We decided to present a project that was relevant to all South Africans and represented a cause we truly believe in – the SHOUT application. With a weekend to prepare myself and Grant knuckled down to put together a presentation that would give the delegates a good taste of the application. This is what we came up with SHOUT App Presentation by Cytrus.

A quick flight to Johannesburg on the morning of the presentation and we were good to go. With the exception of a minor glitch with the sound which meant we couldn’t play our video it all went according to plan. The event was great and we were able to enjoy a few drinks and meet some great people afterwards, all in all a great success!

I would like to thank Mobile Monday for the opportunity. Hopefully we can crack the nod at a few more of these events in the future!

I would like to take the opportunity to thank our team at Cytrus for putting together an exceptional application, for an exceptional cause.

At Cytrus we hold a view that successful outcomes are directly related to our capacity to take responsibility.  By embracing digital technology, SHOUT are providing South African’s with innovative, cutting edge tools to take direct responsibility for their safety and the safety of others, this on an unprecedented scale in this country. Cytrus is tremendously proud to be associated with SHOUT and we wish the SHOUT foundation every success.

To get a sneak peak of the application, go view our SHOUT showcase.

The project presented some user experience and technology challenges:

The application was built by Cytrus Technology for Android OS 2.1 (Éclair) to 2.3 (Gingerbread).  Underpinning most of the features and functionality of the App is its location-aware capability. The application uses GPS and triangulation technology to identify the location of the user and provide geographic context for most user interactions with the app.

Both power and user experience were major considerations in the design of the “recent crimes” notification feature.  This feature strikes a subtle balance between notifying the user in a way that is non-intrusive, relevant and useful without draining your battery in a few minutes.  This was achieved by taking advantage of Android’s native LBS features and giving the user choice. The application can be customized by the user to provide periodic notifications of crimes in the areas in which a user specifies or is located.

No ground-breaking app would be complete without some form of social engagement and this is particularly important when crowd sourcing content.  The SHOUT App provides a feature for the user to take a picture of him/herself (shouting hopefully) which can be posted to a photo collage on SHOUT’s Fan page.  The same photo will be posted to the user’s news feed. The intention being to drive interest and awareness about the App and the underlying cause.

To get a sneak peak of the application, go view our SHOUT showcase.

RamsayMedia, publishers of CAR, have pioneered a unique concept of leveraging their wealth of automotive data and stats and combining it with access to used car listings across the whole of South Africa. Taking it a step further, all of these listings as well as CARmag’s data (reviews, road tests, audio, video, specs, wallpapers, galleries, etc.) are shared between the dealer website and CAR’s recently released Android app for Samsung devices. Avid followers of CAR magazine will be accustomed to reading in-depth reviews and receiving the latest in car-related news. Now this information is available whilst searching for a used car and it is shown to the buyer with relevance to their search criteria. This rich user experience is unique when searching for a vehicle on the used car market in SA thus driving (no pun) educated decision-making and informed consumers.

Car buyers can also become car sellers. The site allows any visitor to register as either a private seller or as a dealership to create their own vehicle listings. Enquiries on these listings are then delivered via the website directly to the seller. Simply by creating your listing via a quick 3-step process you will be creating a dynamic page packed with content specific to your vehicle.

Having been part of the team that developed the site I can say that we’re really proud of the product and I feel that we struck a good balance between its simple usability and wealth of features. So head over to carmagdealer.co.za, browse around, do some searches, check out some vehicles, add some to your garage, read some reviews and maybe when you’re done you might like to swop out that old thing you’re driving and create your own ad!

There is no question that a community north of 800million users has significant value. Zuckerberg is one of the brightest tech entrepreneurs of our generation and he has surrounded himself with the best (I am a fan of Sheryl Sandberg in particular). This business should make money and bucket-loads of it. I am not convinced that a market cap of $100billion at IPO is justified time will tell of course.

Factoring growth potential (which is what these IPO’s are all about) and in order to reach this order of value Facebook would need to increase its earnings to $6.5billion (at 15 times earnings) a year from $1billion (to the cent…what control!) in 2011 over a relatively short timeframe. This would require top-line revenue of $25billion at current earning margins. Revenue for financial year 2011 was $3.7 billion  … for those not mathematically inclined that is substantial growth – and they have been at it for a while .

The only way to grow into this valuation in the short term is through aggressive exploitation of the user base – the user base itself is the business being listed. I don’t see it happening.  In Zuckerberg’s letter to prospective investors he makes a number statements which provide us with clues to his headspace (three listed below):

“Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.”

“We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”

“We’re going public for our employees and our investors. We made a commitment to them when we gave them equity that we’d work hard to make it worth a lot and make it liquid, and this IPO is fulfilling our commitment. As we become a public company, we’re making a similar commitment to our new investors and we will work just as hard to fulfill it.”

So here is my take on it:

Zuckerberg has adequately covered himself i.r.o the integrity of his “commitment to new investors” by making key statements of intent, and covering drivers behind the listing. Reading between the lines his commitment to his new shareholders comes with a big caveat – I intend to do things my way – and the choice of the word “similar” as it refers to commitment seems a carefully selected one. Frankly I am not convinced he is all that committed … his commitment is clearly and quite simply to Facebook and seeing through its vision.  His are words which the public would do well to heed before investing in Facebook.

Warren Buffet famously said “The market is initially a voting booth, but over the long term, it is always a scale.”

