Royal wedding: Prince William to marry Kate Middleton next year
Posted on November 17th, 2010 by Richard Catto 2,618 views
The second in line to the throne, after his father Prince Charles, Prince William is to marry his sweetheart, Kate Middleton, next year in what is the biggest royal event since Prince Charles married Diana Spencer in 1981. Many of us still cherish the memory of that event. It was the fairy tale wedding of our lives, even if it did not end in happiness until death did them part. Prince William gave his mother’s engagement ring to Kate Middleton and I pray that they enjoy much greater happiness than Diana and Charles did together.
Diana Spencer was a precious person, a unique human being who was greatly loved by many. Part of her lives on in Prince William. I hope that one day, he will be on the throne and that he will make his late mother proud.
I wish Prince William and his fiance every happiness in the world and I look forward to their wedding next year.
Tags: Diana Spencer, Kate Middleton, Prince Charles, Prince William
Filed under UK - Royalty | No Comments »
What the future holds for DVD rental stores
Posted on September 23rd, 2010 by Richard Catto 3,217 views
There’s a story today on BBC news that Blockbuster video, a major US video rental franchise, has filed for bankruptcy. This does not surprise me at all, because the writing has been on the wall for a long time now concerning the viability of DVD rental outlets.
The current business model for these stores has been under threat ever since the world got the Internet. The CD, DVD and Bluray disk formats have no future. It is more efficient and cheaper to distribute content online via digital download. The mass market that currently supports these formats and makes them viable now will evaporate over the next 10 years. As more and more people access content via online distribution channels, the need for physical DVD rental stores and physical media to distribute content will vanish.
I have a DVD rewriteable drive in my PC which I bought 3 years ago. I don’t plan to purchase a bluray drive because I don’t need to. I am already able to access bluray disks. Instead of purchasing a physical bluray disk, I can download an iso image of one and mount it using virtual drive software. So right now, today, I don’t need to purchase either a bluray drive nor bluray disks, but I can still access the content stored in this format. I’ve just avoided the obsolence trap of physical hardware in respect of disk formats.
So if you were thinking of opening a video rental store, don’t. It has no future. You will lose your shirt. Don’t even open an online video rental store, because the middleman is no longer needed. The function of a video rental store was to bring the physical disks close enough to you to make it convenient for you to arrive in person at the store to rent a copy. The Internet blows that away. Now movie studios in California can rent direct to anyone anywhere in the world without needing any intermediaries.
Filed under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Call phones from gmail
Posted on August 26th, 2010 by Richard Catto 3,282 views
So today, I got all excited because gmail introduced this new facility where you can call phones from within gmail using their chat facility. I installed the necessary plugin and fired it up. Google generously credited me with a whole 10 US cents of airtime. I called my South African cell phone number, and it rang! So now all I needed to do was buy some airtime and I could start calling, and that’s where it all fucked out.
When I clicked the link to add airtime, google informed me that my country was not yet supported. So, there’s this wonderful VoIP facility right there in my gmail but I can’t do shit with it until google decides to get off its fat ass and take my money.
Check out the google blog entry.
Tags: Google
Filed under Google | 6 Comments »
Open letter to iBurst asking for a standard monthly subscription fee
Posted on March 2nd, 2010 by Richard Catto 3,712 views
I object to your wirelesss pricing structure as published here.
Specifically I object to your varying monthly subscription fee which starts at R35 pm for a wireless Start 80MB package and increases to R369 per month for a Wireless 15 15GB package.
If you compare this with ADSL pricing, Telkom charges a varying line fee based solely on one criteria: speed of connection. However, in your case, connection to your network is at the same speed regardless of data package chosen.
It therefore makes logical sense to charge the same monthly subscription fee irrespective of which data package is chosen.
I would appreciate you amending your wireless pricing structure at your earliest convenience to reflect the same monthly subscription fee across all your data package options, whatever you deem it to be.
A 15G account holder, such as myself, should not pay a higher subscription fee because I’m already paying more for the higher volume of data I transmit across your network. I should not be penalised twice.
Tags: iBurst
Filed under iBurst, Internet Access | 2 Comments »
Social Media online marketing cheat sheet
Posted on February 12th, 2010 by Richard Catto 3,966 views
As part of my job, I come across a lot of half baked online marketing initiatives.
Online marketing is not rocket science, but you just need to know what to do. Here is a quick cheat sheet off the top of my head.
1. Firstly, whatever you publish online MUST be published at some url (i.e. on a web page)
2. For best results publish ONE thing on ONE web page, rather than combine multiple things onto one page
3. Email what you have published to your mailing list (you do have a mailing list, don’t you?) with a link back to the web page where it was first published
4. Create a link to your page in bit.ly and use bit.ly to tweet a short announcement about your web page (bit.ly tracks clicks)
5. Link your twitter account to your Facebook wall (you do have a Facebook account, don’t you?)
6. Link your twitter account to your Google Buzz account (you do have gmail, don’t you?)
7. On your web page, if you want people to take some action, such as fill in an order form, use Google Analytics to track your goal, of submitting the form (you do use Google Analytics, don’t you?)
8. Then monitor how many clicks your campaign got, and with Google analytics, discover what your conversion rate is. If your campaign is not resulting in conversions, see if you can find out why.
9. Keep everything you publish as concise as possible – people don’t have a lot of time to waste reading your flowery prose.
If you’re doing all above, you’re on track, if not, get with the program already. If you need help implementing this stuff, call in a consultant to make it happen for you, and train your staff in the new ways.
Tags: bit.ly, facebook, mailing lists, Online Marketing, social media, twitter
Filed under Online Advertising, Online Marketing | 2 Comments »
