MarcForrest.com

Month: June 2010

  • Flexicell – Easy cellular airtime

    I recently came across a service called Flexicell, which allows you to convert your prepaid cellphone account into a “month-to-month” contract, which also allows you to cancel at anytime you wish.

    Every month an fixed amount is debited from your bank account, and your cellphone is then topped up with the relevant amount. Something else that is also great about Flexicell is that the “contract” is not a stock standard 24 month contract, you can simply cancel at anytime, should you not want to use the service, or if you would prefer to go back to pay as you go.  The airtime from Flexicell is also a LOT cheaper than your standard pre-paid airtime, so you score as well.

    To qualify for the Flexicell contract you simply need to meet the following criteria:

    • Have a valid South African identity document;
    • Be between the ages of 18 – 75 years;
    • Have a bank account that allows for debit orders;
    • Earn a minimum salary of R2 500 per month;
    • Be permanently employed or on a long-term contract of employment;
    • Provide a business registration number if self employed.

    Signing up with Flexicell is pretty simple, and all you need to do is give them a call on 0861 83 84 85 or 0861 90 91 92. You can also SMS the word “Help” to 39131 and they will get back to you.

  • Introducing StreetviewSA

    Yay!! Google finally flipped the switch this morning and Google Streetview in South Africa is now live. You may remember 2 weeks ago, they switched it on for a few minutes, and I managed to capture a few images using my iPhone.

    Now, I’m sure we have all at least tried Streetview before. If you haven’t (where have you been), it is a fantastic service that allows you a 360 degree panormainc view from within Google Maps, of your surroundings. This is really handy if you are traveling, and what to see, what the outside of a building looks like, or for example look at a house you may want to buy etc.

    The Google Streetview images are captured using a hi-tech vehicle that drives around with Cameras mounted to the roof, and these are then “stitched” together. Sometimes the cars come across some weird and wonderful stuff, and capture these.

    But most of the time, not everyone gets to see these, weird, wonderful & funny scenes, so I have created a site called StreetViewSA, which will allow viewers of Google Streetview to Submit links to these. Once these have been submitted, the will be added to the site for the rest of the world to laugh at :) The idea is loosley based on a website in the UK called StreetviewFun.com

    So, head on over to http://www.StreetViewSA.co.za, and if you come across any bizarre incidents on Google Streetview in South Africa, be sure to submit them, and let the rest of the world laugh & learn with you.

  • KIA Competition Winner Announced

    A couple of days ago, I did a post about the amazing competition from Kia, which allowed a South African to join 12 other bloggers from around the world in the Kia Experience.

    The prize included a stay at the new Rosebank Hotel, attend one 2010 FIFA World Cup ™ game and a day trip test driving the Kia Sportage as well as an EA FIFA 2010 game. Last week the winner was annouced as Casey Monteiro (http://www.twitter.com/casey_ek_se)

    Well done to Casey. You can follow Casey’s epic adventure by following @KiaMotorsSA on Twitter to see Casey’s updates and to find out about his experience. Also, be sure to join the Facebook fanpage for updates and photos of his Kia Experience.

  • Engen African Welcome Travel Diary iPhone app

    With only 3 days left till the kick-off of the South Africa’s biggest showpiece, things are hotting up on the iPhone app store as well. There have been a couple of fantastic apps released the last couple of days, and now Engen have also released a free app called, “Engen African Welcome Travel Diary“(iTunes Link), which is a part of a campaign by Engen called “The African Welcome”

    The app, developed locally, allows visitors to South Africa to upload a diary of their visit to South Africa, which can then be shared with via Facebook and Twitter. The app also includes a couple of cool features such as:

    • South African greetings (audio)
    • SA urban dictionary (audio)
    • SA recipes
    • Airport Info
    • Useful numbers like embassies, local tourism, transportation etc.

    Another really cool feature of the app is the worlds biggest unified welcome with our African Wave Competition. Users can upload pictures of themselves doing a wave, which will then be add to all the others to make a huge African wave.

    Allan Kent, Head of AtPlay (Saatchi & Saatchi), the agency behind the app, gave me a bit of info behind the app:

    The app is just one small part of an 18 month campaign that Engen are running called African Welcome. As part of that we thought that it would great if we had an application that let people document their travels in South Africa and learn a bit about the country at the same time.

    All in all the app is very cool and well rounded and I’m sure will a great hit with some of the visitors to our country over the next 5 weeks.

  • How many iPhones are there in South Africa

    There have been a couple of questions floating around on Twitter about how many iPhone devices there are in South Africa. The numbers have ranged from around 30,000 to a crazy 170,000. So I took the liberty of asking the Vodacom CEO, Pieter Uys, on Twitter, how many Vodacom had sold.Vodacom are the official carriers of iPhones in South Africa, so every single South African iPhone should have been purchased through them, whether it was on contract or once-off purchase. Yes, the are a probably a few other “imported” iPhones as well, but those can’t be that high.

    [blackbirdpie id =”15319205391″]

    Pieter then kindly responded with this.

    [blackbirdpie id =”15326977521″]

    The tweet actually followed up with a DM asking me for my cell number, and Pieter phoned me to chat about this, and tech stuff in general !! What a super #BrandPLUS !!!

    This means that around 90,000 iPhones have “officially” been sold in South Africa.

    Then I had a look at these admob stats that were released earlier this week – http://metrics.admob.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/AdMob-Country-Data-April-2010.xlsx. In the report, the mention that South Africa admob stats for April were as follows: (thanks to Amabacha for the heads up and image below)

    What the above image means is that only 35,674 of the 90,000 devices in South Africa have used or seen Admob stats which are included in the majority of mobile web pages as well as in iPhone apps. This equates to around 40% of all South African iPhones encountered a admob ad in April.

    I also had a chat to the guys who run the News24 iPhone app. According to them, they have about 20,000 “active” users of the app. The News24 iPhone app is probably the most “prolific” iPhone app in South Africa, which most people would have installed, if the understood the app model. (my personal opinion)

    So, what does all of the above mean. Well, what it looks like, is that, in South Africa, people are buying iPhones. Not as much as Blackberry’s, but they are buying them. BUT, they NOT using them to their full capabilities. They not using it for web browsing, and they not downloading apps. They using them for Phone calls & SMS’s and maybe to read email. A large part of this I think is “user education”, with people buying the phone and not understanding the full capabilities, but rather, just to have a “cool” phone. (Yes, it IS cool)

    We need to teach people to “understand” the phone. We need them to be able to not only use it for phone calls & sms’s and make them realise that there is a whole other world out there :) How, you ask ? That part, I’m not to sure about :( But, as per my post yesterday, I have setup a site called iPhone Help, which will allow people to hopefully ask questions and get answers about the iPhone. A place where people can share tips and tricks, and help the people who don’t understand the phones capabilites, understand it better.

    I would love to hear your thoughts on this, so please leave a comment below if you have any ideas on how we can help our fellow iPhone friends :)