As someone who conducts most of my work online, I am always interested in finding new, useful and above all else, the cheapest possible (FREE!) tools to save time and speed up business processes. So it is with great pleasure that I present this Slideshare presentation I found by someone who took the time and made the effort to gather and present these web apps geared towards start-ups but useable by anyone working online.

Start With Startups

View more presentations from Siva Ram.

I stumbled on a very interesting post which is an elaboration on Tuesday’s theme, entitled The Internet’s Hierarchy Of Needs. The author also superimposes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Basic Needs on the internet.

As we can see, at the very base of the pyramid is

• 1. Existence needs: The most basic need for the internet to play any meaningful role, namely computers connected to the Internet and access to documents and any media necessary for whatever task needs to be accomplished. Right there South Africa fails already, since technology infrastructure, access to computers and the internet is non-existent or few and far between. In 2006, out of a population of nearly 50 million people, only 5 million had internet access. There has been some attempts to outfit black schools with Open Source Tuxlabs from the Shuttleworth Foundation, but unfortunately one never hear of these efforts anymore and if there is any success stories then they surely keep it very quiet.
• 2. Connectivity needs: the ability to connect to and between documents and sites and it’s subsequent implications; this largely flows forth from the first need and is therefore impossible for the majority of the South African population to attain, without access to a fast and modern computer with the appropriate software and connectivity installed and without the necessary education and sophistication to effectively use and utilize these resources, this is somewhat of a moot point
• 3. Organization needs: the ability to sort and search based on title, metatags and document contents – when a large majority of the current web surfers do not understand fully the mechanics of SEO and web development, how long is it gonna take someone who needs to first get access to a computer in the first place, then learn to use it properly, to know to Google around for the appropriate information that he/she needs, which is essentially what this level represents…?
• 4. Semantic needs: the ability to derive meaning from language, content and context – here again we can see that with the foundation of the previous requirements unfulfilled, this level will not be reached; in a country where even many government decision-makers do not have a good grasp of the English language, which is the internationally accepted language of the internet, business and technological studies and learning, the lack of understanding of any web based technology or jargon or techno speak underlying the tools needed to access information will be to the detriment of all involved
• 5. Actualization: the web becomes a frictionless tool for personal growth and fulfillment – this is the apex of the pyramid and unfortunately in the case of South Africa, a level that will only really be reached by a small minority of privileged individuals. The foundations are lacking, this level can never be reached; when the average black child lives in poverty with his parents, cannot afford a computer themselves, do not have the money to send the child to a school where he will get a decent education and maybe exposure to these modalities, a vicious circle continues to perpetuate itself; a circle of poverty, hopelessness, desperation and inevitably all the social ills that we see manifested each day by taking note of news headlines…!

On Tuesday I wrote about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and used it to speculatively analyze the Web 2.0 scene in South Africa and also to make a pronouncement as to the viability of a Social Media effort online in South Africa. Given the highly unequal distribution of resources and technology infrastructure, the majority of the country’s population do not have access to computing technology and internet access.

Any kind of Social Media Strategy is therefore little more than inside baseball amongst an incestuous clique of privileged practitioners who retain and guard the old money and benefits of the old apartheid regime. Whatever Social Media campaign is launched online will necessarily only be seen by a handful of regular old faces who continually regurgitate each other’s utterings and bounce around any newsworthy items or movements within the local South African Web 2.0 zoo.

For the majority of the population who struggle to figure out where the next meal or roof over their head or warm blanket is gonna come from, these issues may as well have taken place on the moon. Social Media Press Releases and Social Media Newsrooms and shiny new websites with all the bells and whistles added on for people to comment and share and save and bookmark and all the widgets etc etc. Many a social media consultant and expert have “emerged” and are peddling their virtual wares, many websites are erected (!) in the hope of being THE must-go-to destination for anyone fortunate enough to learn of it’s existence.

