Shotbeak.com

It’s been a while since I made proper blog post to update on my life and what’s going down.

Study Study

The topic says it all. I have one semester left, until I graduate (if all goes smoothly) with a degree in Socio-Informatics and Marketing. My plans are up in the air for next year. I’m kinda ‘over’ studying. If the honours program in Socio-Informatics turn out to be super interesting, it might become an option to continue with my studies at Stellenbosch. But the problem with Stellenbosch, is that the longer you stay here, the greater the comfort zone and bubble it becomes. Something might happen with Tweekly.fm that sees me jump full-time into that after I get my degree. So far my default option is going to be to head to Melbourne next year. I have temp visa, so why not take the option?

Tweekly.fm

It is growing. And growing well. We are pushing a lot of tweets a day (as much as the whole of Twitter did a day back in 2007). And by the nature of our service, it will keep growing. A new server that sits at last.fm (thanks guys!) is also doing wonders for both the respective API’s (last.fm and twitter), making it faster and better. A host of new features will be rolled out later this year, making discovering new music much easier. So in that regard, it is going good. Now we still need to figure out that business model…

TwimeMachine

My TwimeMachine is also doing really well. A new design was made by Misha Kvakin. It gets these random ‘spikes’ of traffic when some ‘social media expert’ tweets about it. Always great to see. It is also win to know that apparently it was mentioned at Mesh Conference in Toronto. I don’t know in what capacity, just that it was.

Music

I have a soundcloud profile now for my new moniker, Simon Segfault. I’ve been making some dubstep. So go have a listen. I’ve decided that the next album/music I release must be top-notch. In that past when I had 10 songs, I just said, ‘k lets release it’, but this time I’m taking a different approach. And damn me for my big musical influences. I just don’t know what it will end up like. Might be dubstep/drum and bass album, or it might be lyrically inspired, blues, guitar electronica. Just don’t know. Might also do something with my brother that could turn into a vocal chiptune album. Maybe I’ll just all the above genres? Drum-blues-and-chip-step rock?

So I have one semester left to figure what happens next year? The options are so varied… For now, I’m just going to enjoy my holiday.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.