Recently an agency client said how impressed he was that - at my age - I was blogging and FaceBooking and seemed "fairly connected" online. I didn't know whether to thank him or slap him. Because at 30 he's only a decade younger, but how active you are online seems to be as much an 'age thing' as a 'job thing'. In South Africa it's the teens and the geeks who rule the blogosphere and are using social media applications effectively. There's only a handful of journalists and media companies who are savvy enough to be early adopters, at least in Africa, of these incredible new interactive applications. In the absence of high speed broadband, the Internet is largely just another media channel to agencies and communicators and the majority of this industry when it should be part of every single brand strategy already. I am generalising I know, we have come a long way with wireless internet in the past 18 months, but it is still frustrating to many of us that we're still at the point of explaining 'Social Media 101 and even Online Communications 101' in SA and I wonder how far ahead we wouldn't be on the global business landscape as media and marketers if Government hadn't held back IT and digital growth by stalling broadband? Look at how fast our growth in mobile communications has been through the innovative cellphone products we have. It's the cellphone companies which have in fact transformed Internet connectivity and communications on this continent, not obstructive governments. Having an editorial team so mobile and so connected, no matter where they are, has made our news gathering smoother, faster, more immediate and more connected, providing an improved service to our readers and advertisers on a daily basis. The Internet will explode once broadband arrives - will you and your brand be ready?
Surfing SA! Louise Marsland, editor@bizcommunity.co. Marketing news: marketingnews@bizcommunity.co. Responses to this column welcomed on our blog.