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“Why are you STILL single” …. Here it is

JoJo Bayvel2 Comments

Turning 31 and having been single for over a year. I always get the apparently obligatory question… “so you are an intelligent, funny, pretty, ambitious lady… Why are you STILL single” btw those traits are quoted and not always how I see myself. Somedays I feel like a complete moron with the personality of a pencil and the mirror does not always reflect an image I am happy with. P.S my ambition is sometimes limited to wanting to be a housewife and baby mamma.

The problem is. Most often I like being single. My own space and time, no jealous monster on my shoulder or clinging clown attached to my hip. But the question has recently got me thinking and perhaps a little worried about my eternal singledom. I guess as much as I claim to never take baggage into a new relationship I do! I have had mostly awful relationships…. Those stories though are saved for another blog or in fact a book- I’m doing the female species an injustice by not sharing my horrific and hilarious tales.

So back to that baggage. I have so many “do not wants” “won’t put up withs” etc. etc. etc. that short of being able to design the perfect male…. I really don’t think anyone could match up to the criteria I have put in place and lets just say at 30 the finer specimens are taken and the options limited too
Married
Divorced with I hate woman issues
I want to date a 20 year old to prove my manliness
I need a show pony
I have 5 kids all taller then you
I’m 28 …. What’s the rush
I want a friend with benefits

Looking at the afore mentioned. My baggage is like a grain of rice in China… Negligible.

So I get put in the she is too fussy, a player, definitely involved with a married man, in love with an ex, easy, difficult blah blah blah. I’m none of those things. I just want a real MAN.

Someone who protects not tries to own me, who deals with the bills but doesn’t try buy my love (I like having my own money), a family man, someone who doesn’t need to drink to be funny or have a personality, who likes putting his hand in my pocket not living in it, who still opens the door for me because I will still wear feminine clothes for him….. I guess a good old fashioned gentleman… Who can change a tyre and laughs because when he asks for the jack to do so I can’t quite figure out how mr Daniels (jack) could possibly assist with lifting my car.

Yes I want be a young pretty bride. I want kiddies. I want affection. I want company. I want to grow old with someone. I want to travel the world with my soulmate. No I won’t marry for only love or only love or only money … That’s not fussy it is realistic. One by itself can’t sustain a lifetime of happiness.

I’ve always liked the movie “500 Days of Summer.” I’m a sucker for any good love story, but I especially appreciate when the love story doesn’t follow the typical chick flick plot. I like “500 Days” because, rather than being a story about how 2 people fall in love with each other, it’s a story about how 2 people learn and grow and ultimately get to a point where they’re ready to fall in love—even though it’s not with each other. This is what I believe in …. Learning to love. Love at first sight oes blind very quickly.

When I first watched this movie, I got that it was ultimately happy, that both characters would ultimately end up in a better place. But I admit that the movie mostly left me feeling sad. I felt that I, like Tom, had gotten my heart broken. I had been strung along and had spent too much time pining for something that never was to be. Even though the movie did end somewhat happily for Tom, as he pursues his dream job and takes another chance in love, I couldn’t help but feel sad for all the time he lost and all the heartache he had suffered. Moreover, I’d wondered if he’d truly be able to give love a fair chance or if he would be forever tainted by his experience with Summer.
I hadn’t seen that movie in a long time, but today I watched it This time instead of feeling frustrated with Summer’s character for leading Tom on, or feeling sad for Tom’s heartache, I saw 2 people doing the best they could to find love. Summer claimed she didn’t actually believe in love, but obviously she held out some sort of hope as she pursued things with Tom, however “casual” she wanted to take it. And Tom, for his part, probably pushed too hard for love, but he was only following his heart and doing what seemed right to him. Summer just wasn’t the right one for him.

This time I felt happy that Summer, who had obviously been hurt by her parents’ divorce and didn’t believe in love, was able to find it so quickly and so unexpectedly. At the end of the movie she tells Tom about meeting her husband. She asks rhetorically, what if I hadn’t been at the coffee shop that day, what if I’d gone to see a movie, or had come 10 minutes later. She then tells Tom that he had been right about love—it just wasn’t between him and her.

And I felt happy that Tom used the experience to improve himself by seeking a career that truly fulfilled him. I felt happy that, even after getting his heart broken, even after spending 500 days of his life in love with Summer, he was able to move on and find hope for the future.

