27 Dinners finds a 'proper' home!

I am pleased to see that the 27 Dinner movement now has its own online home having outgrown its initial PB-Wiki home.

The 27 dinner phenomenon has grown substantially since its founding and is now one of the must-attend events for anyone involved in online marketing, writing, technical development - in fact anyone online media practioner or anyone who has an interest in this area is welcome to attend.

If you still have not been to a 27 dinner in your area, go along to http://www.27dinner.com and find out when and where! The site is still new and so much more needs to be added. If you would like to find out more about the 27 Dinners and see photos etc from previous events, surf along to the 27 Dinner wiki at http://27dinner.pbwiki.com

Is Your PC South African?

With so many people now using open source software the people at Translate.org.za are hard at work releasing versions of Firefox, Open Office, Thunderbird and more into the 11 official languages of South Africa.

Yesterday they announced that an Afrikaans version of the Firefox 3 beta was available for download.

They also have a South African keyboard available and spell checkers for local languages.

If your mother tongue is not English and you would like to use your software in your home language you need to take a look at these :

1) Open Office - in all 11 official languages

2) Mozilla Firefox

3) Mozilla Thunderbird

4) South African Keyboard

5) Spell Checkers for South Africa

A glance at the Translate.org.za news page gives much information about the state of languages and their use in local software - worth a look.

A feather in the cap for our local open source software translators is that their translation tools are now also used by the One Laptop Per Child project, as well as Sun Microsystems for the translation of OpenOffice.org and OpenSolaris.org. Well done to the folks at Translate - more South Africans making a global impact!

Facebook in South Africa - Are You Being Paid?

Social networking online has fast become the darling of the internet. The South Africa network on Facebook now has over 260 000 members! It had to happen sooner than later that some bright spark realised that with millions of people logging in every day and the resultant advertising revenue increasing, those who were making use of tools such as Facebook and MySpace should be benefitting too. After all, it is the users who make these sites so successful - why not reward regular users for their efforts?

Enter Yuwie - a Web 2.0 social networking site that pays users for their normal everyday activities and links this to network marketing model that pays 10 levels down!

Think of how many times you log into Facebook during the course of a week. Imagine getting paid every time you altered your profile, invited friends, left messages on your friend's walls, participated in a group... Not only that - what if you were paid every time one of your friends participated in activities such as these as well - down to 10 levels? This is the magic of Yuwie.

Some questions answered :

1) Is it legal? Yes Yuwie is completely legal.Yuwie is marketed as a Social Networking site with a Multi Level Marketing business structure. You see Pyramid schemes involve users paying a fee to join, and that fee gets divided up and paid to the users above them...and Yuwie is not one of these. Yuwie is free to join. It costs nothing, so there is no way it can be considered illegal, or a pyramid scheme.Yuwie gets it's revenue from advertising

2) How is my income calculated? Your income is determined by the Yuwie - Revenue Sharing Rate (RSR). Here's how it works. After each month, a report will be generated in your earnings area...See your "Control Panel" and look for the money bag. It will show exactly how many views your referral tree accumulated on each level. It will also show your earnings for each level. Here's the actual calculation:

RSR x (Page Views/1000) x Level Percentage = Your Earnings

3) How long has this been around? The Yuwie.com Domain was Created on May 21, 2007 and the business is run by a gentleman (Korry Rogers) out of Norman, Oklahoma


This is a great tool for buiding a business network with the benefit of being paid at the same time! Its like having an advertising agency pay you for using their services!

Why not head over to my Yuwie profile and get the ball rolling! I really do believe that this tool will be become as popular as Facebook over time - get in now! Sign-ups are over 1000 per day - you really don't want to miss this opportunity!

Check it out now...

PushPlay replies

In response to yesterday's post about SA online DVD rental company PushPlay, Debra Wynne of PushPlay has posted a comment which I reproduce here -

Thank you for featuring PushPlay on your blog. We love the exposure and it's great that more folk get to hear about us as we are planning to roll out nationwide very shortly.

With regards to our marketing campaign (or lack thereof):- We have been focusing on our distribution systems, working closely with the post office to development a system exclusively for PushPlay which will ensure the fast delivery and return of DVDs nationwide. I'm sure you can appreciate the amount of work and the time that is involved in this task at a national level, but we are now confident that we are ready to roll-out nationwide. Even without much advertising we have had great response from word of mouth marketing.

With regards to being linked to Netflix:- no we are not. The concept of online DVD rental is one which most South Africans have not yet heard of, which means we are currently in the education stage of the business. On top of this, it can be a confusing concept to explain. We recently added the How it Works page to try and explain to new subscribers what they can expect from the service and what the benefits of the service will be to them. The diagram has been used on our homepage since July last year and Netflix only recently added their diagram to the How it Works page. Who's flattering whom we could ask? We might have taken some guidelines from their How it Works page layout, but it works and it's simple and we like it. If you find us terribly unoriginal we apologise, we are partly guilty.

We'll be in Joburg very soon, and so will let you know. Thanks again.

Is Netflix behind SA online DVD initiative?

Some years ago on a trip to the USA I was struck by the ready availability of a service known as Netflix which allowed you to rent a DVD or two, use them for as long as you like and then pop your viewed titles into a prepaid envelope returning them to Netflix so that you could order your next title. I remember wondering when such as service would surface in South Africa and how such a service would work given certain logistical issues such as the availability of broadband internet and the uncertain delivery times of the South African Post Office!

It was therefore with delight, that I heard from my good friend Eish! of eishcoza.blogspot.com that such a service was now available in our country and had been since October 2006. It is known as PushPlay and is, by all accounts, working well. Unfortunately it is only available in Cape Town at present so I am going to have to wait before I can give it a try. I value the fact that Eish! has in fact tried the service and has given it a thumbs-up.

I question why their marketing has not been more visible? Is it because they are trying to establish credibility first? Is it a desire to use word-of-mouth advertising as their primary source for new clients? Until Eish! told me about this service I had seen no marketing material either on- or offline. Being first off the blocks is one thing but maintaining that position while competitors begin to establish themselves is another thing altogether.

I also wonder whether there is a link between PushPlay and Netflix - take a look at these graphics from each company :





















Both companies have a "How It Works" page - take a look at how similar they are :
PushPlay / Netflix
This certainly does not look like pure coincidence to me! There are clear similarities between the two companies and while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I wonder if Netflix is not behind the PushPlay initiative. This post is being sent to the folks at PushPlay and they have right of reply. Their response will be posted to this blog.

Despite these questions, I believe that the time has come for this service in South Africa. I cannot wait for availability in Johannesburg! I wish PushPlay well in their future endeavours.

Read Eish's post on PushPlay here - Online DVD deal launched in SA - 1 Year Ago!!

(Update - PushPlay replied the very next day - see their reply here)