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The Archives

• 08.22.10
  The future of social networking – a concept investigation with Augmented Reality Future Trends, Mobile Web, augmented reality | (51)

  Here are some concept designs that myself and ace designer Philip Langley put our heads together to create. It's an investigation into how social networking may work in the future, focusing on mobile and augmented reality (AR). Our investigations were inspired in particular by these brilliant (AR) concept drawings which I often use in presentations I give. There are some crude, but fascinating, implementations around too that inspired us. After some brainstorming and quite a few mockups, we came up with the below. Admittedly AR is the new hype. But you can see how valuable (and scary) this could be when applied ...

  Tagged: augmented reality, context-based social networking, future of social networking, location-based social network, semantic tagging, Social networking
  
• 10.21.09
  The Hub: Social networking on a publishing platform 24.com, Social networking | (6)

  The Hub, a key 20FourLabs project, changes everything. To some extent, it's the realisation of of these thoughts I had in 2007 that all websites, all businesses, and in fact all things are social networks. It's an obvious point in many ways, but then again not so obvious in others. Wrapped up in the Hub is an element of Disqus and an element of TimesPeople and elements of a pre-existing comment aggregation strategy. There are also new elements and features we workshopped internally with Labs' product managers Alistair Fairweather and now Stefano Sessa -- now being interrogated by developerguru Ronny Srnka ...

  Tagged: Alistair Fairweather, Social networking, stefano sessa, the hub
  
• 09.21.09
  Which type of network suits your business? Social media, Social networking, online media business | (1)

  Prosumer is one of those horrible words. But it does encapsulate an ethos sweeping through online business today (particularly media), where the audience/readers/viewers/consumers are no longer treated in a passive way but actively brought more into the business or publishing processes. It's also known as crowd sourcing. To understand exactly what this means, here's a great framework for understanding it. The clever people at the Harvard Business School (HBS) have defined four types of collaboration: open-hierarchical, open-flat, closed-hierarchical and closed-flat. I've been meaning to blog this for a while: It was one of many fascinating things we studied on a short ...

  Tagged: closed-flat, closed-hierarchical, collaboration, crowd sourcing, Harvard Business School, HBS, networks, open-flat, open-hierarchical, Social networking
  
• 06.23.09
  Twitter, journalism and Iran Social media | (1)

  Some questions I answered for a newspaper article on journalism and social media, specifically with regard to the Iran uprisings and the use of twitter: 1. Twitter is being used quite extensively at the moment in Iran. Could this be regarded as some kind of turning point for social media? I wouldn't call it a turning point. It's part of an ongoing trend that sees technology and the internet making media and broadcasting more accessible to people on the ground. The internet allows ordinary people to tell their stories through their own media via their blog, their Twitter or Facebook accounts, using ...

  Tagged: citizen journalism, iran, online journalism, Social media, Social networking, Twitter
  
• 06.17.09
  Announcing 20FourLabs 24.com | (5)

  We've launched a new division @ 24.com, called 20FourLabs. The word "labs" has become synonymous with innovation ever since Google established its world-famous Google Labs. So this is where we're drawing inspiration from, because we love Google. So far 20FourLabs consists of about 27 very talented web people with a desire to take over the world :-) Blue World, another well-known local startup, have joined labs and are part of our team. It's pretty much a start-up environment, incubated within the walls of a corporate. We're building online applications with a strong focus on mobile (wap and applications) and social networking. ...

  Tagged: 20fourlabs, Mobile Web, Social networking, Web development
  
• 01.16.09
  Have you Obamafied your website today? Politics, Social networking, web strategy | (1)

  Nobody likes an antisocial site. Social sites are winning the traffic stakes, and even elections. A politician from Honolulu showed us how it's done. I never thought that one of the best examples of a social site would come from a politician, but it did. It's a lesson for all websites, including media players, on how to use the web to build sophisticated relationships and loyalty with your users. It's the model to follow on how a site can get its readers to create content, market and spread its brand across the web like a contagious virus. That's what the Barack Obama ...

