Custom Bookcover Design from Noordhoek Cape Town (South Africa) – new Flash Presentation!

Custom Bookcovers

Click on the picture and it takes you to the Custom Bookcovers Flash Intro !

Noordhoek Cape Town

Announcing a new WordPress Blog set up with the title “Noordhoek Cape Town” – I’ve been wanting to portrait the unique place I’m living in and fondly call “home” for a while; now I just do it.

Noordhoek Cape Town

While the new blog called “Noordhoek Cape Town” (South Africa) will primarily be about “Pictures, People, Places” for people living in Noordhoek and enjoying a strong and unified community bond, it will present general topics of interest for people and tourists visiting Noordhoek, like:

• Accommodation
• Arts & Crafts
• Noordhoek
• Restaurants
• Things to do

… to start with.

Read more…

• New Noordhoek Flash Intro
• My Noordhoek Indexed on Google
• Noordhoek on Flash
• Living in Noordhoek South Africa

Noordhoek Flash Introduction

After yesterday’s first excursion into creating a Noordhoek Flash Introduction, here is today’s experiment – just click on the image below to see it.

This time, I experimented with a single background picture I had previously created with a simple focus on the text panels only. The music that accompanies this flash reminds of the unique joyful twittering of the little sunbirds I featured here and that are very typical for Noordhoek Cape Town. You can see a whole series in my Picture Gallery at the top. Through the play of opposites I created a vague impression of another typical creature in Noordhoek: the leopard toad, an endangered species that plays a critical role in keeping our gardens clear of certain destructive elements.

Noordhoek Flash Introduction

Whether it’s a Noordhoek Flash Introduction or any other reason to make a certain tool or software ‘work’ the way we want, it’s like with a musical instrument or Photoshop: it’s all about getting familiar with the technique, finding out how things work, what produces what and how certain combinations are better than others. The more experience we gather the better we become, respectively the results we produce.

I know already what I will try out tomorrow! I’m having Fun!

Captivating Flash Intros in WP Best eShop

Captivating Flash Intros are a dynamic, smart and beautiful way to draw peoples’ attention to your main blog where you then feature your products and services.

Flash Introductions are brilliant sales tools in as much as they are aiming at captivating and leading to another target, the REAL target, where business transactions take place. It’s not too long and like a trailer, an appetizer, a dream catcher!

As you see, I start enjoying myself and while perfection comes with practice, I could imagine designing Flash Intros for just any occasion, website or blog!

Flash Introductions will be offered in WP Best eShop – click HERE.

Read more…

• New Noordhoek Flash Intro
• Attractive Logo Creation
• Powerpoint Presentations
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Beta
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Beta

Arts and Crafts are part of the inner wealth of the Noordhoek Valley, and just 30 km away from Cape Town, South Africa.

As I am still in the process of setting up this brand-new Blog, there will be more on this topic soon.

In this category we will be writing about Arts and Crafts in Noordhoek, Cape Town, South Africa.

Watch out for more. . .

Defining Target Audiences

Once you know what the topic or theme of your website or blog is – as “My Noordhoek” is the umbrella of the project I am planning here – the next step is defining Target Audiences.

After all: you want to create and write something for somebody who has an interest in what you’re doing, who feels involved, loves what you do.

So who are you painting your picture for?

Defining Target Audiences

Defining one’s target audience or target audiences – which can be certain age groups, gender, singles or couples, people with certain cultural backgrounds or common interests and the like – is of prime importance especially when it comes to marketing and advertising a product or service.

While “My Noordhoek” is no commercial website but endeavours to capture the fine spirit of its in many cases highly qualified people who have chosen to live in harmony with Nature and the flow of Life, I have to answer that same question in order to give the target public what it possibly doesn’t expect, but what it can identify with and feel happy with.

My Noordhoek Project

In that sense, My Noordhoek Project addresses two main target publics:

1. The Inner Circle

The Inner Circle are people who live in Noordhoek, who are an integral part of the area, its rich history, its colourful fabric. The Noordhoek Community. People who run businesses, restaurants, shops, vineyards, hotels, schools, nurseries. . .  or who offer their professional services in Noordhoek. They are artists, entrepreneurs, musicians, designers, artisans, therapists, estate agents, yoga teachers, waiters, instrument builders, riding judges, geologists, farmers, politicians, veterinarians . . .
They are young and they are old and from all walks of life. What combines them is… Noordhoek. Their Noordhoek. My Noordhoek.

