I love the fact that there are more independent voices emerging in South African media and former Financial Mail hack Duncan McLeod’s new website, TechCentral, is shaping up to be an interesting and highly informative one. Grubstreet speaks to McLeod about striking out from the corporate world to go it alone.

Duncan McLeod.

GILL: What prompted you to leave the security of a full-time job with Financial Mail to set up your own business?

DUNCAN: I’d been at the FM for 12 years and I’d been itching to do something new for a while. I could have gone to work for another print publication, but I was also keen to do something more entrepreneurial. The Internet is changing the dynamics of the media industry, allowing entrepreneurially minded journalists to set up media businesses without the high costs associated with printing magazines or newspapers. We’re only beginning to see the changes the Internet is going to bring to the media industry and I wanted to be involved in that change, and outside the confines of a traditional media company.

GILL: How did you prepare (e.g. research and getting funding) for setting up your own business?

DUNCAN: NewsCentral Media (my company that publishes TechCentral) is self-funded. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the experience and reputation I built up in SA’s ICT industry over the past decade working at the FM. I have been able to get TechCentral off the ground because leaders of companies in the sector are supporting me from scratch with advertising on six- and 12-month contracts. I sold the vision for TechCentral to selected companies and they have come on board from the start with support.

I am now in the process of signing new advertisers.

Of course, maintaining the strict line between editorial and advertising is very important, and I’m managing that carefully. Advertising does not buy special treatment and my advertisers know that.

GILL: Any regrets?

DUNCAN: None so far. Perhaps my only regret is not having the courage to do this sooner.

GILL: Is it a one-man show or do you employ staff?

DUNCAN: As a self-funded start-up you have to manage cash flows very carefully, so I’m approaching things cautiously. But I hope to hire a journalist in the first quarter of next year. I also desperately need a book-keeper and administrative assistant. But for now I’m happy working 20-hour days. After all, I’m doing it for myself, not an employer, and this completely changes your perspective on things.

GILL: How’s your traffic shaping up?

DUNCAN: Growing nicely every week. I have a set target for month six and I’m on track to meeting that well ahead of schedule. I also have plans to advertise the site and am looking at various options as we speak.

GILL: When do you aim to break even and move into profit?

DUNCAN: TechCentral is profitable from the start.

GILL: What are your long-term plans for TechCentral?

DUNCAN: To build it into South Africa’s leading quality technology news site. I want it to be people’s first-choice destination for technology news and opinion.

I have plans for other websites in the NewsCentral Media stable. For now, though, all my attention is focused on TechCentral.

GILL: What has been the biggest learning curve since you started?

DUNCAN: Learning to use accounting software!  Seriously. I am thick when it comes to accounting but it’s critically important to running a successful business.

It is imperative to have a good accountant who doesn’t mind you asking him stupid questions as you figure these things out for the first time. It’s also important to have the right technology partners, which I have in Synaq and Vox Telecom.

GILL: I’m not sure if you’re using WordPress. Are your technology partners helping with the site’s development or are you hacking code into the wee hours?

DUNCAN: Synaq provides LAMP stack support (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). Vox Telecom provides hosting on a dedicated virtualised server running Ubuntu Linux and also helps me out with some of the more complex HTML and CSS hacks.

I’m glad you don’t think I’m using WordPress. I am. I played around with Drupal and Joomla before launch but decided that WordPress is ideal for my needs. It’s easy to use, there’s plenty of support for it, and it really has evolved from a blogging platform into a fully fledged CMS.

Popularity: 12% [?]

If you’re a blogger, you want to be Seth Rotherham of 2oceansvibe, the very successful one-man blog that is consistently in Amatomu’s top 10 most popular list. 2oceansvibe has more than 40 000 unique users a month, 200 000 page views and users spend an average of about three to four minutes on site. Seth’s blog is a laugh and I love his “work is a sideline, live the holiday” persona. He gives the original Mr Conspicuous Consumption, David Bullard, a run for his money. So, guess what?, Grubstreet has discovered that this is in fact his day job; it’s not a persona. Read this Q&A with the savvy marketer to find out more about how he did it… in Cape Town, the south of France and Hollywood.

Palm trees and champagne... it's all part of marketing plan.

Q. You appear to have loads of advertising on your blog. Is this your day job?

A. Yeah, it’s my day job. It’s been going for seven years now and if you look at the level the site’s at, it’s got a Google page ranking of 5 out of 10, which is very high.

