Start-up Update, and a plea for help.

Happy Friday everyone… Sorry it’s been a while since I updated this blog, but as you will see I have been busy.

I’ll start out by letting you all know that I am in the final stages before being able to unleash my first site in the world wide wilderness. TopOf.co.uk is busy having the final changes made by the developers as we speak, and if they can follow our instructions properly (things get a little lost in translation in India) I’m hoping it will be all done by middle to late next week!

That being said we have also started work on our next two sites:

Tazoo.co.za will be a shopping site for the Saffa market, and we have finished the business plan and are shopping around for quotes from developers.

Yuni.co.uk, is probably our most complex and ambitious project, and is aimed at the UK student segment. Yuni, is still in the planning stages, as we know it’s going to cost a fortune to get it done the way we want it. We are considering a staged development process, slowly adding on the new features which will eventually come together to form the final site.

In other news, as you’re probably aware I’m looking forward to my trip home (just a tad), and today I realised that my trip will coincide with the 3rd 27 Dinner in Jo’burg. Chuffed! So I’m all ‘registered’ to go. I do get the feeling though it will be the same vibe as when I go the monthly MiniBar meetings- me on my own desperately looking for people to talk to, and trying my hardest not to look like a loser. I find this rather humourous as a big part of my day job entails networking and I’m pretty damn good at it. In fact anything that revolves around drinking I’m good at.

So I can see it now- I’ll arrive early (as always, can’t bring myself to be ‘fashionably’ late), and hit the bar with a vengeance. Once sufficiently lubricated, I’ll probably try and hit on a girl which will break the ice and I’ll end up having a great evening. So in order to save some poor girl getting the ‘Squirrel’ treatment I am launching the ‘Adopt Grant and save a poor girl from having to get rid of me’ campaign. All that is needed is for someone to acknowledge my existence prior to arriving at 27. In other words I’m looking for someone to say, “Hey Grant, I look forward to meeting you at 27.”- No Mom, you don’t count, and no I don’t think it will be cool if you come along to hold my hand while I try make friends!

Man, it’s like the first day at school all over again!

Comparison Site Critique: bluesting.co.za

bluesting.co.za has been in development in one form or the other for over 2 years, as stated by their site. From what I can see this period of development has been well worth the wait and considering it is still in beta I can only see good things happening.

bluesting is currently focused on tech products and I must commend them for showing restraint and not trying to cover every vertical straight away. The result is a fast and easy to use site which plays to it’s strengths. The search function is one of the most intuitive I have used, by any standard, and the results are provided instantly with exceptional relevance.

bluesting have not necessarily followed the ‘international template’ in terms of layout so for me it took a bit getting used to, but this must not be seen as a negative as I (as a user) have been so indoctrinated by international sites. For new users the learning curve should be very quick.  The topic of layout brought my attention to another interesting aspect of bluesting. They have positioned themselves as a comparison shopping solution, rather than an out and out price aggregator. While I feel this works perfectly with the type of products they are displaying currently, it will take some serious tweaking to get the same use out of it when comparing other product categories.

The site is definitely been built with the South African market in mind as it lacks omits the bulky ‘web 2.0′ fonts and graphics, which while practical, doesn’t appeal to me. (Damn AdWords again) A simple redesign could fix this however, and my guess is that once more users obtain broadband that bluesting will feel that they can make the site look better without sacrificing the speed and usability which at the moment seems to be the focus- and rightly so.

Commercially bluesting operate on a CPC basis, and as I’ve explained this model in previous posts I won’t go through it again, just suffice to say that it is very much a standard in the comparison shopping space worldwide. The AdWords which irritate me so much are unfortunately a necessity at this stage, and I hope bluesting reconsider their use as the site grows.

From a sales/marketing point of view I do feel that bluesting do go a bit over the top when describing their technology. This is not to take away from the obvious advanced system they have built but to claim “exact geo-location (country) of banner clicks” is a little exaggerated. Geo-targeting has become standard practice amongst online marketers, and by highlighting this point using that wording comes across a bit like a Verimark ad.

