Okay, not really. But from what I recently witnessed on Twitter, some people really take those mentions to heart. For real real.

On Friday, two South African twitterers, Nash and GrahamRobert, were having a conversation about South African celebrities, which resulted in Nash basically saying that there is no such thing as a South African celeb, by way of tweeting this:

Now, my theory is that Nash included GrahamRobert in the tweet because he was part of the original conversation, but delivered it out of the conversation because it was a funny comment and he wanted all of his followers to read it, not just the ones who follow both of them. Makes sense. It was a nice gesture to include Graham. Nice, but not necessarily obligatory.

Then Cape Town’s favourite son, Shaun Oakes, saw Nash’s tweet, thought it was worthy of a retweet, and did so.

You may notice now, though, that Shaun removed Graham’s twitter handle from the tweet, as he felt Graham was included by association, but he really didn’t have any authority over it. It was Nash’s statement, so he should get the recognition. Only fair, right?

Well, Graham didn’t think so, and replied to Shaun with this tweet:

“meant” to be in the RT? Really? Did you have your name included in the credits when you watched Avatar as well? No. You were part of it. You enjoyed it. But you’re not owed anything for it.

Unfortunately for Shaun, the rapping on the knuckles made him feel bad, and he sent the tweet again, this time including Graham.

Now, if Shaun had included him in the first place, it would have again, just like Nash’s tweet, been a nice gesture to show that he was a part of the conversation. That’s fair, and no-one would have an issue with that.

What I think is very unfair, however, is Graham telling Shaun that he should be included in something that he really had no ownership of in the first place, just for one more mention on Twitter. To his credit, he did say thanks.

But in the end, dude, it’s Twitter, not the Academy Awards. If you have to ask people to include you in retweets, you’re not really doing well to begin with. But more importantly, no-one really cares.

So I’ve had a few comments and queries about my tweet about the behaviour of last night’s crowd at The Bookmark Awards 2010. Let’s get a bit of background first:

The Bookmarks are an opportunity for agencies, publishers, teams and individuals, working in the digital space, to showcase their work and appreciate and recognise their peers for phenomenal work done in the industry. The organising team, particularly Nikki Cockcroft and Rob Stokes, asked me to MC the event. It was an honour to be asked to be included in the event and I immediately accepted. It was an astounding success overall, their hard work really paid off. Well done. And well done to all the winners.

So why so glum, Don? Well, I’m glad you asked.

I could not believe the lack of respect for each other in the industry. The crowd couldn’t keep quiet, so the rest, who were paying attention, were struggling to hear who won which award. It was pathetic.

When I walked on stage and started the gig, there was still a murmur through the crowd as they were completing drinks orders at the bar and finding their spots for the remainder of the awards ceremony. As a professional MC I understand this dynamic, so I made small talk until it quietened down. Or at least, until it should have quietened down. It didn’t.

Now, I’ve been doing this for years, so when people don’t want to pay attention to the host or MC, it more than likely means they’re really not in the mood for it (or they don’t like his/her style of humour), they want you to get on with the show. I have no issues with this at all, you’re there for the awards, not me, it’s very valid. I’m paid to keep you entertained, and entertain I will, so I introduced the awards. Thing is, though, the crowd still kept making a noise through the entire awards ceremony. I had to constantly reprimand the crowd and ask them to keep quiet, and have some manners and respect for the winners, but they still just didn’t give a fuck.

Long story short: A team of people, through their own time and capacity, spent at least 9 months working hard to make last night a reality, and the crowd couldn’t have cared less. They paid their R400 for their tickets, they drank their free (mostly) drinks, and felt an entitlement to do whatever they wanted to. Reality check: You can’t. It’s an event for everyone, not just for you. So why would you act so badly and not respect your peers in your own industry?

I’ll tell you why: ‘Cos you’re a rude fucktard.

Not even!

