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Online media

  • SoundCloud now features Spotify-like personal, curated playlists

    By on 4 May, 2017

    SoundCloud has long been known as a portal for recording artists to upload their tracks, and listeners to indulge in them gratis. But it's also becoming a key player in the content discovery race. The company's new feature, dubbed The Upload, takes a leaf out of Spotify's personal playlist curation handbook. SoundCloud will now provide listeners with a "regularly updated, bespoke playlist of new music relevant to you". "With a constantly expanding mix of music uploaded to SoundCloud every day, we've now made it easier to filter through it all," the company writes in its blog. SoundCloud now features a Spotify-like curated, regularly...

  • Why PewDiePie doesn’t care about free speech [Opinion]

    By on 12 April, 2017

    Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, has made it his mission to fight The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The Swedish YouTuber is consistently posting videos for his 54.6-million subscribers attacking WSJ for reporting news. But nothing Kjellberg argues ever holds up, and it's a damning representation of where his priorities lie. For those blissfully unaware, back in January PewDiePie posted a video in which he paid Indian men to hold up a sign promoting Jewish genocide. WSJ wrote an article on it, and contacted Disney for a statement. Disney was producing Kjellberg's YouTube Red show Scare Pewdiepie at the time, and...

  • This website live streams animal shelters, helps you donate too

    By on 6 April, 2017

    When you're caught up in your daily life, it can be hard to find time to give back to your community. Things like grocery shopping will always feel more pressing than walking dogs at a faraway animal shelter. Animals Life NET is a website that understands this, and wants to make helping homeless animals easier so that you can give back quickly and simply. The site offers users free live streams from shelters all around the world, with links on the side to feed the animals, volunteer at the shelter, help a crowdfunding campaign or even adopt a pet. If...

  • WorldStarHipHop founder Lee O’Denat dies at 43

    By on 25 January, 2017

    The WorldStarHipHop website grew from a place for music to a viral video phenomenon in the mid 2000s. In fact, its influence is still keenly being felt, as the website successfully transitioned to the social media era, covering African American and pop culture in general. Unfortunately, the website is left a little poorer this week with the news that founder Lee O'Denat died on Monday as a result of a heart attack. The news was first reported by TMZ overnight and confirmed by the hip-hop website in a statement across its social media accounts. "With profound sadness, WorldStarHipHop and its employees, state that Lee...

  • CIA goes public with huge online declassified database

    By on 18 January, 2017

    Everyone's favourite intelligence agency, the CIA, has today made 50 years' worth of its research archive available online. This includes the late batch of data from the past 25 years. The agency is required to release declassified files every quarter century, thanks to the Federal Records Act. Previously only accessible via a public terminal system in Maryland, the CIA has migrated the entire archive to the web, allowing practically everyone with a browser and internet connection to access them. Even you, Mr. Snowden. Dubbed CREST, the CIA's archive totals close to 12-million pages of declassified files including around 930 000 documents. And...

  • After Trump win, internet to get Canadian mirror (kind of)

    By on 30 November, 2016

    The US election has forced tech companies and other entities to look closely at their operations, owing to the imminent Trump administration coming into power. At least one pivotal entity, the non-profit Internet Archive, has taken to creating an insurance policy in Canada, in the form of a mirror. The Internet Archive is behind the landmark Wayback Machine, a service which charts the internet's history and has already saved billions of URLs. The Wayback Machine sees between 300 million and 750 million webpages being saved every week, capturing old articles and forgotten websites. In other words, creating a mirror won't be a trivial task...

  • Digital publishing and the world’s largest education company

    By on 30 November, 2016

    As an arm of a 172-year- old publishing company, Pearson Education has experienced the digital revolution first-hand. Many saw the seismic shift toward digital as a klaxon sounding the imminent death of the publishing industry, but Pearson has managed to adapt and has remoulded itself into as much a digital publisher as a print publisher. Subsequently, it is the largest education company in the world. Stacy Treco is VP and director of digital strategy at Pearson Education, as the latest role in a three-decade career at the company. Her focus has been on the pursuit of innovative excellence. This characteristic helped...

  • Reddit’s Joel Meek on challenges facing digital publishing

    By on 28 November, 2016

    Joel Meek has been VP of Operations at Reddit for over a year. In his role, Joel oversees Reddit’s Community, Trust and Safety, Finance, Media Partnerships, and Business Development teams. Previously, he managed the Community and Partnership teams at Pinterest, supporting and growing the company's communities and helping small- to mid-sized businesses advertise on the platform. Joel also worked on building the Sales and Support teams for Google Apps. Ahead of his presentation at the Digital Publishing Innovation Summit this December 5-6 in San Francisco, we sat down with Joel to talk all things digital publishing. What are the key challenges posed by having user-generated...

