What is it about? “The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.” 

It has a brilliant cast on top of it, Morgan Freeman as Mandela, Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar & directed by Clint Eastwood.

I’ll be buying tickets to see this as soon as humanly possible

Pew Internet & American Life Project released some interesting stats on Twitter users in the US. The summary is that one of five (19%) US internet users now uses Twitter, according to an Oct. 21, 2009, article from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. This figure indicates an increase in Twitter usage over the 11% found in two previous Pew surveys.

Three groups account for most of the increase in Twitter use:

1. people who use social networks
2. those who access the internet via some mobile device
3. younger internet users (under 44 years old)

What type of people tweet? The below graph shows a nice mixture of age, race & demographics. Note that more women seem to tweet than men in the US.

Social Network Users:

35% of internet users who use social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook or, LinkedIn also use Twitter (35%), compared with just 6% of internet users who do not use social network sites. Those who use social networks account for 47% of all internet users.

Mobile Internet Users:

From September 2009, 54% of US internet users access the Web via a wireless connection from a laptop, cell phone, gaming console or other mobile device. One in four (25%) wireless users uses Twitter or another similar service; in December 2008, only 14% did. Among internet users who rely on a tethered connection, 8% use Twitter, up from 6% in December 2008.

So it seems that more devices a person has access to, the more likely it is that she or he will use a status-update service such as Twitter. Some 39% of people who have four or more internet-connected devices (e.g., laptop, cell phone, game console, or Kindle) use Twitter, compared with 28% of internet users who have three devices, 19% of those with two, and 10% of internet users with just one. This is definitely the case with me. I’ll Tweet from work or home when on my laptop, otherwise via my mobile phone when I’m on the run or too lazy to log on.

So Twitter is definitely on the rise, not just in the US but worldwide. As more and more people gain access to the internet, especially via mobile for the poorer countries where mobiles are easier to obtain than PC’s or laptops, the more people want to feel connected. Twitter is catching on fast.

Ogilvy Cape Town with SAB came up with this fantastic ad. Sure, it’s maybe a bit corny, but the fact that I’ve played it over and over and still love it says alot. It’s catchy and it works. The ad promots & highlights the Castle Lite’s new thermocromatic ink stickers which appear blue when at the beer’s ideal temperature for consumption is reached. Ice cold that is.

Here is the making of the ad. I love going behind the scenes seeing how it’s all put together. Great job Ogilvy, SAB & cast.

So what’s the use and how does it work? If you search for anything fashion related, the search engine filters tweets using keywords related to fashion and displays what’s trending in the fashion world in real time. So it works the same real normal search works, but is specialised to the fashion industry. I did a search for “New York Fashion Week” and up came all the latest tweets on New York’s Fashion Week. The site aims to target 18 to 24 year-old women / all those fashion conscious & integrates itself with shopping site Viva Swag to help users find & purchase products quickly after identifying the latest trends. ”That’s Swag!” – will this become Paris Hilton’s new catch phrase, after the much publicised, “That’s Hot.” Let’s see, but in the meantime, That’s So Swag.

As the CherryFlava guys stated (on the lack of much marketing for 2010 thus far), “at least somebody’s got their arse in gear and showing some interest.”

“The Parlotones are known for their electric, polished stage performances delivered against the backdrop of their deftly crafted and darkly romantic lyrics. Their sound, described as alternative in their formative years and influenced by the likes of Muse, Radiohead and the Smiths, has evolved substantially becoming more refined and focused with each album.”

They have very recently come up with something very exciting, a new & incredibly, exciting wine – “Giant Mistake.” A select few (the rockstar AfrigatorGuys) in SA have had the opportunity to taste this exciting new venture & from what’s been heard, only rave reviews are out there.

About the wine – “I feel that wine is often associated with romance and the romanticism in The Parlotones lyrics makes this combination ideal. I would describe ‘Giant Mistake’ as a wine where sophistication meets creativity.” Kahn Morbee (lead vocalist of The Parlotones)

The amazing guys over at Afrigator & Hands on Wine are running a fantastic competition to win a private dinner with the award-winning Parlotones. What an offer huh? I shouldn’t really advertise such an awesomecompetition as it lessens my prospects, but with such an exciting product on its’ way to the public, how can one not give kudos to such an awesome band, who will hopefully release their wine to their fans in the very near future.

Exciting times guys, well done to The Parlotones, Afrigator & Hands on Wine. It’s a fantastic collaboration and I for one definitely look forward to a rockstar dinner. It would be a giant mistake not to pick me

* Google generated $1.8 billion for AdSense partner sites, or 30 percent of revenues.
* Paid clicks on AdSense ads were up 14 percent annually and up 4 percent from the second quarter BUT
* Cost per click (or how much Google and AdSense publishers make from each of those clicks) was down 6% annually and 5% sequentially.

The breakdown is covered in this impressive slide-show, found on TechCrunch.

Facts:

• MySpace still leads the pack with 9.2% of all online ads.
• Facebook is a close second with 8.2%.
• The 3.7% of online ads served on social networks is split among such sites as Tagged.com, Hi5.com, Bebo and other smaller sites – most of them with only 0.1% share or less of the total online ad market.

Should this percentage increase? Do any of you actually click on ads on a social network.? Personally, I get annoyed with the ads. I switched to Facebook Lite instead of the old, standard Facebook layout because the ads irritated me and just made the page load time that much slower (being in Africa). I get the point that people on social networks are generally ‘browsing’ around, therefore perhaps in less of a hurry to ‘look for’ something & possibly  more open to clicking on something that may interest them. But personally, i just find it annoying. When I’m watching a YouTube video, I’m generally not looking for other things to look at simultaneously, so why the ads? Yes, yes, to make money, but what about the user experience?

Perhaps it’s just me, but more ads on social networks is not something I look forward to. I want my social / personal experience to be ME time and not advertisers time to hamper the experience. Anyone else feel the same?