Posts Tagged ‘New Media’

Posted on August 14, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

My presentation at the Advancing Web 2.0 conference

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As you read this I am busy delivering the following Avusa case study at the Advancing Web 2.0 for traditional media conference. Hope you enjoy it.

Posted on March 26, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

New Media Marketing Presentation

Well it’s done. My presentation on SEO and Social Media has been delivered and if you’re interested you can now view it below or on Slideshare.

Posted on March 26, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

Following the New Media Marketing conference via Twitter

If you’re attending today’s New Media Marketing conference and are planning to Twitter from the event then I’d like to suggest that you all use Hashtags in your twitter posts.

Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.

Using hashtags will not only enable better twitter following for the event but it will also allow users who are not attending the conference the opportunity to watch the events unfold and using hashtags is really simple.

1. You’ll need to follow hashtags on Twitter so that hashtags can pick your tweets up. Visit the hashtags user and click follow.

2. When you tweet from the event add #newmedia08 to your tweet so that hashtags picks your tweet up.

When you tweet with #newmedia08 in your post it will automatically appear on the newmedia08 hashtags page which any user can follow.

Let’s try it out and see how successful hashtags could be.

Posted on March 19, 2008 - by Justin Hartman

New Media Marketing Conference

Next week I’ll be presenting at the 2nd Annual New Media Marketing conference at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg. This four-day conference features an impressive lineup of speakers and I have to say it’s an honour to be presenting at such a great event.

I’m going to be talking about incorporating SEO and Social Media into a company’s marketing spend and it’s a perfect topic for me as I feel very passionate about both areas. These days I find myself working with Social Media more and more but my initial passion was always search.

I’ve long felt that while Google is an awesome company and I highly respect their ethos, one company should not control so much of the world’s data. Personally I’d rather have Google own my data than say Microsoft but I still maintain vertical search is a necessity in this ever dominant market.

When I developed Grabble in 2006 I thought I was onto a winner. Sadly it never took off (it’s almost dead in fact) but what I did gain out of this project was an appreciation for search and the technologies that power it. Grabble evolved from open source Java applications, Perl and then I settled on PHP.

There’s a reason why Google have a couple hundred thousand servers collecting, storing and processing information but none of this I could understand, contemplate or appreciate until I tried doing it myself.

What’s even better than talking about some passionate topics is the fact that I’m the second presenter which takes a lot of the pressure off me to really enjoy the remainder of the conference.

If anyone is still interested in going to the conference I have a whole bunch of vouchers which give you 25% discount off the conference price. Get in touch with me and I’ll happily hand them out.

Posted on December 10, 2007 - by Justin Hartman

Disgruntled sub-editor just refuses to let go

I’ve kept relatively quiet about the recent firing of Llewellyn Kriel but I’ve just read on MyADSL that Kriel plans to appeal the findings of the disciplinary hearing and now I feel I need to take a stand on this issue.

In the article Kriel claims,

“I am passionate about freedom of expression and I was exercising my constitutional right when I posted the blog.”

He goes on to say that,

“Media in South Africa need to wake up quickly, there is an entirely new face to the media worldwide, influenced by cyberspace.”

Some other bloggers feel quite opinionated about this issue and are all claiming, directly or indirectly, that Kriel was fired because he blogged - not because he broke company policy.

While Kriel may claim he has some constitutional right to say what ever he feels I think we need to look at some of the facts.

1. Kriel is a veteran journalist with more than 30 years experience in the industry. Does this experience not bring with it some common sense when writing about critical operational information in a blog post or do the rules of the real world not apply to a blog or the cyberspace, as he puts it?

2. In order for Kriel to be an employee of the Sowetan (Avusa) he would have had to have signed a contract of employment which would have, in no uncertain terms, contained a clause preventing him from sharing the information he did in the blog post. I know my contract with Avusa prevents me from bringing the company’s name into disrepute and also prevents me from sharing operational information with competitors and/or the world.

3. Kriel chose a blog to share his disgruntled views however this doesn’t change the fact that he disregarded his contract of employment and in doing so made this a company policy issue - not a blogging issue. The Sowetan’s actions where justified and exercised to the fullest and there was nothing wrong with the final decision of giving Kriel the boot.

4. Did Kriel really disclose company information? I think so. For Kriel to even discuss an internal “Climate Survey” conducted for operational purposes is just not on. Avusa is a listed company and as such this post on company morale and the fact that there is a banning of all new appointments can and will have a direct impact on the share price of the company. I’m no stock broker but I do know that share prices are affected by perception and creating this vastly negative impression on the whole of Avusa is gross misconduct. Simple!

5. Taking this to the extreme we also need to look at the possible liability the Mail & Guardian have in this matter. Should Kriel plan to take further legal action what stops Avusa from taking direct action against the M&G for posting the offending blog post in the first place?

Thought Leader is a strictly moderated website and goes through an editorial work flow before a post or comment goes live on the platform. This means that whether M&G realise it they could become liable for every piece of content on the Thought Leader website and Avusa could argue Kriel’s post was a form of industrial sabotage by the competing newspaper.

While I honestly don’t believe the M&G did plan any form of sabotage (I know these guys personally!) I do have to question why the post ever made it onto the website in the first place. In my mind, someone should have canned it during the editorial process.

I have to just add that I’m tired of this being a new media issue - it isn’t and we all need to get a little perspective. If anything, Kriel’s ignorance to the rules of engagement online and his petty rant in a public forum have actually had an adverse effect for blogging in this country.

His actions have created this moronic impression that you are entitled to say whatever you want to and simply disregard any ethical or contractual obligations you may have because the constitution allows you this right.

As I see it, anyone who still uses the word cyberspace needs to wake up quickly - there is an entirely new dimension to what you’re allowed to do online and it’s influenced by real world rules.

Posted on November 6, 2007 - by Justin Hartman

New Media and Technology law

A week ago I was fortunate enough to attend the New Media and Technology law workshop hosted by Paul Jacobson and Daniella Kafouris.

I was particularly excited about this workshop because I’ve had my fair share of legal complications over the last few years and I was keen to hear what the experts had to say.

Daniella went into great detail on how technology law implicates corporate business as well as SMEs and highlighted some important aspects in terms of company liability which I found particularly interesting. While I no longer own a business I can see the value of what Daniella was presenting in the workshop and this is a must for any Director or business owner.

Paul’s take on New Media law was fantastic and he really gave a great overview on various new media topics and provided some insight I’ve previously not given much thought to. Some of what was discussed has a serious implication for The Times so from this perspective alone I have to say the workshop was well worth it.

If you’re new to the game or just lack the legal understanding - which most of us do - then this is a workshop you simply can not miss out on. I know there is another one planned in the next couple months so make sure you follow the wiki for more info.

I only have two suggestions for both Paul and Daniella:

1. Limit questions to the end of each presentation. It was really nice to have interaction during the presentations however the net result was that Paul’s presentation was rushed. Leaving questions for last would provide more value at the end of the day.

2. While this workshop was a great introduction to technology and new media law I’d like to see a more in depth workshop on these topics. I’d really like a whole day event where we can really delve deeper into these issues because for the layman things aren’t 100% clear until you can really analyse things properly.