Disqus - Latest Comments for Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi)

Re: Online monitoring & political behaviour

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:39:34 -0000

Yes, agree - very interesting. It does seem that they are only scratching the surface in terms of monitoring. Gut feel wont give you much of a picture.

Re: Facebook, MySpace stay better than Twitter for connecting people to your site

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:27:41 -0000

Makes sense. Twitter is far superior way of sharing information with people you dont know. But wathcing TV for entertainment is best when sharing it with close mates.

Re: Shoe Designer: Laura Villasenin

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:36:32 -0000

Laura Villasenin now designs for a small designer ethical label called WHERE.

Re: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Social Media Strategy in South Africa

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:53:59 -0000

Interesting post but you need to be more to the point. Have you tried blik.co.za?

Re: Why Social Media Will Fail in South Africa

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:03:23 -0000

Maslow applied to the internet as if its a living thing smells like the work of a Californian Ideologist.

I thought this piece will help us understand why people use social networks and how Maslow can explain this.

Anyway, think of a mobile phone as a social network node, and th address book as a friend list. Seen in this way its obvious that social network will have a big impact in Africa.

Re: We’re All Gonna Die by Simon Högsberg. A... - Tim Ferguson : Designer | Musician | Photographer | Friend

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:30:27 -0000

Very very cool. Love the details.

Re: Digital Signals: Why bother with social media?

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:35:32 -0000

The web has always been all about social media. If your working for an agency that does not get this, your probably working for an agency that designs websites in Flash that are never seen by many people.

Good on you though.

Re: Writing for the Web

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:19:13 -0000

this is a test

Re: When the web turned marketing on its head (p 2)

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:25:23 -0000

Anne Mette, thanks for the very good comment.

I agree with what you say. Marketeers are not obsolete. There is too much info and we do take common sense approaches to buying decisions because we don't have the time to do all the research.

But I do think the web is changing the way marketeers approach customers.

Hype without substance is more difficult than in the past.

Re: Facebook bigger than Porn but smaller than Blogs

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:56:14 -0000

I suspect there's some users that visit both MySpace and Facebook because they are quite different in some respects. But I also suspect that you are right, together they probably have more unique users than the plethora of blogs.

'But blogs are also merging with mainstream web media, they are used a lot on newssites/papers, and to complement corporate websites, or simply used as the medium/technology on which websites are set up.'

Absolutely. Technorati actually says as much in their state of the nation report. "...as the Blogosphere grows in size and influence, the lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site become less clear. Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs."

Advertiser's problem is mainly the question of reach. How do they get to be on thousands of blogs? There are so many competing ad networks now. Any many blogs don't have any ad code embedded at all.

Re: Android and iPhone ring the changes - is the mobile web dead?

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:51:32 -0000

'I expect that the growth in web access in the “developing” world will be straight from GPRS to smartphones, leapfrogging the WAP system.'

Don't you think the cost would be prohibitive at first Michael? Then again you might have a point. The content available on the open Web is imcomparable to the mobile WAP web, and potentially of imense value in the developing world.

Perhaps we'll see a $100 smartphone all over Africa before we see Negropontes $100 laptop?

Re: Android and iPhone ring the changes - is the mobile web dead?

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:54:52 -0000

Nope, not yet. I thought at first that supplying RSS feeds is enough. But your right I need to add email as many still prefer that. Hope to do so over the next few coming days.

Re: The trouble with video ads on mobile

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:21:40 -0000

Not sure what you mean by video stitching Sean? Come back to me and I can put you in touch with people who know.

Re: Petomundo jumps BuddyPress gun

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:19:32 -0000

No probs, will fix, the o

Re: Beyond the press release and to the blogs?

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:13:15 -0000

Openfire, definitely catchy that. Perhaps you should grab that domain!

Care to share with us how you went about getting the widget out to the masses?

Re: You know its bad when people like Sam Leith loose their jobs

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:36:37 -0000

Ha! Well I am in Londen. Will email forthwith.

