Presidency of Two Holy Mosques Starts Website

This is interesting…

The Presidency of the two Holy Mosques has started a website in order to enlighten the public about its activities. Phase 1 of the website is already launched and allows people to watch the prayers and sermons at the two mosques (The Prophet’s (SAW) Mosque in Madinah and Masjid-Al-Haram in Makkah) as well as offering 45,000 recordings of the recitation of the Quran as well as Islamic Lectures.

Phase 2 will provide e-education services and indexing of rare books and calligraphic writings. English and other Major languages will also be included in the second phase. The website also includes tons of other information such as How to perform Hajj and Umrah, Speeches in Arabic, Urdu and english, Prayer times in Makkah and Madinah, etc.

The website is http://www.gph.gov.sa

Blogger’s Code of Conduct

Recently there have been calls for a Bloggers Code of Conduct, unfortunately, no one seems to be listening yet… at least not any of the bloggers I know of.

Maybe bloggers should get more involved in drafting this, also a more credible agency needs to be responsible for implementing the code, otherwise it’ll just be another blogpost on its own. Something I think would really work is if a body is formed which can validate various blogs who apply and they can get certified as adhering to the code of conduct.

This is a good initiative but I can’t really see the practicality of its implementation.

Some other blogs have already have their codes of conduct up for some time anyway.

Another question to ask is… what would this really change? Isn’t it just another regulating feature of a phenomenon which can’t really be regulated?
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Code of Conduct

Advertising Cutbacks should make Marketers more Effective

With the World’s dipping economy and the US recession corporations could look to cutting back Marketing and Advertising budgets in order to save money. It might not make sense, from a marketers point of view, to cut back marketing spend during tough times but this could usher in a new challenge to the marketing fraternity in terms of making their marketing strategy and plans more effective.

Marketing has cemented its place in the global economy as a key department which ensures the creation of wealth. Reading a recent Bizcommunity article, a figure quoted was that of 20% of all advertising in South Africa, not only being ineffective, but actually damaging the brand it’s supposed to promote. Another R50 bn was quoted as being “wasted” marketing spend every year in South Africa. That’s an extremely huge number to ignore, and although I can’t find the global figures, one can only assume that these numbers remain roughly the same across different countries if not getting even worse.

Research agencies such as Millward Brown, Mindshare, AC Nielsen and Initiative are excellent tools for corporations to use in terms of understanding fully how to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of their marketing spend. Tons of money gets spent on market research every year which test everything from distribution to ad effectiveness.

What’s missing is the appropriate use of the information on every level of the marketing plan. Millward Brown has years of experience testing various ads and what separates the great ads from the good ones, those that exceed objectives and those which just barely meet them. This information is even broken down by country and LSM profile which means you get extremely targeted information. Using this information as criteria for judging creative work from agencies will put the effectiveness of ads on a whole new playing field.

Another aspect is the choosing of appropriate media, especially from a South African perspective, not many corporations are taking advantage of the new media landscape in terms of leveraging their brands on social media platforms such as Facebook, Myspace and even Twitter. Mindshare and Initiative are companies which specialize in media and have information which cover all types of consumer interaction with brands. Are we really using our media agencies to their full capacity? A few brands are, the rest are getting left behind.

Essentially what is being proposed is going right back to the basics of marketing, getting the core of the brand on the right path and following on from thereto make effective and efficient marketing plans and strategies. It is no longer the case of making a great ad and watching sales fly, consumers are more media and marketing savvy and they now have less to spend. Marketers need to ask… “What will make them spend the little money they have left on my brand?”

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Marketing, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Agency, Research

South Africa’s First Web 2.0 Radio DJ

Well, I think I made some new ground in terms of pushing South African Radio to new limits, even if it was only with the last hours of the KZN Muslim Community Radio Station, Radio Al-Ansaar. I host a show called “WIRED”, every Saturday during the Radio Station’s tenure which lasts about a month at a time (they’re still trying for a full license to operate all year long).

Anyway, the last few hours I was talking about occurred on Friday night , approaching the midnight hour and although I had enough material to keep the show going I though I should spruce it up by getting input from anybody on-line via Twitter and Facebook. Since the radio station also has audio streaming, this made it a bit easier to get a worldwide audience involved.

So I did get a lot of requests and dedications via Twitter and Facebook from places like Doha and London, this was exclusive of the SMS’s and telephone calls we were receiving throughout the show. So there you have it… South Africa’s first live Talk show with requests put in via Twitter and Facebook. I think other Radio station like East Coast Radio and 5fm should start doing the same. It’s easier, faster and you can definitely get a world-wide base of radio listeners inputting into your radio show LIVE.

