I have been chatting to Tyler Reed for the past couple of months (first started on Twitter), and after working on a few small projects with him, I asked why don’t I start up Younique’s presence in Cape Town? Well that is officially happening from the 1st of August. Perfect timing as Younique also turned 1 on Thursday!

I’m really excited about some of the things Younique has in the pipeline and where we are heading. Tyler is too modest to talk about some of the things we have been working on, so expect me to break the news and “brag” about what we doing. :)

Not only am I changing where I will be working, but also the direction. I’ve been really try to get myself emerged in social media, web 2.0 and the mobile development scene, and by joining Younique, its exactly where I want to be. So enough talking the talk like I do on Twitter, its time to walk the talk.

Exciting times!

There has been much said on the internet yesterday about the segment on Carte Blanche about Web 2.0. Almost too much. Bloggers are up in arms that CB didn’t encapsulate what Web 2.0 is, but rather made up their own Web 2.0 or Web two [sic].

I watched the segment with my fiancé on Sunday and driving home today I chatted to her about her thoughts on it. Firstly, remember she has no clue what Web 2.0 is. She uses Facebook, MXit, Gmail and uses Google to “search for things”. That’s the extent of her knowledge and it has definitely been pushed by me, as her friends are even further behind than she is. Anyway, the way she saw the segment was that in today’s world, we are communicating in a totally different way than we were 10 years ago. Cellphones, email, SMS, Facebook, MXit are all new ways to stay in touch with friends, colleagues and family. She says that if you don’t keep up with it, you’ll find yourself loosing touch with those people and have the feeling of being left behind.

Babe, did you see them mention Web 2.0? (Her response): Yes, I thought its a new version of Internet Explorer or something.

I then did my level best to try and explain what Web 2.0 was giving examples of the things Facebook does to show her the new technologies Web 2.0 employs, and also saying that Web 1.0 was before the dotcom bust, and online business has learnt from those mistakes and adapted to a newer Web 2.0 way of interacting with people / consumers online.

I also told her there was a lot of peeved people on the net today regarding how misinformed CB are regarding the segment. She didn’t understand why, and thought that CB took an angle on the story and only had 15 minutes with which to work with. If they had more time, they could of obviously covered many more angles and made the Web 2.0 people happier.

I think she hit the nail on the head with regards to saying that us Web 2.0 people are obviously upset with CB as they seemed to have totally lost the plot about “us”. But the reason we are upset is because its “us” they talking about. CB had a target audience in mind and seemed to have delivered something that non Web 2.0 people could understand to a certain extent. One thing I think they should not have done is title the segment “Web 2.0″. It should be more along the lines of the “The Changing Face of Communication” ( thxJustin!) because that is what the story actually is about.

And lastly, Rafiq asked if he came across arrogant in the segment because he seemed to be getting a number of emails, facebook messages and sms’es from haters out there. He definitely didn’t in my mind. But think of it as this metaphor: You approach a client who wants a website. You come back with a quote and he tells you off because your quote is outrageously expensive at R5000 and that his nephew who is in Grade 11 can create him a netsite and would only charge R500. Ignorance is bliss and that is why these haters have something to say Rafiq. Take it from Charl, publicity is never a bad thing. ;-)

I first read about Nike+ from Paul Stamatiou and how he has fallen in love with it. He has even starred in his very own Nike+ commercial. So about a month ago, Tyler went for his first Nike+ run and that was it. I wanted in.

My first Nike+ run

I have just got back from my first run and I almost died. I am probably the most unfit I have been since high school. I managed to run around 3km’s. (I calibrated the device for about 500m, but my first timed run is 2.7km’s). One thing I am proud of is that I managed to run the entire way, no walking. There were definitely times where I contemplated walking, but kept telling myself to “run through the pain Jason!”. Below is a graph of my first run.

As you can see, my pace fluctuated a lot as I was trying to find a comfortable pace and rhythm to run at. The other thing I tried to do was when I flipped onto my Power Song (Bleed it out by Linkin Park), I really gave it some stick! The Power song is a track you set before your workout that when you hold in the centre button on your iPod it immediately skips to that song and gives you a boost. Very neat feature.

I have fallen in love…

with that women who whispers in my ear how far I have run. She tells me how long I have run for as well as how far I still have to go. She really sounds hot. :-) I don’t think my Fiance minds if I have an affair with her twice a week. She keeps me in shape you know.

Map my routes

Another really neat Nike+ feature is being able to create a map of your route. They use Google maps for the mapping software, so for us South African’s its not the greatest, but at when I zoom in to the maximum level, I can make a map out a pretty decent route.

Spot the beach along my run. Oh yeah.

