SA Rocks

Take your pic.

I think Jody is going to end up the winner but one can never know.

Leave your comment on this post and let me know who you think will win.

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HP is running a really interesting competition on their website (or at website of sorts). DesignYourPersonalLife competition aims to promote the discovery of new young talent in the music industry. All you need to do is register and upload an original track that you have created and get people to vote for it.

The prize is a live gig at The Venue at Melrose Arch on 31st January. The gig is being planned alongside three others in Athens, Dubai and Istanbul and will hopefully feature some rocking celebrity guests.

The best part about the entire process is that for every vote on the website HP will donate R10 to the Reach for a Dream Foundation. That is impressive stuff and a great way to link prizes with promotion and charity.

I am also a big fan of the integration online and the importance placed on the web votes.

The top 5 bands as voted for by visitors to the site will play in an internationally connected concert via the HP website. This is a massive opportunity for local bands to make some noise international. If you know someone in a band and they are looking for a big break, send them to register and upload their music now!

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It’s time to unify the bloggers in Africa and more specifically SA. The Bobs are here and thanks to the White African I have discovered the awards that are proving to have large sponsors and great pull…but no African blogs.

The image above is a representation of the nominated blogs for the Bobs. What the hell is wrong with this picture? The White African asked the same question. I don't have a clear answer but I can't say that until reading the post I had never heard of the Bobs. Maybe this is the main problem.

Its not even like the Bobs are irrelevant and unknown, there are some big names involved:

Technorati, Global Voices, Toshiba and O’Reilly to name a few

So this is my call to vote for SA blogs and African blogs in the Bobs! Pick one, pick many, lets discuss it one here and pick a few, pick whichever blog you like but lets get some African representation in the nominations.

Go forth now and submit your African blog of choice!

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Here they are ladies and gents, straight from the horses mouth (dig the new design btw):

THE WINNER IS: Redsaid

1st runner up: Yebo

2nd runner up: iMod

I hope that the entire competition had the desired effect. I know what it’s like to run competitions on a blog and hope and pray for a response from readers. Especially when you are giving things away. The Web AddiCT’s just need to let me know where to send the winners T-shirts!

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Tyler posted about a competition to win tickets to the Brands Convention. All you need to do is post about your favourite brand in some way or another and trackback so he knows you’ve posted. Here is my contribution:

This might seem like a bias opinion as I run this blog but I love the brand that is South Africa.

Let me tell you why. SA has such a powerul impact on so many people in such different ways. But everyone feels strongly about it when they notice the brand somewhere. The brand of this country encapsulates such a wide variety of things that represent the country and various aspects of it all at one time.

Whether you are pro-SA or hate it with everything you have, the brand affects you deeply. Online you feel pride if you know that a local site has done well and you immediately associate with that site because it is a product of SA. In contrast if you are an expact living in Australia and you hate SA you will not want to see the Springboks (another SA brand) whip the kangaroo’s. Either way you feel strongly about local products.

The SA flag, the colours, the mentality, the mindset and the current mind-shift from negative to positive all encapsulate what the brand of SA means to so many people. You can see the deep blue, vibrant red and crazy green and yello anywhere and immediately think that those colours below to our flag. That is SA.

The brand of this country has become more than a brand it has become a way of life for many. Positively or negatively, many people live their impression of SA day in and day out. Either you are scared for your life, or your are a proud patriot and sometimes you are both. This is the brand of SA living amongst us.

Coca-Cola has tried (and somewhat succeeded) to make their brand a way of life, McDonalds has done the same and spent bazillions of dollars doing so. SA has done this without even knowing it. I wish that the people high up in government who often seem to take ownership of the brand would notice down below how much SA is thriving.

I have never been more involved in a brand and more proud of a brand than I am right now. SA is me, SA is my brand, SA is my life and how I live it.

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I have T-shirts to give away. In fact, I have 10 SA Rocks T-shirts to give-away.

But I would love to have something in return for the shirts! What I am asking is for your essay, podcast or video about an experience you’ve had in SA that changed you, made you feel warm and tingly inside or moved you. I want to know if you’ve had a bad experience and how you overcame it, a good experience and how it made you feel and warmed you to this country.

So send in your contribution in the form of essay or multimedia to editor@sarocks.co.za. Between 600-1000 words if written and less than 5 minutes if you are submitting a podcast or vodcast. Make them graphic, make them interesting, make them stand out. Make your podcast lively or your video loud and out there, but send them in.

I will be giving out 10 T-shirts that I will post to you wherever you are in SA. I will also post your video, podcast or written essay on SA Rocks and all the possible means to provide exposure.

So get typing, recording, sending, podcasting, photographing or whatever-ing that you want to and send in your contribution. The one condition that I’m asking for is that you appear in your contribution somehow. Be creative.

I am hoping to get a couple of contributions here. I will try to post my own example in a multimedia format (maybe video) time-constraints permitting.

