Boston Globe:

Langeveld's advice is to go (almost) online-only with Boston.com, and to launch or subsidise a network of hyperlocal sites all over the area, and launch a network of local niche verticals focussed on weather, traffic, jobs, entertainment, education and more. He proposes a tiered, variable pricing model for all, with most of the content free, but paid premium access for a "small but highly-engaged group." This income could be supplemented with transactional revenue, through selling theatre tickets, for example, or facilitating restaurant reservations.

This model could also expose the Globe's city-wide reach to a hyper-local market of advertisers (a longer tail than they would previously had access to). This coupled with a free/premium hybrid mode and the paper could be on its way back up.Regarding the print side of things it's a simple mechanic to alleviate some immediate strain: Make the paper a weekly and include the news created over the week from the hyper-local portals and citizens media. Pull city-wide, larger advertisers in to this weekly printed publication to subsidise the cost of the print and drop the price to allow for quantity to be sold and to make the paper appear to be more accessible to the everyday person in the street.There is no quick-fix for papers such as the Boston Globe, that is certain. But it is imperative that these papers start to adapt or simply succumb to a swift death.

Qik is just that, a quick way to stream live video

I am incredibly impressed with Qik and the service it offers.Basically it's a live mobile streaming service. You download the software to your phone. Open up the application and click "Stream". The video is then recorded and streamed live to your Qik profile.Find me at qik.com/nicharry

The Onion writes off Sony as an advertiser forever

With this simple video, funny as hell, The Onion (unless they've planned this whole thing) have taken it to Sony, hard.This really does illustrate the independence of an online brand. Sharply contrasting how beholden old-media is to their advertisers. I love this sort of campaign, I love the brashness of it and I love that they had the balls to put it out there.

Honesty is the best business policy when selling online

Honesty in business, sales, marketing and advertising is by no means a fresh new concept. Yet it is fast becoming an integral one in the world that we inhabit.There are many posts that discuss transparency online in a personal sense. Don't lie, cheat, steal, defraud or do anything that might dent your reputation online. But I am referring more to the concept of honesty when selling online to the less knowledgeable.This has become an absolutely imperative part of selling and talking about online with people. Many companies and agencies are interested and intrigued by online at the moment because it is the direction in which the world is moving. But there are dangers.The main danger that I have come across is the overselling of the potential of online right now. Many companies almost have their finger on the pulse of things. But this means that they know of Facebook, Youtube and other sites that they can use in a social arena to promote their products. Yet many of them think that the viral nature of the social web world wide applies directly to South Africa. It doesn't. Viral in SA probably means, if you're lucky, a few thousand views of a video and a couple of blog posts. In the Western world viral translates to a few million views of a video and a few hundred thousand links to or embeds of a video. Those are the cold hard facts and expectations should be readjusted accordingly.Unfortunately the "people in the know" often oversell the potential of social media in South Africa to get the hype up and the profit margins higher. This is bad. This sort of selling is doing detrimental damage to the truth and success of the market in SA. This sort of selling makes it very difficult to create a consistent and successful stream of clients, revenue and business in the online industry. People are being burned and are staying away from spending money online because of misleading sales and delivery pitches. Return of investment (ROI) is being oversold and underdeliverd. Again, this is bad.Honesty is key. Clients need to know the truth and still want to go forward with a campaign and experiment, play in the space and engage with one or two hundred people in stead of hoping to gain one or two million. It wont happen so don't sell it that way.

The next killer app wont be a killer app at all

Every year around this time there is a buzz. It's a very strange buzz that arises and expands beyond industry, colour, creed, or any other classification you can think of. January/February is a very special time for me. It's a time where people think things through, imagine things, create and define things. It's a time when predictions are made or attempted and a time when everyone seems to be looking for the next big thing.So what is the next big thing? What is going to make you famous? What will be the next Facebook or Google or fraction of these giants?I have been hearing um's and ah's of the next "Killer App" or killer application. This phrase is taking a few different forms. Some more literal than others.Andy Hadfield, on his blog, asked if Twitter is going mainstream. I knew what he meant but wanted to push the conversation to a different direction. I wanted to know what defines mainstream in South Africa since many of the online guru's in SA think that the next Killer App is literally that, a single killer application that will launch a career, make a million or few and destroy the opposition.This, as far as I can see, is an online impossibility right now. In fact, I think that it's almost an impossibility for the next few years if you are talking strictly about fixed line internet. Even the coming Internet/broadband/fiber-optic revolution is going to take a while to penetrate the masses and therefore no online killer app in South Africa alone is going to be anything close to a killer app. It just wont.Here's a quick quote from my comment on Andy's post:

