All posts in Blogging

Is 2OceansVibe.com about to go bang?

by Chris M on September 28, 2010 in Blogging, Cape Town with 29 Comments

When you think about 2OV, the name Seth Rotherham comes to mind, so does Tuesday Tabs, Prawns, Mavis, Camps Bay and the TBG. When you think about 2OV, you also think about one of the first blogs in Cape Town.

What will happen this coming Monday when it changes? Here’s what you can expect:

  1. A new design – The current design was accepted very well and I had fun coding it and launching it. I’m sure it will look great this time around as well.
  2. A news website – 2OV is going to change from being a blog, to rather a “preferred news source”.
  3. Multiple Authors – No longer will it always be Seth’s words, but now there will be a stream of authors.

Let’s look at the points in detail:

Point number 1 is probably a good thing, the design is awesome, but it no longer caters well for the amount of information being pushed through the website. I hope that palm trees, sexy ladies and the holiday vibe look and feel is maintained. It does look like it will be, but perhaps it’s going to go a little more Perez Hilton, WWTTD, DList, etc:

new-2OV

Point 2 could be the first huge mistake, 2OV has always been about Seth’s opinion on everything local, most of the audience is from South Africa, in fact, 89.4% to be exact. What happens when suddenly there’s a stream of International news and the amount of local news decreases? Will the audience bother sticking around? I worry, simply because there are plenty of other websites which offer cutting edge news about International topics. I would go as far as saying that if Seth was writing it all in his typical style, that people would stick around, but what if it’s other authors? See Point 3 now..

Point 3 is probably my biggest concern, do people not read 2OV because it’s Seth? I reckon 80% of people do. What happens when there are a string of unknown authors writing posts about all sorts of things? I did it on iMod, I planned for a long time and invited in a number of authors to write about various topics, the process has taken a lot of time and a huge amount of management to get it right, my audience has changed considerably and it’s no longer just a Cape Town Blog by Chris M really, I’m aware of this, will 2OV’s audience adapt or give it the boot? Are the authors going to be able to do this correctly? Blogging isn’t easy, so many people say it is and I have to laugh, to have a successful blog, there’s a huge amount of skill involved when it comes to understanding the audience and writing in such a manner that you engage them.

Seth’s a good mate of mine, so obviously I’m hoping that it will work, I love nothing more than seeing the original local bloggers succeeding, so good luck Seth and congrats on your 2010 SA Blog Award!

I got dupped by the SA Blog Awards

by Chris M on September 27, 2010 in Blogging, My Life with 58 Comments

Before I start, I’d like to mention that this isn’t another blog post moaning about how the awards were a complete fail, this has been said over and over, and when someone like Richard Mulholland complains (Rich inspired John Cherry into starting the awards back in 2005), you know something’s wrong.

Instead, I want to ask you to please take 5 minutes of your time to listen to what happened to me:

In 2008 I won Best SA Blog about Technology and Web Development and in 2009 I won Best SA Blog about Technology and Science. Most people know me for my blogging, I’ve been in the game since the start and it’s been my passion since I was inspired by Damien du Toit, way way way back. I’d like to think that when it comes to blogging, I have earned respect from a lot of people in the industry. Hell, I’m ranked number 1 on AfriGator, Africa’s largest blog aggregator.

Now, this year was interesting: I was told that I was going to be a judge (I’ve decided not to name the person, nor am I going to paste a link to the proof), so I didn’t enter in for a 3rd year running (Can’t judge and enter). I was really excited about this as I wanted to assist in ensuring that South Africa could be represented by great bloggers. When the judges were announced, my name was not included, so not only was I not a judge, but I wasn’t able to enter!

To top things off, I didn’t even receive an invitation to the event. It was embarrassing receiving text messages and tweets throughout the evening from peers asking where I was.

I feel that I deserve an explanation from one of the people who ran the event, JP Naude, Chris Rawlinson or Dave Duarte – Chris and Dave, you both know my personally, what happened gents? You are involved in this I assume because of your passion for blogging, imagine how I feel?

