Web Guru Spotlight 4: Matthew Buckland GM of the M&G

Today we will be speaking to Matthew Buckland, General Manager of the Mail & Guardian Online and co-founder of award-winning blog aggregator amatomu.com. I had the pleasure of working with Matthew years ago at iafrica.com in the early days when I just stepped into the new media space. Back then Matthew was an online editor. I can imagine it was the beginnings of what now is a real passionate relationship with digital media.

Matthew regularly speaks at media events both locally and internationally and is at the forefront of new media developments in the new media industry & the blogosphere in South Africa.

Hi Matthew. Firstly, let me say it’s great chatting to you again after all this time and I’m impressed with the way you’ve moved since those days back at iafrica.com.

So tell me, what’s your current job description?

As the GM I am responsible for the overall business and strategy of the Mail & Guardian Online. A large part of my role is conceptualising and building new sites that attract audience and provide a service to users. It’s what I’m passionate about, so I am pretty hands on when it comes to development, design and interface issues.

Here I work closely with our Strategist Vincent Maher, who I have known since my student days at Rhodes (We did the same new media course). Our brainstorming sessions can be pretty out there sometimes. We seem to be on the same wavelength so have been a great team.

I also had to get involved in business and sales side about three years ago, because I realised it was the only way M&G Online was going to expand and I would be able to bring onboard the fabulous talent we have working for our division: start bringing in the revenues.

Has your career developed the way you envisioned it to up until this point?

I’d always thought I’d work closely with computers. I had a ZX spectrum since age 7, where I programmed games in Basic and then later in high school used Pascal on my first 486 PC. Then I lost interest in computers to study journalism… but I naturally gravitated towards computers again when at Rhodes University. The University was one of the first places to get internet in South Africa in the mid 90s and I became heavily involved in new media.(For a short while Rhodes was the main hub for all SA’s international web traffic).

My first website was a shocker I built in 1995 for Netscape 1 for the Rhodes Drama Department. To some extent my career has developed the way I envisioned it, although being a new media graduate, I didn’t expect to be involved in the business aspect of the site so early.

What are your career plans for the next 5 years?

I think I’d eventually like to run my own company and I probably need to do another stint overseas, probably New York, for a while with a web operation there. But we have so much fun at the M&G, it’s difficult to leave.

What are the greatest challenges you experience on a daily basis?

Keeping to my own deadlines. Exercising patience and caution. I get excited and want things yesterday. Managing the shareholder relationships and politics in our company. Trying to grow the M&G Online, but on a very tight budget. The next big challenge is redesigning and redeveloping the M&G Online. Badly needed!

Describe a typical day in the professional life of Matthew Buckland.

Get to work 8.30am. Check my diary, check M&G Online homepage, check my mail, check my blog, check Facebook, check Thoughtleader. If its a production day I meet with the editor (riaan wolmarans) and strategist (vincent maher); if its a sales day I meet with the online sales manager (Bryan Khumalo). If its an exco day I meet with the M&G CEO, Trevor Ncube, and heads of the other divisions.

What in your estimation will be the next big evolution of the web?

I think we will see a big competitor rise up to challenge Google. I think most of our applications will be online, including our desktop. I think advertising will be everywhere online, even on your desktop — but it will be ok because it will be relevant and non-intrusive advertising. We will see more aggregators to try and make sense of the intense information clutter that will characterise the digital age. I’ll be talking to my computer and telling it to do things most of the time.

All digital devices will be connected and networked via the web and the mobile web will grow in importance, especially on this continent. All digital media: TV, radio etc will be web based. Cellphone calls will be internet based. I think there will be a place for niche social networks services, catering specifically for those communities as opposed to the generalist Facebook approach. Most major publishing websites will be social networks too.

Excuse the use of the terms web 2.0, how would you define this most controversial term essentially?

Yeah it’s really just a marketing term, which I know has been the object of derision, but it has been useful in mainstreaming a new culture and wave of practice on the web. People were building web2.0 apps and blogging before there were terms to describe these things, but the term has now helped mainstream these practices.

