Archive for 'Social Media'
Digitrad Simplifies the Way People Communicate
Digitrad is a sponsor of the upcoming Traveling Geeks trip to London. The concept is easy. They simplify the way people communicate by using their name as a single point of contact. All you need to do is to type a name within your web browser.
No matter how many different digital IDs you have.
No matter how many different social networks you use.
No matter if you change address, country, phone number or job.
Digitrad’s goal is to help people to find the best way to reach you. Their new service, Yes.tel, provides you with a unique .tel name, a first top level domain name dedicated to communications. I plan to play with it over the next few weeks.
We’d Love to Hear from UK Bloggers
As we get closer to heading off to London, we’d love to hear from bloggers in the UK. If you’re interested in contributing to the site, please let us know.
TweetUp planned for 5th July in London with The Conversation Group
This photo, taken at the Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco, is of JD Lasica and Susan Bratton, two of the Traveling Geeks headed to London this July. We are meeting with Ted Shelton (front) and Chris Thomas (back) of The Conversation Group.
Ted is spearheading a TweetUp for the Traveling Geeks, the Conversation Group and social media Twitterers in the UK.
Mark your calendar and DM @SusanBratton if you’d like to be notified of the time and location for this TweetUp (likely at 5 pm on 5 July 2009).
On Blogging: A Word From the South Africans
Winners of the South African blog contest have been unveiled across multiple categories. The “best blog across all categories” this year is 2 Oceans Vibe.
My buddy Nic, who was on the South African blogging expedition with us last December is listed as the first runner-up although they did win for best group blog. Matthew Buckland who also joined us for part of the tour is included in the runner-up list as well.
Interestingly enough, there have been a few debates raging since the ceremony on Friday night. including disappointment from one of the judges.
2oceansvibe won in 6 categories and although she was a judge, votes were weighted in favor of public votes. According to the rules, that means that ‘in the voting phase the vote weighting will be 30% judges and 70% public’ whereas in the nomination phase it is ‘50% judges 50% public.’
It sounds like she is disappointed with the voice of South Africans, in other words, where they spend their time and what they think about. She says, “I realise that there is a pretty large audience for tits, ass, cars, rugby and surfing, but the fact that this is the blog that we hold up to the world as our national pride and joy makes me want to hurl.”
She encourages the need to distinguish between popular voted blogs and then get the judges together to discuss their choice of winners that best reflects where South Africa is right now and where it is heading. Of course, that model is the old media model where two men decide which movie gets a two thumbs up or three book reviewers can influence whether a book makes it to the NY Times Bestseller List or not.
She talks about brand and the power of brand, in this case, something that stands for quality in the way that perhaps the Oscars do here. Her take: if the blog awards brand doesn’t have any meaning, any vision, any unique take on the world of blogging, then – ‘it becomes just another popularity contest.’
“The masses decide” is where its heading though – no more judges, very few editors (who can afford them now in the new Google economy where everything is expected for free), and less calling for experts, although we’ll return to experts soon enough as quality goes down. We now live in a Digg and Yelp society where hopefully over time, quality will rise to the top and the unauthentic voices and players will drop to the bottom.
The upside: more feedback and discovery than anytime in history. The downside: too much clutter and noise until the next genius brings out advanced filters that make that online discovery process even more efficient, more compelling and more fun.
Big Idea: How online publishers can rival Google
Quite sometime ago I did a rather entrepreneurial proposal to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) about a new, non-profit industry-focused search engine and advertising network to rival Google. I know what you’re thinking, apart from the general nuttiness of the idea itself: I must be crazy approaching a “newspaper” body? But the idea around […]
Click on headline link to visit matthewbuckland.com for full article
South African Blog Contest
The South African Blog Awards is live. Given that I’ve lived there a couple of times and just spent a chunk of time down there late last year into early 2009, I’m a fan of several of their blogs in countless categories and hey, South African bloggers voted for my blog in the PR Week blog contest last summer.
The SA Blog Awards is a showcase of the very best of South African blogs. The goal is to bring South African bloggers to the forefront of peoples attention, both locally and internationally, increasing exposure for South Africa’s great bloggers.
Voting is live and the winners will be announced on April 3rd, 2009. Check out Brand South Africa, SARocks and Matthew Buckland.com. There’s also a great photo blog called Cape Town Daily Photo.
Categories are broad and include: The Best of the Best from South Africa, Best Entertainment Blog, Most Humorous, Best Post on a South African Blog (the one that stood out in 2008 was Moral Fibre), Blogs written by a South African in any foreign country (interesting one – South African Sea Monkey: what a great name), Best Original Writing on a South African Blog, Best Political Blog (there’s some provocative reading here), Best Photographic Blog, Best Food and Wine Blog, Music Months, Gay / Lesbian / Bisexual / Transgendered Blogs, Best Design Blog, Best South African Podcast, Best Group Blog, Best Business Blog, Best Technology Blog, Best Sports Blog, Best Blog covering Enviro-Friendly Content, Best African Language Blog (cool, eh?), Most Controversial Blog, Best Travel Blog, Best Personal Blog, and lastly, Best Parenting Blog for the trials and tribulations of dealing with “little people.”
Do some scanning, do some reading, so some digging, do some laughing, and by all means, do some voting.
TED Talk: How Twitter users shaped Twitter
Click on headline link to visit matthewbuckland.com for full article
Musings: The 24.com blogs revamp
Here are some designs and thoughts around the new look 24.com blog platform. The designs are by Philip Langley, with Alistair Fairweather in the driving seat.
Our musings:
1. Less 24.com, more individual blogger. More blog-like 🙂
2. More viral, using contact and social network mining. Help bloggers build audience.
3. Rigid templates for best practice, yet open to […]
Click on headline link to visit matthewbuckland.com for full article
SA political party launches impressive, Obama-esque campaign site
The Democratic Alliance (DA), a local opposition party, has impressed with their new online strategy. Clearly inspired by Barack Obama’s web innovation, the political party has launched two websites, although only just squeaking in two months before national elections kick off. The sites are: a social media-type campaigning site, “Contribute to change“, (built on BuddyPress […]
Click on headline link to visit matthewbuckland.com for full article
The social network approach to viralising your articles
One of the key viral elements of content websites, such as news sites, are the “email to a friend” links you see on many articles. Personally, I don’t use these, but I know they’re valuable: there’s a type of user that religiously use these links as a way of sharing. Obviously they introduce new traffic […]
Click on headline link to visit matthewbuckland.com for full article
