In the second part of this interview, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins tells Arthur Goldstuck about competing with Apple, how the BlackBerry’s notorious freezes have been overcome, and reveals the company’s secret weapon.
Category archives: Media
Win one of two tickets to attend the Daily Maverick’s The Gathering conference
Win one of two tickets to attend the Daily Maverick’s The Gathering conference happening on 15 November 2012 at the Victory Theatre in Houghton.
Magazine covers we love – Bonnie Henna and other fighting covers
MarkLives.com runs a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week. We recognise well thought out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three in one) magazine covers and celebrate the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them.
With BDLive Business Day hopes to save its bacon
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Business Day recently shifted gear to relaunch as a ‘digital first’ news product rather than just the printed newspaper it’s been bargaining on to keep the brand afloat. It’s a strategy that’s long overdue and hopes to mimic some of the digital success achieved by the Financial Times (Pearson, owner of FT, also has a stake in BDFM which publishes Business Day).
The print product really had no choice but to reinvent itself as it and other business publications face the loss of revenue from financial notices by JSE listed companies – these notices, described by critics as a forced ‘subsidy’ for print business media, is set to fall away after changes to regulations by the JSE. The industry is expected to lose a significant percentage of the estimated R200m currently spent on these notices annually.
Advertising revenue has also started shifting towards digital environments in line with developments in other economies.
Bronwen Auret, GM: BDFM Digital, agrees that those in the business of business news face challenges but she is also excited about the opportunities the new digital centric model will afford the company.
Newspapers are the least sexy media right now, say Aurent, and where to from (for now still) profitable print have been a predicament for most newspaper proprietors given the high cost of bandwidth and slower Internet uptake by the South African market.
With the uptick in usage of online and mobile thanks to more competitive pricing and competition by mobile data providers the market is shifting and the introduction of apps has made South Africans more familiar and comfortable with ecommerce.
After group buying shake-out CityMob changes direction
by Herman Manson (@marklives) CityMob, the group buying site started by three entrepreneurs in Cape Town in early 2011, has made a significant change in direction as the shake-out in the group buying market continues.
Although profitable at the time the trio – Luke Jedeikin, Claude Hanan and Daniel Solomon, had decided to move away from the mass discount, quantity over quality focus in much of the group buying space. As their competitors closed up shop, including the Naspers backed Dealify and the Avusa backed Zappon, the CityMob founders had already identified their key differentiator and were planning the relaunch of their business as an online design retailer specialising in ‘flash sales’ (time-limited sales).
It was a natural evolution for the business which had specialised in sourcing high quality deals with top brands in its group buying days. Self funded to date, it didn’t have a massive database of users as some of its competitors had, and very little marketing budget, so all that was left was to compete on was product.
The entry of Groupon into the South African market shortly after the launch of CityMob helped the team up their game and taught them so hard business lessons as well, says Jedeikin, the MD at CityMob. As questions were raised as to the sustainability of the group buying business model, the entrenchment of Groupon as the dominant player in the market and deal fatigue starting to set in amongst businesses, CityMob needed to not only differentiate itself but also needed to find a position with a much higher barrier to entry, hence the move into selling products rather than vouchers.
Magazine covers we love
MarkLives.com runs a regular slot featuring the best local and international magazine covers every week. We recognise well thought out, powerful and interesting (and hopefully all three in one) magazine covers and celebrate the mix of pragmatism, creativity and personal taste that created each of them.
Design Times eyes a digital future
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Mark Rosenberg was flipping through Wallpaper magazine when he saw a feature on newspaper design. It was sometime in 2004 and he had just getting started in the ad biz, with a background in the arts. Rosenberg went home and designed his first newspaper. It was called Design Times. He was 20.
Rosenberg knew that students with a design interest could hardly afford the international design glossies imported into the country. He also struggled to find design orientated publications that spoke to him as a consumer. With this in mind the first print run of Design Times would sell at R2 a copy. He printed 500 four pagers and was selling ads at R500 a pop. It just covered his production costs. He sold his first ad to a reseller of Adobe and Apple products.
Overheads were low – he was staying with his folks and putting the newspaper out from his bedroom – with only a limited amount of exposure to the publishing business (the agency he was working for had a travel client and was producing their in-house magazine).
Initially Design Times, which covered graphic design and photography initially, was less about content and more about layout and design admits Rosenberg but this has gradually been changing. It has also expanded its editorial coverage to touch on multiple facets of design including fashion, interior architecture and product design.
Lack of innovation means newspapers failing visual journalism
by Herman Manson. Judges of the recently held Sikuvile Standard Bank Newspaper Journalism Award were critical of the limited visual innovation they saw in entries this year.
Weekly Top 10: Fastest rising search terms from South Africans on Google
With the help of Google Trends we are publishing the top 10 searched for phrases (minus the sexy stuff of course) by South Africans on Google over the previous seven days.
Spoof ad takes aim at Julius Malema’s tax troubles
ZANews, the satirical puppet TV and web show that comments on South Africa’s news and political landscape, has released a spoof of the latest SA Revenue TV commercial, this time featuring Julius Malema and playing up his tax troubles . The show is produced by Thierry Cassuto and cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro.