WebNow Online Solutions Simplified

The World Cup that took place in our country over the last 4 weeks has been so exciting and has brought together South Africans from all walks of life.  We have made use of public transport that we previously may never have used, we have rubbed shoulders with tens of thousands of people on the various Fan walks across the country and even those that never previously followed football, have found themselves glued to their TV for the last 4 weeks.  Some of us have also been fortunate enough to attend a match at one of the magnificent stadiums around the country.  We have shown the world that South Africa can deliver and in doing so have silenced the sceptics – both locally and around the world.

For one month we forgot about our differences, we stopped worrying about the “what if”, politics seemed to disappear off the radar and we all walked around with our heads held high – For my part I was truly proud to be a South African.  In the Sunday Times newspaper last Sunday I came across a wonderful full page advert by FNB to celebrate the last day of the World Cup – these words were captured on top of a South African flag and read:

“TODAY WE ARE THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD”

How very true.

But why only “Today”.  What about going forward...Many of us are now pondering life without the World Cup and some are already talking doom and gloom.    The flags that we were all so proud to fly do not need to be packed away now that the World Cup is over.  Now more than ever is the time for us to stand together, to build on what we as a nation have achieved and to reach new heights.  

One of our partners, design agency DraftFCB, have been so inspired by the World Cup that they have launched a campaign called “Keep Flying”.  The campaign has been endorsed by Brand SA and encourages individuals and businesses not to pack their flags away but to fly the flag proudly and to keep it flying.

WebNow supports this campaign and I encourage you all as individuals to do so as well.  Please visit www.keepflying.co.za for more information and share this initiative with your friends and family.

An email signature showing our support for the campaign will be automatically embedded to the footer of all email messages and other collateral will be made available to show our support.

WebNow actively took part in the famous Vuvuzela moment on 9 June 2010 at 12:00pm.

A recent news article thereafter caught our attention:

Herewith an extract:

"At exactly noon today, people around the world blew their Vuvuzelas, whistled and honked their horns to celebrate the first Fifa World Cup in Africa, due to kick off in just two days.

It was called the “Vuvuzela Moment” and it was celebrated in equal style online as it was offline. Tweeters in South Africa and across the world came to the party in fine style, causing the phrase “Vuvuzela” to trend on the world-famous social networking and microblogging service as fans across the world spoke about and blew their virtual Vuvuzelas in 140 characters.

According to Fifa the Vuvuzela Moment officially caused the “first ever” World Cup-related trending topic on Twitter"

http://tinyurl.com/37g6h3g

Here is some of our employees blowing and making noise, to celebrate the fact the Fifa World Cup has come to Africa

So the long wait is over - months of hard work in the design and development department has paid dividends and our new website is now up and running.  The new site is a completely new idea over what we had previously and is right in line with current web design trends.

Take a look: http://www.webnow.co.za 

As an ISP and web development company we obviously have hundreds of different products and services - we have managed to make all of this information available in an extremely uncluttered and easy to navigate design.

Our Blog has also been given the same visual treatment and we are now focusing our attention on our customer portal.  More information on the exciting new benefits and features will be announced shortly.

We have been busy re-designing the WebNow site and the good news is we are almost ready to go live.  Here is a sneak preview: 

There is a buzz around the office and an air of excitement. Something is looming....

Identifying that "something" is the challenge. There are winds of change blowing over the industry. Many experts predict that 2010 will be the year that defines our Connected Futures.
So how do one approach such a time? By coming up with new and improved ways of doing business. Innovation will be the order of the day, new products should come to the forefront, new levels of customer service will required in order to differentiate yourself from your competitors. This is an exciting time to be a client.  

It seems clear that SaaS (software as a service) offerings will be the definitive answer to the question, What happens now? Faster and more reliable broadband connections ensures that South Africa is ready for this movement. Although be it, a few years behind our 1st world compatriots, we are gearing up to explore this untouched landscape.

What does this mean for everyday South Africans? Gone are the days that you need to install a program or application with a cd or dvd on every computer in your office. Things will run more securely and much faster. All you will need is an internet connection to  access and utilise your Accounting Programs.

WebNow is spending quite a lot of time researching and developing these "services" and we are preparing the release of some fantastic concepts. These services will change the way we do business from now on. 

If all this post did, was to intrigue you, then I succeeded. The time is right to get online and be part of something big. As mentioned, all you need is an internet connection!

A couple of months ago, WebNow launched its tagline competition.

We have received fantastic feedback from a variety of sources. And it is truly has been a successful campaign, to create awareness and gain some positive input from our clients and supporters.

Some of the highlights so far has been:

WebNow - Connect with Confidence!

WebNow - Expanding your wired World.

WebNow - Solutions for Growth.

To name just a few. 

I would like to remind you that this competition will close at the end of December. So time is running out to get your line to us.

