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  Vulgar display of (Social Media) power

  Stii 2:29 pm on July 24, 2009 | Comments: 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bloggers, Blogging (8), facebook (4), rant (2), Social Media (4), twitter (16)

  I see this happen more and more every day in the social media space. People try and get other’s attention by hitting them with a fist in the face and then say “sorry, but I was just trying to get your attention…”. Well, hello! A simple tap on the shoulder would’ve done the trick, you know!

  
  (this is a great, great album by Pantera, BTW)

  The problem is, if you continuously hit people in their face, 2 things are bound to happen:

  1. People will see it coming and duck the next blow.

  2. Keep it up long enough and people will ignore you or start to avoid you.

  Either way, you are not going to achieve your desired goal. So the next time before you hit someone in the face to get their attention, rather try and talk to them instead of about them. Talking about them, when they are in the same proverbial room as you, is nothing but a vulgar display of power. Just a thought…

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• 

  Few things I learned about the Mobile Web

  Stii 8:43 pm on February 19, 2009 | Comments: 8 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Afrigator (23), bloggers, mih, mobileweb (6)

  MIH Internet Africa has a very, very strong mobile web focus. I’m learning tons and tons of new things every day simply by talking to people. We also had the pleasure of meeting with Gabrielle Rosario who is a Mobile Marketing expert. She knows her shit, thats for sure! Now here is a couple of interesting things I’ve learned so far. Keep in mind that I myself am a total n00b when it comes to this. Some of this may be old news if your focus have been mobile for a while now.

  Designers, boy, have I got news for you! If you think you had issues with browser compatibility, brace yourselves. You ain’t seen nothing yet! You should KNOW your XHTML mobile markup and you should be able to improvise and think out of the box. You are going to work with incredible constraints. Screen sizes aren’t 640 x 480, they’re even smaller. Usability is completely different. Its a whole new ball game. Javascript and AJAX is almost a no-no if you want your designs to work on a wider spectrum of phones.

  Secondly, you’ll have to rethink almost everything. Mobile users are a different animal to web users. On the web things are simply easier. It is easier to type. It is easier to navigate. It is easier to browse. Web users browse a lot. Mobile users don’t necessarily. They are more often than not looking for information. Whether we’re talking about a Facebook social network type of application or an online business directory, they’re looking for information. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Web users don’t look for information or Mobile users never browse. That is simply not true, but the predominant focus shifts.

  What I find interesting is that I don’t often see bloggers blogging about their mobile traffic. I’ve seen them talking about their web traffic lots of time, alas, not really much about mobile. In fact, I’ve never seen that, but then again: n00b! Will this change? Bloggers do their blogging mostly on computers, not via their mobile phones. They more often than not have access to a connected computer. Why would they need to access the internet via their phones? I’m NOT going to sit at my computer connected to the internet and grab my mobile phone to check another site! That makes no sense. (Well, this ain’t true, but it is because I’m developing a mobile site :P ) More on bloggers and mobile in another post. Soon.

  Lastly, Tyler Reed is much more clever than people think… No pressure Tyler! We’re looking forward to see what you cook up for us.

  There are tons I’m learning and I will from time to time add interesting stuff I found here. Heaven forbid…

  Lastly, I’m almost pissed off that Afrigator did not have a stronger mobile focus from word go. In hindsight, another one of my incredibly stupid things I’ve done. Oh well, there are always time for change, right? Right! Expect it. It is coming…
  
   
• 

  Find your mates on Afrigator

  Stii 2:36 pm on February 11, 2009 | Comments: 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Afrigator (23), bloggers, Friends, search (4), social networking (6)

  Right, this feature actually used to be (in some obscure way) in Afrigator, but was dropped. Don’t ask why. Seriously don’t. When we ran Afrigreater, Jeanette Verster said she’s love a way to find friends in Afrigator, but the feature was lacking. Well, now its back and SO much better!

  Let’s say I’m searching for Jeanette Verster. So I type it in the search box and hit enter.

  

  It returns the results as found in blog posts and news articles, but now, in the sidebar it will display all blogs found matching the criteria.

  

  What is really cool about all this is that not only does it find Jeanette’s blog, it also shows where she is mentioned. (as seen in the image below when Nerdmag interviewed Jeanette) NIFTY!

  

  I like to think about it as “one search to rule them all“. :P (its a joke… lots to be done still concerning search!)
  
   
• 

  Afrigator remembers you

  Stii 12:19 pm on February 6, 2009 | Comments: 3 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Afrigator (23), bloggers, Blogging (8), blogstats (4)

  In our quest to become a better Afrigator, the one thing that was missing on a lot of people’s list is quite a daft thing. Daft as in “dudes, how can you NOT have this?”. We never had a Remember Me function which meant users have to log in every time they get to Afrigator. Sorry people!

  You would be happy to know that it is now built in. When you log in, you have the option to be remembered. If you select to use that option, you will stay logged in for a long, long time. At least until you log out again.

  

  PLEASE NOTE:

  • Do not use this function on a public computer! If you do, the next dude will have access to your Dashboard and who knows what clever things they’ll get up to. To be safe, remember your login credentials rather.
  • Also, it will only work on the computer and browser you logged in from. We’re striving for brilliance, but we’re simply too human to have overcome that one! ;-)
  • You will stay logged in for a couple of months. You might be logged out in the far future, fortunately if that does happen and you forgot your username and password, you can always have it reset by using the forgot password function.

  Anyways, thought you should know! Its a stupid little thing really, which we should have implemented ages ago, just never did.
  
   
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  Bloggers, watch your grammar and punctuation

  Stii 3:49 pm on January 19, 2009 | Comments: 18 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bloggers, grammar, twitter (16)

  Often you’ll find people who is are quite irked by spelling mistakes, incorrect grammar, etc. on blogs. It could be quite irritating, I have to admit! I know Nic has written about it in the past. This morning Joy-Mari tweeted this:

  

  A few moments ago I received this apt little image via email from Lester and it just made me chortle:

  
  
   
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  Donn Edwards and QVC came to an agreement

  Stii 11:25 am on January 15, 2009 | Comments: 7 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bloggers, qvc (2), socialmedia (7)

  Not a long time ago, QVC vs Donn Edwards were all the rage since they were suing Donn Edwards for loss of income due to some blog posts he wrote. This led to widespread outrage amongst fellow bloggers and a lot of them retaliated.

  It seems though that the issue was settled out of court. I received this Facebook message:

  I met with Ian Wilcox and John Meyer from QVC at the Midrand Protea Hotel. There were no lawyers and the meeting went extremely well. We all needed to come to an agreement that we could be happy with, and not leave feeling bitter. The agreement we drew up and signed (using a laptop and a portable printer) is the best we could manage, and I’m happy with it.

  I have removed the articles and references from my blog, and the court cases are being suspended for 5 years. Provided I don’t write derogatory things about QVC in that time, the cases will be allowed to lapse, and no harm is done.

  Bear in mind that my initial visit to QVC was 18 months ago, and much has changed during that time, including the way they do their marketing. Whether I agree with the way they do business or not is irrelevant: they changed in response to my complaints, and the complaints of others, and had I known that I would not have written further articles in August and September last year.

  I think the blogger community has done a great job in highlighting this issue, and I thank everyone who participated. We have all learnt a great deal. I request that the current facebook group be closed in order to help me keep to my side of the agreement. I realise I can’t insist on this, but the group was there to provide support, and it has done so in a wonderful and effective way.

  Thanks once again!

  Donn Edwards

  Good for you Donn. Good for QVC, I guess. Pity they didn’t do this from the word go then all the unpleasantness could have been avoided.