  Tagged: Barack Obama, Chris Hughes, Facebook, Facebook Inc, google, Google Inc., Honolulu, John McCain, myBo, non-viral site, online political campaign, online political strategies, out-of-the-box social network solutions, social applications, social media presence, social network, social network solution, Social networking, social networks, social site
  
• 04.21.08
  24.com launches impressive crowd-sourcing tool in Answerit SA Media | (2)

  Just got a press release today about 24.com's new answerit service. It's based on a similar Yahoo! service, which apparently has done pretty well. 24.com are one of the few players in the country who can launch a service like this, because it requires volume. Last time I checked, they have the volume, or more than 3,000,000 unique browsers. At the heart of the site is an innovative points system which regulates users' answers and ensures only the good stuff stays at the top -- it's a fairly complex crowd-sourcing excercise and, I have to say, is very well conceived. If ...

  Tagged: Elan Lohmann, Heather Dougherty, Hitwise, Internet-based community, online public forum, online tool, Online users, Social media, Social networking, South Africa, United States, Yahoo!
  
• 04.05.08
  The mobile web: Why the future really is on the small screen Mobile Web | (2)

  According to a report on Reuters last year, world wide mobile phone subscriptions reached 3.3-billion users or half the world’s population. Compare this to television usage (about 1,5-billion users) or desktop internet usage (about 1,1-billion users), and it is not hard to see why there is so much excitement about the potential of the mobile web. In Japan more than 70% of internet access is via mobile phones as opposed to desktop internet access. Japan’s present is the rest of the world’s future – and we will see the same trends emerge here and elsewhere. The mobile phone is poised to ...

  Tagged: advertising, advertising medium, BBC, broadband, business networking site, cellular telephone, contextual search advertising product, desktop internet access, desktop internet usage, desktop web access, fixed-line telephone users, google, India, internet access, internet settings, internet usage, Japan, Johannesburg, key advertising medium, main factors driving web access, mass media device, mass online medium, Mobile advertising, mobile advertising server, Mobile Marketing Association, mobile network, mobile phones, Mobile Web, mobile web services, Nigeria, Norway, online advertising, online chat service, online market, online news players, Reuters, search engine, search engine behemoth, serious online players, Social networking, social networking revolution, South Africa, Stafford Masie, text advertising, to all digital devices, United States, WAP, web online advertising
  
• 02.04.08
  Gathering of the Bloggerati Blogosphere, Social media, Social networking | (9)

  Bigup to the bloggers, geeks and media people that made it to the first ever Bloggerati Cape Town at the Long Street Cafe. The idea was to have a casual meet up over drinks (name tags were banned) and it turned out to be a rather cracking evening. In fact it was testament to blogger power that there was such a good turnout. It was good to have the first one in Cape Town -- every geek gathering I've been to there has produced a good turn out. I'm starting to think it's the place to be. It was a crazymad ...

  Tagged: Albert Bredenhann, Andy Higgins, Beverly Merriman, bolton deventer, Brandon Golding, Cape Town, Chris Rawlinson, Dave Duarte, Derek Abdinor, Elan Lohmann, Farinha, Gerrit Giliomee, Heather Luckoff, internet networking session, Jason Bagley, Jayne Morgan, Jonathan Hitchcock, Jonty Fisher, Long Street Cafe, Maryland, Matthew Swart, Max Kaizen, media people, Paddy Browning, Rudolph Muller, Social networking, Tony Lankester, Vincent Maher, Yasser Buchana
  
• 11.21.07
  Vodacom's foray into mobile advertising Conferences, Mobile Web | (3)

  Blogging from PublishOnline in Cape Town... Graunt Kruger who works for Vodacom's mobile advertising department had the audience at the conference gasping at the big numbers and big strategies. Graunt disagrees with me, but Vodacom -- who are now Online Publishing Association members -- are looking more and more like a media company these days. Here's the irony, Vodacom is one of the biggest advertisers in the country. But now the tables have turned as they are now accepting advertising on their mobile site, which attracts a big local audience of around 1,4-million monthly users and more than 16-million page impressions (according ...

  Tagged: Cape Town, cellphone network, google, Graunt Kruger, ingame advertising, internet search, local advertising pie, location-based social network, media, Mobile advertising, mobile advertising department, mobile advertising division, mobile media, Mobile Web, Online Publishing Association, SMS, Social networking, South Africa, USD, vodacom
  

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