thenewnewmedia.com

With Vincent and Matthew, the two co-founders and creators, gone – has anyone else noticed that Amatomu seems to have almost completely lost its sense of community? It’s become almost sterile… a directory, like Yahoo when it first started. Plus it’s become flooded with some sites that really aren’t blogs who are clearly using Amatomu for its analytics functions (and to see how they compare to the mighty keo).

Whether this is because of the two creators leaving, or the local blogosphere becoming boring, static and less-engaged with itself, remains to be seen. A-list bloggers (Mike, Nic, Charl, Tyler, Eric and even Matthew and Vincent) do seem to be blogging less these days. Although all of them have real business to run, or at the very least real jobs.

I’m not for a minute suggesting that Jason Norwood-Young is not an adequate replacement… far from it… I haven’t met him (at least I don’t think I have), but everyone I speak to speaks very highly of him.

It’s just that with the hype-duo of Matt and Vin gone, it feels like Amatomu has lost a very important part of its DNA – it needs some sort of reinvention.

btw… Nic has a very interesting post about bloggers all blogging about blogging.

…and Mandy’s also noticed that nobody seems to be home at Amatomu.

And they shouldn’t even try…

The Herald (not a bad paper, not a great one), is… wait for it… now part of the online world. Yes they’ve got a website and had one for a while. But now they’re actually writing about Facebook and (gasp) YouTube.

I noticed this story today… I couldn’t have come up with a cheesier headline, even if I had two weeks to try… “Miss PE finalists queens of dotcom world”. CHEESE.

But the actual story is hilarious… and I quote…

THE Herald Greenacres Miss Port Elizabeth 2008 finalists are not confined by geographical boundaries as they are proving to be a big hit in the “dotcom” world.

When their slideshows were posted on The Herald‘s website, www.theherald.co.za, they attracted a lot of attention from web users, receiving 1573 “visitors” in just two days.

(more…)

And I quote…

Due to issues in the past with internet bandwidth and usage, IT installed Microsoft ISA servers to monitor all web related traffic originating internally. The ISA servers then produce reports to management to show statistics on web usage on a monthly basis.

These reports generated shows amongst other stats, sites most frequently visited and also duration of visits. A statistic that came up very strongly for almost every business unit showed that social websites are in the top 3 most popular sites visited. It further indicated that considerable time during the day and internet bandwidth were being spent browsing these websites.

Due to this considerable amount of internet bandwidth & time being spent on a daily basis to non-work related websites, the decision was made to block access to these “social websites”.

These will include “facebook”, “u-tube” (sic) and also “myspace” for now.

More on this in a column I’m writing for Thursday…

So there I had it. Perched on the corner of my bed at 5:30 this morning… Yesterday’s ‘first’ (or rather first test) edition of The Times. Some might say that flipping through a (new) paper and forming an opinion of it during the morning getting-ready-for-work routine may not be the best way to go about it. But hey, that’s how we consume media now… isn’t it? I’m sure Ray wrote about attention spans as well… Just battled to find it.

I like the front page.

Strong identity.

I’m hoping the Page 2 content about online and multimedia doesn’t feel as static when the team start producing.

Can we stop with all the Bullard?

Pictures. Pictures. Pictures. The Times has brilliant ones. And they’re used well. Mostly. Not too sure about the big ones at the bottom of pages.

The Star and The Citizen need better pics.

What’s with The Times‘ (and Sunday Times‘) obsession with Facebook?

An op-ed piece about Facebook???

Are four pages of business sustainable?

Nice to see integration of CareerJunction in job supplement. Very good move. People are thinking.

Dr Carr on the motoring page?!

Readers are going to want a condensed TV guide. Surely.

Why the L-shaped ads everywhere? Yellow pages a la This Day soon?

The news hole on pages with L-shaped ads looks like its exactly that. An afterthought.

BBK rocks.

Relatively bland sport section. Good photos though.

