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Nadia Neophytou is a New York based South African journalist most known for her work as the Entertainment Reporter for Eyewitness News, which is broadcast on Talk Radio 702, 567 Cape Talk, Highveld Stereo 94.7 and Kfm 94.5. She is now based in New York, as their US correspondent. Nadia also contributes to publications such as O, The Oprah Magazine, GQ, The Mail and Guardian andThe Sunday Times Lifestyle.
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"Zero to a billion dollars in five years” - With that statement alone, Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder and president of Chobani yoghurt, needed little fanfare for his PSFK 2013 talk. With no slides, no pictures or audio accompaniment necessary, Ulukaya became one of the highlights of this year’s conference, illustrating how his gut instinct led him to take on a new venture that has since had a meteoric rise to success and amassed a solid social media following in the ...
Fashion, entrepreneurship and doing good are the corner-stones of the Warby Parker philosophy, which co-founder Neil Blumenthal explained during his time at the 2013 PSFK conference. A collaboration started by four friends, who were tired of paying a small fortune for new glasses, is now a study in how little or no marketing can go a long way in building a successful start-up.Launched in 2010 by four MBA students at the Wharton School of Business, Warby Parker was conceived ...
Google’s Strategic Planning chief Abigail Posner attempted to explain the phenomenon that is the screaming goat meme at the 2013 PSFK conference, held in New York City recently. Over four-billion hours of video is watched each month on YouTube and 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, so, why are we watching what we’re watching, she asks. And why are we taking pictures of the seemingly everyday mundane things, like what we’re eating for lunch? Why are ...
“There’s a f***ing zeitgeist going on with what’s happening in terms of art and crowd-funding right now,” states singer Amanda Palmer. “Everyone is getting inspired!” Last year Palmer -- musician, poet, all-out wild child -- leveraged her social media network to raise the money she needed for her latest album, book and tour. Palmer, who has used Kickstarter before, was surprised by the amount she managed to raise -- a record-breaking figure of US$1 192 793 from 24 883 fans ...
One of the speakers at SXSW looking to plant his message firmly within the minds of those at the Interactive portion of the annual event is author and technologist Clay Johnson. He is best known for advocating open source information in making government data more transparent, but his latest project is the reason he's on the schedule this year. Johnson has started InfoVegan.com and written The Information Diet, both of which focus on tackling the overload of junk information society ...
Among the cynicism and complaining that usually accompanies conferences of its size, SXSW manages to deliver a healthy dose of inspiration. Tina Roth Eisenberg gave a keynote address that quickly became one of this year's highlights. Growing up in mountainous Switzerland, and being influenced by renowned Swiss design and "a lot of fresh air", Eisenberg moved to New York and began establishing various businesses despite the uncertainty that surrounded the onset of her life in the Big Apple.Often referred ...
As the Interactive portion of SXSW began winding down, BuzzFeed's CEO and founder Jonah Peretti shared a few of the insights that he and his puppy-and-kitten-loving team have discovered work well for their media site, BuzzFeed, and in fact, indicate the kind of shift that is taking place.BuzzFeed, with its lists and cute pictures of bunnies, taps into what Peretti calls the bored-at-work network (hundreds of people stuck at work all day behind a computer looking for distraction, which has ...
Shaquille O'Neal is many things -- former basketball champ, actor, reality TV star, author -- but a tech geek? Turns out he considers himself to be the world's "tallest geek" actually. On his first visit to SXSW, O'Neal, in conversation with Brian Solis, revealed how it was computers and geeks that helped him with his A-game off the court and on social media.Shaq told Monday's audience his cheeky sense of humour wasn't always appreciated by those around him. He relayed ...
Panels focused on Africa at the annual SXSW conference have become a place for those who're passionate about the continent to spread the word on new technology and its role there. And it's not just Africans themselves doing the convincing. Companies working both from outside the continent and within in, took part in a panel titled "Africa or Bust! Content, Monetization, Opportunity" on Monday afternoon.
Aimed at spreading the word about the opportunity which exists for content creators, ...
Newark mayor and popular Twitter user Cory Booker was a highlight of this past weekend at SXSW -- explaining how he began his deep relationship with social media. Interviewed by Time Magazine's Steve Snyder, Booker took SXSWers through his journey onto Twitter and how he became one of the most active users on the site -- with a following that is larger than the population size of his constituency.Known for actively responding to tweets about broken traffic lights or ...
