MANDELA SHARES GOOGLE ‘ZEITGEIST’ STAGE WITH PISTORIUS

NELSON Mandela and Oscar Pistorius have, unsurprisingly, topped the list of the year’s most popular Google search terms in South Africa.

Google South Africa released its “year-end zeitgeist” on Tuesday, with data on the top trending and most searched terms in the country.

These lists, released annually for the past 12 years, “give us insight into the curiosities that captured the world’s attention in 2013″, said Julie Taylor, head of communications at Google SA.

Google creates the lists through its Google Trends feature, which measures the volume of searches around terms and topics, as well as other internal measurements and aggregations.

“Trending searches” measures the terms that had the highest amount of web traffic at a specific time throughout the year, while “most searched” ranks terms by volume of searches.

Unsurprisingly, former president Mandela, who died in Johannesburg on December 5, topped all of the overall lists, followed by Olympic runner Pistorius, accused of murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, who also featured prominently on many of the lists.

Former president Nelson Mandela chats with Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown (not pictured) during a meeting at his hotel in central London, in this June 24 2008 file photo. (Picture: REUTERS)

Vuyo Mbuli, the SABC radio and television presenter who died in June of a pulmonary embolism, came at least fourth on the lists of trending overall searches, trending people and trending men. His wife came in second on trending South African women.

When it came to trending politicians, academic and activist Mamphela Ramphele came first, followed by young Democratic Alliance stars Mmusi Maimane and Lindiwe Mazibuko.

For most searched, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema was sandwiched between President Jacob Zuma and former president Thabo Mbeki.

The events that captured the attention of the country ranged from Hollywood actor Paul Walker’s car-crash death to the Boston marathon bombing and Reeva Steenkamp’s funeral. Mandela was first in this category.

Android’s recent BBM addition was at the top of technology-related searches, and dance act Swedish House Mafia topped the trending music search list.

The launching of Mr Malema’s EFF was the most widely searched political event, followed by the Red October marches and the annual budget speech by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

The word that people seemed to be the most confused about was the American term “twerk”. It topped the “how to” and “what is” lists.

Through Google Trends, users can create their own lists based on whatever criteria they deem most important. Google collects a database of information about search trends that users can access to find out what is most popular on the internet.

Ms Taylor described the lists as simply “what gadgets and gizmos were trending, to what styles were hot, to which athletes inspired us…. Zeitgeist showcases what captured the world’s attention this year through the lens of Google Search.”

*featured on the Business Day website on 12/17/13

NEWS ANALYSIS: FIXING MISMATCH BETWEEN US AID POLICY AND AFRICA’S NEEDS

THERE is a long and storied history behind the monetary aid that the US provides to sub-Saharan African countries. The US Agency for International Development (USAid) estimates almost $80bn is invested in the continent each year, while trade with the US has tripled over the past decade.

Yet despite this constant influx of money, chronic social, societal and structural problems persist. Amid the recent economic crisis and subsequent tightening of budgets, US citizens — and their congressmen, by proxy — have begun to question the effectiveness of US aid packages.

At a forum in 2011, then-US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said that “too often, donors’ decisions are driven more by our own political interests or our policy preferences or development orthodoxies than by our partners’ needs”.

This assessment of US aid policy proved to be prophetic. Ben Leo, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, released a study last week on the correlation between US aid priorities in sub-Saharan Africa and the actual needs of people living in these countries.

(Picture: THINKSTOCK)

According to Mr Leo, he first embarked on the project after serving as a policy adviser to the White House on issues related to national security. People would ask him what US aid should go towards, and his answer would always be: “Whatever would have the greatest impact on the largest number of lives.” People often reacted strangely to this response, he said, prompting him to wonder whether aid policy was based on actual, on-the-ground reporting or on a mix of “data, personal experience and caricatures”.

His findings paint a startling picture of a US aid policy focused on things many sub-Saharan Africans do not see as major issues. Though the idea that donor governments’ priorities should be in line with the needs of these countries is a “widely accepted principle”, Mr Leo says “existing methodologies and practices do not address the fundamental question of whether donor governments, including the US, are prioritising those issues or themes that matter most to the local population”.

Catherine An, media associate at the Center for Global Development, said: “In Africa, the US funds largely health and education programmes while Africans themselves consider jobs, the economy and infrastructure their top priorities.”

Using yearly surveys from Afrobarometer, Mr Leo shows there is a huge gulf between what the US sees as the major issues in Africa and what African countries believe are their biggest challenges.

