The GottaQuirk eMarketing blog The GottaQuirk blog is a great resource for information about internet marketing. It’s an up-to-date resource on the happenings in the fast-moving eMarketing industry. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 341 5734

Articles from The GottaQuirk eMarketing blog

SEO in 2008: Upwardly Mobile 2008-01-28 03:53:58 In a recent interview with Matt Cutts, he was asked what he reckoned would be the most important aspects of SEO in 2008. Surprise, surprise, he noted the most important element to be fresh, quality content - and lots of it. Number two on his list of insider tips for the year was personalisation - knowing your target audience and supplying them with what they’re looking for. And with that comes local or geographical specificity through Google Directory and things like that (you can read a bit more about that here). At number four is the buzz that's been happening in two million pockets around the globe. Mobile connectivity, and all the wonderful successes and misadventures that are bound to occur as the industry leaves infancy and toddles into the leap year. As the link between wireless network suppliers and Search Engines becomes a more profitable one, the medium has set a new precedent to the SERP game. Due to its limited capacity by things such as screen size, Search provid ...

Ken Touch This! 2008-01-27 04:18:59 Berlitz made quite a name for themselves with their incredibly successful "German coastguard" viral. Carrying on with good momentum this latest clip of theirs provides the viewer with quite a laugh and builds on the success of the first campaign. With an absurd situation / misunderstanding arising from a simple failure to "get" the language, Berlitz manage to get their audience in hysterics while still resonating with their need for their language services. Check it out - maybe not to everyone's tastes, but all in all I reckon that this is right on the money:  It's Hammer time! Comment on "Ken Touch This!" ...

Trimming the Hedge 2008-01-26 04:55:10 When looking at viral clips one has a tendency of judging their worth by how likely they are to spread. After all, the viral element in the clip or advert is that which will encourage a recipient to pass it on to another based solely on the content of the advert. Taking this view one would rate the following clip from PropertyGenie pretty highly: Unfortunately, this clip seems to miss the mark. Yes, it is funny, it will spread and it will garner some goodwill for the brand. But, in viral marketing terms it's missing the point. What's the point of spreading a message to the wrong audience? I see this clip being spread around an audience made of 15-25 year-olds. I can't imagine it doing the rounds anywhere near as successfully within PropertyGenie's target audience, which is significantly comprised of older individuals. Comment on "Trimming the Hedge" ...

Kulula stole our moolah! 2008-01-25 06:59:04 If you travel domestically in South Africa, you've probably booked a flight online before. And being a savvy and cost conscious traveller, you know that it's wise to check for different flights to get the best price. What you probably didn't know however, is that doing so on kulula.com can land you with a flight you never wanted. It works like this: You search for a flight, agree to the terms and conditions and fill out your details. Before clicking the submit button however, you decide to open up another tab and check out a similar flight, perhaps from a nearby airport or at a different time of day. That search proves fruitless, so you revert to your original tab and click submit. Lo and behold, you're paying for and flying the flight you rejected. It's easy to test this anonymously, without spending a cent: Open up Firefox. Search for a flight from Lanseria to Cape Town and go to step 2. Check the legal stuff and submit for step 3. Fill out some anonymous deta ...

SA Blog Awards 2008: New Rules, New Categories, New Logo 2008-01-25 05:25:05 The 2008 SA Blog Awards team met at Caffe Neo to discuss the changes being made to the rules and review all suggestions received from the community. Tim & I were there to fly the Quirk flag. For those who could not attend the event, there were a few attendees live-blogging with Twitter and the meet was streamed live using Qik mobile phone video streaming. This year one of the new rules is that those who are involved in organising, sponsoring or assisting with the running of the event may not be eligible to be nominated. The rest of the rules are available here. A few new categories have also been added or re-introduced to the 2008 SA Blog Awards: Best Green Blog - Weblog covering mainly environmental, organic or enviro-friendly related content. Best African Language Blog - Best blog written in an African language other than English. Best Post about the SA Blog Awards - Fun category about the awards themselves. Best Social Upliftment Blog - The best charity, CSI ...

Why Quirk loves Open Source 2008-01-23 10:53:36 One of my more eccentric hobbies is taking photos of Window's errors on public display screens. I have some great shots taken all over the world but this one sent to me by my mate Cheese takes the cake. This is Piccadilly Circus just before Christmas.... classic! Comment on "Why Quirk loves Open Source" ...

Lights out on your reputation 2008-01-23 06:32:00 As a regular contributor to the TripAdvisor travel forum, I wasn’t surprised today to see one British poster asking if it was true that Cape Town is experiencing regular and on-going electricity cuts. He said that he had read an article in the Independent Newspaper about how tourists trapped in the Table Mountain Arial Cableway had to be rescued after a power cut. The Independent article is rather frightening for any would-be Table Mountain tourist. I certainly would think twice about getting in the cable car after reading: “The 40 passengers in the lower car were forced to abseil four meters to safety through the floor. The 50 in the upper car were evacuated through the roof.” I’m sure that many of the 800,000 tourists expected to use the Cableway this year will be visiting the Table Mountain Arial Cableway site to find out how the Cableway is addressing the power cuts.  Sadly the last item in the “news” section of the site is from December a ...

