Less running, more action

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Breaking it down for you
On Sunday, 7 October 2012, 20 000 runners traversed the substantial divide between Sandton and Alexandra as part of Nike's ''We Run Jozi" 10km race. The impeccable organisation, challenging route and fantastic vibe, crossing the finish line left many feeling strangely fulfilled. Like its earlier incarnation, the second ''We Run Jozi" was by all accounts a hit. How often can a running race boast a 100% increase in entries in only six months?

The success of the concept is testament to an excellent global marketing campaign that has been adapted to local market conditions in a way that completely resonates with Nike's target market here. Driven by social media and PR, Nike has tapped into many uniquely South African emotions-anger (taking back the streets of Johannesburg), curiosity (the vast majority of runners had never set foot in Hillbrow or Alex), and our inherent need to cross the cultural, economic and racial divide once in a while to come together and achieve something great (something that only sports seems to be able to do).

But here's the problem: now that thousands of Joburg's better-heeled residents have seen how the majority of South Africans live, what are we going to do about it? Will this be just another campaign with all the noise but no action? Or will the conditions in Alex finally be bettered for those who reside there, through public action? Only time can tell I suppose

Possible business prospects in Brazil for SA?

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With the world cup looming in Brazil, i've decided to have a look as to how South African businesses will be taking advantage of the exposure which will be taking place in the South American continent. Basically what's happened is that a group of South African businesses has descended into Brazil to scour opportunities in the growing South American country.

They are part of a South African delegation comprising of twenty-five businesses plus the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) who are participating in the fourth Investment and Trade Initiative (ITI) taking place in Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte. The DTI said the aim of the ITI Brazil is to increase exports of value-added products from South Africa to Brazil, by means of showcasing South African companies' diverse range of capabilities to produce world class products and services.The business delegation will participate in a series of seminars, business- to-business meetings and site visits to various companies operating in the mining and capital equipment, automotive components, aerospace, defence, safety, security and agro-processing sectors.

This shows that form a communication point South Africa wants to establish itslef as a force in the international market. After sponsoring the world-cup itslef, South Africa would be familiar with how things work when it comes to developing relationships with other countries in the buying market. Truly there must be some form of growth happening in the South African economy for its businesses to be expanding to this magnitude. Well played SA!!!!!!!!!!

Cell C spreads its wings

Cell C caused quite a stir in the local (South African) mobile world with their new super fast 3G services and a new revamped look spear-headed by comedian Trevor Noah. Cell C since then has established itself as a serious contendar with the likes of MTN and Vodacom in the wings, making for a rather competitive mobile network market. Today Cell C brings much needed data connectivity to the academic city of Potchefstroom, with coverage extending as far as Klerksdorp in the North West Province, with the launch of its 3G network using HSPA+ technologies.

The two small towns follow the launch of the network in Mafikeng, which was the first city in the province to enjoy high-speed data connectivity from Cell C after years of being considered an underserviced area. "The roll-out of our network in the province confirms our commitment to bringing connectivity to all South African. Since our launch we have brought access to all the major cities and have deployed 3000 base stations across the country," says Karin Fourie, Cell C’s Executive Head of Communications.

Cell C recently introduced a range of new voice and data products aimed at simplifying and making mobile services more affordable for the South African consumer. With the launch of 99c For Real, Cell C slashed prepaid rates by more than 34% and the company's new Straight Up contract packages help customers chose the simplest offer on the market. Customers with friends and family abroad will also benefit from Cell C's unprecedented rates for international calls, including the 99c rate to more than 50 countries.

"Cell C isn’t finished yet. The mobile consumer in South Africa has and will continue to benefit, and so will South Africa as a whole," concludes Fourie.

Affiliate Marketing: Where both sides benefit

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I've always wondered how life would've turned out had I gone down the path of a financial advisor...well this is me giving it a shot so ALL STUDENTS pay attention!!! Ever heard of affiliate marketing? No? Well the definition on Wikipedia gives it as such: "Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts".

Basically what that means is that affiliate marketing is promoting other people's (company's) product and earning a commision in return (if a sale is made). So you're essentially working for a company on an "unofficial" basis. As an affiliate you basically do a number of tasks such as promoting other people's or the company's product using a special link with a code only being used by you embedded into it, this is required by the advertiser to track the leads referred by you. Should someone buy that product (or in some cases complete a task like signing up or completing a survey) using your link, it gets tracked by the advertiser and you are rewarded a commission, which is a percentage of the sale price but can also be a fixed amount as set by the advertiser. This way both the advertiser and the publisher is benefited. Advertisers get more sales of their product when many publishers/affiliates promote their product and Affiliates in turn generate revenue by promoting the product.

