about me

BIO

Matthew developed a passion for all things digital at an early age when, as a seven-year-old, he began programming on his first computer (a ZX Spectrum 48k). He has spoken and guest-lectured on online media issues around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Ireland and Kenya. He has two regular slots on both Radio 2000 and Cape Talk, where he talks about the world of online media and social media.

He founded and now heads 20FourLabs.com, an innovation division at 24.com, the country’s largest online operation. He previously used to head up South African online news publisher Mail & Guardian Online, the oldest on the African continent, which is also co-owned by the UK’s Guardian Newspapers Ltd.

For what it’s worth, he was in 2009 named one of “SA’s top 100 most influential media and advertising people” by the Annual for his work in new media. The Mail & Guardian also named him one of “300 Young South Africans you should take out to lunch”, (although this has yet to result in any free lunches). He was also named an upcoming New Media “Mogul” by FHM magazine & nominated for the 2009 Men’s Health “Best Man” awards.

Matthew has been involved in the online medium in various capacities, almost since its inception in this country. He worked for the BBC’s commercial website division in London (beeb.com) just before “the crash”, South African portal iafrica.com, M-Net’s Carte Blanche and Avusa (formerly Johncom) Publishing. He is a former chair of the local Online Publishers Association (www.opa.org.za) and a director of Creative Commons, South Africa. He co-founded award-winning editorial blog Thought Leader (a 2008 Webby Honoree) and blog aggregator amatomu.com.

Matthew is a prominent blogger at www.matthewbuckland.com. One of his proudest moments was when some of the world’s biggest blogs — including Techcrunch, Mashable, his favourite site, Wired.com, and technology site Techmeme — tried to break his servers by linking to his blog. His next proudest moment was when his blog scooped “best business blog” at the 2008 SA blog awards. He was also proud to share the stage with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales in a talk on “Future Web Trends” in 2007.

Matthew is a tech commentator on Cape Talk 567 and Radio 2000. He’s a contributor to US journalism site Poynter Online (www.poynter.org) and former columnist for The Media magazine (www.mg.co.za/netsavvy).  He was a judge at the HighWay Africa new media awards and e.tv show the Amstel Salute to Success where entrepreneurs were awarded for pitching winning business models. He was named an upcoming New Media “Mogul” by FHM magazine in 2009, and nominated for the 2009 Men’s Health “Best Man” awards.

While GM at Mail & Guardian Online, the online business underwent a turnaround, achieving historically high revenue and readership numbers, regularly featuring as one of the country’s top ten websites and the third biggest news site (Nielsen//Netratings). Under his watch the site went through a complete overhaul, redesign and redevelopment, which included building a new CMS, inhouse from the ground up. In recent times the site launched 11 new online brands and 7 new mobile sites, including the flagship m.mg.co.za. The site’s Thought Leader “editorial blog” and newsinphotos.co.za were recognised by the 2008 Webby’s alongside big international brands like the New York Times, CNN, CNBC, CBS, New York Observer and Washingtonpost.com. It also won “SA Blog of Year 2008”.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rhodes University, with three majors in journalism, philosophy and history. Matthew is a new media graduate and knows no other medium!

His favourite colour is still red.