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United States bloggers to tour SA

17 Nov 2008

Brand South Africa, under the auspices of the SA International Marketing Council (IMC), has invited a group of bloggers from the United States to tour selected sites in this country during early December. The aim is to generate publicity for South Africa. Zoopy Gauteng GM, Nic Haralambous will be accompanying the tour and blogging exclusively for Bizcommunity.com in this space.

This latest initiative, We Blog the World South Africa, follows a very successful tour in 2005, also run for the IMC, in which six top US journalists came to SA and the South African story obtained front page coverage in several major newspapers, along with features in scientific journals.

Blogging is one of the most powerful forms of communication today. Top bloggers are global opinion-formers, read widely by media and decision makers in the public and private sectors. Because blogging features direct personal opinion, there is no sense of mediated messages - the writer tells it like it is.

Themes

The itinerary takes the tour from Cape Town via the West Coast to Johannesburg, Soweto, and the Magaliesberg. Focal points of the tour, from 29 November to 9 December, are:

RENEWABLE GREEN ENERGY - the Joule electric car, the Darling Wind Farm, Eskom's green power initiatives.

MAJOR ENGINEERING ACHIEVEMENTS - undersea diamond dredging from the world's biggest mining ship, the world's deepest mine on the gold reef of the Witwatersrand.

2010 SOCCER WORLD CUP - meeting the Local Organising Committee and visiting Soccer City stadium, the hub of events.

SOUTH AFRICA'S SPACE PROGRAMME and related science/satellite projects, the Square Kilometre Array (SA pitching for the SKA, the world's biggest radio astronomy telescope).

SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND BUSINESS INNOVATIONS - community ownership of mining resources, intellectual property issues, Outward Bound's strategies for developing the youth; discovering the origins of humanity through cutting edge palaeoarchaeology.

GROUNDBREAKING SOFTWARE AND BLOGGING. - the Ubuntu open source operating system; the cellphone "Office of Africa"; meetings with local bloggers to exchange notes.

The bloggers will be writing and videoing "on the hoof" for their influential personal websites. Those invited span many fields of interest from scitech and IT to marketing and travel blogging, but all are influential within US and world media. The itinerary aims to offer dramatic stories of achievements and innovation, exciting personalities, engagement with communities, and the stunning scenery for which South Africa is famous.

Bizcom blog

Nic Haralambous is a South African blogger and media enthusiast. He is the GM for Gauteng of Zoopy, http://zoopy.com and is passionately South African. His personal positive project on the good things happening in our country is SA Rocks, http://sarocks.co.za and this keeps him sane and alive during ‘interesting times' in South Africa.
The blogger tour dates will be from the 29 November to 9 December 2008.

For more:

Blog posts on the US blogger tour to SA