Everyone hopes that their New Year will bring a renewal of good fortune. And in my experience, the feeling of optimism that comes with the 1st of January tends to last a few weeks before reality sets in and you realise that your life hasn’t really improved that much -- and is unlikely to improve much -- since last year.There are the exceptions of course. Some people really do get lucky and end up with a much better year ...

The Financial Times has launched a subscription based site that deals only with emerging markets called "FT Tilt". The site describes itself as "a premium online financial news and analysis service from the Financial Times, focused exclusively on the emerging world. It is aimed at finance professionals who require highly granular information on companies and markets beyond the developed G3 economies."Paul Murphy, editor-in-chief of FT Tilt explained the name of the new site:"Recent years have seen economic power shift—or tilt—south ...

Intellectual property rights are widely flouted in China, home to the biggest counterfeit and piracy market in the world. But days before President Hu Jiantao visits the United States, the Chinese government has declared it will step up its fight to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) by targeting online piracy."It is vital to protect online IPR," Wang Ziqiang, spokesman for the National Copyright Administration, was quoted as saying by the China Daily."If not, the traditional press, the publication industry, movies ...

When Nelson Mandela's "death" was exposed as a hoax, the big question on everybody's minds was: How did it start?According to American Dan Zarrella, an award-winning blogger, "social media scientist" and author of two O’Reilly Media books, it can all be traced back to Saturday 8:07am GMT, when Twitter users began tweeting about receiving Broadcast Blackberry Messenger (BBM) messages of Mandela's "death".Zarella writes that “between 8:28AM GMT and 8:30AM GMT, several other users, mostly from South Africa, reported receiving ...

For the second time in two years, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs announced on Monday that he is taking a new leave of absence from the technology company "so I can focus on my health."The announcement, which could be a shock to the high-flying tech giant, came with US markets closed for the Martin Luther King Jr holiday.Apple shares had tumbled in late 2008 when rumours swirled about his health after he failed to show at the Macworld Expo."At my ...

The retweet didn't kill the newsman, after all. As it turns out, the growth of Twitter simply reiterates the essential role of journalists in sifting through and filtering the rumour mill that hangs around the neck of the information economy. And a good thing it is, too.This past weekend, users on social network Twitter inadvertently spread a rumour that Nelson Mandela had died. Many contributed to its spread by asking in tweets whether the rumour of his death was correct, ...

Apple was the telecommunications industry’s flag-bearer during 2010, finally delivering on the promise of the "Year of the Mobile" -- initially with its launch of the iPad in April and continuing with the launch of the iPhone 4 in June.What will 2011 hold for Mobile?1. iPhone sales will rocket on the back of the Verizon dealI predict Apple will sell another 10-12 million iPhones in 2011 through its new

MIH Naspers, South Africa's internet powerhouse, launches a brand new online classifieds venture on Monday in a bid to become market-leader in a field that is currently dominated by eBay's Gumtree. Kalahariads.net is offering "a user-friendly, feature-rich portal that provides customers with access to the widest classified network in South Africa".Naspers has accumulated extensive experience in the field with international properties such as OLX, Brazil's BuscaPe and Allegro, and plans to take all that it has learned and apply it ...

We have become a society that likes to "Like" and share our preferences with everyone we know. Millions of people join all sorts of Facebook groups to show their support for causes or their own interests.But the sheer size of Facebook and the number of groups available can often result in information overload that we just end up ignoring. We need quicker, simpler, more instantaneous ways of sharing our “likes” and maybe our “dislikes”."Sometimes a Like isn't enough” according ...

Not too long ago, journalists rushed off to a story armed only with pen and paper. They gathered information and scribbled down notes before rushing back to the office to write it up and submit the story.The advent of the internet changed everything about how the news industry operated. That transformation has been well-documented. In 2011 the development of mobile apps is heralding a second revolution as the web goes mobile, and smartphones make the life of a journalist ...