Monday, September 03, 2007

oh crap

I'm Mozambleak. As from Friday, I work for Wibble on a freelance basis. Our budgetary constraints mean that I cannot be employed full-time on the site, it's just not feasible.

The good news is, I'll still be involved with Wibble, my baby, my project – on some level. The bad news is, I'm unemployed. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

I have mere weeks to find a new sparkly full-time 8-5 before completely plugging it via bankruptcy. Times are tough.

During my six months at Wibble, we created and 'built' the site, of which took three months. Hiring someone savvy with Drupal, and who could squeeze in time to do all the techie stuff. We also had to do this by ourselves with the only budget permissible: my salary. So really we had three months to take off. The time frame, realistically, was too small. And thus we'll continue, but in the spare time I have once I am (hopefully) employed very soon.

I still have high hopes for Wibble, and I want to see it through to the end...or hopefully non-end. I always knew it was going to be a six months trial period to see if it would work, I knew the risk I was taking. And I have learnt quite a bit in these six months. If only we had only more budget and resources, perhaps I could've stayed on longer full-time. However, freelancing for Wibble means it's not all gone before we see the fruits of our work.

In the meantime, I'm unemployed. And with a holiday in the Seychelles wedged oh so conveniently in between (fuck this for timing), I'm bordering on panic.

I haven't collapsed in anxiety yet, and am surprisingly calm about being in the ranks of the unemployed. It could be because my sorrows were drowned on Friday night with a few gin and tonics with the helps of my mates, followed by an amazing dinner at The Codfather, where Mr 747 took me to. We walked out a bit blotto – but hell those prawns and Norwegian salmon were incredible.

Saturday was Ant's farewell and birthday party, where we dressed up like partygoers in Secunda, following from a friend's birthday picnic at the Zoo.
We saw an elephant with a giant nomthondo. My wordy word.

So. CV updating time. In between bills, a new flatmate who has just moved in, managing my budget, cutting back on smoking (what an apt time to choose), and generally trying to keep it together until I find a full-time job.

Shit.

53 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peas - sorry to hear about these developments. I can try send some customers your way from my consulting practice. Just let me know:

1. What the site is
2. What the pay service provides

Sorry, not clear from the site itself.

Good luck.

Peas on Toast said...

Hi Sympathetic - thanks so much!

OK, the site address is www.wibble.co.za, it's a multi-user, multi-industry blog basically. All the other contact details and pay service details are on the site, but basically it's revenue model is banner advertising and hosted company blogs. You can find my contact details therein if you're interested as well. Thanks so much!

Anonymous said...

OK cool, help me though - what do you mean by hosted company blogs? Are you charging to make company blogs? Just need to know so I can pass it on?

P.S. Laurian Clemence - did you go to UCT? Did you do Italian in about 2002?

Peas on Toast said...

Hell's bells, that's hilarious.
I most certainly did Italian - in first year though (2000). Who the dickens are you? ;)

Please email me, and I'll furnish you with all the details of company blogs.
:)

Anonymous said...

Hell's bells indeed, could have been 2000 - I actually think I remember you. Small world...

No offense, don't want to broadcast my work email - i just sent a message to my contacts explaining what Wibble is, address, etc. Questions I anticipate are:

What are we paying for?
Why can't we do this ourselves?

I'm happy to pass on the business, just protecting my own rep - I'm sure you understand.

Betenoir said...

oh dear Peas...god,luck, I'm holding thumbs for you...

Peas on Toast said...

Thanks Sympathetic - molto bellissimo, and in bocca al lupo to me :)

That sounds fantastic, and I'll be in touch with you or any other affiliates via email to protect your rep :)

Thanks for your interest!

Peas on Toast said...

Bete - thanks my dear xx

Anonymous said...

"In mouth to the wolf"? My Italiano must be rusty.

Are you being obtuse on purpose? I was offering my assistance, I'm not personally interested in subscribing. Anyway, if anyone asks I'll send them to the site, but I'm damned if I know what a "company blog" is when blogs are free.

Good luck again.

Peas on Toast said...

Sympathetic - loosely translated, good luck to me :)

Please drop me a line, and I'll explain to you the whole deal.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I'll take time from my Monday morning to call you at my own expense to find out how I can help you.

Maybe you should consult a book on marketing - you may achieve success in your next business.

Sorry I ever offered to help.

Peas on Toast said...

Jesus!

Sorry for thinking email was the best way to do this to save your 'rep!'

I can't email you details if I don't have an address, can I?

Anonymous said...

Ok, sorry - misunderstanding.