I would be more inclined to argue that our precise problem here in SA is that we think a couple of thousand people makes something mainstream. The bare fact of the matter is that it needs to be a tool that is mainly used to be called mainstream (in my opinion only). Thus we could almost call facebook mainstream and be justified in that branding.We could call Mxit mainstream and I would argue that Mxit trumps what twitter is trying to do.So instead of us trying to push twitter in to the mainstream we should be looking at the ways the the majority of South Africans communicate (cellphones perhaps) and custom build a twitter-like solution that isn't going to cost a bomb and provide the same functionality. Or would we call that Mxit or The Grid?I think we need to think bigger, take products to market and then make them mainstream instead of trying to manipulate the word mainstream to suit our needs.Simply branding something mainstream because the word was featured on the cover of a magazine with maybe 30 000 circulation cannot make something mainstream.evl - "The prevailing current of thought, influence, or activity" - can you honestly say to me that twitter is a prevailing current of thought in the South African population, no, the South African ONLINE population. Even if we get the number of twitter users up to 10 000 South Africans that's still probably between 3%-5% of all South Africans online on fixed internet using twitter. that's not mainstream. that's irrelevant.

There are three ways that I think Vincent will begin to see more local millionaires.

The first

is hyper-local content. That is what I think the next "Killer App" is. Hyper local is where it's at when you combine it with the massive cellphone penetration in this country. An application like twitter is one that can be exceptionally successful in South Africa and reach mainstream status but while it is an online-centric application or service it is going to stay on the fringe in South Africa. We need to make hyper-local content contextual, relevant and easy to access. As far as I can see or believe in SA right now the contextualising of hyper-local and simplified content is going to be the winner.

The second

is a combination of things. The first entity is Africa. It's one of the few untouched, untapped media markets. The second entity is mobile technology. The combination is a mashup of hyper-local, mobilised, African-centric content. I think that this, moving forward, could potentially be the combination of things that take South Africans in to the next realm of success (or the first depending on where you sit).

The third

is foresight. This is something that copyblogger has blogged about recently. We cannot beat those who entered this market first at their own game, especially not from where we sit.From the Copyblog post:

The truth is, some models that worked a few years ago for early adopters are difficult if not impossible for new players to successfully get going today.The key to avoiding this frustration is to see where things are going and become an early-adopter in the next big wave of the commercial Internet. Of course, even if you’re already doing well, it never hurts to take a look forward, right?

We need to sit where we sit, contextualise our problems, learn about our opposition and where the market is moving and make the first move. If we don't make the first move we are going to be behind the early adopters again and have to wait man more years to have another chance to become the early adopters.I am interested to know what others out there think the next Killer App will be, whether it is literally going to be a single application, a concept, a mindset, a minsdhift, a community or a project. Where's the money at and is it actually about the money?

Online Salaries in 2009

I just received the Bizcom newsletter. In it there was a very interesting salary survery. I downloaded it, opened it up and scrolled slowly down to the online survey results.Here they are - click to enlarge.So where to you stack up? Where do you fit in? You can download the full document by clicking here.It's interesting for me to note that the "heavyweight" jobs aren't even surveyed for anything less than 5 years experience. I completely agree with this method of sorting as I think there are too many overpaid, under-delivering "guru's" in the online market.

Defining 08/09 - analysing the year past and the year ahead

It's fast moving towards the final day of 2008. What a year it has been. I usually (much like many bloggers) put together an end-of-year post that sums up a few things and pulls together events all nicely. I am going to be composing one of those articles but this isn't it.This post is a collection of answers from some of the top people, movers and shakers and industry leaders in the online market. I asked them two questions:

