Swurl was an aggrigator of all one's web content, a life stream if will, of all one's activity on the interweb. Then one day it was no more. Just like that. Gone.
Certain blogs have made mention of some sort of "goodby note" that was left by the creators of swurl.com that read:
"We built Swurl as two guys doing something we love in our spare time. Unfortunately, due to the pressures of our day jobs and other distractions, we can no longer support or maintain the service at the level that we think our users deserve."
I for one never saw that note since (as you might have noticed) swurl.com now takes you to some ebay page, so I cannot verify this. Good news is, since swurl was an aggregator, no user content was lost. However, the fact that swurl just shut its doors and dissappeard raises an intersting question and and sounds a distinct alarm: in this world where everything is quickly going "paperless", and massive amounts of information are being digitalized and stored on the net (in some cases ONLY on the net), what safeguards have been built to make sure that information published online don't just disappear when the platform it was published on does?
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Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Web marketing in developing countries
A friend recently sent me this link: http://tinyurl.com/da2756 with the word "Thoughts?" attached to it. I had a little to say about it and I figured I'd post my response here. Please let me know what you think about this by sending my an e-mail or leaving a comment. Thanks.
"I think Henry (friend 1 on e-mail list) and Seyram (sender of link) have between themselves presented the crux of the problem: 1. FB and other social networking sites that depend on advertising to survive cannont charge local companies the same amount of money they charge here (U.S.) for advertising. 2. Ghana and other developing countries are not integrated into the global payment processing system so even if people wanted to buy, they couldn't. Additionally however, I strongly believe that home grown businesses in developing countries like ours have not gotten to the point where they fully appreciate the power of internet marketing (and it makes perfect sense that they should not-- I don't believe that more than 30% of the population of Ghana even has access to the net). For that reason, most people might be quite reluctant to shell out the big bucks for this purpose.
"I think Henry (friend 1 on e-mail list) and Seyram (sender of link) have between themselves presented the crux of the problem: 1. FB and other social networking sites that depend on advertising to survive cannont charge local companies the same amount of money they charge here (U.S.) for advertising. 2. Ghana and other developing countries are not integrated into the global payment processing system so even if people wanted to buy, they couldn't. Additionally however, I strongly believe that home grown businesses in developing countries like ours have not gotten to the point where they fully appreciate the power of internet marketing (and it makes perfect sense that they should not-- I don't believe that more than 30% of the population of Ghana even has access to the net). For that reason, most people might be quite reluctant to shell out the big bucks for this purpose.
Now if some Ghanainan company came up with an awesome online advertising business like Paa Kwasi suggested, that would be quite nice for all involved. However, they'd still have to contend with the high bandwith vs. low return on advertising sales problem. Paa Kwasi, you made mention of myjoyonline: does anyone know how much profit (if any) myjoyonline is making from the advertising business? Also, is it sustainable or are people just jumping onto the bandwagon for the moment because some sweet tongued exec. has promised them that it's the wave of the future? Are companies going to stop advertising when they realize that their advertising money isn't being translated into sales? I don't know the answers, but I do believe that before we can get full swing into the internet advertising game ( and be profitable at it) learn to walk before we run, otherwise, invent a way to fly so you can skip the walk phase. This basically translates into us (Ghana and others) building the infrastructure to allow us to plug into the global payment system so people can actually buy, otherwise, we should figure out an entirely different way to allow advertising to translate into money. If/when this happens, people will be less reluctant to spend good solid amounts of money on internet advertising.
Thank you :)."
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Thursday, July 24, 2008
Purple Beverage, PPBV a scam?
Hi everyone. If you've ever followed any of my blogs before, you'll know that the following piece is a little out of character for me-- i'm not usually this serious. Also, I don't talk about stocks, trading or anything financial because I don't think i'm qualified enough. However, I do trade stock personally and I assume most people reading this piece do too. And it is for your benefit (hopefully) that I'm posting this.
I recently bought some stock in the company Purple Beverage Company Inc.(PPBV). Yes, it was an OTC stock and for that reason I didn't invest too much, but after weeks of flat line graphs, I decided to investigate and find out if this company was still alive. Below is an excerpt of what I found:
Our payment of a monthly 6% performance bonus to Mr. Farnsworth, our chief executive officer, will diminish our profitability
Our limited operating history may not serve as an adequate basis to judge our future prospects and results of operations.
Our independent auditors have expressed substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern, which may hinder our ability to obtain future financing.
We may need additional financing to execute our business plan.
The lack of any significant market in future periods will adversely affect our ability to increase our revenues and our margins.
Increased competition could hurt our business.
We are dependent on a limited number of distributors who purchase all of our Purple product, the loss of any of which could result in a material adverse effect on our business.
Theodore Farnsworth, our chief executive officer and president, owns a substantial portion of our outstanding common stock, which enables him to influence many significant corporate actions and in certain circumstances may prevent a change in control that would otherwise be beneficial to our stockholders.
