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Matthew Buckland: Publisher

Matthew Buckland is a web guy who has over the years worked in a programming, editorial and business capacity within the online media environment. He now dedicates his life and soul to Creative Spark and Memeburn.com. He was previously General Manager of Publishing at news24.com, and then went on to found and head up award-winning innovation startup called 20FourLabs.com. He is the former General Manager of Mail & Guardian Online and co-founder of political think-tank site Thought Leader -- a Webby Award Honoree. One of his proudest moments was when some of the world's biggest blogs, Techcrunch and Mashable, his favourite site Wired.com and technology site Techmeme tried to break his servers by linking to his personal blog matthewbuckland.com in the space of a few days. He was named one of "SA’s top 100 most influential media and advertising people" by the The Annual in 2009 and one of "300 Young South Africans you should take out to lunch" by his former employer, Mail & Guardian. His favourite colour is red.

RECENT POSTS

• Could paid connections be the future of social networking? [Net Prophet]

  Social networking hasn't quite lived up to its promise. It was supposed to flatten hierarchies and democratise networking. Theoretically, I'm just a few clicks and an email away from Richard Branson, so I should be able to have a conversation with him and do business.How hopelessly naive. The reality is that social networks mirror life and it's difficult to get the attention of busy, important people. Why? Because well-known and successful people have limited time and can't possibly give attention ...

• A geek at the helm: Memeburn’s interview with Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys

  It’s not often that a geek rises to the top of a multi-billion dollar company. These are spots frequently filled by accountants or lawyers. But times are changing. In a technology-driven world, the geeks are rising to the top.We know Microsoft was run by a geek (possibly the geekiest CEO of all time?) and Steve Jobs was somewhat of a geek (more a design-obsessed geek than anything else). In the startup world, technology investors frequently refuse to put their money ...

• On the comeback trail: Is Microsoft regaining its ‘cool’?

  During a cold December in Paris at a conference called Le Web, I was struck by an insight. It was a combination of what I had been feeling for a while and what a brilliant analyst was saying -- and that is, Microsoft is on the comeback trail. It really is.In recent times, Microsoft has struggled to exude that "cool factor" of companies like Apple, a coolness that is reflected in the companies' respective share prices too. It's a zeitgeist ...

• Stephen Grootes and the company-employee Twitter dilemma

  Stephen Grootes is cool. He's one of those passionate, enthusiastic journalists that you really enjoy listening to on the radio. And he's a prolific writer, broadcaster and Tweeter with almost 15k followers. It's not particularly large on a world scale, but good for the niche. And Grootes' followers will just grow and grow and grow as time goes on.I often hear Stephen's Twitter handle being punted on radio, and with every punt the followers rack up. And rightly so ...

• How I would have stuffed up Twitter: Usability’s quest for simplicity

  I've often wondered what it was like in the early days of creating Twitter. It must have been interesting times working out what the social network would be, what it would look like and how it would function. Of course, no-one then knew for certain it would be the slam-dunk success of today.In those early, startup days of rapid development and innovation, there must have been countless arguments, debates and jousts over how it would look and how it would ...

• So the web will die, but what exactly will it be replaced by? [LeWeb]

  The web will die says George Colony, the rather insightful boss of Forrester Research -- and here is why.He says that fundamentally the web is a waste and inefficient. It fails to take advantage of the incredible processing power and storage abilities of the powerful gadgets and computers we use. It makes no sense to leave these out of the equation. Rather the best use of the technology at our disposal today is to use both the internet and the ...

• Next social wave to sweep away ‘nonsense’ like Foursquare: Forrester

  We are in a social, goldrush bubble era and we have literally "run out of time" to give to the increasing social services and applications that are proliferating on the internet, says George Colony, the boss of Forrester Research.He believes that the current crop of trendy social businesses like the location-based, check-in social network, Foursquare, are "nonsense" -- and they will eventually be swept away in a new "post-social era". This is because these services require more time of ...

• 12 absolutely incredible lessons for entrepreneurs from Bill Gross [LeWeb]

  It's rare that you see a talk that resonates so deeply and makes complete, fundamental sense. You have the realisation that experience, genius and truth is in the same room as you and you are having those "aha" moments every minute -- and it's exhilarating.Bill Gross is an entrepreneurial genius. He runs a company called Idealab, started in 1996. He founded the company to create and build successful businesses that capitalise on innovations in areas with growth opportunities. Naturally ...

• The future is social, local, mobile, says Google’s Eric Schmidt

  Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says that all the "interesting applications" of the future are going to be a combination of social, local and mobile."All the best engineering is going into mobile apps," he said at the LeWeb conference in Paris.The fundamentals of social, mobile and local have been a fundamental truth for human beings for years and we're now using technology, specifically internet-connected phones, to enhance that.The social part is what we do as human beings -- we speak ...

• ‘Silicon Valley needs a competitor, get your act together’ – Eric Schmidt

  Google Chairman Eric Schmidt threw down the gauntlet to the rest of the world, saying "Silicon Valley needs a competitor"."Competition is good. Get your act together," he said at the LeWeb 2011 conference in Paris.Schmidt said that Silicon Valley had shown the world a "model of innovation" and that there are a number of cities in the world that could be a tech hub to rival that in San Francisco. There are developing tech hubs in Paris, London, Berlin and ...

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