Unfortunately it is a project doomed to failure:

• There is not a critical mass of internet users to visit these sites,
• those that do have internet access do so mostly from public terminals at school, university or from their work machines. (where in some cases internet access are severely restricted and most social networking activity has to take place “undercover” e.g Facebook being blocked and only corporate e-mail from behind a firewall is allowed
• Their priorities are not to whip out their credit cards to support online businesses.
• Mostly kids at school and students at university use their internet access time to check e-mail and catch up with their friends on Facebook and MySpace.
• Only a small handful of geekily inclined web surfers really spend a significant enough amount of time online to Save, Bookmark and Share stuff or leave comments on each other’s blogs.
• And those Saves and Shares and Bookmarks do not necessarily turn into sales, the only really lucrative businesses online in South Africa seem to be the Mobile Service Providers who sell prepaid airtime and the myriad of ringtone and mobile games vendors.
• Most of the online campaigns that are successful target only a small niche, privileged market anyways, which reinforces my earlier points: it remains a case of incestuous inside baseball with no intention of ever including the majority of the population in any sort of “social networking” endeavour
• For entrepreneurs who may want to do business online, it is virtually an impossibility since PayPal does not operate in South Africa and credit card purchases are limited to the handful of high net worth individuals who can afford to qualify for these facilities in the first place
• most of the online merchants are the old media companies and established big businesses who leverage their existing resources to establish a web presence.
• For the average Joe entrepreneur who do not have a rich uncle or a corrupt relative high up in government with access to BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) deals it is a pipe dream which will remain only that, a dream.

It is a terrible indictment on local Web 2.0 efforts, but these issues need to be aired out in the open if we are gonna make any headway in this country. The way things are going now it seems every man and community for themselves and we see a perpetuation of the old divisions among racial and class lines, a situation which can only lead to a Zimbabwean tragedy in the long term when the poor majority start taking matters into their own hands as we recently saw with the xenophobic attacks in the country!

Last, but not least, already reports are coming in about the failure of many corporate social media community attempts. This article on ReadWriteWeb cites reports by the Wall Street Journal and other research done about failed attempts and “abandoned towns” on the internet social networking scene. It comes back to the earlier assertion; communities are built around shared or common interests and characteristics. Why would anyone go and register and upload their profile photos and share anecdotes on a social networking site dedicated to kitty litter products and devices…? The more workable and sensible strategy seems to be to utilize already existing popular social networks where people are already congregating and try and get their attention and engage with them there instead of trying to build a dedicated site and try herding everyone over there. It just will not do, unless you’re someone very famous or interesting or has a very compelling value proposition like being an expert in your niche and sharing scarce specialist information or advice. For the rest of us, it would be well advised to stick to the Facebook pages, YouTube channels, Flickr accounts and ning social networks where we can tap into an already existing network without having to reinvent the wheel again all over at great cost.

Matt Mullenweg announced the early release of WordPress 2.6 on the WordPress blog one month ahead of schedule. Here is a video that runs us through the most noteable new features and improvements.

Two of the web’s foremost commentators and thought leaders in the social media space, Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang, has teamed up to bring us an awesome list of 50 checkpoint items to accomplish when augmenting our online marketing strategies. Chris has his original post up here. At the suggestion of one of the comments from @jonburg , Jeremiah has gone ahead and broken up the list nicely into 5 social computing objectives as defined by Forrester Research, where Jeremiah is a senior analyst.

Chris Brogan http://www.chrisbrogan.com

I will now shamefully reproduce the list here after having given due credit and linking to the original authors ‘ posts above. First to Chris Brogan for producing the list, and second to Jeremiah for organizing it for us according to the 5 social computing objectives. In the spirit of sharing with proper attribution, I don’t think either of them will mind too much

Listening: Gleaning market and customer insight and intelligence

10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).

Talking: Engaging in a two way discussion to get your message out (and get messages in)

2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.

Jeremiah Owyang http://www.web-strategist.com

Energizing: Letting your customers tell your prospects on your behalf (viral, word of mouth)

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.

