There is a blog up for sale, at auction, and I wonder if you can predict how much it will sell for. (I am not going to give out the URL, because I don’t want you to see what the current bid is, but if you think you might want to buy it, give me […]
Media
Posted inMedia, Tech
Online hiding holes vs the law
VideoProfessor sells computer training videos, mostly through late-night infomercials. Like most companies, it offers a money-back guarantee, but there seem to be endless problems with overcharges, upsells and unclear terms. Some customers got a little fed up and posted anonymous, negative comments on websites such as Infomercialscams.com. VideoProfessor did not take kindly to this, and […]
Posted inMedia
Blogging: The great seduction
I have written for newspapers. But, apart from the (very occasional) story that made it to the front page, I can’t recall the same frisson of excitement I feel when I submit a blog posting. Ridiculous, really. Print journalists write for huge audiences: the Sunday Times has more than 3,6-million readers. One of its top […]
Posted inMedia
American journalism isn’t all bad: why I love the New York Times
American journalism has many ills, but the great American newspapers — the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times — remain magnificent examples of the medium. I used to be an Anglophile newspaper reader, starting my day with the Guardian and the Independent, but I hardly ever visit those two sites these […]
Posted inMedia
Dealing with my attention crisis
As the amount of new information produced in the world every day escalates, so I find my attention span decreasing in equal and opposite proportion. As more people in South Africa start publishing their own media online — on Facebook, blogs, videos and podcasts — so my choices about what to pay attention to become […]
Posted inMedia, Tech
Cost-per-performance pricing models
Cygnus Business Media today announced that 67 of its trade publications are offering advertising based on pay-per-performance, fuelled by the popularity of this model online. A bold move for print! It wasn’t too long ago that Google announced its CPA (cost per action) model and much frenzy resonated globally by those in favour as well […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, Tech
Show me the money!
I’ve had quite an eventful trip to the United States (still here), attending both the Commission Junction University Conference and TechCrunch40 — two seriously great conferences. I met hundreds of people, saw dozens of companies and handed out and received countless business cards. It was great fun — there is coverage on my personal blog […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The cut-throat method
In an attempt to rein in critical media, the government has embarked on a new trend: the withdrawal of advertising, an important avenue of income for most media. If we don’t like what you write, we’ll suspend some badly needed cash. Within the past few months, at least three South African newspapers have found themselves […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
Cliff Jennings, lonelygirl15: We’re all playing characters anyway, so why the fuss?
I must have been napping during the class on ethics in marketing, because I don’t understand the reason for the furor over the Cliff Jennings/Idols saga in South Africa. This has happened before, is happening as I sit here and will certainly become more prevalent in the future. In May 2006, a 1:32 webcam video […]
Posted inMedia
From blogger to editor-in-chief
A new daily paper is expected on the streets of Spain on Thursday and when it comes out, its 31-year-old editor, Ignacio Escolar, is likely to set an international milestone: the world’s first blogger to become editor-in-chief of a national newspaper. Actually, Escolar is a journalist, and he has worked as such in many small […]
Posted inMedia, Tech
Online marketing in the mix
Upon pondering a topic for what would finally be my first and long overdue post on Thought Leader, I began wondering just why all the talk is around Facebook, YouTube, blogging and various other forms of social media. Has this discussion not been the core focus for months now? It is certainly the longest-running topic […]
Posted inMedia, Tech
The blogging Player of the Week
After four weeks of excuses masquerading as blogs on “related topics”, the first blogging Player of the Week can be announced. The choice will not be a popular one among the blogging elite, but then this exercise is about recognition, not affirmation. First a recap: the original idea behind the Amablogoblogo is to recognise special […]