Of Relevance

So by now you probably have heard that Gmail.co.za launched as a free webmail service in South Africa. Previously, the few times I typed that url instead of the .com one, I got the front page of the Gardale website, which I thought was opportunistic and annoying.

But, as it turns out, the www.gmail.co.za domain was registered a long time before the gmail.com concept was launched. So, in theory, they are fully entitled to do whatever they want to do with it, and spotting a free webmail opportunity is not illegal, or even unethical. It just makes sense. If you owned iphone.co.za or ebay.co.za and you had registered them *a long time before* either of the US businesses were launched, I suspect you could do with those domains as you please. And you would be silly not to link the www.ebay.co.za to some sort of auction house.

Of course, there are lots of things to do with a gmail.co.za domain other than offering a webmail service. For starters, you can sell it off to Google, or maintain a blog about clever use of webmail systems etc. With good planning, either of these would be more lucrative than the chosen offering.

Personally, I dislike Webmail and its parent or sister company Easyinfo vehemently. I am annoyed regularly by their telesales team, and I have heard of very dissatisfied customers. (search Hellopeter for details).

Also, I do not think they are going to get much traction out of this. Anybody who types in gmail.co.za knows about gmail.com and will quickly rectify the error. The sign up page for gmail.co.za is tedious, and frankly quite scary (Why all that info?).

BUT BUT BUT!!!!!!! If you have a gmail.com address, do yourself a favour and register the the gmail.co.za address too!!!!! Just in case people make a simple error when emailing you. Or before “someone” decides they are going to hijack “your” email address. Don’t forget to forward the .co.za address to your.com address, and flag it upfront, “in case” you start getting spam.

Btw, below is the press release that Gmail.co.za released. It is smug to a point of pukeness, has enough spelling and grammar errors to make me want to scream, and just a poor example of PR. But, hey…they are getting airtime out of this, so something must be working :-)

Here is the official press release:
SA companies beat internet giant to the pinch

If you thought the South African internet domain Gmail.co.za was owned by Google, then think again. Owning what could be considered the internet giant’s most valued asset – it’s name, two of South Africa’s homegrown IT companies have beat Google to it by offering SA internet users a locally-focused free email offering.

Webmail International, South Africa’s leading free email service and IT solutions company Gardale Solutions, have combined forces to form a local free email solution on the www.gmail.co.za domain.

Gardale have owned the domain since July 2003, before Google launched its Gmail offering to Google users. Abbreviated from Gardale Mail, the .co.za website has been running its Internet Service Provider (ISP) division for the past five years.

2009 will see the company teaming up with established and well-loved ISP Webmail International which has been running its own local email service for 10 years and that successfully launched the newest version of its website in 2008. The provision of a local free email solution by Gardale Mail was decided on due to numerous requests from users.

This new combined product called Gmail will be launching in Feb 09 and will offer features that compare to the best international offerings of the same:

* 10Gb of storage
* Free VOIP calls between users
* CHAT
* Webtunes and Webradio
* Free fax to email services
* Free SMSes, Video and Voicemail services coupled with social networking and file sharing abilities

Drawing from its wealth of experience in the field, Webmail’s Marketing and Business Development Director, Dennis Armstrong comments that Webmail’s strengths are well-suited to Gardale Mail’s aim of offering an international solution for users. Dale Hurwitz, the owner of Gardale Solutions shares Armstrong’s sentiments, “Gardale’s vision to provide it clients with complete corporate and private IT solutions is well supplemented by the partnership with Webmail.”

The local Gmail will be offered as a free service to users to make use of just as they would any free email service provider. “We intend keeping the revenue derived from advertising on this product to continue with development and with the aim of going mobile by mid-year. This will allow more users the opportunity to access this service via their mobile phones,” Armstrong explains, indicating that internet and mobile communication will continue evolving.

The era of user generated content is, of course, well upon us. And the one thing that users generate more than almost anything else is criticism.  So it make sense that we learn how to deal with it effectively. And yet, the way criticism is given, and the way it is received is still a cause of much discomfort on the web.

Giving criticism is easier than receiving it, and yet even here I have noticed the South African blogosphere struggle. I know from my own experience that I have no problem criticising – sometimes rather aggressively, I admit – corporations, or people I do not personally know. And yet, I am very loathe to hand out criticism, of any kind, to my online friends and acquaintances, whether in public or in private.

