Media Moves… TheMediaOnline’s weekly round up. Linda Pietersen to retire as editor of YOU in March; Charlene Rolls to take reins. AAA School appoints new director of academia. Guzzle and SPARK Media’s Dealfinder join forces. Louise Weston hired as new MD of Atomic Live. New service scores how well websites work.
This week’s BIG move: Linda Pietersen to retire as editor of YOU in March; Charlene Rolls to take reins
Media24 has announced that Linda Pietersen, editor of YOU, will retire from her position at the end of March 2016, having been at the helm of the magazine since 2010.
“Linda has asked to retire,” said Minette Ferreira, head of Media24 Weekly Magazines. “We are lucky to have an excellent successor standing in the wings. Charlene Rolls will take over as editor from 1 April and we are grateful that Linda has given us a good few months to prepare for the handover.”
Pietersen was part of the launch team of YOU when it started in 1987. And, bar a few stints trying her hand at other industries, she realised that her first and only love was YOU magazine. “It’s been an amazing ride. Although print media is under enormous pressure it has been incredibly satisfying editing the biggest English magazine in South Africa,” Pietersen said.
Pietersen plans on travelling extensively with her husband and enjoying the benefits of looking at the industry from the outside. “I can’t wait to read YOU magazine as a real reader and will watch with delight what the next generation does with this beloved title,” she added.
Charlene Rolls (32) is a highly experienced senior journalist. She holds a BA in media studies from UCT and a BPhil in journalism from Stellenbosch University. In her 10 years at Media24 she has proven her mettle as a rising star having started as a junior journalist at FAIRLADY and later taking the reins as deputy and then editor at NewsNow. She is entrenched in the Weekly magazine division and has played a pivotal role in the evolution of YOU magazine’s digital future.
“This is an enormous challenge and I am deeply grateful at the confidence the company has in my abilities to take over as editor of this iconic title. I am very excited about the future of print and the digital platforms of YOU magazine,” said Rolls.
Who’s moved where
AAA School appoints new director of academia
Dr Krishna Govender has been appointed the new drector of academia at the AAA School of Advertising. The highly respected academic leaves Regenesys Business School where he held the position of global dean to head the AAA School of Advertising’s academic portfolio, as of 1 January 2016.
Govender brings with him a wealth of knowledge, expertise and competencies in terms of academic excellence and offering. He has held leadership positions at numerous leading institutions, including the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the Kigali School of Finance and Banking (Rwanda), UNISA, the University of Johannesburg and Walter Sisulu University. Govender has supervised numerous post-graduate students and has authored and co-authored over 60 journal articles to date. Furthermore, he has delivered numerous papers at local and international conferences.
Renowned for his ability to oversee and maintain academic quality and accreditation, Dr Govender will bring significant benefits and vicissitudes to the academic offerings at the AAA School of Advertising.
“The AAA School is already considered the top destination for students wishing to enter the advertising and marketing fields and the addition of Dr Govender to the formidable team will bring extensive advantages to the academic offering of the institution. His academic role will be separated from daily administration and management thus ensuring that in terms of academia, culture and work readiness the school meets and surpasses the highest standards,” says Odette van der Haar, CEO of the ACA, of which the School is a wholly owned subsidiary.
Louise Weston hired as new MD of Atomic Live
Atomic Live, the programmatic division of creative agency Atomic London, has announced the appointment of former Maxus head of the programmatic, Louise Weston, as its managing director.
In the newly created role Weston will be responsible for transforming clients’ programmatic approach with more insightful, relevant, audience-led campaigns built through Atomic Live, which was created earlier this year to bring programmatic solutions to Atomic London’s creative portfolio. She will report into Atomic London managing partner Jon Goulding.
Prior to joining Maxus, Weston was head of client engagement at Amnet UK, where she was responsible for programmatic advertising strategy across 40 of Dentsu’s top global clients. She has worked in senior sales roles with MyThings, AOL and Wanadoo where she worked with clients including M&S, Waitrose, Arcadia Group and Tesco.
Who’s won what
Guzzle and SPARK Media’s Dealfinder join forces
Spark Media, a division of Caxton CTP limited, has announced its latest partnership with Guzzle, a successful online catalogue aggregator, which joins forces with Dealfinder.
“With one million plus visits to the site predicted this festive season, the deal is significant as it combines two of the largest online catalogue sites in South Africa,” says Marc Du Plessis, commercial director at SPARK Media. “Guzzle began working closely with SPARK Media earlier this year to enhance our online catalogue advertising presence and by joining forces, our advertisers are reaping enormous benefits.”
In 2013, Dealfinder was borne into the Caxton CTP stable, to complement its local newspaper inserts, and reached success within months; however the practical business move was to join these effective platforms.
“In order for consumers to enjoy a browsing experience that exceeds what neither could offer as a single entity, Guzzle and Dealfinder will be serving as one online catalogue aggregator under the Guzzle brand,” says Du Plessis.
“This means more catalogue platforms for our advertisers and retailers, and a stronger focus on the end user experience.”
Who’s making moves
New service scores how well websites work
Passmarked, the world’s first quality score to measures how well websites work, has entered private beta. Using internet standards and best practices, Passmarked tests a site’s performance in terms of security, compatibility, and code and has scored over 17 million pages to date.
“We have built this tool for developers, because, as developers ourselves, we needed it. Our closed beta is our first step in sharing our thinking with developers across the globe so that collectively we create a tool that can support us all in creating and maintaining better websites and services,” says Barry Botha, head of Passmarked, which went live on Betali.st this week.
“The internet isn’t static and what makes for a good, secure and effective site a few months ago many not be the same today,” says Barry Botha, head of Passmarked. “With big changes like HTTP2 coming and other continuous adjustments as new security exploits are revealed this means that sites need continual attention and best practices keep changing. It is getting harder for developers today to keep track of the health of their websites and they need one simple-to-use tool to do this for them.”
Botha, who also heads up technology company io, created Passmarked to answer a need within his web development business.
“Building sites is one thing, maintaining them is a whole different kind of thing. We needed a comprehensive service that would continually track how our sites were performing and while there are a number of stand-alone offerings, there wasn’t something that we could subscribe to that would run a health check, quietly in the background on all our sites and just notify us when something needed attention. So we built Passmarked,” he says.
“The best way we know to keep the score relevant is to include as many developers’ opinions as possible. We have started with a closed beta so that the development community can get involved first and vote on the rules, standards and best practices we have included and work with us to create a score that makes sense to everyone – because ultimately, we’re all going to use it together to make the internet work better,” says Botha.
Those wanting to try out the service please go to www.passmarked.com and request an invite. Passmarked has also been selected to be on BetaList https://betalist.com/startups/passmarked.