Q. And is it just you?
A. Yeah, it’s just me and it’s very much the only thing I do.

Q. And are you turning a profit?
A. Absolutely. My regular sponsors pay about R5 000 each plus their clothing and apparel and things that I get with it. And a one-off article on my site like the odd editorial for premium brands, that’s R10 000.

Q. To me you’re an excellent example of how the web has democratised publishing because you don’t need to be a JSE-listed company to be a publisher. Although there is a high skills barrier. If you can’t write, you wouldn’t be able to do what you’re doing.
A. Absolutely. I remember at school trying my heart out to write English essays and I don’t think I got higher than a B. I was always trying to write like Wilbur Smith and no one at school told you that you should just find your own style… What I write is not necessarily grammatically correct but I do it on the website because of readability. I write the way I talk… and it seems to work well. People would rather read my website in that style with the odd swear word thrown in that assures them that it’s a private entity rather than reading the crap the journalists are writing. Newspaper like the Cape Times are crap. They just regurgitate and there’s no research. And this constant reporting on Jacob Zuma and Helen Zille. People are tired of it… How many times do we have to read that the world cup stadium won’t be ready in time?

Q. It seems to me that the most successful blogs are suffused with the blogger’s personality.
A. Definitely. You can see there’s a definite brand of humour I’m throwing around in my articles and videos. I don’t get it right all the time as you can see I’m in rush but sometimes I sit down for a few hours and write a really funny, long story.

Q. I’m sure people read your blog and think “Jeez, he’s got the perfect job as he doesn’t work in the corporate world” but blogging is relentless.
A. Well, I love writing. I love having a say and swaying people’s opinions and promoting things that I believe are good and right and cool. So the blog is 100% me and to be in Los Angeles or the south of France and be writing about it — I mean what more do you want to do in life? And to be doing it and be paid for it is wonderful. You’ve seen the slogan of the website is “Work is a sideline. Live the holiday” and I do and encourage people to find their niche. A friend of mine is a surfer and he’s just stopped his normal job and become a surf photographer and he’s good at it too. I’ve done my time as a nine to fiver – I worked in London for three years. I feel for the nine to fivers out there and, God, we need them. I know it’s not that easy to take the risk if you’ve got a kid but people find that the risk after you take the jump is not that great.

Q. What makes 2oceansvibe so popular? Do you think it’s got to do with you selling a lifestyle to which people aspire?
A. Absolutely. One hundred percent of my reasoning to having palm trees etc (on the website) is that – like sex –holiday sells. The holiday life, the champagne, fast cars, sea and sun and beautiful people – people love that. They want to be on holiday.

Q. On the technical aspects, are you using Wordpress?
A. Yes.

Q. And do you do it all yourself?
A. I’ve got a guy who helps with the development. I’ll ask him to help if something’s not working or I’ll ask him: ‘How do I do this?’

Q. Everybody needs a smart buddy like that. I think you’re marketing genius.
A. Gee, thanks. I come from a marketing background. I’ve got a degree in marketing and my dad is a marketing director. My mom’s always been an MD of whatever company she’s been at.

Q. It strikes me that there a lot of very smart people in the blogosphere whom 20 years ago would have worked in the corporate world. What do you think about that?
A. I’ve always found shortcuts. I fancied myself as a writer so I thought I’d do a blog. I’d like to have my own TV show so I just made my own little web show and the next thing I found myself in Hollywood with Pauly Shore. I suppose it’s sneaky routes into things rather than going through training to be a journalist – like working at the Cape Times or something. I mean, come on, they’d pay me fuck all.

Click here to go to 2oceansvibe and watch out for an article I’ve  written on the blogosphere featuring  Seth (among others) for The Weekender newspaper, which comes out on Saturdays. Click here to read an interview with Nigel Louw, a news photographer in East London who started a happening fishing blog a year ago.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The blogosphere is thumping with chutzpah – creative people who decided to go it alone online, usually with no money.
Grubstreet is interviewing three very different, successful bloggers – Nigel Louw, Michael Trapido and Seth Rotherham – to find out the secret of their success. You’ve seen them moving up the Amatomu rankings and here’s the people behind the blog.

Daily Dispatch photographer and fisherman Nigel Louw started his blog, Fishing the Eastern Cape, in October last year and it has been quietly climbing up the Amatomu rankings. It is now hovering around the number 50 mark and gets about 9 500 visits a month and 3 300 unique users with people spending an average time of more than five minutes on the blog. There are more than 300 registered users on the blog.
The time spent on the blog is pretty impressive and what Louw has really got right is getting users to come up with loads of content for him.