Affiliate marketing isn't so simple however...this is due to the fact that the product you are advertising should be advertising friendly for your specific market. This brings us to the fact that not all products or services can be marketed on this new platform. However depemding how well one can communicate with their public almost any product on earth can be marketed with the correct insight and knowledge so this will serve as a key factor in whether your company ends up being a success or not.

The end of an era

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A Little Intro:

The reign of the keyboard and mouse is slowly coming to an end. I mean we may not see it right now, but gradually technology is moving away from the point and click system and going into a more intuitive system. The way we use computers has remained largely unchanged for nearly 40 years. Even with the advent of touch screens and tablets in the past 10 years, we have only experienced a slight modification of the familiar point-and-click paradigm. Hoewever this will change very soon, we are currently going through the most significant evolution in the way we work with computers since Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh in 1984.

I will be rasing just a few interface revolution just to support my theory:

• touch and mulitiple touch
• gesture control
• voice
• HUD
• wearable computers
• holographic displays
• bain machine interfaces

The above points that I have rasied are both from protoypes which you see at science exhibitions and actual devices which are currently being made, so keep your eyes peeled!!

Business App of the year

A lil intro:

The build up and excitement over the last few weeks leading up to the first ever MTN Business App of the Year awards event, proved worth the wait as the ICT industry awarded innovation in application development. The awards, which took place at "The Venue" in Melrose Arch, it saw the announcement of the FNB Banking app team winning the overall best App of the Year for 2012.

Nomalanga Nkosi

The General Manager for Business Marketing at MTN Business, Nomalanga Nkosi says "The MTN Enterprise Business team congratulates the FNB Banking app team on this achievement and title. The team's passion for application development, innovation, alongside an understanding of the broader business market, expertise and dedication has certainly paid off. We found an innovative application, born from a forward-thinking and creative idea that will no doubt positively impact the way business will be undertaken going forward, and will empower businesses to conduct work seamlessly and effectively."

There is a need to develop apps that address the demands of businesses and individuals. The awards aim to recognise local app developers that are spearheading innovation in this space.

Hayley Horan, the journalist for Creative Space Media says "The event was a huge success and one that we are proud to have initiated. We commend and thank every application developer who entered the awards as they exhibited the depth of talent and creativity we have in the South African ICT market. Selecting the finalists and the winner was certainly no easy task and it certainly points to the enormous talent that exists out there."

With various award categories throughout the evening, winners included:

• FNB Banking for the best iOS consumer App
• Health ID for the best iOS enterprise App
• FNB Banking for the best Blackberry App
• TransUnion Dealer Guide for the best Android enterprise App
• FNB Banking for the best Android consumer App
• Rapidtargets for the best HTML5 App
• Matchy for the best Windows App
• Plascon Inspire Me for the most innovative App
• PhraZApp for the best Garage developer App

I think awards like this serve as a good indication as to how companies like MTN are dominating the respective fields they're in and doing a good job of making sure services for all customers are met. GOOD ONE MTN!!!!

Banking in a new way?

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The future is something no-one can truly predict or fore-see, this is a fact on almost all aspects of life. However the same sentiment cannot be shared for cellphone banking which is full of predictions which may come true. For example using your cellphone to pay for your bill or your grocery purchases isn't some distant, dreamy idea.

This idea would truly be something extraordinary in the market we live in which is confined by the plastic cards called debit and credit cards. Jonathan Houston the digital marketing lead executive in the Deliotte consulting technology division said, "It is obviously far fetched to think that the use of debit and credit cards will be completely eliminated, but a time will come when you open a bank account, you will be asked to choose between having a card or a phone (as a means) to pay". This raises the question just how far will technolgy grow(in terms of banking) in the 21st century? Houston answers this by saying "The rapid convergence of mobile and banking technology which started  with such simple functions as money transfer was increasingly making the cellphone a virtual bank itself".

Bankers say that South African's high mobile penetration rate made it the perfect maket to launch banking technology and products using cellphones to reach an under-banked and unbanked population estimated at more than 11 million. An initiative which particularly caught my eye in terms of banking which took place in May was by FNB which launched a person-to-person payment option called "Geo Payments", using its banking app which allows users within close range of each other to make payments to one another without using their bank account details. This shows great promise for our local market.