My Noordhoek is dedicated to this “Inner Circle”; it’s a mirror, a reflection… and as I am discovering more and more of the magic of this place as I proceed with this project, they may suddenly look at themselves and see their strength and beauty for the very first time. A beauty from within, from the heart, the soul… where there is unity and… Oneness.

2. The Outer Circle

The Outer Circle are people who visit Noordhoek, adventurers who plan to do so… or who will be inspired by the visual beauty and content of “My Noordhoek” on the Internet to do so.

My Noordhoek will ‘talk’ to these visitors from South Africa, the African continent or the tourists from abroad.

On “My Noordhoek” they will be presented with captivating visuals and videos to get a feeling for Noordhoek and its rainbow meltingpot of over 2000 community individualists, what they offer, present, stand for and are up to… in other words :

~ what happens when and where,
~ who to meet or talk to,
~ what to do,
~ where the music plays,
~ where to stay,
~ what to find where,
~ where to get what,
~ where to eat and dine and get the best wine (…of course from the area!) …
~ how to keep the kids occupied in a safe place,

… and definitely how to find their way easily through the natural, the real, the sophisticated and the sublime to whatever treasures, pleasures, places and activities interest them.

And yet, My Noordhoek will not be a form of directory nor carry any advertising.

My Noordhoek wants people from within and from without to meet in a natural, joyful and trusting way – in the spirit of Oneness. From there, anything can develop . . .

3. Noordhoek Home

Finally, My Noordhoek understands itself as a dynamic platform to keep expatriates and Noordhoek afficinados in touch with home – Noordhoek Home.

My Noordhoek is not about Ownership; it’s about Stewardship. It’s about YOU!

Stay tuned; more about it in my next article!

Web Design Consulting

As you follow the website development of “MyNoordhoek Project” it may inspire and motivate you to start your own project at some stage.

If this is the case, please get in touch with me via Web Design Consulting to discuss your requirements and start the planning – as it all happens in the head first…

The script is not available at this stage but in pioneering mode. What is garanteed though is a smashingly media-oriented and dynamic website that will capture peoples’ attention.

For the moment it’s ‘work in progress’ or rather ‘work in evolution’- the first elaboration will take place at our monthly Ycademy Seminar on 27 and 28 March 2010.

Read more…

• My Noordhoek Project
• Assessing the Competition
• Photoshop Action Scripts
• Noordhoek Property
• Noordhoek (Noordhoek)

My Noordhoek Project

It’s a while since I wanted to do some form of a portrait capturing the special spirit and vibrations of the unique place I have the privilege to live in: Noordhoek, 30 km from Cape Town city center, right at the tip of South Africa… and as we are developing brand-new avenues in Ycademy as concerns web design including flash, let me get to it right NOW before it’s gone, over and forgotten … and let’s give it a simple working title: “My Noordhoek Project”.

It’s a project in Evolution in many ways as you will see. . . and as I photographed the other day… nomen est omen!

A project is something that is in development although clearly defined and with a clear focus, something that creates substance for a basic platform… from where it evolves… gathers momentum, complexity and a wealth of new and exciting content during the process. Ideally, it becomes an avalanche of possibilities, creative influences and ideas all woven into the fabric of the basic theme.

My Noordhoek Project

So what will “My Noordhoek Project” be about?

Having worked on the Internet for over a decade – initially to write, adapt, change and discuss my screenplays and scripts for documentaries, industrial films and the movie industry for the overseas market … and then as a very involved Co-Founder of successful online enterprises and educational programs (eg. Ycademy) initiated by Internet wizzard Yorgo Nestoridis – , I am looking forward to tackle a completely new as well as independent project where I can showcase and capture what I consider unique, too precious not to be shared or ultimately lost as our profit-oriented and fast-moving modern way of life is taking over what is ‘natural’, what is ‘organic’, what is ‘real’ without masquerade, original, interconnected, extremely humane, funny, bizarre and thus… vulnerable.