QUESTION: So you’re risen up the Amatomu (blog aggregation) ranks slowly but steadily to around number 50 (most popular in

What a lot of cob... Nigel Louw with one of his catches.

South Africa). What’s the secret, do you think?
ANSWER: Probably just keeping the content going – you’ve got to have stuff going up every day or every second day and I’ve managed to get the guys to submit their catches, which hasn’t worked on a lot of other sites. Also, I’ve had a local (fishing) shop sponsoring a prize every month so I get the guys to post catches and the best one wins. It changes every month so this month it was steenbras and the best catch won a rod worth R800. This keeps the guys posting and I’ve got other shops coming on board now.
If there’s days when I don’t get fish coming in, then I try do a bit of research and write about how to catch a certain type of fish, for instance.
Q. In the beginning, it must have been relentless because you must have been doing all the posting?
A. It started off with the basic design and I had to go fishing often, catch a cob and upload it, catch another fish and upload it. Then I think I told friends about it and eventually some guys I didn’t know started coming onto the site and they told their friends… I also made an advert about the size of a business card and left them at counters in fishing shops and put posters up.
Q. Was it hard to fit it in with a full-time job?
A. Ja, it was long hours at work and then you get home, and it’s long hours again. Lately I can get away with working on my blog till about 10pm but when you redesign the site, sometime you can sit up till 1am trying to get it right.
Q. I presume you’re using Wordpress (blogging platform). Did you teach yourself?
A. I asked my brother (a graphic designer) a couple of questions in the beginning but then I figured it out by myself.
Q. Was it difficult teaching yourself?
A. It didn’t take that long as I’d worked on a photo website when I lived in the UK. I think if you have no background in websites or blogging, it will take a while in the beginning but Wordpress is pretty user friendly. It’s got a nice back end. It’s not like you’ve got to do everything in coding.
Q. Your site’s looking quite slick.
A. I just widened it the other day so that there’s more ad space. I’m hoping to get some ads. I don’t make any money out of the blog yet but you’ve got to try.
Q. Not yet?
A. The only money is through Adgator (the ads wing of blog aggregator Afrigator). Google ads are a bit crappy. You don’t make money out of them… But I’ve been visiting a few shops again recently as my stats are quite good now.
Q. When you started the blog, were you aiming to make any money out of it or was it just a hobby?
A. Any money I make out of the site goes back into it. I started it because I love fishing and thought I’d get more involved in the fishing community… On a public holiday a while back, I had a mini members outing and there were about 14 of us… some drove from Port Alfred for it so I guess I’m getting a bit of a following. It’s also good to learn blogging and design. I’m pretty confident with it now.
Q. Who would your competitors be?
A. There isn’t much out there. That’s why I started my blog. There’s Sealine and that’s just really a forum. And there’s the ESA website but it doesn’t get updated as often as mine does.
Q. So where do you want to go with your blog?
A. I want it to become the first stop for fishermen in the Eastern Cape, for example, if someone’s going fishing in Mazeppa Bay, they can come to my website and find accommodation, whether its hotels or holiday shacks. Then they’ll be able to look under Mazeppa Bay fishing spots and see what’s been caught there lately and know what to take and to target. I tried to get accommodation (advertising) on the blog when it was three months old but it was too new and I didn’t have the stats so I’ll try again.

Go to Louw’s blog, Fishing the Eastern Cape, here.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Has anyone tried logging on to their Amatomu account today. I believe the South African blog aggregator has been hacked or something else screwy is going on because I can get into someone else’s account wih my log-on details.

I tried logging on with two different accounts and each time found myself mysteriously in the account of one Daniel Born. Now if I was mean and nasty I could have deleted all three of his blogs. But I’m not so I didn’t.

Maybe this has to do with changes on the site and is not a result of malicous hacking. Anyone else having a similar problem today.

Click on image to see what I mean. If you are Daniel Born, I’m sorry about this. Maybe you are logging on to my account?

Popularity: 7% [?]

News pics are the order of the day today on the SA Interweb:

1. A radical flash flood hit Camps Bay in Cape Town on Sunday and blogger Seth Rotherham at 2Oceans Vibe has beat the big boys on this with his pics and tale of witnessing it first hand. Click here for his post and pics and here for more.