Supporting: Getting your customers to self-support each other

6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.

Embracing: Building better products and services through collaboration with clients

31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

Strategy, Training, and Planning
Many of these aren’t directly social media tactics, but they are great rules of thumb.

16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email Chris for a calendar).
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.

After a long break from blogging because of project and client commitments (I was Twittering and Facebooking and Friendfeeding and posting to del.icio.us all the time; does that count…?), I have now decided to get a name domain and do a bit of the personal branding type stuff that everyone is talking about

The first step of course was to register my own name as a top level domain (TLD). This starts your journey on the way to projecting a serious, professional image to prospective clients and business partners or just friends on the internet who now can see you’re not just goofing around on the internet the whole time, but that it can actually be used for more serious business and professional networking purposes

So this is the start of my attempt to bring all my different blogs and profiles together under one roof and namespace. The obvious benefit is that it will go a long way towards focusing my attention on only the one major repository of stuff that is scattered all over the web at the moment.

All the different blogs hosted elsewhere and all the different profiles on the different social networks are becoming a bit unwieldy and the trend is nowadays towards aggregated lifestreaming and building your personal brand online.

Doing that will be much easier if there is one place to rule them all, one place to consolidate them, one place to aggregate them all and in lifestreamlining bind them. (Apologies to JRR Tolkien). Hey, did I just make up a new word: lifestreamlining…? Hmmm… So, what exactly is it that I do online that it now deserves a dedicated namespace and aggregation effort…? Web development, mainly on the WordPress content management system platform and everything related to that: registering domain names, hosting those accounts on CentOS Linux servers, setting up and configuring the WordPress CMS, maintaining it and augmenting it with the multitude of plugins and themes available. Of course it’s never that simple, and I shall dedicate a future post to a detailed outline of what all goes into setting up and maintaining blogs for clients. Especially with the advent of Social Media and the myriad services out there, it has become a regular cottage industry. Consultant services to marketing and PR professionals who want to enter the Social Media phenomenon but who do not necessarily have access to a geeky nephew or brother who can set it up and maintain it for them.

Also with the creation of new roles of Social Media Strategists, more and more businesses and big corporations are committing budget to individual who can set up, configure and maintain social media profiles and services for them in the new media landscape where they have to necessarily go where the conversation is happening and the cool kids hang out, otherwise they will just become irrelevant and fall out of everyone’s attention sphere and lose clients and thus business and profit. So, without rambling on too much, that is what I do all the time, getting paid to goof off on the internet all day and put up Facebook and del.icio.us and Friendfeed accounts and profiles for paying clients. Geez, I’ve done it for myself and I’m having a fabulous time, if someone else also want in on the action, they can bloody well pay me for my time and trouble, can’t they…?

Some bright sparks (software engineers) who worked at Google before, came up with a brilliant new lifestream aggregating service called Friendfeed. I am testing the brand spanking new WordPress Friendfeed widget in the sidebar of my blog. What it does is integrate into one service all the disparate profiles and accounts and pull them together, and now with the WordPress widget you can plug it in to your blog sidebar. People who are interested in seeing what you’re up to need only go to one place to see where you’ve done what. For example if you’ve watched videos over at YouTube and marked it as a favourite, if you’ve posted a new blog post at another domain, uploaded Flickr photos, shared Google Reader items from your RSS collection of feeds, listened to favourite last.fm tracks, scheduled an event at upcoming.org or updated your Twitter status with a Tweet or ten, whether you dugg stories on digg or saved del.icio.us bookmarks, it will all show up in one place: your Friendfeed profile.

The main Friendfeed site and web interface also has the ability to let you like things and comment on your stream of events and those of friends whom you have subscribed to. This has led to Friendfeed becoming the destination of choice for many of the more prominent Twitter personalities when Twitter experiences one of it’s notorious hiccups, which is frequent and unexpected and many times it’s a case of guess which functional aspect is gonna be crippled this week while they (hopefully) are hard at work in the background getting things up and running smoothly.

