It’s not new news that GM has been considering selling Hummer for a little while now. It seems that among the other brands that GM dragged with it through financial nightmares, GM has now decided to shelve the brutally yank car as it is financially unfeasible to maintain the brand.

GM did try to pawn it off to the Chinese recently, but the deal fell through when Beijing decided that it was too much of an environmental risk to allow the brand to be purchased by a Chinese company.

This follows the previously GM brands of Pontiac, Saturn and Oldsmobile and finds itself stacking up in the losers corner where car brands are sent to die!

So with cost-cutting still part of the strategies of many companies, especially the car manufacturing industry, Puma has taken it a step further and have commissioned that a Formula 1 car be built out of shoe boxes.

Here is the video:

This advert stars Jack Wheeler as the lead, a mate of mine. Jack also starred as “Jack” in the famous “Go Back Jack” Virgin Mobile advert a few years ago.

Google is reknown for launching brilliant services, offering it free to use with little if not any monetization model at all on the service, in then move on politely to kill the next big thing. They did this with mail with the launch of their GMail service, with Picasa, the photo management software and site, GTalk, the IM and VOIP service, etc. Disruptive technologies with high impact viral marketing from the geek world with their blogs, Twitter accounts and other sharing platforms work for Google.

Their latest offering is a stab at content sharing and uses GMail as a platform to house the technology and fuses the concepts of Google Wave, Twitter and GMail into a seamless inteface that is usable, easy to understand and practical.

The biggest advantage that it has to other services, is that all Google products use the same consolidated Contacts list. Google Buzz looks to integrate Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, YouTube, etc.

Here is a video released by Google to highlight the concept of Google Buzz:

GMail has really grown up since its launch as it now hosts mail, IM, docs, and now Buzz. Best of all, it’s available for mobile too!

This is a really good bus advert that is both memorable and eye-catching. Would you ride the bus?

Thanks @igsaan for the find!

I have been contacted by an agency with reference to a job opportunity in Cape Town and while the position does not suit me, I am sure that one or two of my readers will definitely be interested in the opportunity. I can tell you that it is with a very dynamic company and actively involved in the mobile sector in SA.

I am not affiliated with the agency in any way and neither am I advocating the company to which the position is with. If you are interested, I have included the agents details at the bottom of the post, so feel free to contact them directly.

Good luck and don’t forget to keep us in the loop if you do get it!

Content Manager

A dynamic technology company based in the Western Cape is seeking the expertise of a Content Manager, the purpose of the job is to establish dominance of my client’s international content offering through defining and implementing the mobile content strategy across all defined lifestyle categories.

You will need to have honed these  skills

§  Business analysis skills

§  Good written and verbal communication skills

§  Facilitation skills

§  Relationship skills

§  Customer Centric

§  Proven problem solving skills

§  Time management skills

§  Conflict management

§   Conceptual thinking skills

§  Ability to manage in a diverse environment

§  Strong motivation and influencing skills

§  High Attention to detail

And have these  Attributes

§  Positive, enthusiastic attitude

§  Teamwork

§  Presentable, well spoken and professional

§  Reliable

§  Integrity

§  Flexible -  thrive in a dynamic environment

Minimum Requirements

§  Degree or Business qualification in Commerce, Marketing IT or Information Science

§  At least 5 years experience in product development, product management, content management or marketing

§  At least 2-3 years experience in a similar management position, in dynamic fast moving industries.

§  Sound financial, product management and product improvement knowledge

§  Knowledge of local and international mobile and content trends/markets

§  Knowledge of cellular telecommunications best practices

§  Mobile portal knowledge

§  Knowledge of product management methodologies

§  Business acumen

§  Understanding the regulated environment

§  GSM knowledge

§  Market Research

§  Knowledge of and experience in working in the mobile and/or telecommunication industry

§  Technical System knowledge

§  International exposure to mobile content is advantages

Should you meet the above criteria or have industry experience in the mobile /new media/ social media space

Kindly forward CV’s to jackiej@hboconsulting.com or contact me directly on 072 387 3387

The controversial Audi A5 suicide advert has been doing the rounds online. I think that it’s a brilliant advert that highlights the new Clean Diesel engines that are good for the environment. Audi has a reputation of really good adverts and I have featured some here before.

Sadly though, Audi has come out disowning the advert and denying the validity of he advert as an Audi initiative. In their defense, the advert does stand out like pink hair when you consider that legacy Audi adverts are always very clinical and portray clean and tidy concepts. #JustSaying!