His study raises questions about the role US aid should play in the development of growing economies. Many of the policy questions come down to “whether donors should disregard what people say is the most important and instead function as a social safety net or service provider of last resort”.

There is a range of reasons for this discrepancy. On the simplest level, the distance between US legislators and the places where aid goes makes it hard for them to truly understand what these countries need. Congressmen do not receive public opinion polls from African countries and therefore rely on domestic groups, which often have other agendas.

US policy makers are also very goal-orientated. They want to see the tangible results of their aid packages, especially in these fiscally conscious times. Problems such as jobs and security are often too nebulous, where as food programmes and vaccines are concrete symbols representative of their idea of “aid”.

 

Mr Leo said: “Issues such as private-sector development and employment opportunities have received less donor attention, partly due to their complexity, dependence upon benign or supportive domestic political economy conditions, and difficulty in establishing concrete linkages between assistance activities and policy and development outcomes.”

When looking at the studies of surveys over the past decade, Mr Leo found the most frequently cited problems were jobs and income, infrastructure and economic policy, and poverty. Yet only 16% of US assistance has been focused on the most prevalent issues facing Africans. More than half of US aid goes towards “health-related intervention”, even though it does not rank high on the list of issues that Africans see as the most relevant.

“Over the past decade, Kenya has received roughly $5bn in US development commitments — making the country the largest regional recipient of US development dollars by far,” Ms An said. “During this time, Kenyans have repeatedly cited the same three national problems as their priorities: jobs, infrastructure and macroeconomic policies. And during the past decade, only 6% of US development aid focused on these issues.”

When Mr Leo plotted the commonly cited needs from African surveys against US aid priorities, he found that “US alignment with core concerns has exceeded 50% in only two African countries (Burkina Faso and Botswana)” and on average, “less than one-third of US assistance has been aligned with people’s top three concerns in 11 African nations over time”.

US aid is not all going to waste, though. A number of programmes are working towards solving real-world problems that face ordinary citizens in African countries. Mr Leo cited the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as one organisation that is letting countries themselves present proposals for projects and programmes they believe would be helpful.

Because a lack of infrastructure results in an average loss of 2% of gross domestic product for the sub-Saharan African region each year, almost all of these countries use the MCC aid for infrastructure-related projects: roads, power, bridges and so forth.

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation provides funding and political risk insurance to countries that promote US companies and interests abroad. In Togo, this programme helped build a power plant that eliminated blackouts, increasing electricity access to households and reduced energy costs for businesses.

“There has been a clear evolution in (Washington) DC over the past year, with an increase in appreciation of what’s happening on the continent,” Mr Leo said. “The Obama administration has planned on putting a greater emphasis on working with governments and business to get things done.”

As the African Growth and Opportunity Act trade legislation is set to expire next year, it will be crucial for the US to re-examine its policy initiatives. Next year, President Barack Obama is also hosting a first-of-its-kind summit with all African heads of state.

“I’m hopeful that this will be a bold step towards more sound policy decisions related to what sub-Saharan African countries truly need,” Mr Leo said.

*featured on the Business Day homepage on 12/17/13

MANDELA TRIBUTE VIDEOS WATCHED BY MILLIONS

FOLLOWING up on its 2013 top 10 video popularity lists released on Wednesday, YouTube on Thursday released a list of the most watched Nelson Mandela-related videos of the year.

The list is populated entirely by tributes, many of which came from American news organisations such as The New York Times, CNN and PBS. It also features poetry and songs, some containing words from Mandela himself, others simply dedicated to him.

But the most watched video was U2’s Ordinary Love, from the soundtrack of the recently released biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. The film was released only a few weeks before Mandela’s death and the song was featured prominently in promoting it.

U2 lead singer Bono attended the national memorial service for Mandela at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

A still from a video showing US President Barack Obama speaking from the White House soon after the death of Nelson Mandela last week. (Business Day)

The South African Rugby Association had the 10th most views with its tribute, which featuredMandela speaking about rugby. The association wrote that it wanted the video to show “what a massive impact former president Nelson Mandela had on the world, South Africa and rugby in particular”.

US President Barack Obama made the list with his initial reaction to Mandela’s death from the White House press room.

South African retailer Woolworths was in fourth place with its moving video of the Soweto Gospel Choir posing as Parkview store employees before breaking into a song dedicated to Mandela.

The Nelson Mandela Centre for Memory also made it, with a video featuring short messages from a variety of world leaders, including the Dali Lama, former US president Bill Clinton, Richard Branson and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. The video implores viewers to do something worthwhile for someone else on July 18, International Nelson Mandela Day.

