General

The social networking space is reminiscent of a gold rush right now. Facebook, MySpace and Google all want to stake their claim in the ground. They claim they are “open” and they allow you to port your data, but they are still clutching at our identities. So, we have to ask: Is it enough? Is […]

So here we are, 2008. We have Google, Flickr and Facebook. We have YouTube, MySpace and Twitter. We have more IM clients than you can shake a stick at, and enough Web content to sink a flotilla or two. How, I ask you, is anyone expected to cope? If your cell phone isn’t ringing, your […]

Mr Stupi Tidiot is hell bent on boosting his page views and unique visits to his site. See, he’s got Google Ads plastered all over the show and depends on it. He writes a bunch of crap, but he sure as hell don’t care as long as he gets them visitors, baby! It will make […]

I’ve never met a South African overseas who isn’t homesick. I thought about that statement for a while, and then wondered whether I was exaggerating. Yes, it’s true that I haven’t been to every country in the world and for all I know, there may be many South Africans who live overseas and never give […]

It struck me today what an uphill battle we’re facing in the new media / web 2.0 / social networking industry. These shiny new communication and engagement tools are an unknown and feared art. What’s more frightening to a business than the phrase “perpetual beta”? Let’s examine some of the reasons why… Bandwidth It’s a […]

Although ActionScript was originally conceived as a simple tool for controlling animation, it has since evolved into a sophisticated programming language for creating rich applications for the web, mobile devices, and the local desktop environment. With the launch of ActionScript 3 (AS3) under the new Adobe monopoly (used by Flex, AIR, and Flash), the language […]

Twitter is a weird service. It is simple to use, yet difficult to explain to someone. To explain it best is to say its like Facebook, but Facebook without everything but the status updates. Yet, if someone said to me “Twitter or Facebook. You can only keep one.” I’d say without ANY hesitation “Twitter, thank […]

In part one of this piece I listed some of the powerful teaching and learning traits embedded in good digital games. Now, what happens in the case of GTA IV where we have good learning, with bad content? I’m afraid there are more questions than answers right now as we try to better understand games–based […]

One of the sections in my recently updated free social media primer highlights some questions that I think need answering before diving head first into the social media landscape. There’s probably many more questions that I could add to this list. Please feel free to add what you think is missing… Why do you want […]

This is probably the last time some people will talk to me. For what I am about to say is well known in the sector and no one has dared say it publicly, at least in a systematic and sustained manner. Well, today I am going to. I want to make it clear that what […]

Most corporates have terabytes of unstructured data floating around, which they do not know they have. New legislation is about to make life very interesting in this sphere. The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA or the Privacy Act as it is more commonly known), aims to ensure that consumers’ rights to privacy of data […]