From the SA Blog Awards website:

“We are proud to announce that the SA Blog Awards is still in very capable hands, but ownership has however changed.

The SA Blog awards management structure has been somewhat modified, and we are happy to say that you are in very capable hands. Ownership now resides in the hands of new CEO JP Naude.”

Really?

Life isn’t fair and the event’s over, so not much can be done apart from wait until next year to see what happens, but for the time being I’m quite upset.

On another note: Congratulations to all the bloggers who took home awards, well done! Respect to you for showing the world that South Africa is great at blogging too!

Marine Taxi’s saga – Marine Heart Taxi’s

by Chris M on September 20, 2010 in Blogging, Cape Town, Industry News with No comments

Marine Taxi’s are having a shot at Shaun Oakes, a blogger friend of mine, who wrote a post about Marine Taxi’s about 2 years ago and now they’re wanting it removed.

This all started in July 2008, when Shaun Oakes wrote a blog post about Marine Taxi’s and referred to the company as Marine Heart Taxi’s and included a “hi-jacked” logo, which is being labelled as a problem because that’s not actually the name of the company and that he didn’t have the rights to use their logo. Their PR staff are unhappy about this.

marine-taxis

The logo in question!

Just the other day, Shaun was contacted by their PR company, with the following email from Ursula Brown:

Mr Oakes.. Note yr request about what not to do when corresponding with yrself. But I must say that this is a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black as u seem to have done this yourself with yr unsubstantiated uncommented “story” on your site which even our “hijacked” logo. Please remove this story asap…… pronto……..

As a blogger myself, I’ve received a number of emails like this, where I’m asked to remove blog posts about certain things, but normally it’s handled in a more constructive manner. Blogging provides people with the ability to talk about their experiences with certain services and products. There are cases, where I decide to remove certain posts, but this is very rare.

It’s a tricky situation all in all, but I can’t help but think that they are being a bit harsh on Shaun and could have approached him in a more relaxed manner and this probably wouldn’t have turned into the situation it’s currently in.

If you want to get into details, you can read the full blog post on Shaun’s site, which shows all the emails between himself and Ursula.

I always say.. be careful which blogger you mess with, because soon the whole social sphere will know about it!

Another two recent articles that relate to this sort of online/offline bouncing:

  • PigSpotter – A twitter account which mentions where road blocks are, the police want to arrest the owner of the account.
  • Big Issue – A group of guys on the back of a bakkie called over a Big Issue vendor and poured water all over her, social media jumped on and the guys have been tracked down.

Help save the 2010 South African Blog Awards

by Chris M on September 9, 2010 in Blogging with 26 Comments

A few weeks ago I mentioned that the 2010 South African Blog Awards were here again and that I didn’t want to participate, but rather wanted to be a judge to assist in removing the rubbish and bringing great blogs to the front to represent us as a nation in the blogsphere, and now I need your help!

I’ve had a look through all the blogs who made it past the nominations phase of voting and now it’s the real deal, each vote you cast could put one blog in front of another to take the award. There’s been a lot of negative talk about the blog awards this year, from the voting process to certain blogs that have been nominated – As a two-time winner, this is really sad, I will forever be attached to the blog awards and therefore want to ensure that great blogs represent South Africa in this blogsphere and that only good vibes go along with it. It’s important that we pick blogs run by bloggers who walk the talk and don’t just put up an act online, there’s no point in voting a pretend person ahead.

Here are some of the blogs (Sorry, I’m not listing all of the ones I support), along with the categories, that I feel you should support, and urge you to support:

  • Entertainment Blog – BangersAndNash.com
  • Best Media Blog – CherryFlava.com
  • Best Photography – AndreInAfrica.com
  • Best New Blog – Geekology.co.za
  • Best Group Blog – Rlabs.org
  • Best Personal Blog – BeingBrazen.com

I know each of these people personally and have followed their blogs for a really long time. A few great things that shine through on each of these blogs:

  • They’re real – None of these people are fake, what you read is what you get.
  • Well researched – All of these bloggers take time putting their posts together.
  • Involved – Each blogger in this mix is involved in industry in some way, be it helping others, attending events and so forth.