1. What was the single most defining moment in the South African online industry in 2008?

And

2. If you were to make one prediction for 2009 what would it be? And don't tell me that mobile is the next big thing!

So let's dive straight in to the answers:Fred Roed, CEO of digital marketing agency, World Wide Creative.1. Barack Obama winning the election. This meant that digital agencies such as World Wide Creative could justify their presentations demo-ing how messages are accelerated online. We could say ‘See! Look how he did it!’2. Hype around Mobile and Social Media will be removed from the industry, meaning that digital will go mainstream. Following the international norm, marketing agencies will increasingly use online as the major destination point for all the other channels to feed into.Vincent Maher, Portfolio Manager for Social Networking at Vodacom SA1. For me the defining aspect of the whole year is that there didn't seem to be a defining moment. There we a few things that happened but none of them were defining in the classic sense. In many ways this is a sign of maturity in the industry and an indication of resilience to smaller influences.2. The breadth and reach of social networking is going to increase through services like Google FriendConnect and Facebook Connect and this will also reveal several vulnerabilities in the form of viruses and spam across these networks. Location-based services are going to become more accessible on the API level for developers to incorporate and, importantly, the global financial meltdown is going to cull a lot of the flimsy Web 2 operations and make the industry a little more intersting.Andy Hadfield, The Internet & Social Media Guy, FNB1. The credit crisis. The credit crisis is probably going to precipitate Bubble 2.0 - which is excellent news. Unlike last time, there have been precious few IPO's, which means while many web startups may go down - they won't take public shareholders with them. And any bubble burst presents a great opportunity for web companies that offer REAL value to rise to the fore. Oh, and Twitter. But it seems 3 million really active users still counts for value in someone's book :)2. The battle to own the social profile will increase. FaceBook vs MySpace vs Google Friend Connect vs Et Al are going to muddy the waters for the first 6 - 8 months of the year. Hopefully, coming out of that will be value driven profiling services which allow you to centrally store your social profile, pick it up whenever you want and hop all over the web. Let's face it: storing a picture, bio and web links is not a value driven social profile. These companies are going to have push the boundaries a little to force consumers to make a call on where their social data and social networking time investment will sit...Heather Ford - Web social entrepreneur1. Quality Vacation Club suing blogger Donn Edwards(http://donnedwards.openaccess.co.za/) for defamation. I think it'simportant because, while the same comments have come from themainstream media, QVC has chosen to sue the blogger. It will beinteresting to see how this turns out - at the crux, I think, iswhether 'fair comment' on a blog is being seen by South African courtsas equal in importance to 'fair comment'.2. My prediction is that we're going to see greater diversity in theSouth African blogging community next year - people linking to thoseoutside of their social circles, invitations to bloggers' socialgatherings like the 27 dinner, and more training and connections(here's hoping!)Duncan McLeod, technology editor, Financial Mail, and editor of www.FMTech.co.za1. Definitely Altech's victory against communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri which now allows just about anyone to build a communications network in competition with incumbent operators such as Telkom, Neotel and the mobile phone providers.2. Bandwidth caps will soar -- people will get at least triple the bandwidth for the same price -- as Seacom comes online. This will lead to strong growth in online business in SA in 2009.Charl Norman is the co founder and chief operations manager (COO) for Blueworld Communities. BWCOM owns numerous niche social networks based in South Africa.1. Blueworld Communities (www.bwcom.co.za) being acquired by Naspers - this paved the way for other acquisitions in our local space - Zoopy and Afrigator soon followed with investment from Vodacom and MIH/Naspers. This created investor confidence in our small local market and enabled other startups to more confidently seek investment.2. The economic crisis will slow down venture capital investments and startups unable to figure out their revenue model will have their funding reviewed or forced to merge with other similar lower tier startups.Users will own their online identity (e.g. profiles) with tools like Google and Facebook connect. Users will carry this identity along with them around the web forcing online communities like social networks to embrace data portability technology.Social media will also become more mainstream as tools like Twitter will be adopted by the general public and not just geeks. Good companies will have concrete social media strategies as part of their overall marketing strategy.Catherine Luchoff is joint partner and founding member of MANGO-OMC1. There isn't one particular moment I can single out as the defining moment of 2008. Rather, I consider 2008 to be a defining year: One in which social media, crowd sourcing and micro-blogging found their footing and laid the foundation for converged campaigns that will, and have, defined the way we communicate and consume information.2. With filter failure on the rise and information overload rife, community manager positions and descriptions such as 'trusted filter' will become more prominent. 2009 will also be the year in which the foundation for a holistic measurement tool, one that takes all channels into account (online, offline and mobile), will be defined.Interesting stuff. Hopefully those who didn't get to the questions will be able to post their responses in the comments of this post. I sent the email out to ±25 people for their comment.

