The internet, as we all know, has a lot of advantages for any business. But let’s think about the internet as a human being; does it still have that many advantages?

• PRO 1: The internet discriminates against no one. If you want to comment on something and give your opinion, they do not ask you to give your age, gender, race, etc. so there can be no discrimination against you because of something you said.
• PRO 2: Because of the fact that there is no place for discrimination on the internet, stereotypes are also something not found often. For example, if you say something, no one can reply with a “you just say that because you are a guy”.
• PRO 3: The internet has personality. Whether you are a sophisticated professional, or a freelance “surfer dude”, there is a place for you on the internet. Blogs is a good example of this as you can find many styles of writing to fit your personality, thus improving the “conversation” between you and the article or blog on the internet.
• CON 1: Without a profile, you can become anyone. Many people find the need to reveal themselves for someone they are not, so that they can mislead people. For example, you can be an old man from the USA and create a profile on Facebook or any other internet platform as a 18 year old hunk from Hawaii. The sad thing is that people really do this with no consent.
• CON 2: The internet only answers questions that are there. Though the internet is a quick way of finding out things, it is not as quick at responding to your personal questions. For example, if you want to know a specific thing about a hotel, there is the option of sending an email to them. However, you don’t receive feedback on that email in an instant. Thus making the internet not as instant as it is portrayed to be.

Therefore it is clear that the internet is a lot more human than you might think…

Compared to countries such as Germany and America, we are rather ‘small’ on the e-commerce side.  Last year alone the e-commerce industry in Germany made 15.5 billion pound translating roughly to 158.72 billion rand (using the latest exchange rate).  Not a bad number I would say.

But all is not lost for our fair country, according to World Wide Worx the number of internet users has grown in 2009 to 5 million users taking the total of internet users to 10% of our population and according to Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, this number may even increase to 6 million by the end of 2010, and with the number of internet banking customers increasing it is just a matter of time before they realise that there is so many other things that they can do on the internet.

Though the stats looks good, I had an interesting conversation with a colleague on the internet as a whole, and what he said made sense and is food for thought.  He said that in South Africa the biggest problem is that people find it hard to part with their credit card details and those that do not have are too afraid to get one, though if you look at the LSM’s in SA the number of homes that have the ‘extra’ bit to spend is rather in the minority

So, when you look at the situation from both sides, it looks rather bleak for SA and the e-commerce market unless, we able to win their trust but how we will do that, we leave for another blog.

 Room 160 at the ICC in Cape Town was packed yesterday as Ad: Dynamo set an opportunity for the advertising and online industries came together to discuss the direction that their industries are going and how they have become dependable on each other.

Leading the discussion was Marc Ashton from Bundublog.com, followed by Nic Haralambous for SA Rocks.co.za, Justin Hartman  the MD of Afrigator and Sean Riley the CEO of Ad: Dynamo.

The discussions ranged from the reasons to blog to how to get your blog started and even the financial  benefits, and sometimes the lack of it.  All discussions was for everyone that had a blog and those that are thinking of starting  one.

The speakers were perfect for this particular discussion, as they did not even attempt to romanticize blogging but gave the hard facts and had proof to back it up. Both sides of the coin was shown and the debates around the different views that the bloggers had was rather entertaining to watch. This showed not only the passion of the bloggers but also the knowledge that they have gathered.  Very interesting.

Blogging has become one of the best ways to communicate with the any audience, because like Nic said, “Write about your interest, because out there is someone guaranteed to be as screwed up as you are.”  Something that we need to keep in mind when writing a blog.

Overall, it was a rather interesting and entertaining afternoon and if you were there you were sure to have walked away with a lesson or two learnt.

Why do they call it “Fast Foods”? Because it’s food, fast…

Think about it for a second, you drive to a McDonalds and place your order at the first window, followed by a second window where you pay. And what do you do, just pay. Proceeding to the next window – there it is! Your food is nicely wrapped up and you are good to go! Easy as that: order, pay, get. A matter of 1, 2, 3, let’s go!

