The concise summaries of the arguments everyone has an opinion about:
“They’ll be gone in five years.”
“They’ll exist forever.”
It cannot be this simplictic. Nor will it ever be.
All of the evidence so far comes from very established newspaper groups in the US and (western) Europe. Most of these companies run dozens of newspapers across multiple states and countries, with massively inflated staff numbers, vice presidents of all sorts of things, and very badly managed editorial processes (bureaux all over the place). Layoffs, pension fund mismanagement and employee buyouts have meant a massive financial overhang for these companies.
Of course the financial, auto industry and real estate slump in the US and UK isn’t helping at all.
Hartley offers three thoughts on how newspapers can survive/flourish:
Couldn’t have said it much better…
]]>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.
]]>It’s not often that an inventor of a product cries at its public launch. Nathan Levin, founder and inventor of Eyeballs cried at the product’s flashy launch at Sandton Isle’s Aston Martin dealership last week. He says he cried the night before in Cape Town too. Levin had a reason to cry. For as long as he can remember, he’s been trying to crack “it”. He’s an inventor in the old-mould. His work started around a decade ago with an idea based on displaying ads while people dialled-up to the internet. After years of research, reworking, brainstorms and tireless effort, Levin seemed to have actually cracked it. It took a few more months of all-nighters, seven-day weeks and some chance encounters with people like Larry Katz (now MD of the company) to actually bring Eyeballs to market.
Cape Town-based Eyeballs has the potential to become the next big thing; the standard in mobile advertising. With the cards it’s dealt itself, the product is well on its way. But, it’s going to need one or two aces to blow away the market and capture the amount of users it wants.
The Eyeballs premise is strikingly simple. There are no banner ads. No pre-recorded adverts to listen to before you call. These (and more tactics) have been tried. Some work (kind of). Some don’t. But, up till now, there hasn’t been a blow out hit: a new standard for mobile advertising.
Eyeballs calls itself the first unobtrusive form of mobile advertising, its biggest selling point. You register via the internet (www.eyeballs.mobi) or by SMSing a shortcode to get the link for the application. You’ll need to fill in some demographic details, and there won’t be any privacy concerns, seeing as it’s completely opt-in (permission-based). Once you’ve installed the app, it runs in the background on your phone, intelligently displaying ads while you’re using your handset to make calls and send messages. Eyeballs currently works on about 40 different Nokia models, and there are plans to offer the platform on the iPhone and Blackberry in the near future.
Legendary marketing man Andre Beyers, who is chairman of Eyeballs, explains that there are four “opportunities” for a consumer to see an advert while you’re using your phone. These ads appear in the deadspace surrounding actions/notifications. In other words, when your phone rings and you’re notified of an incoming call, you’ll see an ad above the alert; similarly when making an outgoing call, receiving or sending an SMS.
After demo-ing the service with Beyers a few weeks ago, one realises just how unobtrusive it is. It’s almost subliminal, and this is Eyeballs’s biggest selling point.
The big question, though, Beyers asks almost rhetorically is: “why would people do this?” There has to be an incentive. Eyeballs has devised a system called “payback advertising” where users are paid every time they see an ad. This is nothing new, but it’s the first time this has been applied to the mobile market.
To be sure, the money earned is not a huge amount per advert, but if one thinks how often you interact with your phone daily (making calls, receiving SMSes, etc), the small amount you “earn” each time has the potential to add up quickly.
Eyeballs has made some smart moves so far, linking up their rewards programme to both MXit Moola and all four network’s prepaid airtime systems, hiring only the best ad agencies to launch this product to the mass market, and they’ve convinced a good number of blue-chip advertisers to get on board at launch (the likes of FNB, Woolworths, Nokia, MNET, Toyota, Levis, United International Pictures and Santam).
With advertisers like these, it’s no secret who the target market is… Beyers describes the 17-25 year old segment as the “most important”. These are the people with big social groups, and Beyers expects them to influence younger South Africans, and then for these two groups in turn to persuade the older generation. As the network of users grows, so too will the tools and profiling available to advertisers. Campaigns could be programmed, for example, to target female users in Gauteng between the ages of 22 and 24 who don’t own a car. It’s no wonder the ad industry is sold on this idea. You don’t have to “start” or log in to an application to see an ad.