  • Publishing power: blasting the tech barrier to innovative ideas and content

    By on 19 October, 2016

    Enterprise organisations still caught in the dark ages of taking days, even weeks to publish simple content changes need to look hard at their digital publishing tools. In today’s fast-moving digital environment, it’s no longer acceptable for quick fixes, content updates and even major additions to be stuck in development or release bottlenecks. Instead, publishing power is being placed right in the hands of its non-technical creators with an innovative accelerated approach. Real-time responsiveness, in seconds The right publishing tools make real-time responsiveness a reality, rather than a catchphrase. Non-technical content creators, like in-house teams and creative agencies, are empowered to design...

  • TasteMonster uses AI to recommend movies and series you’ll like

    By on 27 September, 2016

    Often, the biggest issue with binge-watching series or movie sequels is finding content you'll actually enjoy. That's the problem local service TasteMonster is trying to solve. Developed in Cape Town by FuzzyLogic founder Rick De Villiers, TasteMonster is a "unique intuitive system for streaming sites enables users to access tailored predictions and match shows and movies in real time for you and your friends". Although the service launched back in October 2015, it has only recently come of age, with the addition of more TV shows. According to the press release, the service processes more than 25-million ratings and generates 16 000...

  • Huffington Post, Media24 team up for HuffPost SA

    By on 16 September, 2016

    A South African edition of the Huffington Post will be coming later this year, courtesy of a deal between the publisher and Media24. HuffPost SA will be the 17th edition and the first one for sub-Saharan Africa, the duo announced in a press statement. "South Africa is an extremely exciting market for the company as internet users there are expected to grow to 35.4 million by 2018, digital video is expected to grow by more than 29%, and overall mobile phone users to 41.5 million," said Jared Grusd, CEO of The Huffington Post in the statement. "On a personal level, I'm particularly...

  • Stream ripping now a bigger issue than illegal downloads

    By on 14 September, 2016

    Torrent groups and downloads have traditionally been the biggest thorn in the music industry's side, but it looks like stream-ripping is the industry's new arch-nemesis According to the Music Consumer Insight Report 2016, over a third of internet users (35%) access unlicensed content on the internet. The report, which was conducted by Ipsos on behalf of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), found that traditional illegal downloads were waning in favour of stream-ripping. Who needs torrent sites when stream ripping is a thing? "Infringement is changing, with half (49%) of 16 to 24 year olds stream ripping from sites like YouTube," read an excerpt of...

  • Update: Leslie Jones’ website hacked, nude photos released

    By on 25 August, 2016

    Update, 25 August, 10.10am: In light of the hack, Twitter leapt to Leslie Jones' support. But while that included a swathe of her fans, celebrities have also joined in. Using the hashtag #StandWithLeslie, recording artist Katy Perry announced her support late last night. Support also filtered through from recording artist Sara Bereilles, Ghostbusters director Paul Feig and comedian Taran Killam, among others. Do not give your eyeballs to this racist, hate-filled, misogynoir crime. I #StandWithLeslie ❤️ — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) August 24, 2016 Why on earth? Such venom. I'm so sorry @Lesdoggg. It's misplaced sadness and anger and you don't deserve any of...

  • Don’t share it! Spot fake news and images with these tips

    By on 18 August, 2016

    The internet has largely delivered on its promise to revolutionise the way we access information and news in general. Unfortunately, we've also seen the rise of fake news websites, as people share these stories without question. It doesn't have to be this way though, as there are a few things to keep in mind before sharing that article... Google! Publications live and die by their exclusives of course, but it's worth Googling the story for other websites saying the same thing. This is especially true for no-name websites reporting the original news, as opposed to the likes of News24, Forbes, M&G and other prominent publications. Also make sure that...

  • 5 great services and ways to help quell your weekly music craving

    By on 11 August, 2016

    Marilyn Manson once called music "the strongest form of magic", and he's right you know. After all, how else can we possibly survive the week's trials and tribulations? We all have our favourite genres, our beloved artists and our prized playlists, but listening to music often means purchasing a service, or downloading tracks illegally. We don't condone the latter, of course, but there are ways to get your music fix in a fair and free way. Here are some stellar examples. HypeMachine Thanks to its apps (as well as its website), the HypeMachine will keep your feet tapping all day. It trawls the...