Today sees the launch of Grahamstown NOW (ghtnow.co.za), the first concerted attempt by Grocott’s Mail to provide news and real-time information to Grahamstonians on a mobile platform.
Today sees the launch of Grahamstown NOW (ghtnow.co.za), the first concerted attempt by Grocott’s Mail to provide news and real-time information to Grahamstonians on a mobile platform.
Grocott’s Mail has for a long time (140 years) been serving the small community of Grahamstown in South Africa with local news and information. Grocott’s Online (www.grocotts.co.za) – which got going properly a year ago – caters for those who prefer pixels to paper, but until now, locals with mobile phones haven’t had a comprehensive way of being informed about what’s on the go in Grahamstown, home of Rhodes University and host city of the National Arts Festival.
Grahamstown NOW is not fancy or shiny – on the surface it appears to be just another mobisite. But there’s a lot of depth below that surface. What it lacks in glitz and glam, it makes up for in its ability to serve up a snapshot at any given point in time of what’s just happened, currently happening, or about to happen in Grahamstown.
Grahamstown NOW focuses on providing practical, immediately-useable information directly related to the living out of the daily lives of people in Grahamstown. The idea is that Grahamstown NOW should become the central aggregator of as much as possible of Grahamstown’s news and informational content, ultimately enabling citizens to make more considered decisions.
The launch version of Grahamstown NOW consists of:
- Event listings: pulled in from the Grocott’s Online events calendar. Users can submit their own events directly from their phones. Every 2010 National Arts Festival (20 June – 5 July) event is included.
- Business specials: What’s currently on special (at registered businesses) at any given time in Grahamstown – and how much longer those specials are on for (or time until they start).
- News items: the latest and most popular stories pulled in from Grocott’s Online
- Webcam snapshots: Users can see current views from a number of webcams across Grahamstown.
- Movie screenings: What’s coming up next at the local cinema.
- Radio shows: What’s on now and coming up next on local radio stations.
- Weather conditions: Should you grab a jersey or a brolley or both? Check on Grahamstown NOW.
- Tweets: Latest tweets from @grocotts, and latest tweets mentioning Grahamstown.
- SMSes: Latest SMSes received by Grocott’s Online (MMS support coming soon)
- Lift offers/requests: a simple matching service.
Most of the above can be displayed according to time (countdown until something begins or ends), so the homepage and section pages are dynamic and never look the same. Users might see that a jazz concert is starting in an hour and 30 minutes, or that a 2-for-1 pizza special at a local restaurant started two hours ago, or that the next showing of a certain movie begins in 20 minutes, or that a public council meeting is scheduled for two days’ time.
Grahamstown NOW is primarily meant to be accessed with a mobile phone, but there’s also a desktop version, which for now is simply the mobile version contained within a mobile phone graphic, with additional Javascript and AJAX functionality to enhance the user experience by allowing easier inputs and no page reloads.
Users can interact with the site by leaving ‘chirps’ (comments) on any item, submitting their own events and lift offers and easily sharing content with friends via email or WAP pushes.
The average Grahamstownian is not rich, does not have an expensive phone, and is very conscious of how much they’re spending on data. Thus, the first version of Grahamstown NOW has been designed to be accessed on even the simplest of internet-enabled phones, and the HTML has been ‘minified’ to reduce bandwidth consumption.
Future versions of Grahamstown NOW will have much more differentiation between what is served up to PCs and to mobile phones (both entry-level and ‘smart’), will include geo-location functionality so users can see business or event locations on a map, or tag their social networking interactions or content submissions (text/photos/videos/audio) with their location, and will have tighter integration with Facebook.
Grahamstown NOW will later in the year become integrated with NIKA, Grocott’s Mail’s own in-house and open-source CMS, which is available for free to any African community newspaper, with training provided. The aim is for NIKA to become the central CMS for all Grocott’s Mail’s offerings: the print edition, Grocott’s Mail Online, Grahamstown NOW and soon-to-be-launched Instant Messaging offerings.
Grahamstown NOW is part of the Iindaba Ziyafika ("The news is coming") project being run in conjunction between Grocott’s Mail and the Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies. Funded by the US-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the project aims to use new media technologies to facilitate enhanced two-way flows of information between Grocott’s Mail and the citizens of Grahamstown. The Grocott’s Mail Citizen Journalism Newsroom is also a part of this project.