I think the title of this post should actually be “Why Cell C’s marketing team should consider a career in sales”. Now, I’d imagine Trevor Noah (tw) to be a pretty smart guy, but to be sold into becoming the face of a widely considered struggling brand, they must have sold him the world. Not just in payment, but in the overall strategy going forward. And well done to them.

I don’t recall Cell C (tw) getting as much exposure as they have over the past few weeks, ever. It started off with praise and applause, then the ‘it was all a scam‘ fiasco when everyone (particularly journos who felt like their little feelings were hurt for being betrayed) slated the campaign at every opportunity. Now the logo story. When will it end? It probably has. And all Cell C can do from here is improve, because they are, essentially, starting from the bottom. And I have a feeling that they will.

Why? Because what the’ve done is completely polarise themselves to the market. You get the people who love what they’ve done, and the people who absolutely hate it. Both sides have the same amount of interest in waiting for what they’ll do next, and both sides are so passionate about their standpoints that they will vehemently argue over any platform, live or online, to try and prove their point. The result: A conversation about the brand. Awesome. So now Cell C has the whole country focussing on their next move, and when you have that much pressure to perform, you work your ass off to make it happen.

On the other side though, what if they don’t? What if this all came too suddenly, they’re not prepared for it, and Cell C loses everything? What does this mean for their new CEO?

Trevor has become the face, the captain of this huge faceless ship. It’s a lot easier for us to blame individuals when things go wrong, because shouting at a large cold building never helped anydoby. It’s exactly what they wanted to achieve with the new campaign: Speak to an individual (Trevor) and he’ll sort you out. People buy in to that. But it has it’s disadvantages too.

Bottom line: If the brand you advocate goes down, you’re going down with them. It’s the captain’s duty. Let’s just hope the powers that be (unfortunately I don’t think Trevor is one of them) can steer this ship past the iceberg and sail it to greener pastures.

If you know us at all, you’ll know we’re very big into correct spelling and grammar (like, who isn’t?), so when I saw this Samsung animation while watching an Idols video on DStv.com (misspelling ‘tomorrow’), I thought it had to be shared (and hopefully fixed).

Text 1 (incorrect)

Text 2 (correct)

Oops! Someone fire someone (or at least give them a good spanking, then send us the video).

A few months ago I was introduced to Fiverr, a service where you can either sell or buy something, particularly a service, for $5. The administrators make a buck off every sale and you get to pocket the remaining $4. Simple enough.

The services range from promising more Facebook fans to positively reviewing products to listening to your life story on Skype, the list goes on and on and they range from very normal to very, very bizarre. To date I’ve only used it for small translations for work, but then I found this guy: The young, Canadian Alex Buckingham. He said that he’d write and record a song all about YOU for a mere $5. So I thought “Fuck it, why not?”

With the brief “Have a look at my website and some of my vids to get a sense of what I’m like”, I paid the 5 bucks and this is the fun (auto-tuned) result I got the next day, too awesome. Thanks Al.

Now go and get yours done! Tell him Don sent you.

Following a conversation that Rich…! and I had, we decided to design and print a couple T-shirts for a few like-minded individuals, guys mostly. Okay all guys. And, as usual, what started out as a fun ‘couple tees for a few peeps’ built into a lot more dudes on the list, for them to be packaged awesomely (including a very wordy and poncey tongue-in-cheek letter about taking this step to corporate clothing to align with our 12 intrinsic organisational values) and sent to their doors.

The idea and design of the shirt was a collaborative effort by Rich…! and myself for a (hopefully) ongoing project for Thunk!, but ideas without execution is nothing. Enter Trevor Mey.

Trev came up with the idea of how to package it, and he made it happen. We got some really rad exposure from guys like Mike Stopforth, Marc Forrest, Erik Vermeulen, Craig Rodney, Justin Spratt and mad props from some very influential people in the online space. Awesome. They thanked Rich…! and myself, but the real rockstar is Trev for the tough task of making it happen. He’s a legend, and you can’t have him, ‘cos he’s ours. Get your own.