Re: 20 Green Fashion Designers You've Never Heard Of—But Oh You Will (Slideshow)

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:00:18 -0000

Also check out Laura Villasenin that designs for WHERE fashion.

Re: Porn & Beauty: PORN Someone asked me the other day if I could...

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:20:08 -0000

You obviously have not heard of Rose and Olive. See them here http://www.theingoing.blogspot.com/ and here http://www.flickr.com/photos/tetheredto/3611333...

Re: Birds on a Wire – Reviewing Twitter Books

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:59:31 -0000

Hey Chris, still at a loss which one you'd recommend for some real Twitter insights?

Re: Advertising Agencies And Social Media: A Culture Clash

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:35:02 -0000

Good article, but one small gripe.

It would be wrong to make "going after the sale" a main point of difference between advertising and social media.

Much of above the line advertising is brand advertising and is supposed to create a warm fuzzy feeling that enhances the brand.

If Forrester is to believed social media is more successful in making the sale as it can reach consumers in the part of the 'marketing funnel' where advertising can't. But this type of advertising can only create awareness - the so-called start of the marketing funnel.

Re: 20 Green Fashion Designers You've Never Heard Of—But Oh You Will (Slideshow)

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:00:18 -0000

Also check out Laura Villasenin that designs for WHERE fashion.

Re: Could Communications – Not Content – Be The Killer App?

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 10:51:00 -0000

This is very old hat and a simplistic.

To a lesser extent the argument that communication is king is true on the web as well. Email, instant messaging and all these web 2.0 sites are essentially about communicating.

This does not mean that content is an insignificant business on the web or even mobile, its just a smaller market. AND some forms of communication are becoming content.

Re: YouTube Hints At Plans To Distribute Content Direct To Users' Mobile Phones Next Year

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:38:41 -0000

The slow march of 'off deck' mobile conent' continues.

Re: Mobile Web Winners May Be The Ones That Imitate the Internet

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:07:20 -0000

Good point Rob. Succesful mobile applications and services often do extend whats available on the web. They are rarely succesful if they are not tied to the web. Think Flickr and ShoZu, Google mail, IM etc. One exception perhaps is SeeMeTV, although if it was more web enabled it could go allot bigger.

Re: Mobile Advertising: One-To-Many Multicast Would Pay Dividends, So Why Aren't We Doing It?

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 11:55:10 -0000

The problem with this one to many approach is that it assumes that everybody wants to watch the same content at the same time. Besides a few big ticket live events like Big Brother and the FA Cup I suspect the world is moving in a different direction. Video on demand.

Re: @ Mobile Content World: Geek TV Case Study -- USG Not Important, Exclusive Is

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:32:06 -0000

Exclusivity comes to mobile as being accessible anywhere, ie when your not in front of the pc, and not actual exclusivity.

How you market or communicate exclusivity is another issue. Currentness is often more important than exclusivity.

Like all other content the key to user generated is whether its good for consumption on mobile, and not whether its user generated. Most user generated content is inane, some of it tends to be excellent. Thechallenge is how to find the excellent content.

Re: Industry Moves: Former Newsweek President Osberg Appointed CEO Of Mobile Video Start-Up Buzzwire

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:41:20 -0000

I'm sceptical. As if Newsweek's transition to the web has been a success.

If there's anything to be learnt, its how ordinary people have become the publishers and the distributers of content.

Re: Lycos Europe To Shut Down After Failing To Find Buyer

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:47:54 -0000

There was a time that Lycos Europe had the largest self publishing platform (Tripod), a precursor to today's blogs. The largest youth community (Love@Lycos or Spray date) remarkably similar in features to the early MySpace.

It had and still has the largest European chat rooms in Jubii. It had the largest web email product (Caramail) in many parts of Europe and the biggest mobile channel.

