MarcForrest.com

Category: On The Marc

  • Get your tickets for Tech4Africa NOW !

     

    You may recall last year, I was fortunate to attend the innugral Tech4Africa conference in Jozi. I walked away on the Friday feeling inspired and motvitated to help grow the tech space in South Africa.
    It’s been over a year now since I walked out those doors, and I can honestly say that I have achieved some of my motivations. My inspiration to blog more, and start more side projects has has definitely worked, with a few new thing already done, like the iPhoneography Exhibition, as well as some other things that I have done & am still working on in the pipeline.

    The conference takes place this year on the 27th & 28th of October, at the Forum in Bryanston (awesome venue)

    I am really going to try and make a plan to attend this year, and hopefully if all goes according to plan I should be there. There are some great speakers lined up including Josh Spear, who will be talking at the main keynote, talking about Social Media in Africa, which is a very relevant topic at the moment with the growth we seeing. The other keynote speaker is Herman Chinery-Hesse who will be talking about innovation & technology in Africa. Herman is a software engineer by profession & 19 years ago he co-founded the SOFTtribe limited, one of the leading software houses in West Africa. I am also very keen to check out all the Mobile Talks as these are going to be NB in the next couple of years. There are some fantastic Mobile talks lined up as well.

    All in all, I reckon the Tech4Africa conference is gonna be well worth it, so I highly suggest getting your ticket now, before they all run out ;) Check out the Tech4Africa website for all the info & to register

     

     

  • Alan Knott-Craig buys MXit

    Alan Knott-Craig buys MXit

    This is pretty big news in the South African tech world. Ex iBurst CEO and now head of a VC company called World of Avatar, Alan Knott-Craig Jnr, today announced that they would be buying what could arguarly be one of South Africa’s sucess stories, MXit. There has been no value associated with the purchase price, but there are estimates in the 500 million mark.

    MXit was founded in 1997 by Herman Heunis , who has taken it to almost 43 million subscribers. It is going to be really interesting to see what happens here, and how World Of Avatar continues to grow MXit amongst the social network platforms like Twitter & FB

    For more info & reading check out the Memeburn Article & the TechCentral article. Interesting indeed !

     

  • Darren Scott axed from Supersport & Jacaranda FM

     

    With the World Cup only 3 days away it looks as if Supersports studio team will be a man short.

    Word on the street is that Darren Scott has been axed from BOTH Supersport & Jacaranda after a racial slur over the weekend. According to Channel24, he swore at colleague and made racist remarks at the Mabula lodge in Bela-Bela on Friday evening during a team building event

    According the Jacaranda site, he handed in his “resignation” earlier today from his very popular morning show, which sounds like it has completely changed the stations audience. – http://www.jacarandafm.com/kagiso/content/en/jacaranda/jacaranda-lifes-greatest-hits?oid=1357983&sn=Detail&pid=756865

    And according the Supersport site, Scott was “relieved” of his presenting duties, indefintely, after the incident – http://www.supersport.com/press-releases/news/110907/Statement_on_Darren_Scott

     

    Interesting times ahead. My money. It won’t be long before we hear Darren’s voice on 2OceansVibe Radio.
    (edit: I been asked by some of the readers to clarify what I mean in the above statement. Not that I have to, but thought I would anyway. My statement simply states that a lot of the “greats” of South African Radio are moving to online radio. Given that 2OV radio is one of the first online radio stations in the country, and has already snapped up some big names in SA Radio, I insinuated that Darren would be a good addition to the already fantastic line-up. In retrospect and given what he said, I suppose it may not be THE best decision, but if you look past at what happened and what great personality & presenter he really is, he would most probably be a great addition to the team. Pure speculation. Case closed)

  • Check out the Property Index from Private Property

     

    At Private Property we launched a brand new product last week, called “The Property Index“, which allows you to see your property value AND all the properties around you. I have been playing around with it for the last couple of days, and I am amazed at what properties go for in various areas. I went past my childhood home, and am shocked to see what it is valued at today. The site still might have a few little niglys which we sorting out, but it’s def a first in South Africa.

    This from the Property Index FAQ’s:

    The Property Index is a set of tools to help the general public get in touch with the property market. Get to know towns and suburbs across the country, find out what your home may be worth or check out the estimated value of anyone else’s home. The information is continually being refined and updated, and you’ll see new features being added over time.

    Check out this video for a bit of a visual overview on what it is all about:

    This is really handy if you are looking to buy property, or just want to see what your property is worth. Let me know what you think in the comments below and I’ll pass it onto the relevant people.

     

     

  • iPhoneographySA exhibition a SUCCESS !

     

    I know this is a couple of days late, but I have been trying to come off of the high of the 1st ever iPhoneography exhibition that was held on Thursday evening at the iStore in Sandton.

    After 5 months of planning, emailing, choosing photos, getting images, hanging & sweating, it all culminated in an awesome event. From all the comments we had, both on the night and after, everyone only had good things to say. We had around 200-250 people come through the exhibition on the night, and have had requests to do another event, possibly in Cape Town. All I can say, is that it “should” happen, but probably only in a while. There were a lot of lessons learnt, and loads of planning for this one, so if we end up doing another one, it can only be better. If anyone has suggestions, complaints or compliments, I would love to hear them in the comments below.

    The event trended on Twitter during the course of the evening as well ! We also got some awesome coverage in The Sunday Times Lifestyle section & iMaverick. Also check out Jeanette Verster’s blog post & Matthew Arnold’s post for some pics on the eve.

    Shaun Lavagna also put this cool walk through video together of the whole exhibition.

    I am also busy putting together an iPhoneography blog – www.iPhoneographySA.com where I will focus just on iPhoneography apps, events & profiles. Stay tuned :)