Matthew is an online media entrepreneur. He is the GM of the Mail & Guardian Online, and co-founder of blog aggregator amatomu.com and group editorial blog ThoughtLeader.

He has spoken and guest-lectured on online media and web 2.0 issues around the world, including New York, London, Germany, Ireland, South Africa and Kenya. Matthew developed a passion for all things digital since an early age, when at age 7 he began programming BASIC on his first computer (ZX Spectrum 48k).

The Mail & Guardian Online is the oldest online newspaper on the African continent and also co-owned by the UK�s Guardian Newspapers Ltd. He is also a former chair of the local Online Publishers Association and a director of Creative Commons, South Africa.

Matthew has been involved in the online medium in various capacities for more than 12 years. He worked for the BBC's commercial website division in London (beeb.com) just before �the crash�, South African portal iafrica.com, M-Net's Carte Blanche and Johncom/Avusa Publishing.

The Mail & Guardian Online has undergone a turnaround in the last few years, achieving historically high revenues and readership numbers, regularly featuring as one of the country�s top five websites, as measured by Nielsen//Netratings. The online division of Mail & Guardian recently achieved profitability for the first time in its eleven-year history..

Matthew holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rhodes University, with three majors in journalism, philosophy and history. Matthew is a new media graduate and knows no other medium!

His personal blog is @ www.matthewbuckland.com

His column on new media issues for The Media magazine is @ www.mg.co.za/netsavvy