It's no secret that mobile is the medium for Africa -- millions use mobile-only social networks, young cellphone users are driving the growth of Twitter on the continent and mobile payment systems are major ecommerce players. Wondering why? It may have something to do with the fact that mobile penetration in Africa is currently around 65%, it's the second biggest mobile market in the world and smartphones are outselling traditional computers four to one. The Praekelt Foundation, a South African-based ...

If you want to win the mobile platform game, prepare for all out war. Android and iOS are very much at the top of the pile right now, but they weren't always. Chances are they won't stay on top forever either. There will be casualties too. Just ask the people who helped develop BlackBerry OS, Symbian, or even Web OS. All of them had their time in the sun and all of them know just how quickly a platform can ...

The runaway success of early operator mobile money products in East Africa held out a future for mobile network operators (MNOs) eager to generate new revenue streams, beyond voice and data by boldly grabbing the public mind and private purses of previously low and UN-banked emerging market society. These services have become a much-referenced ‘gold standard’ of not only what mobile technology and financial services can achieve in emerging markets. Four years on, with over 200 mobile operator mobile money services ...

About two years ago a friend of mine died. He was a kind, genial and fun-loving man, and his death at a too young age came as a shock to his vast circle of friends and family. I remember the first time I accidentally came across his Facebook profile after his death: his profile photo was still the same, and for a moment it felt like he was still alive. His wall was being used by many of his friends ...

Recently launched RunwaySale is a new and exciting flash-sale website that brings high-end designer labels to the consumer at hugely discounted prices -- all at the click of a button. Although this concept is already entrenched in the minds of European, American and Australian fashionistas, the idea is relatively new to the South African market and RunwaySale has hit the ground running, taking the South African public by well-dressed storm. We spoke to Elmien Smit and Karl Hammerschmidt about some of the ...

Recruitment videos tend to make me think of Veridian Dynamics from the short-lived comedy Better Off Ted. But when Apple does one, we tend to sit up and take note. The latest one is pretty special because it gives us a rare glimpse into the company's Cupertino headquarters. Most of the video is the standard corporate fare about how dedicated the company is to incredible design and how you don't get to work there unless you're pretty special. What has ...

The technological revolution has propelled us into an open world with powerful tools available to empower us. Futurist Don Tapscott, speaking at a TEDGlobal event explores how recent generations have been "bathed in connecting technology from birth". He believes that this has resulted in a world that is transforming into a far more open and transparent place. Yesterday's internet was a platform for the presentation of content. The internet of today is a platform for computation. The internet is becoming ...

If you're rocking an iPhone or a smartphone running Android, you might notice something a little different about Twitter after your next update. The 140-character-or-less social network has rolled out a series of changes in the latest versions of its smartphone apps, including expanded tweets. Anyone using the web version of Twitter will be familiar with the fact that you can expand tweets, allowing you to view videos and photos, or get previews from selected sites. According to Twitter you ...

Look, this isn't the most surprising news on Earth. Google did promise that the iPad would get its own Google+ app at its recent I/O event. And now it's here. The internet giant claims that the iPad app was "designed with the device in mind". As opposed to, you know, a completely different device. It also says that "your stream styles content based on popularity, type and orientation" and adds that it comes with a couple of unique features. These ...

The little social network that could is continuing to surprise the critics by climbing up the list of the top social media referrers -- it generated more referral traffic than Twitter back in March, and now it seems it's sending more social media users around the web than Google, Bing and StumbleUpon too. According to the latest stats from Shareaholic (via TechCrunch), Pinterest accounts for 1.19% of visits on its network of over 200 000 publishers. Ok, so all of ...