Girl Power

In commemoration of women's month, I would like to focus on the predominatly women-owned company BLT SA. To dwell deeper into what BLT is all about and what they exactly do I chose an extract from BLT South Africa products manager Clinton van den Berg, "Durban-based materials handling equipment specialist Big Lift Trucks (BLT) South Africa offers a range of MecLift variable reach trucks, designed for diverse materials handling applications, including the efficient handling of electrical cabling." The company is generally considered a baby in their respective industry of shipping due to the fact that it was only recently established in January of this year. A range of other products the company offers is container handling equipment, including the supply of new and refurbished variable-reach trucks, mobile container handlers and terminal tractors. What really makes them unique in a sense is that they are a distributor for equipment manufacturer B&W Mechanical Handling Equipment, which supplies a range of harbour equipment, including link conveyors, grab hoppers, surface feeders, radial boom stackers and mobile ship loaders.

Charity Gumede(marketing director of BLT) says "the company has been well received by the local industry so far, although competition in the market has been tough." she went on to add on that by saying “we are working in a very demanding industry, but we are holding our heads high. We ensure that we provide the best service possible and keep up to date with the latest industrial technology. We are also committed to providing productive and dependable equipment for our customers.“It is important to build good business relationships in this highly competitive sector and we have managed to secure supply, service and distribution agreements with some of the world’s most respected materials handling equipment manufacturers. This enables us to offer the local market the latest international products.”

Local businesses like this are the type of establishments that spur on other aspiring South Africans, especially females to take advantage of the oppurtunities available to them in our ever growing country.

Collaborations still the way to go

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When companies like Coke and Spotify come together one can only dream of the endless outcomes that are possible from such a partnership. Now what makes such a collaboration special is that they will be focusing on four main pillars which are namley global, technological, social and music.

As far as technology is concerned, Spotify is incredibly proud of its platform that allows people to share across the world. “We’ll be working really closely with Coke as a technology partner to do things that only Coca-Cola could think of with music,” explained a Spotify executive. “We want to bring new experiences with music to consumers everywhere.” For those of us who don't already know Spotify is a music streaming service offering digitally resticted streaming of selected music from a range of major and independant record labels, including Sony. EMI, Warner Music Group and Universal. Now for all those techno boffs who are still trying to find out how such a partnership would benefit them, Spotify has announced that users will be invited to Spotify through live shows, unpacked events, and Coke even mentioned that a Hackathon took place to cater to the more technologically inclined. Meanwhile, Coke will be building content on top of the Spotify platform to deliver to users not only as a marketing effort but as a way to curate the content already available in a more useful, and convenient way.

Coke has always thought of itself as a company which incorporated music in its marketing and this is evident through a series of advertisments they had back in the 50's which featured music icon Ray Charles. According to The Verge (a channel on Dstv based on technological advances in the 21st century), the AT&T app will give users the ability to check out locations where certain songs were originally recorded. Pretty cool stuff for the music buff. Through such a partnership one may say both companies are sending an indirect message to the public in terms of trying to draw in new audiences. From a communication aspect this greatly benefits Spotify and Coke on the basis that its constomers will get the image that both companies are trying to grow and cater to their growing needs by not being one dimensional but also beig able to offer other services. I give a HIGE thumbs up to this collaboration!!

Dancing to technology's tune...whether you like it or not



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Throughout my brief blogging stint I've tried to refrain from talking about topics which would put me in the ''common pot'', because let's face it, for the passed 6 weeks it's either been about Sanral and the whole e-tolling debacle or about some form of corruption in politics. I've tried to be very exclusive about my topics and the stories I researched and blogged about. However this streak of mine may be put to jeopardy today through the topic I'm about to raise, I'd like to believe there's always a new and fresh angle to a story depending on the brains in front of the computer screen.

I've decided to look at this whole viral video incident in which a 17 year old girl was raped. The reason I've decided to raise this topic is mainly for two reasons, the first being that most of my blogs stretch out to more of an international platform so with this blog I decide to bring it on a more local front and focus on events which are taking place on our own soil. The second reason is because the incident itself is a perfect example of just how powerful technology has become in our country and how huge of an effect it can have when used irrespective of whether it's for the wrong or right reasons.

