Pay to watch advertising - can it work?

I've seen a lot of different advertising platforms, companies and businesses come and go. I've interacted with many having worked at various media houses in SA as well as at a major mobile network. Everyone is trying to solve a problem in advertising. Advertising makes the world go round whether we like to admit it or not.It's quite well known that people are becoming blind to advertising. This is a problem for anyone with a brand trying reach an audience.SeeSayDo.mobi is a company trying to combat ad-blindness by incentivising consumers to visit their mobile site and watch advertising. In exchange for a consumers attention, SeeSayDo will pay out airtime, cash or data.The service talks about DSTV as their major partner right now amongst "others". I think there's legs for something like this to really work if the advertising being showcased is sufficiently engaging to keep the consumers coming back. Ultimately we'd all like to think that people will do anything for money but the truth is, it has to be time well spent and money well earned.The service is definitely trying to keep you on your mobile phone. The desktop website explicitly tells you that the best viewing is done on a mobile device.Registration was simple enough and I had no problem kicking off into the advertising categories. The first advert I listened to was a Mini (the car) advert and was an audio ad. The quality of the audio was listenable but not fantastic. I imagine they're doing this to keep data costs down, which I appreciate.I am curies about the value in spending data to listen to ads in comparison to the amount of money I would be paid out to listen to those ads.This isn't a new concept when you look at the global market but all in all it's a well executed platform that seems to do what it promises: Pay you to watch adverts.Your attention is a valuable commodity, don't forget that. SeeSayDo.mobi knows this and has created a smart model to gain your attention. Bare in mind: If you're not paying, you're the product.View their TV ad above. And no, you wont get paid for watching it.*This is a sponsored post

How making money ruined a good game

A couple of weeks ago I started playing a game on my phone called Bowling Friends. It's a game that allows you to play turn based ten pin bowling against your friends. Simple and effective idea. 

Initially the business model was one that worked: upgrades in the game. You can pay to receive more coins and gems which help you unlock better bowling balls and bowling alleys to play in. The better the bowling ball, the more your game improves and the better chance you have of beating your friends. Simple and effective.

I spent about $2 on coins and upgraded my bowling ball to a place where I was content.Then the app makers released an upgrade and all of a sudden there were adverts in the game. Everywhere. This is clearly not an innocent mistake. The adverts are post-game and force you to watch a 10 second video and you are then prompted with an advert screen allowing you to click the advert or close it.

There are also adverts every so often that cover the home screen. The reason this isn't an innocent mistake from game devs trying to make some money is because if you now go into the story you'll see a new product that allows you to remove adverts for $1.99.

This is infuriating. The game developers were onto something so simple and so great but they got greedy. They shoved banner and video ads into a seamless gaming experience and have ruined their core product offering.What they could have done was play the long game, be calm and hold their ground. There's no need to rush the money. You need to grow your user base and then monetize them. Right now I feel like I've been cheated and then forced to pay to "uncheat" my experience. I'm not the only one either. I've got friends who have stopped playing the game because of the terrible user experience now being presented.There's lesson in this for all app, web and game developers; be good at one thing. In fact, be so good at one thing that people will pay you to enjoy the experience. Don't trick your users into loving your product and then force them to watch adverts and pay you to remove them. That's called racketeering.

Be smart, be niche, be mobile

Fragmentation and fierce competition are enemies of one size fits all mobile solutions.Mobile is the not-so-new-hotness. There are many, many, many companies and people building products and apps targeting mobile first and mobile only. But there aren't many who are succeeding.The reasons for failure are often simple and obvious and easily avoidable.

Device fragmentation

Pick a device.If you choose the right device for your application, website or product and this device is relevant to your target market then you wont have to support every device under the sun upfront.Test your market with a single device or OS, just make sure you choose it wisely and own it. For example, in Africa, if you can build something for the Nokia S40 devices and it works, you'll do just fine.

Market fragmentation

Pick your market. Be it a country, city, gender, age group, creed, all off the above or none. Just pick one and go after like a you are possessed.

Country

Pick a country. You can't be everything to everyone all the time right off the bat. Conquer a single country and then consider moving on to another.

City

Maybe consider picking a city. Some cities, like Lagos, have nearly 20 million people in them. That's not a bad place to start.

Age

You cannot market a product targeting every age. That's just not realistic. A 13 year old is not looking for the same things as a 60 year old. And don't tell me that if Facebook can do it, so can you. Facebook started with a single age demographic.

Attention Deficit

Users are constantly being nagged for their attention.The product you are nagging me about needs to make me feel like I can't live without it. The applications and products that do this best for me are the ones that do a single thing amazingly well. I don't have a single app that handles photography, social, music, video and everything else all in one. That's called a mobile phone.Your app needs to do one thing and be the absolute best at that one thing to grab (and keep) my attention.

Niche, Niche, Niche

The chances are that your product, app or website is not going to compete with Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even the local equivalents of these behemoths. Something you build may one day grow into a competitor to these players but they all started in a niche; search, photography, university.Pick your niche and go after it like there's no tomorrow for your company. Don't let anything stand in your way. Own that niche, make it yours and dig a moat that prevents anyone else from owning it. Then expand that niche little by little. This is how you build a sustainable business. 

Africans Can't Be Trusted - Let's Make Some Money

Erik Hersman wrote a good post on the experience that African people are treated like second-class humans merely because we live in Africa. And let me just say; Erik has a point, a very valid point and an incredibly frustrating point. But his point leaves us with a massive gap in the market that no developed world companies or global corporates are willing to push in to. Africa is our playground and while the rest of the world avoids us and punishes us, we need to make inroads to block them out and own this market.Basically we're seen as untrustworthy by the rest of the world and are punished for that. The perception is definitely greater than the crime here. Africans appear to be untrustworthy but are by no means the biggest offenders when it comes to internet crimes as Erik showed in his post.Erik suggests two solutions:

Too true, and there are only two ways that this might change:First, we in Africa come up with our own payment and business solutions that work here first, and then interact with other global systems.Second, the global corporates wake up and realize that there is quite a bit of spending power and money to be made in Africa, just like the mobile operators found out in the 90′s.

I'd like to pitch a third and more challenge-orientated solution; screw them. Forget those who punish us for being African. There are many, many business models that don't have to include Paypal or the multitude of global corporates that punish us for where we live. Mobile is booming and Africa is at the cusp of this movement. We are setting the trends and defining the direction of where truly mobile products are going and should be going. We are the ones in control.Yet the problem exists that we, as Africans have a persecution complex and insist on needing validation from certain places, companies and organisations to justify our success and movement forward. This is absurd.Don't get me wrong, I understand that there are viable reasons which make us need validation from Paypal and require us not to be banned by Google and blah blah. But there are many, many flourishing startups in South Africa and Africa that are not running off the back of these giants. I can name 5 off the top of my head.We need to start setting the trends, bucking the trends and developing the roads instead of deciding that the roads aren't tared with gold for us as Africans. We need to stop settling for mediocrity and start striving for cutting edge excellence that we define, as Africans on our continent.The very outdated notion that there is not enough money in Africa to create a viable business model or revenue stream is long dead. There is money on this continent, there are users on this land that we occupy and there is massive, massive potential and hunger for new products and creation of wealth.What we need to do now is stop leaning on the developed world, toss them to the curb and take control of our continent, businesses and business models. It might be a hard road to travel but in the long term it will be the most profitable in my opinion.

Mobile SEO is coming. Are you prepared? ...

Mobile SEO is coming. Are you prepared?I don't think that you are, I'm not. No one is.What I should be doing if I was a smart little blogger is move this blog to a mobile domain and spend some acquisition budget on getting readers to visit, follow me on twitter (via mobile) and click on my adverts.But I'm not doing that. In fact before you can just launch in to mobile you need to understand it, entirely and I don't think that there are many people who have a very high-level holistic understanding that is worth while and valuable.You want some free advise? Learn about mobile SEO and sell your skills. Soon.

Jobs of the future are hard to predict. ...

Jobs of the future are hard to predict.

What will we all be doing in 5 years? Who can tell.I studied to be a journalist. No, I studied to be a print journalist. And now I work in and around mobile social networking strategy and development.Let's just quickly repeat that: Mobile social networking strategy and development. I am almost 100% certain that when I started studying at Rhodes University in 2003 that my current job didn't even exist.There is one job in particular that is going to need a lot more focus in the coming years:New media sales and advertising.The reason that I think this job is becoming increasingly important and increasingly neglected is because there is a marked lack of skilled and experienced people to fill this position.

What does this position entail?

Sales and advertising has traditionally (back in the old days) been about selling and advertising products. Getting people to buy in to your product or getting advertisers to place an advert in to your publication, on to your store walls or on your car and so on.Sales and advertising is becoming a much more complicated and intricate art. You cannot just sell banners, text links, full page adverts, splash screens, in-video sponsorships or product placements. Social networks and new media businesses need to have a salesperson who understands every aspect of the business. This person needs to be able to cross sell, integrate campaigns, work on new media, old media and media that might not exist yet.

What does this person need to succeed?

This person needs to understand CPC, CPA, CPM, CPSA and how to make these models work. This person needs to not only know what CRM stands for but what it actually is and how to make it relevant to the client.This person needs to know who the client is or should be and how that clients business or latest campaign fits in to the business of a new media business.Sales is shifting as fast as media is shifting and technology is growing and developing. The trick here is that technology, websites, mobile content and advancements can push forward as fast as they like but if there is no team able to monetize the products, there may as well not even be a product.It's time start thinking about integrated salespeople, sales teams, sales in relation to your core business and if sales actually might be your companies core business.

Wordpress goes mobile but misses the poi...

Wordpress goes mobile but misses the point.Mashable! today reports that Wordpress has launched two new mobile themes. But "mobile" here refers to iPhones and Android handsets not to the mobile market that we, in Africa, are referring to.I'm interested to know how many 3rd world (low broadband) countries have Wordpress blogs. What is the number? Is it ten thousand, fifty thousand, more or less?The reason I ask is because I have a feeling that if Wordpress was to start focusing on lower-end handset models in the mobile market they would open themselves up to a massively neglected market. The market that can't afford "smartphones", the market that can't afford laptops, computers and fixed-line internet.It's interesting to think that in 1st world countries the term "mobile" refers to iPhone handsets or "smartphones". What of the rest of the world? What of the people who don't have these phones and can't view the content they are looking for because it costs too much.Meeting with Marc Smith this month was an eye-opener for many reasons. Firstly he told me that Obama winning a Nobel peace prize was not regarded in very high esteem by Americans. Why? Because if Europeans like their president there must be something wrong him. This seems to echo in the approach of many a large company playing in the online/mobile space.Why is Wordpress not going after the African market? Why are they not providing those without fixed-line broadband an outlet for their mobile phones to read and write blogs?To me it feels like a lack of insight and foresight.

Social media's almost dead so let's mo...

Social media's almost dead so let's move on to mobile. Presenting Mobile Web Africa.OK, so social media isn't almost dead but the fact remains that mobile is the now, new, next best thing. In fact, it's not even the next best thing. It's the best thing since social media and it's here.Vincent Maher just announced on his blog that The Grid is platinum sponsor for the event which will have some of the most prominent minds and personalities in the local mobile industry as well as some African speakers to engage with.Some of the local regulars will be present but this time under the spotlight of mobile and the current developments happening.This conference is finally something that doesn't have a social media (web too point 0h n0) slant to it.If you think you know, you have no idea.Get on it.

Innovation is such an exception thing to...

Innovation is such an exception thing to strive for. And I think that I am incredibly fortunate to land up in the market that I am in. Mobile is an innovative space.Let me not get caught up in my own head and clearly lay out what I intend to say:It's simple idea but on that only recently dawned on me. I am fortunate to be in an innovate environment. Imagine if I was still a print writer? I'd be doing the same thing over and over and over, every day. I'd call my contacts, I'd gather information and construct a story from the information, I'd conduct an interview and write the story which would be edited, sub-edited and cut-up by the mechanisms in place. My byline would appear in the paper and the sun would set and rise again to repeat the cycle. Sure the focus of the story changes but more often than not it's the same mechanisms.Let's look at an accountant, yes there are challenges in every client that an account might audit, but on the whole there is very little innovation in their market. Pascal might come out with an update, a law might be tweaked here and there and if an account is lucky they land an extremely strange client who they enjoy auditing, but the premise is the same, the actions are the same, the results are the same. NOTHING is new from year to year in the way that they do things.Very similar situations apply to Lawyers, many GPs (which is a pet hate of mine), Judges and many other careers, career choices, markets and industries. There is very little that drives innovation.Then you move in to the mobile industry and the market is booming, filled with innovation and change, constantly. That appeals to me.Now don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that other jobs or industries aren't appealing and don't have their own, relative levels of what some might term innovation. But where I am right now things change on a daily basis. My job spec today could be completely different tomorrow and in every likelihood will be entirely different next year when my current projects launch.This motivates me and this keeps me interested in what I am doing. I hate being stagnant and I hate reaching a point where maintenance of a job is more common than innovation, creation and envelope pushing.

Is mobile, hyper-local, location-based n...

Is mobile, hyper-local, location-based news content the way to save mainstream media in the USA?I think it might be. I have been watching closely over the past few months as newspaper after newspaper has fallen away in the US. It's a very scary and very sad situation that American media finds itself in. Resistance to change over the past few years has positioned many papers in a dire situation where it's a matter of shit or get off the pot. And many are shitting themselves.Boston Globe is a one example that I have been watching withe extreme interest. Boston.com is a great resource that has not been used effectively enough to pull Boston Globe out of financial trouble.The resistance to change coupled with a severe drop in advertising and circulation (with thanks to a recession and online media emerging as a force in the media industry) has left the Boston Globe almost crippled. Many people are set to lose jobs and Boston, the city, is set to lose it's competitive media market. If Boston Globe closes down the city of Boston will be left with a single daily newspaper. This defeats the purpose of mainstream media acting as a democratic watchdog or fourth estate. With one media organisation remaining things are not looking good.Enter hyper-local, location-based news content fed to mobile phones produced by hyper-local citizen media producers who put content up via cellphones on to hyper-local portals.This is what Martin Langeveld of Nieman Journalism Lab had to say on the topic of Boston Globe:

Langeveld's advice is to go (almost) online-only with Boston.com, and to launch or subsidise a network of hyperlocal sites all over the area, and launch a network of local niche verticals focussed on weather, traffic, jobs, entertainment, education and more. He proposes a tiered, variable pricing model for all, with most of the content free, but paid premium access for a "small but highly-engaged group." This income could be supplemented with transactional revenue, through selling theatre tickets, for example, or facilitating restaurant reservations.

This model could also expose the Globe's city-wide reach to a hyper-local market of advertisers (a longer tail than they would previously had access to). This coupled with a free/premium hybrid mode and the paper could be on its way back up.Regarding the print side of things it's a simple mechanic to alleviate some immediate strain: Make the paper a weekly and include the news created over the week from the hyper-local portals and citizens media. Pull city-wide, larger advertisers in to this weekly printed publication to subsidise the cost of the print and drop the price to allow for quantity to be sold and to make the paper appear to be more accessible to the everyday person in the street.There is no quick-fix for papers such as the Boston Globe, that is certain. But it is imperative that these papers start to adapt or simply succumb to a swift death.

Moving in to mobile.

It has already been announced that I am leaving Zoopy at the end of May.I didn't really have anything solidified when I resigned from Zoopy so it is with great pleasure and pride that I can now say that I am moving to Vodacom as the Product Manager in the Social Networking Porfolio.My time at Zoopy was well spent, I learned alot regarding myself, what I want to do and what I am good at. I also figured out where I think the market is heading, what the industry is doing and where I should be positioning myself.Zoopy is doing fantastic things right now and are one of the online companies to watch this year.I am going to be working very closely with Vincent Maher, who is going to be my new boss. I've worked with Vincent before and feel that I can only learn more and get better at what I do working at Vodacom for Vince.If you haven't realised it yet, mobile is not the next big thing, it's the big thing.

Qik is just that, a quick way to stream live video

I am incredibly impressed with Qik and the service it offers.Basically it's a live mobile streaming service. You download the software to your phone. Open up the application and click "Stream". The video is then recorded and streamed live to your Qik profile.Find me at qik.com/nicharry

The next killer app wont be a killer app at all

Every year around this time there is a buzz. It's a very strange buzz that arises and expands beyond industry, colour, creed, or any other classification you can think of. January/February is a very special time for me. It's a time where people think things through, imagine things, create and define things. It's a time when predictions are made or attempted and a time when everyone seems to be looking for the next big thing.So what is the next big thing? What is going to make you famous? What will be the next Facebook or Google or fraction of these giants?I have been hearing um's and ah's of the next "Killer App" or killer application. This phrase is taking a few different forms. Some more literal than others.Andy Hadfield, on his blog, asked if Twitter is going mainstream. I knew what he meant but wanted to push the conversation to a different direction. I wanted to know what defines mainstream in South Africa since many of the online guru's in SA think that the next Killer App is literally that, a single killer application that will launch a career, make a million or few and destroy the opposition.This, as far as I can see, is an online impossibility right now. In fact, I think that it's almost an impossibility for the next few years if you are talking strictly about fixed line internet. Even the coming Internet/broadband/fiber-optic revolution is going to take a while to penetrate the masses and therefore no online killer app in South Africa alone is going to be anything close to a killer app. It just wont.Here's a quick quote from my comment on Andy's post:

I would be more inclined to argue that our precise problem here in SA is that we think a couple of thousand people makes something mainstream. The bare fact of the matter is that it needs to be a tool that is mainly used to be called mainstream (in my opinion only). Thus we could almost call facebook mainstream and be justified in that branding.We could call Mxit mainstream and I would argue that Mxit trumps what twitter is trying to do.So instead of us trying to push twitter in to the mainstream we should be looking at the ways the the majority of South Africans communicate (cellphones perhaps) and custom build a twitter-like solution that isn't going to cost a bomb and provide the same functionality. Or would we call that Mxit or The Grid?I think we need to think bigger, take products to market and then make them mainstream instead of trying to manipulate the word mainstream to suit our needs.Simply branding something mainstream because the word was featured on the cover of a magazine with maybe 30 000 circulation cannot make something mainstream.evl - "The prevailing current of thought, influence, or activity" - can you honestly say to me that twitter is a prevailing current of thought in the South African population, no, the South African ONLINE population. Even if we get the number of twitter users up to 10 000 South Africans that's still probably between 3%-5% of all South Africans online on fixed internet using twitter. that's not mainstream. that's irrelevant.

There are three ways that I think Vincent will begin to see more local millionaires.

The first

is hyper-local content. That is what I think the next "Killer App" is. Hyper local is where it's at when you combine it with the massive cellphone penetration in this country. An application like twitter is one that can be exceptionally successful in South Africa and reach mainstream status but while it is an online-centric application or service it is going to stay on the fringe in South Africa. We need to make hyper-local content contextual, relevant and easy to access. As far as I can see or believe in SA right now the contextualising of hyper-local and simplified content is going to be the winner.

The second

is a combination of things. The first entity is Africa. It's one of the few untouched, untapped media markets. The second entity is mobile technology. The combination is a mashup of hyper-local, mobilised, African-centric content. I think that this, moving forward, could potentially be the combination of things that take South Africans in to the next realm of success (or the first depending on where you sit).

The third

is foresight. This is something that copyblogger has blogged about recently. We cannot beat those who entered this market first at their own game, especially not from where we sit.From the Copyblog post:

The truth is, some models that worked a few years ago for early adopters are difficult if not impossible for new players to successfully get going today.The key to avoiding this frustration is to see where things are going and become an early-adopter in the next big wave of the commercial Internet. Of course, even if you’re already doing well, it never hurts to take a look forward, right?

We need to sit where we sit, contextualise our problems, learn about our opposition and where the market is moving and make the first move. If we don't make the first move we are going to be behind the early adopters again and have to wait man more years to have another chance to become the early adopters.I am interested to know what others out there think the next Killer App will be, whether it is literally going to be a single application, a concept, a mindset, a minsdhift, a community or a project. Where's the money at and is it actually about the money?

ComedyTwist.co.za - Have a laugh on your phone

Last night I attended an absolutely hilarious opening. No it wasn't a joke, but there were lots of jokes present.It was the launch of a new mobile "service" called Comedy Twist Mobile.You can visit the website at comedytwist.co.za. And with that we have a problem number 1.The website isn't live and the launch was held last night to the media. That's bad. Even though the official launch is 1 September 2008, surely if you hold a press conference, comedy event and big fancy "Howzit" type party, you make your website live, even for a second to preview. We got nothing.There was a glimmer of potential when the host of the evening plugged in his cellphone and visit the WAP site, which we were never given the URL for. Oh well, no preview.I'm jumping ahead a bit. Let's go back a step.

What is Comed Twist

The basic idea behind Comedy Twist (CT) is comedic content supplied to you on your cellphone wherever you are. To quote from the flyer I received:

"It's a new digital content platform, offering high quality video and audio material for an extensive variety of South Africa's talented comics - all for mobile phones."