This concept seems so simple, yet not many people get it. Let me explain:

Every person has a different theory as to why they participate in social media. Some to learn from others, some hoping to teach others, most to be the first person to share something before everybody else does, etc. The one thing is, though, that we don’t really understand each other’s ways of doing things, so we just go about treating everybody like they’re at the other end of our game, without realising that we’re also on the other end of theirs. And if you’re not acting appropriately on the other side of someone else’s game, the game isn’t really successful.

Another of these ‘ways to media socially’ are the people who feel that every single part of their lives should be shared with the world. It’s no secret that I want to famous, so when I’m out doing things like comedy or MC’ing or attending rad shit, I wanna tell people. Hell, I’ve even shared about my morning bowel movements once or twice. But when it comes to the serious stuff, the really personal business (yes, bowel movements are personal, but they’re a daily occurrence and they’re funny) then that sort of thing shouldn’t be shared online.

This kind of thing needs to be shared with friends, loved ones, people who take a keen interest in your life and would be there for you when you need it the most, not the 1000ish friends you have on Facebook or your hundreds of followers on Twitter. Yes, some of them may care, but do you really need to share it all?

These are two examples lifted off Lamebook, but I’ve seen these kinds of status updates in both my Facebook and Twitter feeds by people that I know personally. I understand that sometimes you need an outlet, a place to vent and share your frustrations, but before posting this stuff, always consider what you would have done before the boom of social media. Would you have taken out a newspaper front page headline? No. You would have picked up the phone, or met up with a mate and spoken about it, live, in person. Every ounce of me wants to reply saying it’s not cool, but every time I let it slide. I understand that I’m on the other end of your game and you expect me to just understand. Well no more.

If you want to post personal things online which clearly should be dealt with offline, I’ll let you know, for free, just ‘cos I’m a nice guy like that. You have to learn somehow. And if you think your mates are doing the same, let them know, it’ll make for a much better online social experience. Although, it may affect the gems that hit Lamebook. Ok, use your discretion. Awesome.

I managed to get (read: wangled my way in) an open seat at Nokia’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 gig this morning, partly to give Rich…! some man-love should the media/blogger attendees not like what he had to say (this of course did not happen – he rocked out), and partly to see what Nokia has in store for the world.

I started writing a recap of the event, but Paul Jacobson beat me to it, and probably did a better job of it anyway. Overall, I’m lank excited about the Nokia Maps Player, and the Nokia Booklet 3G, which is one sexy little piece of equipment.

Read Paul’s post here. Awesome.

While trying to make a name for herself in the South African social media space, Nadia van der Merwe found herself on the wrong side of the critics’ good books. She created a digital resumé that she, to my understanding, wanted to use to get her name out there, displaying her knowledge and love for the industry.

Some people liked it, most thought it was a bad move. But…

The objective was to make a name for herself in the South African social media space. Whether it started out well, or not so well, today not many people are unfamiliar with the name Nadia van der Merwe. I can almost guarantee that going this particular route (the bad press) wasn’t her plan all along, but Nadia really did make a name for herself.

Did it play out how I would imagine she envisioned it? No. Did she fulfill the primary objective? Absolutely. How she capitalises on this now, however, remains to be seen.

The boys at Jo’blog were kinda jealous that we didn’t have any online social media resumé of sorts, and thought Nadia’s video was great fodder for a vid of our own too. We don’t look this good in lingerie, but we make out alright.

The ever-growing comments on my Free Advertising post from 2006 (702 comments to date, with only the 1st one being an actual comment to my post, thanks Peas) has generated some beauties, some real classics in terms of how people advertise. Every now and again, out of sheer curiosity, I’ll follow a URL to see if what each commentator posts is truly what you’ll get. Here is the latest:

Hi there we Specialise in web hosting and design
Websites From R99 A month.
R2250 for 5 page website design
R1250 for 3 page website design
R500 for 1 page website design
Monthly hosting R99 on any website
We also Specialize in Printing , signage, buisness cards , flyers , badges our current specials are:
500 full colour gloss business cards @349
5000 full colour flyers A5 gloss @1450
Badges R30 each
Magnet car signage A3 @ R190
Please contact us regarding any of these offers on
cell:0734569788
Best Regards
Riche’

Right. I’m gonna give you my thoughts before I actually give you the link. So where to begin? Ok:

As the site loads, an untreated, untrained voice welcomes you to his site (his name is not Riche’). The voice then proceeds to read, yes, read the text on the front page to you, just in case you didn’t like the sound of your own voice reading it to yourself in your head.

