Charl Norman is a web entrepreneur behind local social networks Blueworld and Zoopedup, he also owns a network of leading blogs including Car Blog and Bandwidth Blog, writes for tech and auto publications such as Leadership mag, guest lectures at UCT/CPUT and does the occasional public speaking event. More >
Who sticks to their new year’s resolutions anyway? I know I don’t. But after reviewing the goals I set out to achieve in 2009 - Surprisingly, I didn’t do to badly. Here are the goals, those ’striked’ out were obviously completed -
Build a better Blueworld and Zoopedup with strong mobile plays
Get back into Golf
Video blog [...]
20Fourlabs and BWCOM decided to enter the Nokia ‘Calling all Innovators’ Africa application competition a few weeks ago - more on that here. We received great news two days ago that we won 1st prize and $85 000 in cash! Mega congrats to everyone in Labs and BWCOM!!
Here is my business partner Bradley accepting the [...]
Blueworld Communities (Cape Town) is hiring! We are looking for a developer that will work closely with product managers to create web applications for both pc and mobile. We have a relaxed start up environment with freedom for any developer to grow his/her skill set and work in a high profile division that rewards hard [...]
Using 3G on my Macbook Pro is an eternal struggle - the software provided by Vodacom for their 3G E220 HSDPA modem is faulty. Vodacom support executives even confessed to me that ‘the software is buggy’. The 3G line always drops or even lately - the software stops working all together! I reached out to [...]
Mentions in the media over the past two months
Brainstorm magazine - I’m featured with my BWCOM business partner Bradley Voges as well as Adii Rockstar and mobile prodigy Tyler Reed.
Leadership magazine with Rob Sussman CEO of Integr8-IT and Adii Rockstar of WooThemes fame
A new innovation unit has launched within 24.com called 20FourLabs. My company Blueworld Communities will be working together with Matt Buckland (lab master) and his team to build audiences and technologies for 24.com.
20FourLabs is a start-up research and development division within 24.com focusing efforts on rapid, agile web development and innovation.
Our aim is to hire [...]
I made the list of Mail and Guardian’s 300 South Africans to watch in technology
To be described as a visionary, a marketing genius and a Web 2.0 guru at 24 is quite impressive, but then Charl Norman did start young. He launched his first website while still in high school.
Now, at 24, he heads Blueworld [...]
I attended the Seacom cable launch in Durban with my fellow digirati last week. Some of the key points -
They had pirate issues when laying the cable
The cable is 40 days to completion
1.28TB/s capacity (our current infrastructure can’t handle these speeds)
The cable links Africa to Europe and Asia (via the Middle East) - time to [...]
The guys from Netprophet have uploaded my talk from the recently successful conference entitled “Market, Manage and Monetise your blog -
The slide show (updated)
Below is the talk I did at the recent 24.com blogger workshop called 20 Tips and Tricks for your blog covering three topics - how to market, manage and monetise your blogging. The audience was entry level so if you are a seasoned blogger you might know most of the stuff I mention. I had [...]
Photos from my trip to Silicon Valley for the MIH Tech conference.
I appeared on channel MK TV's new hip hop and car show WOELAG. They interviewed me on our automotive social network Zoopedup.
I have been nominated for ICT Young Entrepreneur of Africa 2008. Now to even be nominated is a great honour for me seeing as last years winner of the award is internationally renowned Vinny Lingham.
