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Hilton Tarrant: Columnist

Hilton Tarrant is production editor at Moneyweb. His main focus is project management for the listed company’s local and international websites, and contributes to their strategic direction. From time-to-time, he also fills in for Alec Hogg on the SAfm Market Update with Moneyweb radio programme. In between, he covers the ICT sector, with a particular focus on mobile and telecoms.

RECENT POSTS

• The problem with iMessage

  iMessage doesn't work.Well, that's not entirely true. It works perfectly well as a traditional text messaging replacement. To a point.The first problem with iMessage is its lack of awareness.It's a simple broadcast bus (think back to parallel connectors used to transfer data between components or computers). At its launch, Apple admitted that iMessage runs on top of its notifications engine (based on XMPP).But that's the problem: it's treating messages -- two-way communication - as what seems to be ...

• iPad > PCs

  Apple sold more iPads last quarter than any computer manufacturer in the world sold PCs. Read that again.Apple sold 15.4-million iPads between October and December. Compare this to HP (15.1-million PCs), Lenovo (13-million PCs), Dell (11.9-million PCs) and Acer (9.8-million PCs) and suddenly you’ll realise why we saw over 100 tablet competitors launched during 2011 by every hardware manufacturer.Tablets > PCs.iPad > PC.And, as much as Twitter and tech blogs tried to have you believe otherwise, the use of the ...

• Privacy? Why you should let Google, Facebook and others track you online

  Mainstream news (in fact, all news outlets) will have you believe it's the end of the world. Google's new privacy policy came into effect yesterday.From CBS News: How to remove your Google Web History, from the Washington Post: Google privacy policy changes March 1: How to clear your search history, account information and the obligatory Business Insider impression bait: How to Use Google's New Privacy Tools to Stop Them from Tracking You. Then of course there are the fear mongers. ...

• Nokia is not BlackBerry

  Nokia’s in trouble! BlackBerry is in trouble! There is a tendency, especially among Wall Street talking heads and US tech bloggers who don’t understand anything outside of the Valley, to group underperforming companies together. After all, it makes for great headlines and “everyone” knows the mobile battle is between iPhone and Android.Except it's not.Nokia and Research In Motion (the maker of BlackBerry) cannot compare on size. In its most recent quarter, Nokia shipped 113.5-million devices, totaling revenue of €6-billion (close ...

• 6 Facts that emerged from Facebook’s massive IPO

  The echo-chamber has flooded the web with all the details following the filing of Facebook’s IPO. It will raise $5 billion in the listing. It will be valued somewhere between US$75-billion and US$100-billion. We even know that the graffiti artist who took stock instead of cash for painting the walls at Facebook’s first HQ is now worth US$200 million. But what’s behind the numbers and how do they compare?1. We're all going mobile Out of 825-million monthly users on Facebook, more ...

• Android is not winning

  Fragmentation is busy killing Google’s OS, as Apple comes close to outselling Android for the first time. Sales of Apple iOS and Android smartphones are now neck and neck in the US. According to research outfit NPD Group, iOS phones accounted for 43% of smartphones sold in the US in October and November. Android’s share? 47%. That's the closest Apple’s operating system has ever been to Google’s “juggernaut”. But, "Android is winning". Yes, Apple’s share of sales in those months ...

• Forget everything else, Timeline will keep Facebook ticking in 2012

  Ignore all the rubbish about "serendipitous experiences" that Mark Zuckerberg wants you to have. Forget about his notion of "frictionless sharing". The first iterations of sharing content or experiences seamlessly on Facebook are all wrong (witness the horrible real-time “ticker” that does not sit comfortably above "chat").But, Facebook got one thing very, very right. Its Timeline was the single biggest innovation in social media over the past few months. Sure, the New New Twitter changes everything, but the two spaces ...

• Six ways the ‘new new’ Twitter changes everything

  The launch of a major new version of Twitter’s service signals one important thing: Jack Dorsey is back. And Jack is in charge. His strength has always been in the "product" and up until now, there's been an obvious void at Twitter. In many ways, it was trying to do everything for everyone -- Evan Williams’ strength was never in product (think “lists”), and temporary boss Dick Costolo was never going to be a visionary when it came to the ...

• Why regionalised Yahoo! portals make sense

  Yahoo! has been rolling out regionalised and localised versions of its portals for years.This year it rolled out portals in emerging markets like South Africa and Romania. The multinational online publisher also has a presence in key emerging market BRIC countries, including Brazil, Russia, India and China. It does not have a dedicated presence in any other part of Africa, besides South Africa and some North African countries.The veteran internet player, the old man of the internet, serves hundreds of ...

• Three things BlackBerry has to fix to stay in the game

  BlackBerry is soaring ahead in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. In July, it disclosed that it had added one-million new subscribers across this region in less than three weeks. This is huge. Balance that out with a net decline in subscribers in its mature North American markets, however, and the outlook isn’t fantastic. Basically, it needs to keep adding more (net) subscribers in emerging markets than ones it’s losing. So far, it’s keeping pace. But the company and platform ...

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