Besides the new and flashy Semiomantics Evolution theme crafted by Yorgo Nestoridis, I will be using predominantly my own visual material in form of digital photography, powerpoint-based slides converted into movies plus music, sound and my voice as a narrator. . . and what those I include and present can provide me with to choose from for the benefit of the whole and with absolute freedom.

I imagine this website or blog as a visual feast dedicated to the inner circle – meaning the Noordhoek Community itself – as well as the outer circle, meaning people from outside who are visiting Noordhoek, perhaps for the first time, possibly from overseas… especially if they are being attracted to this magic place through “MyNoordhoek” the blog on Google Top 10.

So the first thing I have to ask myself is: what does my target audience – in other words the inner as well as the outer circle – expect? What gets their attention? What do they enjoy, love. . .?

This will be the material for my next article; stay tuned!

Web Design Consulting

As you follow the website development of  “MyNoordhoek Project” it may inspire and motivate you to start your own project at some stage.

If this is the case, please get in touch with me via Web Design Consulting to discuss your requirements and start the planning – as it all happens in the head first…

The script is not available at this stage but in pioneering mode. What is garanteed though is a smashingly media-oriented and dynamic website that will capture peoples’ attention.

For the moment it’s ‘work in progress’ or rather ‘work in evolution’- the first elaboration will take place at our monthly Ycademy Seminar on 27 and 28 March 2010.

Read more…

• Defining Target Audiences
• Assessing the Competition
• Photoshop Action Scripts
• My Noordhoek Indexed on Google
• Attractive Logo Creation

Contents

[hide]

1. 1 The most expensive Noordhoek Property
2. 1.1 Noordhoek Property Price
3. 1.2 Who needs Noordhoek online Property
4. 1.3 Noordhoek online Property status quo
5. 1.4 Who is the Property Owner?
6. 1.5 How to Master the Keyword Noordhoek
7. 1.6 The Noordhoek online Village

The most expensive Noordhoek Property

Noordhoek South Africa is not a village like all the other villages in this world: Noordhoek is a test Village for YORGOO Media. Today we look at Noordhoek’s most expensive property.

Noordhoek Property Price

Let’s make it clear: the most expensive property is … Internet Property. Imagine the following: if you pay for an online ad of 1 square centimeter say $5 per month or $ 60 per year, then 1 square meter (about 10 square  feet) would return 10 000 times more or 600 000 bucks a year. How about 100 square meters, or thousand or an acre?

1 acre = 4 046.85642 m2

Multiply 4046.85642 with 600 000 bucks and you get:  242.8113.852 $ and that’s just the annual return. Selling it at say 6 times the annual return, you would end up selling 1 acre of Noordhoek for 1.456 billion Dollars!

The example is absurd you say? Yes and no. Of course there is not 1 acre of Noordhoek Property online (yet) but keeping the proportions, this is the value of online real estate.

Noordhoek Surfing

Who needs Noordhoek online Property

There are two groups of people who need Noordhoek Property: people from outside who want to reach out for people visiting Noordhoek related websites and then people from Noordhoek who want to promote their products and services within the community and to people from outside.

Noordhoek online Property status quo

Noordhoek’s name and profile is controlled by external websites such as tourism related directories. This is true for most any town where there are few hotels or B&Bs or any sort of tourism or leisure infrastructure.

Noordhoek is a Brand and a Keyword and it is therefore a search term people interested in Noordhoek would use on the Google Search Engine to find out more about Noordhoek. Who does this brand belong to?

Who is the Property Owner?

Besides the legal aspects concerning domain registration using town names, fact is that the effective ownership may not be with the legal owner, but with the websites who pop up for example on Google Search returns. This is just the way the Internet works. In theory, anyone can go out and take the challenge to top a keyword on Google with legal and legitimate means.

If you master a keyword of any significance, you own an asset, an asset which can return cash.

How to Master the Keyword Noordhoek

Well, I will not be able to give you the recipe in just a few lines here. But watch out over the next few days what will happen on Nooordhoek related search terms on Google. You will see sites like Africa YORGOO Media, YORGOO Publishing, Yorgo Nestoridis, YORGOO Press, Semiomantics Net, YORGOO Blog or YORGOO South Africa showing up well accompanied by Bianca Gubalke, Auction Talk Live, Noordhoek YORGOO Media, Besma Bashier, Ycadmy, TradeOnlineAuctions, Alejandra Neri and more.

