Tweekly.fm hits 7500 users
Tags: imsonerdy, Music, tweeklyfm
I just actually needed a cool blog-title.
This blog is more just an update on the state of things.
Firstly, yes: Tweekly.fm has of this blog post hit 7500 users. It is also now under 500 00 on alexa ranking. It has grown tremendously the past few months. I am very happy about it! What started as just a simple service I wanted to use on my own in January of this year, is now supporting itself through ad revenue! That is not all though. I am going to upgrading and overhauling the Twitter side of the mashup in the coming month if university work isn’t bogging me down too much. Expect awesome features!
Twindie.net run by me and my bro (well my bro does more work atm) got a redesign and launched its first T-shirt range! It’s dry and lame.
I’m So Nerdy is going slowly at the moment. I’m sensing a redesign possibly and the eventual implementation of categories (and better sharing), but it is a bit low on the priority list. Too much other web and study-related things we are busy with. But please, don’t stop submitting hilarious nerdyness.
We also have a new website in the pipeline that should launch in the coming weeks. We love it.
In music-related news, we are busy with an EP for our project, called Dapper Jump. Expect it to sound like indie alternative rock with electro.
Yes, me and my brother are trying to take over the world.
Business Business
Tags: business, rawr, tweeklyfm
University started 3 weeks ago, so its been a crazy few weeks. The real workload only starts now unfortunately.
All through the past few weeks, I’ve been all “business”-y. I’ve been hard at work on a web-related business plan for an innovation competition. It has so far been interesting experience. It’s great being able to apply my entrepreneurship and marketing studies I did in the first semester of this year. I have also been getting free stuff from the foundation hosting the competition. Free candy, juices. Oh and textbooks too. 
It has to be done in 2 weeks. Stressing a bit about it. Almost done, but it feels “empty”. Not trying to brag or anything, but it’s difficult to create a cashflow statement or a marketing campaign for a new product, especially when its supposed to cater to EVERYONE, not a niche market.
Tweekly.fm has been growing rapidly this past few weeks, hitting almost 200 000 pageviews a month. I’ve tried different ways to monetize. Tried doing it on my own, but no one seemed interested. Then I added adgator, but it only monetized south african traffic. 80% of Tweekly.fm traffic comes from USA. I then tried Google Adsense again. So far it is actually doing rather well. I’m going to continue using it until someone makes me an offer for ads, or when I add some sort of premium service in the future.
So yeah, that’s that for now.
Lets look back at my predictions
Tags: facebook, twitter, wow, YouTube
It is just past the haflway mark for 2009. I made some predictions in the beginning of the year. Lets see if they came true:
1. A comedic web series following wannabe Guitar Hero rockstars will rock YouTube.
Nope, haven’t seen anything spectacular in that line. Cmon you video’sters! Create a funny spinal tap-like script for guitar hero rockstars. Do it!
2. People fooled by The Onion will decrease even more.
Yes, The Onion’s traffic rank has risen through the year.
3. Blizzard will send the gaming population crazy with another witch hunt.
Blizzcon is at the end of August, so we shall see when that times.
4. More gullible people join Facebook and send spam mail detailing how your account will be deleted if you don’t send the message to 10 people.
Yes. I don’t want to talk about this. It makes me sad. Really.
5. Global warming sends much needed moisture for cloud computing to create a storm.
Basically, cloud computing will get a boost in 2009. It just DID! With the announcement of Google OS! I also predicted a Google OS back in January 2007. Oh yes, I did.
6. Digg posts a link to itself, crashing the site.
Doesn’t work. 
7. World of Warcraft reveals API to get data out of it. (twitter indundated by “orgath dinged lvl 45?)
Not entirely. TweetCraft a 3rd-party WoW twitter client does something in that line. It has a very laborious installation procedure, so Twitter is still safe-ish for now.
8. Google reveals location based ads placed on busses. (ie bus rides past a bar, and an ad pops up showing how cheap the beer is in that bar).
Not yet. The technology doesn’t exist yet.
9. Parents have to start deciding when to allow their young’uns access to their Facebook profiles. Is Young Johnny ready too see mommy in a drunk photo?
Not yet such a big issue, but parents are joining facebook and are making a fool of themselves. <- Great site.
10. dotCommunism gains a few more members.
I think people are beginning to realise that the way things are currently run in the world ain’t exactly working anymore. 
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p.s. How awesome is Google Chrome OS? Bring on the cloud!
Some general updates
Tags: imsonerdy, myspace, oauth, tweeklyfm
I haven’t tested Tweekly.fm with OAuth implementation, but by the looks of it, the code looks about right. I’ll probably test it soon. OAuth won’t go live until I am able to sit by and see if all goes according to plan. Tweekly.fm updates runs on Saturday night. I won’t be here to test it and sit around to see that things go down without a hitch. So, the implementation will have to wait a week or two.
I’m also considering moving the updates a tad earlier (can’t find the link now, but Twitter slows down on the hour because of automation services). The other option I’m considering is moving Tweekly.fm to early monday morning and affixing the popular #musicmonday tag to it. It is the spirit of music after all.
I’m also thinking about perhaps purposefully lengthening the script that sends all the tweets. The influx of users looking at the userpages is seriously slowing the server. I could always upgrade the server, but I don’t have the money. Which reminds me, I’m still looking for advertisers! This past Tweekly.fm tweet-run, it got 30000 pageviews alone.
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In other news, I’m So Nerdy is going rather well! The nerdy-ness keeps on rolling in!