I suspect that the reason we struggle to criticise those we know is because few of us can be trusted to handle criticism well.  Most of us get very defensive, with the minimum of provocation. Witness these two comments (which really made me laugh) as an example, taken from an iMod blog post:

Reader in a comment : “Hi. I have also blogged about this at http://xyz”

Author: “Oi Walter, you trying to hijack my thread? ;)”

Reader: “Dont be silly – why would I try do that? just adding my 2 cents worth.If you think I am hi jacking your thread – and its not of benefit to the cause please delete my comment.”

Ironically, it is essential to receive constructive criticism at all stages of a business’ lifecycle, even if your business is simply your personal brand. So by withholding it from those of our friends who need it the most, we are in fact causing them more harm than good.

The situation actually gets worse before it gets better. because not only do we not criticise each other effectively, but we also tend to do the opposite, which I’ll formally refer to as “ass-kissing”. A friend or colleague launches a new feature on his website that he is sooo proud of, and we all trip over each other to congratulate him, and to tell him “It rocks” or that he’s “a genius” or “wow, awesome, dude!”. Whereas, in fact, maybe the new feature is not really all that hot at all. Maybe, in fact, it is quite awful.

I guess it is a two sided game: we have to be able to receive criticism before it is given to us. And certainly not everybody does. Witness some of these examples of how differently criticism was handled:

• QVC
  Donn Edwards wrote a blog post that was critical of the way in which QVC (Quality Vacation Club)lured him to a timeshare presentation with the promise of a prize. Instead of ignoring the blog post, with the hope that it would go away, the QVC CEO decided to sue with a vengeance (for anything between R450,000 to R1,500,000 depending on the mood of the lawyer).  The result has been so much negative online discussion regarding QVC, that they got themselves into a mess they will never come out of. Or at least not for a very long time.

• Blog Survey
  I (and some others) wrote a very critical post about the original botched result of the SA Blog survey. Although the parties in question did not appreciate my view point, or my tone, they both reacted with utter professionalism and acted on some of my criticism. Specifically, I had private communication with Amanda Reekie (whose company did the survey analysis), where she made it very clear that she was committed to righting all wrongs, and would welcome as much criticism as it took to get there. How mature. I certainly learnt a lot from the way she handled her crisis, and I commend her for it.

• Google story
  When Entelligence issued a press release saying that basically they were screwed over by Google with respect to their Yellow Pages account, I wrote a story on the matter for Thought Leader titled “Google does evil”, and outlined the story from Enteligence’s point of view. I was ripped apart by journalist friends who, in an email thread, made it very clear that such allegations cannot be made based on a one sided press release. I stuck my ground, defended myself throughout the day, alleging that as a blogger I had the right to draw my own conclusions, and was not bound by the same limitations as a newspaper journalist. Yet as the day wore on, I actually took the time to think about their points, and ended up amending the post. And I do think that was the right thing to do, although it took a lot of people a lot of emails to get me to see that. I hope I listen more often!

• Web assessments
  A big part of my services as a web strategist is a site assessment review, which is a thorough analysis of a client’s website. Before I take on the project though, I have a long conversation with my clients to make sure that they understand that I am going to be truthful, and therefore invariably harsh. I always say that if they think their website is close to perfection, and will not stand to hear anything but, then I am not the person to deliver this particular task.  The funny thing is, that every one of my clients thus far has absolutely, and completely declared themselves open to criticism. And they paid good money to receive it. And almost every single one was taken aback and become defensive about the points I made. (Although, in the long run, I think it is safe to say that most of them will admit I was right, or at least “righter” than them. That’s because an outsider who does not have emotional involvement with a project can be more objective about it.)

So, my hope for us online colleagues for 2009?

• That we become more open to, and welcoming of, criticism.
• That when we do criticise, we tone down our displeasure (this is what I need to work on!)
• That we do not blindly support our colleagues, but that our praise is sincere and heartfelt. That we voice loudly our objections when they are justified.
• That we think for ourselves and shed our sheep-mentality of following the opinion of the crowd.
• But that, if after listening to others’ criticism we still maintain our original point of view, we have the power of our convictions to defend it.

And that we have  a rocking 2009, of course!

[UPDATE: The original title of this blog post was "The blog survey is even worse than I thought". Since it was posted, the people in charge have gone out of their way to restore credibility in the survey, and have posted the correct slides, with annotations. See their comments below.]