A lot has happened this past week that could possibly be construed as newsworthy, so here are a couple of things that caught my attention as it was streaming past my consciousness:
- The Twittersphere ™ has been abuzz with the MacWorld Expo and Steve Jobs’ keynote clogging up the data pipes
- Africa continues to dominate the news headlines with unfortunate socio-political outcomes: Kenya’s disputed elections and the subsequent ethnic violence despite Kofi Anna’s intervention; the continuing saga in Zimbabwe: humanitarian disaster, monopoly money, runaway inflation, refugees streaming to SA
- South Africa’s own very embarrassing situation with the national power grid unable to keep the country and it’s industries running smoothly, today four gold mines shut down and loss of that production output pulled down the market; an economist interviewed for SABC3’s midday news/business program says this roughly translates into more than a billion South African rand loss to country GDP for the day and every day that the power shuts off…

Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic.com and Robert Scoble is at Davos in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum debating global issues and getting major scoops on their video streaming websites with notable luminaries concerned about the state of the planet and it’s people.

Techbiz was that WordPress’ parent company, Automattiq, got some nice funding from amongst others, The New York Times which is a good indication of the support there is for this popular blogging platform with the many piowerful capabilities to launch an online media empire. All New York Times blogs and all the GigaOm network blogs, amongst many other promoinent web companies, use WordPress as their web dev platform. Hogsback Media Networks itself runs on WordPress and is one of the value added services we offer clients who register and host their preferred domains with us. With 5GB of storage space and 65GB monthly data transfer quota, we specialize in offering companies and professionals the professional and robust online publishing capabilities that WordPress allows.

Problogger and doshdosh was two very serendipitious stumbles on the Twitter public timeline and I am so chuffed having found them. They both excel at showing others the nuts and bolts practical aspects of blogging, marketing your writing efforts at your blog, and how to optimally use these new information and communications technology tools to create a virtual global working village where the tech savvy early adopters share links to useful resources and little bits of glimpses into their lifestreams with whoever out there in the world care to tune in; you only need my URL baby

It also saddened me tremendously to learn of Heath Ledger’s untimely death. May his spirit rest in peace, a peace he unfortunately could not find on this planet.

As to the rest, there continues to be maiming and death and hunger and disease and poverty and natural and man made disasters and accidents; that seems to be the nature of this twirling little speck of dust on which we have chosen to become manifest at this time…

I want to end with an interesting post I stubmledUpon, the blog is Dutch and is concerned with marketing and the author looks at the cultural implications of iconic marketing gimmicks and how it must adapt to the environment in which it hopes to have a successful business presence.

I roughly translated from the original Dutch, those of you who are Dutch or Afrikaans can head over to molblog.nl and read the original post.
UPDATE: I received an e-mail from the original poster with his permission for me to translate his post, and he included a translation for me as well. How very polite, indeed, so Thank you Jos Birken from marketingscience.com

Here is my translation:

The Year of the Rat is approaching. In contrast to our own Zodiacal constellations with it’s Capricorn, Libra and all the rest, the Chinese zodiac consists entirely of animals. The Rat is the first sign in the cycle, with attributes like leadership, charisma and intelligence.
Chinese born in the Year of The Rat proudly proclaims: “”I am a Rat!” As a marketer in a Chinese environment, at the moment it is not good to ignore the Rat.

For Westerners, things are a little different. Around these parts, rats are, to put it mildly, not seen in a very charming or positive light… Unless you’re in the pest extermination business, mentioning rats as part of your marketing material is generally not a good practice!

But what is a globalized marketing professional to do in these modern times, where every day the communications barriers between cultures are eroded more and more…?

Frasers Centrepoint Malls, owner of a chain of shopping malls in Singapore (“Where Eat Meets West”), has the solution. They rename the Rat to Mouse and close a sponsorship contract with Disney. Two flies with one shot! And no, the fly is not part of the Chinese zodiac.

