The Scenery cancels out the ache

Okay really, who wants to hear about some arb’s bicycle ride around the cape peninsula? It was beautiful and inspirational but who wants to hear me pontificating about Cape Town, cycling, lycra, fresh fish and the like?  However, and this is not just to please the boss, I did discover that it is nigh impossible to do almost anything these days without engaging with the internet.  Like riding a bike, for instance (did I mention that I rode my first Argus?).  As mentioned, I did register for the race and pay my entry fee online.  I did this because it didn’t even enter my mind to write to the race organisers and request an entry form to be posted to me, then fill out said form and post it back with a cheque attached – the only way I could enter without using the internet at all!  Apparently there are some people that still do this – a bunch of folks missed the Comrades Marathon cut off time this way.

Right, so now I have entered, how do I get there?  I live in Joburg and that’s about a thousand miles away.  I will not drive that distance for a weekend stay in the Mother City, I’m not twenty any more.  So guess what?  I turn to the internet once again to investigate flight costs and timetables.  After much research I book and pay for my flights online.  Same for car hire and same for the small matter of getting my bicycle to and from Cape Town.

I don’t want to bore you with the details but here is a list of all the ways that the internet played a role in my little adventure:

• My race number was emailed to me
• I received pre race updates via sms
• Used my mobile phone’s map application to find my way to my accomodation
• I left my cycling shoes in the car after being dropped off and my thumbs worked frantically trying to get them before the start!
• MMS’d my wife a picture of some flowers to thank her for finding her way back through unfamiliar streets to get me my shoes (I couldn’t ride 110km in slops)
• Took photo’s of the magnificent views and sent them to family and friends using my iPhone
• Video’d my ride along Boyes Drive and Chapmans peak (I would add them to this post but my puffing and wheezing in the audio is quite frightening)
• SMS’s my food order for my post race lunch
• Sent incremental updates of my whereabouts so that my four year old son could be at the finish line to cheer his daddy on (he still thinks I won the race because I got a finishers medal)
• At the post race lunch I updated Facebook and Twitter and sent my photo’s to friends via email before the fatigue set in
• Confirmed my return flights online
• Tracked my bicycle’s journey home through the courier company’s web site.

iPhone shot of Hout Bay taken from bicycle

Wow! If you can’t even ride your bike, can we do anything these days without using the world wide web?  I’m guessing the answer is pretty much NO!  Not if you live in the real world.

Right, I can now tick the boxes – blogged about my first Argus and kept the boss happy coz it was about “all things internetty”.

Ciao!

About this time each year – The Oxford American Dictionary throws a bash for its biggest announcement before the year-end holidays. So while you may be the type of person who gives a standing ovation for it and cannot wait for it’s imminent announcement, or perhaps you are the type who mutilates it with choice profanities and clever dick comments (and there are plenty of these types), it continues to occur year in and year out ….. “The Word of Year”

So without further interruption, the WOTY for 2009 is “Unfriend”
And to celebrate its victory in true old-fashioned dictionary style … a dictionary description…
unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook. Example “I have decided to unfriend an old flame on Facebook because we just seem to have zilch in common.”

In the social networking setting “unfriend” is most probably completely understood. The Oxford Dictionary USA has made quite an out of the ordinary choice of “un” prefixed words by commemorating it as a modern verb; usually these “un” prefixed words would be adjectives such as unlikable or undesirable. Having said that, there are recognizable “un” verbs such as unload or unseal but wow, “unfriend” is somewhat different from the usual.

So I found my mind trying to decide if there wasn’t a better way to say it, having racked my brains for what I would usually call this action – perhaps something like “defriend” and upon enquiry it seems there are masses of folk who actually do “get-rid-of” friends by say “defriend” and many of them have vehemently argued that “defriend” is the acceptable word…. however, if you go to our good friends Google for some more information on this debate…. this is what happens – Google hits: defriend 46 300 unfriend: 393 000. I guess “unfriend” wins hands down, although it also clearly depends on where in the world you hang.

The other thing worth a little mention while we are at it, in years past the WOTY has generally always focused on more solemn and justifiable issues …. Words like global warming and hypermiling… (oh… stop being slothful, go look it up).  The fact that the WOTY has focused its 2009 winning word on societal media proves that social networking is actually quite a solemn and justifiable affair….. or not?  For more info on this point read: http://popculture2point0.wordpress.com/

If you are wondering what other technology themed words were considered for the New Oxford American Dictionary 2009 Word of the Year? Check out the list:-

• hashtag – a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets
• intexticated – distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle netbook – a small, very portable laptop computer with a limited memory
• paywall – a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is only available to paying subscribers
• sexting – the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cellphone

PS: My spell check still does not recognise “unfriend” as a real word.