I was discouraged to see that the company that was responsible for reporting the recent SA Bloggers survey (ImagiNATION Alliance) thought it unnecessary to report that 2.9% of respondents earned more than R3,000 per month from blogging. Instead, the company decided to deliberately mislead the public by strongly highlighting that not one respondent made that much. That issue has now been resolved, and the slide has been updated with the new information (although not on the .pdf download).

It would be good if that was that. But it isn’t. A quick look through the slides points to lots of other inconsistencies, such as :

The survey purports that 80% of bloggers have 3 children. That is absurd. It is even made more absurd by the fact that the survey also reports that about 50% of bloggers have no children. So that is already more than 100%, and where do I (with one child) fit in?

It is an embarrassing error, easy to spot, and makes me think that that error, together with their thinking that 2,9% of respondent can be purposefully ignored, invalidates the entire survey.

But there is more.

The survey states that “A vast majority”of bloggers have only one blog. I interpret “vast” to mean about 75% vs 25%. In fact, bloggers who have only one blog are in the minority (48%) versus those that have more than one (52%). Once again, it is obvious that the person analysing the data has little concept of how to read and interpret graphs.

The survey states that 59.6% have their current blog as their first blog, and 40.4% don’t. Yet the analysts conclude from that that “A majority of bloggers have at least one previous blog”.

The thing that ruins the survey completely though, are the pithy little comments on the analysis of the data. Here are some to put a smile (or look of utter puzzlement) on your face:

“There are a substantial number of blogs about parenting, documenting that uniquely personal journey” (but no stats to support this)

“The blogging phenomenon has given people access to a means of expressing themselves not previously available”. Umm, OK?

“This indicates that they are in the main embracing all aspects of the technology available to them online” Huh?

I would also like to know why the sample size varies so greatly from one question to the next. Some questions have well over a 1000 respondents, some just over 600. That is a big variance.

It is very possible that the survey company has since amended the survey. No good looking stupid in public. But the fact is, the study was released, and highlights their incompetency.

My suggestion to you is to ignore all results, and to wait for someone with a bit more knowledge of blogging to survey us, and report on the results properly.

PS I do commend 24.com for initiating the survey. We certainly need statistics. Pity someone dropped the ball.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Yesterday, at the 27 dinner I had an interesting chat with Andy Higgins from Bid or Buy fame. Andy is also involved in Payfast.co.za, which is the latest payment gateway to hit our web scene. One of the features that Payfast is working to implement is credit card transactions (right now they enable EFT transfers).

Any discussion around payment gateways of course always leads to the “Why don’t we have PayPal here?” questions. Andy made a very good point: we don’t not have PayPal here becasue of exchange controls, as most people think. Rather, the Reserve Bank is very wary of allowing a money system that is “two directional”.

In other words, they are happy to accommodate a system to which you deposit money, and that money gets passed onto someone else (such as a credit card merchant). Not so happy with a system to which you can deposit AND withdraw money.

With a two directional system, you could start treating PayPal as your bank, especially for your savings account. I can see why that would make the Reserve Bank very, very nervous.

I suppose they are erring on the side of caution. We can scoff, but then again we are not in the financial crisis that the US is. Nevertheless, I would love to have 30 minutes with the person/team responsible for making these decisions, so I could explain to them that in this instance it is actually hampering our online economy. Probably our economy, period.

(Having said all that, I think there are ways to get a two directional PayPal account anyway. I am toying with some of them now, and am just waiting to find out if they are strictly “legal”. Or rather, if they are strictly “illegal”. If not, I will post on the topic in due course. And if you have an overseas account, you can get two directional PayPal).

Let me say this upfront … writing a book is not easy. It is time consuming. It’s discouraging. It’s frustrating. But on top of all of that, somehow it also manages to be fun.

So it has been a while now since I decided to write a book on Social Media, but I am happy to report that it is almost ready to go. Of course, I have been saying this for about a month now, so don’t hold your breath for the full version just yet. It is tentatively titled “Social Media made simple” and it aims to explain the concept of Social Media, and how it can best be practiced in a simple, coherent and concise way.

What I can share today is the Introduction. It’s a .pdf download, 4 pages long, and is a quick read. It outlines the path of the book, and I would really appreciate any comments you may have. You can email me at eved@ideabank.co.za for lengthy criticism (yes, I can take it) or just drop a line below.

Introduction to “Social Media made simple”