Get cracking.

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Accelerate Cape Town has just launched their website recently and in honour of this the AddiCT(s) have launched a competition that I think SA Rocks readers should get involved in.

What’s it about. We want to know what you envision your perfect city to be like. Let’s harness the power of collective imagination to develop a vision that is so powerful and compelling what we all will be catapulted into action to make our vision work for Cape Town. Here is how the challenge will work.

Write a post on your website or blog about your vision of a perfect city. Don’t think specifically about Cape Town or anything. We want you to describe your own, imaginary, perfect city. Let your imagination go wild, describe how it feels, use all your senses, describe the activities taking place, describe the people, add some graphics, audio, video, whatever you like, above all be creative. It can be long or short, no limits on size.

If you don’t have a blog, submit your entry to us via info [at] webaddict [dot] co [dot] za and we’ll feature your post here with credits to you.

Submit it to us. Trackback or link back to this post (http://www.webaddict.co.za/2007/08/10/my-perfect-city-challenge/) and we’ll list your post here for voting.

Entries accepted: 10th – 17th August 2007

Vote. Those posts listed here will be voted upon by you, our readers, for 1 week, where the person with the most votes wins.

Voting accepted: 17th – 24th August 2007

In case you are wondering what Accelerate Cape Town is, here is something from the new site:

Accelerate Cape Town believes that our greatest chance for international success over the next twenty years is to focus on serving the country, the continent and the world in the creative and innovative sectors. Our vision is to achieve the development of the Cape region as the world’s Creative Capital.

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The polls are closed and the competition has ended. I was never particularly supportive of the process as I felt it should have been more formalised (I am assured that things are moving in that direction)!

But I thought that many of the sites on the list – which never reached 50 I don’t think – deserved a mention cause they rock and let’s be honest, we can all use some linklove.

So without further delay here are the top sites:

The top ranked sites were (in alphabetical order) -

* Amatomu
* Grabble
* iBlog
* Keo
* Muti
* MyBroadband
* News24
* SA Good News
* SA Rocks
* SA-Venues

The following sites also received nominations

* Afrigator
* Bed On Bricks
* BizCommunity
* Blue World
* Cape Gateway
* Cape Town Daily Photo
* Charity Wines
* Cherry Flava
* EishCoZa
* Friends of JZ
* Golfers Information
* Goldfish
* Good Citizens Club
* Grow South Africa
* Hunter of Genius
* iMod
* IOL News
* Jonga
* Jump
* Mahala Media
* Mail & Guardian
* Mnet
* Modelbase
* MoneyWeb
* Mweb
* My Kinda Prices
* MyVideo
* News Phorum
* Pixels For Charity
* Private Property
* SA AirForce
* SA Property
* SA Rugby
* South Africa – sourcing cheap flights to,from or within SA
* SuperSport
* Tertia
* The South African Insult
* Think Money
* Tomorrow Today
* Urban Mamas
* Vottle
* Weather SA
* Webtrepreneur
* Yeigo
* Yuppie Chef

And there you have it. I think the initiative received some good support and will hopefully pick up some weight in the near future!

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If you think you have what it takes to blow SA’s best innovators out of the water then this is for you. It seems as though, again, I am a bit slow on the uptake but iHero is holding a competition for innovative South Africans.

Think differently

The iHERO Awards programme is the brainchild of a new campaign called innovationTOWN, a programme that makes South Africans think differently about innovation. The campaign celebrates the entrepreneurial and creative spirit of South Africa by identifying those individuals or organisations that have created sustainable value through exceptional innovation in the following categories:

* iHERO – The overall “Grand Prix” winner – South Africa’s leading innovation or innovator;
* iEntrepreneur – for innovative entrepreneurs and self starters;
* iBusiness – innovative business practice, products and processes;
* iGovernment –innovative service delivery by government to the people;
* iSouth Africa – everyday innovators who are improving the lives of others through innovative social upliftment or projects within communities;
* iSciTech – celebrates scientific and technology breakthroughs with a strong community focus.

Awards and recognition include cash prizes for all category winners and the overall iHERO Award winner; widespread media exposure for all winning entrants; published articles on the most innovative submissions valued at R100 000; and an invitation to exhibit at the innovationTOWN exhibition later this year at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown. (courtesey http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/11/16065.html)

CLICK HERE NOW TO ENTER THE IHERO AWARDS. Or Click HERE to visit the innovations town website.

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Citi Life is holding a photography competition over at their website. Thanks to the SA Rocks Flickr group I found out about the comp.

It’s really simple. Upload some amazing photos you’ve taken to do with SA and if you have the most votes at the end of August you win a car. Easy.

The quality of the photos right now appears to be fairly low so I emplore you to send in your photos and up the game.

If you haven’t had a look at the SA Rocks Flickr group I suggest you do so. There are some amazing photos and photographers in the group. I am sure that one of them can definitely win the car at Citi Life. See for yourself:

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