In awe at the Design Indaba
By Ernie Joseph // March 10, 2010
The much-anticipated Design Indaba arrived in our beautiful Mother City, and running from February 26 to 28, 2010. The venue for this year’s Indaba was the Cape Town International Convention Centre, a venue par none.
Arriving at the venue, parking became a mission not even Tom Cruise could handle, but after some nifty driving skills from Flow’s Cape Town General Manager, Bronwen d’Oliveira and I, we managed to park (somewhat illegally).
The foyer/ticket sales area was very disappointing, but that disappointment soon disappeared upon entering the expo hall. Read more…
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The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway website gets a new look
By Palesa Motau // February 23, 2010
The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway website just got a makeover!
The new site has everything you need to know about visiting the Cableway; from what time the sun rises and sets, to the history of the Cableway, and stories on the famous people who have travelled – from the Queen to Sir Edmund Hillary – it since it opened in 1929. Read more…
Do we live in a parallel universe?
By Christine Marot // February 04, 2010
For a couple of years while working in the offices of Earth-Touch, one of Flow’s clients, I made a daily commute along the N2 (which links the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal with the north coast), and over time the notion of a parallel universe kept coming to mind. I had two alternate routes to choose from every day: the faster, more direct, traffic-laden N2, or the slower, stop-start M4 via the robot-infested Durban city centre.
Due to the heavier traffic volumes on the N2, any hiccup, however slight, would result in a tailback, the worse of which delayed me for nearly three hours on the way home one night. At the first hint of a potential snarl up, I would therefore opt for the more laborious M4 route, the logic being that it would be better to move slowly in the direction of home, as opposed to sitting in a stationary vehicle breathing in gently chilled exhaust fumes. Read more…
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New website launched for South African National Editors’ Forum
By Bev Tucker // February 02, 2010
First glances can be so deceptive. Revamping the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) website looked like it would be a fairly quick job; a sprint rather than a marathon. You understand. But, as I said, first glances … .
It turned out the old site had quite a bit of content to unravel and repackage before we could bring it up to date. In addition to a new structure and functionality, the pages called for a fresh look and feel. This was the starting point for the project I’d be managing.
Read more…Fellowship helping to bring credibility back to journalism
By Nikolai Viedge // January 28, 2010
In a world of tabloids and sensationalist reporting it’s no wonder journalism is no longer the highly regarded trade it once was.
In the old days, i.e. when people didn’t buy papers just to see Britney Spears get out of a car sans underwear, journalists worked to keep government, parastatals and businesses honest.
In fact an involved and informed Fourth Estate (the media) is seen as a necessary component of any functioning democracy. By holding people accountable for their actions, the media is able to exert pressure on those in positions of power to behave with integrity. Of course, in order for this to be a legitimate and effective role, journalists need to adhere to certain ethics. They can’t, for example, take bribes, report just one side of a story, or allow their own prejudices to interfere with the facts of a story. Read more…
0 comments // Journalism | Our Work
How SEO is not changing journalism
By Richard Frank // January 27, 2010
In response to Roy’s blog post last week about how SEO is changing journalism, I’d like to offer another perspective.
Although journalists are now trying to bend their grammar and style to maximise the SEO potential of their posts, they shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the actual content matters.
Although short-term gains can be won by writing a clever, SEO-friendly title and first paragraph, the real gains come when people actually link to the content. And people only link to the content if they find it valuable and think that other people will find it valuable.
Read more…
Using Twitter as a social networking tool on your website
By Sarah Gurney // January 25, 2010
Twitter is a useful social networking tool that we often use to drive traffic to our websites, to run competitions and to build online communities in conjunction with other social networks such as Facebook and Flickr (a photo sharing network).
Twitter allows users, once they have created a profile, to post short messages of up to 140 characters to their followers. Cape Town Tourism in particular has used Twitter to great effect and currently has about 900 followers. Read more…
Flow launches new Nelson Mandela Institute website
By Jade Archer // January 22, 2010
The brief: to update the Nelson Mandela Institute’s online presence with a website that effectively communicates the institute’s extensive research in the fields of education and rural development, and highlights its ongoing projects, which are leading the way in education in rural South Africa.
Writers seldom complain of having too much information, but the Nelson Mandela Institute has commissioned a significant amount of research into the state of the education system in South Africa and, in particular, the bilingual teaching challenges in rural schools in the Eastern Cape, so the sheer volume of information was daunting. Read more…
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Using Flickr as a social networking tool on websites
By Sarah Gurney // January 20, 2010
Flickr – a photo sharing network – is an effective community development tool for websites. I couldn’t run Cape Town Tourism’s blog, for example, without Flickr. We have grown an active and involved Cape Town Tourism community over the past year through the Cape Town. Live it. Love it. group on Flickr, which now has 467 members. Read more…
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Flow family expands again!
By Palesa Motau // January 15, 2010
Flow has done it again! With the recent appointment of six new members of staff, the Flow family has grown once more. We’re happy to welcome chief sub-editor, Aneshree Naidoo, junior project manager, Zintle Mtyeku, office manager, Sebenzile Seletisha, gardener, John Kazembe, web developer, Reatile Tshikalange and media and content developer, Roy Barford. Read more…
