Posts Tagged ‘Web 2.0’

Posted on October 21, 2010 - by Justin Hartman

Social Media ROI… does it exist?

Yesterday I delivered a presentation at the WTF Media Conference titled Social Media ROI… does it exist?. In the ever growing world of Social Media businesses are often scared to dabble in the industry. I ask the question about whether or not Social Media can deliver a ROI or not.

 

Posted on October 8, 2010 - by Justin Hartman

My US trip as visualised by Flipboard

If you own an iPad then you’ve probably already installed and using Flipboard for iPad and if you don’t yet own one please add Flipboard to your downloads list when you do get one.

Flipboard is an amazing piece of software that creates a personalised magazine of your social lifestyle. By this I mean that you are able to add your Facebook and Twitter account details and Flipboard automatically creates a magazine style format of the latest items from your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. It’s pretty difficult to explain as you really have to visualise Flipboard for yourself to truly understand what it does. The closest thing I’ve seen online is Paper.li which does a similar thing to Flipboard except Flipboard is way more interactive.

I now hardly use Facebook or Twitter as I can now open Flipboard once a day and consume all the best bits in my instantly updated magazine. Not only that but I can also comment directly and “like” something from within the application and the user experience is simply unbelievable.

Last night I decided to create a new section in Flipboard that just aggregated my own personal Twitter account and I have to admit I loved the results. To demonstrate what I’m talking about I thought that I’d share my Flipboard tweets of my recent US trip to New York and San Francisco. You’ll see the progress of my trip in a beautiful, visualised format which really adds context to my tweets. Let me know what you think of Flipboard once you’ve seen the screenshots below.

 

Posted on May 21, 2009 - by Justin Hartman

GivenGain: Hidden South African Giants

Today I stumbled across an amazing initiative called GivenGain which is run by a bunch of South Africans. Here’s a quick excerpt from their About page.

We call our service GivenGain because we believe that we are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse and keep.

GivenGain has an established reputation as a service provider to the non-profit sector. We provide a web-based platform to non-profit and support-based organizations with a complete electronic payment, donor management, online publishing, and communication solution.

We have offices in London (UK), Stellenbosch (South Africa), and further represented by partners across the world.

Why this site has interested me considerably is largely due to the fact that fund-raising online is a model that doesn’t really generate that much cash for the organisations in question. Well not in South Africa that is. Unlike other initiatives GivenGain is a model that appears to be working very successfully.

According to the site they’ve generated a total of $37,5 million donated by more than 32,000 individuals and this has directly benefited 1,626 projects. This is stagerring if you think about. It means that on average each individual donates $1,143 and each non-profit project receives $23,118. Granted this is an average and others have donated more/less while other projects have benefited more than others but it’s a massive average at that.

The team behind this initiative deserve to be commended. More often than not people in this industry only ever focus on the players who make the most noise but these giants in the online space are not only doing a whole lot more but making a success of it at the same time.

 

Posted on August 14, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

My presentation at the Advancing Web 2.0 conference

As you read this I am busy delivering the following Avusa case study at the Advancing Web 2.0 for traditional media conference. Hope you enjoy it.

 

Posted on April 8, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

The Ultimate Web 2.0 Tag Cloud

 

Posted on March 6, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

Twitter in Plain English

I love the Common Craft website because they simplify a lot of Web 2.0 services for the layman in an easy to understand format. Today’s video is on Twitter and seeing as my post yesterday was all about the new Twitter application I found, Twhirl, I thought it would be good to post this short 2 minute video. Enjoy.

 

Posted on March 5, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

Impressive Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce application

Yesterday Scott posted a link on Twitter to a website called HelloTxt. I had seen the service before but I decided, on visiting the site again, to register an account and try the service out.

HelloTxt is a simple service that allows you to post a message directly to Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Facebook and Plaxo at the same time. Now one has to ask why anyone would need this functionality but I find myself in a situation where I have an account with all of these sites and posting messages to each one individually is not only a mission but also not happening.

Over time Twitter has become my medium of choice simply because it has the highest adoption rate in South Africa for micro-blogging platforms. Personally I prefer Pownce over all these services but there are almost no people using the service that I know.

The HelloTxt service works brilliantly and does what it claims to however the down side to it is that you can only post messages from the HelloTxt website. This is a major issue for me as I prefer to post messages via Instant Messaging and after doing some research I found that there is no way to integrate this service into an IM client.

In a random set of events I stumbled upon Twhirl, the micro-blogging application to rule them all. Twhirl is primarily a Twitter application that allows you to post to the site and the latest version also includes integration with Jaiku and Pownce.

The Twhirl desktop application uses Adobe’s Integrated Runtime (AIR) that enables a cross-platform experience that is gaining big traction with developers and users. One AIR application I use religiously is the Google Analytics Reporting Suite and I’m sure there are many more cool applications out there.

Twhirl features multiple Twitter accounts and once you’ve added one you’re presented with a super-cool interface with full Twitter functionality including; replies, direct messages, favourites and re-tweeting.

By clicking on the settings icon on your Twitter window you can change various settings including adding your usernames for Jaiku and Pownce.

What is really smart about this integration is that replies to Twitter users (i.e. @username) are not posted to either Pownce or Jaiku. As a user of all three services I quickly became aware that replying to someone with the @ symbol is a unique Twitter way of doing things and Pownce evangelists hate it when you try and reply to them in this fashion. This is sure to keep your Pownce buddies happy.

I’m loving Twhirl and I’ve finally found a micro-blogging application that works the way I want it to.

 

Posted on November 22, 2007 - by Justin Hartman

African Web 2.0 map

Hash (aka Erik Hersman) has done an amazing map of Web 2.0 sites through Africa. Lots of people have commented and seen it already however it really is worth a mention here. Well done Hash, looking forward to using it soon!

 

Posted on November 19, 2007 - by Justin Hartman

RedCube presentation on Multimedia and Social Media

Gregor and I have just finished delivering a presentation to RedCube, the PR agency behind Visa, on Multimedia and Social Media. Gregor took the first part of the presentation where he highlights what The Times is doing on a Multimedia level and also analyzes current global and local trends within in the Multimedia industry.

I took an in depth look at Social Media, Web 2.0 and the impact this has on PR agencies globally. There is an interesting case study I did on the Frito-Lay PR department and how they utilised the Social Media sphere to promote the Doritos chips brand among their core target market of 16-24 year olds. I also tried to look at what South African PR companies can do to further promote their clients’ brands in the Social Media sphere.

The presentation, without the sexy Keynote effects and video we included, is embedded below.

 

Posted on September 19, 2007 - by Justin Hartman

Pownce will kill Twitter

Pownce is similar Twitter, only better. I’ve been using it now for a couple days and I’m far more impressed with the the user experience and reliability than I am with Twitter. Some experts will swear Jaiku is the one to watch but there are a couple things which make Pownce a winner in my opinion. The big one is the ability to send links, files and calendar events which both Twitter and Jaiku lack.

While Pownce has a very similar profile page to Twitter the overall structure seems more intuitive to me. There is a bio of who I am, better structured friends listing plus the added column of other social networking profiles that I belong to.

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