Where’s all the promised integration with online? Rip page two out and suddenly you’re left with a newspaper. Nothing more. Nothing less.

A different newspaper. But somehow not that different.

“An opinion more deadly than a thousand bullets. Beware the blogger looms. To spew crap and made-up facts.”

Stirring the pot. See it on Loud.

In amongst all the outbursts and comments about David Bullard’s opinion(s) on blogs, many probably missed a really, really valuable post.

Especially for those involved in the media and/or publishing.

Vincent offers up this gem: “Ten ways online newspapers can use Web 2.0 without digging themselves a grave”. I dare say point number four is (possibly?) the most important of the lot:

Do not fall into the trap of thinking everyone wants social news features on your site

It’s a mistake that has been made by so many around the world. And it’s happening with redesigns and relaunches everyday.

Vincent mainly offers opinions about voting/selection tools. (more…)

Wow. 40 whole mentions on Amatomu-linked blogs yesterday. http://www.amatomu.com/search/david bullard

Or a massive 180 if you use Technorati. 180 mentions. Probably about half as many unique blogs. At a stretch. “Bloggers unite”, woohoo, self-congratulatory pats-on-the-back all round.

David Bullard knew what would happen. And he’s pretty much said as much in the video clips the Sunday Times team have put together.

Unless you believe the conspiracy theories. Right… and Brett Kebble’s alive on some Caribbean island…

Ray Hartley hits it on the head once again with this well-thought out, clever post. The local blogosphere has erupted into some sort of sycophantic, self-defensive murmur after David Bullard wrote what he did on Sunday. It was to be expected, though.

What most bloggers, spitting their hatred combined with some sort of self-proclaimed God-given rights to condemn any opinion they don’t agree with, forget is that this is what Bullard does. And he does it well. Every week, he manages to insult and take task with some or other sector of society. Metro Cops. Jacob Zuma. Poor people. More often than not though, we’re not on the receiving end. And even if we are, we tend to pat ourselves on the back and find comfort in the fact that “you know, we’re not really poor/white/supporters of Jacob Zuma…”

I’d bet that Bullard is a far craftier writer (blogger?) than everyone gives him credit for. What if those self-styled valiant protectors of the bloggers were in the position of power that Bullard is in? Would they not use it to provoke and poke fun at certain sectors of society?

The fact is we all read Bullard. And we’ll continue to do so. And here’s the clincher: he knows that.

Bullardgate? Vincent, give me a break.

Take it with a pinch of salt, move on and next Sunday you’ll find yourself chuckling at Bullard’s description of Helen Zille. Or French cars. Or whatever.

Plus the Sunday Times website suddenly gets a crapload of linklove… ever think of that?

UPDATE: Here’s a funny look at this whole contrived war. Our thoughts on David Bullard, blogs, bloggers and opinions

The new Do Broadband bundles from Telkom are not Telkom Media. And Telkom Media has (very very very little) to do with Do Broadband. Contrary to speculation.

The ads on Webmail’s seemingly disastrous “blogging” platform have been booked there by clueless media planners. Do Broadband bundles are exactly that. Bundled internet access from Telkom Internet.

Suffice to say though, that I have seen Telkom Media’s IPTV platform. It works. The platform is incredibly powerful and is world-class (I’m sure a some will be surprised at this). I am also aware of some of their plans for content and social media (including video). Telkom Media is going to have so much content, it’ll hardly know what to do with it.

I have spoken to execs involved at Telkom Media and I wouldn’t be shocked if they give some existing players in the media space (not just pay TV) a serious run for their money. And Telkom Media has deep pockets.

So Ananzi, in all their wisdom, have decided to launch what they call a wiki. They have used their startpage site to release this product … but is it a wiki?
Wasn’t this supposed to be something like Microsoft’s start.com (or live.com) or Google’s personalised home page? I know that technically this could be a wiki-type thing, but isn’t it just a user-generated directory? (more…)