And so i have spent a lot of time on this blog trying to figure out why I was still single. I still don’t really have an answer for myself or for anyone else. Maybe it is just as simple as meeting the right person at the right time for both of us. Simple and serendipitous at the same time.

Maybe there’s just a lot of luck involved. So many factors are out of our control. But I think the idea is to keep myself in the best place i possibly can—most importantly. But also so that i will be in the right place when the right person shows up.

Do you own your tweets?

JoJo BayvelLeave a comment

Twitter files appeal in major social media case

After a judge ruled earlier this year that users of Social Media platform, Twitter, who has described itself as “a voice of liberty around the globe”, has challenged these rulings and today filed new arguments. These include that individuals have a right to a 4th amendment in their Twitter account and that deleted tweets are not automatically available for public use.

At the centre of an ongoing court battle to define individuals’ rights in their social media accounts is an account tied to an Occupy Wall Street protester.

The case turns on the Twitter account of Malcolm Harris who was arrested while walking on the Brooklyn Bridge during a 2011 protest. Early this year, prosecutors issued subpoenas demanding that Twitter turn over information for two names associated with Harris: “@destructuremal” and “@getsworse.” Twitter responded by telling Harris about the subpoenas who then asked a court to quash them.

In an April ruling that raised eyebrows in legal circles, Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. found that Harris couldn’t sue because his tweets belonged to Twitter. The judge also flashed his familiarity with social media by writing that ”the motion to “#quash” was “#denied.” (The judge has been disciplined in the past for trying to friend lawyers on Facebook).

Sciarrino Jr. then rejected Twitter’s own efforts to quash the subpoena. He ruled that Harris had no privacy rights in his tweets on the grounds that Twitter is like shouting on the street where everyone can hear. He added “the street is an online, information superhighway, and the witnesses can be the third party providers like Twitter, Facebook, Instragram, Pinterest.”

Twitter announced weeks ago that it would appeal and today filed its arguments. The filing, which can be seen here, notes that Twitter has been a tool of freedom in places like Iran and China, and argues that users do have privacy rights in their Twitter accounts.

Here are some key arguments from Twitter’s appeal:

Twitter users have a property right in the content they post (citing a case in which a photographer posted a Haiti earthquake photo to Twitter)
Twitter users should have the same right to challenge subpoenas as Gmail users
Twitter users have a Fourth Amendment privacy right in their accounts
The judge made an error by ruling that all of Harris’ tweets, including the deleted ones, were public:
“It simply cannot be the case that a Tweet that is no longer available or is deleted mere seconds after it was posted is unprotected by the Federal or New York Constitutions, but an email sent to a group of people and never deleted can only be obtained with a search warrant.”

The ACLU has filed a brief to support Twitter’s appeal. In a statement, ACLU attorney Aden Fine, said “Under the First and Fourth Amendments, we have the right to speak freely on the Internet, safe in the knowledge that the government can’t get information about our speech without a warrant and without satisfying First Amendment scrutiny.

Harris’ criminal trial is set for December 12 but is unlikely to go forward before the New York Supreme Court rules on Twitter’s appeal.

8 apps to “Instagram” your pics on mobile/PC – no need for an iphone

JoJo Bayvel1 Comment

Since Instagram has yet to offer an Android version of the incredibly popular photo-sharing app, Android users are always on the hunt for decent alternatives. But what about those who have neither an iPhone or an Android phone?

Here is  a list of 8 alternatives to Instagram, most of which you can access from your browser, and use to add cool and interesting effects to your images at the click of a button.

PicYou

With PicYou, the most recently launched of these sites, you can sign up using your Twitter or Facebook account to apply filters to your images, with a choice of eight cool vintage, sepia and grunge-like filters. What’s cool about PicYou is that you can apply the filter to the image with the dimensions as is, or you can add a Polaroid-like frame to the image, just as Instagram does.

If you do choose to use a Polaroid-like frame, PicYou also gives you complete control over which part of the image is cropped. After selecting your filter, you can add a title, tags, and auto-share the image with your connected accounts.

PicYou is also a social network unto itself, where you can follow other users, add images to your favourites (or ‘Like’ them), and leave comments. The site also makes it incredibly easy to share images posted on PicYou pretty much anywhere on the Web.