For us, it means looking at ways of involving users in the publishing process, building online applications, creating websites cheaply and efficiently. It means treating your users as intelligent contributors, not faceless masses. It means harnessing the network effect of the internet.

Having followed a bit of the writing on ThoughtLeader.co.za, I’m wondering if any, what the requirements are for qualifying as a Thought leader.

We want opinion leaders, experts, and commentators from all political spectrums and fields — established and up-and-coming. Above all we want good writers to write on issues. If any of the apply, contact us.

Do you see a platform like thought leader having a major impact on South African Society?

Yes I think it is making an impact. As more influential people join Thoughtleader.co.za and begin writing, the site will grow in influence. Making influential people part of your media plays a role in audience generation. Thought Leader recently made the Sunday Times Hogarth column; unfortunately it also played a part in the first SA case of a blogger being fired from work for blogging. We have major commentators including Steven Friedman, Guy Berger, Arthur Goldstuck, trade unionists, intellectuals, writers, government spokespeople, the president’s biographer on it.

Ndumiso Ncgobo is going to be the country’s first accredited blogger covering/blogging the upcoming ANC conference. The newspaper’s editor and CEO have blogged on Thought Leader. We tried to get President’s Thabo Mbeki’s weekly newsletter published on the site (as we think it’s a blog anyway 🙂 ) but sadly this was rejected. It’s only 3/4 months old. There’s more to come.

With the recent controversies surrounding press freedoms and the attempted curtailing of them, what challenges lie ahead for online journalists or citizen journalists in the South Africa of the future?

Regarding politics around the media — despite recent ructions I think we are long way from press freedoms being curtailed. Citizen media is impossible to regulate, anyway. It is democratic expression in its truest form.

I noticed that the vast majority of writers, be they bloggers or traditional journalists, spend a lot of their time merely focussing on popular issues. Do you have any advice for those looking to break from the monotony, produce original and engaging content and stimulate conversation in unchartered territories?

The great thing about blogging is that you can find an alternative to what you would find in mainstream media. Media focuses on mainstream issues, but the blogosphere provides valuable information on niche topics.

Bloggers should write about things and issues that interest them, no matter how niche — there will be a reader somewhere that will be interested. Blogging should not try to be like media ie. formal in style like the Economist, but should be more direct, conversational and relaxed. Let you hair down. have fun and inject your personality into the writing.

Could you identify any unchartered or untapped avenues online which may prove to be useful areas to focus on?

Niche social networks and niche business network applications…

What do you like most about blogging?

It’s my media. All mine. To express myself and write on issues.

What do you think could be the next big development in the blogosphere?

I think the big challenge for many bloggers is: how do I generate revenue on my blog? For many, Google Adsense doesn’t touch sides. A specialist blog agency could change all that. I think there is a gap in the market for a specialist social network for bloggers and media people. Maybe we should create one 🙂

If any, where do you see people falling short in fully understanding the power of blogging? I mean this for those who are already sold on the concept of blogging.

I think the local blogosphere is too obsessed with navel gazing and talking about itself. And I am a guilty party.

Do you think a blog has the power to change society, the world?

Yes I do. And it’s not hype. Fundamentally its not only a change to the media publishing model, but also of power structures in society.

We know the long tail is getting longer, but how do we make it fatter? How do the majority of blogs start attracting bigger audiences?

Do you have any big plans for your own blogs development?

Need to work out how to get Tech Crunch and Mashable to link to my blog again. Wow that was fun. 😉

I second that Matthew, lots of fun and quite insightful as well. One can never predict the outcome of any conversation which is why we should keep the lines open. I’m disappointed I hadn’t prepared a few more juicy questions to keep this one going. Hopefully we can do this in the future again and maybe work together on one or 2 of those much needed niche social networking ideas you spoke about.

Ladies & gentleman, that was Matthew Buckland, an all round interesting fellow with a wealth of experience in the online space and someone I look forward to hearing much more from in the near future.