These are the blogs we want to win, and if you side with me and vote with me, perhaps we can put them in the forefront. One bonus is that you can vote once a day, not just once!

Let’s do this together! If you click here, a new window will load and you’ll be on the Blog Awards website. By clicking the link, it will preselect the blogs mentioned above, all you need to do is scroll to the bottom, enter in your email address and the security code, and look out for a confirmation email.

We need your support, let’s stand together!

The longevity of paying a blogger to blog your product or service

by Chris M on August 22, 2010 in Blogging, Marketing with 16 Comments

If you’ve got a service or a product that you want exposed to the world, one of the best things you can do is pay a blogger to write a post about it. A blogger might charge R500, R1000, R2000 and upwards, but don’t look at this as a short term investment, because it’s not and I’ll show you why!

Let me give you a case study to show you what I mean:

A few months ago, I was approached by an agency that manages MWEB’s online advertising. This agency wanted me to blog about MWEB’s new uncapped ADSL offerings – To be more specific, they wanted me to do one blog post per week for 8 weeks. Now if you do the math, that’s quite an expensive venture, but is it worth it? You’ll find out shortly..

Here’s the kicker: Their money did not only cover 8 weeks worth of clicks, it covers the life time of the posts being on my blog. So although we’re months past the 8 week agreement, they still reap the benefits, take a look at this graph, where the red outlines the 8 week period (paid for) and the green outlines all the days after the campaign was complete (free):

longevity

As you can see, despite the campaign finishing towards the end of May, it’s still clocked up hundreds of clicks through to their website, and will continue to do so for as long as iMod is around.

I hate to say it, but that’s not all.

As this information (the posts) moves around the Internet, it gains trust and momentum from/with various search engines and social networks. For example, the information has been liked on Facebook 35 times and shared on Facebook 203 times – imagine how many more clicks are going through to their website, and imagine the brand impact.

It doesn’t take rocket science to see how investing some decent money upfront will give you an eternity of clicks through to your website.

Each day that goes by will reduce your Cost per acquisition (CPA) or Conversion Rate (CR) :)

Interested in a similiar campaign? Click here for my rate card.

Back in time WordPress plugin

by Chris M on August 22, 2010 in Blogging, Equipment with No comments

The other day, Mark shared an interesting WordPress plugin with me and I’ve been testing it out for a couple days now and it’s proving to be quite a good one, but does take some planning.

The plugin is called Tweet Old Post and the whole idea behind it is that it tweets your older posts. It randomly picks your older post based on the interval specified by you. The primary function of this plugin is to promote older blog posts by tweeting about them and getting more traffic.

What’s great about this plugin is that it’s really easy to setup, and the settings are really great – you can set up frequencies between tweets, you can select what categories it can tweet for and a few other goodies. So, if you take the time to set it up correctly, you’ll benefit from it.

I set mine up and decided to test it out with the category “Music”, music doesn’t really get old, so I figured it out be a safe bet. The plugin tweeted out a post about an old song and immediately I got 2 retweets and a number of @replies letting me know that it’s an old classic and that they love it. You can follow me on Twitter and see it for yourself as well.

Apart from the Twitter side of things and people reading your old posts, from an SEO point of view, sending engines back to your old posts is a great way to reindex them and drive a little more organic traffic to them. Something I might suggest, and I know it works, is that when an old post goes out and your followers retweet it or comment, Edit the post and create a link from the old post to a relevant new post – this is hugely beneficial from an SEO perspective and it’s something I’ve been doing, without the plugin, for a number of years.

Give it a go and let me know what you think please?

The 2010 SA Blog Awards

by Chris M on August 12, 2010 in Blogging, Cape Town with No comments

If you’re not completely up to date with this years blog awards, then here’s a press release which will bring you up to speed completely:

With many bloggers now focusing on their blogs fulltime, blogs have moved from a fun sideline project to a lucrative form of business. Keeping in line with this trend, the SA Blog Awards have also matured and bloggers will see statistics from their site forming part of the evaluation criteria for the judges in each of the categories in 2010. Now in its fifth year, the awards will take place on 25 September, and will feature more judges per category than in the past. The judges will also be experts in their respective fields with a keen interest in social networking.

