Christianvibes.com-Friends Who Love Jesus
March 21, 2008
Christians need love and connections too. Now they can get it online with Christianvibes.com. And you know this idea would come out of a Bible belt country like Jamaica. It’s a Jamaican gift to the world of Christians online.
Why aren’t Caribbean brands getting a “Second Life”?
March 12, 2008
by Susan LeeQuee
SC FLASHBACK- In the Caribbean, we have unique and successful brands, not to mention the seasonal sold out music events and parties, that keep visitors clamouring to come hang out with us. Now why don’t we take all this Caribbean brand currency that we have regionally and globally and take one giant step further. Caribbean brands should be looking to get a “Second Life” – get into the building their virtual brands or metabrand experiences in Second Life. Read more
WHo’s Online Caribbean
March 10, 2008
SC FLASHBACK-With just under 40 million people living in the English, Spanish and French Caribbean, only 5.2 million or 15% of them are online, according to the stats from internetworldtstats.
By just looking at raw numbers, the Caribbean countries on top are Dominican Republic with 1,5million people online, Jamaica(1.06m),Puerto Rico(1m),Haiti (600,000), Cuba (190,000) and Barbados and Trinidad (160,000). But when you look at the internet penetration rates which indicates the percentage of the country’s population are internet users in the region and compare, what you see is Barbados leading in the region with 59.8%, then Antigua 40%, Jamaica 39.4%, Aruba 34.1% and St Lucia 32%.
It is interesting to note that the Caribbean’s overall internet penetration rate is three percent below the world average and also that of Central America, both are 18%.
Additionally, a quick look at where things are worldwide shows, The United States leads the world with 69% internet penetration…not hard to see why they have dominated the online culture and commerce for so long. Then there is Asia which has 11.8% percent of their population online and Europe 39.8%.
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CaribConfessions.com- just let it out!
March 6, 2008
Ahhhh where anonymity is king and queen. Here is a site to go confess to pretty much anything that’s taboo - Cheating/Infidelity, Love/Hate, Gross/Disgusting, Gay/Straight, Sex,Religion,Weird Fetish, Girlfriend/Boyfriend, Husband/Wife,Home & Family. And while you may be there to unload a confession, you can vote on others too. They use the popular pligg (digg clone) site setup. It’s brought to you by the developers of caribsingles.com…hmmmm some experimentation happening here!
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The $40,000 Macbook Air
March 5, 2008
I was following my love for all things Mac, when I happened upon one that costs US$40,000. Yep, it’s a Macbook Air decked in 12,000 Swarovski crystals that has also been dipped in 24k gold. This blinged out MackBook Air is called “Golden Age” and is done by the service found at the following site..bling-my-thing.com. Only 20 exists and are being sold to who are called true luxury addicts.
Music Lessons….The global music industry..disrupted
March 1, 2008
I read Seth Godin, marketing guru at least 3 times a week. He recently wrote this post on the global music business. Since I live in the Caribbean and Reggae and Soca music is invented here, I think our music industry could stand to take a whiff of this.
MUSIC Lessons
Things you can learn from the music business (as it falls apart)
The first rule is so important, it’s rule 0:
0. The new thing is never as good as the old thing, at least right now.
Soon, the new thing will be better than the old thing will be. But if you wait until then, it’s going to be too late. Feel free to wax nostalgic about the old thing, but don’t fool yourself into believing it’s going to be here forever. It won’t.
1. Past performance is no guarantee of future success
Every single industry changes and, eventually, fades. Just because you made money doing something a certain way yesterday, there’s no reason to believe you’ll succeed at it tomorrow.
The music business had a spectacular run alongside the baby boomers. Starting with the Beatles and Dylan, they just kept minting money. The co-incidence of expanding purchasing power of teens along with the birth of rock, the invention of the transistor and changing social mores meant a long, long growth curve.
As a result, the music business built huge systems. They created top-heavy organizations, dedicated superstores, a loss-leader touring industry, extraordinarily high profit margins, MTV and more. It was a well-greased system, but the key question: why did it deserve to last forever? It didn’t. Yours doesn’t either. More
Which Caribbean social network will be number one?
February 27, 2008
The race to become the dominant Caribbean social network has become hot and heavy with players. From the pioneers, the newbie’s to the niche players which ones are the real contenders in becoming the facebook.com or classmates.com of the Caribbean? We’ve been tracking the development of Caribbean social networks for the past five years years and there have been some exciting developments over that time. Chief among them are that first there is now easier access to social network software in a box and add to that, tech entrepreneurs have recognizing more the gaps in the Caribbean market and are gunning to fill them. Subsequently- social media in the Caribbean is mushrooming.
The Pioneers: There are the ones who got in the game before social networks were popular generally but particularly this side of the world. These sites competed with the mindshare dominance of the American based sites such as hi5.com and blackplanet.com. First there is vibesconnect.com, which was started by a Jamaican tech entrepreneur Delroy Frazer.
Vibesconnect.com started out focused on snagging the Jamaican market, but evolved and is now more focused on challenging blackplanet.com for the general Caribbean and US-based African American online market.Then there is caribbeanmassive.com started by a Kittian tech entrepreneur Rodney Browne. This site made a direct bid for the Caribbean regional and Diaspora market from the start. We also have ackee.com, which started in 1997 and pitched the classmates alma mater angle, where Jamaicans at home and overseas could reconnect with their friends from high school. They have since extended the reach to the Caribbean. These pioneers have been a minimum of five years.
