This is according to Memeburn, a company that specialises in website analysis. A blog posted on the Memeburn website today, written by Alistair Fairweather, listed the 10 most popular Facebook pages in the country.

Fairweather wrote of the I ? Cape Town page: “South Africa’s most beloved city was bound to make an appearance somewhere in our list. The fact that half the fans are probably German is irrelevant. Cape Town Tourism deserves a big pat on the back for this one.”

The page has become a place for Cape Town residents and visitors to share their photos, experiences and opinions. It is also a great place for visitors to get local advice about where to go and what to do in the Mother City.

I ? Cape Town has up to twice as many fans as some of the pages in the bottom half of the top 10.

Other groups that made the top 10 are Die Antwoord, Bafana Bafana Supporters, Jack Parrow, Huisgenoot, The Blue Bulls, The Power of 5FM and Steve Hofmeyr.

Please see my negative experience by clicking here:
My perception has definitely changed after the past weeks AWESOME service.

After tweeting to and contacting Pieter, Vodacom’s Twitter team called me to follow up on my query and then ensured that a service consultant get in contact with me.

Salim Moolla was the Vodacom Direct Service consultant who called me and assisted in explaining the process to me.

As a Online Marketing professional staying abreast of Software and Hardware advancement is vital. The iPhone, I believe is laying foundational concepts for future cellular systems and content delivery. You could also read my blogpost here: http://aslamlevy.co.za/got-73-apps-but-a-iphone-i-got-none/ detailing my Apple Lust.
Thanks to all involved in this successful Customer Relationship Management workflow

-Aslam Levy

I have 3 tickets for the semifinal at Cape Town Stadium.
The seats are not as good as I expected so I’m looking to re-sell them.
I’m hoping I can get around R500 for them? Please get in contact with me.

Please see seating position below:

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-A-

But have you seen the 3D View? Yup, how insane is that?

Click for bigger image

How do you activate it?
- Well, firstly you go to maps.google.com
- Search for the street in Cape Town you’re looking for.
- Then Drag the orange “Pegman” onto your street.
- Voila! Streetview (Or click here for an example )
- Then for the 3D, it’s as easy as right clicking on the image in Google Maps and selecting “3D on”. Easy Peasy!
But you’ll need a pair of these:

Will be weird walking in on someone scanning Google Maps wearing a pair of those..
-A-

Then Mike showed me Web Africa’s latest Facebook online Campaign. You have got to check it out here.
Now here’s the BOMBSHELL. They are giving away iPADs. What?! You heard me. And it’s so effing easy to stand a chance. Check this:

Normally, I’d keep this a secret, but this is so awesome you gotta give it a shot.
Holding thumbs!
-A-

Flashback.
The year was 1995 and  the Sony Playstation was just released, this in a time when I was still saving to buy a Famicom TV Game (a Nintendo knockoff that came with those 100 in 1 cartridges). Oh how I lusted at the sight of the Playstation. Our local video store then got some in and started hiring them out, my heart yearned to take one home with me. One afternoon while cruising the magazine section at CNA I saw it, a PCFormat magazine with the Metal Gear Solid Ninja on its cover. I read the entire article right there and then and was convinced that I needed to play that game! My sanity depended on it. So I saved up some coin and hired MGS and a playstation early one saturday morning, then proceeded to play the game for as much of the  24 hours I had it as possible. Well, actually I was kinda forced to, seeing as how they did not hire memory cards making me have to finish the game in one go.

Epic Ninja picture that started it all

So where am I going with this? From that day I was hooked. Let me tell you this, I have never owned a Playstation, but I started religiously buying Playstation magazines. Leaving me with a pile of Game Previews and Ratings but yet no actual Playstation.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Fast forward to 2009 and I was now one year into my  two year Vodacom contract with a despicable HTC S740. Only other owners of S740′s know of the pain I speak of. I choose it because I was unsure, unsure whether I would like a fully touch screen cellphone and would not miss a Qwerty pad. Biggest mistake ever! You might know that the S740 runs with Windows Mobile 6.1, probably the worst phone OS I have ever had the displeasure using. I even dropped the HTC a few times (accidentally) and cracked the screen, didn’t even bother me. Now the outside matched the software inside. My desparation got so bad that I started entering competitions such as WebAddiCTs “Win a Google phone” competition. I started already looking at what my next phone would be. It was around this time that I started noticing people around me having iPhones, and they seemed very happy about their little mini-Mac phone, sometimes even obsessively so. I looked at them and thought “wow, they such Apple Fanboys” but then wondered where this intense patriotism came from. Soon after that I wandered into an iStore and played around with the demo model. It just felt right. I was hooked.

