Web Application Design, Development & Innovation in Cape Town
SaNGOnet is requesting that the mobile operators (Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom) and their affiliates – including WASPS and service providers in South Africa – combine to enable short code donations where 100% of the donation is received by the Non-Profit. In order to achieve this we propose: Operators agree to forward 100% of donations given via these shortcodes to the Non-Profits (via the non-profit WASP) A set of shortcodes be allocated by operators for the exclusive use of non-profits. SANGONeT and other interested NGOs establish a non-profit WASP (similar to Mobile Giving Foundation) in the US) to vet and process applications by non-profits, and to ensure that only bona-fide organisations benefit. This organization could also be responsible for dispersal of funds. The Non-Profit WASP and all users of its short codes would agree to abide by WASPA rules concerning marketing, maximum levels of donations, privacy and other issues. The Campaign We need to build substantial support for this proposal in order to convince mobile operators of the need to change how sms donations are treated.
via GottaQuirk. Congrats to all the finalists. You can vote for your favourite finalist in the SA Blog Awards here every 24 hours with the same address.
Not too long ago, Industry analyst Jeremy Owyang tweeted: Twitter is the Vuvuzela of the Internet. Everyone has a horn, blows it loudly, resulting in pure buzzing noise.
His sentiments maybe true in some respect. And quite frankly, many people are thoughtlessly quick to dismiss twitter as a credible source of valuable information. However, intelligent marketers will acknowledge it as a free source of consumer data that can be mined in near real time. That is why; Harvard Business Review (HBR) compiled a comprehensive list, which included a 6-step guide to finding value in tweets.
The complex views that tend to come from twitter’s trending list has rarely appeared the results of opinion polls or attempts to finding a consensus between differing factions of twitterers. That’s is why building and maintaining an image of a brand on twitter remains therefore an immense challenge. Some companies are occasionally concerned that negative tweets tends to damage their brands every time somebody (famous) says something negative about their brand on twitter; other companies or brands, believe that all publicity is good publicity, but despite the evidence to the contrary, it at least assists in rendering their brand newsworthy.
Let’s take a closer look.
HBR’s study represent new developments. Approximately half a million tweets containing the word “ipad” were captured during the product’s launch weekend in April. And based on this, HBR developed a 6-step guide to finding value in tweeter’s noise.
I will just summarize the 6 important points, but for an in-depth analysis, please find the entire study at HBR.
1) Learn about the competitive landscape.
2) Look for unexpected themes
3) Dip deeper into the stream.
4) Look for user experiences.
5) Learn why negative words are coming up.
6) Learn about conversation dominators.
According to HBR, Tweets about your product that include the names of rival brands can reveal a lot about market positioning. In the same study, HBR point to an example on how the majority of the KINDLE tweets didn’t necessarily focus on the iPad being a Kindle killer. Instead, they applauded the arrival of the Kindle app for the iPad— which in turn alerted Apple that its own books app would face serious competition.
In the same study, HBR explains how customer service could be adjusted to address the most common user complaints. How? By finding why negative words /tweets are coming up — it might also turn out to be a great way to locate consumers’ pain points.
To conclude, I would like to your genuine thoughts on whether Twitter is just a Vuvuzela of the Internet, or a very valuable source of consumer data , if carefully mined . Tell us by commenting , Your Group of Web AddiCT’(s) will share them in another post soon.
New look Local List
The new version of Local List boasts the features below:
- Firefox extension: Search from your firefox search box and find locally hosted content from the Local List database searched by Google.
(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/215971/)
- Geolocation : You can now check where a website is hosted on the fly. For the nerds amongst us, you can also track the geolocation of IP addresses.
- Search : New enhanced contextual search of verified local sites, all search results are locally hosted and based on our database.
- Explore : If you are in a rush we also have quick links to some of the sites in our database.
- Popular : This is the most evident feature on the home page, a list of the most popular services with thumbnails for your convenience.
- Bookmarks : The original locallist.co.za was based on social bookmarking and we wanted to keep it as a feature, and you can find it under bookmark.
- Design : The new design shows off a lot more jquery for nice transitions and less page re-loading, the site is slimmed down and the emphasis is on the search feature.
With the mass influx of major web services to our shores and now hosting here (Facebook, Youtube and all other Google services like Gmail) local has never been more powerful. Check out the new Local List (http://www.locallist.co.za) and tell us what you think!
How about checking the latest tweets on your washing machine while waiting for your clothes to finish its spin cycle?
Android and ARM powered washing machine.