The message I get from the ‘about us’ page reads a bit like a VCR instruction page. Lots of jargon and buzzwords which at the end of the day don’t aid the user but only intimidate them. Considering that most merchants in South Africa need to be educated, and most budget holders/marketing managers are not familiar with this technology perhaps bluesting should consider cutting the crap and just telling merchants the key advantages (insert USP’s fella’s) in plain English. This was disappointing, because when I emailed bluesting fishing for information for this post, the response was excellent and honest.

This aside bluesting is still a good service, and should be very interesting once out of beta.

Barcamp | MiniBar

I started my crazy weekend by heading off to my second ‘MiniBar‘. An offshoot of the immensely popular BarCamp, MiniBar is aimed at providing a monthly get-together for geeks, developer, investors, web enthusiasts etc.

Fiday’s theme was-”Online Video – What to do with all this user generated content?” Upon arriving I bumped into John again whom I had met at my first minibar. His mobile blog on the speakers is far more comprehensive than any attempt by me of trying to retell the story after the fact. (Free beer will do that to you.)

Personally my attention waned after Drupal spoke, as the topic was not something that I am particularly interested in yet. All the legal mumbo jumbo involved in online video really gets me down, and unfortunately my current entrepreneurial mood does take kindly to unnecessary distractions and constraints.

The minibar concept however is a great success, and the fact that they had to close the registrations at 170 ppl must be very encouraging for the organiser Christian. My congrats go out to him and all those who helped make MiniBar an event I will definitely be attending more often.

Comparison Site Critique: PriceCheck.co.za

Here’s the second installment of my critiques of South African shopping/price comparison sites. Today’s subject is PriceCheck.co.za

PriceCheck was started by Kevin Tucker, and from I can gather launched in June 2006. Since then it has attracted and average of 3700 uniques a month, which is pretty impressive since doing a Google SA search for “Apple iPod” does not yield any natural results for PriceCheck. They have got Adwords but it isn’t very targeted and I would suggest they address this issue as it will make a huge improvement to their ICR (internal conversion rate).

At first glance I am unable to get clarification on their business model, but I have a good guess and this will become clear later on.

Kevin stated on his blog in December ’06 that PriceCheck had 15000 products in the database with 30000 more coming. This is damn impressive, especially if this is being done manually on his own. Although I don’t think these are being created from scratch as PriceCheck looks like it is using the Yahoo! API- although I do not know this as a fact.

Yahoo! own a ‘little’ comparison site called Kelkoo, which bears remarkable similarities to PriceCheck. Note the following comparisons for LCD tv’s:

PriceCheck

Kelkoo

It was after noticing this that I was able to have a stab at what model PriceCheck are using. My guess is PriceCheck are also using a CPC model, with preference given to merchants which are paying the CPC. I have no issues with this practice, although I do think it is important to communicate to the user that the first placed merchant is not necessarily the cheapest. You are a ‘price’ comparison site after all, and the user assumes that the top merchant is cheaper. Now before everyone has a go at me saying that as a user surely that is common sense, let me say- no it isn’t. Users are inherently lazy and stupid (that’s why they use a comparison site in the first place.)

At this stage I can say that I prefer PriceCheck to Jump in many ways, most noticably is the usability, but this may be biased as I am just used to using Kelkoo which PriceCheck seems to be modelled on.

The site is quick and search results are, on the whole, relevent. The integration with Justin’s- Grabble, is a smart move and means that Jump don’t get too far ahead in their partnerships within search.

So PriceCheck gets points for usability, but loses out on design and innovation. If some work could be done to make the site better looking (losing some of the Adsense could help) without sacrificing the speed, this site would be excellent.

Overall- I like!

Joost launched

Yeah boy, now we’re talking. Step aside YouTube, take your grainy, low quality, ad infested content and take a hike. (I actually love YouTube, but that rant sounded more dramatic.)

Introducing -Joost (pronounced: ‘Juiced’ as in LiquiFruit not as in Van der Westhuizen)- an interactive, IP-based TV software system from the people who brought you Kazaa and Skype, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, considerably richer after the $2.6bn purchase of the telephony start-up by eBay.

Rather than butcher various articles I’m gonna show you some screenshots, and recommend this article.

Comparison Site Critique: Jump.co.za

Jump.co.za

Currently South Africa’s most visited comparison site, Jump follow a tried and tested cost-per-click (CPC) business model. CPC has become somewhat of an international standard amongst comparison sites, and the decision of Jump to follow this model obviously stems from it’s international use.