PicPlz 

While PicPlz is essentially a mobile app, there is no reason you can’t use the site without having access to the app at all. Simply uploading your images through the browser interface gives you access to all of PicPlz’s cool features. Apply one of PicPlz’s 11 filters, add a caption, and share the image with your followers. With PicPlz, you can choose whether or not to share the image across your connected accounts, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous, Dropbox and Foursquare.

As with PicYou, the social aspect of PicPlz is just as integral to the site, with the ability to follow other users, add their images to your favourites, and leave comments. An additional feature available in PicPlz is the ability to create collections, so you can keep your own photo library a little bit more organized.

Photoshop

While Photoshop might not be web-based, there’s a one-click solution that makes it easy to apply the exact same filters to your images. Daniel Box put together a set of actions that mimic some of the filters available on Instagram. After applying the filter, you can choose to crop your image, and add a white or black border.

If you want more control over how your final image turns out, the How-To-Geek has put together a guide on how to get the Nashville and Lord Kelvin effects on your images.

Pixlr-o-Matic

Pixlr-o-Matic has a ton of features you can play around with. You can apply one of 25 filters, 31 film effects, and choose from 30 border styles. Upload an image from your computer, or even take an image with your webcam and experiment with the many effects the site has to offer. Once you have the image looking just the way you want it, you can save it to your computer, or save it online to the integrated storage service, imm.io. If you do choose to save it online, there is no way to delete the image from the site.

InstantRetro

You don’t have to sign up to use InstantRetro. You can simply upload your images and work on them straight away. Alternatively, if you want to share your images with your Facebook friends, you can connect your account to InstantRetro. The site is slightly different to the other options listed here. Rather than providing specific filters to apply to your images, you can tweak and adjust certain settings to give your images a vintage look. Once you’re done, you can save the image on the site, but can also choose to keep it private, viewable only to anyone who has the link.

Picnik

The online photo editor, Picnik has a few vintage e

ffects in its arsenal of features, including a 1960s look an

d cross processing, as well as a Holga and Lomo effect. The list of effects that are similar to Instagram isn’t too long, but the site also gives you access to basic photo-editing features includi

ng adjusting exposure, colors and sharpening, so you can

tweak the image  to your heart’s content.

Rollip

Rollip is another site you can use without having to sign up at all. It does things in a bit of a roundabout way, where you choose one of 40 filters, after which you can upload your image to see how it looks. You can then easily share the image on Facebook, or save the image to your computer to share wherever you like.

Tiltshift Maker

One of Instagram’s many effects, which isn’t available in any of the previously listed sites, is the tiltshift effect. If you want to get the tiltshift effect, the aptly named Tiltshift Maker gives you an easy way to get that unique, toy-like look that the tiltshift effect provides. With Tiltshift Maker, after uploading your image you can adjust the settings, widening the scope, and intensifying the blur, after which you can save the image to your computer.

Epic Fail on Nedbank on-line Mail server Homepage…. The Click through does not work.

JoJo Bayvel4 Comments

It is not often that I would pick out or blog about something I find in the digital/on-line marketing and advertising industry.

After all I have worked for a large corporate whose social media etiquette and pages leave much to be desired (something which has given me grey hairs a few years before they should appear.) Believe me I know people have picked up on, gossiped about and used as case studies the failures on this portfolio I ran. Yes, I did as much as I could in 8 months and increased stats, but STILL nothing was up to my standard of work and what I expect from social media and on-line marketing in 2012. One person can only do so much and checking copy and click thru’s when you are busy with strategies and concepts for 30 different products and departments is left to that 25th hour…. the one that doesn’t exist. So of course agencies are hired, for social media, copy writing, media placement, design, SEO, Google Adwords et al. and yet we still have these blunders. To me it is a case the Client Director meeting the client, pitching for the account, attending a few meetings and after awhile handing over to a graduate. Well in the case of digital marketing you can have several qualifications which will help but nothing beats experience and naivety is going to be an issue.

This is all said without malice as there are agencies I have worked with and dealt with who are BRILLIANT. Prezence, MoTribe, Lighthouse Digital, Aqau Online, Puruma, Text 100 and apurimacmedia.

BUT when opening my Yahoo mail and coming across this I was shocked. All click through buttons worked besides the “Get Started” button. For me its not to hard I will explore and try click the entire page… for the non tech savvy generation whom this ad is aimed at? Money down the drain, no ROI and I would love to know the click through rate.

Anyway here is the pic… what would you do if the “Get Started” button didn’t work?

Nedbank yahoo on-line page takeover

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