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05.09.08

ZA Tech show: A local podcast worth listening to SA Media | (1)
Been meaning to write about this for a while now. The ZA Tech show, journalists "indulging in beer and opinion", is fast turning out to be one of the country's top podcasts. This week's podcast, with Simon Dingle, Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard, Jon Tullett and Duncan McLeod, is particularly good. They have the hilarious David Bullard as a guest... love him or hate him, he's hilarious. Bullard speaks about his firing from the Sunday Times over his controversial column, and his relationship with editor Mondli Makhanya. They also look at the "future of media" with Stuff Editor and gadget guru Toby ...

Tagged: Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard, corporate media organisation, David Bullard, Duncan Mcleod, Grand Theft Auto IV, Jon Tullett, media partnerships, Mondli Makhanya, online news sites, online publishing, online quality journalism, overall product, Simon Dingle, Sunday Times, the Sunday Times, Toby Shapshak, Yahoo!
04.21.08

24.com launches impressive crowd-sourcing tool in Answerit SA Media | (2)
Just got a press release today about 24.com's new answerit service. It's based on a similar Yahoo! service, which apparently has done pretty well. 24.com are one of the few players in the country who can launch a service like this, because it requires volume. Last time I checked, they have the volume, or more than 3,000,000 unique browsers. At the heart of the site is an innovative points system which regulates users' answers and ensures only the good stuff stays at the top -- it's a fairly complex crowd-sourcing excercise and, I have to say, is very well conceived. If ...

Tagged: Elan Lohmann, Heather Dougherty, Hitwise, Internet-based community, online public forum, online tool, Online users, Social media, Social networking, South Africa, United States, Yahoo!
07.31.07

The Search Wars: Can the Wikipedia boss take on Google? google, web 2.0 | Comments Off
Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia boss, has now detailed how he plans to take on Google, the search behemoth. Google is so good and so powerful, you get the feeling that competitors are at a bit of a loss on how exactly to take the search giant on. Even Microsoft, which has never run away from a fight, appears to be at a loss. During the Browser Wars of the 90s, Microsoft famously destroyed Netscape from complete market dominance to utter ruin in a period of about six years, making Internet Explorer the dominant browser of today. This is confirmation of what Jimmy ...

Tagged: Cape Town, computer-driven technology, google, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, online giants, search algorithms, search behemoth, search giant, search project, search scene, Wales, web crawling network, Wikia, Yahoo!
06.06.07

Google slammed, Google praised at newspaper conference WAN 2007 | (5)
Eamonn Byrne from the World Association of newspapers asked the panel at the last session of this congress: Is partnering with a search engine a good idea? The media industry have two main issues with Google. (1) They believe that Google is unfairly using and profiting off publisher's content. Hence the arrival of the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP), which I personally think will eventually be a mechanism for publishers to extract revenue out of Google for spidering their content. (2) Publishers have issues with the fact that Google is becoming a powerful intermediary between the advertiser or agency and the ...

Tagged: advertising commissions, advertising revenue, Alliance, Asia Pacific, Eamonn Byrne, Francois Groepe, google, media industry, Mike Smith, Moritz Wuttke, Northwestern University, Online publishers, search engine, search engines, search giant take, search giants, World Association, Yahoo!
06.04.07

Thabo Mbeki, SA president, refers to bloggers WAN 2007 | (4)
South African President Thabo Mbeki, in a speech about ten minutes ago this morning, referred to the citizen media revolution acknowledging the role of bloggers in South Africa and the world. He referred to bloggers almost interchangeably with journalists in his speech at the WAN conference in Cape Town. This is a newspaper conference mainly for the media, yet the president hinted at the influence and growth of blogging. I think its the first time I have heard him speak about the blogging revolution. And it is significant. He also insightfully referred to the term “Goodbye Gutenberg”, a term that emphasises ...

