Aug
07
Actually, I should not say Twitter as they’ve been giving themselves enough shit lately with their scalability issues. I should say “micro-blogging”, but you know what I mean.
ReadWriteWeb wrote an article on the future of blogging revealed. Truth be told, they might be right, but God forbid they are. Lifestreaming is awesome and so is micro-blogging. The problem is this:
It is making us lazy. Eric, by no means am I saying you’re lazy. All evidence to the contrary, but you’re lazy to blog as much as you’ve done in the past, as am I and a lot of others. Its just easier to say things in a 140 characters. Its easier to monitor and list what I read, rather than to write about it. Our attention span is all fucked up.
A while back, daily del.icio.us link posts was all the rage and everyone was doing it. It almost seemed like an easy way out to not have to sit down and write something, carefully thinking about it beforehand. Some still persists to do it. After a while it became irritating to readers. My prediction is that by mixing your online activity with your main writings/blog would dilute your content and you’d end up pissing people off, rather than entertaining/educating them. It might seem weird and strange, but people want to read what others say, not what they read.
I do admit, there is a use for lifestreams. Yes, its not a bad thing having them somewhere on your site. It would be terrible to have it dilute your original content and IMHO should be kept separate. Then again, with our sacred little blogosphere turning into a Paris Hilton tabloid, it might be a good thing 
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Blogging Stii
May
20
I mean, look at me, I’m all the way down here in George. There is no problems down here! Yet, yesterday was hands down the most depressing Monday I’ve had in a long, LONG time. Although I’m not close to the atrocities happening, it affected me emotionally. Mainly due to my good friend Gregor’s post being the first one to read on a Monday morning.
So I just read Mike’s call for help. Mike is so damn right. We’re all sitting on our asses behind our computers and saying things like “shame, poor foreigners” [sic] while we do the sum total of zero. 
Great bloody help that is, hey?!
I’ve though of this idea for a long, LONG time now, but I do not have a clue how to instigate such a thing, nor do I have the know-how of how it works. My idea is to have like a trust fund, NGO or something to which bloggers/technology people can contribute to financially. I’m more than willing giving money to any organization, but it would be nice to do it collectively as an organization I believe in, like this blogosphere I belong to. I do know that this is a fairly touchy subject and might well be a shitload of work, but I’d like something like this to happen!
Every now and again, there is a call for help. Not only in South Africa, but the whole of Africa. Yes, we can spread the word, sure, but it feels a little empty and sounds hollow. The Xenophobia crisis, the Zimbabwe/Mugabe crisis, the violence after the Kenyan elections, it has all been covered pretty well by traditional media. I’ll do my bit in spreading the word, but would love to do more and more so doing something more substantial. A great example would be the million man march which was mentioned on SA Rocks! not long ago and took place on the 13th of March. I would much rather donate some money towards their financial needs than pay an airline and some accommodation establishment just to be able to attend it!
So Mike, I’m throwing the ball back at you. You’ve got way more business savvy in your little finger and you are much better connected, so see if you could organize something like this? Nic, Justin and Gregor, I know you guys feel passionate about current affairs, maybe you could come up with some ideas? Maybe the Quirkstars or the Ideaters or the Capitalist Punks or the Stormhoekers, etc… Instead of organizing SA blog awards to get some recognition for bloggers, why not do something substantial and worthy?
If sponsors could be so easily obtained for Wordcamps, Blog awards and 27dinners, surely this should be simple? How about it?
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Blogging Stii
Mar
17
Disclaimer: Pussies as in cute, furry kittens!
One thing you will always get within Social Media (or any kind of social establishment) is differing opinions. This is a good thing. It allows for (somewhat) healthy debates. Sometimes these debates breaks out in fights. That is also not necessarily a bad thing. Friends do fight. Hell, my wife and I fight like cat vs. dog sometimes! It does not mean we hate each other! We simply differ in opinion and we sort it out over an undisclosed period of time using various tactics. (Of which the “silent treatment” tactic is B’s favorite! ) Nevertheless, it is not a sign of sickness, rather it is a healthy sign.
With the SA Blog Awards, every year without fail, you get “arguments” with a somewhat unhealthy element. You get these pussies (as in cats, remember) that spray bullets in the sky with the attitude “if the shoe fits…”. Not very helpful. It is exactly that “if the shoe fits” mentality that gets us nowhere, since no-one wants to put on that shoe if it was not specifically meant for them, so NOTHING is resolved at the end of the day.
