First I read something on Twitter by Jay Rosen. Then it was Jeff Jarvis. That certainly got me interested to learn more.
Now I see that Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, has launched a $1,75m Investigative fund to get journalists going specifically on investigative work.
I often talk about how our world is a better place because of those journalists that uncover the nasty political and corporate shenanigans of our world. We have a great deal to thank those people for. Now, because of the world economic turmoil together with the rise of the internet, a great deal of newspaper journalists will loose their jobs and we, the public will loose out.
This fund is a great idea and something I started thinking about last year when I listened to a podcast about Spot.us.
This is something that is needed in every country and South Africa could most certainly do with a similar fund.
iafrica, News24, Independent Online, you guys listening?
Read the full story about the fund’s launch on the Huffington Post web site.
So, it is less than 500 days to go to SA’s biggest spectacle ever: the FIFA World Cup.
Sure, a lot of potential international visitors may have made enquiries or booked their accommodation and associated arrangements already. I don’t have the details on those facts at hand but thought there must be people who waited to see whether they can actually get the tickets they wanted before making all their travel arrangements.
Not knowing exactly from which country we expect the most visitors but knowing for sure that the UK is in the top 3 of that list, I decided to do a quick check on Google.co.uk to see what I can find there in terms of the big players in the SA tourism industry.
For the phrase: 2010 hotel accommodation, I could not find a single SA hotel or hotel group in the top 50 results. FIFA World cup 2010 accommodation:
#3: Tourismgrading, PDF document
#4: AATravel
No hotels or hotel groups in the top 30 results. No adwords results for any SA establishments either. guest house accommodation 2010 world cup:
#1: Sleeping-out.co.za
#3: Pemba.co.za, The Port Elizabeth Metro Bed & Breakfast Association
#7: Neptune Guesthouse, East London
Whether it means that the major accommodation players are all tied-up with MATCH contracts and therefore don’t need their web sites to be optimised for search engines or what-ever the reason ( maybe even technical ) this sure came as a surprise to me!