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On the music front, me and my bro have been cranking out some tunes. You can go listen to them on MySpace!
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That’s all I have to say for now. Cheers!
My claim to fame ain’t Tweekly.fm
Tags: are you awesome?, facebook, tweeklyfm
Tweekly.fm has reached a great milestone this week! It has finally topped the 1000 users mark. To be exact. 1112 users (on sunday) choose to send their last.fm data as a tweet to their twitter account. I’ve always been excited about it. It is a useful service, one which I wanted, and as goes to show, other people too! In the beginning it was racing against my Facebook app called Muse Lyrics. If you are a Muse fan, like I am, you can use it to add any Muse lyric onto your Facebook profile. As of this blog, it has 400 users. I’m happy that my web projects are flourishing (sort of).
It turns out, I actually have another Facebook App that has 8300 monthly users! Yes, you heard me! 8300 monthly users. Blegh. Here I thought Tweekly.fm was my claim to fame… Am I excited? Not really.
It’s a crappy app built with an application builder. It is called, “Are you awesome?”. I made it to see if I can make something viral. It’s a short quiz (one question). It asks you: “Are you awesome?”. There is only one option: “Yes”. If you choose to do so, it sends the results to your newsfeed saying, “Jane Doe is awesome. Are you?”. Yes, its viral. People would want to click on it. So isn’t that awesome?
Not really… It was made with an application builder. I’ll never see any ad revenue.
This makes me want to make another crappy, viral facebook app… People are stupid.
Rekindling university textbooks
Tags: amazon, kindle, university
A few days ago I talked about how ludicrously expensive university textbooks are. Here is a quick recap:
Knowledge shouldn’t be expensive. Textbooks blah blah. Most knowledge is already becoming more accessible. blah blah.
I didn’t know about Amazon’s Kindle, until Kindle 2 came upon the scene. It’s a brilliant thing that was bound to happen sometime.
Before I go off on a tangent rambling about how useless the education system is becoming (for a later blogpost), university education still exists and with it the need to buy way too expensive textbooks.
There is already a lot been said about this on the net, but I really feel that something like Kindle needs to be used for textbooks. The ease of use and the amount of money that can be saved is tremendous.
When Kindle or something equivalent finally takes over the textbook market, the old textbooks won’t be usless though. It can still be used as kindling. *ba dum tish*.
A Real Guitar Hero
Tags: guitar hero
This past Saturday, I went to watch a few bands play at the Braak in Stellenbosch. Alongside the bands there were a few vendors and promoters doing what they do best. One of those was the Coke Zero zone. Besides getting free coke and having hot promo, they also had a guitar hero tournament.
I decided to join in, although I knew my twin bro was much better. The tournament started and I got kicked out, but my brother eventually won the tournament winning himself guitar hero 4, a ps2 and singstar rocks.
Why am I blogging this?
I dunno, I just thought it’s awesome. Who knew one could win stuff by playing guitar hero?
The Price of Knowledge
Tags: knowledge, university
So, my university started today accompanied with frenzied chaos as people try to sort out various stuff, like registering for the correct courses, activating student cards, etc.
Another thing that happens in the first week of class is buying exorbitantly priced textbooks. To me it is just ridiculous. About a 3rd of my course fees are spent on textbooks. We have at our university what is called WebCT. It is an online facility where you can get notes of what happened in class and engage with the lecturers and other students if they are studying the same modules.
In this age where information is readily available, ie Wikipedia, and services like WebCT exists, I just don’t get it why we still need textbooks (extremely expensive ones at that). Yes, not everyone has a computer and some students are studying on bursaries/loans. I understand that. I’m just miffed at the fact that they are charging so much for what is quickly fading out.
The price of knowledge shouldn’t be so high.
Who agrees with me?
I hate university
Tags: internet, university
Yes.
I hate it.
I hate it, because I know, as I am busy with it, I will never have such a great time in my life. I am not actually the person who is pessimistic or cynical, but somewhere deep down, there is some sense of truth in it. Without a doubt, when I start working and heading into the real world, I will try and make the best of each situation and enjoy it to the utmost.
It made me think. What is it that makes university so awesome? To me it is several things. The first obvious one, is the fact that all you REALLY have to do, is pass your subjects and get your degree. From then on, you can do anything you want.
As life goes on, more responsibilities pile up. That I can handle. I can easily see myself having “as” a great time with more responsibilities as with less.
University is a HUGELY conducive environment for a lot of things! Because of so many similar people, with the same goals, living next to each other, things happen! I get woken up at 9 on a Saturday only to discover that 13 people want to suddenly go on a wine tour. AWESOME!
Each day is exciting, because there are always people to do things with.
AND that. That is what I am afraid I will lose when I leave university. I am afraid I will lose the spontaneous nature of everyday life.
Considering that this is something I WANT outside of university, I decided to start a web project to solve just that problem. Coming ‘09.
University e-Potential!
Tags: potential, university
So, in a week’s time I’m heading to the land of awesome that is university! I can’t wait. Of course this will mean me being less on the net.
An university environment is such a great place to create viral/social/web products. There is so much potential that is left untapped. University students social a lot, so word goes around quickly. Thus the adoption rate of something new is quite extraordinary. A new awesome song? Takes a week before its heard everywhere. Facebook became an instant hit.
So, as I’m starting my 2nd year, I’m still looking for an idea to implement while I’m still in university precisely because it is so easy to get an userbase.
Time will tell.
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