But top management (heavy in MBA's), all of whom (with the exception of Jurgen Galler - now at Google) showed little understanding for new media, shunned these market leading products.

The reason?

A consultant told them that they had too many 'Chatters and Gamers', cash poor time rich youngsters and too little 'dotcom dablers' 'time poor cash rich' older people. But a little analytics whould have showed them that these web users do nothing but shop on Amazon - a comparable product Lycos did not have.

The company decided to target the dablers, but its product set was hopelessly inadequate to attarct or satisfy them.

Then they put that cart in front of the horse. Lycos introduced charging for webmail, Love@lycos, mobile, hosting. Dablers like paying. At the same time they under invested in all these world beating services.

Audience numbers dropped precipitously while they never made much money from charging (premium revenues). The Dablers stayed away.

By 2005 when MySpace hit the headlines it was too late for Lycos to turn things around. They launched a blogging service, a poor knockoff of the Opensource Wordpress. They launched LycosIQ, quite an innovative product.

But it's valuable chatter and gamer audience and products had been lost forever.

Re: Microsoft Launching Mobile Music Downloads In UK, Tracks Are DRM-Protected

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:26:31 -0000

Seems a bit silly with Amazon & iTunes going DRM free. The horse has bolted.

Re: Publishers Are Killing Web Advertising's Potential With Misguided Pricing

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:05:51 -0000

Ed Dunn has it bang on with his comment above. This statement:

"For example, we now know that 16% of web users generate 80% of clicks and that this 16% represents the lower income and education segments of the total user base. Do we really want to be held accountable as an industry by metrics generated by the lowest common denominator and a minority of users to boot? I canât think of too many successful models using these types of metrics."

...just speaks of the failure of advertising in convincing most people, especially in the interactive online environment.

On the web, where we have users not an "audience", does advertising make sense?

Also, radio and magazines might have had excess inventory unlike TV, but they certainly don't compare to the abundance of media we have online.

Re: Publishers Are Killing Web Advertising's Potential With Misguided Pricing

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:55:45 -0000

"Itâs the quality of the products, services, interactions with an organization that builds an authentic brand character. If this sounds radical, or if youâre still using marketing to try and manipulate perception, you are walking on thin ice. For your consumers and observers, there is no such thing as a âbrand experience,â only a human experience which may be associated with a brand. The meaning of the interactions themselves must be addressed...

Curated perception has long been a free-for-all land grab aimed squarely at focusing the attention of a market. Because information is now instantly and freely shared, those brands with the largest gaps between fabricated perception (traditional marketing) and the authentic character of their actions (products, services, human interactions) will be the quickest to sputter and implode. This is true no matter what new platforms are employed to manipulate awareness, or what tools we use to examine them. Brand experience is an illusion, human experience is real. The problem is not perception, but rather the consequences of human behavior. The solution is found through trying to change perception, but through creating more constructive human interactions and positive, authentic experiences."

http://www.zeusjones.com/blog/2009/the-fleeting...

This is of course just a long winded way of saying advertising is a tax on an unremarkable product.

Does it have bearing on this debate? I think it does. Online - where information can easily be shared - "the former audience" are narrow and broadcasters themselves and seem to have developed a substantial blind spot for traditional advertising?

Re: Publishers Are Killing Web Advertising's Potential With Misguided Pricing

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:31:51 -0000

Rick, that is the scary thing - perhaps (unless your highly specialised like the FT) there isn't an alternative.

Perhaps the future is amateur.

Perhaps many publishers should get out of the publishing business.

Re: Publishers Are Killing Web Advertising's Potential With Misguided Pricing

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:11:00 -0000

"Iâd have to say that the best stuff remains the professional stuff "

That is plainly not the case. Sometimes it is, and these professional outfits do make money of advertising.

See Techcrunch and Huffington post. (Note both highly specialised and not cumbered by having to print).

But certainly not always. In almost every field or niche you find amateur bloggers and their community of commentators better or at least up to the task.

