Web AddiCT(s); » Blogging

The Top 11 Blog Posts of 2011

Rafiq Phillips — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:11:58 +0000

It’s the listicle time of year again. What is a listicle? Mash together the words List and Article and you have yourself a Listicle. This term is often used in a deprecating way, to describe an article or news story which required very little effort to produce. If you call digging through a year’s worth of Google Analytics very little effort then I’m guilty as charged. Herewith a list of the 11 most popular articles published on this site during 2011. Before revealing the top 11 blog posts of 2011 let us review how the audience who reads this blog has changed when compared to 2010:

Visits increased by 22% from 436 000 to reaching over half a million for the first time in one year. From 1 January 2011 – 5 December 2011 this blog has been visited by just over 530 000 individuals.
Page views, which increased by 33%, are creeping closer and closer to the 2 million mark.

Now onto the 11 most popular blog posts published in 2011 in no particular order:

MXit still rocks

MXit V6

The post was only around for less than half of 2011 but nearly 6 times as many people visited and read the MXit v6 post compared to next article in the Top 11 list. Based on a talk I attended at the Media Lab @ Stellenbosch University MXit V7 will see an overhaul of the user interface. To quote the new MXit CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, “MXit has a first world back-end and a third world front end.” Expect the new MXit 7 to be more like the modern apps and user interfaces we’ve become accustomed to. Wonder who will be tasked to improve MXit UX…

2go on your PC becomes Official

The other homegrown mobile instant messaging app that claim to have 10 million users (a claim which I believe) is 2go. There have been a few ways to get 2go to run on your PC but there is nothing like the official version. If you’ve not heard of 2go before here is the first post Yasser did in 2007.

2go adds 30000 new users a day

If you need more proof of 2go’s popularity, 2 of the 11 top blog posts of 2011 belong to 2go

Usually I’d like to consider myself an early adopter of mobile tech but when I first installed WhatsApp on my Google Android device I was shocked to see over 100 of my contacts were already using it! The easy installation and scanning and auto-adding friends from my contacts without having to invite them if they’re already using it sure is proving to work out well for them. I also like the fact that it works on the major smart phones Nokia, Android, Blackberry and iPhone. Hopefully we’ll see more awesome mobile web goodness in 2012.

Qooh.me

No matter what any Social Network tells you about using your real name or how your privacy is being abused or misused. When it comes the the wwworld we still want to be anonymous sometimes. Qooh.me is a simply Q&A mobile app that plugs into various social networks and allows your to ask questions to your friends or strangers anonymously.

Get your MXit Pin via Email

The MXit pin via SMS service generates about R500000 every with the premium SMS short code. This makes MXit and the Mobile service providers happy but when you try using as little airtime as possible you need an alternative. MXit now allows you to retrieve your password via email so be sure to configure your email address in your MXit account settings.

The MXit Facebook App

Part of the MXit users evolution will lead them to Facebook some time or another. Now this MXit/Facebook App allows you to chat to your MXit contacts while logged into Facebook. I haven’t covered the Facebook topic much as my motto is Facebook Less.

South Africa to see R1 Billion Mobile Ad Revenue in 2012

This was surpirsing, a 2012 prediction by Vodaocm, MXit and Google attracted a huge amount of interest.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab

Samsung Galaxy Tab winner from the Free State

The awesome folks at Samsung sponsored a competition where you could win the Android powered Galaxy Tab. The winner pictured here (or rather the winner’s son) is a future Web AddiCT in the making. To illustrate the competition’s success have a look at the popular posts of all time in the sidebar they remain there for as long as the post remains popular which usually means your brand is visible on every single one of the nearly 2 million page views that occur during the year. The SMS competition alerts (also visible in the sidebar) that goes out to nearly 4500 opt-in subscribers ensure people know about competitions as soon as it happens.

MXit Games

From this listicle to another. Here are a few of the MXit games that can be played on Africa’s largest social network.

The Top 10 Mobile Browsers

Another listicle makes the list. If you’ve ever wonder why memeburn publishes so many listicles the answer is people love reading them. Stats don’t lie. In the words of Michelle Atagana, “If it trends, it leads.”

There you have the Top 11 Blog posts for 2011 published here. If you’d like to write some guest posts feel free to contact me via the usual channels. I’d love to see content created by you in the Top 12 list of 2012 A word to would-be advertisers: Web AddiCT(s); are very selective when it comes to the brands that get exposed to the aforementioned audience. If you believe the campaign you manage or own fits or would like to run competition to reach this audience via the web and SMS. Get in Touch.