I’m going to be looking at Jump from three different points of view; the user, the merchant, and as Jump.

Users’ view

As a user I have the following expectations.

• I am using a comparison site to compare products, prices and stores.
• I need a fast efficient service, as this is supposed to save me time and money.
• I am not an expert, and will need to be educated about a product.
• By the end of this process I want to buy a product and be satisfied that I have made a good decision.

As an example I will pretend to purchase a LCD tv, and having heard that I can get a good deal on the internet I make a search on Google SA. (Jump does not appear in the natural listings nor the sponsored links)

Since a mate told me about a site called Jump I enter the url into my browser, and wait…and wait, for the page to load. Fortunately I’m at work rather than at home where I have dial-up.

Once loaded I notice that the homepage is simple and relatively clean. A couple ads but not overly intrusive, so I pay no attention and focus on my goal. I sus the page out, and realize that I’ll probably get to where I want to be quickest if I just enter my search into the search bar. I wait… (hells bells, Google searched the entire web in under a second, but this is taking about a minute on their own page). Cool- 540 search results, lots to choose from.. but what’s this… the first result is for a lcd tv box. The list is sorted by relevance and the first entry is a box? Not very relevant is it? No matter, mistakes happen, next listing- Acer 26″ LCD for R8,500- that’s better, but I would prefer a 32″. I’m a very silly user aren’t I, I should’ve searched for that in the first place. So I change my search, (pity I can’t filter the result I already have), and I wait again. Ah, success! A page of 32″ LCD tv’s- 78 of them. Why are some of the pictures missing? Why do some of the descriptions say, “Sorry, there are no products details available for this item” but then there is a button saying ‘go to store’? I am a very confused user.

I persist and click on a panasonic tv (the picture looks nice but I’d like to learn more.) Not much additional info here but there is a link for product info (thought i was already there, oh well)-click. How kind of Jump- they managed to direct me halfway down the same page to tell me that I was looking at a panasonic and that I can visit there website, but I can’t click on the link. I go back up the page and see that I have the ‘choice’ of 1 retailer. I give up- I’m off to Sandton City.

Goals acheived: fast-no, could I compare- no, was I educated about a product- no.

User rating: 2/10

Merchant view

I am an online only retailer selling LCD tv’s. I am significantly cheaper than anyone else in South Africa, but I have no brand identity. I am looking at price comparison sites to:

• Sell my products
• Increase awareness of my brand

So I go to Jump and explore their merchant information. I like the partnerships with the search engines, and the white-label solution seems well integrated. So- much does it cost?

“Your products are listed at Jump Shopping on a performance basis meaning that you are only charged for the leads that are generated by Jump Shopping. You are not charged for the window shopping …”[link]

What!?! This is misleading, as it implies an exchange of information. Are Jump going to give me the name and contact details of a user- because that’s what a lead is. No, they are going to charge me for a click. Fair enough, I understand CPC, so why the smoke and mirrors? Why not educate me on the benefits of CPC advertising. Not the greatest way to start off a potential relationship is it?

Nevermind- I’m also a salesman so I can identify with your plight.

So lets talk technical- nope no info online, gonna have email them- I really can’t wait for the sales pitch response email. They do mention a Merchant Account Center, which appeals to me, and they say I can monitor how many clicks are being delivered, but is there any ROI tracking?- dunno.

Goals achieved: Brand awareness- yes, Sell my products- probably but no way of telling whether I’m actually making money off it.

Merchant rating: 6/10

Jump’s View (My assumptions)

We have managed to take a tried and tested web business model, and created a comparison site for South Africa. We ourselves are very new, and are still working out the kinks of our system, however we’ve seen it work for others so why not South Africa. Sure, we know that there aren’t a lot of retailers, and we know that broadband penetration is key to our success, however we’re adopting a ‘first is best’ approach. We’ll gobble up the market, and when things do kick off one of the global players will come along we’ll be attractive to purchase. Ka-ching!

My conclusion

Jump is a generic solution adopted from the international market. It has not catered for the South African market, and is not doing itself any favours by failing to educate the user or merchant. The structure of their site is the same as others which are 5 yrs old (Imagine if Google was still using an old algorithm.)

