The second annual Integrated Marketing Communications Conference is taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 6-7, 2011.  Presenting the latest trends in global media and innovative marketing to industry leaders this conference is where South Africa’s leading communication voices are.

Over 200 people from various fields including public relations, digital media, marketing, advertising and communications are gathering in a Sandton hotel to figure out ways brands can develop an open ear to its consumers.  The opening keynote speaker was Vice President of Africa for InMobi, Isis N’yongo the world’s largest mobile advertising network spoke about the rapid growth of mobile technology on the African continent.  With 489 million mobile phone subscribers Africa is without a doubt a market segment that can no longer be ignored. “This continent has the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world.  If you combine this with the fact that more Africans access the Internet from mobiles than any other platform, it means the market for mobile advertising is set for strong levels of growth.”

Read more…

In 2007 I moved to Seattle, WA and found a tech savvy community in the Pacific Northwest. I found myself in the office of the Director of the MCDM Hanson Hosein and we began talking about the program, my background in journalism, and a documentary I was producing on my great uncle, the late musician Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter.
After the meeting I was convinced and ready to sign up! The only thing I didn’t ask him was what sort of jobs most graduates seek once they are “finished” with the program. At this time in 2008 there was only one person who seemed to get a decent job by using digital media and social media marketing and that was President Barack Obama who Hosein titled as being the “first digital President” in an earlier post.

Every class I took in the MCDM program helped me to prepare for my next unforeseen big move to South Africa. Our move was swift and took place during both the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. When I arrived here in Johannesburg I found digital media everywhere and moving at a rapid pace. One thing that I have witnessed is how SMS messaging is everywhere and even playing a role in civic engagement. The second week we were in the country we drove over a pothole and not long afterward the car began to slow down. The deceivingly rain-filled pothole had caused a flat tire and I had to change the tire. Days later I read in the local newspaper The Star (yes print media is still relevant) that a new initiative called LEAD SA started by local radio stations and print media to help develop pride in South African sports teams and encourage “good Samaritan” efforts has now fixed over 4,000 potholes across the Johannesburg area.  This is how it works here in South Africa:

Read more…

Every year, thousands of bands, bloggers, filmmakers, social media gurus and entrepreneurs come to the South By Southwest Music, Film and Interactive festival in Austin, Texas. When I joined the MCDM program in 2008 and heard about SXSW, I started to work on plans to be actively involved. Sooner than expected I had the opportunity to participate on one of the music panels—and got to spend a week soaking in the latest in digital media, while enjoying entertainment and Southern hospitality. Attending SXSW was well worth the lessons, networking contacts and, sometimes, the free food.

Pitching a panel

Last November, at the Showbox in downtown Seattle, I met with the SXSW music committee, which was accepting submissions from bands, record labels, and anyone else who wanted to pitch an idea. For the past two years, I have been filming a documentary on legendary blues singer Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter and using the MCDM program as a testing ground for the documentary’s online marketing and digital distribution strategies. I successfully pitched an MCDM-inspired panel based on the evolution of Lead Belly’s music from analog recordings to digital formats. Staying true to the digital storytelling code of honor, my presentation, “Lead Belly to Ludacris: From Analog to Digital,” included a video mash up I produced especially for the panel. The video mixed a rare performance of Lead Belly with hip-hop artist Ludacris covering a popular folk song. (You can read a review of my panel in the Austin Chronicle.)

Best of SXSW

In addition to presenting, I learned about a few innovative technologies and saw some great films at SXSW. Here are some of the highlights:

Read more…

With the growing demand of Twitter accounts many users are begining to ask a lot of questions on how to send direct messages, gain more followers, and the code of ethics of retweeting an update.  The term retweet better known as RT has become a normal practice for heavy users who chose to share an update, link or article of something they think is interesting.  

Now that simple form of sharing has been modified by a new website that offers rewards for retweeting an updates even if you don’t find it worth sharing with your followers.  The new service website is called www.Retweet.it and works on a credit system of resending your tweets for you to other users.  In order to sign up you have to have 50 followers or more and you immediately earn 3 credits once you join.  For every two tweets that you RT from users of the site you will get one RT in exchange.

As much as I like to share interesting updates with others I think this service sort of cheats the process and could eventually turn something that was of value to the user to Twitter spam.

In response to low prime time ratings, multimedia giant MTV is now creating a live talk show that uses various social media platforms during the program.  Advertisers were convinced that this would be MTVs biggest daytime talk show since TRL ended in November 2008.

As traditional media outlets battle to engage their audiences and produce relevant content, cable network MTV answered the call with the Alexa Chung Show. Read more…

Have you ever been somewhere and wanted to know what the name of a song was but could not figure out the name of it. Or maybe you wanted to record an interview or joke but did not have a digital recorder. Well Audiofile Engineering has released a iPhone and iTouch application that allows you to record at any moment.  I consider this phone application solution a comparison to what the Flip Camera did to the camcorder.  Providing Pure Technologies a commanding 23% of the video camera market in less than two years.

This new application has many things to brag about making it the first application broadcast WAVE data, and instant downloading formats in multiple files.  At $5.99 this application offers Sound Cloud integration so that users can upload audio files directly online and “share” them instantly.

If you have used the Fire application send us your personal feedbacks.

The transformation of digital photography from film changed the way people created and shared pictures.  With a Flickr account today you can share images instantly and embed the entire photo album on a website or social network.  In a recent MSNBC article I read that two photographers have been courting each other through Flickr using photo manipulating software for the past 9 months.  Rosie Hardy lives in England while Aaron Nance lives in North Carolina meeting for the first time on Valentine’s Day!

Questions: Do you think this was a hoax for a social media marketing ploy for an established photographer or is this another example of how digital media can continue to make an impact on how humans interact?

www.Bookido.com

During global economic crisis many industries are suffering with low sells and decreasing growth. A recent article from the Wall Street Journal highlights the rise of mobile phone users in India climbing to a record 11 million subscribers this past year.

While India’s stock market is slowing down cellphone companies like Idea Cellular Ltd. are aggressively meeting the demands increasing 10% from last year.  Increase subscribers are making India the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world and there are little signs of it slowing down.  

Read more…