Phew, that's fairly intense. They are doing a lot. Or are they?From what I can see CT is trying to duplicate the success of sms subscription services that already exist with one exception, they offer video and audio and ringtones all about comedy. It's a relatively good twist I think (maybe that's where the name came from "twist"). The country needs comedy, I love comedy and I want to try this service.Enter issue number 2.

Premium Content

This is a very strange choice. I suppose that many social media, content producing, user generated content websites have struggled in the past with monetizing good ideas. But Comedy Twist think they have a solution. Make people pay for content.In my opinion this could be the downfall of the entire concept. The prices for what seems to be "On-Demand" content:

Video - R10

30-50 second live joke

Audio - R5

30-70 second live joke

Ringtones - R15

15-30 second looped funny ringtone

Video Discount Basket - R5

15-30 second live jokesThis brings up my next question: What does "Live Joke" mean? Anyways, that's besides the point.You do have another option, you can subscribe to the service which has a "revolutionary" one-click-opt-out. Nice selling point, but not new. You can SMS "comedy" to 38370 and a video will be sent to your phone every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Three videos.

Target Market

This seems to be a good idea, decide who you are targeting. Comedy Twist is targeting LSM 7-10. My immediate reaction is that's where the money is, they will pay for the content. But then my research tells me that LSM 7-10 have cellphones, they have cellphones that are able to receive video but they a) are not interested in SMSing a number to subscribe to a service that is going to bug them every other day of the week, comedy or not and b) LSM 7-10 have trouble visiting WAP sites on the their phones and by that I mean that many don't actually know how. This is not an insurmountable problem, but it will take a fair amount of marketing, above and below the line and a lot of education.That is not to say that LSM 7-10 wont be successful if targeted correctly and with money behind the project (I can't say how much money is behind the project) so who can tell how it will go.It just leads me to wonder about the approach. I know alot of kids (in their teens) who spend hours and hours playing games with others on their mobiles, blowing cash to interact, chatting on Mxit and using other free and subscription services. Why? Because they know how and they know that LSM 7-10 Mommy and Daddy will pay for their usage. Simple. To get to the money, go through the children. It's worked well so far.

Almost a potentially great mobile social network

I don't want to go on about this but Comedy Twist had the potential to be a cracking social network on the mobile platform. People love to laugh, people love jokes and love comedy. Even more so, people love to laugh at themselves, their friends and other people making fun of other people. This could have been used VERY effectively to create a social network around laughter, jokes, pranks and anything else in the genre.

It will survive

Why? Because some of the funniest people in South Africa are on board for the ride. Trevor Noah to just name one that I saw at the event. The man must be the funniest guy I've had the pleasure of seeing live. The comedians will save this ship from a certain premium-content go-slow.

Did Vodacom break their mobile internet?

I just received a very interesting email.Here it is:

Hi Nic,Thought this might of interest to you. If you access the Internet via yourmobile, and you are a Vodacom subscriber, I'm sure you've run into somedifficulty especially with sites like Twitter.The Internet Society of South Africa released a statement stronglycondemning Vodacom's actions. The full statement is below.Let me know if you need some additional info. ISOC-ZA's past chairman AlanLevin is the official spokesperson for ISOC-ZA on this, and his contactdetails are below if you want to chat with him.Hope you have a great weekend!Cheers,Sentient Communications CCISOC-ZA strongly condemns Vodacom behaviourOn Wednesday, June 25, 2008 Vodacom claimed to revolutionise Interneton the cellphone. They falsely claimed that millions of Vodacomcustomers now (effectively) have the same experience of the Interneton their cellphones as they do on a PC. In reality Vodacom have brokenthe Internet for these millions of customers. This came without anywarning and ISOC-ZA is united against this sort of behaviour.Various applications that include instant messaging, banking,specialised mobile applications such as email, Youtube, Twitter, Fringand at least a dozen others, are no longer working. In technical terms,Vodacom installed a proxy service that was not sufficiently tested.As one blogger so correctly pointed out: "Vodacom is essentially using thepublic as subjects for an alpha test of their technology" (Flint.za 25 June)The technology that Vodacom is using is not standards compliant and,considering Vodacom¹s position as a dominant ISP, it should behave in a moreresponsible fashion. Furthermore, some of our members have claimed thatVodacom block many applications that it feels may threaten its business.While we have no direct evidence of this, we appeal to Vodacom to disclosewhat it blocks and intercepts on its networks.Happily, some users have worked out how to bypass the new Vodacom changesand ISOC-ZA urges all mobile Internet users to make use of this should theytoo be unhappy with Vodacom¹s actions.There are a number of bypasses freely available on the Internet, and aresimple to affect.For example: If you use a Nokia phone then the following should work:Access:ToolsSettingsConnectionAccess pointsVodacomOptionsAdvanced SettingsRemove the Proxy server addressAbout ISOCThe Internet Society is a global not-for-profit membership organisationfounded in 1991 to provide leadership in the management of Internetrelated standards, educational, and policy development issues. It haschapters in over 90 countries around the world. Through its currentinitiatives in support of education and training, Internet standardsand protocol, and public policy, ISOC has played a critical role inensuring that the Internet has developed in a stable and open manner.It is the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the InternetEngineering Steering Group (IESG) and other Internet-related bodies.