My best though is when he stumbles his words. Classic. No ‘Oh shit I buggered it up let’s re-record’, they’ll just use as is, because, who really cares, right? It’s only a website, and we sell website solutions, who will really judge us? I mean, really!

During two of the stumbles, however, and this really blows my mind, he realises that there’s a word missing from the text on the page, so he pauses, figures it out, and adds in the correct word. Apart from the re-record possibility mentioned earlier, what really worries me is that they haven’t added the words onto the page after realising that they’re missing. Because, who really needs those words to make the sentences correct? People will figure it out, c’mon!

The cherry on top, and yes, I waited for it, is that the voice is repeated. Over. And over. And over again. I just don’t understand.

Also:

- The Our Services page reads Our Serviecs.

- How we work is riddled with spelling errors.

- Recent designs doesn’t have links on the thumbnails.

- About us is exactly the same, barring two spelling corrections, as How we work.

- Contact us produces a ‘404 not found’ error.

- Their 3 packages (Starter, Premium and Business) have a ‘click to order’ button below, but all 3 go to the same email addy, with no defining subject lines, not making it as easy as possible for the consumer to order what he wants, so he has to fill it in himself. Now, more than ever, you need to make it super-crazy easy for someone to give you their money. And it’s not a difficult thing to do, it’s a tiny bit of code, which even I could do, and that’s saying a lot!

The whole site is a bit of a ‘mare really.

So maybe I’m being horrible. I know there are plenty of sites out there which are just as horrid as this one, but I still can’t get over this one little fact:

If you are selling something, no matter what it may be, you need to be absolutely sure that you, yourself, portray the ultimate in what it is you do.

How can you expect people to trust you to deliver on a professional, effective product if what you have created for yourself is far from up to scratch?

If you don’t look after yourself, why should I believe you’d look after me?

I’ll never get it.

Oh, link here.

Mobile social network The Grid today launches Mobikasi, South Africa’s first geo-tagged documentary for cellphones, which explores youth culture in Soweto. Mobikasi utilises The Grid’s LBS (location-based service) capabilities to tag real-life physical locations and link them to relevant documentary content.

Users can explore Sowetan youth culture on their cellphones from anywhere in South Africa through The Grid’s map interface, or by physically touring the famous township and watching documentary clips on their phones at the locations where they were shot.

The location-based documentary looks at people, music, fashion, social issues and places of interest. Instead of showing the twenty-five minute documentary in a linear fashion from start to finish, Mobikasi splits the content up into twenty-five inserts of one minute each. Each one-minute clip covers a different topic that is relevant to the youth in Soweto and is
geo-tagged to the location where it was shot. This means that viewers can now explore Soweto’s vibrant youth culture by virtually “travelling” through a mobile streetmap of the township and stopping off at various locations to enjoy the one-minute video clips.

The first Mobikasi ‘episode’ features, among others, a street fashion crew called the Smarteez, music producers Hempza and Vikinduku, a popular hair braider named Anna and the reigning Miss Soweto, Rochelle Mothapo. Also featured are Soweto’s premier hangouts Sedibeng, Back Room and the popular Sunday buy-and-braai spot Panyaza.

Vodacom’s Executive Head of Mobile Advertising and Social Media, Rick Joubert, says, “Soweto is a very exciting space. There is always so much happening and it’s often the youth driving this forward.

