The website appears to be nothing special although I refer you to a Business Report article in which Mike Sutcliffe, who is the eThekwini (Durban) city manager, said that the technology that would be used for the website was generally not in use in South Africa. “My understanding is that it is really state-of-the-art stuff.”

Internet guru Arthur Goldstuck noted in the same report that the city’s World Cup website appeared to be using technology that was already available and it did not require new software to be developed. “It doesn’t make sense for that kind of money to be spent on this kind of site,” Goldstuck added.

It may be tempting to take advantage of a naive client, but a professional business would understand that this is the time to be the “trusted advisor.” AdaptIT, are doing this site. They have reportedly declined to comment and appear to be an IT company and not a internet marketing company. The site has a communications role.

If all this is true they are doing the entire industry a huge disservice. This is still a new industry and we really don’t need to be seen as fly by nights.

. . . is this a case of “Trust me I’m a doctor?”

h.koppdelaney's photo stream on flickr

I think a lot about marketing, about advertising and about the internet. I have started to see people forming in three distinct groups.

The first are the technology people, developers etc. They understand the tools and can construct them into solutions, build beautiful websites, optimise the websites for search engine rankings and actually understand the algorithms that drive those rankings. I criticised the DA for this in an earlier post. These are the internet engineers.

Second are the traditional marketers who see the internet as a medium. A highly effective tool for delivering advertising and awareness to consumers at the right time in the purchasing cycle. Advertising more targeted and relevant than what was ever possible before, these are the internet media moguls. I heard that P&G in the UK drive 80% of their media budget into Adwords. Google is the biggest media owner in the UK. It no wonder too that much of the internet entrepreneurial activity is here.

Then there is a third group whom I think may be in the distinct minority, who see a shift in the way that society is functioning and restructuring, who notice a new dispensation of power, a new democracy if you will, the crazy ones who see the internet not as a technology but as catalyst driving a new society, a totally different dynamic. These people think that classic marketing, a concept only invented in the 1960s, may have passed its own sell by date, that there is a vacuum now that nobody yet really understands.

I spoke about this briefly on Reuben Goldberg’s showThe Internet Economy on Classic FM this week.

None of these groups are wrong, but if we are seeing a fundamental shift in the way people behave, how people communicate with each other, how influence is applied and how word of mouth is the currency of marketing, then maybe its the crazy ones who actually hold the key?

photo credit: Glen Bowman

I am sitting on the plane on the way from Cape Town to Lanseria. Just completed a grueling round of speaking engagements.

I was struck by a number of things.

Firstly. That many of our “trainee communications experts have no clue of digital. I find it extraordinary that I could actually find only 3 bloggers and one twitter member in a third year advertising and communications class (marketers, art directors, copywriters and designers.)

We really need to push awareness with them. You have to understand the space to be able to advise others.

Secondly. That there are two distinct approaches to online marketing. The technology approach approaches it from the point of view of teh available technologies and how to deploy them. The interruption marketing POV that sees it from the traditional marketing and advertising point of view. how to use the channel to push marketing messages.

Then the third group who are in the distinct majority. The communicators who really understand the effects of the technology on society and how that is changing how they interact and need to be interacted with.

Finally at the mobile marketing conference it struck me how both of these approaches affected how people thought about one of the most important windows on the internet namely Mobile, Its impossible to think that a mobile network like MXIT which carries 330 million IM messages a day can not be regarded as the most important channel to reach 16 – 25 year olds in South Africa. Mxit boasts 12 million members growing at a rate of 12 000 a day. Extraordinary.

What I learned is that the digital reality is slowly dawning though and for the mobile marketing workshop to be oversubscribed double is a good indication of that. Maybe most in the room were already converts but so what, they want to touch the space – they become missionaries.