So thats Nike+ in a nutshell. I absolutely love it. I love being able to track each and every aspect of my runs, graph them, share them, set goals and resolutions, challenge other Nike+ athletes, the list goes on. There is also a few flash widgets that you can add to your blog, which I will be adding to my blog redesign.

South African Nike+ Bloggers

I’m looking for other Nike+ bloggers in South Africa. I’m sure there are a number of us, and would love to set up a few challenges and team events. So far I know of 1. Mr. Tyler Reed! Please email me or leave a comment so I can build a decent list of us Nike+ bloggers here in SA.

Time to go and claim brownie points from the Fiance for a massage. :-)

The coolest thing is that for R2000 ($240) you will get to own a vine in one of their vineyards. Not only will you own a vine but you will get a certificate with a photograph of your vine and your name, plus a bottle of wine made from the crop of the vineyard block containing your vine. Oh, and don’t forget that they will contribute 5% of the production cost to a loan-repayment fund, to repay your loan with interest.

But its more than just about the money, its about saving people’s jobs and businesses. Its enough trying to have to survive in the wine industry of late in SA, but to also have to put up with rubbish UK partners that go bankrupt and leave you with all the debt.

If you ever have met the okes from Stormhoek, you’ll know that they an awesome bunch.

Read their post on “Own a vine. save a job” and pay it forward folks. I am.

More coverage:

- WineCountry supports Stormhoek
- Stormhoek’s Blogosphere Enabled Micro-financing Campaign: Own Your Own Stormhoek Vine and Protect a Farmworker’s Livelihood
- Digg – Own a vine. Save a job at Stormhoek wines in South Africa
- Storm in a Wine Glass

What this actually means is that, you will log into your OpenID account with a password, but never have to remember usernames or passwords on any OpenID enabled sites. You only have to remember your OpenID URL!

A Simple OpenID example

I signed up for an OpenID account months ago, but never investigated how to actually use it to log into some of my favourite web services that use OpenID. Last week, I actually decided to start using OpenID and it really is incredible how easy it is to use.

In this example, I am going to show you the steps I took to getting my Blinksale account to use OpenID.

Step 1: Sign up for an OpenID account.

This is pretty straight forward. There are a number of OpenID providers, and some services such as Wordpress.com, Technorati and Blogspot.com logins are actually OpenID accounts already! But for simplicity’s sake, rather use a dedicated OpenID provider, as the features of a dedicated provider such as MyOpenID.com are more streamlined and easer to use.

View the list of recommended OpenID Providers over at http://openid.net/get/ I signed up at myOpenID.com and you can actually view my OpenID webpage here: http://jbagley.myopenid.com.

Step 2: Logging into an OpenID enabled site.

So now that I have an OpenID, I headed over to my Blinksale account and selected login with OpenID. On most sites that have OpenID support, there will be a link very close to your normal login form. Just have a look out for the OpenID textbox that looks something like this:

What happens the first time I try to login with my OpenID, Blinksale redirects to jbagley.myopenid.com. I then provide my password to login to myOpenID.com, or if I am already logged in (either via a browser session, or a cookie that keeps me logged in), myOpenID.com then asks me to verify if Blinksale can make use of my OpenID account. I have options of either selecting Allow forever, Allow once or Deny. After I clicked Allow Forever, I was redirected to my Blinksale account.

The next time I tried to login to Blinksale, all I did was provide my OpenID url and I was automatically authenticated (all behind the scenes as I was already logged into my OpenID provider and Blinksale was set to “always allow”) and taken to my Blinksale account. No having to remember my Blinksale username or password anymore. So from now on, all I have to remember is http://jbagley.myopenid.com!

Why should I start using OpenId?

There is an interesting article over at ReadWriteWeb about password fatigue. Eventually people start using the exact same username and password combinations over a array of websites because it becomes ever increasingly difficult to remember so many different passwords! By using OpenID (and getting more and more sites to use OpenID), you are only required to remember your OpenID url and password. Changing your OpenID password effectively means you are changing your password for all your web logins too!

With the announcement of Yahoo jumping on the OpenID bandwagon, services like Flickr, Delicious, Yahoo Answers, MyBlogLog etc, are all going to start using OpenID logins in the coming months. For me, that means these accounts of mine will become so much more secure and easier to login to.

Google’s Blogger service also now supports OpenID for submitting comments, and the beta version of Blogger blogs also now supports OpenID. So I am sure you will start to see more Google OpenID logins in the future.

For Developers

There are a number of open source code libraries that one can use to get OpenID setup within your web application. OpenID can be used in many different languages, like PHP, Ruby, Java, C++, .Net (OpenID can intergrate with Windows CardSpace) etc. Visit http://wiki.openid.net/Libraries for more information on these libraries.