Tagged: Cape Town, citizen media, citizen media revolution, digital media, google, media industry, online media, South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, WAN, Yahoo!
06.04.07

'Newspapers are partners not enemies' WAN 2007, print vs online | Comments Off
Trevor Ncube, President of the Newspaper Association of South Africa and CEO of Mail & Guardian in South Africa, delivered an impassioned and brilliant speech calling on African leaders to understand the role that the press plays in society, and particularly on the African continent. He was speaking at the opening of the World Association of Newspapers Congress in Cape Town. "African leaders need to understand that vibrant newspapers are partners not enemies in creating democratic societies. Only by setting its people free does Africa stand a chance of catching up with the rest of the world." Gavin O'Reilly, President of the ...

Tagged: Africa, Cape Town, Christmas, Congress, digital media, Gavin O\'Reilly, google, local media, Mail & Guardian, media industry, Newspaper Association of South Africa, Robert Mugabe, South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, Trevor Ncube, World Association, Yahoo!, Zimbabwe
06.02.07

Cape Town beckons for the WAN conference Uncategorized, WAN 2007 | (2)
At the airport with Riaan Wolmarans, Mail & Guardian Online editor and Bryan Khumalo, our online sales manager. Our online strategist Vincent Maher and his entourage are nowhere to be seen yet (better hurry :-)). We're on our way to the WAN conference in Cape Town. It's a pretty big, and important conference -- and it's quite a scoop that South Africa got to host this year's conference. President Thabo Mbeki will be speaking there and I believe Nelson Mandela will be there too. The conference will host over 1 600 delegates, I believe. I wish they would consider changing the ...

Tagged: Bryan Khumalo, Cape Town, google, Mail & Guardian, Moscow, nelson mandela, Northwest University, Norway, South Africa, Telenor Brodcast, Thabo Mbeki, United States, Vincent Maher, WAN, WAP, World Association of Publishers, Yahoo!
04.20.07

One-on-one with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales Articles & columns, Social media, Uncategorized | (12)
UPDATED: Here are some excerpts of an interview I did with Jimmy on Thursday afternoon. I posed questions from myself and relayed some questions asked via this blog. The full interview is now on the M&G Online. Video and audio of the interview are now also available on the M&G Online article. There will also be a version in the paper later in the week, which a different audience will access. I've published it here also given that this is an open community subject and I thought a blog would be appropriate in this context. (Pic by Jayne Morgan) Interview with ...

Tagged: car accident, cricket, google, humour site, Iraq, Jayne Morgan, jimmy wales, LA Times, licensed software, Los Angeles Times, matthew buckland, Maureen Dowd, NY Times, Online article, Reorganization, search engine, search-engine project, social networking sites, sports coverage, tech site, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, web forums, wikipedia, Wikipedian, Yahoo!
03.06.07

24.com & Yahoo! SA Media, online media business | (4)
I wandered over to Yahoo! for the first time in a long time and was struck by the similarity of the site with our own, home-grown, South African portal 24.com. 24.com is apparently doing very well so far... and hats off to 'em for innovating -- they've got a good platform to start doing some very nice stuff on the local web. I know they are modelling themselves to some extent after Yahoo. The similarity between the sites in appearance is unmistakeable. See for yourself below... Yahoooooooo...! 24.com...

Tagged: Africa, local web, South Africa, WAN, web, Yahoo!
10.12.06

Is Google a monster? Uncategorized | (2)
On Poynter emedia tidbits on which I am a fellow contributor, the big question is asked of the dot.com mega success story, Google: "Can someone please step up and say we're facing a monster?" It goes on, referring to the Google Youtube acquisition: "As Google continues to grow, it has shown some stripes that clash with its "don't be evil" mantra. The idea that Google will leave YouTube intact is possibly wishful thinking on the part of loyal users." Vincent Maher, who wrote the timely piece, reminds us of Google's actions in China that effectively endorsed censorship and now recently in Belgium, ...

Tagged: Acquisition, adsense, advertising, advertising game, advertising model, advertising models, China, google, innovation, media, online, online advertising, online advertising game, Vincent Maher, web, Yahoo!, YouTube

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At We Media in London. Pic: J Kiss