A survey of 16 to 24 year olds has found that 75% of them feel they “couldn’t live” without the internet.

The report, published by online charity YouthNet, also found that four out of five young people used the web to look for advice. About one third added that they felt no need to talk to a person face to face about their problems because of the resources available online. The findings were unveiled at the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday.

Despite high-profile examples of internet security breaches, such as the recent incident of phishing email scams, 76% of the survey group thought the internet was a safe place “as long as you know what you’re doing”. “Probably the middle-aged are the most vulnerable,” said Open University psychologist Graham Jones. “I think children, teenagers and people under their mid-20s have grown up with technology and they understand it deeply,” he said.

Charlie McDonnell is a 19 year old video blogger on YouTube – With 200,000 subscribers and more than 20 million hits overall, he is the third most subscribed to on the site. He started in April 2007 while “procrastinating over exam revision”. He amassed around 150 viewers until he made a tongue-in-cheek film called “how to get featured on Youtube”. His mother had no interest in the internet until he got started. Now he has shown her everything and she uses his hand-me-down old kit to make her own Youtube video logs. His use of the net illustrates how sophisticated young consumers are. “I never really look for news, I find out about stuff that interests me from blogs. I use them as a filter to find news that I find interesting. Twitter’s not very accurate – it’s one person saying they saw something on one website – but it’s good for getting information straight away,” he said.

Mr Jones thinks it is the parents who need to become more sophisticated. “One of the biggest problems for children is not that they are vulnerable but that their parents don’t know what they’re doing,” he said. It is a point Mr McDonnell agrees with. “It’s important that parents have full understanding of the internet and its risks – younger people need parental direction,” he said.

‘Digital natives’

The survey, funded by the Nominet Trust – a charity that encourages the safe use of the internet – looked at how the web influences the well-being of people aged between 16 and 24. Its author, Professor Michael Hulme of Lancaster University, names this age group “digital natives” as they have grown up in an environment rich with computer and mobile technology. “For young people the internet is part of the fabric of their world and does not exist in isolation from the physical world,” he said.

Apart from the gifted and talented few, most of us really suck at drawing or animation. Check out the intuitive animation editor at Doink. You can create cool animated drawings online and then share them.

You can create drawings from scratch or you can re-use and edit the works of other site members.

* Easily create art drawings, custom animations online with intuitive animation editor.
* Create your animations from scratch or re-use works of other users.
* Share your works on MySpace, Facebook and embed them on your webpages.
* Browse most popular drawings and clips by other users, collaborate with members, share props and comment on their works.
* Search animations.
* Free, sign up to get started.
* Similar websites: AniBOOM and Xtranormal.

Failing that – if you really are too lazy to try and create anything this weekend then why not belt out an 80s tune courtesy of online Karaoke – Singstar style

We spotted Doink at MakeUseOf.com

Birds of a feather flock together….attention designers, Aviary is a collection of creative applications that you can use in your web browser. The site also says that Aviary is a community of friendly artists to share and collaborate with.

The Phoenix image editor, Toucan colour swatches and palettes and Peacock visual lab are just a few of the apps available with more planned. Aviary’s mission is to make creativity accessible to as many designers as possible. Very cool site with some advanced tools.

Spending on the established tactic is still rising.

Marketers’ attitudes about e-mail affect their approach to strategy, judging by a study conducted in August and September 2008 by MarketingSherpa.

Respondents who thought that e-mail was becoming more effective were 50% more likely to increase their budgets annually and be concerned with staying relevant than respondents who thought e-mail’s effectiveness was diminishing.

In contrast, twice as many marketers who viewed e-mail as decreasingly effective said they tried to keep e-mail close to free, or at least to hold the line on their investment. Read more on this.

In our business we’re seeing that e-mail marketing is becoming more and more targeted and customisable. Especially in South Africa e-mail marketing is still an effective part of the online marketing mix and brands who are practising responsible e-mail marketing are definitely reaping the rewards.

We’re seeing a shift in the medium that is separating the professionals from the ‘rest’. This is improving the design, delivery and measureability of e-mails, similar to what is happening in the mobile industry with a move to more sophisticated ‘call-to-action’ campaigns rather than boring ‘blanket’ sms.