I read this essay a couple weeks ago and it really resonated with my relationship with blogging. It’s also a beautifully constructed, engaging page design worth checking out:
Robin Rendle succinctly describes the death of blogs, the rise of newsletters, and the forgotten powers of ancient, dusty technologies like RSS readers.
Who still follows RSS feeds? Scrap that. Who still comments on blogs?
5 years ago today, at around this very time, we sat eating Reuben sandwiches for breakfast in a fancy restaurant in Nolita, New York. Hashing out a new commercial agreement with fancy execs of one of the world’s largest online payment systems.
A few hours later, a neighbourhood across, we were in Matt’s apartment with the Automattic team. Laptops on laps, clicking the “publish” button on the news that WooCommerce was being acquired by Automattic.
It was a surreal, life-altering day that will forever be laser-etched in my memory bank.
5 years later I’m in a very different season of life, working with very different businesses. But I still proudly fly the Woo flag – high fiving the small wins and celebrating the big milestones.
Poetically, today WooCommerce is launching – WooCommerce Payments. Built upon a very mature partnership with another leading payments company – Stripe. Deeply integrated for all kinds of benefit to store owners.
A partnership so impressive that “you’ll end up paying the same fees when you use WooCommerce Payments or a custom Stripe integration.”
Today calls for a tiny celebration. It marks the official end of South Africa’s hard lockdown… We’ve now entered into a “Stage 4” lockdown, which is much the same, except we are now awarded morning exercise hours…
I helped Sentian put together a little light-hearted video showcasing some CCTV family keepsakes of the past 5 weeks, that their customers had sent in. It’s been a memorable chapter for all of us.
These are tough times, much tougher for some than others. South Africa always dishing out a fair share of perspective. Us with CCTV have the privilege of a house that requires protecting.
Yebo Fresh always felt like it was going to play a significant, socially impactful role providing for the underserved township markets of South Africa.
Last year, no one could have predicted the coronavirus, or South Africa’s crippling lockdown, but Yebo Fresh’s vision has been magnified and its scale fast-tracked to help get grocery deliveries to desperate families.
Super proud of the work this team are doing. I visited them last week at the warehouse to try document a moment in their journey. See the photos on the Yebo Fresh blog.
I’ve recently become a little obsessed over my video conferencing setup and the quality of my streams. I spend quite a bit of my week in online meetings with the various teams I work with – usually on Zoom, Google Hangouts or FaceTime .
I thought a couple of my recent gadgetry additions might be worth sharing…
RØDE NT-USB Microphone – This has actually been my trusted desk companion since 2015. It provides crispy clean audio. Alongside online meetings I’ve tried to ensure I capture sporadic audio snippets of conversations with the kids as they grow up and their voices evolve. For posterity. (I recently bought the studio boom arm to clear more desk space as it’s a fairly chunky unit)
Logitech C922 Pro Stream Webcam – I’m still on a 2014 5K iMac. I still love it. But the webcam is awful. And especially terrible in low-light. The C922 provides much better HD quality, focus and control. There are better webcams out there, but this is a notable improvement for me. I’m quite keen to explore the Elgato Cam Link 4K (to use an SLR as a webcam)
Elgato Key Light Air – I’m a pasty pink human on screen. I also have an office space that provides an abundance of backlight. The Elgato light provides great foreground lighting – with much flexibility over light intensity and color balance.
A hearty congratulations to the Over team on a very newsworthy acquisition. Immensely proud to be a friend of the co-founders Matt Winn and Aaron Marshall and filled with gratitude to have journeyed with them as an angel investor.
You heard it here first! 👏 We are proud to announce that Over has been acquired by @GoDaddy, the company that empowers everyday entrepreneurs around the world 🚀https://t.co/Mu1lysjHCG
An inspiring story of American friends, and a supportive family, that fell in love with Cape Town and took a huge leap of faith building a global business from here.