Given the past success of the awards and the increased interest in the 2010 event, The SA Blog Awards warranted the addition of a new member. JP Naude, Cape Town businessman and radio personality, takes on the role of CEO for the Awards. One of Naude’s focus areas will be raising the profile of the awards ensuring a heightened sense of credibility in 2010.

Naude has already implemented a partnership with Afrigator, one of South Africa’s foremost blog statistic measuring companies, whereby it will act as an independent auditor providing accurate and up-to-date information on the nominated blogs to the judges.

Naude will be working alongside the original SA Blog Awards team with organiser Chris Rawlinson being the backbone of the awards, and Huddlemind CEO Dave Duarte, adding strategic value.

News24, South Africa’s leading digital news brand, has been confirmed as the headline sponsor this year. Says Naude: “Having News24 on board will help us take the awards to a new level. Last year alone, the event attracted more than 5 000 blog nominations and over 100 000 individual votes. With News24’s commitment to showcasing content from the nominated blogs to their audience of more than 2 million online South Africans, we expect these figures to increase impressively.”

Karen Dempers, Head of Marketing at News24 believes the sponsorship is a natural fit. “Many South Africans are referring to blogs for updates, opinion and insight into what is happening around them. We have seen a significant increase in the popularity of user generated content across the News24 network and have watched the number of blogs grow year on year as more South Africans embrace this platform to voice their opinions.”

Bloggers in the country will be given recognition for their contribution to the ever growing blogging community. During the nomination process for the awards, the public is requested to nominate their favourite blogs before being judged by a panel of industry experts in 24 different categories.

This year the awards categories include the newly introduced SA Tweeter of the Year – acknowledging the best Twitter account, Best Company Blog, and Best Fashion Blog. The entry criteria state that only blogs written within South Africa and/or blogs written by South African citizens are considered eligible for the awards.

Nominations will take place between 2-27 August 2010. Thereafter, the top ten nominees in each category will go into the public vote phase from 1-17 September. The results of this vote will then be passed onto the judges who will cast their votes thereby deciding the category winner. The overall winner of the SA Blog Awards will be chosen by the judges from the selection of category winners.

In addition to News24, category sponsors this year include advertising giants Ogilvy Cape Town, kulula.com, the leading low-fare airline, Old Mutual, The UCT Graduate School of Business, Evox. Olmeca Tequila, Jameson, Havana Club Rum and Atmosphere Communications, a PR agency that has successfully used social media campaigns for its clients.

For more information on the awards and the nomination process, please go to www.sablogawards.com.

5 tips to help win the 2010 SA Blog Awards

by Chris M on August 4, 2010 in Blogging with 32 Comments

Due to the World Cup, the SA Blog Awards are being held later in the year than usual, so if you wondered what was going on, now you know. As a former two-time winner, I’ll always have a soft spot for the blog awards and I’m really looking forward to seeing which blogs take the top spots this year.

I’ve decided that I won’t be in the runnings this year and am actually hoping that the team will ask me to be a judge. I think I could add good value to the competition because of my two awards and because of my involvement in the blogging community, I think having someone in there that really knows the blogs and the blog authors well can only add value, so hold thumbs for me in that light.

The main reason why I wanted to make this post, was to offer some tips to bloggers out there we are really excited and are holding thumbs that it might be their turn to shine. So, here are a few tips from me:

