Welcome To Our New Official Blog

May 19, 2011 / Kagiso / 5 Comments

Welcome to our new blog, we decided to create this to replace our old forums due to the massive popularity of blogs and the easier way we can link our website, social networks and our views and expertise on online solutions.

Thapelo and I created Purple Online Media Solutions back in 2009, after we came to the realization that online growth vs online penetration was just not matching up. We had all these 95-isque websites all over the place, that didn’t provide proper nor attractive content to South African users. So we sat down and said to ourselves “how do we make inroads and teach our potential clients that online presence and online marketing are worth every penny long term”. So we started coding and coding and coding with the initial thought of creating an online social networking platform not only for businesses in SA, but artisans, and that failed miserable due to 1. lack of marketing know how 2. the complicated and very technical way the website worked (we understood it, but could anyone else do?). So back the drawing board, and we thought lets separate everything, we want to create web solutions for businesses and something beneficial for students by students.

Purple Online Media Solutions as a digital solutions agency was born and the ideas on creating Student Commune started rolling out. Let me remind everyone, we wanted to push ourselves to create something somebody out there could tell us we couldn’t. So off we went researching products to offer businesses and student accommodation industries, we researched, experimented, took it back, researched, took it back, until we got to where we are right now. A point where we have strategies in place for both brands and can confidently say we coming along nicely. We rolled out Student Commune back in February 2011, after a few months of development (front and back-end) and whilst that was busy getting traffic, we started focusing on expanding our web solutions products to more than just websites and logos. Up till now we have focused highly on quick innovation, bright ideas and new ideas that have never before been seen or used in South Africa. Our philosophy is not to wait for Americans/Europeans/Asians to trend a product first, we all about risk, as you can see from our process, and if you fail, thats just a sign to tweak and roll out a version 2 of your idea in bigger and better form.

In the past 2 years, we have partnered with Sophos Internet Security is South Africa (one of the first few companies in the country to do so with Sophos) and early 2012 we were selected by Google as one of the Top 100 Engage Agencies in South Africa. This has broadened our support and knowledge expertise with our Adwords products, and together with the team in Google Dublin, we can provide thorough precise products for our clients constantly.

What do we see for the future? Definitely a huge change in South African business culture, social networks helping us personalize products and services more to their clients, an industry where caring about who you doing business with has huge financial returns than ever before. A website for each and every business, and more smaller businesses innovating products, services, and creating a much more economically sustainable country. It all starts with the small guys like us, who have a dream to change and not conform, so its down to you guys too to make your industry ever changing like we have seen the IT industry throughout the world.

Dream.Create

Kagiso Mutlaneng
Managing & Creative Director