The story states that four boys were accused of raping a 17 year old mentally ill girl in South Africa, Soweto and shot a video of the occurrence with a cellphone which eventually went viral and would come to spread on the internet on the 18th of April. The accused were arrested on the 17th of April, by which time the video was all over the country. As painful and raw as the story is I decided not to look at it from the angle of the individuals who were involved but from the view of the technology which was used and the impact it had. What really caught my attention about this event is the way in which it spread and the exposure it recieved, to say it spread like WILDFIRE would be an understatement. Hard news is somethimg we're almost immune to in South Africa yet this particular story just had a particular vibe about it which slapped you by the ear and forced you to listen. This my friends is the power of technology in the 21st century!!! I look back 20 years ago and companies would have had to sell their souls to get the kind of exposure this story got at that same speed. Even in todays times, no matter how good a company's communications and marketing team is they'd have to do somethimg pretty special and daring to get people talking like this. We're living in a age where almost all age groups are familairising themselves (if not already familiarised) with social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Media is being served on a platfrom where one can read a particular article and share his/her views with other individuals around the country at super-sonic speed.

So there you have it, whatever form technology may come in whether it be viral videos or social networks, it should be taken as a serious force to be reckoned with when it comes to tools which help one to communicate with the general public. Just the pure influence it has on how people percieve information in the media places it head and shoulders above any other platform in current existence

iPad: the answer to school being "uncool"

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FINALLY, I GET TO BLOG ABOUT APPLE!!! The reason I'm so excited about blogging about this company is because there's just this certain atmosphere of exclusivity when it comes to mind. The reason I say this is drawn from a personal experience of my own. It was my 21st birthday and I'd asked my mother for a laptop, now the previous week my friend had bought himself an Apple Macbook PRO and my word was it a machine!!! The clarity alone was the first I'd seen of it's kind, switching between windows and different browsers was on a whole new level. To cut a long story short, that laptop cost an arm and a few legs so I ended up getting an HP Pavilion dv6 and ít's no Macbook PRO but it's definitely a tech monster in it's own right. Since then I've gathered a very huge respect for Apple and the innovation behind its products.

Now when a company of this magnitude goes about changing something as rigid and formal as school environments one has to pay attention. Apple have gone about trying to commercialise the usage of iPads in the classroom and exposing them to students of all ages. An interesting statistic which rose in America is that "while 97 percent of the participating teachers in Manhattan Beach reported in November that the iPad makes class more engaging, that proportion had dropped to 86 percent by the end of January. The proportion of students who said so also dropped, though less steeply, from 81 to 77 percent. This kind of drop in interest and excitement makes sense to me. Anyone who has experienced a new gadget will experience a similar type of drop in enthusiasm. That puts a tremendous onus on teachers to change the way they think about teaching and learning. I hope this kind of feedback spurs innovation and creativity in teachers to try new things." So this shows that Apple is not simply releasing a product to the students and merely sitting back but also incouraging teachers to think more creatively and change traditional teaching with the use of the iPad.

When we look at the usage of the iPad in classrooms on a more nation level, namely South Africa. One is able to see it could not have come at a better time with the MD of Think Ahead (an institution which provides educational solutions) Michelle Lissoos said "it is a challenge to keep the classroom environment exciting but, with the introduction of the iPad, school children are now excited about going to school and learning." She also said that "there are currently 20 000 educational applications and 1.5-million iPads at educational institutions globally, which prove the popularity of the device in an education setting." Now Í'm sure a question which comes to mind for alot of people is that how do disadvantaged schools afford the device? Lissoos states that "affordability is a challenge for disadvantaged schools but corporate South Africa is coming on board to sponsor schools in townships and rural areas. There are also different models for the use of the device, in private schools parents and schools can afford one device per learner but, in disadvantaged schools, a group of five kids can share one device."

From a communication aspect Apple really played it's cards right by focusing on bettering the lives of students and how they interact with information in class, they've taken a rather played out innitiative of focusing on schools and adding their own twist to it by making school more fun for students. They have some how been able to manipulate the product to suit all countries and play to each of their characteristics. This shows the level of detail they were willing to go to in terms of researching and finding out exactly how to play to the comunities needs and solve their individual problems.

ebook WARS!!!!

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I've often asked myself as a student currently studying in a tertiary institution and commonly exposed to different kinds of technological platfroms everyday...how much do I actually know about ebooks? Wikipedia states that "an electronic book (variously, e-book, ebook, digital book) is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices.^[1] Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the e-book as "an electronic version of a printed book,"^[2] but e-books can and do exist without any printed equivalent. E-books are usually read on dedicated e-book readers. Personal computers and some mobile phones can also be used to read e-books." 