Where to shop online in SA this holiday season

Sarah from Babazeka recently got in touch with me and presented me with a sterling idea that we've now been running on SA Rocks.Considering it is the time of the year for Hallmark holidays, spending, red and silver shiny things we thought it would be a great idea to show people where they can shop online in SA.There have been three posts so far. Get over to SA Rocks and have a read:Shopping with Faithful to NatureShopping with The WrenShopping with JezzeIf you have suggestions for real local online gems that supply truly local and lekker content please contact me. For now, get shopping, get reading, vist and support the local sites.

Holiday shopping - What I'm going to do

I am going to buy all my holiday gifts online.I will only shop from local online stores/products.I will keep the price per gift under R120.Those are my holiday shopping assurances.

Did Viral Marketing start with god?

The phrase "Viral Marketing" has become quite the buzz word of late. But I personally don't buy it. It might be fashionable and working for now but it most definitely isn't anything new. Even Wikipedia's definition refers to the use of existing social networks. Pah, as if the web can claim this form marketing.

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.[1] Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.[2] Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. The basic form of viral marketing is not infinitely sustainable.

The Hypothesis

I'm going to dive right in to my hypothesis. I think that if you go as far back as the birth of christianity you will find viral marketing. Maybe it appeared in different forms (godly or other) but it was present even then.Jesus was a man of old, but his story spread throughout the land back in the day. How? Very simply. He did something amazing, incredible, unbelievable even and word spread. He basically created his own viral video without the video. He did something that no one had done before or seen before and the word spread like wildfire. He created his own version of the Rayban, Evolution of Dance, Avril or Dead Terrorist Youtube video and then the public did the rest.

The Scale

Yes the scale of the word spreading might have been significantly less than the 2 Billion people worldwide who are online today but the principal was the same. Humans like to be astounded. On top of that human beings like to socialise, be the first, follow the group and participate in communities and all of this applied then as much as it did now.

The Message

What was being spoken of, spread around and "preached" back then is significantly different to the content that has become viral nowadays. Christianity and other religions spoke of a life-changing concept that was the word, a god, a set of laws, rules, beliefs and ideas that intended to change people and their way of life.Today content is funny, clever, different, advertising, movies, music videos and clever tricks that fascinate people and keep them occupied for just long enough to want to send on the video, blog post, article, website or concept to their friends and their friends and their friends. Yet again, the basic concept remains the same. I like it, I like to participate with people in what I like and thus I will send it on so I can discuss it with them, debate it with them and enjoy it with them. God, The Bible, a video, blogger or mp3, anything can go viral and has been going viral for centuries.

The crusades

The great era of the crusades which were so quickly forgotten by many people today is not necessarily an example of anything viral. It is an example of aggressively marketing a concept to a market that is possibly unwilling or isn't aware that they like the idea just yet. That is, until you shove it down their throats with a blade.Much like today's corporations. If you don't use Google you probably aren't getting the best results. However there are people who use ask.com, yahoo.com, cuil.com (are there people using Cuil?) or any slew of other options. Just as there were people believing in Allah or any number of other gods or demi-gods. If you aren't using Google however it is hard to get away from them, their spokespeople, their marketing - however subversive it may be - or their word of mouth presence. You will succumb to the Google Crusade if you haven't already.An estimated 2.1 billion christians exist in the world today. That is around and about 1/3 of the worlds population. Wouldn't you say that is the greatest viral campaign of all time? I would.

Preaching, Indoctrination, Propaganda and Sheep

Let's be frank about this, we are all sheep of one kind or another. The christian, muslim, hindu, agnostic, atheist, google, mozilla, microsoft, opensource, closed source or any other source out there. We all subscribe to opinions, likes, dislikes and beliefs. It is thanks to this wonder of humanity that viral marketing is and always will be the most phenomenal way to market a product or concept. People like to below, to prescribe and subscribe to something.Coca-Cola, Nike, Google, Apple, Honda, Toyota, Pepsi and Microsoft are all some of the most recognisable brands in the world because there are people sharing the brands and associated products amongst their friends, family and social groups. Viral marketing is not a web 2.0 revolution in marketing, it isn't even a web concept. It's a practice that has been used for millennia to make people money, spread a word or punt a product. Welcome to the wonders of history repeating itself.

