Digital agencies: flash-in-the-pan fad, or here to go the distance?

The world of human resources (HR) is changing at a speed that is leaving most HR departments behind. New technology is bringing more transparency into the job market and into the performance of the HR department, creating new challenges for HR directors. It’s also changing the expectations that employees and job applicants have of the employer experience. What’s more, HR departments need to make faster decisions, even as the amount of information they need to manage grows. For example, I know of a business that received 100 000 CVs after advertising a group of positions. Meanwhile, a volatile...

When it comes to social video, there are people doing it incredibly well, and others doing it incredibly badly. In the case of the latter, it's largely because the people running the accounts know they need to have a presence, but aren't exactly sure what to do with it. In a bid to remedy that, the Red and Yellow school of advertising is hosting a free workshop on 20 April 2016 in Cape Town aimed at developing participants' social video skills. The school has partnered with cinematographer Stephan Hambsch for the event, which it says will address the fundamentals...

The first reviews for LG’s G5 have been published online, so just what are they saying about this radical product? For starters, Phone Arena’s review says that, despite the specs and features, something “isn’t feeling exactly right” with the handset. “Objectively, it’s a competent flagship and even a decent improvement over its predecessor in some ways, but it feels like it’s just way too round in character. There are no sharp edges, nothing that jumps out, no area where the G5 is, or at least appears to be, significantly better than what the competition has to offer,” the review reads.

After the Easter weekend lull when almost no motorsport action was seen, the roar of engines — both petrol and electric — were heard once more. This week, we cover the second round of the Formula 1 Championship in Bahrain, and head out west for MotoGP, NASCAR Sprint Cup and Formula E. Lastly, the European season saw the WTCC roar into life, while the World Superbikes series was also seen running rings at Aragon.

Oculus is slowly but steadily sending Rift headsets out to early adopters, but they might want to read the terms of service before jumping in. Most concerning perhaps, is that the Facebook-owned company is free to utilise your user-generated content in any way it sees fit. "By submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services," reads the relevant excerpt. "You irrevocably...

Today Facebook launched a product that aims to make the Facebook experience better for the visually impaired. It's called automatic alternative text, and is now available on iOS. Engineered by the Facebook Accessibility Team, a division that works on new products specifically for people with disabilities, automatic alt text generates a description of a photo using advancements in object recognition technology. Worldwide, more than 39-million people are blind, and over 246-million have a severe visual impairment, claims Facebook. Facebook notes that the blind and visually impaired may feel frustrated that they cannot appreciate and consume the visual content on Facebook, and...

Reddit is a pretty incredible source of cat photos, but it can also be used to keep current with some of the world's biggest stories. And there's no bigger story this week than the Panama Papers. The world's biggest data leak, consisting of over 2.6TB of sensitive legal data, is currently causing massive waves online, but it's fairly esoteric. While we rounded up the top ten things to know about the leak, if you're looking for up to the absolute minute current information, Reddit is your best friend. The message board site boasts a Reddit Live update thread, in which it's using...

The term "Panama Papers" is about to become a major part of the global lexicon. That's because it represents something very big: the largest data leak in human history. The data comes primarily from a Panamanian law firm and forms the basis of what describes itself as "a global investigation into the sprawling, secretive industry of offshore that the world's rich and powerful use to hide assets and skirt rules by setting up front companies in far-flung jurisdictions". Bigger than both Wikileaks and the Snowden files, the investigation has revealed "a cast of characters who use offshore companies to...

Net Prophet, one of South Africa's favourite geek events, is back in 2016 with a speaker line-up bristling with veterans of the South African tech space. Some, like Travelstart's Stephan Ekbergh have been slogging away at the same venture for years. Others, such as Michael Jordaan and Alan Knott-Craig Jr will be appearing in guises outside of the ones they made their names in. Jordaan, now founder at Montegray capital, rose to prominence as the CEO of FNB, while Knott-Craig briefly lit up the scene with his acquisition of Mxit, before going on to found free WiFi NGO Project...

When done right, content marketing has the potential to catapult your business into the limelight, earn you hordes of new followers, and drastically improve your bottom line. However, when done incorrectly, it has the potential to completely kill your brand. Below, we investigate three of the most common digital /content marketing mistakes that every entrepreneur needs to be aware of and avoid at all costs. Playing it safe Not only does this refer to the type of content that you choose to produce, but also to the content itself. Marketers tend to avoid stirring up controversy in the fear of...

The web is noisy and chaotic with information. Online, you will find thousands of blogs, news channels and many online wire services publishing press releases, news articles and other related content daily. How is it possible for you and your business to find anything that is interesting with all the information available? How do you find information that is relevant to your business that you can use, curate and share with your target audience to support your digital marketing efforts? With the help of Google Search, Google Alerts, Twitter real time search and RSS (real simple syndication) it's quite easy...

Spend some time with your friends around the braai and everyone, at some stage, wants to do their own thing and venture off into Entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, less than 6% of the population ever will. Why is that? Business is relatively simple and there are enough examples of success out there to make it a worthwhile risk to undertake. Most people however know of the other part of the equation and the failures and difficulties. Perhaps that holds them back. Either way business IS simple but not always easy. The biggest factor in its...

You might be wondering why on earth there’s a BlackBerry review on Gearburn in 2016, but rest assured, the clock hasn’t wound back ten years, nor is the company dead. In fact, it’s experiencing something of a mantra change. Last decade, the Canadian company was the one challenging Apple for the world smartphone hierarchy. It was selling more phones than Samsung, and it was doing a damn fine job in the process. But since then, the company has fallen from grace, so much so that in 2016, it has done the unthinkable: it has turned to Android.

The AP Stylebook -- an influential media style guide that shaped online writing styles the world over -- has announced on Twitter that it will no longer refer to the internet as a proper noun, using a lower case I instead. The change will come into effect when the 2016 version of the Stylebook launches, and also marks a change in the way the world sees the internet. As the internet grows, it becomes a more "decentralised", ubiquitous web of communication and information, Thus referring to it as a proper noun, or a single, defined entity, doesn't quite make sense. Oh, and...

This is pretty damn cool. Snapchat user Joe Penna, who calls himself MysteryGuitarMan! on YouTube, has created an 85-second stop motion film which may just be the highest form of art created on the ephemeral social network. Called 8-bit Snapchat, the film uses what Penna describes as "some fruits, Snapchat, and a LOT of free time". The film takes the form of a classic side-scroller and will make you feel even older for being so confused every time you open up Snapchat.