So basically it's taking a physical book you would read and placing it in the platform of a tablet, e-book readers, personal computers or a mobile phone. Now I'm sure your question is how exactly does this appeal to me as a tertiary student? Well the answer is quite simple, the usage of tablets will be the saving grace for applications like the e-book reader. Shipments in terms of enterprises for pads has grown from 20,410 units in 2010 to 1,121,990 units in 2011 making the year on year growth 5397.3%. Where as shipments in terms of consumers has grown from 16,861,160 units in 2010 to 50,589,290 units in 2011 making the year on year growth 200%. The following figures show the current and future growth for tablets:

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 The huge debacle around e-books right now exists between Apple and Amazon with Apple being accused of fixing e-book prices while the team at Apple says that it was simply trying to break the monopolistic grip Amazon has on the market. Telegraph states that "the US Department of Justice this week accused Apple of conspiring with five major book publishers to fix the price of ebooks, in an effort to loosen the stranglehold Amazon had established via its Kindle device. However, Apple said that the charges are "simply not true" and that it had instead promoted competition. "The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry," it said in a statement. Whoever leaves this scuffle as victor could glaim quite a huge foothold in the e-book reader market and inevitably the tablet community. Whether on a tablet or a physical book, as long as people have eyes and are able to read this will be the more prefered way for many to gather and process information, from a student doing an assignment to a PRP preparing an article for an organisation.

PR on the blogging tip....

Search Engine Blogs as Public Relations Tools

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Blogs are used for various reasons including reporting news, communicating with specific groups of readers, and spamming. With millions of active blogs being constantly launched by journalists, students, CEO’s and celebrities, the blog can be seen as a living and breathing ecosystem dependent on links, trackbacks, databases, feeds, and indexing for survival. Over the past year Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves; the un-argued big four in search, have launched their own blogs.

What started as a way to say hello to their users has now transformed into a cult of transparency and communications. Along with a dash of geek-speak, crisis management and pro-active posting, these blogs have also begun to outshine the traditional forms of press and public relations, as the press and public has become as non-traditional and non-linear as the blogosphere itself.

The new public relations model of the search blog brings with it a change in attitude and information. No longer are journalists and bloggers pitched as often by Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN by the boilerplate press release, which is usually as damn interesting as reading the back of spray cans.

Instead, the new form of communication is an oxymoron; mass intimacy. Instead of one of our favorite PR reps contacting us with those old releases, we’re now contacted via email or IM with a link to the newest blog post. And if we subscribe to the RSS feeds of these blogs, we’re instantly contacted by our aggregator before the search engine PR people can say “PRISA” three times.

Additionally, Yahoo has taken a more intimate approach to announcing new product offerings from Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Search and Y Search Marketing on the Yahoo Search Blog They have not used the Y Search Blog as a way to respond to the controversies which have been dogging Yahoo over the summer (China Journalists, Spyware and YSM Crashing) but what they have done is used it as a channel to explain what Yahoo is working on and Yahoo’s direction in Search, Maps and Local; instead of simply announcing. Unlike the Google Blog, the Y Search Blog offers comments, which lets readers send feedback directly to the authors of the blog entries – non-PR affiliated Yahoo employees.

So there you have it, with the convienience of the web benefiting public relations practitioners a whole new level of communication is possible

I’m not a Public Relations specialist but I do pay attention to the PR industry and its trends and do truly feel that the Search Blogs used by the big four search engines are a successful model for some companies, especially tech friendly ones to follow. One of the greatest aspects of reading these entries, is that I already feel like I sort of know these people . Such a feeling of company to public relations is quite priceless.

PR at crossroads....Technology vs The People

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It was some what of an eye opener for me when I came across a blog about social media and whether it is about sociology or technology? This got me asking the question that when one does any campaign or initiative for a company, do they go about focusing on the people involved or the technolgy behind it? To elaborate more on what I am talking about I came across this extract. "Unfortunately in new media, we tend to put technology ahead of people. Think about your current social media, mobile, or web strategy for a moment. Do you even know who you’re trying to reach? Do you know what customers or stakeholders expect or the challenges they face? Are you familiar with how they connect and communicate and why? Lastly, do you understand the journey they take to make those decisions?".

