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There has been a bit of a buzz surrounding Google Trends and their alleged intention to take on Alexa in the tracking, trends and statistics game.

I’ve chatted to Vincent about this and he seemed underwhelmed by the entire concept.

I have a different perspective. I am quote excited about the comparative search terms and vague unique visitors per month.

From what I can gather, the basic premise is that you can compare what users are searching for and visiting with one website as the focus.

The graph below is a comparison of four news websites in South Africa. News24.com, IOL, Mail & Guardian Online and The Times Online.

click to enlarge

Using the above graph as an example, Mail & Guardian Online is the focus of the graph and data you are able to see the graph, regions, also visited and also searched for. The key to these comparative graphs is the colours. Note the colours carefully and pay attention because they are important.

Mail & Guardian Online is clearly blue and the little button says that the statistics are ranked by/according to Mail & Guardian Online.

I can see that people who visited Mail and Guardian Online also visited The Times, searched for vuyo mokoena and South African newspapers.

I think this is useful information.

What can you do with information like this? It’s habitual I think. You can know what your target audiences habits might be. I say might be because there are never any certainties. But we can know with a greater sense of surety (read confusion) than previously. This means targeting. Targeted advertising, targeted content, themes, links, relevance.

To me, this is potentially more important than knowing what your users are clicking on in your own site. Why? Because things are different and evolving online, especially in the online news media market. Mail & Guardian Online have implemented a system of cross referencing and external linking. These links directly provide our potential opposition websites with links taking users out of the Mail & Guardian Online in to a different news organisations website. Now if we know which opposition our users prefer, how frequently they visit and what search terms took them in to or out of our websites and our oppositions then the chance exists that the word “opposition” is being used unnecessarily.

It could be possible down the line that news is customised by the organisations, users, competitors, advertisers and anyone else in such a way that the flow of information suits each individual in a broader context.

What do you think of this advert?

Visit Mail & Guardian Online now to have a look at the advert.

I am in two minds. Initially I hated the concept, but then, it’s not so bad really. It’s effective, interesting and different. Plus it can be closed at any moment if you can find the relevant button.

I am a disappointed in some “online professionals”. The reason I am using the term with my tongue poking and prodding at my cheek is because I believe there is a fair amount of professionalism being thrown down the toilet. Mandy de Waal wrote an article for ITWeb titled “Who’s who in the Web 2.0 Zoo?“.

Some people seemingly took great offence that there where no people of colour in the article. Rafiq was invited to participate, he declined. The angle of the article was simply an interview and answer process. Certain people who are major players in the online market were asked to name three people who they would want to work with in the online arena. These people did so. Not based on racial innuendos as justifications. These were simply the people who each interviewee wished to work with on a professional level.

Unfortunately someone needed to respond, someone always need to respond, and needed to emphatically make a racial statement. This is extremely sad. Ramon Thomas took up the cause and titled his article “Who’s who in the non-white Web 2.0 South African Zoo“. The title alone immediately marginalises his audience and those involved in his article. He immediately boxes those in his article and ostracizes those who read it.

The immediate feeling that I get is that this is like affirmative action in sports teams - the Springboks to be precise. The situation that rugby players of colour have faced in the past is a lose-lose, if they are chosen they question the reasons for their selection. If they are not chosen then they wonder if it was due to their race. Lose. Lose.

If I was on Ramon’s list I’d be pretty upset. The candidates on this list are no longer the best in their profession but only the best in their racial class. Mandy’s article might have lacked some depth but she did not force the answers out of the participants, they chose out of their own free will. She also did not classify her article as black or white inspite of the black text and white background colour. Now there are more web professionals who have been dragged in to this to make a statement. They have become pawns in the game of race.

Mandy made an error in undermining hew own article when she used a pull quote that included the words “White boys club”. If this was the angle of the story then I think that this would have been an integral part of an article that would be able to ask some very important questions about the racial state of the online industry. The pull quote was irrelevant in the context of her story and in my opinion undermined the people who took part in the article.

There is an important question to be asked: where are the black professionals in the online industry?

Darren Ravens asks the question more appropriately. But I think that Darren Gorton got it right.

Personally I would like to be considered a media professional for the work that I do, not for the work that I do as a white(ish), Greek (almost), South African male.

I’m done with Derrick Watshisname and the Carte crew. I am honestly disappointed with the quality of their stories. More and more often I am seeing one sided, ill-researched pieces that lack any semblance of coherence. I’m also not sure what Tyler was on about in his post, lauding the piece as decent and fairly accurate. Think I might have caught a different show in a parallel universe on a different tangent to the one Tyler watched.

Their piece on Web 2.0 was horrific. Congratulations to Rafiq and Dave for cracking the nod and showing some sense in a show filled with rambling and jumping from topic to topic.

I followed Twitter throughout the show and there were some interesting responses to it throughout. Jason from Zoopy was insistent that we should take the story from where it comes, ie: old media. Boring argument that means nothing to me.

I work for an “old media” company that is moving forward in leaps and bounds. M&G have been relentless in their new media endeavors and have definitely been heading the web 2. shove in SA.