Please send details to dweirconsulting@yahoo.com

Peas on Toast said...

Thank you!

Revolving Credit said...

Well, I must say that Mushy Peas on Welfare just doesn't have quite the right ring to it, does it?

Good luck with the job search.

Maybe you should have gone to an Idols audition???

WRM said...

Sympathetic guy. Give Peas an old fashioned fax number. Come now. How much catastrophe can that cause with your rep?

Anonymous said...

Hey peas,

That sympathetic dude sounds like his head's up his arse, but in all seriousness - how do sites like wibble make cash? i read the info on it, but most companies have their own websites and blogs are free. What is the special attraction to wibble? All i see are the same guys writing all the time.

Peas on Toast said...

Rev - before Ant left, I gave her a serious Idols audition. She said something along the lines of "your voice sounds like a combine harvester scraping over tarmac." So based on her honest opinion, I think I saved myself one more thread of dignity...:(

gvwr - thanks guy. I sent him an email :)

curious george - yip, the point is that regulars write, well, regularly, so in that we have regular writers. It is free to write on Wibble. The consultancy service, the helping of corporates to start their own bunsiness blogs and good old fashioned banner advertising is how we'd make business.

crayola dude said...

Peas, please drop me a line at mailto:crayoladiaries@gmail.com, I have a job opportunty that might interest you...

And no, it doesn't involve anything dodgy. It's an actual, paying writers job...

Peas on Toast said...

Wow thanks ekke, I will do!

Anonymous said...

OK, ja, but with each post on like 200 views advertising is almost nothing. So you charge okes to make blogs? My blog was free for me to make. This is what I don't get.

Anyway.

crayola dude said...

aaait. I'll give you the full deal when you email me, but it's one of the big gun agencies, we are really desperate for writers right now...

Peas on Toast said...

curious-george - ja, but Wibble is sitting on 50 000 page impressions a week, I am proud to declare. New blogs might not get that traffic to begin with.

Ekke - thats rocks, thanks a mill!

Anonymous said...

Peas do me a favour. How can each article get 200 to 250 to 300 views and equal 50000 hits a week? How many of those are unique hits?

Something is wrong somewhere. Your own site averages 300 unique hits a week, you trying to tell me Wibble is more popular than your blog after a few months?

Peas on Toast said...

Curious - I'd send you the stats URL to show this, but it's under construction this week - no seriously - but will post it up for you when it is finished.

Anonymous said...

Whatevs man, if you're getting that kind of unique traffic ad revenue must be aces. Can't understand why they're shutting you down then.

Well, good luck. Still not 100% sure why someone would pay you to make a free blog, but who the hell am I.

Peas on Toast said...

We're not shutting down. By any means.

It's just unfeasible for me to be hired full-time on it.

crayola dude said...

No worries at all... :)

Anonymous said...

Pardon the intrusion, but I'm also curious - what is the value-added service here? Blogs are free to make, what are you charging for?

If you'll excuse me, mr george has asked you three times and you seem to be dancing around the question.

Peas on Toast said...

Carrot - as I have explained above, and I'm not dancing around the topic:

curious george - yip, the point is that regulars write, well, regularly, so in that we have regular writers. It is free to write on Wibble. The consultancy service, the helping of corporates to start their own bunsiness blogs and good old fashioned banner advertising is how we'd make business.

Blogs are free, yes, and so is Wibble. However, our other service is to host corporate blogs on the site too. It would mean they don't need to glean the traffic themselves.

Anonymous said...

Fair enough, but I suppose the natural riposte in the South African context is: how much traffic are you offering? For a few thousand, companies can get print adds circulating to massive amounts of readers. Why pay to latch on to your blog? Also, with established South African sites like iafrica and the like, what differentiates you?

I ask in the spirit of debate, not to be malicious.

Peas on Toast said...

Carrot - fair enough. As I said, last week we had 50 000 page impressions (not hits, impressions), we not saying corporates can't send out to thousands of recipients. We not cannibalising that, we're just saying that we can optimise their traffic by coming on board a multi-user blog. And getting companies into blogging/the web 2.0 wave. Some companies are still feeling their way in this regard - others not - so it's not for everyone. iafrica, like many other sites we can make a list of, are established. It's also a site that encompasses other facets like news, columns, classifieds, etc etc etc. We're simply a multi-user blog.

Anonymous said...

I'm with you.