MySpace Taking Over Pop Culture 2008-01-22 08:31:31 An interesting article in The New York Times discusses the evolution of MySpace from a niche social networking site to a mainstream content host. Entitled "From MySpace to YourSpace", the article points out that MySpace is currently like a portal, but is evolving into much more. Tough to disagree with, especially given that My Space is in the process of launching a number of features; it has its own record label, news site, is a place for amateur film-makers to show their work and has recently launched a content guide called MySpace Celebrity. This makes me think about the discussion back in 2005 that Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace to be competition for MTV. MySpace’s evolution means that it has an edge on a channel like MTV, especially if it offers all the content with the added bonus of the user interaction you can only get from a social networking site. The fact that the sites are geographically customisable to their local users gives MySpace a further advantage. W ...

SA Blog Awards 2008 - Come have your say 2008-01-22 07:00:18 Time has come for the SA Blog Awards and this year they’ll be doing things a little differently to prevent last year’s chaos from erupting. The 2008 South African Blog Awards is scheduled for its annual process of nominating and voting in February and March. The awards team would like to publicly present this year’s process to all interested parties on Wednesday 23 January at 17h30 on the outside deck of Caffe Neo in Mouillie Point, Cape Town.   Anyone with an interest in how this year’s awards will work is more than welcome to attend. Please note that this is your opportunity to voice your input about the awards process. We’re doing this in order to finalise the system in a public forum. If you cannot make the presentation and feel strongly about the awards format, please arrange for representation to be there to express your opinion. Otherwise, chat to the communications representative on behalf of the awards team for those who have suggesti ...

Putting your foot in it 2008-01-20 02:02:59 By no means do I find the following Triple M clip to be a 'great' viral, but there are few things that I enjoy more than seeing a smug politician make a clown of himself. It's the type of ad that will brighten up a day at the office, and get me to pass it on to my mates - the simplest formula for a viral. Comment on "Putting your foot in it" ...

Firefox Rise Up - or do they? 2008-01-19 01:03:15 Firefox recently released their new viral video “Rise Up”. I'm not really sure about this one. No, actually I am. It's boring. For a video whose theme is 'Firefox users: against boredom', it sure bores the hell out of me. The video points out some interesting statistics in comparing Firefox users against Internet Explorer users – probably the highlight here – but offers very little in terms of entertainment value. The video does however feature a few viral celebrities such as the Ask a Ninja ninja. Comments for the video have not been great and have suggested that Firefox stick with what they're good at. I have to agree. Make up your own mind: Comment on "Firefox Rise Up - or do they?" ...

Internet TV? 2008-01-18 08:15:41 Controlling which series you watch and when you watch it is an idea we’re all getting used to. In the last year or so I’ve seen more and more space on DVD store shelves being taken up by seasons of Prison Break and Lost, and illegal file sharing seems to be something that’s not going to go away. As a result people’s viewing habits have been changing - most of my friends watch series on their computers and many don’t even own a TV (admittedly because they probably can’t afford one). Even my father records shows using PVR so that he can watch them when it suits him, and fast forward through the adverts. It’s shouldn’t be surprising then, that TV's themselves are evolving and are taking this kind of functionality to the next level. John Battelle discussed recently that he spoke to two HDTV manufacturers who are developing or have released TV’s that are “RSS enabled”. RSS, according to the RSS-TV info site, "makes i ... Internet

AppCamp - much APPreciated! 2008-01-18 02:29:59 Last night saw Carlos and my first networking event of 2008 and Garrick and Kat’s first ever Quirk related event. And boy, talk about jumping in at the deep end. With the opening address being given by Juan Franco, CEO of Mentez, it was sure to be a cracker! Juan took us through the ins and outs of the company which showed a strong vested interest in both South Africa, Africa as a whole and, in particular, Turkey. Furthermore, their developer-focused company structure was great to see! Armand du Preez was up next and took us through the basics (and not-so-basics) of creating a Facebook Application. As a non-developer this was of tremendous interest and I think it’s time I actually bring back my high school and varsity coding and plug a little app together : - ) For old times sake! Next up was Eben de Wit of Microsoft who gave a very interesting and informative talk on Silverlight (the Microsoft contender to Flash) which looks great despite the fact that it looks to hav ...

2008 - The year for ORM (Thanks Tom Cruise...) 2008-01-17 07:49:58 Only a few days into the new year and we already have a contender for video of the year. I am in fact talking about the Tom Cruise video of indoctrination that's flying around the Internet at the moment. When old Tommy-boy did a jig on Oprah's couch we all had our suspicions, but his latest rantings have taken things to a whole new level. Now that you've had a look at the interview, take a minute to relax and settle all those stomach cramps from laughing (and possibly crying) in amused disbelief. But we are not here to discuss celebrity gossip – as amusing as it is. What I want to discuss is the effect this interview is going to have on the public's already divided views on Scientology and more specifically, how important it is that all online mentions surrounding this be managed or monitored. These days it is so important for organisations and, in particular, businesses to be aware of what is being said about them online and where appropriate, respond. It is very possi ...

Seth Godin: The real reason Quirk's clients are happy 2008-01-17 01:58:27 Since joining Quirk a few months ago my RSS feeds have not been getting the attention they deserve. I decided to play catch up and came across this little gem on Marketing Guru, Seth Godin’s blog: The Seth Godin Action Figure. Imagine having your own personal marketing guru you can go to for advice and guidance. You could pay millions of dollars for consultants, but why not just get the Marketing Guru Action Figure? Marketing genius and famous blogger Seth Godin serves as the model for this 5.375" plastic action figure with his trademark mismatched socks and business casual clothes. Each figure comes with a free gift and the Little Book of Marketing Secrets. It's rumored that if you want an insight into what your customers want and how they'd like to be communicated with, you can rub Seth's bald head and all will be made clear.I happened to recall seeing a pic of Rob doing just that. I thought the eMarketing Services we offered our clients made them happy. Wrong, our CE ...