2010
2010 came around and Apple lust started consuming me, I subscribed to RSS Feeds with ipad and iPhone content. I questioned my strange excitement when Gizmodo ran a series for post detailing the iphone 4 that they had “bought”. Then the inevitable, I installed iTunes and started downloading Free iphone Apps from the US Store (Marc Forrest has a nice Tut showing you how). I now have 73 Apps that I have not yet used, all in anticipation to the soon to be released “iPhone 4″. So once again I have media but no actual device. Even scarier is that I am already looking in the mirror and seeing th Apple Fanboy I once mocked. Perhaps only Google with their Android platform can save me from becoming a Steve Jobs slave (but I could wear a black Turtle neck and make it work…).
Below you can see an iTunes Screenshot of the Apps I have downloaded. The iTunes Appstore has a great selection of Games, Social networking and reference Apps but it is an area Google with the Andriod Appstore will start aggresively tackling in months to come. At the moment I still feel that Apple Quality over Andriod Quantity is better, but time will tell as to how this pans out. What makes it hard for me to get a better sense of a Andriod phone is that I cant walk into a Google “iStore” and play with the device. This is an area where Apple is doing well to convert sceptics, like I once was.

Click on the image above to view the larger image

With a week and a half to Steve Job WWDC 2010 announcement where he will show the world the latest incarnation of the iphone I’m looking forward to the following features:
- The new design
- Video Recording at 720p
- Improved display “960×640″?
- Flash for the Camera
-  The Game Centre

The soon to be released iPhone 4th Generation

Oh, I’m sure your noticed the hint in the blog title to a particular Jay-Z song. If you didnt click the link below to watch the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etl9kkIGaHo Jay Z 99
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and come back in a few months when I have cleansed myself from the HTC S740 and will be basking in iPhone awesomeness
-A-

Now you know…  

On May 6th 2010 the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1000 points intraday and magically “recovered” to end the day 348 points down. The Massive drop was blamed on a trader that placed a SELL order of “Billion” instead of “Million”. The theory goes that once this sell order happened the Triggers that are setup to Sell on Exchange Trading software kicked in. This started the 1 Hour freefall. Kinda like a Domino effect.

Obviously the Market was in freefall, but who or what kicked in to break the fall and lift the market back up by the end of day. Robert Kiyosaki has his theory over at Conspiracy of the Rich, which speaks about “The Plunge Protection Team”.

JohnA over at Current.com voices this opinion:

“Trader error”, it was a “glitch”, BULLSHIT! Your telling me I can buy a stock for a penny that 15 minutes ago was worth $40 and 20 minutes from now it will be worth $39, and that is a “glitch”. Bull Shit. They hit P&G, a Dow component, so the Dow Jones goes down, so goes the S&P, so every other stock goes down, then the trade triggers kick in, the computers take over, and late enough in the trading day so all the market circuit breakers are turned off, and it’s a “glitch”? Bull. Someone made a shitload of money today, more money in thirty minutes than most of us will ever see in a lifetime. The House Finance Commitee is already calling hearings and the NASDAQ is canceling trades. Heads will roll over this, as well they should. But those that lost their money will never get it back. All in one day. “

Some pertinent questions need to be asked:

- How can someone(Plunge Proctection) so easily regulate the Stock Market, considering that we are made to believe that the Market is driven by the exchange of stock.

- Will the JSE remain unaffected by a US Market crash, and how are we preparing for it?

- What does this kind of volatility mean for the global outlook of the financial markets, and is it time to move your paper assets to physical commodities like gold?

One thing I do know for sure. There are many people who will lose vast sums of money, and a few that will make amazing wealth.

-A-

On Saturday I had the honour to attend a 1 day workshop with Kelly hosted by Sales Partners Cape Town. As a previous small business owner the session opened my eyes to the power of being with a strong network of like minded individuals. I got to meet some great people, including Bettina Horvath who I had been engaging with on twitter.

I realized that having a mentor guide you through the development phases of you small business is at times vital, especially considering the current economic circumstances. In this regard Kelly Ritchie is masterful, easily exuding assertiveness while making everyone comfortable in the room.

Kelly in a photo with Sue and myself

Two slides I’d like to share to you are the following:

The Slide above illustrates that when Emotion goes up intelligence goes down.

This slide was used to explain objection handling a vital skill for anyone who is in sales. If you are a entrepeneur or small business owner, you are in sales.
Objection handling summarized:
1. When you get objected to, for example get told that “Your price is too high!”, first acknowledge the Objectors point of view.
2. Ask what the Objectors frame of reference is. Example, “Have you seen this product at a better price?”
3. Engage with the person to ascertain whether a compromise is required on your side or if the objector requires more information on your product

Kelly also mentioned Bucky Fuller, a real visionary of his time, though I think I will get into Fullers writing at a later stage.

Here are a few more photo’s of the Sales Partners at work:

Sales Partners Cape Town

I look forward to seeing you at the next Sales Partners event.
-A-