Will it work? Beyers has seen and done it all, and is far too smart to join a dead duck. AltX listed Huge Group has also bought into the product, netting a 25% stake in the company earlier this year.
CEO of Huge Group, Anton Potgieter has been very excited about Eyeballs since he heard about the concept. Potgieter believes this is a “one in a million” idea, with immense potential. Huge has been instrumental in bringing the launch forward and has helped to refine the product. “Pure is as close to the word I can get,” says Potgieter. Beyers says, the most important thing Huge brought to Eyeballs was technical expertise. It’s a no-brainer: it knows how the telecoms industry works: it knows mobile, it knows networks.
In separate interviews, Potgieter and Beyers both point to how Eyeballs is “primed” for international expansion. One can see Beyers has far bigger ambitions than just being a platform with a few million users in SA. Getting an operation going in another country will take “days”.
A few years ago, a friend who’s an early-adopter showed me MXit. The concept was also shockingly simple: use a data connection to enable instant messaging on a cellphone. It’s one of those services you either “get” or not. Most analysts and like-minded people in the industry didn’t back then. But the mass market did. Years later the media and business world caught on, and MXit was “the next big thing”.
Will Eyeballs be able to gain mass appeal, millions of users and be an effective medium for advertisers?
It seems to have the deep pockets needed to promote this product until people use it.
And if it gets dealt just one or two more lucky aces, this will be a blow away hit.
Or else you can be pretty sure it’ll just keep on placing its bets until it strikes the jackpot.
* Hilton Tarrant contributes fortnightly to “Broadband” a weekly column on Moneyweb covering the ICT sector in South Africa. If Eyeballs took the plunge and developed on a notoriously complicated Java platform, he’d actually be able to install it on the Sony Ericsson he uses all day. But, he may just go buy a Nokia handset to see if he’s sold on this idea.
This column was originally published on Moneyweb at http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page71?oid=221119&sn=Detail
]]>This largely depends on two things: can you afford it and do you really want to use everything the iPhone offers?
The first question is much easier to answer than the second. It’s highly likely the phone won’t be available “free” on most contracts in this country, and this means that you’ll need to “buy” the phone (obviously not outright) and then still sign up for a 24 month contract. O2 in the UK, by comparison, “sells” the 8GB model for £99 (±R1 500) and the 16GB model for £159 (± R2 400). You then sign up to a 600 minute-type contract, or a more “standard” 75 minute contract. One would imagine you’d need to sign up for at least a (peak) 120 minute contract, which would set you back about R300 per month. Simply put, the iPhone is not going to come cheap.
The other question is trickier to answer. We know a local version of the iTunes store has launched (rather stealthily in the past few weeks). But (and this is a huge “but”), it’s understood that this store will only “stock” applications (apps) for the iPhone, and no music or video. Will you be satisfied with a limited selection of programs and enhancements in our local store? At least you’ll be able to find apps in one place, instead of scouring the web for third-party programs compatible with your device.
A drawback of the iPhone is there’s no keyboard. It’s touch-screen, which is great for scrolling through music and navigating, but you need to “type” on a picture of a keyboard. However, some smartphones with mini QWERTY keyboards don’t work that well as the keys end up being tiny.
Obviously there are a lot of positives, too: 3G, maps with GPS, the app store (maybe), and the browsing. Oh yes, and you can use it for calls too. This new generation iPhone also has Microsoft Exchange functionality. This is massive for corporates, and the phone can sync with your work e-mail, seamlessly.
Right now this is the only thing that stands out as a massive bonus. You browse the internet almost as you would on your laptop, and it’s unlimited (no caps, no price per megabyte). Sure the screen is smaller, but the iPhone ships with Mac browser Safari, and until you’ve played with it and experienced browsing the internet on the phone, I’m told “you just won’t understand”.
