The homegrown, world-renowned Design Indaba kicks off first thing on Wednesday morning, 24 February 2010, and, as media partner, Bizcommunity.com will be reporting live with all the news, views and interviews. So see you there, or if you won't be, read all about it here on Bizcommunity. For those of you not lucky enough to be there, there's a new kid on the block - the first annual Toffie Popular Culture Festival, an initiative of The President supported by the cities of Cape Town and Buenos Aires. As always, January and February are pitching season, so the new accounts (and new appointments) have been flying in thick and fast lately. What with digital still being a fledgling aspect of the South African advertising, marketing and media industries, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the South African Tourism account - probably the largest digital account in South Africa. Will it go to a specialist digital agency this year or once again to one of the big 360-degree traditional agencies? In fact, should digital be treated as specialist or an integral? And how will new and newer ad agencies (for example, M&C Saatchi Abel and ninety9cents) approach this? Still on the digital aspect, we were delighted to discover Grubstreet.co.za, an online initiative by media hack Gill Moodie, offering insight on the changing needs of our industries through a Media Jobs Barometer - using Bizcommunity's jobs listings as "an experimental pond". Comments Grubstreet, "...we can see the rising importance of digital and online over traditional areas like newspapers and magazines. It's also interesting to see the emphasis in advertising positions at the moment... a post-recession revenue hunt perhaps?" Finally, kudos to The Star for - in the words of another digital upstart, The Daily Maverick - stealing the lifestyle audit thunder with its Malema audit on Friday 19 February. And, echoing the Twittersphere, what's with Sunday newspapers Sunday Times, Rapport and City Press all running the same 'exclusive' story on how Malema has been funding his lifestyle? Was there a leak? Collusion? It's never a dull day in (South) Africa! Simone Puterman & Rod Baker
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