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.

Zoopy features on Maggs on Media

I was recently given the opportunity to appear on Maggs on Media with Jeremy Maggs and talk with him about Zoopy.Here's the piece:

Zoopy on 5fm - the podcast

Have a listen to the podcast from the show this afternoon:

Win with 5FM And Zoopy

5FM has just launched a new show hosted by Poppy on Saturdays. It's called the KFC Global Express and they have just started to get involved with the online market.Zoopy is the very first website to feature on the show with Poppy.What we need from you is to head on over to Zoopy, register and upload content tagging it with "5fm". It will then be pulled through to the Zoopy 5fm page where you'll be able to see the uploads and share them around.So head over to Zoopy now, listen to 5FM via streaming media and get registered and uploading!

Zoopy JHB covers its first event... almost live

Last night, instead of joining the thousand or so people partying at the iPhone 3G launch, I was slaving away at my laptop for almost 5 hours.This is not to say that I didn't have a blast, the VIP section was a treat as they always are.The event was one that was intended to be a tester for the Zoopy JHB crew. It was our first major live event that we covered.Terri Hayward and Klaus Bauer (the Zoopy crew) did a sterling job if I do say so myself. They proved that Zoopy can get the interviews, be on top of events and provide top class coverage as it happens, when it happens - to quote a great radio station.Some of highlights included speaking to Shameel Joosub, the MD of Vodacom, DJ Fresh from 5FM, the very first official Vodacom sold iPhone owner and Dot Field the Chief Communications Officer at Vodacom. We were taking photographs, doing interviews and uploading for almost the entire evening and it showed.Zoopy recorded some great stats yesterday and a great achievement for us was having our content shown on CNBC Africa over lunch and in a late afternoon show.So here's to many more events being covered, many more shows being seen and many more interviews being done.If you have an event coming up that you think could do with some almost live coverage, drop me a mail: nic at zoopy dot com.

Zoopy goes local and gets fast, really fast

We've just sent out a press release from the Zoopy HQ:

Zoopy increases media delivery speed with local hostingTwo months after receiving investment from Vodacom (which now owns a40% stake in the company), South African social media site Zoopy hasstarted to roll out some of the large scale community improvementsthey hinted at when announcing the Vodacom deal.Members of Zoopy.com, which launched in March 2007, are able to uploadand share videos, photos, podcasts and blogs - both online and via achoice of mobile applications. Until now, users have been doing sousing international bandwidth to connect to Zoopy's overseas servers.This is standard practice for most medium to large online businessesin South Africa, who are often left with little option but to hostinternationally when faced with much higher local hosting fees. Thedownside to hosting outside of the country, however, is reducedloading speed of websites and, in Zoopy's case, media files likevideos and photos.According to Zoopy CEO, Jason Elk, this is now a thing of the past forZoopy visitors. "As of today, we have servers in South Africa thatwill deliver Zoopy content using local bandwidth for South Africans.The significantly slower international speeds and low bandwidth capsin SA (many users only budget for the 3gb they receive per month) haveleft us as frustrated as any other internet user in the country. Sowe're prepared to do what it takes to deliver our media at amazingspeeds, whether viewed on Zoopy.com or embedded on other sites orblogs. And for our members, an increase in upload speeds when addingmedia to your Zoopy profile will make things quicker and moreconvenient too," says Elk.Zoopy has also just increased their upload file size limit from 100mbto 200mb. Elk explains, "If we're giving visitors a quicker and morecomfortable experience over local bandwidth, we wanted to add to theenjoyment by giving them more space to express themselves as well.Members now have 200mb to play with and can upload longer or betterquality versions of their videos, for example. As always, this serviceremains completely free.""These improvements are part of a determined plan to bring the Zoopycommunity everything they need to manage, view and share their mediain all the ways they've hoped for, and more".

This is a very important step for us for various reasons. I wont go in to much detail as there is an entire blog post dedicated to the topic on the Zoopy Blog so head over and read it.For now visit muti and digg and vote up the post.

Zoopy...it has begun

I have refrained from blogging about this for the past few weeks. Partly because I had a lot to do at M&G Online before I left and partly because there is still a lot that I had to find out about Zoopy.I managed to get much done with M&G and have the utmost confidence that they are on a path to absolutely fantastic things under new leadership. A new GM has taken on Matt's role, Jason Norwood-Young has taken on Vince's role and I can almost certainly say that M&G is heading down one helluva great path and we are all in for some interesting times.Moving on to Zoopy.I have taken up the position of Gauteng GM for Zoopy. The decision to move to Zoopy was a tough one because it meant that I was leaving a company and brand like Mail & Guardian Online. But Zoopy presented me with some very enticing ideas, goals and movements for the next 12 months or so. The plans are innovative, interesting and like nothing being done in the online market in SA at this point in time. I couldn't say no to a chance like this.Basically I am going to be setting up Zoopy in JHB for now. That means staff, offices, equipment and most importantly relationships with anyone who thinks they can offer something of value to our vision.That's all I'm going to say for now as it has been a long day and I have yet to step in to my first meeting here in Cape Town. Bring them on.For those of you attending the 27 Dinner in CT this week, I'll see you there and look forward to meeting many of you for the first time in real life, really!