But, the smartphone market leader in South Africa (and globally), Blackberry, is obviously not ignoring the pending arrival of the iPhone. Nor is Nokia, the other popular maker of high-end business phones. Both have rather suddenly stepped up their media and communication efforts and the other manufacturers will follow.
Smartphone manufacturers have cottoned on to the problem with finding apps for phones, especially in the South African market. A local Nokia executive admitted this morning that the “download folder experience is a little thin”.
The official line from RIM (parent of Blackberry) is that they “welcome the competition”. Deon Liebenberg, RIM’s director for sub-Saharan Africa, says the launch of the iPhone will “bring attention to the market we’ve invented”.
Thing is, Blackberry phones, the Nokia Eseries and certain Samsung and Sony Ericsson models can also sync with e-mail. The trademark “push” e-mail functionality on Blackberry (which means you don’t need to keep hitting “send/receive” to check for new messages) makes these devices a firm favourite in the enterprise market. If you want your e-mail on the move, then this works. Plain and simple.
The friction around e-mail connectivity is being felt between other manufacturers. Nokia have stopped offering the Blackberry Connect service on their business phones. This allowed a user to essentially have the push e-mail experience without actually owning a Blackberry. Nokia will instead ship phones with its proprietary “Intellisync” service.
Most new business or high-end phones ship with 3G, and a lot of them have GPS or some sort of satellite navigation. It’s the browser that sometimes is the sticking point.
Steven Ambrose at World Wide Worx expects to see a lot of innovation in the coming months, as the iPhone creates “enormous awareness of what’s possible on a phone”.
World Wide Worx expects the launch of the iPhone globally to force innovation among other handset manufacturers. So expect the other players to make some massive improvements to the built in browsers on their phones.
An American friend now based in Singapore (and an Apple fan boy) lives the hype. He tells me the iPhone “can wash your car, find you dates and save you seats on the subway… all before brunch”.
Maybe it is that good?
* Hilton Tarrant contributes fortnightly to “Broadband” a weekly column on Moneyweb covering the ICT sector in South Africa. He’ll be waiting for a friend to commit a few thousand to an iPhone, and then he’ll decide…
This column was originally published on Moneyweb at http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page39?oid=216558&sn=Detail
]]>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.
No one could’ve written something as pandering and ridiculous as this…
Besides the fact that the one finalist’s mantra is to “Live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment, with no regrets.”, the trendy folk at The Herald have discovered web stats (or as they call the one well-known offering: “Google analysis”):
According to a Google analysis the pages were viewed 108 times on March 10, the day they were uploaded, reaching 1573 “hits” on Wednesday, March 12.
Boy! Gee! Golly! Gosh! I wish my video got over 1500 “hits”.
It gets better (no-one could’ve scripted this better):
“This is astounding,” said senior photographer Eugene Coetzee, part of the web development team at The Herald. Coetzee produced the slide-shows for the website and linked them to YouTube and Facebook‘s groups.
“I didn‘t expect it to be such a hit as it was just an experiment … this enables you to hear what they sound like too.”
Yeah, I guess that’s why they call it VID-EEE-OHHHH. Someone… Anyone… Please help these clueless people…
At least the Dispatch knows what’s potting…
]]>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…
]]>In short, I want the “perfect” cellphone … if, indeed, there is such a thing. I hope I’m speaking for the many who are facing the exact same dilemma. I’m not 16 years old so “clever” gimmicks don’t impress me. Nor do pink phones Or phones trying to be iPods. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t want a gold phone designed by Dolce & Gabbana or one called “Chocolate” either. Even if Chocolate phones now come in pink.
No, I don’t want a Carl Zeiss lens. Who purposefully takes 3 megapixel photos with their phone?! If you’ve got the few thousand rand needed to purchase one of these super camera phones, surely you already own a digital camera? Yes, you’ll want to take one or two opportunistic snaps at some-or-other late night out, but do you really need a lens that takes up half the size of the phone?
No, I don’t want an extremely thin phone. This translates to a much wider and taller phone that usual (just to make it “thinner”). Why would you want a phone as thick (thin?) as a CD case? I don’t get it. I do not want you to continue trying to make your one-hit-wonder, the phone that arguably saved your company from bankruptcy, thinner and thinner and thinner. I want keys that my fingers can press easily, not microscopic bumps. Soon there’ll be almost nothing to hold on to while trying to make a simple phone call.