OpenID for dummies

So there you have it. A simple, yet detailed explanation on how to get OpenID setup and why you should be using OpenID. For my South African readers, are there any SA web sites that are employing OpenID?

If you liked this post, please Muti, Stumble, or Bookmark it at del.icio.us. Thanks. ;-)

My browser of choice is Firefox, with a couple of neat plugins I can’t live without.

1. Web Developer Toolbar – for any sort of web development, this is a must have.
2. Searchstatus by Quirk – Need I say more?
3. Foxmarks – I use multiple computers, so this plugin keeps all my Firefox bookmarks synced.
4. coComment – This neat plugin ties into my coComment account, which is how I keep track conversation on blogs I have left a comment on.
5. Read it Later – When I don’t want to bookmark a site or blog post, and neither want to add it to my social bookmarking sites, but I want to “read it later”, this plugin comes in handy. Simple, yet oh-so effective.
6. IE View Lite – right-click on page and view it in Internet Explorer. Stupid web designers that can’t code make us sometimes have to fireup IE.

I have been using Twitter since the end of last year and have found it incredibly useful to keep up to date with what’s happening on the web. But using the web interface or my IM sucks big time. So Snitter is how I read and write my tweets.

My social bookmarking site of choice is del.icio.us. Nothing fancy here other than saving bookmarks that I don’t often frequent, but will probably need to reference later in life.

I have a couple of hosting and web development clients that need to be invoiced from time to time. Blinksale is a total life saver. I don’t need some bloated accounting system, and neither do I have the time to manually create invoices, so with Blinksale I email my customers their invoices and can keep track of those lazy and late payers pretty easily. My customers also have the option of viewing their invoices online to print or add notes.

For notes or quick todo’s, I use Ta-da Lists from 37signals. Quick and easy to add, quick and easy to use.

Then there is the host of Google products that I am sure most of you use. Gmail for email, Google Analytics for keeping track of my blogs traffic stats, Google Docs for documents and spreadsheets that I need to share or collaborate with people and Google Calendar for yip, you guessed it, my calendar.

I consume all my RSS feeds using Bloglines. I have used Bloglines from the start, and although I have tried Google Reader numerous times, I still prefer Bloglines. Must be a comfort thing. ;-)

For communication and all my IM needs, Skype and Google Talk do it for me.

My desktop email and document processing is handled with Office 2007’s range of products. Outlook, Word, Excel etc. 2007 is quite a change for those that were used to using Microsoft’s previous versions 2003 or Office XP, but once you are up and running, I would never turn back. The UI changes are huge productivity enhancements.

I think that’s about it. I’d love to hear your comments on what you think about some of my choices, and if you feeling up to it, blog about your tools of choice and I’ll share some link love. :-D

Anyway, you now will be able to get your favourite Stormhoek wine at Checkers. ;-) I did find their rose at Pick ‘n Pay a while back, but I’m not much of a fan of rose, so never bought a bottle.

As you can see, I still have the first bottle of the Pre-Release Sauvignon Blanc 2007 – courtesy of CherryPicka.

Oh, the 1st 20 bloggers to blog about it, also get a bottle – hence the reason for this post! ;-)

So far I have received 5 schmaaks, made the top 10 list (@ no.8) of most schmaaked blogs and even had my name become part of the top searches! It also is currently listed on the on fire page.

One thing that Technorati has that amatomu should maybe implement is blogs that have been favourited the most. Schmaaks are cool for posts, almost like diggs or votes, but having blogs that that have been favourited the most is also another angle you could look at blogs.

Maybe separate schmaaks and favourites so that schmaaks is more of a digg/muti style of what’s hot right now – which on fire has done perfectly, but instead of showing blogs that have been schmaaked the most, have blogs that have been favourited the most. Then my big fat button I created yesterday will serve it’s purpose very well!

One other small thing, I have to login every time I visit amatomu. Any chance of cookies being implemented? That would help when I post my big fat button and a user clicks on it, they won’t have to login first and then try and find my blog to favourite, the link from my button will work directly.

(Regular posting will return shortly. I just have to get over my crush on amatomu!)

So here is a small guide to getting the most out of amatomu.

Firstly, you don’t have to own a blog to participate. Simply sign up with an email address, and a display name. You need to at least have an amatomu account to benefit from some of the services like schmaaks and favourites which I will get to…

The homepage is broken up into 3 parts. On the left we have postings, middle has the zeitegest and top 30 blogs with the right incorporating the newest amatomu’ed blogs, traffic levels and buzz graphs.

