Charl Norman is a web entrepreneur behind local social networks 
I appeared on channel MK TV’s new hip hop and car show WOELAG. They interviewed me on the Zoopedup social network and how the Team Zoopedup car club ties into it all. They also followed me around at one of our Zoopedup motorsport days and asked me questions about my car. A few minutes before the interview I realized I had to do it in Afrikaans - explaining social networks in Afrikaans was a nightmare. In the end it didn’t turn out to badly and I think I did alright.
Category Archives: Interviews
Video interview with myself and Rafiq Phillips
August 21, 2008 – 1:41 pm
JAYZ internet solutions popped by the Blueworld offices and asked myself and Rafiq Phillips some questions about our new project, SEOBlog.
Tech Leader interview
July 17, 2008 – 12:13 pm
Just a quick note about my interview on Tech Leader by Nic Harry. Definitely one of the most interesting interviews I have done. This is my second interview on the M&G blog network. Previously, internet stats guru Arthur Goldstuck interviewed me on Thought Leader.
Here’s a short blurp from Nic’s interview -
Is web 2.0 going to burst like its late sister, web 1.0?
Most of the investment around web 2.0 startups have come from private sectors where most of the investment which fuelled the web 1.0 crash came from public markets. There are great examples of 2.0 startups with positive cash flows which proves there’s money behind all the hype. Each market has their winners and losers so there will always be startups that fail. More so in our market because its relatively easy and low cost to create your own Myspace of Facebook. However, scaling your business and infrastructure to a mass audience is another story.
What are the benefits of being a part of the Naspers family?
They have internet and print investments all over the world and a wealth of experience and infrastructure which we can tap into. We’ve had the opportunity to meet with some of the great minds at Naspers such as Elan Lohmann, Russel Hanly, JP Farinha and John Kotsaftis who helped us with strategic decisions around our product and business model.
Building technology in South Africa has its challenges - the audience you build web properties for is small, quality engineers are hard to come by and relatively few advertisers are willing to spend their ad budget with smaller publishers instead of the big media houses. Doing business online in South Africa is a lot harder then you think. The 24.com acquisition gave us credibility in the industry which means we can attract advertisers and potential partners a lot easier.
Read the rest of the interview here
Interview on Thought Leader
November 6, 2007 – 10:09 pm
Arthur Goldstuck has posted an interview with me on his popular Thought Leader blog - AmaBlogoblogo. He mailed me some questions a few weeks ago and finally got round to posting the interview. I think it went quite well - Thanks goes out to Arthur.
Here’s some words from his article:
He describes himself, disarmingly, as an “ambitions young entrepreneur workaholic with a passion for the internetâ€. Which, as we all know, is shorthand for: “Want to build the next Google and will destroy the internet if that’s what it takes.â€
So far, he has succeeded in destroying the productive working hours of those who ventured on to the internet for innocent pursuits like researching their next car purchase. Instead, they landed on his social network with a difference, ZoopedUp.
This is like a Facebook for cars, but without all the distractions. Your profile pic is your car, your friends are cars (granted, they do come with owners), your blog is about cars and your applications are engine modifications.
And then there is the car blog itself. Aside from being a good advertisement for why tag clouds are usually such an eyesore on blogs, car blog is punted as “the auto news blog featuring new car reviews, concept cars, F1 news and modified car talkâ€.
But Charl has also found several other ways to mimic the watercooler, that one-time arch-enemy of productivity (see also Windows Solitaire, Facebook, etc).
The key weapon in his arsenal is Blueworld, a social-networking site that predated Facebook’s arrival in South Africa by a few months (It was first built in 2003 as a conventional website). He acted as strategist, designer and marketer, all in one, explaining that “workaholic†label.
Carry on reading the interview here
He also lifted the lid on a niche social network we launched a few weeks ago, Gay Peers, which is the best piece of code we have put on the net thus far. We teamed up with a Gay Magazine, Wrapped, to build an exclusive gay social network featuring three levels of privacy - public, private and exclusive - which enables users to control what on their profile is accessible to other users e.g. shared media (blogs, photos, vids) or personal information. The gay market is HUGE online - In our research into niche social networks we discovered serious activity on gay destinations. Market leader ‘GayDar’ has over one million monthly subscribers and GayRomeo, which is a free service, has over 40k users online at any given time.
We plan to monetize our gay network with a monthly subscription fee model but only after a few months (years) until we have serious traction.
Finally, my “South Africa’s Top Startups” article will be published in this months Intelligence magazine. It should be on CNA shelves already…
Disclaimer: I also blog on Thought Leader, sometimes.
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.