2. And the Diepsloot riots over the weekend in Johannesburg (sparked by confusion about whether the area will be cleared to make way for a sewage pipeline) had the pix guys out there snapping away. The Times and IOL have got the best galleries though both seems a tad on the slow side. Nevetheless click here to go to The Times gallery and here to go to IOL. 

The Times also have a comprehensive story on the origin and progress of the riots here.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Now that the good citizens of Iran have put Twitter on the map, I suspect many more journalists will stop wailing: "I don’t see the point. It’s so inane. I don’t want to know when someone’s stuck in a traffic jam or what they’re making for dinner."

I agree about traffic jams and dinner plans (and am told by the online gurus that tweeting the dish you’re whipping up in the kitchen will get you unfollowed faster than a porn site). I’m no Twitter expert but you’re really have to play with it and get a handle on it, Luddites, if you’re a  journalist — especially a blogger.

I’ve only been at it since March but I can really see Twitter’s value as a marketing and branding tool so, as "grubstreetSA" with 679 followers and following 1318 people,  here in a nutshell is what learned  (not necessarily in 140 characters):

1. You seldom have time to read all the tweets of  the people you are following but when you do dip into the timeline every now and again, you do pick up interesting links to stories etc in online media around the world.

2. There are some people out there such as Stephen Fry  who lead fascinating lives and write pithy tweets but, once you start following more than about 300 people, you can’t locate their Tweets among all the rest if you use your phone to Twitter.

3. Chiefly Twitter’s value lies in other people reading your tweets, i.e., as a marketing tool for your blog or website — or your stories on your news organisation’s website if you don’t have your own blog or site.

So, for instance, all the posts I do on my Grubstreet blog automatically get tweeted and I get a fair bit of referral traffic from this. Also, you can pick up story leads — especially for big unfolding events — and ask people to give you personal accounts of their experiences through email or on the phone after you’ve connected with them on Twitter.

4. The Twitter website itself is totally up the pole. It looks and acts like to was built in 1997 so don’t even bother with it once you’ve registered. A whole industry has sprung up around Twitter developing programmes to make Twitter easier for you to use. Mr Twitter, for instance, will look for and automatically follow people with whom you have similar interests and there’s Tweetdeck, which sits on your desktop and through which it is much easier to tweet and search for other people or subjects being tweeted.   

If this all sounds a bit daunting, get a friend or colleague who is already tweeting away to help you. Odds are they won’t mind and will be happy that you’re showing an interest.  

5. Finally, I recommend you ditch your Nokia or Erickson the next time you are due for a cellphone upgrade and pay a bit extra for something like a Blackberry. It makes Twitter much easier to deal with as well as receiving and sending emails from your phone, which is essential for today’s journalist. I’ve had a Blackberry for about four months and am a complete Crackberry convert!  

For more ideas, read this piece by an American journalist at the website of the Knight Digital Media Center: "Newspaper columnists ought to be the perfect bloggers. so why aren’t more doing it well?" (July 2, 2009)

And here’s a funny piece on classic Twitter faux pas on ABC News (July 2, 2009)  (Incidentally, picked up by me through Twitter)

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Dispatch is full of beans and doing exciting things in the blogosphere today. They’re blogging live from the High Court, where an East London mom has pleaded guilty to killing her two daughters. I think this might well be a first for South Africa.

This is truly a tragic, horrendous story in which the mom, Wendy Manthe, strangled her two daughters because she was facing charges of theft for stealing from a furniture store in which she worked.  Check it out here.

If you haven’t been following the story, Manthe was sent for psychiatirc evaluation and was judged to be depressed but that she could appreciate right from wrong. The daughters were only nine and seven.

Popularity: 3% [?]

David Bullard has been all over the blogosphere in the past week, arguing and trading witticisms and insults with Internet users in comment threads at Moneyweb, where his Out to Lunch column now  resides after being sacked from the Sunday Times for an allegedly “racist” column, and other blogs.

Some users profess to hate him but they’re still there reading his columns and comments.  The guy people love to hate is always clever, irreverent and articulate. Click here to read the recent Moneyweb column.

As his court date with the Sunday Times looms on June 22, Grubstreet spoke to the controversial Bullard about life after the Sunday Times, the Zuma apology and how tough it was to re-establish his reputation.  Click here if you’ve forgotten what all the fuss was about and read the column that got Bullard fired  — and for other links about Mr Conspicuous Consumption post-Sunday Times.