After U2, the next most popular video was a poem by Maya Angelou, released by the official account of the US State Department on behalf of the American people.

The poem, titled His Day Was Done, is recited by Dr Angelou against the backdrop of memorable scenes from Mandela’s life.

She recounts the profound effect Mandela had on oppressed people in the US and across the world, finishing the poem with: “We will not forget you, we will not dishonour you, we will remember and be glad that you lived among us, that you taught us, and that you loved us, all.”

*featured on the Business Day Website on 12/12/13

CAR CRASH, COMEDY TOP LIST OF SA’S YOUTUBE FAVOURITES

AS THE year draws to a close, YouTube has released its lists of the top videos watched in South Africa in 2013.

RUN, BRYAN, RUN: Bryan Habana races a plane in one of South Africa's most popular YouTube videos in 2013. (Business Day)

The video sharing website said on Wednesday that 100 hours of video were uploaded onto the site every minute and more than 6-billion hours of video were watched each month — almost an hour for every person on Earth.

When it comes to what makes a video go “viral”, Google SA head of communication Julie Taylor says: “There’s no exact formula, but popular videos tend to have three key characteristics. They’re entertaining or informative in some way, they’re something that you want to share with other people, and they come from a channel with more videos like it.”

For South Africa, the video with the most views showed a truck accident in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal, that killed 22 people in September. A mounted camera on a company car filmed the footage, which shocked the country and attracted almost 1-million views.

The rest of the list was a mix of promotional videos (Bryan Habana racing a British Airways plane, Halls’ hip-hop-themed “Klein Kimmie” ad and Dove’s “Real Beauty” sketch), news reports (theWestgate Mall attack in Kenya, bike-riding for children), animal videos (National Geographic’s “Jaguar attacks crocodile”) and comedy (Ylvis’s novelty music single What Does the Fox Say?, “How animals eat their food” and “7-year-old steals iPhone”).

The top ads came from Volkswagen, WeChat with Lionel Messi, KFC, Beacon Allsorts and Dove (in first place).

Surprisingly, the top YouTube channel was run by Swedish gaming comic PewDiePie. American and Canadian channels rounded out the list, with The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The X-Factor, Jenna Marbles and Just for Laughs finishing the top five.

When it came to music videos, Miley Cyrus ruled, coming in first and second with her two hit songs Wrecking Ball and We Can’t Stop. Robin Thicke’s worldwide smash Blurred Lines came in fifth after Katy Perry and PSY.

YouTube determines the list and what is trending through an aggregate of views, shares, likes and comments.

“You don’t just watch videos — you share, like, make responses and more,” Ms Taylor said. “We looked at the many ways you interact with videos to identify the top trending videos that everybody was talking about in 2013.”

It is the fifth year that YouTube has compile these lists for countries all over the world. More than 80% of YouTube’s traffic come from outside the US at this point.

Mandela dominates online conversation

Former president Nelson Mandela. (SUNDAY TIMES)

In the same vein, online mentions of Nelson Mandela skyrocketed after his death in Johannesburg last Thursday, dominating online conversations in most countries with widespread internet access.

Reseach provider BrandsEye recorded almost 5-million mentions related to Mandela in the 24 hours after President Jacob Zuma announced his death. By December 6, that number had swelled to more than 11.5-million mentions, with people sharing condolences, remembrances, quotes and images of the former president.

The numbers kept up through the weekend, with more users commenting on the news coverage of his death as well as the funeral arrangements.

His official memorial service at the FNB Stadium on Tuesday bumped the number of mentions back up to their previously high levels. US President Barack Obama also saw a lion’s share of mentions, mostly concerning his speech, the now infamous “selfie” with the British and Danish prime ministers, and his handshake with Cuba’s Raul Castro.

In terms of location, South Africa led the online conversation when the news first hit. But over the next six days, the US took over with more than 12% of all internet mentions related to Mandela. South Africa still accounts for almost 7% of all mentions, and Nigeria came in as the country with the next biggest share.

The number is expected to continue steadily growing again as Mandela lies in state in Pretoria this week ahead of his burial in Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Sunday.

*featured on Business Day’s website on 12/11/13

NEW YORK CITY NAMES HIGH SCHOOL AFTER MANDELA

NEW York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city’s school chancellor, Dennis Walcott, announced on Friday that a new high school, the Nelson Mandela School for Social Justice, would be opened in Brooklyn.

“Every time they enter and exit its doors, our students at this new school will be reminded of the values he personified,” Mr Walcott said.