No, I don’t want my phone to store gigabytes and gigabytes of music. I’m not even sure I want an FM radio – although it might be useful?
No, I don’t want a cellphone that I can flip over from one side to the other to switch between the “phone” and the music player. Even Beyonce couldn’t convince me to buy one of these.
No, I don’t want a guitar chord dictionary, metronome, musical pitch finder, ringtone composer, video editing software, PDF reader or barcode scanner built into my phone! (Yes, these are all features on some newer handsets!)
The simple things
Yes, I want 3G. It means my data will be sent faster, I’ll be able to browse websites quicker. This should almost be standard on handsets by now, shouldn’t it?
Yes, I want Bluetooth (or “Blueteeth” as the guy in the Vodacom advert terms it). Get rid of the bizarre urge to ship every handset with an Infrared port. Bluetooth replaced this technology a good few years ago.
Yes, I want a simple navigation interface. Lose the silly animated icons and let me choose my own menu order. Any phone that requires over three menu selections just to type an SMS (never mind send one) should not have been made. The glaring error made by a lot of handset manufacturers is that the technology side is crammed full of features, yet the software and operating system on the phone are as counter-intuitive as you could imagine.
Yes, I want a battery that will last longer than a few days. Four days would be first prize. This doesn’t mean that I want my phone to last four days while left next to my bed on standby; lasting four days during normal/day-to-day use is a start.
Yes, I want simple integration with my calendar (preferably Microsoft Outlook). Ditch the proprietary PC suite and contacts backup software. Let me simply sync my Outlook appointments with my phone.
Yes, I want to be able to receive e-mail on my phone, preferably even with Blackberry (push-to-device) technology. I won’t need to download all my mail, I’ll simply receive any new messages when they arrive.
A phone that’s just a phone
A lot has been published in the US over the past few weeks, mostly relating to a seemingly bland handset, the Nokia 3109 Classic. Top technology writer Om Malik a few days ago categorised this as a “what-took-them-so-long-to-figure-this-out” phone.
John Barry, Director of Mobile Phones at Nokia said at launch that “We recognize that a sizeable number of people just want a mobile phone to stay in touch on their own terms.”
And this has taken them how long to realise?!
There has been a lot of hype surrounding this Nokia, not necessarily because it’s the best of what’s out there, but because the company has managed to capitalise on the hostility towards bloated, feature-filled cellphones.
Speaking at Sony Ericsson’s country launch earlier this year, region manger Martijn Lutgerink also acknowledged that some users just want a simple phone.
Besides the Nokia handset, to be released as the 3110 Classic in South Africa soon, there are other cellphones you could consider. That is, if you’re in search of a phone that’s just a phone.
Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola (as well as LG, and others) all have cellphones that are simply “phones” in their ranges.
Visit your service provider or cellphone store and consider your options. Don’t be bulldozed into buying the newest and “best” handset because the assistant suggests it. No, you do not want your phone to pretend to be an MP3 music player, do you?
You might end up with a phone that takes five seconds just to open your phonebook because the operating system would be more at home on a laptop.
Think before you “upgrade”.
]]>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.
]]>MXit calls on government to regulate Patrica de Lille
We are very concerned by the recent statement issued to press by ID President, Patricia de Lille calling for legislation to regulate internet blogging and MXit. This is, at its essence, a call for censorship. To hear this statement from a respected whistle-blower who has often championed silent causes is a blow to South Africa’s potential to remain a place where freedom of speech is guaranteed.
What is equally concerning, and alarming, is that Ms de Lille took no time to familiarise herself with the technology she is eagerly hoping to control. Regulate blogging? How exactly does she propose this happen? Not even China with all its draconian legislature and resources is successfully able to censor its populous. This is the power of the internet.