In this hectic lifestyle that we have to keep up with, getting what we want fast, just makes everything easier! For example, I was looking at venues for my birthday a while back, I just wanted one small piece of info that was not available on the website. Thus, I went to “Need more information? Contact us” and sent an email. After more than a month, I have not received any reply…

It is clear that faster service does not only impact the customer, it will also lead to more business for the service/company. Not only will customers enjoy the quick response, they will talk about it and spread the word of this amazing online, “drive-through” company. Wouldn’t you like to become the first “McDonalds” on the internet?

The Great retreat of super search engine Google from China is bound to cause a few concerns and perhaps a large change to the face of the internet. China boasts a prior to the buzz around the exit of Google from China, a few security concerns surfaced. The Major one being Google seize on censoring the Chinese search engine Google.cn after it discovered evidence hackers inside China were targeting the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights dissidents and some 20 Chinese and international companies.

The reaction from Google executives seemed to be that of people who have of given up. The Vice President of Google, David Drummond, refused to speculate whether the Chinese government was behind the attacks. He said Google might have to pull all of its operations out of China as they simply cannot continue to operate a filtered or search engine.

While Google is not the largest search engine in that country  its ability to index and search through millions of Chinese websites opens that country’s digital borders to the world. Blocking Google from indexing those sites would effectively create a bubble around China and hinder international access to one of the fastest growing economies on the planet.

According to Mr. Rohozinski, the impact is as follows: "Basically the business model that has allowed companies like Google to exist, which is a global unified unfettered Internet cloud, will be replaced by national Internet clouds or clouds that belong to coalitions of countries which decide who and who cannot access resources from within those clouds”. The most important statement He made was "They are radically altering the entire structure of cyberspace."

Mr Rafal Rohozinski, the chief executive of Ottawa’s SecDev Group, has been consulting with Google since it was discovered that numerous systems within the company had been hacked by Chinese-based attackers.

What does this mean to the ordinary man? Well the greatest concern surrounds the millions of Gmail accounts, not just in China, but world wide. 20 companies in China were hacked and information in email accounts corrupted, stolen and deleted. This begs the question of the users trust in Google, if there private information and data is secure and safe. Perhaps Google will be able to answer these pressing questions sooner than later.

By: Singatha Hlazo

Being a public relations student, I have been taught to do things in the ‘PR’ way. That would include Media releases writing, event management, corporate communications, etc. The thing is just that the internet has brought about a change in the way that PR is done.

Before, and this is not that long ago, people would send media releases and press packs physically and would hope for the best. I was told by a PR practitioner that has been working in the industry for a long time, that in PR they use a method known as the spray and pray when wanting media coverage. This means that they would send the media release to as many media houses as possible and pray that a few of these find the release interesting enough to be placed. Not the most effective way of doing things but it worked and was the building blocks for where we are now.

Currently, in the PR industry, there are practitioners that prefer to do things the ‘traditional’ way and there are others that feel that perhaps it is best to take a different approach to the way that things are done. With all the portals that is being used to reach the target publics and stakeholders it is easier to do things and a better way of monitoring the results of your actions.

A big favourite for PRP’s, as for as I could see, is Hello Peter, a site that I set up so that the stakeholders are able to rate the service of a particular company and leave comments. If used correctly, one can make things so much easier and more companies should be able to have the type of reputation that Woolworths and Pick n Pay have.

In more recent times Twitter has become a way that, not just PRP’s can monitor a company and the things that are being said but clients and potential investors as well. The thing with this is that the reach that twitter has is far greater than that of Hello Peter, seeing as it is not focused on a particular market or service but rather a way that people can say what is on there mind.

These tools are great, especially for industries such as Public Relations and Marketing where the reputation and the perception of the company is very important. The target publics and a potential client or customer are able to access information of the company far easier and make an informed decision based not on what they know but rather what they think they know.

