Not everything is as it seems. But if you read this research report on the growth of Internet Radio in South Africa, I’ll take you behind the smoke and mirrors and allow you to experience some of the stink.
Put it this way, there’s a lot of nonsense being spread, and I cut through to the truth.
Update: I have been served with legal papers requesting me to take down this post by around 20:30. Here’s where you can see them.
As a South African I get dismayed and embarrassed when I watch this incredible TED talk detailing the status of HIV/AIDS around the world in today’s age. Hans Rosling explains using beautiful visuals how, amongst other things, South Africa has become, well, a rather large blotch on the map of HIV infections, and has completely and utterly fallen behind even our neighbouring african countries in this area. Is our garlic and beetroot perhaps not working so well?
If you like what you see, you can go and play with the tool he is using at Gapminder World.
“Hans converts the best available data from UNAIDS and WHO into understandable Gapminder bubbles.
The two key messages are that the global HIV epidemic has reached a “steady state” with 1% of the adult world population infected and that there are huge differences in HIV occurrence between and within African countries. Many African countries have the same, relatively low, HIV levels as can be found in most of the world, whereas 50% of the world’s HIV infected persons live in a few countries in Eastern and Southern Africa (with 4% of the world population).
Hans Rosling closes his speech by summarizing probable reasons for the high HIV burden in parts of Eastern and Southern Africa and he also claims that the focus must be on preventing further HIV transmission in these highly affected populations.”
[Update: Also read “The Doctor Will Sue You Now“, about the vitamin therapy treatment deception in South Africa (via BoingBoing)]
Ah, and I’ll tag ChampagneHeathen just in case she hasn’t seen it.
AAA School of Advertising (the name must be a legacy yellow-pages hack) and Springleap just sent me details of a competition for aspiring designers and marketers at high schools across the country. Design a T-Shirt, market it to get votes, most votes wins. The prize: a 3 year bursary to learn everything the AAA School of Ads can teach you, which is hopefully a hell of a lot. That’s a damn good prize, kids.
I’ll let the, uhm, video, explain a bit more. You may want to turn your speakers down a bit – clearly the caffeine has been flowing thick and fast at Springleap HQ… 🙂
More details can be found here: Teen T-shirt competition.
So once you’ve got a design, then what? Here’s a few ideas once voting starts:
I think you get the idea.
Oh, and there’s something there about Drug Education too. Yes, teenagers, you should always know the difference, between kat, tik, and cocaine. 😉
It’s been a long exciting road this past year for the Vernon Koekemoer legend. From the ramboguy.co.za site to facebook to being all over the intwerwebs on Youtube and Zoopy and BlueWorld and more. So here’s a hat tip to Cassie Booyse – the coolest guy on the planet, indeed He R Legend, as we celebrate the 1st anniversary of the discovery of Vernon.
This is a bit of a rant and a moderated comment combined, but you’ll get the idea:
Mr Goldstuck proclaims Blogging as a fad is over; serious blogging arrives.
He basis this assumption around the emergence of two aggregator and tracking type sites last year, along with a bunch of thinly strung together blogging platforms developed by media houses with very little technical expertise, all coated in a healthy dose of banner ads.
To further state his claims he then crunches together a few numbers in a chart, et voila, blogging has matured.
Um, ja. A time for serious blogging indeed. No space for Vernon Koekemoer jokes in this here blogosphere… 😛
In a little over two weeks vernonkoekemoer.co.za has soared to number 4 overall on the amatomu blog rankings. That says a hell of a lot about the performance and seriousness of the SA blogosphere. Or lack thereof. I’m privy to the number of visits taking place on this new site, and it is nowhere near what I thought it would need to be to achieve that top ranking. In a real blogosphere, the fight to the head of the long tail is tough but rewarding.
Screw hiding figures. Let me give it to you straight:
If you want to top amatomu you need around 2000 unique visitors a day with about 10000 pageviews. Probably more as time goes on.
Blogging in South Africa is nowhere near the maturity or professionalism that is present overseas. Some solid examples that absolutely blow away everything we offer blog-wise from South Africa: BoingBoing.net, Lifehacker.com, Gizmodo.com, Make: Blog, Pitchfork. In contrast we have, well, Cherryflava and Thought Leader, that maybe cut close to that rank. Attention is finite, which means we are competing against the best in the world. Lets not pretend we’re not. When top ranked SA sites such as MyDigitalLife, Tectonic, and even ThoughtLeader itself hardly gain traction locally on the interwebs, you can’t exactly claim the “serious blogs have arrived”.
In an age when blogs can be thrown together in fifteen minutes or less, and visits rise and fall on the viral whims of an audience, I’d take a pinch of salt before looking at Mr Goldstuck’s numbers with any sort of conviction.
Tags: blog, fad, serious, SouthAfrica, blogging, measurement, top, best, amatomu, thoughtleader, boingboing, statistics, arthurgoldstuck