Nokia today announced the virtual introduction of its South African blog, titled Nokia Ringaz (pronounced Ring-uz), http://ringaz.nokia.co.za/. Ringaz, which is South African township slang for “many conversations”, will host stories from in and around the Nokia community including its people, products and services, opinions, business, trends and beyond.
“In South Africa, Nokia has come a long way since we first started testing the waters with social media and the rapidly progressing online world,” says Tania Steenkamp, Communications Manager at Nokia South Africa. “It has been an incredible learning process, and I am so excited to watch Ringaz grow into the online dialogue we are hoping for.”
I’m not quite sold on the name but then again, I am probably not the type of person Nokia is aiming for with the blog (you know, young and hip … or whatever the current term for “hip” is). Nokia has been working pretty hard to expand its presence in South (and the rest of) Africa. While it dominates with lower end devices, it has had a challenging time convincing more affluent users to use its smartphones in the face of the iPhone and, increasingly, a range of Android devices (I count myself as a user who switched to Android not too long ago despite Nokia’s advantages).
The new blog actually reminds me of the Nokia Conversations blog which is a pretty good resource for both the inside track and a more balanced approach to Nokia’s products and services. The Nokia Ringaz blog currently counts Donovan Jackson and Peter van der Merwe as its contributors but there is a spot open for another hot blogger so you’ve always wanted to blog about Nokia, its products and services under the Nokia banner, this could be the blogging gig for you!
Back at home my son didn’t waste much time claiming one of the two cupcakes Nokia sent to me to promote its new blog. I’m not sure about his device and platform preferences just yet but he loved the blue cupcake.
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What do you think?