“We didn’t want to do the usual ‘township tour’ to showcase The Grid’s new LBS technology. We wanted to give people and the rest of the world a glimpse into the future of South Africa and what is hot and happening at street level. What better way than to launch Mobikasi, the world’s first geo-tagged doccie for cellphones?”

How do I view Mobikasi?
Mobikasi can be viewed on The Grid through your cellphone or through The Grid website. To get onto The Grid, simply SMS ‘Mobikasi’ to 33313 (SMS charged at 50c, normal VAS rates apply) or visit wap.thegrid.co.za/mobikasi on your phone.

Once on The Grid, visit the Mobikasi group to watch the documentary clips and explore the excitement of Soweto youth culture.

Here’s the promo:

Mobikasi Promo Video from Cow Africa on Vimeo.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more of these around the world, rad way to explore from the comfort of your sofa…

The problem with the iPhone is the word following the i. You see the iPhone promises to be so much more than just a phone. It’d an iPod, a calender, an email device and much more.

Here’s where this becomes a problem.

Last week I bought an official iPhone, it was faulty out of the box (constantly displaying ‘no service’ messages). We took it to Vodacare and they admitted that the problem was common and that they would replace the phone. However, they said that it would take a week as they want to send my phone in to their workshop.

That’s the first WTF?!

This is no longer my problem, a common fault, on a brand new phone, replace it and deal with your issues later. This is also in violation of Apple’s warranty.

However nice guys that we are, we said that would be fine, provided we get a suitable loan unit. They said that the best that they could do was a low-end call only handheld.

That’s the second WTF?!

When they sold me an iPhone, they sold me a device that manages many aspects of my life. As people that deal with me a lot know, phone calls probably account for 10% of my usage, the balance being email, IM, iPod, PDA, and, ummm, twitter. This is what they need to replace.

The game has changed, phone’s are so much more than phones. The networks that sell these devices need to wake up and stay with the times….

…and I want a new, err, phone…!

But good news is better news.

South Africa – The Good News, sponsored by FNB, is a website dedicated to bringing you all the latest, local, good news. I’m guessing they won’t be posting as many posts as some of the other news sites, as people tend to be hooked towards bad news more than good, but it’s awesome to see some people bringing you the positive stuff.

The site also offers some Fast Facts and Quick Stats about South Africa, all, as you can imagine, positive.

At last, we managed to get my 16g white 3G iPhone unlocked and running on MTN. Yaay. I had to use a sim liner from any-network and it really did work as well as they said.

Just remember, I didn’t do it ‘cos I love Apple, I did it to spite ‘em…!

Update: Battery dies at around 16h00, and reception is dismal. Now the unlocker is giving up the ghost and 3G ain’t working – back to 1st gen for now

Just in case you were wondering, you can find the four of us on twitter.

Click the pics for links.

Disclaimer, we’re as crap there too..!

Got sent this link to Eyeballs earlier, and not too sure how I feel about it yet.

Eyeballs doesn’t work with HTC yet, but I’m really intrigued at to how it all works. If anyone else is keen on giving this a try, and your phone is compatible, let me know what it’s like.

Thought you did everything on your phone?

24 year old Capetonian Bevan Ducasse has created a payment method to make that even more of a daily reality.

wiWallet is a payment system straight from your cell phone to the till.

Currently the payment method can be used at selected retail outlets with Primi Piatti, Mr Delivery and Scooters joining next week. “Most major retailers are interested in Wiwallet and some have already started projects to integrate” said Ducasse, mentioning popular grocery stores, clothing retailers and petrol stations. …

“I think for South Africans it will mean a simple, secure, convenient and stylish way of paying, but eventually what we are aiming to do is to literally cater for every one of their payment needs: account payments, credit card payments, bill payments and loyalty payments. So it manages all their needs of one platform.” – Ducasse

via News24.

Or so some online IQ test suggests.

Don’t try it though. They’ll only send your results via text. Doesn’t matter though, I know I’m a smart bastard.

Typical Saffer to spell character wrong. Unless they were maybe going for karakter!

If you’ve added this to your Facebook profile, shame on you.