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 >
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
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 Communities (BWCOM) and has nine years experience in online publishing. BWCOM, which Charl co-founded, was acquired by Media24 in 2008. It owns leading social networks in South Africa such as Zoopedup.com and Blueworld.co.za.
Norman was a runner-up for the ICT Young Entrepreneur of Africa 2008 and nominated for the Top 30 entrepreneurs under 30 in South Africa. He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. He’s an avid blogger and a public speaker on internet strategy. — Qudsiya Karrim
I appeared on the couch this past week with brothers Marc and David Perel -
Today we interview one of South Africa’s most respected social network gurus.
He owns & runs multiple social networks and recently one of those sites got acquired by one of the biggest companies in the world.
His name is Charl Norman, and today he is on the Couch.
I was mentioned on the interwebs a few times over the last month - kudos to the following friends -
Mike Stopforth - Ten (More) Young South African Digital Citizens To Watch
Charl Norman is not just a promising young talent, he’s already proven what he can do. Climbing on the social networking explosion of 2007 and 2008, Charl realised he could use his Web savvy and business instincts to bring niche social networks (like BlueWorld and ZoopedUp) to the South African internet. And he did it so well a big-ass media company paid him lost of money for it - and rightly deserved. Charl has, despite his admirable succes, remained a pleasant, humble and trustworthy dude that I sincerely enjoy meeting up with. The only downside is that I have to have four Red Bulls laced with acid to keep up with the conversation…
Nic Haralambous - Defining 08/09 - analysing the year past and the year ahead
Charl Norman is the co founder and chief operations manager (COO) for Blueworld Communities. BWCOM owns numerous niche social networks based in South Africa.
1. Blueworld Communities being acquired by Naspers - this paved the way for other acquisitions in our local space - Zoopy and Afrigator soon followed with investment from Vodacom and MIH/Naspers. This created investor confidence in our small local market and enabled other startups to more confidently seek investment.
2. The economic crisis will slow down venture capital investments and startups unable to figure out their revenue model will have their funding reviewed or forced to merge with other similar lower tier startups.
Users will own their online identity (e.g. profiles) with tools like Google and Facebook connect. Users will carry this identity along with them around the web forcing online communities like social networks to embrace data portability technology.
Social media will also become more mainstream as tools like Twitter will be adopted by the general public and not just geeks. Good companies will have concrete social media strategies as part of their overall marketing strategy.
More press here
I was a judge in the 2008 South African E-Commerce Awards hosted by JUMP Shopping. The results have just been announced and I’m pleased to say I was almost spot on with the winners I selected. You can see the results here.
After an immensely successful round of voting, in which over 10,000 votes were cast, Jump shopping is proud to announce the winners of the 2008 South African E-Commerce Awards!
This year’s awards carried the same format as the previous years’ by first giving the public the opportunity to nominate their favourite South African Online stores in 20 different categories. Once a list of nominees had been published the public and a panel of Judges were given the opportunity to cast their votes.
The votes were split 49% from the public and 51% from the judges. This year’s judges were Albert Bredenhann, Andy Hadfield, Arthur Goldstuck, Charl Norman, Damaria Senne, Ferdie Bester, Henk Kleynhans, Ismail Dhorat and Marlon Parker.
Speakerbox was featured in Design and Innovation magazine a few weeks ago - we are very pleased with the review which forms part of a bundle of positive press we’ve received about our properties in recent months.
Blueworld was recently featured in the Media24 staff magazine which goes out to thousands of Naspers employees around the country - click for the big version
Round up of some press my company and I have received over the last few weeks ..
Mandy de Waal: There are those who talk
Mandy de Waal: Eating humble pie
Awesome Words About the eMarketing Textbook
Moneyweb - Wired - SA`s ten most influential bloggers
VenFin launches tech fund: South Africa: News: Companies: Fin24
BrandsEye Reputation Monitoring – now available for $1 per month!
Micro-View of the South African Blogosphere
Introducing our panel of judges | Inside 24.com
Not The Saturday Night News ” Blueworld’s Norman on his plans for London
What’s Up In SA Blogosphere. | YuppieGuy.Com
Wishing Madiba happy birthday in oh-so-many ways
Moneyweb - Wired - The Gadget Guy - Charl Norman
Tech Leader ” Nicholas Haralambous ” Let’s Talk to Charl Norman
Search marketing set to soar - ITWeb
Above photo found here - JayZ flickr stream - Seo Blog interview
WOW! It’s been a crazy few weeks. Beginning of this month we moved into new offices on Long Street, then we had our BWCOM quarterly report back to Media24 and they are over the moon with us and finally yesterday - I received the most exciting news!
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 renown Vinny Lingham.
ForgeAhead, our Partners and Stakeholders, congratulates you for being nominated for the 2008 African ICT Achievers Awards. ForgeAhead is celebrating the 10th Anniversary for the African ICT Achievers Awards programme…
.. You have been nominated in the following category: Top ICT Young Entrepreneur in Africa.
Got a few interviews coming up later this year to determine the final list of nominees and then to Jozi for the ceremony. Hold thumbs!
It’s been a good few weeks regarding personal and Blueworld press - here’s a list of press from our Blueworld mobile wap site launch and other snippets of press.
allAfrica.com: South Africa: Blueworld Launches Mobile Platform
SA networking site on the go: Sci-Tech: News
Blueworld launches mobile platform
ITWeb :Who’s who in the Web 2.0 Zoo?
Blueworld: South Africa’s Social Network | White African
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.