  • Plan your requests – Like most competitions, there are two phases, nominations and actual voting. When it comes to your audience, it’s important to engage with them if you want their vote. One of the worst things you can do is put out a blog post, send an email or anything to that nature in the nominations round – A lot of people will do you a favour once, so don’t blow it on the nominations, save it for the actual voting. Being nominated into a category isn’t difficult, if you have a good audience, you’ll be able to ask your most loyal readers to nominate you, that will get you into the voting phase. Then use blog posts, emails and so forth to ask your readers to vote for you, if they haven’t been bugged before, then the chances are that they’ll take the time to vote.
  • Prime your audience – In the point above, I said that you shouldn’t ask everyone to nominate you, rather do a blog post mentioning that the Blog Awards are taking part, so that it’s in their mind, but don’t actually ask them to do anything, you don’t want to blow that one chance you will have with a lot of people.
  • Explain – Have you looked at the nomination process on the site? It’s awful. When you nominate someone, it says that you’re all done on the site, but in fact, you aren’t done, you need to enter your email address in and then click a link in your email. Take the time to explain this to your audience, use bullet points, take screen shots and make it as easy as possible. Their a widgets and links that you can use to reduce the number of clicks your audience will have to perform to nominate you, make use of these.
  • Don’t be a pain – Continually tweeting about the awards and asking for votes will get you nowhere – Last year I was asked by several people why I hadn’t tweeted about it, quite simply, I decided that I would put only 1 tweet out, right before the voting ended, so as to not annoy my followers. Remember, followers are people interested in you, don’t blow it and lose followers for being a pain, even if you end up winning an award, you’ll lose loyal readers.
  • Respect the seasoned bloggers - The blog awards is a rather clicky event, if you’ve flamed someone or been rude about someone, there’s a good chance that this is where that’ll nip you in the butt, especially if you’ve done that to a judge or someone who has influence. The old school bloggers deserve a lot of respect, if you have a blog that’s a year old, always give respect to those bloggers who’ve been in the game for a number of years, especially if you’re hoping to win the Best New Blog award.
  • Go offline – Ok fine, it’s 6 tips, sue me. So many bloggers rely purely on their direct online audience to vote, but imagine how many more votes you could get by going offline and chatting to your friends who aren’t online all the time. How many of you have parents who aren’t net nerds, but would love to vote? That’s right, most of you! Go offline, campaign offline, get your mobile device geared up and show them how to vote – Take my advice here, this is what will put you in the lead.

I wish all of you bloggers the best of luck, it’s an incredibly exciting time and I’m really hoping that we’ll see some new blogs coming into the charts.

PS. To the several people who’ve already nominated iMod, big respect to you, although I’m going to opt out, it still means a ton to know that some of you don’t even have to be asked! :)

Welcome WordPress 3 “Thelonious”

by Chris M on June 17, 2010 in Blogging, Code, Video with 3 Comments

We’ve all been waiting for the release of WordPress 3.0 and it’s finally here! By far the best release thus far and it’s really exciting exploring all the new features.

Personally, I love the new look for the dashboard, it’s far sleaker and stream-lined than before, which I enjoy and the extra functionality is awesome. Being able to choose the administrative username and password whilst installing the software is what caught my eye first, I’m tired of having to do user management the minute it’s installed every time, so this is a great change for me. From a client perspective, I love the fact that helps menus are available on every page, this is going to save a lot of time.

The new menu system and custom posts are great additions to this release, both will be used over and over again, no doubt about that. I’m not going to go on about the functionality, rather take a watch of the video:

You can click here to read the official release.

I’m really happy to hear that the team is now going to concentrate on the WordPress community for a while, rather than immediately working on other release.

Are people still blogging?

by Chris M on June 5, 2010 in Blogging with 2 Comments

Sysomos has just conducted a thorough study on bloggers across the globe and I must admit, the stats are really interesting, let’s have a look..

53..3% of bloggers are between the age of 12 and 35, which is understandable, as this age group would have grown up during the period that blogging boomed. It’s interesting to note that 26.5% of bloggers are over the age of 36, which means that 79.8% of bloggers are all over 21 years old.

info-viz-blogs-age-demographics

In terms of gender, it’s almost a split down the middle, there are 50.9% female bloggers and 49.1% male bloggers. The countries which occupy the most bloggers are USA, UK, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Russia and Australia.

info-viz-blogs-gender-demographics

Personally, I’m just really happy that people are still blogging and that it’s still incredibly popular.

Go on, start a blog, it’s an exciting venture! :)

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