The Tom Tom GPS is a fantastic prize and anybody with a vehicle will greatly appreciate this little gadget!

Go to http://www.webnow.co.za/tagline.asp to enter today. Remember you can enter as many times as you want.

What has happened in the IT world this past month?

Latest rating on ISP’s  -
The lowest rated ISPs were Telkom Internet with an average score of 5.59 out of 10 and MTN Business with 5.67.  Telkom Internet was also rated the worst ADSL ISP in 2007 and 2008.
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/9599.html

Winston the pigeon  -
New satirical website aims to shed light on data transfer speeds in South Africa
A new project called Pigeon Race 2009 aims to highlight the inadequate data transfer speeds over fixed lines in South Africa.  The website http://pigeonrace2009.co.za/ states that “The Unlimited faces great challenges in getting data from its locations across KZN back to its central location for storage. These are large files, and it was postulated that a pigeon could do this faster than a normal landline could.”
The company behind the Pigeon Race 2009 is The Unlimited World describing themselves as a “dynamic company that is Making a Difference in South Africa.”  The company offers insurance and lifestyle products including 911Assist, Motor Assist and SOS Assist.
The Pigeon Race project could be viewed as a viral campaign which is mainly aimed at promoting The Unlimited World brand and giving the company additional exposure through an innovative online advertising campaign.  
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/9510.html

Warning to all  -
A warning to people thinking of buying soccer World Cup tickets on the Internet was circulated on Thursday by Project 2010, a web-site promoting the competition.
The warning originates with Symantec, the Internet security firm, which said it expects a huge rise in World Cup-related spam and phishing attacks in the run-up to and during the football finals.
Symantec urged web users to purchase tickets only from FIFA registered sellers and avoid deals that sound too good to be true, as they probably are.
 http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Internet/9665.html

WebNow and JH-01 teamed up on a fantastic Corporate Social Investment (CSI) project to design and develop a website to provide voters easy access to the policies of the various political parties that are partaking in the South African Elections to be held on Wednesday 22nd April 2009.

VoteSmart aims to give us all the information we need to make informed choices about our public representatives. We all hear and read about their personalities and their human idiosyncrasies, but information about their specific plans for our future is harder to come by.

So head over to www.votesmart.co.za and VoteSmart.

Finweek , a South African business publication that is normally quite conservative with the content it publishes, wrote a cover feature on social networking last week. I think if a magazine like this is making bold statements about adopting social networks and giving employees more freedom then every business should be listening.

It is not just Finweek that is advocating the use of these social networking tools.  The European Commission sees three drivers for use of the internet of the future - social networking, 'the internet of things' and the mobile internet.  The article titled "Businesses need to sign up to social networks" was published on ZDNet.co.uk. 

The era of Web 2.0 has matured and the future lies with businesses that adapt and effectively use it to communicate and collaborate. This change needs to be slow and various implementations need to be tried until your business finds what works, but the reality is that without it your business will be left behind.

The article mentions that large amount of people in South Africa who already access the Internet from mobile devices, whether that is purely from the mobile phones or from a 3G/HSDPA device. When your workforce is accessing e-mail while on holiday in remote locations, and others are sitting in cubicals, in order to collaborate effectively you need to offer your employees some sort of platform whether it be Sharepoint, Facebook or Twitter.

As we still in the beginning stages of 2009 why not conduct a brainstorming session involving all your employees using a social networking platform, let it run for a week – who knows you could get your next big idea out of there or find a potential leader! 

In all honesty, we could not have picked a more difficult period to do this. With the poor state of the economy and the credit crunch, no one has extra cash lying around to spend on a new website or on upgrading a network. But, as I have experienced in my short time with WebNow, our strength lies in our never -say-die attitude, the ability and the willingness to go that extra mile for the greater good, and the sheer enjoyment that my colleagues get from doing their day –to-day tasks. This assures me that 2009 will be a massive success, despite the negativity that surrounds us.

With a new year come new additions to the WebNow family. We have bolstered our resources in a few departments, including support and development, with Nathan Hiemand and Carlo van Wyk joining this dynamic group of people. Sales and Account Management will be my adventure and I really look forward to it.

Everyone is buzzing with excitement regarding the new services and products we will launch this year. And we will take our client servicing to new heights, never before seen in this industry.

We will be concentrating on some massive projects this year, so keep and eye out for WebNow in the press. We will be making appearances very soon.
All in all, this has been a very positive move for me, working for a young, very ambitious, very energetic, highly motivated company. Look out for new products being launched this year, for example SaaS  (software as a service). This could well change the way we do business.  Some added-value services such as eMarketing , support and maintenance solutions for websites will be introduced, and the list goes on and on.

Please contact me if you have any questions or would like some suggestions. We are here to make your business run smoothly.

Jaco Liebenberg
sales@webnow.co.za

Tel: 0860 932669