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  • CERN finds particle consistent with Higgs Boson

    By on 4 July, 2012

    Scientists at the CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research have found a particle consistent with the illusive Higgs Boson, sometimes referred to as "the God Particle". That's big. Finding the Higgs Boson particle is one of the primary reasons the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built in the first place. If you're not sure what the hell a Higgs Boson is, Business Day science editor Sarah Wild has a fairly comprehensive explanation that most people should be able to understand: The Higgs Boson particle is allegedly what gives all matter its mass. According to...

  • Google’s been looking buy Yahoo’s ad tech for a while now

    By on 3 July, 2012

    Google is looking to get its hands on Yahoo's ad technology. In fact, it's been looking for some time now, having made its first offer three months ago. An inside source speaking to Business Insider said that offer, made while Scott Thompson was CEO, didn't make it past corporate development. According to Business Insider, the likes of Accenture and IBM have already looked into buying the embattled internet giant's ad technologies. This is one of those "inside source" stories that sort of makes sense. If Yahoo sells this aspect of its business off, it would effectively mean outsourcing whatever remains...

  • Tencent, Activision Blizzard to take ‘Call of Duty Online’ into China

    By on 3 July, 2012

    This is interesting. One of China's biggest social networking powers Tencent has been granted the exclusive rights to distribute Call of Duty Online in the country. The multiplayer game, which involves missions familiar to anyone who's played the Call of Duty Modern Warfare series, has been in development for the past two years. Free to play, it makes its money through in-game purchases. The game's publisher Activision Blizzard today announced the deal with the Chinese company, in what it sees as a way to leverage the booming Chinese online economy. According to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kottick, the...

  • Lending goes peer-to-peer with RainFin

    By on 3 July, 2012

    Let's be serious for a minute folks. Getting a loan from a bank can be a right royal pain in the arse. Surely you could save a load of admin if you, the willing borrower, could sit down at your computer and find a willing lender? That's exactly the premise behind a RainFin, a social lending company that says it wants to completely change the way people borrow and loan money in South Africa. The company provides a compelling alternative to banks forvar vglnk={key:"cc324b6567a9637aa0ff15bc9564b2a5"};!function(e,a){var t=e.createElement(a);t.type="text/javascript",t.async=!0,t.src="//cdn.viglink.com/api/vglnk.js";var n=e.getElementsByTagName(a);n.parentNode.insertBefore(t,n)}(document,"script");

  • A revolution and a presidential election: Egypt’s social media mania

    By on 3 July, 2012

    Egyptians have won the right, for the first time in 7000 years, to democratically elect their president. From the outset of the revolution Egyptians took to social media to express their opinions, thoughts and concerns. Subsequent to the first round of the recent  presidential elections, two candidates went head to head into the runoff which led to two polar opposites competing: Ahmed Shafik, the last Prime minster for the former regime and Mohamed Morsy a former Muslim Brotherhood member. The first candidate, perceived by some to be a “liberal” (albeit part of a former oppressive regime) and the latter formerly...

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  • Are LinkedIn and Twitter becoming unsocial?

    By on 3 July, 2012

    As a practicing B2B social media marketer, I use LinkedIn and Twitter extensively to share thoughts with my Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections. To make it easier to share the same content across both platforms, a link was provided between Twitter and LinkedIn. You could use this in two ways by either replicating all your tweets on LinkedIn or selectively sharing your tweets with your LinkedIn contacts by including a #in hashtag in your tweet. Sadly, this feature is no longer available. This is what was reported on Bloomberg news: "LinkedIn Corp., owner of the world’s biggest professional-networking website, said posts...

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  • Why disruptive technology will continue to claim jobs in the media industry

    By on 3 July, 2012

    Fairfax, the second largest Australian newspaper publisher, recently said it would cut 1900 jobs, almost 20% of its staff. I was asked for comment by the Australian Broadcast Service, which was concerned about the effect on independent news from the loss of hundreds of top journalists. I said that it would have an adverse effect because well-financed special interest groups would have a field day promoting their agendas. There's very little that can be done to stem the loss of journalists because we don't yet have a business solution to this problem, which is the direct result of a disruptive technology...