To the left, to the left…

Everything you want in the box on the left. No seriously, Amaleft is where you are going to find those gems I am talking about. The latest blog posts from all blogs listed in amatomu appear on that list sometime or another, and just by browsing those 30 or so latest blog posts, I guarantee that you will find at least 2 posts titles that you will find interesting and will want to click and read. Take 30 seconds and focus on the latest posts every time you visit Amatomu and this one box alone will bring you back for more.

Not only are the latest posts listed on the left, but also hot posts. Hot posts have been schmaaked by amatomu users, so these are also a must browse section. Amarandom is also listed on the left, which displays a couple of random blogs. Think about it as the scratch patch. Every time you visit it, you are almost guaranteed to find a gem of a blog to visit.

Centre – as in the centre of attention

The middle of the Amatomu is for those self centered I-love-being-number-1 A list bloggers. ;-) Keo.co.za rules the rankings by posts and by reads, but by schmaaks is where I am aiming to make an appearance. So please schmaak my blog. Did I mention to please click here and schmaak my blog? Thought so…

Oh ya, AmaCentre also contains the zeitgeist, which always has the tag Google big and bolded. (Don’t we have anything else to talk about? ;-))

AmaRight

Point and laugh folks, point and laugh. AmaRight lists the newest blogs on amatomu. They have to be visited and a comment posted on their blog saying “Shame on you for taking this long to get your blog listed on Amatomu”.

Along with the newest blogs is a flashy graph on page impressions across all blogs on Amatomu. 60 000 seems to be the current daily average and I’m sure within a couple of months it will get up to 100 000!

Buzzgraphs are cool, but you’ll only ever spend around 60 seconds playing around with it before you attention span wilts. It’s like playing with Google trends.

What about the rest?

Trends is also a spot to have a look through every couple of months. Nothing too exciting here but it does show stats on the blogosphere like number of daily posts, blogs by category, page impressions per category and a pie graph on the top 20 blogs.

On fire is a list of the latest blog posts to be schmaaked. Think of it as a live list of blog spots as and when they have been schmaaked.

Once you signed up, grab a badge like this one and pop it on your blog. Show your support for amatomu and also chicks dig it!

Overall amatomu is my favourite website to visit at the moment. I have found some of the most interesting posts and people over the last couple of weeks and even though amatomu is owned by a media company (Mail & Guardian), it is completely focused on giving exposure to bloggers and the SA blogosphere. It freakin rocks!

One last thing…

Some SSP. I sweat blood and tears writing this awesome post, so won’t you add my blog to your favourites as well as Schmaak this post? Nothing is for free, so I’ll return the favour if you would like. ;-)

Amatomu

Being the older of the 2, Amatomu is becoming a daily stop for me. I love reading what South African’s are chatting about and having the latest posts and a zeitgeist that tracks whats keywords are currently hot. Also their admin panel has a really sweet flashy stats engine, that tracks whats cooking on your blogs.

One thing I would like to see is a favourites section. This way not only will you be able to see the top 100 blogs by hits / uniques whatever it is, you will be able to see which blogs have been favourited the most by users. Very much like Technorati’s Top Favorited Blogs. Stats, stats, stats – we just can’t get enough of them, can we? ;-)

Afrigator

Afrigator is very much in its infancy. Signing up was easy enough, but once I had the tracking code, I had no idea what to do next. I closed the AJAX popup panel and I was back to where I started. Slightly confusing…

I then logged in, and went straight to the stats page and found there were numbers already displaying which shouldn’t have happened as I hadn’t even put the code on my site yet!

You can see that Afrigator is very much in Alpha, but it has great potential. One thing I’m sure everyone would like to see is the ability to add multiple blogs on one account. I really don’t want to sign up for multiple accounts.

A feature I’m trying to decide if I like or not is being able to read the blog posts directly in Afrigator. Clicking on the headline of the post opens up the entire blog post for you to read. This may be awesome to some, I’m thinking from a SEO standpoint, it could be flagged as duplicate content, or even worse I could be flagged! Not just duplicate content flagging, my very own content is being displayed on another site! Any thoughts? Maybe offering an excerpt would be a better option.

I just discovered this while playing around, Afrigator also have a top sites section! I wonder what it’s based on? Everyone loves getting near the top, whether its your latest tetris score or your blog being ranked number one on Afrigator or Amatomu. :-)

One small thing, please add a tooltip to the country flags displayed alongside the posts. ;-)

Final Thoughts

If you run a blog, you don’t really have an excuse not to sign up for both services. Connecting your blog with others is what blogging is all about. Both Amatomu and Afrigator have some work to be done, but from what they term “Alpha”, I can’t wait to see what these sites will grow into in the future.