I've removed names until I can do a bit more background research and chat to a few more people. But I just tried to access twitter mobile...it didn't work. This doesn't look promising for Vodacom and their mobile internet tactics.

Barriers to entry for media in the "mobile boom"

As many people know the mobile industry is big business, especially here in SA and in the broader African market.I've been making some inroads in to trying to undestand the mobile market as fully as possible recently.I am lookingt at the mobile market as someone heavily involved in the media industry and trying to find a place for the media in the mobile market. I am not considering the mobile market from the point of view of a startup, website, portal, communication idea or gaming company. I am looking at the mobile market from the perspective of an organisation that produces weekly content that goes in to a newspaper.There are some things that I have noticed and some problems that I have seen with the theory that mobile is going to be the next big thing very soon.Lets begin with three quick points:

1. Communication is actually THE mobile market
2. Social Networking is the up-and-commer
3. Gaming is already making a mark - a massive one - on the market
4. The service providers are the ones making the money

And now let us go through the barriers to entry that I feel exist for media in the mobile market.

1. Newspaper content is a push market
2. Mobile users want to own their content - pull it towards themselves
3. Understanding of extensive mobile web surfing is low in higher LSM's
4. Portals are non-exist, with the exception of service providers

The basic barriers that I have listed above make it extremely difficult for media organisations to make a valuable stand in the mobile market. Users are looking to interact with one another and content. This means they want to create the content, interact with it, send it to their friends, invite their friends to interact with eachother and their content. This is difficult as a media organisation when you are producing the content and pushing it to the market.I am interested to know if you agree with these barriers? Do you think that media is stuck in a "push" business model? Or are they making inroads in to the "pull" of content creation, distribution and user interaction?

Why is no one talking about mobile?

Mobile, for the last few years, has generally been accepted as the next big thing. But if that is the case why is there no hype, no blogging and why are many of the articles outdated? Is there no one out there who is willing to step in to the role of the punter?I have just read through 50+ Tech feeds that I subscribe to and out of those a single article from ReadWriteWeb focused on mobile.There is no media talk, no thoughts or opinions and no strategies emerging as a result of mobile being the next big thing and I just don't get it.It could be that I am looking in the wrong place, but it seems as though people are either plotting and keeping their secrets close to them or there is no one with a clue. I am interested to get in to this a but further. Let's see where it goes.

A new challenge at Mail&Guardian

Today is my last day working at Financial Mail and I can now announce that I am starting a new job at M&G Online on the 19th of May.My official job title is business manager: mobile and recruitment. But I am sure that more regarding my actual day to day activities will come out as soon as I move in and get involved in the team.Working with Matt and Vince is definitely going to be one of the great things about my new position. The job is innovative and in a market that is about to burst and is still fairly unconquered in the media sphere.Obviously moving in to a new market and media house is a big leap for me and one that I am cautiously approaching (with some level of excitement). There are some nerves which should be expected but overall I can't wait to sink my teeth in to the challenge.Financial Mail was a phenomenal place to work and to gain some extremely valuable knowledge and experience. The people were sterling and I learned more than I thought I could in a year. But for my career, my brand and the moves I'm trying to make in the industry this is definitely the right move for me at the perfect time.Things are hotting up in SA, the market is about to explode and I am itching to bury myself in it.