#HarryPotter20: South Africa celebrates Philosopher’s Stone’s 20th birthday

For almost any business operating in the 21st Century, digital marketing is an exciting, growing and ever more essential tool. It also seems deceptively easy – just set up a few social media accounts and write a blog and you’re set -- right? Not at all. There are many layers, nuances, tricks and best practices to online marketing -- and often these are overlooked by people who haven’t been trained in online, or simply think that they know better. Here are the top five mistakes that people make in the online space. 1. Love it and leave it A lot of time,...

From New York City to Rome, independent art, film and music intermingle each year, simmering in each other's juices. You can't have music without art, or film without music. Music without some sort of visual representation just isn't marketable to the masses. A fashion show without a background accompaniment of sound would be pompous (unless we're talking hyper-avante garde couture like Junya Watanabe or Duckie Brown, in which a silent fashion show might be absurdly fitting). A movie without a relevant wardrobe and soundtrack would never make it to box offices. This deep connection between film, art, fashion and...

Designing Perfection There was something special about the first time you played Half-Life. You were immersed into the world of Black Mesa and you really felt as though you were Gordon Freeman, a crowbar-wielding engineer, and not just some guy with a gun. Or what about the first time you loaded up BioShock and Rapture came alive before your very eyes? These games were unlike their contemporaries in that they created an atmosphere that was unique and memorable. No game has come close to capturing that same experience until now. Read more on Gearburn. var vglnk={key:"cc324b6567a9637aa0ff15bc9564b2a5"};!function(e,a){var t=e.createElement(a);t.type="text/javascript",t.async=!0,t.src="//cdn.viglink.com/api/vglnk.js";var n=e.getElementsByTagName(a);n.parentNode.insertBefore(t,n)}(document,"script");

A few months ago Google’s top female executive, Marissa Mayer, jumped ship to take the helm at Yahoo!. Back then people speculated about what the hire meant for the company and what its focus would be. As it turns out, we are all about to find out: later today, the company will be reporting its first quarterly earnings since Mayer took over. This report could reveal some very significant changes in the company's focus and Reuters is already reporting that these changes will position Yahoo! as a technology company rather than a media company. According to the report, the...

Before I start this article, I have a disclaimer: I am talking about normal users here, not hardcore gamers or IT professionals. I am not talking about the guy who cannot let the day go by without Counter Strike or the guy whose photos do not get finished without Photoshop. I am talking about the regular Joe who wakes up in the morning and opens up their browser and loads Facebook, Gmail or Twitter. The guy who is connected to all the other regular Joes and who is the gold mine of data that every company is after. Now, the question:...

There seems to be a checklist in place before an iProduct launch. First come the rumours, the leaked grainy images and the outpouring of "people knowledgeable with the matter". Then comes a press invite, with some slightly not-so-cryptic one liner about having something "you really have to see. And touch" (the new iPad) or the fact that something is "almost here", placed above the shadow of a five (the iPhone 5). Then images of the decoration and branding of the launch event start to surface, and the iStore goes offline briefly as new products are added. If we're lucky,...

Until three weeks ago Frans De Villiers worked at Mxit as a special marketing project manager. He explains what life under Alan Knott-Craig Junior was like and how his departure could affect Mxit as a brand. Alan Knott-Craig Junior was Mxit’s Barack Obama. He rocked up at the scene at a time when the brand was certainly on the down. By no means am I implying that former CEO Herman Heunis was George W Bush, I regard him as a visionary tech leader who built an amazing company, but let's be honest: the company had lost a lot of...

Wall Street, home to Gordon Gecko, the Smurfs ringing the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) bell and eye-wateringly large initial public offering (IPO) valuations. It is home to the two largest bourses in the world by capitalisation, the NYSE and Nasdaq respectively. Unsurprisingly, the 20 most valuable emerging market technology companies listed on either the NYSE or Nasdaq originate in Asia. (I haven't included the telecoms giants from South America -- which are listed as public utilities.) South Africa’s Wall Street listings are all in the mining sector, but its top technology contender, MTN Group, listed on the Johannesburg Stock...

The fiasco around the release of Google's Q3 financial results was plain embarrassing. From the company that is the king of search this is just downright wrong. On its website, Google says that its "...mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." I guess that there is nothing about a timeous and orderly release thereof. It turns out that it might not have been its fault, but rather its filing agent released the results earlier than anticipated. That normally is not too big a deal, if the results are in line with...