Check out the Audi A5 Suicide advert:

Do you think that this really is an Audi advert?

My love for Nokia’s is very evident on my blog and I often find myself in the middle of iPhone vs BlackBerry vs Nokia arguments, and many times I win those arguments. I’m also fairly concerned for the environment and ever since IslandChic got involved in Carbon Emissions Trading and the Kyoto policy, I have taken an interest as well and did quite a bit of reading up on the matter.

I’m no saint though, I drive to work in a 2.0litre engined car, I could do a million things to reduce my carbon footprint, but I do

• unplug devices that are not in use
• once fully charged, remove teh cellphone charger,
• shower instead of bath
• have the car cleaned using a bucket and not a hosepipe
• switch unnecessary lights off, etc

My point is, that even though I am concious about the impact of global warming and I do constantly remind myself of my contribution to the problem, I do not do nearly enough to help.

The guys at Nokia have been helping though. For many years now, Nokia has been actively pursueing green technologies and methods of reducing the problem. Nokia handsets are now free of PVC, lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBB) and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE).

2/3rds of the energy used by a mobile phone is that which is consumed while the mobile phone is fully charged, but remains plugged into a charger. Nokia has realised this and have introduces “No Load” chargers, which ultimately switches the charger off once the phone is fully charged. I have also noticed that on my N97, when the phone is fully charged, or when I remove the charger or USB cable from the device, a reminder message is displayed encouraging users to unplug the charger.

All very subtle changes to the user, but the massive impact it could have when considering that there are almost 2 billion Nokia’s in circulation is quite impressive.

Check out the phone below that uses sugary liquid to power the device. In the images, the device is powered with Coke and a single topup of Coke is said to last 3 to 4 times longer than a single charge of a normal battery. I have included the original article text below the pics as well.

How cool is this?

A green phone for Nokia

This is the client project for designing an eco friendly phone for Nokia. Through my research, I found that phone battery as a power source, it is expensive, consuming valuable resources on manufacturing, presenting a disposal problem and harmful to the environment.  The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment. Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out. Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable. Meanwhile, it brings a whole new perception to batteries and afternoon tea.

Check out Nokia’s Enviroment portal for more info on Nokia’s projects.

Nokia Messaging for Social Networks is the latest release of Nokia Messaging which is available for the Nokia N97, N97 mini and the 5800, which in short means, all Symbian S60 Version 5 devices within the Nokia stable.

I have been a fan of the Nokia Messaging application and even went as far as rating it as a Nokia N97 application worth using!

What’s even cooler about this release, is that I have a short feature in the launch video. Watch it and look out for my Twitter account as the first tweet!

I feature from 41 seconds to about 54 seconds. If you don’t follow me on Twitter already, you probably missing out. I go as @DChetty, so check it out!

The latest application now supports full Twitter and Facebook integration and allows simple, yet useful features like the ability to export Facebook events to the Nokia’s native calendar. The latest app supports full home-screen access and pulls data directly from your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

It’s very nifty and I recommend it as a potential Beta Labs winner!

Facebook privacy models have come under fire before and there was a major uproar a little while back when Facebook included a clause in its privacy policy that claimed ownership of all content put up on its platform by its users. The uproar achieved its objective and Facebook changed the policy realising that pissing off 100 million users is not exactly a good business strategy.

Mark Zuckerman, the big whip at Facebook, has released an open letter to the public today, highlighting expected changes to the Facebook privacy model and has asked it’s users to monitor these changes as it will affect the current privacy settings in place on users accounts and the new management system will be rolled out over the next few weeks.

Here is the letter:

It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.

To make this possible, we have focused on giving you the tools you need to share and control your information. Starting with the very first version of Facebook five years ago, we’ve built tools that help you control what you share with which individuals and groups of people. Our work to improve privacy continues today.

Facebook’s current privacy model revolves around “networks” — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.

Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.

However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we’ve concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.

The plan we’ve come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we’ll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.

Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we’ll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You’ll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you’re finished, we’ll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you’re done you’ll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.

We’ve worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone’s needs are different. We’ll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you’re sharing with online.

Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.

Mark Zuckerberg

Don’t forget to check out some other Facebook articles on my blog:

How to get your own Facebook domain!

Facebook stats – October 2009!

For all Facebook users!

Facebook adds Instant Messenger service!