Theodore Farnsworth is our sole director. As such, we do not have any independent directors and have not implemented various corporate governance measures, in the absence of which, stockholders may have more limited protections against interested director transactions, conflicts of interest and similar matters.
Options granted to our celebrity endorsers and members of our management will have a dilutive effect on our common stock if such options are exercised; and if the underlying shares are ultimately sold in the public market, the market price of our common stock could decline
If you want to get the full story, please follow this link: HERE OR THIS
I recently bought some stock in the company Purple Beverage Company Inc.(PPBV). Yes, it was an OTC stock and for that reason I didn't invest too much, but after weeks of flat line graphs, I decided to investigate and find out if this company was still alive. Below is an excerpt of what I found:
Our payment of a monthly 6% performance bonus to Mr. Farnsworth, our chief executive officer, will diminish our profitability
Our limited operating history may not serve as an adequate basis to judge our future prospects and results of operations.
Our independent auditors have expressed substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern, which may hinder our ability to obtain future financing.
We may need additional financing to execute our business plan.
The lack of any significant market in future periods will adversely affect our ability to increase our revenues and our margins.
Increased competition could hurt our business.
We are dependent on a limited number of distributors who purchase all of our Purple product, the loss of any of which could result in a material adverse effect on our business.
Theodore Farnsworth, our chief executive officer and president, owns a substantial portion of our outstanding common stock, which enables him to influence many significant corporate actions and in certain circumstances may prevent a change in control that would otherwise be beneficial to our stockholders.
Theodore Farnsworth is our sole director. As such, we do not have any independent directors and have not implemented various corporate governance measures, in the absence of which, stockholders may have more limited protections against interested director transactions, conflicts of interest and similar matters.
Options granted to our celebrity endorsers and members of our management will have a dilutive effect on our common stock if such options are exercised; and if the underlying shares are ultimately sold in the public market, the market price of our common stock could decline
If you want to get the full story, please follow this link: HERE OR THIS
SO MY QUESTION IS THIS: DO YOU THINK PURPLE BEVERAGE IS A SCAM? PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT.
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Monday, July 14, 2008
Social Media Marketing: Is it right for you?
Most people know or have at least heard about social and new media. For the benefit of those who've been under a rock for the past year or two, here are some definitions to guide you:
Social Media: Are software tools that allow users to generate and exchange content. For example, blogs, twitter, myspace, facebook etc.
New Media: It's a general used to describe non-traditional ways of delivering (advertising or promotion) messages. For example, DVD, youtube, v-casts, podcasts etc.
NOTE: Social media and new media have become so intertwined that all references to social media can be assumed to include new media.
Now, social/New media is the latest craze in marketing in these days of web 2.0. Everyone seems to have an opinion about how to make it work for you, and there are many self professed "experts" out there who are more than willing to help you implement some stratergies -- for a fee of course. The question however remains: should you be using these new marketing tools? The short answer to this questions is a resounding YES! And I'll tell you why if you care to read a little bit more.
There are lots of facts and studies out there, backed be some really reputable sources, that will tell you that times have changed-- the balance of power has now shifted from organizations and their marketers, to consumers. This basically means that organizations no longer call the shots. I'm not one of those reputable sources (so I'd encourage you to do your own research on the issue), but I can point to a couple of scenarios to suggest that this assertion is probaly true. For example, when was the last time you bought an item just because you saw an ad for it? Versus, when was the last time you bought an item after you saw an ad for it and consulted some message boards or talked to a friend who had used the item or read a blog about it OR all 3? The point is, people no longer care what organizations say about themselves or their products. People care about what OTHER people say about organizations and their products, and that's where social media comes in handy.
Social Media: Are software tools that allow users to generate and exchange content. For example, blogs, twitter, myspace, facebook etc.
New Media: It's a general used to describe non-traditional ways of delivering (advertising or promotion) messages. For example, DVD, youtube, v-casts, podcasts etc.
NOTE: Social media and new media have become so intertwined that all references to social media can be assumed to include new media.
Now, social/New media is the latest craze in marketing in these days of web 2.0. Everyone seems to have an opinion about how to make it work for you, and there are many self professed "experts" out there who are more than willing to help you implement some stratergies -- for a fee of course. The question however remains: should you be using these new marketing tools? The short answer to this questions is a resounding YES! And I'll tell you why if you care to read a little bit more.
There are lots of facts and studies out there, backed be some really reputable sources, that will tell you that times have changed-- the balance of power has now shifted from organizations and their marketers, to consumers. This basically means that organizations no longer call the shots. I'm not one of those reputable sources (so I'd encourage you to do your own research on the issue), but I can point to a couple of scenarios to suggest that this assertion is probaly true. For example, when was the last time you bought an item just because you saw an ad for it? Versus, when was the last time you bought an item after you saw an ad for it and consulted some message boards or talked to a friend who had used the item or read a blog about it OR all 3? The point is, people no longer care what organizations say about themselves or their products. People care about what OTHER people say about organizations and their products, and that's where social media comes in handy.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment, and/or signing up for RSS updates. Your comments make a huge difference. Thank you.
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