The Moshi*Matic is a unique piece of connected washing device, powered by an ARM CPU and running on Android. Using the “app” on your Android or iOS cellphone, you can remotely control the Moshi*Matic, track its power consumption/water consumption and adjust them. Programming and monitoring running cycles is easy. THe Moshi*Matic is using specific and highly efficient soap capsules, stored into the an automatic loading tray. Oh ! this is the last capsule in your Moshi*Matic !! Don’t worry, it will order new capsules by itself – and if your kinda paranoid, you’ll receive a message to confirm the order on your mobile phone – . The new capsules pack will be delivered within 24 hours to your home. via behance
While we’re at it why not have our coffee machines powered by android too? No need to set a timer or even get out of bed. We’ll be able to control our coffee machines from our Google Android powered phone so we can turn it on from bed 
Today is the second last day to nominate your favourite blogs in the 2010 SA blog Awards. If you’re wondering how to nominate simply read this or if you know how its done click the widget to the right of this post. It’ll vanish after tomorrow.
If you’re really eager to get those nominations in have you considered SMSing your subscribers? SMS Who? Well if you had the International SMS subscription Manager WordPress plugin installed since its been available on the WordPress Codex you could have been sending your readers who have chosen to share their mobile phone number with you and asked them to vote So far 1199 people have downloaded the SMS WordPress plugin that allows you to send a bulk SMS to any mobile number in the world. 222 countries and counting to be exact cos its powered by Clickatell’s Bulk SMS Gateway. I digress.
Seeing that the SA Blog Awards have come of age this year how about we evolve the prizes too? Every year the same type of sponsors come on board offering the same type of prizes. Social Lubricant that makes an awards evening one that is difficult to remember for those who partake. A joy ride in a dream car. Some other prizes and subscriptions. What all the prizes at these awards have in common is their short life spans for the winners of the awards and the sponsors alike.
What if a category sponsors came on board and agreed to give the winners (and runners-up depending on the sponsors budget of course) an advertising contract for the next 12 months until the next years SA Blog Awards come round? Just putting it out there. Only blogs give advertisers/sponsors this kind of growth year-on-year.
Does your site grow like this?
I’d also recommend reading imod’s post, The longevity of paying a blogger to blog your product or service, to better understand my thinking behind adding longevity to the SA Blog Awards prizes.
This year Afrigator statistics are also laying a vital role in the SA Blog Awards. I just happen to be wearing this tshirt as I type this…
Afrigator tshirt
What if Afrigator‘s aggregation technology was used on the SA Blog Awards website to aggregate all the finalists in this years blog awards? I’ve had a look at the sablgoawards.com’s analytics and the only time the site ever gets any traffic is during the nomination and voting phases. How about converting the awards site into a destination where you are able to read and stay up to date with all the best blogs as voted for by the judges and you? I’m sure this will give visitors to the site a reason to return to browse over 100 of the best blogs in South Africa in one central location. There will also be the endless sponsor benefits associated with a site that has a longer lifespan than the current seasonal site that is the SA Blog awards. With that I’ve reached just over 500 words in this post. There wont be daily posts during the week after getting the foursquare Jetsetter badge.
What if Kulula gave special offers if your presented this badge at check in?
Your Web AddiCT has hundreds of emails to respond to before reaching inbox zero, I’m fasting and need to spend quality time with my beautiful wife. Even though I won’t be very active on this blog over the next few days I will respond to any comments posted below or on any of the previous posts. You can find me on twitter (@rafiq) while I’m spending the rest of the week in Jozi doing blogging workshops of all things .
PS: Clickatell are one of the advertisers on this blog.
This is Your Web AddiCT(s); attempt at live blogging a session at SES San Francisco
In the last year, Social Media has seen a meteoric rise in exposure, insinuating itself into our collective vernacular & psyche through high profile mainstream media attention.
Whether it’s a TwitPic of the Hudson River plane crash rescue, Nick Swisher tweeting from the Yankees World Series victory parade, or Burger King’s misguided Whopper Sacrifice on Facebook, marketers around the globe have seen beyond the hype and started to really understand its power. If Social Media is the tool, then Social Media Marketing is the discipline. Whether you start the conversation with your audience on Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live or simply set up a blog to start talking, you need to make sure your campaign resonates throughout your entire marketing strategy.
In this session, you’ll hear from leading experts who’ll help you cut through the hyperbole and create some long lasting, meaningful consumer connections with some useful integrated social media marketing tactics and strategies.