An Example: FAIL

The recent "FAIL" trend that has swept the web is the perfect example of a viral concept shared amongst social groups. Everything is a FAIL. It has become a cult that is practiced offline as much as it is online. It started with one simple fail and expanded in to blogs, websites, videos, songs and more. It has transcended race, gender, age, culture, technology and platform. People can fail online, brands can fail with offices, products, articles or just about anything that exists.Viral marketing is most definitely not a FAIL but many have failed at viral marketing.

Exclusive interview with DoNotDateHim.co.za founder

Do Not Date Him has been making waves of late. I took it upon myself to not judge and instead get the information I wanted from the source. So I did just that and got in touch with the founder of the website, Yolandi van Rooyen (28).Here is the interview a nh.com exclusive:Do not date him is a very intriguing concept. Should guys be worried about this particular website?I do understand that most men feel very worried about the site. The main goal of the website is to make women aware of conmen as well as men that are physically,emotionally and sexually abusive. The idea is to be more pro active about these concerns in society and to help women to make more informed choices next time they start a relationship with a man.Why did you start the website?I've been in an physically and emotional abusive relationship myself and I wanted to prevent other women and their children to experience the same pain and suffering.The idea isn't yours, tell me a bit about how you set up the website, did you hire developers and designers or is it all your skill?I read about the American website Dontdatehimgirl in a magazine and I immediately thought that this could be very effective with South Africa's high domestic violence statistics. I did call in the help of developers and a designer and I also had to get a lawyer to help me setup the terms and conditions for the website.You aren't very shy, you were written about in the Saturday Star recently. Aren't you nervous of being outed as the founder?The Beeld published my name in their article and I have to say I did feel a bit nervous about everyone knowing that I am the founder but now that the cat is out of the bag I have accepted the fact. I am still very camera shy though.How are you going to prevent abuse of the your service? What is stopping any woman from gaining revenge through your site?I do moderate all the profiles myself and I am definately in the process of evolving the website into a community site where women will be able to get information and healing. Any user can report a page for any abuse or foul language and when I communicate with my users I encourage them to be responsible with their comments and posts.This site portrays men in a very bad light whether you like to admit it or not. Is this not just perpetuating the cycle?Yes it does make some men look bad, but I,allot of women and men feel that it is time to seperate the good men from the bad. For many years and generations this topic has been a taboo and that also didn't help to stop the cycle. If women can see a very dangerous man's profile on my website it can prevent her from entering a relationship whith this man and can possibly stop the cycle from jumping from one abusive relationship to another.Are you aware of any legal action taken by outed men against the original Don't Date Him Girl website?Yes, Don't Date Him Girl had two lawsuits in 2006 and they won both of them.Have you received any hate mail yet?Yes,What are your plans for the sites future?I am already in the process of evolving the website into a site for information, discussion and healing. There will be experts writing articles about issues that envolve women and the struggles they are facing on a daily basis. A legal expert will help women with issues concerning their rights and the correct procedures to follow. I am also excited to introduce a forum and a rating system.Do you have a Do Not Date Her in mind?The domain was bought on the 3rd of the September when the news of Donotdatehim broke. The site launched this week.Do you plan on making money off the site?Unfortunately I do still need funding to pay for the hosting monthly and to keep the website live.And finally, do you have anything you would like to add?I would like to invite all men to join the fight against women and child abuse. It is not going to help if we stay silent and action have to be taken to eliminate this evil in society.I'd like to thank Yolandi for being so transparent and getting involved online. I truly do hope that the site reaches its intended goal of protecting women and spreading the word against abuse.I have my reservations about the potential success of the site, prevention of abuse and proper use of the service but in the end only time and lawyers fees will be able to tell if the site succeeds or not.

Facebook is running out of space and will delete you

Yes, it's true. Well, it must be true because people have been receiving this message from "Facebook Founder: Mark Zuckerber" - isn't there a "g" on the end of his name?Anyways, here's the message that's been floating around and around. I haven't personally received it but a friend sent it to me in an email after contacting me on Facebook in a frantic spin talking about the internet running out of space.

