News
South African blogging survey results released
24.com ran a blogging survey between October 24 and November 7,nearly 20% of the 5000 active bloggers in South Africa participated in one of the largest survey’s of the blogosphere. According to Arthur Goldstuck of World Wide Worx - South Africa’s leading independent technology research and strategy organisation - as of January 2008, there [...]
Mobile Industry News, Reading list
Some Mobile Industry news from Africa.
Telkom sells stake in Vodacom and will launch it’s own Mobile network?
“Telkom plans to become SA’s fifth cellular provider by the middle of next year, and is preparing to enter into talks with an existing mobile operator to roam on its network.
Speaking after presenting the company’s interim results for [...]
South African E-commerce award winners for 2008 announced
The 2008 South African Ecommerce awards, held yearly by Jump Shopping have just been announced. Having been part of the panel of judges that reviewed the sites, i can say that some of the areas that are lacking amongst South African e-commerce websites are User Experience and Design. Recommendation engines also seem to be seriously [...]
Lower Income Customers Turning to the iPhone As an Internet Device
Cellular news reports
while 43 percent of iPhone owners earn in excess of $100,000 annually, the strongest growth in users is coming from those earning less than the median household income,
iPhone adoption since June 2008 rose 48 percent among those earning between $25,000 and $50,000 per year and by 46 percent among [...]
Young South African Programmer Bags R71000
ITweb Reports
“A grade 11 pupil from Kuilsriver, in the Western Cape, has won the top prize in the final round of the Standard Bank/Computer Society of SA (CSSA) South African Computer Olympiad, held in Cape Town this weekend.
Francois Conradie, a grade 11 learner at De Kuilen High School, won R41 000, the Standard Bank [...]
Quick Hits for 04-10-2008
Tech elite use the internet to fight TB
“Nachtwey’s photos portraying victims of the increasingly drug-resistant deadly disease and dire conditions in Africa and elsewhere are spreading on the internet with help from tech firms including YouTube and Akamai.”
Read more at M&G and TED
Social Media in Africa, Part 1
“Contrary to popular belief, Africa is not [...]
Private Equity Fund to Inject $125 Million in Africa
AllAfrica Reports,
A PRIVATE equity fund plans to put money in risk capital investments and other business support to five African countries, a senior manager announced last week. The GroFin Africa fund has so far raised $125m at its fund’s first closing.
The fund said in a statement recently that it would invest between $100,000 and $1m [...]
Interesting Reads on Cellular … with some prerspective from Africa
Here are are few of the interesting articles i have read in the past week on mobile and some of my thoughts.
SMS to the rescue, Text Messaging bridges the digital divide
“Ken Banks and kiwanja.net have developed the FrontlineSMS text-messaging hub that allows two-way communication between NGOs and their field workers using the SMS functionality of [...]
Google launches search for Mozambique
Google have announced on Google africa blog they have launched a search page for Mozambique.
“We are excited to announce the launch of our homepage for Mozambique: www.google.co.mz. This launch marks our 26th country home page in Sub-Saharan Africa, and our third for Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa - the others being Angola and São Tomé and [...]
Goog - al - Jazaer, Google launches Algerian search
Google Africa Blog is reporting the launch of Google Algeria.
“In launching google.dz, we had to comply with local rules governing top level domains in Algeria. Working with our friends at the registrar, and coordinating between Algiers, Dublin and Zürich, we were able to come up with a solution that worked for everyone. We were really [...]