All these sites are built on Semiomantics Frameworks, probably the best publishing framework out there these days and definitely the best solution to publish efficiently content and to deliver ads to target at reasonnable cost.

The Noordhoek online Village

Bianca Gubalke has started it: she took the opportunity offered by YORGOO Media to test the combination of high profile publishing with social networking. Her site Noordhoek YORGOO Media is just the beginning what could develop in a whole load of sites built by community members who can get Noordhoek blogging frameworks for free. (Contact Bianca at bianca(at)ycademy.com).

The YORGOO media Framework allows to create online communities and villages, social networks organized in groups, thematic sectors of interest focusing on people and what they do or who they are in the context of their preferred Topics, Towns or Interests.

We are looking at the performance of the Noordhoek tests with the utmost interest as it can well be an example for many other towns and communities.

Contents

[hide]

1. 1 Noordhoek
2. 1.1 Noordhoek Social Network
3. 1.2 Nordhoek News
4. 1.3 Noordhoek Events
5. 1.4 Noordhoek People
6. 1.5 Noordhoek Accommodation
7. 1.6 Noordhoek Business
8. 1.7 Noordhoek Real Estate
9. 1.8 Noordhoek Tourism
10. 1.9 Noordhoek Art and Culture

Noordhoek

YN – Our earlier post about Noordhoek and the possibility to build an online Publishing Community on YORGOO Media has triggered some interest and I had a long brainstorming session with Bianca about it. It’s less about Noordhoek than about any community, which could go online based on the Noordhoek Model.

Noordhoek Social Network

Instead of driving people to social networks such as Facebook, any community can build their own network with a private social networking component and a public blogging element, grabbing thus the attention of Search Engines and building a real online asset.

BuddyPress takes care of the Social Network aspect while the Semiomantics Blog takes care of public publishing. The Public Publication could target categories such as:

Nordhoek News

News about what’s happening in town, may be local community news fed by the mayors office, local authorities and so on.

Leopard

Noordhoek Events

Local social events, exhibitions, movies, theater, concerts, sports events, you name it.

Noordhoek People

Every town has its more or less well known celebrities, articts, writers, musicians, painters or Nobel Prize winners.

Noordhoek Accommodation

In a touristic region, accommodation is a key category. It’s nice to present the local infrastructure in a meaningful way.

Noordhoek Business

Talk about local business and services provided by local businesses.

Noordhoek Real Estate

Help locals to publish their real estate for sale and write about the merits of the local market, situation and benefits to investors, families and businesses.

Noordhoek Tourism

Feature interesting tourist attractions from the landscape to infrastructures, sports and so on.

Noordhoek Art and Culture

Find art and culture oriented people for contributing to the content of the Noordhoek network. The same could be done with Science, Ecology and so on.

These few categories can be targeted with most any Community oriented publication. How about your community?

"Trek Fishermen" by Noordhoek Artist ML Eatwell

Noordhoek – South Africa is known for its many artists, painters, potters… just to name a few. Artists of international standing that is.

Once a month, many Noordhoek artists open up their ateliers and workshops to the public and can be visited following the ‘Noordhoek Art Route’ which is on the Noordhoek Map. This gives opportunities to meet the artist personally in a relaxed atmosphere, have a tea or coffee, chat or discuss the Artwork – and buy.

Noordhoek Art Studio

I love the active Art Studio within the Noordhoek Farmhouse Village where you can see the artists at work… painting within their own exhibition center – like in the times of the Impressionists in France.One of them is young Marie-Lynne Eatwell from the Eatwell dynasty of skilled painters. She is well known for her portrail of local fishing and harbour scenes, however, she also paints landscapes and specializes in painting people and children. You see her work on the picture above.

Before going into more detail straight away, in this Chapter we will report on the vibrant Noordhoek Culture Scene focusing on Noordhoek Arts and Noordhoek Artists.

Bianca Gubalke

http://noordhoekart.yorgoomedia.com