Attention all Facebook members.Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated,There have been many members complaining that Facebookis becoming very slow.Record shows that the reason isthat there are too many non-active Facebook membersAnd on the other side too many new Facebook members.We will be sending this messages around to see if theMembers are active or not,If you're active please sendto 15 other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are activeThose who do not send this message within 2 weeks,The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space,If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you sendthis message to show me that your active and not deleted.Founder of FacebookMark Zuckerber

Well, I am trying to be as "inactive as possible" so that I can test this little theory and maybe be saved from Facebook. Please Mr Zuckerber, delete me.

SA news organisations on Google Trends

There has been a bit of a buzz surrounding Google Trends and their alleged intention to take on Alexa in the tracking, trends and statistics game.I've chatted to Vincent about this and he seemed underwhelmed by the entire concept.I have a different perspective. I am quote excited about the comparative search terms and vague unique visitors per month.From what I can gather, the basic premise is that you can compare what users are searching for and visiting with one website as the focus.The graph below is a comparison of four news websites in South Africa. News24.com, IOL, Mail & Guardian Online and The Times Online.click to enlargeUsing the above graph as an example, Mail & Guardian Online is the focus of the graph and data you are able to see the graph, regions, also visited and also searched for. The key to these comparative graphs is the colours. Note the colours carefully and pay attention because they are important.Mail & Guardian Online is clearly blue and the little button says that the statistics are ranked by/according to Mail & Guardian Online.I can see that people who visited Mail and Guardian Online also visited The Times, searched for vuyo mokoena and South African newspapers.I think this is useful information.What can you do with information like this? It's habitual I think. You can know what your target audiences habits might be. I say might be because there are never any certainties. But we can know with a greater sense of surety (read confusion) than previously. This means targeting. Targeted advertising, targeted content, themes, links, relevance.To me, this is potentially more important than knowing what your users are clicking on in your own site. Why? Because things are different and evolving online, especially in the online news media market. Mail & Guardian Online have implemented a system of cross referencing and external linking. These links directly provide our potential opposition websites with links taking users out of the Mail & Guardian Online in to a different news organisations website. Now if we know which opposition our users prefer, how frequently they visit and what search terms took them in to or out of our websites and our oppositions then the chance exists that the word "opposition" is being used unnecessarily.It could be possible down the line that news is customised by the organisations, users, competitors, advertisers and anyone else in such a way that the flow of information suits each individual in a broader context.

Invasive online advertising

What do you think of this advert?Visit Mail & Guardian Online now to have a look at the advert.I am in two minds. Initially I hated the concept, but then, it's not so bad really. It's effective, interesting and different. Plus it can be closed at any moment if you can find the relevant button.

Who's who in the racial online zoo?

I am a disappointed in some "online professionals". The reason I am using the term with my tongue poking and prodding at my cheek is because I believe there is a fair amount of professionalism being thrown down the toilet. Mandy de Waal wrote an article for ITWeb titled "Who's who in the Web 2.0 Zoo?".Some people seemingly took great offence that there where no people of colour in the article. Rafiq was invited to participate, he declined. The angle of the article was simply an interview and answer process. Certain people who are major players in the online market were asked to name three people who they would want to work with in the online arena. These people did so. Not based on racial innuendos as justifications. These were simply the people who each interviewee wished to work with on a professional level.Unfortunately someone needed to respond, someone always need to respond, and needed to emphatically make a racial statement. This is extremely sad. Ramon Thomas took up the cause and titled his article "Who’s who in the non-white Web 2.0 South African Zoo". The title alone immediately marginalises his audience and those involved in his article. He immediately boxes those in his article and ostracizes those who read it.The immediate feeling that I get is that this is like affirmative action in sports teams - the Springboks to be precise. The situation that rugby players of colour have faced in the past is a lose-lose, if they are chosen they question the reasons for their selection. If they are not chosen then they wonder if it was due to their race. Lose. Lose.If I was on Ramon's list I'd be pretty upset. The candidates on this list are no longer the best in their profession but only the best in their racial class. Mandy's article might have lacked some depth but she did not force the answers out of the participants, they chose out of their own free will. She also did not classify her article as black or white inspite of the black text and white background colour. Now there are more web professionals who have been dragged in to this to make a statement. They have become pawns in the game of race.Mandy made an error in undermining hew own article when she used a pull quote that included the words "White boys club". If this was the angle of the story then I think that this would have been an integral part of an article that would be able to ask some very important questions about the racial state of the online industry. The pull quote was irrelevant in the context of her story and in my opinion undermined the people who took part in the article.There is an important question to be asked: where are the black professionals in the online industry?Darren Ravens asks the question more appropriately. But I think that Darren Gorton got it right.Personally I would like to be considered a media professional for the work that I do, not for the work that I do as a white(ish), Greek (almost), South African male.