I have my own thoughts on this. I can't see a lot of companies taking a big interest in blogging, i.e. actually writing articles or periodic entries. A webpage, even a one-pager, is a far more low-maintenance and dynamic method of maintaining a web presence. Most businesses would not require a consistent online rapport with their customers or potential customers - you would ideally like people to come to you directly and buy your product, not read your thoughts or musings.

Also, the problem with page impressions is that you have no idea who makes up that sample. Of the 50000, if indeed it is 50000 different users (HIGHLY unlikely), 30000 may be in other countries, and therefore not part of a South African target market. This has always been the problem with web advertising (with the exception of huge markets like North America and the UK).

So I'm not sure the actual business model is all that sound - but who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Peas on Toast said...

Carrot - cool.

SheBee said...

Going back to your actual topic, I'm jammer about the decision.

And has ur new roomie moved in yet?

SheBee said...

Ekke,

can I get in on this deal? Or is it a recruiting thing only? been looking around this for a while and haven't found anything I've felt safe with yet..

They all end off with, 'now if you could just send me your credit card details....'

Peas on Toast said...

SheBee - she has! And on a good note, she's inspired me to make a few changes in our domicile. We've made the laundry room into a 'zen/chill' area, and it looks smashing, while she also bought in a another couch for the lounge. So home is a place of calm and tranquility at the moment which is great.

crayola dude said...

Shee - it's legit, it's our agency which is looking writers. But you'd ahve to move up to Jozi...

SheBee said...

thats fantastical! so now you have an extra couch, which means her bum can inforce a permanent mould in it and you can be 'snap'.

excuse me. im on medicals.

Ekke. Bloody hell. What a bummer.

Revolving Credit said...

Rev-sponse: Carrot

I think that's the whole point of the Wibble experience. Peas and Crusoe decided to try and leverage Web 2.0 as a business tool.

While many companies are happy to have a static web presence, as an end-user I do find this rather boring.

Practically this means that they do not bind me as an interactive customer but rather provide information for a once off query.

The interactivity of the experience and the currency of the information means that I will return.

Now there will be some who are happy with an 'about us' page and others who may want their corporate dynamic represented within the web realm.

There are different levels of user requirements and will need spcific agencies to provide for each.

Coporates often have no interest, no experience or no specific resources to create/extend/grow their web presence.

Just as not all companies have hired in-house web developers for their Web 1.0 corporate web sites, would it not seem practical to contract external Web 2.0 specialists to provide for their penetration into this realm while achieving a substatial cost and time saving through communal economies of scale.

Let's give it a chance and see how it pans out.

If anyone has any criticism, could you please try to make it constructive.
Anyone can find fault but it takes a bit more effort or creativity to provide possible solutions.

Peas on Toast said...

Rev - when we start making $$$, can I hire you?
Now that's what I was trying to say, at the risk of my head being in a bit of a tailspin this morning.

I love you :) And you rock.

Revolving Credit said...

How the job prospects looking?

Cool how the blog now works for you.
Sympathetic possibly has sponsor/advertiser for Wibble
and Ekke may have some wrtiter job for you.

All of this before you even updtaed and sent out your CV.

And the day's not over yet....

Peas on Toast said...

Rev - been churning out CVs left, right and centre. So we'll see. Will start panicking when the month is over. Am determined to stay on top! :)

Revolving Credit said...

"determined to stay on top!"

A bit of cowgirl hey....ride'm Peas, ride'm.

Peas on Toast said...

:) Will most certainly try!

tBerry said...

Hey Peas,
Welcome to the ranks of the self-unemployed.
I've just got thru month 1 of my 3 month notice and so far still haven't work!!
It's exciting stuff but scary as hell.
I am sure you will find something out there, whether it is freelance or permanent.
You have true writing talent, I mean who else has come up with classic Peas-isms like doondies, boofing, poen and fnoo, and then uses them constructively in sentences.
You rock Peas.
Stay positive and don't accept sh!t work from anyone!

Peas on Toast said...

tBerry - thanks so much! And holding thumbs for you as well, it's a bloody scary thing suddenly being unemployed. I hope you find something soon too! x

Anonymous said...

Hey peas, check out
http://www.freelancentral.co.za

may help you in the interim with some freelance work. you can do that AND wibble it!

Peas on Toast said...

Thanks tBerry - I most certainly will!

3 Peaks Plumbing said...

yo peas,

good luck! I am sure it will all work out.

Peas on Toast said...

Thanks bangers :)

Anonymous said...

I Must say, Sympathetic sounds a real tosser.
Good luck Peas - like your stuff. you should get snapped up pretty shortly.

Peas on Toast said...

Thanks Anon, much appreciated! :)