“A school that bears his name will encourage our students to demonstrate courage, overcome obstacles, and embrace community. His legacy will forever live on in New York City schools, and I hope our students will reflect on, grow from and emulate this extraordinary man.”

 

The school itself has been in the works for years and will open in September 2014. The panel for education policy will vote on the “Nelson Mandela” moniker at a meeting on Wednesday.

“Equal opportunity and access to education were among the many things Nelson Mandela spent his life fighting for,” Mr Bloomberg said.

The school will be located on the Boys and Girls High School campus, which Mandela visited in 1990 after being officially released from prison.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. (Picture: REUTERS)

The name will be another reminder of the longstanding connection between Mandela and New York City.

Mr Walcott said: “Nelson Mandela visited this building not long after he was released from prison, and we want to ensure that the special bond between the students and this legendary figure will live forever.”

During Mandela’s visit in 1990, he was greeted by hundreds of thousands of people and students at the school and received a ticker-tape parade through the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan. After the 9/11 attacks, Mandela came back to New York to show his support and start the Tribeca Film Festival.

The Boys and Girls High School, located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood, is the oldest public high school in Brooklyn, having opened its doors in 1878.

“Renaming the campus he visited shortly after his release from prison will forever serve as a reminder that our mandate as public servants is to provide our children with the weapons they need for a successful future and help us build a city of inclusion and opportunity that Madiba could be proud of,” Mr Bloomberg said.

In addition to the high school, Mr Bloomberg spent the weekend promoting the #ServeMandela campaign, which allowed people to connect and take on public-service projects around the city through the NYC Service volunteering initiative.

*featured on the Business Day website on 12/9/13

SOUTH AFRICAN INSURERS MISSING A TRICK, SAYS GOOGLE

LAST week, as a warning sounded of possible hailstorms in Johannesburg, Google South Africa staff noticed a peculiar trend.

As the number of local web searches for terms such as “hail”, “hail storm” and “hail damage” rose quickly, the number of advertisements from South African insurers and businesses related to hail and hail damage did not change at all.

Julie Taylor, head of communications for sub-Saharan Africa at Google, said: “While all the leading insurers list ‘hail damage’ as a top concern for the coming month, there are no, or extremely few, companies advertising against the search terms ‘hail’, ‘hail damage’ and ‘hail storms’.

“Insurers and other businesses need to make the connection between offline events (such as big hail storms in Johannesburg) and online searches for products and services that they offer, like insurance to cover your car damage when it happens,” she said.

Google’s AdWords system has been able to separate itself from the pack (and contribute more than $42bn in ad revenue last year) through its innovative ties to the web search function for which the company is better known.

Businesses can bid through an online auction system to have their ads appear next to certain sets of search results. The price to have an ad placed against the results for a specific search term varies depending on the frequency of searches for that term. Companies only pay the price once someone clicks on their ads.

“Our goal is to help advertisers reach people who need what they’re offering,” said Luke Mckend, Google South Africa country director. “This system gives businesses the ability to react quickly to significant events and respond to users needs faster than traditional media.”

Yet many businesses in South Africa are still figuring out how best to use the AdWords system and, more importantly, how to exploit real-world situations to their commercial advantage.

Carl Louw, executive head of marketing at Johannesburg-based short-term insurer Telesure, only started advertising his company against hail-related terms last week once he realised the prices were low even though the search frequency was high.

Businesses accustomed to placing day-to-day print newspaper ads are also still catching up to the speed of the Google AdWords system, which lets them respond to changing search trends within minutes.

When asked about why so few insurance companies are bidding against search terms related to hail, Gideon Galloway, CEO of King Price Insurance, said: “The price is so cheap, yet no one is bidding on them at the moment. Thus, it must be pure oversight; you can’t cover them all.”

The infinite range of possible search terms can indeed make it difficult for companies to pinpoint where their ads will be most effective.

Mr Mckend said people generally used two different strategies. “With the ‘always on’ method, services with unchanging related words keep their ads relatively constant in terms of searches they post ads against.

“And then there are the tactical campaigns, which track things like seasons and tourist patterns to try to capture moments in time — like a flower shop on Valentine’s Day.”

Businesses also try to jump on the bandwagon of fads that may not directly relate to their products. Ms Taylor spoke of an instance where pop band Just Jinjer’s lead singer, Ard Matthews, sang the national anthem and forgot the lyrics. Searches for YouTube clips of the performance spiked, which prompted First National Bank to post ads against the singer’s name.

With so much information available about the way people search, Google is learning how populations respond to events and using this data to help businesses get their messages out to specific audiences.