QUESTION. Give me a rundown of all the things you’re doing these days? You’re on Moneyweb. You’re on Radio Today (on satellite doing a media show)?
ANSWER.  I’m writing Out to Lunch on Moneyweb. I’ve got a new column on the Richmark Sentinel – that’s been going
two weeks and with Michael Trapido of Thought Leader so we’ll see what’s happen with that and I’m doing a clutch of
magazines still… I’m also doing quite a bit of corporate stuff, which I had been doing  before (leaving the Sunday Times) from time to time.
Quite a lot of that involves going to MC conferences and such like, which pays well. It pays better than writing. That dropped off after the initial sacking, obviously, because once your name has been tarnished by your employer, people tend to phone and say: “I’m sorry, we don’t want a racist being MC”. To which I would then say: “Well, have you ever had one before? Give it a go.” Fortunately that’s come back now because the credibility of the accusations are – shall we say – diminished so I’m back in favour, I’m happy to say.

Q. Well, let’s talk about that: about rebuilding your reputation. It couldn’t have been that easy?
A.  No, it’s a bit like having acid thrown in your face and then having the guys run away. I invited my accusers (at the

Bullard as we knew him every week at the Sunday Times.

Sunday Times) to come live on air both on TV and radio and they weren’t prepared to. Their diaries were too busy… I think to be accused of racism in this country is very emotive…
I took the view that I had to fight back because a). It’s a lie, and b). It’s also extraordinarily damaging and so instead of going tail between legs and hiding away somewhere in the Free State, I was on every radio and TV station who invited me to go on and discuss it. I decided that I would make a comeback. I think the fact that Alec Hogg (of Moneyweb), who is a respected business commentator, took on the Out to Lunch column says an awful lot for it as well.
It is incredible difficult and has been very traumatic for both my wife and I. And I have to say that I was incredibly depressed for two or three months – I was opening a bottle of wine at 10 in the morning and contemplating suicide but I thought I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I thought to fight back would be a better idea.

Q. Did you ever think of going back to the bond market and leaving media behind you?
A. No, that’s all changed quite a bit now. I think I was there in the heyday, when the market wasn’t particularly transparent and that’s when you make money. So the market’s very transparent now and, of course, under the rather more capable administration of the ANC, the economy isn’t as volatile as it was under the Nats. Which is a paradox but you had more money to be made under the Nats than you do now.
I also think you outgrow it. I had decided to do a bit of a right-brain activity by writing and I never really want to leave that and I do enjoy it.

Q. When you were with the Sunday Times, you famously shut down your blog and said: “This is for the birds”. But now you’re back blogging?
A. Well, I’m being paid. I didn’t think there was an awful lot of point spending time in the office at  the Sunday Times and not being paid to write (for the blog) when I was being paid to write for print and I just don’t think they were sophisticated enough to think that this might be the new way. So whatever I’m doing now, I’m getting paid for and I’m getting paid a slightly higher rate, I suspect,  than the newspapers pay. So that makes it worthwhile.
I do think things are going to change with Seacom and other cables and more people are going to be getting their information on a computer so my attitude to blogging and the Internet has probably changed a little bit over the past two years.

Q. It seems you enjoy arguing with people in the comments threads of blogs?
A. I love it. I’ve always enjoyed controversy and the great thing is people are very easy to get a rise out of. All you’ve got to say is: “I’ve got a bigger desk”… and it’s something that doesn’t go down well with people who don’t have a bigger desk.  You can always get a rise by talking about having lots of money and being allowed to ride a Bentley and things like that.

Q. Let’s talk about that. You’ve always projected yourself as Mr Conspicuous Consumption and independently wealthy. Are you in fact independently wealthy?
A. I’m probably well off enough to take the Sunday Times on in court but I do need a job. I’ve got a reasonable amount of what they call FU money but I still need to work. You know, all I’ve really done is provide for old age so I don’t necessarily want to lose it all because at some stage, I won’t be able to work and I’m rather hoping it will be able to see my wife and I through to old age.
When I was employed at the Sunday Times, I got into motoring because no one was writing motoring at the paper and then spent seven years travelling around the world down the sharp end of planes and driving very fast cars… And I did brag about it, of course, because what the point of travelling down the sharp end of an aircraft and driving fast cars if you don’t brag about it.

