MIKESTOPFORTH

Barry Marshall – Remembering A Friend

Last week Thursday I heard that my good friend and mentor, Barry Marshall, had drowned while paddle-skiing in the sea in his hometown of Port Elizabeth. I received the news en route to Dullstroom for a lonely weekend retreat sans Macbook, so had a lot of time to think about things before writing about how [...]

Mobile Web Africa 2009 – Get Your Free Ticket!

Matthew Dawes is organising Mobile Web Africa 2009 on the 13 and 14 October at the Michelangelo, and has kindly offered a range of freebies and discounts for me to promote to you, the cream of South Africa’s technology crop! I will certainly be making an effort to attend – the speaker line-up and agenda [...]

9 Reasons To See District 9

Yep, I know – plenty of noise and hype and buzz around District 9 already. I’m not hopping on the bandwagon though – I am genuinely excited about what this movie means for Johannesburg, South Africa and South African cinema (which I’m sure you’ll agree could use a kick up the butt). My 9 reasons [...]

Have Lunch With Me!

Comedy Heavies At Carnival City – Free Tickets Up For Grabs!

I’ve been offered 10 tickets to the Comedy Heavies gig happening at Carnival City next weekend and am giving them away to 4 lucky people (yes, I’m keeping 2 for me monkeys) who post the best jokes in the comments section of this post by 8PM Sunday 28 June. MY decision is final… here’s the [...]

A Day I Won’t Forget

This afternoon, away with a few friends ‘freebording‘ just outside Krugersdorp, I witnessed one of the most bizarre, frightening, freakish things no doubt I’ll ever see in my entire life. I watched a single prop (updated: Piper Cherokee) plane crash head-on into a bakkie (or pick-up for US readers). I watched it happen from about [...]

Video Of My NetProphet Presentation

I recently raved about the NetProphet conference I was privileged enough to be invited to speak at, and now the video is up for your perusal, comments and random abuse :) I realise, watching this, that I have a dangerously dry sense of humour that may not always serve my best interests… hmmm. Oh well, [...]

Net Prophet 2009 – How Conferences In SA Should Be Run

If you’ve spent any time at all reading anything I’ve published on this blog you’ll know SA conferences companies are my own personal bugbear.  They suck.  Typically they pick up on a popular trend, and with little to no knowledge of that space, whether it be opencast mining or social media, strive to make as [...]

Afrigator Launches Gatorpeeps

Justin is, as I write this, launching Afrigator‘s newest innovation to our fellow African geeks at BarCamp Nigeria in Lagos. Gatorpeeps is a micro-blogging platform, not unlike Twitter or Pownce (which died), that makes it really easy for existing Afrigator users to connect with other Afrigator users in 140 characters or less, and with all [...]

Checkers Steals Campaign Tagline?

In July 2008 UK-based retailer Aldi launched a campaign with the tagline “Don’t change your lifestyle, change your supermarket”. Sweet. Here’s a vid of one of the campaign ads: At the same time last year, here in sunny SA, ex-creative director of BBDO Cape Town, Andrew Brand, and founding partner of Berry Bush, Lewin de [...]

Meeting Simon Silvester Of Young & Rubicam

I’ve really enjoyed opportunities over the last few weeks to connect more regularly with the local Young & Rubicam team and their Wunderman cousins about social media and it’s impact on local markets and individual consumers. I’ve also been invited to a few book launches and more recently, to meet with Simon Silverster, EVP Head [...]

SXSW Interactive 2009 – Reflections

I had hoped to blog a lot more about my experience at SXSW Interactive this year but barely had time to breathe, let alone document all that happened in Austin. I will say this though, it lived up to (high) expectations and more – I’ll definitely be going back next year. Since getting back life [...]

SXSW Day One – First Impressions

About a month ago I had a brainfart and nearly didn’t come to Austin to attend SXSW. Thank heavens I came to my senses – the trip has already been worth it on so many levels. In the short time Allan Kent and I have been here we’ve met some amazing people, seen some rather [...]

#SWSX09 – Erik Hersman And Jon Gosier At IHOP (eeuch)

So my first interview (first for my sexy little Flip Mino HD camera and first at SXSW) is with my old friend Erik Hersman of WhiteAfrican.com and Jon Gosier of Appfrica.net. The sound isn’t great but we were in the middle of a packed diner (called IHOP), where Erik forced pancakes drenched in butter and [...]

My Coke Zero Fest, Here I Come!!!

For an out-and-out music fan and musician I have attended precious few live performances. Sadly. This is partly because the artists I love most seldom venture out here and secondly, life has generally gotten in the way when the best opportunities have presented themselves. Not this year though! Having missed the last few My Coke [...]

Earth Hour – Give A Damn

A World Wildlife Fund initiative, Earth Hour aims to get ordinary people like you and I to take a stance against climate change by signing up on the site and switching off your lights on 28 March 2009 for 60 minutes. The lads at AtPlay.biz have done an incredible job building a social media presence, [...]

SA Politics – Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

I’ve never cared much for politics. This is largely because I felt intimidated by it. When I don’t feel knowledgeable about a subject I simply steer clear of it to avoid looking lke an idiot. I could never understand politics because it never made sense to me. I think I understand now that I had [...]

Brewers & Union – The One Reason I’ll Move To Cape Town

A couple of weeks back I received an email from Rui Esteves, a co-founder of Vida e Caffe, of which I am enormous fan. After the enormous success of Vida Rui has not rested on his laurels, instead choosing to reinvent the beer industry with the same passion and conviction he and his business partners [...]

Money For Nothing And Your Talks For Free

Afrigator Internet Joins OPA – Now 9th Largest Audience Reach In SA

The dudes in Cape Town updated me with this news release today – more good news for our baby, Afrigator! Taken directly from the news release: Afrigator shoots up the ranks to take the ninth spot on the Online Publishers Association according to latest stats by Nielsen Online. Cape Town, February 5, 2009: Afrigator Internet [...]