That being said- It is a good looking site, and with a few tweaks could be excellent. My comments on the number of retailers could be premature due to the age of Jump, and with more retailers will come better performance. My advise however it to ditch the sales pitch. Explain to merchants what CPC is properly, and why you work on CPC. Explain that you too need to buy in traffic and have rev share deals in place which dictate to you that you attribute a cost per click internally in order to make sure you’re making money.

Google funny

Imagine my surprise today when analysing my incoming traffic referrers to my personal blog and found some rather amusing search terms pointing to it:

thecolony pub

thecolony drinking

thecolony drunk

Hungarian porno clips ?????? WTF!!

Imagine the poor sod looking for his daily dose of hungarian smut, only to find himself reading about my trip to Rome! lol

UPDATE: Google has re-crawled my blog and is no longer listing it on the first page of the AOL syndicated search results.  Damn!

Dell Inspiron 9400-NEW- R570.00

Sweet!

With thanks to Henk Kleynhans for this tit-bit of info!

Dell South Africa have cocked up and are offering one of their notebooks for £40 including delivery. Fortunately once my first order was bounced because I was using a UK card and a SA address, I swiftly contacted a mate back home so they could benefit. Success!

Now we just have to see if they fulfill the order. Head over the Henk’s blog for details on how to get your own.

Mountain out of a molehill

Hectic! In a new development over at TechCrunch UK Mike Stopforth’s blog the guys trying to organise 27 are taking a bit of heat over the fact that they are branding it.

Having only started taking part in this community recently (the 6000 miles makes it hard to relate and participate). I’ve commented there already, but just to reiterate that I found the whole thing quite amusing and this must be quite a frustrating time for Mike and Dave in particular who also took a bit of flack over their podcast- Amplitude (see previous post below).

Thankfully this little debate has not boiled over to the point of the TechCrunch saga, and fortunately the personalities/ego’s involved seem to have a handle of things.

P.S.: For all you conspiracy theorists- Maybe this is all just a clever ploy by the combined marketing geniuses of Cerebra to raise awareness for their brand. Following the recent press of the TechCrunch UK saga in the blogging community, they’ve created their own micro-saga! Brilliant! Oh- and they’re all aliens too.

Shopping SA, Evangelists, Barriers

Shopping comparison sites in SA

I work and have worked with some of the big players in the shopping comparison industry globally, and have been keeping track of South African e-commerce since my days at Varsity.

Recently there have been a few comparison sites sprout up in SA, all of whom (IMO) are falling into the same traps as the industry leaders worldwide. In defense of the industry leaders these faults are not unknown to them and exist due to the historical nature of their business, and the architecture of their sites.

South African companies are adopting a serious sheep mentality when developing their sites. Now I fully understand that they are of the thinking ‘if it works, don’t fix it’, but surely when embarking on setting up a business you would have consulted with people with experience to see the shortfalls and constraints of a particular system. As this blog develops I will be giving a critique of the comparison sites in SA, and giving readers a greater insight into the inner workings of the shopping comparison industry to better explain what I mean by shortfalls and constraints.

Compliments to some South African New Media evangelists

Mike Stopforth and Dave Duarte have just released the second installment of their podcast Amplitude. I have been an avid reader of both these guys for a while now, and the podcast is excellent. You don’t have to be geek to enjoy their show, and the conversational style does not fail to still engage the audience. If you’re new to New Media, these guys offer an great insight to the going’s on in the industry. They are also a great source for me to keep abreast of the development of the industry in South Africa, as being 6000 miles away can leave you a little out of the loop. Keep up the good work guys!

Barriers to South Africa joining the 2.0 revolution

There are a few I can mention here but for this post I will point out just the one, which I feel is the biggest. Broadband penetration.

I know this is not an original thought, just my 5 cents worth:
The cost of true broadband in SA is a joke. To give you an idea I pay £30 a month for 20 meg broadband. This is by no means the cheapest or to be honest the best provider, but it works for me.

In order to fully utilise the web these days you really need to be getting over 1 meg, and in the UK I don’t think any provider offers less that 2 megs. In fact you can get free broadband at that speed. Once the broadband market is allowed to flourish, that is when we will see South African solutions take off.