I’m talking about this post of Jarred Cinman on Thought Leader. The post is laced with innuendos of certain “entrepreneurs” who are working out of their bedrooms in their parents’ house [sic] which is a shoe I can fit on dozens of people. Even on my own foot to some extent. The thing is, I do not particularly think Mr. Cinman aimed at anybody specific (though, he must have been thinking about some folks specifically at the time of writing it), although if you look at some of the comments on Muti, people’s perception is different:
people [are] sick of all the egomaniacal crap that goes on from certain ‘players’ in the industry.” and
“Once again timbloem - ‘players’ Stop beating about the bush and actually name them. ” and
“I’m waiting for a blog post on who these “players” / “in-crowd” / “big heads” are. Everyone quotes the above sayings, but no one ever names them. Why? Scared? ” and
“I propose the following formula: Count the number of times the blogger has “web2.0″, “entrepreneur”, “seo expert”, “new media strategist” in their banner and add it to the number of photos they have of themselves on their blog, add another point for any “vote for my blog” icons and subtract the total from 10. This is the “South African Blogger Expertness Score”.
So why not simply say it? What are people afraid of? At least it would give the “players” the opportunity to defend themselves! Surely that is only fair? To label a bunch of people as these so called “players”, but no-one knows who these elusive “players” are is kind of stupid?! Its like saying “the illumenati is a bunch of wankers”. No one will take that serious!
People have a lot to say about Richard Catto’s troll tactics, but at least he has the balls to say “Stii is a doos” (”doos” as in the Afrikaans version of a “box”… tsk tsk tsk…)
Clearly there are a bunch of people who dislike another bunch of people for undisclosed reasons. How can they begin to know why if they’re not even sure who? In the end, all that will happen is that people will start to ignore these “innuendos” and stay out of the “debate”. As noted so many times, we’re a fairly young movement in Africa. We tend to still take this shit seriously. This too will change as it gets bigger.
Now I can hear it already: “So what you are saying is that whenever I talk of a certain group of people I now have to mention who I’m talking of?” Sheesh, don’t be silly! I cannot tell you what to do! Gmf…
What I will say is this: If you do not have something good to say about someone, don’t say it. If you do say it, say it so that person can at least defend himself/herself. Have some balls, FFS!! 
Peace! Out!
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Blogging Stii
Feb
20
The time has come to put your money where your mouths are and help a friend. Stormhoek amongst some has been hit hard by the collapse of their UK wine distributor. Read the full story here. So you can help them by buying a vine in their vineyard for ZAR2000 (approx. US$270) and support the guys that supported us bloggers so generously with free wine at almost every Geeky gathering.
Please, if you can afford it, buy a vine. If not, help spread the word and please Digg it here.
I’m in for sure!
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Blogging, GeekDinner!, Social Web Stii
Jan
29
Our annual popularity contest is upon us! This year it seems the guys organizing is going to be much more strict with an entirely new set of rules. The rules are clear and easy to understand (even for a layman). Here is a couple of Tips, Tricks & “Unspoken” Rules to keep in mind:
Ask to get nominated. - As proven by Shaun Okes, if thou ask thou shalt receive… If your blog’s got half decent traffic, odds are fairly well stacked in your favor that it might just make it to the voting round! The My Digital Life guys looks like they’re all geared to have their main blog in the “Weblog of the year” category and at least 3 user blogs in every category. Competition is sure going to be excruciatingly tough in ‘08.
Once in the voting process ask for votes. - Again, as above. If you really want it as bad as you know you want it, get yourself 1000 email accounts and vote for yourself 1000 times. Frankly, if you want it that bad, you probably deserve it.
I’m trying very hard not to give Sessa a butt-cramp, but hell, conversations… Be visible. Now. See, once the voting list is out there, everyone starts to read 8 times as many blogs as before. No really. People take the time not to vote blindly. They actually read every blog before casting their votes. Just to be safe though, make sure people are “aware” of your “presence”. In other words, become a comment troll. See, if people sort of see and remember your blog and if you are in a category amongst fairly unknown blogs to the voter, people will vote for you simply because they’ve “seen” you somewhere so you’ve GOT to be good.
Rule: Please, FOR PETE’S SAKE, do NOT bitch about the logo again. It is such a bloody pain in the butt for everyone and even though you might think you can do better, keep it for yourself. Wait… maybe the organizers can organize a special category this year! They could have a “I can design better than everyone else and get my croniez to vote my design to stardom only to be vetoed eventually anyway because clearly I cheated as my design is crap and got the most votes” category.
Now I’m wondering, is Ideate going to be excluded this year as Mr Cherry himself is a contributor over there? If so, it would be a damn crying shame! By the looks of it Dave already excused himself as he was involved in some way, which is damn unfair as he is doing a damn fine job over on his blog. I’d prefer he does it more often, but hey, I’m the last one to say that. Actually, Sessa is the last one to say that. I might be second last. Here’s a thought for Fred, Shane and the boys. Just until after this thing, hide all Jon’s posts.
As far as the category for “Most Controversial Blog” goes, are you kidding me?! The organizers might as well wrap that one up NOW and split it three ways between Guy, Bolton and Richard. Done deal. No contest. Then again, splitting it 3 ways is not exactly the point of the entire exercise, right? Maybe we’ll have a contest over after all…
PS: Don’t forget to nominate Stormhoek this year! Please! We cannot afford to bite the hand that pours… AGAIN!