The Newbies: This group of social networking sites threw their hats into the ring less than two years ago some as little as 6 months ago. We have caribfriends.com the newest entrant, started less than 3 months ago by seasoned Jamaican tech entrepreneur. Caribfriends.com focuses on being a general social network but have also added the classmates angle.Also in this group we have caribgonewild.com, which focused immediately on the Spanish, English and French speaking Caribbean with their own distinct sections, partially in their own languages all under a single site. Caribgonewild.com was started less than a year ago by a Haitian American entrepreneur living in New York.
Then we have caribplanet.com and then easily the most visible Caribbean social networking site idletribes.com, started under a year ago by another seasoned Jamaican tech entrepreneur Jamie Ranston. Of all the entrepreneurs who’ve started a Caribbean social network, Ranston is the only one with previous online community/social networking experience-having worked with what was the very first online community/social networking site that catered to a Caribbean audience at home and abroad via country named and focused sites – HomeView Jamaica.com, Homeviewtnt.com etc. All this leads us to think about which sites are real contenders.
THE REAL CONTENDERS
Based on business models, marketing muscle and membership base, we believe we can cherry pick the top3 real contenders that will become dominant in the market, enjoy profitability and longevity.
Business Model
Vibesconnect.com – Google adsense and affiliate marketing.
Caribbeanmassive.com- Google adsense, joined an online advertising networking, local direct ad placements
Ackee.com – Google adsense
Caribfriends.com- Google adsense
Caribgonewild.com-direct ad placements, cut from member music sales
Idletribes.com – Google adsense ads, direct ad placements
Marketing
Vibesconnect.com – They’ve had membership drive type of contests with hip gadgets as winning gifts.
Caribbeanmassive.com-they do a lot of local radio advertising in St Kitts. They have also had short google pay per click ad campaigns
Ackee.com – undeterminded.
Caribfriends.com – cross linking with high traffic sites such as Caribsingles.com and Jamdeal.com
Caribgonewild.com-undetermined
Idletribes.com-cross linking with high traffic sites, a healthy daily spend of Google adwords pay per click campaign.
Memberships
Vibesconnect.com - unknown
Caribbeanmassive.com - Has just over 7,000 registered users
Ackee.com – Has just over 15,000 registered users
Caribfriends.com – Has just over 1,000 registered users
Caribgonewild.com - Has over 8,000 registered users
Idletribes.com – Just this week passed 7,000 users
NUMBER ONE?
Who do you think are the top 3 most dominant Caribbean Social networking brands and why? We believe vibesconnect.com,Caribbeanmassive.com and idletribes.com are the real contenders.
PERFECT FOR A MULTIMILLION DOLLAR BUYOUT ?
This is toss up between vibesconnect.com and idletribes.com but factors can change that around very quickly in a matter of weeks or months.What do you think?
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DancehallSpace- Social Networking for dancehall reggae fans
February 25, 2008
Reggae Month has a few days left and Dancehallspace.com has launched to give dancehallreggae fans globally a place to meet and network with others who share a passion for Dancehall reggae music and lifestyle. It has the usual social networking features such as photo sharing, music, videos and blogs.
TOP 10 Jamaican sites visited by Jamaicans…now
February 21, 2008
Six months ago we checked with alexa.com and published the top 10 Jamaican sites visited by Jamaicans, it caused a little controversy with its surprises. Many people were asking Jahkno.com who? Never heard of them what do they do and are doing to be number one? Regardless, what we discovered from the top 10 list was that without question, the 18-35 age group is online in full force.
In that report we also made it clear that alexa.com a leading web information company that tracks and reports on site rankings globally, is the single way in which to measure this Top 10. Let us know if you agree with the alexa.com rankings.
Here we go again, six months later to see who’s still standing, who’s new and worth giving a click check.
TOP 10…more like TOP 19 ( February 2008)
1. Mediazoneja.com – A Message Board with 4,692; 18,836 Topics
2. Uwi.edu
3. Jahkno.com - Jamaica’s #1 Online Music Community ( Previously No.1)
4. VibesConnect.com - A social networking website for people of Caribbean and Afican Americans backgrounds.
5. JamaicaGleaner.com – daily newspaper site
6. JamaicaObserver.com – daily newspaper site
7. Digicelgroup.com – the group site of the number one mobile provider
8. Smutvibes.com – The name says it all
9. Digiceljamaica.com - the country site of the number one mobile provider
10. 876radio.com - A partyflavoured community site
11. Wheelsjamaica.com – a message board full of car enthusiasts
12. Cwjamaica.com – the country site of the number two mobile provider
13. Jamaica-star.com – the daily evening tabloid
14. dancehallreggae.com -a community site for dancehallreggae music fans
15. utech.edu.jm
16. Tech Jamaica- tech news, information and forums. techjamaica.com
17. Uwimona.edu.jm
18. idlerzlounge.com
19. Watever.com
The Top 10 ( September 2007)
1. Jahkno.com
2. uwi.edu
3. jamaica-gleaner.com
4. wheelsjamaica.com
5. jamaicaobserver.com
6. vibesconnect.com
7. uwi.edu.jm
8. jamaica-star.com
9. digicelgroup.com
10. digiceljamaica.com
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IZATRINI launches Facebook Music App
February 18, 2008
IZATRINI.net - A Trinidadian online community launched it’s Facebook Music Player - so anyone can sign on to listen to Parang, Soca, Chutney and Reggae. We love this development and this flow of Facbeook apps from the Caribbbean.
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Jamaican Jokes, the Caribbean’s First Facebook