Q. Indeed. But when the court case is over or settlement is reached with the Sunday Times, what happens then because you have defined yourself as the guy who got fired from the Sunday Times and fought back?
A.  All I really want there is an apology. I’m not after lots of money, to be honest. I would like them to pay lots of money, which I would then give to charitable causes. I would like them to pay for the past 14 months when I wasn’t employed and to pay the legal fees but really I’m out for an apology. I just want fairness because I think putting posters around town saying: “Bullard sacked for racist article” was very dirty and completely untrue and was not something that the Humans Rights Commission have agreed with either. They haven’t come back and said: “Gosh, this guy is a menace to society. Let’s put him away”… I think, afterwards, I’ll probably stay on the Internet (doing what I am now).

Q. Can you tell me what the figure is you’re claiming?
A. I’m not claiming anything. I’m asking for my job back. I want an apology and my job back. I’m going for reinstatement because I contest I was wrongfully dismissed. People say: “Could you go back there with all the ill feeling?” and I say: “That’s not my problem; that’s their problem. Of course I could go back there”… But I suspect what they’ll probably do is say: “This doesn’t work” (and pay me to go away) or they’ll fight it in court… But an apology will be first prize and it doesn’t need to cost them a lot of money, to be honest.

Q. Now let’s talk about you apologising to Jacob Zuma. Tell me about the meeting?
A. I was speaking at a breakfast at Emperor’s Palace… and the lady at the table said: “You know Jacob Zuma is still suing you for R1.2-million? I don’t know if you know it but would you like me to make it go away?” I thought that sounded quite nice but I thought it was a wild play. Then I got a phone call at about 10am that day to say I must be at a meeting 4.45pm. (I went off and met) the lady in question, who handles Zuma’s legal affairs with newspapers, and she set up an apology within the day.
Mr Zuma sat at the end of the table silently while I made my speech to him, saying that having been on the other side – having been the hunted rather than the hunter – I understood what it was like and the damage that your family suffer and I offered my apologies. To which he replied: “I accept your apology without qualification, Mr Bullard”. The lawyers from the Sunday Times phoned the next day and it was all gone.
You know, people say: ‘Why did you apologise?” But if you’re unemployed and you’ve got a chance of someone dropping a R1.2-million court case, there is a pretty compelling argument that you should be thinking of apologising.
The fact is that having been on the other side, I also felt that we had been a little unfair and he didn’t have to accept the apology. But he did and I was very impressed with that. He didn’t interrupt me when I spoke to him. I was impressed with the way he did it.  We then spent 30 minutes chit-chatting about all sorts of things. I think he’s an incredibly resilient man.
I asked him if he ever got depressed about all the comments (made about him) and he just said no. I think he just takes it. I would have been hugely depressed about it, including (the things) written by the paper I used to work for – especially the things I’d written…

A. Do you want to add anything?
Q. The other one was the ANC. People said that suddenly I was endorsing the ANC. The reason for that is that I was invited to by the ANC. I hardly think that someone sacked from the Sunday Times for racism would go along to an ANC meeting and say: “Hi guys. I want to get my credibility back. Any chance I can address your party?” They would have said something quite rude.
I was invited to be there and I did it from the point of view that we have to live in this country and we have to live with the government. We have to embrace the new president and his cabinet and hope that they do well and, when they don’t, they’ll think that it’s our job as the media to point it out…
I’m quite impressed with what Jacob Zuma’s done thus so far. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt and my support until I see a reason not to. I must say I’m much more comfortable with a Jacob Zuma presidency than I ever was with a Thabo Mbeki presidency… I feel quite relaxed living in South Africa under a Zuma government at the moment. I reserve the right to change that view though.

Popularity: 13% [?]

So if you’re a media luvvie and you haven’t joined the Grubstreet Gang yet, I’ve added a few features you might like to try out on this new social network for African journalists, designers, bloggers etc. Now you can upload your pictures (Flickr or your from your own hard drive) and YouTube vids.

The network is growing slowly (as they do) but surely so why not be one of the pioneers? It’s still in alpha phase so I’m looking for friendly types to help me shape it. Thanks to all those have joined up!

Go to www.grubstreet.com to create your own personal account. It’s modelled on Facebook so has the same features but looks a little different and is completely free.  Unlike Facebook, you can make blog posts. You can also  create groups, public or private, so let’s get chatting and gossiping. I know you’ve got a lot to say.

Popularity: 2% [?]

There’s only one thing you need to know

It’s all happening on the blogosphere today and the only place you need to be is right here on Grubstreet. Read my exlcusive story: Zuma case should have gone to trial, says Hong Kong judge

Popularity: 2% [?]