I've had it with Carte Blanche

I'm done with Derrick Watshisname and the Carte crew. I am honestly disappointed with the quality of their stories. More and more often I am seeing one sided, ill-researched pieces that lack any semblance of coherence. I'm also not sure what Tyler was on about in his post, lauding the piece as decent and fairly accurate. Think I might have caught a different show in a parallel universe on a different tangent to the one Tyler watched.Their piece on Web 2.0 was horrific. Congratulations to Rafiq and Dave for cracking the nod and showing some sense in a show filled with rambling and jumping from topic to topic.I followed Twitter throughout the show and there were some interesting responses to it throughout. Jason from Zoopy was insistent that we should take the story from where it comes, ie: old media. Boring argument that means nothing to me.I work for an "old media" company that is moving forward in leaps and bounds. M&G have been relentless in their new media endeavors and have definitely been heading the web 2. shove in SA.Carte Blanche, it appears, searched for "blogging" using this new toy they've found called "google" or something and came up with two names. Dave and Rafiq were both interviewed and made alot of sense. But what happened to getting more than one side of the story and more than one opinion in a piece? Dave and Rafiq work relatively closely with one another and are both based in CT. Now to the average viewer in SA it appears as if there is only web 2.0 development happening in CT. What about George, JHB, Durban and developers who roam the country? What about innovation on a national level?Why did they not take a look at the gurus of web 2.0 in SA who are pushing the envelope? Props to Rafiq for doing what he does and Dave for spreading the ideals and concepts to those who don't know, but I know for a fact that UKZN is also pushing new media as well as Rhodes University. Why not talk to those people too? Why only UCT as an institution.One twitterer commented: "@rafiq @daveduarte @zoopedup nice one guys...wife still doesn't get it though LOL ;P". That reflects bad journalism.John Webb has done some brilliant stuff with 702 Talk Radio and Carte Blance but this was dismal. The story jumped from web, to Mxit, to Facebook, flashing screenshots of TED conferences, YouTube videos and a host of other irrelevant pictures to look more web 2.0. None of these things were spoken of in the actual story.Another whopper of a quote from the story: "The pace of change has exceeded our ability to keep up." What exactly does that mean and who exactly are they referring to?In essence all that I am saying is that a show like this should never have been broadcast without an actual point. In fact, an explanation of something would've been great. There was no definition of what web 1.0 was, never mind what web 2.0 is and where it's headed.Pictured in a few of the scenes were Charl Norman and his site BlueWorld. Not a word spoken about the site, its competition with Facebook or a peep from Charl. I wonder if they knew Charl was behind BlueWorld when they filmed him with Rafiq, having coffee?I'm disappointed but not surprised with the level of their reporting and hope that they read this post (if they've learned anything from their own story) and realise that there is a lot more going on out there than two gurus in one city.Please don't mistake my post for ranting. I have no value to add to the show that was broadcast so this is not a jealousy thing. It's a responsible journalism thing.Again, congratulations to Dave and Rafiq who both deserved their exposure and it's great to see some exposure around the topic.See for yourself:

What is the first thing you do online?

I am really interested in what people do online. Not all the time, not everytime but specifically in the morning when you open up your browser for the first time.What do you do online?I head straight for my RSS feeds on Google Reader, then hop over to Gmail then check SA Rocks and this blog and then move on to Muti, Afrigator and Amatomu. Thereafter I pretty much do whatever comes my way.Facebook is the absolute last thing that I think to do online. Sometimes I don't even login in to Facebook till after lunch or in the evening.