Breaking South African Tech News 1st (video)

Rafiq Phillips — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:13:04 +0000

Summer in Cape Town. Do not expect many updates… Am changing a few things in the background. 2012 will be the year technology will be used for real change in our every day lives. Don’t believe the hype or the PResstitutes. Video via Mandy de Waal.

The Barbara Streisand Effect

Rafiq Phillips — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:20:22 +0000

For those of you looking for Duck Sauce… here is the Barbara Streisand video. If you’ve not heard of the Streisand Effect before skip the Duck Sauce Video and keep reading. Or play the video while reading

This blog has been quiet. Why? I’ve had to deal with a 17 page lawyers letter based on what has been written here. I’d like to introduce you to the Streisand Effect.

The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.

Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters, to suppress numbers, files and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.

Mike Masnick of Techdirt coined the term after Streisand, citing privacy violations, unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have an aerial photograph of her mansion removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs. Adelman said that he was photographing beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the government sanctioned and commissioned California Coastal Records Project. As a result of the case, public knowledge of the picture increased substantially; more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month.

Here is one Example involving Ryan Giggs: In May 2011, Premier League footballer Ryan Giggs sued Twitter after an account revealed that he was the subject of an anonymised privacy injunction (informally referred to as a “super-injunction”) that prevented the publication of details regarding an alleged affair with model and former Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. A blogger for the Forbes website observed that the British media, who were banned from breaking the terms of the injunction, had mocked the footballer for not understanding the effect. The Guardian subsequently posted a graph detailing—without naming the player—the number of references to the player’s name against time, showing a large spike following the news that the player was seeking legal action.

You have to check out the other examples of the Streisand Effect on Wikipedia.

Cape Town blogger Shaun Oakes had a similar issue with a local Taxi Company. Here’s the legal perspective

The Obox Marketing Evolution

Rafiq Phillips — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:18:37 +0000

One of the perks of speaking at conferences like WordCamp Cape Town is being able to listen to other speakers share their knowledge and stories. One of the best presentations I had the privilege to listen too was David Perel’s “Post Boxes to Inboxes” story of how they pivoted from a bespoke cold fusion CMS/web dev’s to multi-platform premium theme business which includes WordPress . After yesterday’s SEO That Works fiasco that was instigated by a marketing technique most of us love to hate: Cold Calling. Many can learn how changing your marketing techniques changes the way you approach your business. I trust you will enjoy this as much as I did.

Time to Pivot. The Blogging Metamorphosis Continues

Rafiq Phillips — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 10:45:23 +0000

With Coldplay in Cape Town only one month away, click play before you start reading.

Pivot is not just another over-hyped buzzword in the startup wwworld. In business when you pivot it is usually to change your business model by making small tweaks or changes, sometimes large and dramatic, with an objective to increase your revenue or service a different need or different market. Loic Le Meur of Seesmic fame is probably the most skilled in the art of pivoting his start-up and has done so a few times since being on my radar over the last 4 years.

Not only in business can you pivot. Politicians tend to pivot frequently after they are elected. Look at Nobel Peace laureate Barack Obama and his stance on ending those two wars. He may have done much already but there would be no NATO action without his go-ahead. It might not be called war but what’s happening in North Africa is. I’d consider that a pivot too. So your Web AddiCT has decided to pivot this blog and herewith some of the things that will be changing.

Before we get to what will be changing let’s first do a quick recap of where, what you’ve been reading here for nearly 6 years, has come from.

Nearly Six Years of YOU and I

I’ve been creating and publishing websites since 1999 mainly to experiment, learn and quickly figured how the www can be used to connect like-minded-individuals. I knew I’d like to do something online from Cape Town and started studying an industry that was closely linked to an essay I penned, on how the internet and technology can influence our lives, during my final English exam at high school. Started what today is considered blogging in 2000 and generated revenue from my first online venture in 2001 by pure chance. A car accident and subsequent medical issues wiped 2001 from my mind and it turned my memory into one of a goldifsh. This lead me to not use the internet at all for almost a year then use the internet like a ‘normal’ person for the next couple of years while learning how to remember then rediscovering where I came from and where I was planning to go.