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  • US, Japan most likely to ask Twitter for your user info

    By on 3 July, 2012

    A lot has been said about how Twitter users have leveraged the service during recent political protests, but it seems the social media giant itself is quite keen to "hold governments accountable" too. It's decided to go the same route as Google, and have published their first ever transparency report, detailing which countries have asked it to withhold content and supply it with user information. In the same way as Google's report showed that Western-style democracies were the most active when it came to asking for political content to be removed, it seems that Twitter receives...

  • Are Android tablets about to get a big business boost?

    By on 3 July, 2012

    The iPad is winning the tablet wars (with around 61.4% of the market), but Android could be on the verge of a massive surge. The catalyst for that surge, it seems, is likely to be people in business and IT who have yet to embrace the world of tablets. According to new research from IDG Connect, one-third of business people and nearly half of IT professionals who don't already have tablets are considering going Android. According to internet research company eMarketer, "Android devices may be benefitting from a lower price point, which translates to lower replacement costs down the line"....

  • Why Microsoft’s $6.2bn writedown probably isn’t a harbinger of doom

    By on 3 July, 2012

    Microsoft's US$6.2-billion writedown for internet advertising company aQuantive has the press talking about "big oops moments" and "Bing Internet Web Woes". It also has people speculating that it could also write off Nokia. But is it all that bad? The short-term answer is yes. It effectively means that the Redmond-based tech giant won't post a profit this financial quarter. Analysts had previously predicted that Microsoft would post a US$5.3-billion profit. It also means that Microsoft failed to equal Google in the online advertising game. That's not good for company morale when, as The Wall Street Journal notes CEO "Steve Ballmer,...

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  • In-app mobile advertising spend to soar by 2015

    By on 3 July, 2012

    As more people opt to use their mobile devices for access and content consumption, brands are catching on. A recent report from Juniper Research says that in-app advertising spend across all mobile devices will reach US$7.1-billion by 2015. This significantly larger than the US$2.4-billion they're expected to spend in 2012. North America and Western Europe will account for 60% of total advertising spend by 2017 and advertising spend on mobile messaging to increase eight-fold by 2017. "The increasing spend on in-app ads will be driven by greater use of rich media in ads allied to greater app usage. This growth,...

  • Is your Chrome broken? Here’s a solution

    By on 3 July, 2012

    Chrome is the world's most popular browser, so when something goes wrong the web's bound to kick up a bit of a fuss. On Tuesday, users around the world started having issues with one of Chrome's standout features. When typing their search queries into their address a number of users were directed to a blanks page. Anyone else seeing odd blank.html pages showing up in google results path when you search in Chrome?— Chris O'Rourke (@chrisorourke) July 3, 2012 Strange @google #chrome bug still unexplained. Looks like it's replaced l #IE in more ways than one... thenextweb.com/google/2012/07…— Andrew Walker (@Killdozer)...

  • Meffy awards set to highlight mobile content & commerce innovators

    By on 2 July, 2012

    In case you haven't heard, mobile is kinda a big thing -- and it's only going to get bigger. Mcommerce is set for a growth spurt, as global mobile payment transaction values are predicted to increase 61.9% from 2011 to hit US$171 billion by the end of the year. Mobile startups are selling for billions and mobile app developers are in hot demand. In order to find and showcase the greatest innovators in the mobile content and commerce industry, the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) has opened nominations for the 9th annual Meffy awards. The awards are judged by an...

  • 2oceansvibe radio divorces audio streaming provider NetDynamix

    By on 2 July, 2012

    Following an audit, 2oceansvibe Media has announced that it will be parting ways with its streaming provider, NetDynamix. In a statement issued today, 2oceansvibe said that the decision to part ways come after “gross inconsistencies” were discovered between the audited figures and those given to it in the past by NetDynamix. Stream and stats analysis will be taken over by Triton. The internet radio station calls the newly released audited figures “a massive shock when seen alongside the originally claimed stats”, but that the audit group still represents “opinion leaders and decision makers.” 2oceansvibe will continue to offer current pricing structures to...

  • 7 costly social media mistakes you must avoid making

    By on 2 July, 2012

    When it comes to the huge social web, various digital marketing professionals cannot help making mistakes with social media marketing. In their pursuit to promote their latest campaign, and to embrace this buzzing new medium, they keep on forgetting everything that they have learned about marketing. They are also ignoring the baseline rules and assume that this "one" time won't really matter. To be honest, it does. Especially to the audience they're trying to reach and engage with. With any new marketing method, mistakes are bound to happen. If you are into marketing and want to start using social media...

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