Fashion? See Fashiontoast or even better StyleBubble.

South African politics? See Constitutionally speaking.

And even when blogs are too niche and don't give you the whole picture, following the right people on Twitter will get you to the best content that interests you m- an aggregated picture if you will - and you'll get it first. Much more than following any magazine could. (I got to this article through Twitter).

Read this, its interesting in this regard.

http://scobleizer.com/2009/08/26/rss-interestin...

Re: Publishers Are Killing Web Advertising's Potential With Misguided Pricing

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:34:54 -0000

"hate twitter - itâs crap" - care to tell why?

In my experience people who dismiss Twitter with one liners have not really tried it. They have looked at it, perhaps signed up to it, perhaps even posted something about their breakfast, but they have not really given it a go. I only got it after the third attempt myself.

Like with a bicycle, you cant say the experience is crap if you have'nt actually cycled.

If you have used it - fair enough.

Your right, many good bloggers supplement their income through advertising, very few can afford to give up their day job. This makes them amateurs in my book.

Re: Publishers Are Killing Web Advertising's Potential With Misguided Pricing

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:04:32 -0000

Alastair Thompson, thanks for the post. Are you turning a profit? Care to share what niches you are in?

Re: Publishers Are Killing Web Advertising's Potential With Misguided Pricing

Wessel van Rensburg ( Mhambi) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:26:36 -0000

Interesting piece in the FT...

"Long-established agencies are floundering in a sea of social media, viral marketing, behavioural targeting and three-dimensional âaugmented realityâ (see left and below). They are reacting to these buzzwords, not coining them. And their businesses, little changed since Draperâs day, are ill-equipped to cope. âIn the old world, agencies were way out in front of clients,â Mary Beth West, chief marketing officer at Kraft Foods, said in a panel debate in Cannes. âNow ... clients are ahead of the agencies â and the consumer is ahead of all of us.â

Economic pressures are making change in the marketing business more urgent, according to Jim Stengel, who as chief marketing officer of Procter & Gamble until last year was the industryâs biggest single client, before leaving to establish his own consultancy. As marketing budgets are increasingly spent on âservice and utility and help for customersâ, a smaller slice of the pie may be left for what agencies have traditionally done. âWhat was already a volatile and changing situation is just accelerating,â says Mr Stengel. However, he adds: âIn the long term, itâs positive because I think it has opened peopleâs minds up to different ideas and models, and to taking more risks.â

Some agency chiefs admit that their model is ill-suited to the internet age. Fernando RodÃ©s VilÃ , chief executive of Havas, the French agency group, says the old wartime metaphors of âcampaign, target and launchâ no longer apply. âThe model that started with world war two was based on control in a few hands: very few media, two or three relevant brands in each sector and a few agencies,â he says. âWe are [now] facing a very different panorama, which is much more democratic, much more social, much more interesting but much more difficult for marketers.â

This change has been under way since well before the recession started to bite last year. Global advertising expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product has been falling since 2002. Up until then, it had risen and fallen in line with the broader economy since the 1970s, according to Robert Shaw, a professor at Londonâs Cass Business School. He blames the divergence on the shift of budgets to the internet. âThe problem with online is that many of the [media] costs are so much lower that itâs dragging everything down,â he says. âBut for agencies, the irony is that their costs are so much higher online than they were on television,â he adds. That eats into their profit margins.

Because the internet audience is more fragmented, every pound spent on advertising space online costs almost three times more, in terms of time and labour, than it would if you spent it on traditional media, says Quentin George, chief digital officer at Interpublicâs Mediabrands.

The traditional time-based billing model is tough to uphold when developing online campaigns, says Rich Silverstein, co-founder of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, an agency owned by Omnicom, the global marketing giant. âThe internet is so deep itâs like drilling for oil,â he says. âSo far, I donât think weâve really charged for all the time weâve put into it.â "

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/92d4daf4-933c-11de-b1...