As a public relations practitioner one has to work with both the ever changing sphere of technology in the new media and still focus on "altering" the perception of the human mind through bringing across the point that the organisation cares about them, still puts them first and cares about them as a buying power. A huge problem that most organisations face is that they presume they know what the consumer wants when in reality only a few have actually went about phsically asking. There is an interesting statistic that states that 77% of organisations say they know what their consumers wnat but only 53% percent of them have actually went about asking. These are rather alarming figures for organisations who have PRP's in the forefront because it means that they have gone about steering the organisations basic consumer knowledge on trends and figures they see instead of actually presenting the question of asking "what do you as a consumer and an individual want?". A practical example that came to mind for me is that organisations are so head strong on exposing their brands through social networks like Facebook and Twitter and beefing up their websites and blogs that they forget to work on an actual relationship with the consumer and build a certain level of trust between themselves and the people that support their brands. Relationships are not static, they are in fact dynamic and becoming more so every day. The sales funnel of the past is now alive and is multidimensional.

So I suppose my title shouldn't be "PR at crossroads....Technology vs The People'' but "PR breaking BORDERS by improving technology and TRULY knowing the People". If this balance between the two could be achieved without the one being focused on more than the other then PR would completely serve its purpose of reaching the goal of satisfying the public and the organisation through communication.

Technology....meet PR



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I was quite chuffed to see my lecturer had a tablet during one of my classes and was teaching us off it and it brought me to the question, just how much has technology transformed the public relations game? It made me wonder whether it's simply a case of subconsciously following a trend just because theory says so or is it trully a survival key to help one stay ahead in the game?

Mutually Beneficial Relationship
While researching how technology has changed the PR field I was quite stunned to find out that technology has equally been influenced by public relations in the sense that "having clear messages and public relations programs in place that enable technologists, scientists and other experts to distinctly articulate their vision can not only help them become industry leaders and advance their technologies, but provides organisations with a voice in the marketplace of ideas, facts and viewpoints to aid informed public debate" (source) so essentially PR provides a platform for technology to be exploited by the audience that respective type of technology is looking for. So where as technology offers public relations practitioner a more convenient way of communicating through things like the web and emails, PR gives technology a better outlet to being promoted through a more focused and professional way of communicating to the public.

This fact adds a whole new dimension to possibilities of further change in public relations, it allows for public relations to not only be known for representing more corporate fields of work but also scientifc fields where if a scientist has discovered a new serum or has a breakthrough, they are able to deliver it down the channels of putting the ''public first" with the skills of a PRP's perception change.

All in all this sparks a new trend for the future of communication with companies and organisations being able to gain a tighter crip lock on how the public percieves them in terms of image, some will argue however that one can never truly control how the public percieve anything done by an organisation..however with the help of technology and the coaxing of PR in the wings, this may not be such a far-fetched dream after all.

Blackberry...not so sweet

Background
BlackBerry, the brain child of RIM(Reasearch In Motion), its most significant move in the mobile communication world was the release of its BIS(BlackBerry Internet Service) this brought about a convinience for many on surfing the net and put a massive foothold on the social networking game with BBM(BlackBerry Messenger). All in all these features were responsible for it being placed as the 6th most popular device maker. (Read..)

BlackBerry is seen as one of the leading brands when it comes down to sales figures,  but for a company with such a driving force when it comes to bringing in clients, it some how lacked to satisfy many of them, seen with the crash that happened back in 2011 . Now when one looks at this situation from the communications point of the company it almost quite literally strips them of whatever credibility they had in the beginning. It brought about a sense of concern for consumers across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It brought about unwanted attention for BlackBerry and set up an almost insurmountable task for them to start explaining and compensating for this "accident".

How South Africa handled it

In South Africa and across the whole world for that matter they set about compensating for the crash by giving away certain applications for free to download in App World (a mobile software shop available to only BlackBerrys). It is quite interesting to see how each of the major networks in South Africa went about compensating to their blackberry customers. Cell C offered their customers a R10 discount from the R60 internet service fee,Virgin Mobile offered R50 airtime and MTN said it would credit its users with R10....

While one may argue and say that to a certain extent it was not BlackBerrys fault for the events that took place with the network backing up, it does raise a question as to how much does BlackBerry really value its customers. When the media archives are drawn out and this event is examined, people will come to see that BlackBerry simply went about solving the technical issues and threw the rest of the matter under the carpet hoping it would be a hush operation and everyone would simply forget. To a certain extent one must compliment them on this because as much as people threatened to change phones as soon as they could, no-one really did, and as soon as the network was up and running again, it was like all had been forgiven and forgot. However you look at it BlackBerry has no real competitor when it comes to making a compact, practical and affordable smart phone and until then they can afford to fumble as much as they want....