Do you have questions that need answers? A new online community, Answerit has been created by the guys from 24.com for both ‘smarty pants’ and ‘enquiring minds’.
According to a study, U.S. people traffic to Question & Answers websites increased 889 percent in the last two years and the main reason is that when you ask something there’s a real person behind the answers you get. It puts more weight on it and makes you feel like the guy with the solution is an expert, or something.
“One of the core principles of the World Wide Web is that we live in a shared world where shared knowledge is valuable. Answerit is an online tool for South Africans to interact and share knowledge that is particularly relevant to their local experience” said Elan Lohmann, GM of Social Networking on 24.com.
Using Answerit is pretty easy. You need a 24.com account and you ask your question and from what I see the service is similar to Yahoo!Answers allowing you to vote for the best answer.
Another thing I like is the leaderboard. This is where you can see the Leaders, Gurus or those that got the most thumbs up. You can also add them to a watchlist if you think they are the experts you could learn from.
So if you want to know who was first, the chicken or the egg, go ahead and ask your smart questions on Answerit.
MyBroadband has broke the news on Media24′s digital unit, 24.com, acquiring a stake in Blueworld Communities – the social media technology company behind social networks like Zoopedup and Blueworld.
Quotes from the MyBroadband article
24.com has acquired a controlling stake in Blueworld Communities – a local social networking group.
24.com recently acquired a controlling stake in Blueworld Communities, a social media company founded by Bradley Voges, Brendt Brooks and Charl Norman which focuses on building and maintaining web technologies such as social networks.
Blueworld Communities owns and runs the websites Blueworld, Zoopedup and Gaypeers and generally targets a younger audience through its social media platforms.
24.com CEO Russel Hanley says that the acquisition gives the company access to both Blueworld’s established online community and their social networking technology.
Hanley highlighted the fact that Blueworld Communities’ audience is complimentary to the 24.com audience and they will definitely look at synergies in future. The 24.com CEO further pointed out that the Blueworld Communities technology will enable them to target certain niche social media markets in future.
“We are very excited to be a part of the 24.com family and look forward to leveraging their assets to further expand our social network’s market reach.,” said Charl Norman from Blueworld Communities.
“We also have a very strong youth demographic which compliments 24.com’s older user base. We are very proud of the social media platform we have built and look forward to exploring synergies between our technology and existing 24.com brands to further expand our niche social network strategy.”
Media24 is the dominant player in the South African online market with well established brands like News24, 24.com, Health24, Wheels24 and Fin24. This latest acquisition will further improve their strength among younger Internet users, a market which Naspers have already started targeting with its shareholding in MXit.
Building a successful blog has many key elements, one of them is a great design and layout. Now not all of us are design savvy and could easily end up with a horrible looking blog. Luckily we have blogging rockstars like Adii to provide high quality themes with feature packed back ends.
Adii released three new premium WordPress themes, the Live Wire series : Live Wire 2.0, Live Wire Edition and Live Wire Style. The prices start at $99.95 for a single license (website), go up at $149.95 for all three themes and two licenses and if you need to use them on an unlimited number of domains you’ll have to pay $249.95 (includes all three themes).
Here is a list of the features you get when you buy a Live Wire premium theme:
Automatic Image Resizer (requires PHP GD Library to work)
Custom Page Templates for Archives, Sitemap & Image Gallery
Built-in Gravatar Support for Authors & Comments
Author Profiles & Archives
Featured news section
Video Panel (for use with Flash videos)
Navigation Dropdown Menu’s
Sidebar Tabbed Box
2 different homepage layouts (featured section)
Widgetized sidebars
Integrated Banner Ad Management (easily switch this on / off)
Integrated Flickr & Feedburner
The three themes are all magazine-like but I’m sure you could use them on your blog even if you don’t want to start an online magazine. For example, an ideal place to use the Live Wire themes would be on a blogs network. We all know branding is important and having the same elements present is a must for blog networks.
I had the chance to see all of the themes in action and I really liked what I saw. Functionality is great but kept simple with a clean layout and sweet features.
One of my friends bought the developer’s package for his network of blogs and told me that his RSS subscribers increased by 20-percent and readers started to make more and more comments on his articles. This sounds like a great deal so if you want yours, go ahead and buy it now.
South Africa’s bloggerati converged in Cape Town last night for this year’s SA Blog Awards. Hosted by Jon Cherry, and with trees as trophies, the evening was an incredibly enjoyable one – for bloggers and digital junkies alike. The Zoopy video features the prize giving and a small segment with predictions from local bloggers Rafiq Phillips, Simone Puterman and Jason Bagley.
The GRID is a a South African location-based social networking service for cellphones. Cow Times guys have developed a free Facebook application that you can access via WAP (wap.thegrid.co.za) on our mobile phone, that allows you to see where your friends are on the map, allows you to organize events and get directions if you’re lost. It was built in partnership with Vodacom.
The application was built in partnership with Vodacom and stands on three big pillars: blips/virtual notes, the navigator and GRID events. Here are a few details about each one.
First of all, the blips and the virtual notes. If you find something interesting in your area you can add some text, images or a video for others to see and be directed there. It also comes packed with a navigator to give you the shortest route from one place to another, and GRID events where Facebook users can setup events and send invites to other.
“The functionality that we’ve introduced to Facebook with this application is not only very handy but a lot of fun too. With its location-based technology, The GRID application highlights what is happening in your area on a social level, by displaying information being shared between friends and other users specific to that location.”
Do you have questions that need answers? A new online community, Answerit has been created by the guys from 24.com for both ‘smarty pants’ and ‘enquiring minds’.
The GRID is a a South African location-based social networking service for cellphones. 
