MIKESTOPFORTH

I was privileged enough to receive an invite from Reuben Goldberg to join him on an episode of his popular talk show The Internet Economy which airs every Friday night from 7-8 on ClassicFM. We spoke about the broad subject of social media in South Africa, the article I wrote the other day (the Next [...]

The honeymoon is over. Much of the hype and noise surrounding social media and its meteoric rise (especially in the USA) has abated. Perhaps owing to the global economic crisis, arguably due to the apparent lack of sustainable business models and possibly as a result of some semblance of reasonable thinking, we’re no longer reading [...]

This is a video of a recent talk I did at the exclusive Tintswalo equestrian estate (note the horse’s bum in the background) with the MasterMind Group of Professional Speakers, of which I’m a member. I decided at the last minute to ditch my PPT slides in aid of the old fashioned approach. Your critical [...]

Vincent Maher and I spent a fascinating day in a very sunny Cape Town with the Design Indaba team today. On the way to the session at the gorgeous 12 Apostles Boutique Hotel (kudos to the staff – best service I’ve experienced in ages) we got chatting about the state of the social Web, and [...]

TECH4FRICA, a “web and emerging technology conference for Africa” being organised by Gareth Knight (of Kindo fame) has officially launched it’s website with info about the upcoming event. It’s due to be held at The Forum in Bryanston over 3 and 4 October and already at this early stage has a very impressive speaker line [...]

For some reason I’ve been ignoring MyGenius.com – the Southern African social network for business people. I have been a member since late 2006 – MyGenius’s very early days – and never quite got in to it. I get the odd message from a MyGenius member wanting to connect but have spent little no time on updating my profile or adding content to the site.

Recently I decided to give MyGenius another go based on two realisations. Firstly, the value of social networking is undoubtedly found, or much easier mined, in niche communities. The quintessential example is Charl Norman’s Zooped Up community for owners of modified cars and suchlike – completely useless for me but absolutely invaluable and addictive to people entrenched in that community. MyGenius cannot be compared to MySpace, for example, because it’s not trying to be a globally dominant player. It’s simply trying to do what it does well.

I don’t have an MBA but the little I do know about business tells me the ultimate goal for anyone starting or running a company is that it be profitable. Everything else – production, people management, marketing, accounting – is fashioned around that single purpose. I want Cerebra and Afrigator to make money. Sure, I want them to be fun, interesting and progressive – but they must make money.

I think it’s fair to say that websites like Facebook, YouTube, Zoopy, Twitter, Technorati, Digg and others aren’t meaningful and/or popular because of their technology (although good tech helps), but rather because of the vast networks of human beings using them. It’s humans that make Web 2.0 apps popular, not code. But looking at the significant list of apps and services I use daily, it’s hard to pick out any that are making money, never mind profitably so.