A whole lot of Jellyfish are washing up on Cape Town’s beaches

Measuring your brand’s social media equity can be a tricky business. Confronted by the multitude of platforms, buzzwords and measurement tools you might be tempted to simplify both your metrics and your strategies. After all, who’s to say that a follower on Twitter is more or less valuable than a fan on Facebook? The problem is that as seductive as this urge to simplify may be, it can land you in hot water. Just as in real life, social media relationships come in many forms, and have different sets of rules. In order to be clear about how these...

When you have an 11-month old, you don't get out much.  So when we went away this weekend with my parents, and the opportunity presented itself to go to lunch while they watched our daughter, we jumped at it.  The problem is, we were in Kleinmond, a small South African village.  There are probably about 5 restaurants in Kleinmond, and let's face it, they can't all be good.  So the pressure was on: where do we go? In the US, this wouldn't have been a problem.  Sites like Yelp enable users to rate and comment on a variety of services,...

If you have a Facebook Page then you need to be aware of some changes being implemented from the 23rd of August. Facebook recently announced the changes on its Developer's Blog. If you have a Page you will probably have already noticed this announcement at the top: Get ready for your streamlined Page: This headline has been followed by an explanation which reads like this: "Starting on 23 August, we'll be simplifying your Page to make it easier to browse: 1) Boxes are going away, including the Boxes tab; and 2) All custom tabs will be narrowed to 520 pixels. If you have a...

Now that can legally jailbreak your iPhone, you might be asking yourself why bother? After all, ISO4, 3 and 2 have brought so many improvements, and Apple has approved so many apps it used to block from the app store. What can jailbreaking my iPhone offer me? Check out these 10 great jailbreak apps that could convince you to take a leap of faith and crack your iPhone. If you're unsure how to do it, follow our jailbreak guide here. Most of the apps listed will install using Cydia, the iPhone...

Bob Skinstad has made a seamless transition from professional sportsman to media personality. With more than 11 000 followers on Twitter, Memeburn got in touch and asked him about his social media habits, who he follows and whether he has ever tweeted anything that he regrets. Memeburn: You were one of the first international rugby players world-wide to start actively using social media. How did it begin? Bob Skinstad: I think my new media interests were piqued when I was working at Saatchi&Saatchi in the UK ! WhenI got back to pro rugby I brought a few things with me. MB: Why...

After years of waiting, X-Box Live will be available to South African gamers in November, just in time for the Christmas shopping rush, according to a local X-Box focussed blog. While the offical X-Box website advertises that X-Box Live is fast, free and easy to join, this hasn't been the case for frustrated South African gamers looking to take part in multi-player gaming, and wanting to download extra content for games, connect with friends and much, much more. Robin Burrowes, a Product Manager for Xbox Live EMEA, revealed the launch date at Gamescon 2010, and claimed that the long delay for...

In June, blogging platform Posterous launched an all-out assault on other services, hoping to convince bloggers from WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr to switch over. At the time, the move was considered by some to be overly aggressive, even “preposterous,” but the move appears to be paying off. Rich Pearson, VP of Marketing at Posterous, said the service has seen a 50 percent jump in new signups since launching the campaign. Although defecting bloggers account for a large piece of the growth, emerging markets like Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and India are helping the company take off on a global...

DukaPress is a new customised WordPress eCommerce platform. It allows you to easily set up a fully featured online shop which can be used to sell digital or physical goods to customers all over the world. I’ve been using WordPress for many years, and am a huge fan. When I saw DukaPress last week, I was impressed to see that it was built in Nairobi, but I also wondered why another eCommerce WordPress build was needed, as there are already good ones available such as WP-ecommerce and Shopp. I interviewed Kelvin Jayanoris, from Nickel Pro, about DukaPress: ON WHY THEY DEVELOPED A...

In the last two articles on Memeburn, I covered the basics of how to set up and how to use a Flickr account to grow your brand online. Once you’ve set up your account though, like any other web presence, you need to allocate time resources to promoting it - both inside and outside of Flickr. If you're spending a large amount of time and effort uploading photos to your Flickr account as a business owner and/or entrepreneur, it's prudent to spend time promoting your account too, so that you're getting a good number of potential customers actually seeing and...

Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys has confirmed, in what appears to be an off-the-cuff tweet, that the iPhone 4 is to reach South African shores "end September". Uys' tweet went practically unnoticed for some time when he tweeted: "date for iPhone4 in SA from Apple is end of September. Will keep you posted..." The story has since broken on News24 and some other major news websites. This date is in line with an earlier Memeburn story which broke the news that the iPhone 4 was to make an appearance "in early September". Memeburn also confirmed from an "industry insider" that MTN would...

Speculation is rife that Facebook is gearing up to unveil its long awaited geo-location application. Location-based services have become the hottest social networking trend of 2010. Foursquare has streaked ahead of the pack by registering over 100 million check-ins at the time of writing, but Facebook, with its massive user base of 500 million and its unlimited resources, could deliver a new angle that pushes this trend beyond the early adopters and into the mainstream. An attempt to take ownership of the location space by Facebook has been coming for some time. After talks to acquire Foursquare ended inconclusively,...

As the trend of using SaaS (Software as a Service) grows exponentially, more and more tools which are designed to increase productivity in the workplace become available. Some of these are free, while others justify their costs by increasing communication, business processes, and access to information. Here are five of the most useful tools available right now: 1) Google Apps: Although it has been around for a while, it is an excellent tool for any business that needs its email, documents, and calendars made shareable and online. With a little configuration on your domain, you can get Google Apps...

The stringent social media policies adapted by some Western newsrooms indicate an inflexibility in adapting to a changed information and news environment. This has left the door open for journalists in developing economies to step up and drive adoption of social media tools in journalism. Important US-based papers such as the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are choosing to restrict use of social networks by journalists. These are papers with proud journalistic traditions which have helped define modern journalism. An extract from the Washington Posts' social media policy reads, "Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything...

PriceCheck, a South African price comparison website, has been acquired by MIH, the investment arm of Naspers, the emerging market internet giant. Naspers recently made waves by announcing it was to buy a stake in a Russian internet company that holds a stake in Facebook, social network game creator Zynga and instant messaging service, ICQ. Last year, Naspers acquired a 91% stake in Brazilian e-commerce group Buscape.com Inc for $342-million as part of its strategy to expand into emerging markets. Buscape's flagship site is also a price comparison site. Contractual obligations are forcing parties in the PriceCheck deal to remain tight-lipped about...