I’m just assuming I’m the first one to do this, since I haven’t heard any other Radio DJ’s take requests via any Web 2.0 applications… but if I’m not the first, please let me know!

Let’s hope this is just taste of things to come for South African Radio. We can revolutionise the way we communicate on a mass scale! This can even be rolled out to TV shows.

Technorati Tags: Radio, Al-Ansaar, Alansaar, Twitter, Facebook, Talk Show, First, South African, Muhammad Karim, Wired

Twitter, Banned in Dubai?

Just got his bit of news from Techtree.

The message reads: “We apologise the site you are trying to visit
has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the
religious, cultural, political, and moral values of the United Arab
Emirates.”

Apparently Dubai has blocked the Twitter site, but there’s no indication as to why. There is speculation over governments seeing Twitter as a threat to their sovereignty, but come on. Firstly, this is Dubai, one of the most liberal places in the UAE, also, which self-respecting internet user won’t figure out all the anonymous browsing websites there are out there to get hold of twitter anyway?

This story is seriously dodgy.

Access Denied: A Global Study of Internet Censorship

Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering is a new book which is hitting the shelves, providing the first rigorous look at Internet Censorship and filtering practices in over three dozen countries world-wide. It’s always been known that many countries censor all types of sites on the net covering political, sexual, cultural and religious issues but this is the first study to give us a clear sense of the nature Internet Censorship.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Internet, Censorship, Access Denied, Study

The Genetic Chain of Command

Carl Zimmer @ Wired has an interesting article which covers the new discoveries revolving around the structure of genes and DNA and how all the wiring works.

We all already know that DNA helps structure life and carry out its functions. But this is not enough, the genes need to become active at the right place and the right time, otherwise if they were firing randomly we’d end up as one big pile of mush. Scientists have then discovered that there are a few genes which regulate the rest and these genes are responsible for switching on and off the many various other genes which make up an organism. Basically, the genes formed a chain of command, where a few were responsible for activating and deactivating the rest.

What makes it a bit more complicated is that as certain genes are switched on and off, the one which was switched on by one gene could switch off that same gene which activated it, in order to create a balance.

I guess the really interesting question here is , how do these genes know what to do? Where is the deep intelligence at the core which tells it how life should be structured? Where did this come from? Did it really just form from years of evolution a sort of “inherited intelligence”? I don’t buy the explanation that we’re all randomly created through natural selection.

As Zimmer himself says at the end of his article… “The source of their strength lies not in a single molecule — DNA — but in a complicated web of relationships. The network itself is the mystery for biologists in the 21st Century.”

Related Topics :
DNA Found to Have “Impossible” Telepathic Properties

Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.

I’ve found God says man who cracked human genome.

“I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”

For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

Technorati Tags: DNA, Genes, Wired, Carl Zimmer, Collins, Genetics

Sometimes I wake up screaming, too.

This is from Tom Horacek’s new book “All We Ever Do Is Talk About Wood.”

The Vancouver artist’s first book, it’s a collection of single panel gags that seem to act as a celebration of pain, suffering, and life’s slow march to the grave. But the bitterness is sweetened by Horacek’s too-cute renderings. His round-headed characters not only evoke images of Charles Schulz’s Charlie Brown, but also the Peanuts-creator’s philosophy that “happiness isn’t funny.”

An eclectic concoction, making the serious seem comical and vice-versa. Poking holes in our comfort zones so we re-assess reality. This is the type of humour I like, Dark and Deep. Interesting.

Technorati Tags: Tom Horacek, Vacnouver, Book, Dark, Deep

Japanese Lunch Art – Album Covers

How cool is this? This is called Bento Art in Japan where the lunch can be made to resemble art of all forms, these are album covers (Duh!). I would have loved to have my lunch looking like this when I was back in school. But, then again, what is the lunch made of?

Technorati Tags: Japanese, Art, Food, Lunch, Albums

Mental Detox Week – April 21- 27

The idea is simple: take your TV, your DVD player, your video iPod, your XBOX 360, your laptop, your PSP, and say goodbye to them all for seven days. Simple, but not at all easy. Like millions of others before you, you’ll be shocked at just how difficult – yet also how life-changing – a week spent unplugged can really be.

The guys at Adbusters have been doing the above campaign which used to be dubbed TV Turnoff Week, for quite a few years now. I think it’s a great exercise in general even if we don’t totally disconnect ourselves from technology but just take a break from it all. Go outside, take a walk, play a sport, read a book. We do need some form of balance in our lives and I feel this initiative could be a very rewarding exercise. I don’t agree with it being just one week though… this should be a weekly habit where you take time off from the Robot-Race and just chill with a world other than the virtual.

Renew yourself, Disconnect.

Technorati Tags: Mental Detox, Turnoff, Relax, Disconnect

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