“Advertisers can’t afford to treat every country and every city the same any more, because of the cultural differences in online search patterns,” Mr Mckend said. “Search terms, in aggregate, represent the cultural zeitgeist — what the country as a whole is thinking at that moment.”

*featured on Business Day website on 11/7/13

LOW-COST SATELLITE INTERNET MAKES ITS WAY TO RICHARDS BAY

THE goal of expanding affordable internet access to every corner of the globe took one small step forward with the announcement last Friday that Maxwell Technology is now providing satellite-based broadband internet for Richards Bay and surrounding areas on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast.

Advances in satellite technology have led to lower prices for this service, making it affordable for regular consumers. Previously it was only sold to medium-sized to large companies.

“Satellite internet has been available for many years but it has always been very costly and, as such, only available to corporations or enterprises that had the budgetary means for this,” said technical director Kallie Carlsen.

The affordability of the service is due in part to “KA band” technology that only reached South African shores last year after gaining popularity and feasibility elsewhere in the world.

Pronounced “kay-ay band”, it spans frequencies between 26.5Ghz and 40GHz and forms part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

“KA band provides a higher spectrum of available frequency,” Mr Carlsen said. “The satellite hardware is highly efficient, thus resulting in a reduction in bandwidth costs and with the ability to deliver service profiles with a greater throughput and thus higher speeds.”

The higher-frequency range of the KA band has increased transmission efficiency and data-carrying capacity. That, along with smaller and cheaper customer equipment needed to transmit the signals, has contributed to the decrease in cost.

“Satellite networks are easily scalable, allowing users to expand their communications networks and their available bandwidth easily,” said Quentin Wadmore, a manager at Cable Wise, the company working with Maxwell to deliver the services in Richards Bay.

Prices have dropped significantly with the introduction of the new technology, falling from R750 for relatively limited access in 2011 to current prices as low as R142 for a standard plan with 1GB of data.

While the service is aimed at all consumer markets, it is gaining the most traction among small rural homes and businesses previously deemed unreachable by any terrestrial means.

Mr Wadmore says that unlike most terrestrial alternatives, “satellite networks can be rolled out quickly and relatively inexpensively, connecting farms and lodges that are in remote locations to the information highway”.

“Satellite networks can be easily integrated to complement, augment or extend any communications network,” Mr Carlsen said.

“They help overcome geographical barriers, terrestrial network limitations and other constraining infrastructure issues.”

Many companies have tried to break into newer, untapped markets yearning for internet services, only to face issues with implementation. Google’s recent “Project Loon”, which uses a string of high-flying balloons to transmit internet connections, has received a lot of press for its innovation but is years from being a feasible means of connectivity.

Maxwell, based in Centurion, Gauteng, hopes to deliver the internet to more places where land lines are nonexistent or hard to come by.

“We view it as an opportunity to (help) start small businesses all over South Africa,” Mr Carlsen said. “In line with this, we have been setting up partnerships in a number of towns, with room for many more.”

*featured on the Business Day Website on 10/31/13

SA CINEMATOGRAPHER CRACKS NOD FOR NEW STAR WARS FILM

PRODUCERS for the new Star Wars film announced on Thursday that South African cinematographer Daniel Mindel has been chosen to be the director of photography for the film.

Mr Mindel has done photography and production work for numerous blockbusters, including Shanghai Noon, G.I. Jane and The Bourne Identity.

The new instalment, helmed by J.J. Abrams, is slowly putting together its production team as Mr Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan do rewrites on the script.

The decision to drop the original screenwriter Michael Arndt, a long-time Star Wars screenwriter, in favour of Mr Abrams and Mr Kasdan was met with some controversy.

Mr Mindel is a frequent collaborator with Mr Abrams, working with him on the latest Star Trek films as well as Mission: Impossible III.

He studied cinematography in Australia and the UK before getting his start as a camera operator on some of director Tony Scott’s early films and commercials. He worked his way up to cinematographer, eventually working with Mr Scott and Will Smith on the blockbuster Enemy of the State

At a recent film industry event, Mr Mindel told the audience that they’ve decided to shoot the movie on 35mm film instead of using digital cameras — the last three Star Wars were filmed on digital cameras — hinting at a more old-school look akin to the earlier Star Wars movies.

The producers have yet to announce any casting decisions but many actors, from Ryan Gosling to Saoirse Ronan, have reportedly read for parts in the new film. Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill — Han Solo and Luke Skywalker in the original films — have been tight-lipped about their involvement.

Shooting is scheduled to start at Pinewood Studios next spring and Disney plans to release the film in 2015.

*featured on the Business Day website on 10/25/13