Carte Blanche, it appears, searched for “blogging” using this new toy they’ve found called “google” or something and came up with two names. Dave and Rafiq were both interviewed and made alot of sense. But what happened to getting more than one side of the story and more than one opinion in a piece? Dave and Rafiq work relatively closely with one another and are both based in CT. Now to the average viewer in SA it appears as if there is only web 2.0 development happening in CT. What about George, JHB, Durban and developers who roam the country? What about innovation on a national level?

Why did they not take a look at the gurus of web 2.0 in SA who are pushing the envelope? Props to Rafiq for doing what he does and Dave for spreading the ideals and concepts to those who don’t know, but I know for a fact that UKZN is also pushing new media as well as Rhodes University. Why not talk to those people too? Why only UCT as an institution.

One twitterer commented: “@rafiq @daveduarte @zoopedup nice one guys…wife still doesn’t get it though LOL ;P”. That reflects bad journalism.

John Webb has done some brilliant stuff with 702 Talk Radio and Carte Blance but this was dismal. The story jumped from web, to Mxit, to Facebook, flashing screenshots of TED conferences, YouTube videos and a host of other irrelevant pictures to look more web 2.0. None of these things were spoken of in the actual story.

Another whopper of a quote from the story: “The pace of change has exceeded our ability to keep up.” What exactly does that mean and who exactly are they referring to?

In essence all that I am saying is that a show like this should never have been broadcast without an actual point. In fact, an explanation of something would’ve been great. There was no definition of what web 1.0 was, never mind what web 2.0 is and where it’s headed.

Pictured in a few of the scenes were Charl Norman and his site BlueWorld. Not a word spoken about the site, its competition with Facebook or a peep from Charl. I wonder if they knew Charl was behind BlueWorld when they filmed him with Rafiq, having coffee?

I’m disappointed but not surprised with the level of their reporting and hope that they read this post (if they’ve learned anything from their own story) and realise that there is a lot more going on out there than two gurus in one city.

Please don’t mistake my post for ranting. I have no value to add to the show that was broadcast so this is not a jealousy thing. It’s a responsible journalism thing.

Again, congratulations to Dave and Rafiq who both deserved their exposure and it’s great to see some exposure around the topic.

See for yourself:

I am really interested in what people do online. Not all the time, not everytime but specifically in the morning when you open up your browser for the first time.

I head straight for my RSS feeds on Google Reader, then hop over to Gmail then check SA Rocks and this blog and then move on to Muti, Afrigator and Amatomu. Thereafter I pretty much do whatever comes my way.

Facebook is the absolute last thing that I think to do online. Sometimes I don’t even login in to Facebook till after lunch or in the evening.

In my new position as FM Campus editor I have needed to source helpful, useful and relevant websites for our 10 000 readers to make use of in one of our magazine sections.

I have stumbled across some very interesting sites that are extremely beneficial for many students. Unfortunately many of the sites are tailor made for US students.

With that said, here are two sites that I think are extremely helpful for SA students. I wish I had these two services when I was a student. My life was such a shambles as many can attest to.

Stu.dicio.us - Is a version of Del.icio.us but more student-centric. You can add in your lecture timetable, bookmark relevant sites, set alarms for various events or deadlines and upload files for storage. The two best features of this site are the Facebook link and the mobile option. With the sites link to Facebook users can link up with their friends doing similar courses, with similar deadlines and similar lives and sync in. If they are late, you are late and everyone is late but lets be honest, we all had one friend at Uni who would always be one time!

While the mobile option of the services ensures that you have no excuses any more. Wherever you are you can login to the service using your mobile phone and make sure you aren’t missing any deadlines!

MyNoteIt - This site is a place where students can take, edit and share notes that they make. Students can upload notes, manage their calendars, assignments and stay in touch with classmate groups.

Fair enough the two sites seem to overlap somewhat but for some reason they appear to be different to me. Anyways they are both great services that are beneficial for students if they are used diligently and effectively.

Since my purchase of the fantastic Xbox360 I have been searching for the perfect site with the perfect prices and the perfect delivery package to buy my games from online.

In this post I will be comparing three sites that I have found.

For this comparison I will be looking at three main criteria: Cost of game, delivery package (incl. cost) and variety of available games.

The Websites:
digitalplanet.co.za - This site is not exclusively about gaming. You can buy various other products and software. This sort of broad service always puts me off. The site is manageable enough for me not to feel lost.

You are able to search through the Xbox games by price tag (R0-R99, R99-R199 etc etc), alphabetically and by page. Nice and easy.

Take2.co.za - The great thing about this site is that I’ve actually tried and tested it. And it works. On top of that their game-filtering system, or search facilities are great.

You are able to search within the specified list of games and filter the search. Filters include asking for what’s in stock, sold out, pre-order, local, international and more. You can then sort your filters alphabetically and a variety of other ways. Very handy if you know what you are looking for.