Right, geek out geeks!
PPS: Not done in Photoshop. B with her new Nokia
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Blogging, South Africa Stii
Jan
28
Mike tagged me almost a month ago. Well, if January was February it would have been 5 days to a full month. How this is supposed to work is that I now have to tell everyone 8 things about myself they probably don’t know. Quite frankly, I can think of 8000 more interesting things to talk about, but myself.
Here is the 8 things:
- I used to love to play tag when I was 8 years old. Now I love playing tag using blogs as it makes me feel 8 years old once more.
- Tags is actually XMLRPC calls from one blog to another which Afrigator, Amatomu and Technorati picks up and let bloggers tagged see that they’re it. A.K.A. a pingback.
- Tagging Charl is like trying to tag that skinny, slinky boy on the schoolyard which everyone always misses. Charl uses blogger.com/blogspot.com and they don’t support pingbacks.
- Tagging Belinda is great fun! It will confuse the living daylights out of her.
- Tagging Sessa is likely to irritate the living SHIT out of him… Damn, I’m such a sucker. Mind you, it would probably piss off most the guys I’m tagging here. (With the exception of B, who’ll be confused…)
- If you get into the game late, you’re going to struggle to find other friends to tag. I know about another 200 or 300 if you need names. Just shout.
- Tagging is cool as it makes me want to stick out my tongue at Facebook and go: “Nah nah-nah nah naaaah nah! We can also social network without you, Big Brother!”
- I’m so damn unfit that all this tagging gave me a blinding side stitch
Here’s tag for you. Play nice! If you’ve already been tagged, I do sincerely apologise:
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Blogging, Funnies Stii
Nov
07
This morning I browsed through the nominations for the 2007 weblog awards and it made me think back to earlier this year… I loved this piece of sheer brilliance by Shane from Ideate:
Never the less, there are some awesome blogs over there so go check it out and vote for Yblog ZA who is the only South African blog in the category for Best Middle East or Africa blog.
Another interesting thing is that in the Technology department, it is the Gadget sites Engadget and Gizmodo that are by far the front runners and Fark! is by far the most popular online community.
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Blogging, Social Web Stii
Aug
31
Congratulations, Feisty Bev, for being elected to blog for the Mail & Gaurdian’s Thought Leader! We are proud of you here in the Garden Route! You’re definitely going places and it is well deserved. You are amongst an impressive list of names like Vincent Maher, Mike Stopforth, Dave Duarte and Vinny Lingham to name a few.
You can read Bev’s soon to come On Cue thoughts here: http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/oncue
Keep it up!
Blogged with Flock
Tags: feistyfemale, thought-leader, mail-and-guardian, beverly-merriman
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Blogging Stii
Jun
12
Justin showed me this theme the other night and I cannot get enough of it. It is a Wordpress theme you can install and it makes your blog react like a Linux/Unix terminal.
For example:
To see the latest post, you type in “last” and hit enter. This will bring up the latest post as if you typed “more filename.txt” in a terminal. Coolest of it yet is the fact that if the post is longer than what your screen length is, you hit the spacebar to scroll (just like with the more command in Unix/Linux).
For help, you simply type help and enter and you will get a list of commands that will work.
Unfortunately, there is some Wordpress error when trying to preview the template directly, so you need to come in from the front.
Go to http://blog.elinc.ca and click on the rod (CLI) button.
Technorati Tags: wordpress, themes, terminal
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Blogging Stii
Jun
12
Meaning that although I have a blog and a profile outside of Facebook, I still need to maintain my Facebook activity and profile as the two are completely disconnected from each other, albeit the lonely link in my profile. True, you can import your RSS feed of your blog into Facebook. Whoopee. Thats not the point.
It is therefore no wonder that we sometimes feel like we are suffering from multiple personality disorder! I personally think that your blog that is in your control should be the starting point. Not any given social networking platform. The services these guys offer should be first seen on your blog. Not a Christmas tree widget in your sidebar which takes you to a profile with a lot of nonsense you’ve collected on another site where you have to build yet another profile!
This is part of what is so appealing of OpenID. It is one place I authenticate myself to. It makes registering simple with new services. It allows me to use my OWN blog as a delegate. A step in the right direction, me thinks. Would it not be kind of ideal to have Facebook features and applications on your blog? Interacting with other Facebook members’ blogs? I would think so. I’m not interested into going into the whole old worn-out discussion of “why we blog”. I’m just saying that it takes hard work and dedication to maintain one’s blog. Social Networking sites should compliment it, not dilute it as it do.
Is it so far fetched? No. Can it be done? Yes. Will it happen? We’ll have to wait and see, since something like this will have a serious impact on the revenue models of a lot of these guys.
I used Facebook as an example, but it is relevant to all social networking sites and services.
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Blogging, Semantic Web, Social Web Stii