It is for this reason that monitoring the information that is released and dealing with the complaints of a client is so important. There are so many companies (e.g. Shoprite) that has not paid attention to the things that is being said and that has not dealt with the complaints and has a very bad reputation, and even though they have not lost too much business, it is safe to say that it is not due to their reputation (but that is a story for another blog).

All in all the internet has given the reputation mangers of a company a bit more insight into how their stakeholders feel and are able to work on it. It also however, could lead to more business for the competitor. The competitor is now able to monitor things said about their competition and use it to their advantage as was the case with the current Capitec campaign using the things said about other banks and showing how they have improve on this.

Just like other things it is important that this done correctly, used in the appropriate way these portals and other like it can be helpful and may lead to a very prosperous new year.

Well here goes my 1st blog posting written on OMM Writer, headphones on and soothing sounds in the background. Who would’ve thought there’d ever be a substitute to that “word” app?

Anyway, lemme tell you what is on my mind today?

It is the concept of a SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT and what that actually means…

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t read something in a newspaper, web site, blog or in an email invitation to an event about some SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT!

That got me thinking……

What exactly is a social media expert and who qualifies?

I could think of 3 reasons why some-one would consider themselves a social media expert:

1. They know stats:

• Did you know there are now 316 million+ people on facebook?
• Did you know there are close to 30 million tweets every day?
• Did you know there are 100 million + videos on YouTube?

This person always pulls out the stats and use those to make their case. ( really one of my favourites too!)

2. They have their own social media presence:

• Have a blog (or 2, or 3 …)
• Have a twitter following
• Have facebook, linkedin, friendfeed, myspace, blueworld, etc profile.

( I do have more than one of each of the above.)

3. They have done stuff on social media for clients:

• Set-up a bank on facebook
• Set-up a college on twitter
• Set-up a band on MySpace
• Set-up a blog for a travel company

( That’s me too!)

So, does this indeed entitle them to have the designation, SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT, behind their name?

Does this allow them to claim they know more than every-one else and that they can charge for their expertise accordingly?

I really can’t say.

Reading “The Tipping Point” 10 years after it was published is quite an eye opener. The connectors, as Malcolm Gladwell calls them, did not have any tweets, wall postings or RSS feeds at their disposal. They are simply people that know how to connect with others.

Either they care about people in general, have a wide scope of interests or participate in varied activities. They therefore get in touch with a great number of people and are the real social connectors.

Do you need to be an expert to GET that?

Is social media not merely an online extension of good old fashioned face-to-face networking?

In my opinion, there are online social media experts. Plenty of them. They are not the people however, that speak at conferences, write books or charge for their services.

They are students, academics, business people, mothers, environmetalists, sportsmen and women who ARE connected in any case because of their passions, interests and networks. Social media is merely an extension of their networks and a tool they use to manage those relationships, be it strong ties or the so-called “weak ties.”

They are the ones that understand the power of the online social network and use it to their advantage. Very seldom, I dare say, do they do so for financial gain.

Next time you hear of a social media expert, ask yourself what qualifies that person to call him/herself an expert.

Posted by a wannabe social media expert.

and now, the real launch:

Before:

Each culture, each society, each landmark has its own theme, its own history, its own language. But maybe one day we will all be the same; we will all be grey cats after midnight…
That day is here. And the internet is our connection, our language.
Globalisation has led to languages being incorporated into one another, meaning slang has taken over most of the traditional languages. But as native languages have sunk into the mix, so has the internet expanded into a world wide language that connects everyone and communicates with everyone.
A while back people struggled to communicate with each other and often misinterpreted what was meant, but through the internet, we can all understand, learn, give our opinion and communicate in a sense that everyone understands.
Thus the internet has not only opened up doors for marketing, advertising, and businesses, it has also contributed to a whole new community that can share stories and connect.
Therefore I conclude with MWEB’s slogan, that says it all: CONNECT AND YOU CAN!