Useful sites for students

In my new position as FM Campus editor I have needed to source helpful, useful and relevant websites for our 10 000 readers to make use of in one of our magazine sections.I have stumbled across some very interesting sites that are extremely beneficial for many students. Unfortunately many of the sites are tailor made for US students.With that said, here are two sites that I think are extremely helpful for SA students. I wish I had these two services when I was a student. My life was such a shambles as many can attest to.Stu.dicio.us - Is a version of Del.icio.us but more student-centric. You can add in your lecture timetable, bookmark relevant sites, set alarms for various events or deadlines and upload files for storage. The two best features of this site are the Facebook link and the mobile option. With the sites link to Facebook users can link up with their friends doing similar courses, with similar deadlines and similar lives and sync in. If they are late, you are late and everyone is late but lets be honest, we all had one friend at Uni who would always be one time!While the mobile option of the services ensures that you have no excuses any more. Wherever you are you can login to the service using your mobile phone and make sure you aren't missing any deadlines!MyNoteIt - This site is a place where students can take, edit and share notes that they make. Students can upload notes, manage their calendars, assignments and stay in touch with classmate groups.Fair enough the two sites seem to overlap somewhat but for some reason they appear to be different to me. Anyways they are both great services that are beneficial for students if they are used diligently and effectively.

Buying Xbox360 games online: An SA website comparison

Since my purchase of the fantastic Xbox360 I have been searching for the perfect site with the perfect prices and the perfect delivery package to buy my games from online.In this post I will be comparing three sites that I have found.For this comparison I will be looking at three main criteria: Cost of game, delivery package (incl. cost) and variety of available games.The Websites:digitalplanet.co.za - This site is not exclusively about gaming. You can buy various other products and software. This sort of broad service always puts me off. The site is manageable enough for me not to feel lost.You are able to search through the Xbox games by price tag (R0-R99, R99-R199 etc etc), alphabetically and by page. Nice and easy.Take2.co.za - The great thing about this site is that I've actually tried and tested it. And it works. On top of that their game-filtering system, or search facilities are great.You are able to search within the specified list of games and filter the search. Filters include asking for what's in stock, sold out, pre-order, local, international and more. You can then sort your filters alphabetically and a variety of other ways. Very handy if you know what you are looking for.Edreams.co.za - This site has done a lot of promotion on Facebook with banner ads and in fact that is how I found this site. That immediately, for some reason, puts me off. Although I have friends who swear by this site in spite of a couple of late deliveries. This is definitely the most visually appealing of all three sites and is probably the easiest to navigate. Edreams also sells various other products which as I have said, I don't like (although I can't imagine there is a lot of money is an exclusive Xbox or Gaming website).Cost of games:I will be looking at 5 games and comparing their prices across the three sites. The reason for 5 games is that I wanted to look at the most recent (pre-order) games as well as older more classic games.The games and their prices:Tiger woods '08Digital Planet: R 421.20Take 2: R 453Edreams: R441Cheapest: Digital PlanetTony Hawk Project 8Digital Planet: R 336Take 2: R 361Edreams: R274Cheapest: EdreamsLost Planet: Extreme ConditionDigital Planet: R 513.63Take 2: R 538Edreams: Not on saleCheapest: Digital PlanetRockstar Games presents Table TennisDigital Planet: R 250.80Take 2: R 270Edreams: R137Cheapest: EdreamsCall of Duty 2Digital Planet: R 237.60Take 2: R 256Edreams: R260Cheapest: Digital PlanetOVERALL CHEAPEST WEBSITE: Digital PlanetThere could be a better mix of games but this is what I have chosen.Delivery Package:Digital Planet: Delivery fees range from R30 to R250From their site:

Currently we have a few delivery options. The delivery price is dependant on the size and weight of your product. Delivery fees range from R30 to R250. Please call our call centre on 0860 245 000 for any queries.

Take 2: Shipping to South Africa only - R29From their site:

Deliveries to towns outside of the major Metropolitan Areas ( Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, East London, Port Elizabeth, George, Nelspruit and Pietersburg) will be done by means of Speedservices Couriers. It will therefore be delivered to the post office where you have a post office box or private bag. If you only have a street address, it will be delivered to the nearest post office. We will notify you by email as soon as your order has shipped and your Speedservices tracking number will also be provided. In most cases the items will be delivered to your post office within 24 hours of despatch.

Edreams:From their site: Calculated by weightFrom their site:

All our shipping rates are calculated according to the total weight of your parcel and destination of delivery.

Variety of games:From the review above it seems as though the only site that is lacking in games when I searched for them was Edreams. The others seem to have availability on most games available and Take 2 will even source and deliver from overseas distributors at a cost.The end result:Overall I like the results that Digital planet have presented. I suppose it really is a matter of choice and experience with each individual site. So if you have experience with any of them please let me know!I am going to be trying out all three sites over the next while and will update as I do. For now, make your choice and get gaming.