“What better way to usher in the Year of the Mouse than with the most celebrated mouse of all?” proclaims Frasers in page sized adverts. The biologists among us may cringe, but the marketers of Frasers are unfazed. Rat, Mouse, what’s the difference, right? 2008 becomes the year of Mickey Mouse.

Overall, marketers are increasingly confronted with this kind of cultural clash in communications. In China the Year of the Pig has just concluded, but advertising may have been subdued due to fear of offending Muslim sensibilities.

Trivial detail: in Centrepoint Mall, Fraser’s crown jewel, the festivities are ushered in with a traditional Lion Dance. The Mice won’t be too pleased about that!

And here is the mail from Jos himself for comparison

Hallo Mario,

Geen probleem hoor. Zo lang er sprake is van bronvermelding en het stukje in een niet al te dubieuze publicatie terechtkomt, heb je mijn toestemming. Ik ben altijd iets geruster als ik zelf even met de herverspreider kan communiceren, vandaar mijn verzoek om een email.

Sterker nog, het is een rustige zaterdagochtend en in ben in een goede stemming, dus hier is een vertaling. Service van de zaak. Alleen de oorspronkelijke links moet je zelf even incopieren

Globalisation ain’t always easy: the Year of the Rat

The Year of the Rat is almost upon us. Unlike the Western Zodiac, with constellations like Libra and Sagittarius, the Chinese version is an animal-only affair. The Rat is the first in the cycle, with attributes like leadership, charisma and intelligence. Chinese that were born in Rat Years will tell you proudly: “I am a Rat!” If you’re a marketer in a Chinese environment there’s no way to ignore the Rat these months.

For Westerners things are slightly different. In our parts the rat doesn’t enjoy, how shall I say this, a particularly unblemished reputation. You are well advised to leave the rat completely unmentioned in any of your marketing materials. Unless you’re in pest control, of course.

But what does a globalised marketer do in these modern times, where cross-cultural communication borders become increasingly fuzzy?

Frasers Centrepoint malls, one of the larger shopping mall operators in Singapore (“Where East Meets West”), have found a solution. We pretend the rat’s a mouse and make sure we have a sponsorship contract with Disney. Kills two birds with one stone! (Please note that no flying birds are members of the Chinese Zodiac.)

“What better way to usher in theYear of the Mouse than with the most celebrated mouse of all?” extols Frasers in full page newspaper ads. Biologists among us are now wincing, but Frasers’s marketers are undeterred. Rat, mouse, who cares? 2008’s going to be the Year of Mickey Mouse.

There’s a bit of a trend here. Marketers all over the world increasingly find themselves facing cultural communication conundrums. Exactly a year ago China banned porky imagery in ads celebrating the Year of the Pig, fearing muslim protests.

Small detail: in Centrepoint Mall, Frasers’s jewel in the crown, celebrations will start with a traditional Lion Dance. Not sure the mice will approvee.

(c) 2008 Jos. Birken

PS stuur je nog even een link tegen de tijd dat-ie er staat?

17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners

This is a very nice post over at doshdosh.com. I always find it difficult to try and convey to people the benefits of using a certain tool. I think it comes mostly from the fact that there is already thousands of posts on the subject floating around there in the echo-chamber we have come to know and love/hate as the blogosphere.

So there is always a chance that you could be wrong about something, just because of the sheer impossibility of keeping up with millions of blog posts and press releases and product updates all over the world, every day. that has to be monitored and mined for little juicy nuggets to enhance your own content offering.

It is therefore always a pleasure to come upon someone else who has overcome these fears and succeeded in putting up a very nice introductory “manual” of a service or product that makes it easier for others to learn about it and start using it immediately with the minimum amount of obstacles.

It is with these thoughts in mind that I offer the link above, both because I have become totally addicted to Twitterland and the many thought leaders and A-list bloggers I have befriended and from whom I learn an amazing amount just by following their “lifestreams”.