If you look at the visitor overiew graph above you would have noticed the 2 valleys between the peaks at the end of the graph. The first one was caused by server issues, the second was time spent observing and not blogging. Khaya just tweeted, “Show people who you are by what you do, not by telling them who you are.” With that I’ll start showing more of what it is I do and how it influences the people like you in my social graph.

How this blog is going to Pivot:

A more refined theme to reflect how the audience as well as I have evolved of the last few years.
Fewer, more in-depth posts on various topics I enjoy covering.
More guest blogging post. If you’d like to write an article or four here, get in touch.
Less advertising. Even though without it this blog wouldn’t be able to sustain itself. We’ll still feature our awesome advertisers but wont be forcing anything down your throats. If you believe your company or brand should be part of the select group of premium advertisers email me: info@webaddict.co.za
More change, less hype. Technology is a great enabler. Nothing will be published here that won’t enable your to learn something new or enhance/improve your work or personal life.

If there is anything you’d like to see more or less of please get in touch or comment below. That’s the direction I’d like to pivot this blog into but without your feedback and guidance there might be other opportunities to better serve you I’ve missed.

You know what to do…

My 3 Day Challenge on Livin’ It Up

Rafiq Phillips — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:40:49 +0000

This is probably the second last post about the Livin’ It up Blogger Challenge. If you haven’t been following along these three posts will help you along. At first I introduced you to the Livin’ It Up game and invited you to join along.

The response wasn’t that great and I felt really lonely in my neighbourhood so the pot was sweetened by me saying I’d give away the iPad (when I win) to one of the people I’ve invited. Now that I had friendly neighbours I could gift plants to, the game started heating up. Badges were introduced allowing you to earn virtual money for renovating your home, landscaping your garden or tuning your car. Always update your insurance while you upgrade as a smash and grab or even an alien abduction could cause you to loose property.

After amassing all the badges and doing every possible upgrade I found myself between a rock(statue) and a hard(concrete) place. Nowhere to go and without any more virtual currency to afford the changes needed to win the blogger challenge I did an analysis of the game, doubting wether it was sustainable or not, and decided to start from scratch.

I couldn’t have picked a worse time to start over though as there are so many things happening in my work, academic, business & personal life that need all my attention over the next few days. I’ll only be able to log in daily but not really grow my home until Thursday leaving me only 3 days to catch up to the current leader, One Large Prawn before the blogger challenge end on the 24th!

Follow the other 7 Bloggers in the Challenge or #sblivinitup on twitter. Will it take me 3 days to win the challenge? Keep your fingers crossed please

Is Livin’ It Up Sustainable?

Rafiq Phillips — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:17:51 +0000

I’ve been playing Standard Bank’s simulation game, Livin’ It Up, for a few weeks now and what started out as an interesting little flashback to days gone by when I used to play Sim City and Sim City 2000 (not The Sims, even though I did play that too) for hours on end turned into a question about the lifestyle Standard Bank is encouraging you to have while playing the Livin’ It Up game.

If you’d like to win an iPad read this, you’ll need to register for the Livin It up Game. There is also a BMW, Nintendo Wii & Sony Bravia up for grabs.

The main aim of the game is to improve (read pimp) your garden, house and car and earn badges along the way which earn you the Standard Bucks Virtual Currency. You can also earn (very little bucks) by referring friends. Justin Hartman has been bitter because another way to earn bucks was to get your hands on the vouchers being handed out in the traffic if I’m not mistaken.

If you do what I did and earn almost every badge you end up with a car that has been pimped, a garden full of statues and a house with every upgrade including security features you can think of… adjusting your insurance cover as you go along. But how on earth can you afford an insurance premium of nearly 10 times the value of your daily income? If you’ve ever tried applying for finance for a motor vehicle or a home at a bank you know for sure that it is impossible in today’s financial climate (any time really) to survive if your expenses greatly exceed your income. So I ask you and hopefully someone from Standard Bank’s Livin’ It up game that will reads this: Please explain to me how playing Livin’ It Up could possibly be sustainable on your virtual wallet? I’ve reached a point where I’ve been hoping for a virtual catastrophe so that my insurance claim could cover my insurance premiums for the next fews weeks in the game.

#MobiBlog – Web AddiCT(s); now available as a Nokia App

Rafiq Phillips — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:51:19 +0000

If you’re a blogger in South Africa, anywhere in Africa, or anywhere in the wwworld you should definitely consider offering your users a mobile version of your blog. Yes your theme looks mighty awesome but on the small screen it may be really difficult to read your words of wisdom.