Moderator:
Kate Kaye, Senior Editor, ClickZ News
Speakers:
Tracy Falke, Social Media Specialist, Freestyle Interactive
Bobby Figueroa, VP of Product Development, Yahoo!
Harry J. Gold, CEO, Overdrive Interactive
Harry Gold – “Don’t just ask people to tell them to become your fan on Facebook tell them why.” Download the Social Media Map for Social Media Marketing here. This map is very busy but they’re not trying to make it visually appealing or elegant. Its main purpose is to act as a social media reference guide that applies an organized and categorized view to a rapidly expanding and, what is for many, confusing landscape of sites and applications.
Tracy Falke – Take your content and re-purpose it for every marketing channel. Content, Search and Social needs to fit together like a puzzle and overlap like a Venn diagram. Ensure your content, search and social becomes part of your business processes. Have your online publishing schedule tie into all your other marketing channels. Social isn’t something you give to an intern in a room, it’s your presence. Create a context matrix- map out what your website says, create content that reflects that map for each social channel. She carries on talking about Social CRM.
Bobby Figueroa – Be genuine and don’t say anything stupid in social channels.
Web AddiCT note – This is unlike any other session I’ve been to, no slideshows, no presentations, just conversations by the panel. That’s all for live-blogging this session. I’ll be doing more detailed post of the sessions that have had the biggest impact on my SES San Francisco experience at MIH SWAT over the next few days.
Lisa CreativeAddict Casson
I am very excited to introduce our first female developer in this series of posts on WordPress developers.
Meet Lisa Casson, an upcoming WordPress theme developer, graphic designer and a web designer.
This Johannesburg based lady is a self taught CSS fundi now, after learning how to build WP themes by using only tutorials available online. It’s only been just under a year since Lisa discovered WordPress; she’d been creating static HTML websites for about five years before that.
Her ability to design a website comes from her studies as a graphic designer. It was after completing this degree that she decided to become a web designer about two years ago.
Her knowledge of PHP is limited at this point but Lisa is keen to learn just about anything she thinks that will allow her working in WordPress experience run smoother.
Her inspiration comes from a good strong pot of coffee and her favorite music playing in the background. Unusual for a developer, but she says she never loses out on sleep over work and normally gets to bed by 11pm.
Some of her development websites include http://www.rikkihibbert.co.za/ and http://sailneptune.com/ .
Her design websites include her personal website , http://sailneptune.com/ as well as the soon to be launched http://villagechurch.co.za/preview/
Lisa has a full time job but freelances during every hour that she can manage to do so. She can be contacted via her website http://creativeaddict.co.za
Her most satisfying and rewarding experience while working with WordPress:
…the results my clients have achieved. Previously, I used to create static HTML websites that required high maintenance for updates. With WordPress my clients update their own websites and I watch their websites grow…and their business thrives as a result.
She especially loves creating WordPress websites for charities.
Advice to upcoming developers:
start with your own website… it is the best learning curb. Learn from pre-made themes, then learn to make your own. The rest should come naturally.
Your Web AddiCT is currently in San Francisco for the Search Engine Strategies Conference. The amount of time spent flying was nearly 24 hours and the second flight went over the North Pole to get me here.
The conference will draw thousands of marketers and agency professionals who will attend sessions and labs focused first and foremost on education (no sales pitches!) covering Search Marketing (including SEO, PPC management & Social Media), keyword research, local advertising, mobile engagement, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, online video, site optimization and usability, in addition to high-level strategy, keynotes, an expo floor with 100+ companies, networking events, parties and more
If you’d like to follow the conference from where you are the twitter hashtags are #ses and or #sessf. Thanks to Bruce Clay Inc there will be lotsa non-stop SES San Francisco live blogging.
Apart from the really long flights getting into the US with an Arabic first name like @rafiq is another mission on it’s own. Racial profiling, you could call it. I was in the US just under a year ago and had to go through a double security check with the official saying ‘It’s probably just your name.’ This time I got to the first security checkpoint and everything appeared fine but when he handed back my immigration forms and passport the official asked me to go to the secondary security checkpoint where I had to wait a few minutes then was asked 20 questions before having my passport stamped. After I collected my luggage I got stopped again and had all my bags searched. Welcome to the United States of America
So now that I’m here I’ll be tweeting from the conference using the @mihswat account and posting pics to my posterous page here. You can also expect a blog post or two on the MIH SWAT blog comparing my SES experience to SMX along with the usual memes covered on this blog.
This movie might be worth watching after all.
Photo by Dawn Endico
New look for Local List
2010 SA Blog Awards ideas
Lisa Casson – WordPress Developer
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