Pushing the boundaries of what is considered to be private has and will continue to be important for Zuckerberg to achieve the goals he has set out for himself and Facebook.  Being at the coal-face he understands better than anyone how crucial Facebook’s integrity is and the risks that accompany the aggressive exploitation of his product – you and I. Zuckerberg will grow the business but on his terms.  56.9% of the voting shares in the company will be the mechanism.  And earnings growth is unlikely to come at the pace the $100billion valuation will demand in order for it to hold its value in the short term.

I don’t see average Joe public being aligned on earnings performance so expect to see some short term action on this stock.

For what its worth I believe in Zuckerberg and his team – that they can grow Facebook beyond this market cap.  However I can not see this happening unless there is a shift in emphasis to a transactional model which will take time.  I do not believe the current valuation takes this timing, and associated risks into account.  As a conservative I would like to see at least some evidence of substantial earnings growth on the transactional side before buying stock priced at the valuations being thrown around.

So what does it mean for Cytrus and our customers:

In the short term there is going to be a huge amount of focus and innovation around Facebook’s advertising platform to overcome the inherent challenges Facebook faces with the ad model and grow revenues. We expect to see some groundbreaking stuff coming out of Facebook’s Open Graph initiatives allowing advertisers to target users with more relevant ads with higher conversion rates.  We are also paying close attention to developments on the transactional side.

1 in 5 pages viewed on the Internet in the US are Facebook and its of absolute relevance to our continent.  At Cytrus we are investing a bus load of time & energy in staying ahead of the curve in order to provide strategic advice and the technical skills and frameworks to engage, at the cutting edge, with this crucially important channel to your customers.

P.S. More than half of its users log on to Facebook using a mobile device, a wonderful transactional platform (not great for advertising though).  No doubt Zuck’s got some exceptionally sharp people working on it!

To get your own version of the application on your Android device search for “carapp” on the Samsung app store. (Remember to change your country option to South Africa)

Visit the Samsung app store

Less is more… the design and content of the site was driven by an insight from Saito in a paper he wrote on ‘The Moral Dimension of Japanese Aesthetics’ - he wrote – “Simplicity is not only aesthetic value, it has a moral perception that looks into the nature of truth and reveals the inner qualities of materials and objects for the essence”.

The website has depth in its simplicity, it reveals as much about the personality and ethic of the company as it does about our focus, track record and skills in things … well … aesthetic.

Well done to the Cytrus team.

The CARmagapp is a state-of-the-art Android application for fans of everything motorcar related and we believe it is going to be a game changer in the publishing industry and particularly in this vertical. The application brings the best of the CAR magazine as well as the CAR web sites together in one powerful, content rich yet simple to use application.

We at Cytrus regard smartphones and tablets specifically as the publishing medium of the future. You can take them anywhere, content is instantly accessible, the interactive experience is richer than traditional print media and let’s not forget … digital has significant eco benefits.

Our app combines:

1. instantly delivered media-rich articles;
2. interactive tools;
3. highly relevant context driven content;
4. personalization;
5. reference databases and;
6. social interaction with other readers, friends or publishers.

So what’s next … in the next 2 months we will focus on expanding the app’s capabilities to work with other services, including the introduction of some cutting edge tech and innovative concepts … but like the new cars released at the show … the details are under wraps.

We are extremely proud to be associated with Ramsay Media and Samsung on this project and look forward to being involved in the life-cycle of this splendid piece of technology going forward.

During the course of my association with various technology businesses and projects, some more successful than others, I have learned that there are two elements that are critical to the success of any technology business – these are:

• A clearly articulated vision, mission, objectives and a focused business strategy
• Strategy by discovery is as important as strategy by design and often more effective

These two elements may appear, at first glance, to be contradictory – they are not. The vision, mission and high level objectives of a business should be durable. Strategies (and the associated goals and programs) should change as discoveries are made through the process of execution. Incidentally it is Cytrus’ exposure to technology trends and innovation as well as the capability to manage change which means we are well positioned to address the needs of our clients. These two attributes are Cytrus’ biggest strengths, and strengths I would like to see built upon during my tenure as Managing Director.

The business strategy itself is part of our competitive advantage and is information better kept off the “world wide web”! Consequently I will limit the coverage of the business strategy to the philosophy behind its development and definition. On this basis I have chosen to focus instead on our vision, mission and values.

Our Vision

To be the premier web and mobile enterprise professional services and solutions firm in South Africa by June 2014

To originate, engage and invest in information technology based ventures, with the potential to generate exponential financial returns

Our Mission

• To advise, design, build and manage the development and integration of online applications and services which inform, connect and entertain users across multiple platforms and with a specific focus on mobile
• To generate exponential returns from ventures
• To remain small, lean and agile

Values

Cytrus is a commercially focused technology company. Cytrus upholds a culture of excellence, and quality, in everything that it does and at all times. Cytrus is a customer centric company and acts with integrity and professionalism towards its customers. Cytrus exposes itself to cutting edge technology and has a culture of innovative thought and the practical application of that thought.

And on that note it is great to be part of the Cytrus team, and I would like to thank everyone here for the very warm welcome extended to me.

About Andrew Davies:

Andrew began his career as a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers working on ecommerce enabling ERP systems. He subsequently joined startup company Fundamo as a product architect. Fundamo is a mobile payment solutions vendor which was recently acquired by Visa Inc. In 2003 Andrew started a telecommunications business specializing in investing in, deploying and operating niche operator services in Africa. In 2006 Mediaring Limited (now Spicei2i Limited), an SGX listed telecommunications operator acquired a stake in the business. In January 2011 Andrew joined Teim Ventures, the holding company of Cytrus to assist in managing Teim Ventures’ technology portfolio. Andrew Davies joins Cytrus on a permanent basis in the capacity of Managing Director from 1st July 2011.