I just had a look at the top browsers who visited this blog over the past month and a whopping 44.71% of readers use… Opera Mini as their browser of choice. A picture paints a 1000 words so have a look…

Opera Mini Rules

The quickest way to ensure you have a mobile ready WordPress blog is to install the Carrington Mobile theme that will automagically render a mobile friendly version of your blog to any visitors who access your site via mobile. Carrington Mobile is an elegant mobile theme with that supports advanced touch browsers (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Pre) and is also backward compatible with older mobile devices.

But wait, the world has gone app crazy and I’m sure you would like to turn your blog into an app. There are now iPhone Apps, Android Apps, BlacBerry Apps and Nokia Apps. Nokia have recently released an App Wizard that will allow anyone to turn their blog into an App that can almost immediately be available to millions of Nokia users via the Ovi Store.

How To Turn Your Blog into a Nokia App

Register at Ovi App Wizard
Once you’ve registered click Build new Application
Enter your blogs RSS feed
GIve your new blog app a name and description
Upload some graphics that’ll be displayed in the Ovi store along with your blog app.
Now you’ll be able to submit your blog app for review by Nokia (usually takes 24 hours)
You’ll be notified when you blog app has been accepted and is live in the Nokia Ovi Store.

You will now have your WordPress blog available as an App to download from the Nokia store and you don’t need any programming knowledge to do it. Now you know how to convert your blog into a Nokia Ovi App. What are you waiting for? You can check out this blog as Nokia Ovi App here.

Win an iPad by helping me on Livin’ It Up

Rafiq Phillips — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:35:38 +0000

If you’ve been following this blog you should have read about the new online game called Livin’ It Up. Standard Bank have also started a little contest amongst 8 top bloggers in South Africa, myself included, where we can win an iPad 2.

See 8 top bloggers go head to head in an all out, no holds barred contest on Standard Banks Livin’ it Up insurance game. The prize up for grabs? An Apple iPad!
Each blogger will play the virtual game on a daily basis to earn points and the blogger with the most points will be crowned the Livin’ it Up blogger challenge winner.

So I’m playing a game where I could win an Apple iPad but the thing is I already own and Apple iPad. I’m altruistic, so instead of wanting the iPad for myself, I’d like to win the iPad so that I can give it to you! So how exactly can you help me in getting the iPad in your hands? Easy, the game allows you to score points and earn the Standard Bucks Virtual currency by simply inviting friends and them registering.

All you need to do is post a comment below with your email address, contact me here, or send me a tweet (Direct Message or @rafiq) and I’ll send you and invite. All you then need to do register for Livin’ it Up from the invite I’ll send you and you’ll be eligible to win the iPad.

Share your email address with me
Accept the invitation to play Livin’ It Up from me and register

Every time one of you register to play Livin’ It Up via an invite sent by me I earn Standard Bucks with which I can expand my Livin’ It Up property increasing my chance of winning the Blogger challenge. There are only 8 bloggers in the challenge so chances of Web AddiCT(s); winning are very high, with your support of course. When Web AddiCT(s); wins the blogger challenge I’ll randomly select one of you who I’ve sent an invite to as the winner of the iPad.

You know you want the iPad and you know what to do to help me give it to you. Go! Go! Go!

Livin’ It Up

Rafiq Phillips — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:09:05 +0000

I’m giving away an iPad to you, with your help. Find out how you can win the iPad.

This post is brought to you by Standard Bank Insurance’s new game Livin’ It Up
Livin’ It Up is the newest neighbourhood to hit the pixel universe.
If you have ever wanted your very own stretched limo to drop you off at your house made entirely of candy, with a garden that has the kitsch but surprisingly cool lawn flamingos, this game is for you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the portal to the life of your dreams.
The game is full of surprises, like zombie invasions and thieving aliens, so the player is advised to make some realistic decisions on finances and insurance so that they are not caught off guard. Yes, we’re all about the fun but what we are serious about are the prizes up for grabs!
Every week, players stand in line to win both in and out of the game! By registering and playing the game, you earn points that offer you the chance of winning great monthly prizes. This month we are giving the top scorer a Nintendo Wii! You could also win the grand prize of a very impressive BMW 320i, competition closes on the 30th of November 2011. So, what are you waiting for?

If you’ve wondered why this blog hasn’t been updated in a while, I’ve had my time sucked by playing Livin’ It Up.