Digital News South Africa

M&G Online launches online entertainment guide

NEWSWATCH: Just in time for the holidays, the Mail & Guardian Online yesterday, Thursday, 13 December 2007, went live in beta with its latest online development, The Guide, a new social entertainment site with a specialised events-based social network called Yiza. Also launched yesterday was the Financial Mail's Polokwane blog for the upcoming ANC conference this weekend.

According to Matthew Buckland, GM of the M&G Online, www.theguide.co.za, edited by Lisa van Wyk, expands on the newspaper's music, theatre, arts listings, and also includes a searchable, expanded venue guide, by city. “A strong component of the guide will be user-submitted venues and events, which will drive the content on the site,” he says on his blog.

Blogs Vincent Maher, strategist at the M&G Online, “Yiza allows you to connect with your friends and invite them to the movies or whatever. You can also create open invitations so people can see what you're going to and tag along if they want to, hence the name Yiza.

The Guide is a collaborative effort between Van Wyk, Maher, Buckland and M&G Online editor Riaan Wolmarans. It may also be access from cellphones at m.theguide.co.za.

Polokwane

Nic Haralambous, editor of FM Campus, FM's student publication, assisted the financial magazine in putting together the blog for Polokwane. A team of four journalists are posting regular news, views and conference snippets, supported by colleagues in the FM Johannesburg and Cape Town newsrooms, blogs Haralambous.

About Simone Puterman

Simone Puterman (@SimoneAtLarge) is currently editor-at-large at Marklives.com and deputy chair of the Sanef online editors subcommittee. After majoring in psychology and linguistics at Rhodes University, and then completing her honours in psychology, she has been in the world of B2B publishing since 1997, with 7.5 year stints at both WriteStuff Publishing and Bizcommunity.com (March 2006-August 2013). Email her at moc.sevilkram@enomis.
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