Zoopy alters their views per video

I always thought the views per video that Zoopy showed on each video were a bit low. Now I know that they were.How I know is quite simple, Zoopy blogged about it:

As of last night, ‘views’ on Zoopy means the number of times the media item’s page has been viewed on Zoopy, plus the number of times the media item has been viewed when embedded on the home page or on other websites. We hope that the new figure will give Zoopy users a better idea of how many times a video has been watched, or how many times a photo has been viewed.

The above basically means that the numbers will become more representative and holistic including embed views as well as pageviews on the media item page on Zoopy and on the homepage of Zoopy. This is definitely a step in the right direction and a move that couldn't have come at a better time. I was really beginning to think that Zoopy was slowing down. Now we can all see that things are picking up!

Rex the local viral lion

This is fantastic. Thanks to Mike for posting this. Since I am part of the fun in Rex's first "vodcast" I thought it only appropriate to place this brilliant video on my blog.Now, Mr Jason Elk, when exactly are you going to own up to this bit of brilliance?I wonder who's next on Rex's menu?

Online politics - Zoopy and Helen Zille

I have quite enjoyed watching Zoopy's extensive coverage of Helen Zille over the past few months. But today for the first time I found myself questioning their coverage.Why is it that Zoopy covers Zille so extensively? Why is the coverage not more representative. I am sure that Jason is going to come on here and tell me that they have covered Patricia de Lille too, but that really doesn't count as extensive.Just as the SABC is pressed for equal representation I think that an organisation such as Zoopy should be too. If nothing else, they need to be weary of aligning themselves subconciously with a party. It appears to me that this might already have happened...This comes directly from the Zoopy "about us" section:

Who’s behind it all?At Zoopy HQ it’s just the three of us, for now: Jason, Gerry and Pat. And a few carefully selected contributors.

Hmmm... carefully selected, sounds intersting, lets find out more.I emailed Jason from Zoopy to get some comment on the issue and see if this is a definite trend that is to continue or an incidental happening. This is what he had to say:

Thanks for giving Zoopy some blog space – and on such a relevant topic too. It needs to be said that we’ve personally spoken with Ebrahim Rasool, Jacob Zuma, Trevor Manuel and indirectly with Patricia de Lille. None of them have responded in any way. Helen grasped the technology available from the first meeting we had with her and her team. They have a handheld video camera with them and have chosen to upload a range of political and non-political issues, ranging from aerial shots of a dam through to her new electric car and more. She responds in person to users who send mail via Zoopy and those who leave comments on her Zoopy profile.There are also occasions when we’re out at events that she happens to be shaking hands at, or attending, and in those cases we upload any relevant footage ourselves. So really this is not a case of us showing favouritism toward any party or individual. It’s a case of the individual getting involved themselves, and us facilitating it as much as possible. We’d love to host social media relating to every South African on Zoopy (politicians, lawyers and bloggers included! hehe) and always promote the possibilities when meeting with interesting people.That said, there are more high profile people going Zoopy very soon. Because of the technology, functionality and community available to them. Not because of who they are or whether or not we believe in their cause.

I think that is fair and valid justification of their stance. I wait with anticipation for the "high profile" people to get involved with Zoopy. Let's see if this becomes a case of YouTube and CNN joining forces for the next American election.

The Muti model and Zoopy spam

Recently I have been making use of muti alot. I am not sure what marked my return but I am thoroughly enjoying the site. That was up until today's abuse (and a fair amount this week) of the service by Zoopy. Within an hour Zoopy had voted themselves on the the muti charts over 5 times (it is against the rules to have more than 5 submissions (to the same hostname) inan hour).This really got my goat so I took it upon myself to let Neville know about this. Neville is great and responded fairly quickly to my irritation with feelings of agreement and frustration. He is at a bit of a loss about what to do with potential spammers, spammers and general wrong-doing. He asked me what my opinion was and I was also at a bit of a loss.My suggestion is to open it up to the people using muti. This is the purpose of this blog post. I want to know what you all think a possible solution to the above-mentioned problem could be. But first let me actually elaborate a bit more from Neville's perspective:

Remember that muti started out as an experimentto see if a reddit like site could work in a regional contextsuch as South Africa. For this type of site to work it needs 3things:1) a sustainable # of active member2) a suatainable # of submissions3) voter participationMy assesment is that muti has 1) and 2)but on 3) there are not enough people participatingIt is to me a very interesting question as to whySouth Africans are not participating in 3)

I think that Neville has stumbled upon an extremely interesting and poignant issue here. Participation. Participation is absolutely crucial to the success of this sort of site as well as just about any web 2.0 endeavour.One of the solutions brought up is to weight voting according to reliability of user, length of time a user has been registered, reputation, k-index, kudus and/or number of submission to muti. But writing this post I think that a better way to solve the problem is to possibly find a way to incentivise people to get involved and vote the good stories up and the rubbish, boring, old, irritating zoopy spam down (OK enough zoopy bashing, sometimes they post good stuff).So, what do you think a possible solution is? And how do we prevent the muti elite from taking over the world?