Edreams.co.za - This site has done a lot of promotion on Facebook with banner ads and in fact that is how I found this site. That immediately, for some reason, puts me off. Although I have friends who swear by this site in spite of a couple of late deliveries. This is definitely the most visually appealing of all three sites and is probably the easiest to navigate. Edreams also sells various other products which as I have said, I don’t like (although I can’t imagine there is a lot of money is an exclusive Xbox or Gaming website).

Cost of games:
I will be looking at 5 games and comparing their prices across the three sites. The reason for 5 games is that I wanted to look at the most recent (pre-order) games as well as older more classic games.

The games and their prices:
Tiger woods ‘08

Digital Planet: R 421.20
Take 2: R 453
Edreams: R441

Cheapest: Digital Planet

Tony Hawk Project 8

Digital Planet: R 336
Take 2: R 361
Edreams: R274

Cheapest: Edreams

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

Digital Planet: R 513.63
Take 2: R 538
Edreams: Not on sale

Cheapest: Digital Planet

Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis

Digital Planet: R 250.80
Take 2: R 270
Edreams: R137

Cheapest: Edreams

Call of Duty 2

Digital Planet: R 237.60
Take 2: R 256
Edreams: R260

Cheapest: Digital Planet

OVERALL CHEAPEST WEBSITE: Digital Planet

There could be a better mix of games but this is what I have chosen.

Delivery Package:

Digital Planet: Delivery fees range from R30 to R250

From their site:

Currently we have a few delivery options. The delivery price is dependant on the size and weight of your product. Delivery fees range from R30 to R250. Please call our call centre on 0860 245 000 for any queries.

Take 2: Shipping to South Africa only - R29

From their site:

Deliveries to towns outside of the major Metropolitan Areas ( Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, East London, Port Elizabeth, George, Nelspruit and Pietersburg) will be done by means of Speedservices Couriers. It will therefore be delivered to the post office where you have a post office box or private bag. If you only have a street address, it will be delivered to the nearest post office. We will notify you by email as soon as your order has shipped and your Speedservices tracking number will also be provided. In most cases the items will be delivered to your post office within 24 hours of despatch.

Edreams:

From their site: Calculated by weight

From their site:

All our shipping rates are calculated according to the total weight of your parcel and destination of delivery.

Variety of games:

From the review above it seems as though the only site that is lacking in games when I searched for them was Edreams. The others seem to have availability on most games available and Take 2 will even source and deliver from overseas distributors at a cost.

The end result:

Overall I like the results that Digital planet have presented. I suppose it really is a matter of choice and experience with each individual site. So if you have experience with any of them please let me know!

I am going to be trying out all three sites over the next while and will update as I do. For now, make your choice and get gaming.

Very cool cartoon:

Let us be perfectly honest. Making money online in SA is difficult unless you are employed by a big media house (which in itself is tough).

Those who know me or read this blog will know that I am an entrepreneur and media practitioner and not necessarily in that order. This means that I am broke some of the time. This gets old really really fast, if you don’t know, trust me on this one.

What I am getting at is that it’s tough to make a living online, it is. I am really curious to know if there are gabillions of online entrepreneurs in SA who are making boatloads of money or at least, are making a living? Are you out there? If you are, let me know cause I wanna know how you did it.

Who am I kidding? As if anyone who made the dosh is going to splurge their secrets to me on this blog? Are you?

I am an addict, my name is Nic and I love playing handdrawngames.
Try your hand at this ripper of a game and if your score is up there add it the group I started called “SA Bloggers”.

Be careful, this could mean the end of your working days.

I have not really ever bothered to make use of Second Life (the crowd gasps in horror). I think that it is a pseudo life involved in a real life that is the possible pseudo life of another life’s imagined real worlds sisters second cousins aunt. Wow, talk about existential hey! This is some serious Meta discussion going on.

No, it isn’t. It is actually fairly obvious and simple in my mind. People want to play god, they want to reinvent themselves, they want to live like movie stars they watch in the cinema. In order to do all of this, we [humans] create a second life for ourselves in which we can do all of the aforementioned things.

What we didn’t plan for unfortunately is that the authorities would also mimic the real world! I mean seriously, lets just think about this for a second. We make a world where humans can reign free, religion might not matter, money isn’t that important (yet) and sex is cyber. Alas, that is not all true, money does matter apparently and the FBI are interested to know how exactly the online gambling within Second Life works. I think that this is all very ironic. We create what we think is a world that is untouchable and then realise that we are screwing it up by doing the bad things that exist in the real world. Human nature is just unavoidable.

The Sunday Times newspaper has taken a step in to the bridge between the online world and the tangible newspaper world. In today’s publication the Sunday Times has elected to place their headlines and features from their website in a small feature on page two of the publication. Very interesting.

There is more however, at the end of two of the main stories on the front page there is a “tell us” option that provides a communication portal to the papers editors for the readers.

Obviously you cannot click this link and be forwarded to an email prompt. But this is the closest thing to a hyperlink that I’ve seen in a real newspaper. I think this is an interesting and bold step in to the future and I am glad to see that another organisation is challenging the Mail & Guardians movements in to the new media world. Integration is integral for big media to maintain a lead in the media market and it’s about time the Sunday Times has made that movement.