When it comes to her understanding of MXit, there are many misconceptions in her statement. MXit is a mobile instant message platform, which enables registered users to communicate using text based messages – similar to, but cheaper than SMS. MXit also houses a number of chatrooms. It is the chatrooms that appear to have attracted most of Ms de Lille’s ire. Before I defend MXit’s right to host chatrooms and users right to use them I would like to clarify some facts.
Firstly, MXit chatrooms are limited to seven simultaneous users and conversations are not saved so comments do not have the everlasting quality they do on internet forums and blogs. Secondly, they are purely text-based forums and no images can be shared over this service. Lastly, of the over three million registered users, less than five percent use our chatrooms. The other 95 percent use the service to stay in contact with loved ones, friends and business colleagues at a fraction of the cost of an SMS. Let’s not forget that a large portion of our user base is previously disadvantaged and MXit offers an affordable alternative to services by other telecommunications providers.
What Ms de Lille does raise, and is of great import to MXit, is the role the company plays in protecting its user base, particularly minors. MXit takes the safety of our users very seriously. We have a safety policy and communicate it through every available channel – the website, the forum (http://forum.mxit.co.za) and each and every time a user enters a chatroom. The key to safety in chatrooms is anonymity - keep personal information private.
We are very aware that predation is an ugly reality and are working to improve our chatroom offering so that it provides safe spaces for our users. New chatroom features with supporting moderation tools are being tested and will be ready for launch by mid-June 2007.
I would also like to bring Ms de Lille’s attention to the fact that there are thousands of chatrooms available on the internet, many of which contain and condone unsuitable material for children. Modern phone technology enables many of the phones that use GPRS and 3G to access these chatrooms via the default web browser.
In my view it is both a right and a privilege in our democratic South Africa to freely exchange views, even some that are not palatable to her, or her senior councilors. If there has been slander, we all have recourse to a robust legal system and I recommend that the ID take this road to address the Simon Grindrod’s matter rather than introducing wide spread censorship of the public.
MXit remains a communication tool and to ask that the government censor legitimate inter-personal and public communication, so soon after our freedom has been won, seems like a step back into fear-driven past.
]]>De Lille calls on government to regulate MXIT and Internet blogging
ID President Patricia de Lille has called on Government to look into ‘urgently implementing legislation that will regulate MXIT and Internet blogging, where members of the public can with impunity slander and defame individuals and organisations they do not like.’
De Lille’s comments follow a surge in activity among young children on MXIT, which makes them vulnerable to sexual predators and paedophiles.
The ID leader says she has been ‘horrified to hear daily stories from people whose marriages have been destroyed and about children who are led into situations where they are molested by grown men, who use MXIT to lure these girls and boys into their traps.
‘We are already struggling to repair the social fabric of our society, and to tolerate a platform for this kind of sexual predation and deviance against our young children is inexcusable,’ De Lille says.
The most recent MXIT crises is the circulation of pornographic images of young girls.
‘This has gone too far and it is time for Government to intervene to protect our most vulnerable. The right to freedom of expression is not absolute,’ says De Lille.
Another worrying development in cyberspace is the abuse of blogging, which allows anonymous individuals to post slanderous and defamatory comments with impunity about anyone they choose, without the legal consequences they would face in other more reputable print and electronic media.
‘We recently came across a blog with slanderous comments about a famous rugby player, a respected reverend in the church and a prominent entertainer.
‘This blog also included one of our senior politicians, Councillor Simon Grindrod. He reported this matter to the Caledon Square police on Tuesday 15 May and they are currently investigating it,’ De Lille says.
‘Because the problem is that we couldn’t trace the author of the defamatory statements, we will also ask the NIA to investigate.
‘The reason why the ID cannot expose the website address and its content is we will then also be responsible for spreading the defamation and the slander against the reverend, the ex-Springbok rugby player, the entertainer and the ID politician, amongst others,’ says De Lille.
‘Our legal team has advised us that in terms of the law anyone who republishes, reprints or rebroadcasts defamation of this nature published on any blogging website, is liable for civil and criminal action.
‘The only way to put a stop to this is to use every legal option to hold not only the website, but also the perpetrator, responsible. This kind of thing must not go unchallenged,’ De Lille says.