Ubisoft, the French developer of several smash-hit games including Ghost Recon and Rabbid, is making a play for the online gaming world by buying Owlient, a startup that has built a business creating free-to-play Internet games. The long game for Ubisoft is to crack open the potentially massively lucrative (or massively convertible to paid-for console gaming) world of tablet, social media and mobile phone gaming.Some of this strategy was already on the wind when it announced a free, online version ...

A Facebook petition has resulted in more than 170,000 people backing a call for Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to quit, days after an electoral reform rally was broken up by police firing tear gas.The page titled "100,000 People Request Najib Tun Razak Resignation" was set up on Saturday, the same day police arrested more than 1,600 people during a mass protest in the capital Kuala Lumpur.Backed by opposition parties, electoral reform group Bersih 2.0 mobilised thousands of people to ...

When Google's latest attempt at social networking, Google+, launched Memeburn wrote, "Google’s quest for social importance seems to be never ending". Some may now be tempted to find this quest as completed.In fact Paul Allen, founder of Ancestry.com (not Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder) has calculated what he thinks Google+'s numbers are. He boldly writes in a post on his Google+ stream, first picked up by social media blog Mashable, that Google+ will reach ten million users by July 12. He ...

Putting the functionality in place for users to comment on your content is key to building relationships with your readers. Getting them to engage with your website means that they will be more likely to return for more in the future, if their experience is good.Commenting is fast becoming a science, now rich in functionality to manage volumes of users and to keep the quality of the interactions higher (in most cases). This is why many sites outsource commenting ...

It's self-evident that most organisations have already rolled out their own email and personal information software (PIM) to their workforces. Are internal apps, however, the next step in productivity and mobility? One Johannesburg startup believes this trend is already underway, paving an opening for mobile to step into the next phase.Device Magic’s product Mobile Forms follows in the wake of the company’s launch at the beginning of the year. The product works by allowing a business or organisation ...

One of the contributing factors for South Africa receiving a lower than expected rating in Freedom House’s “Freedom on the net 2011″ report was -- as the report noted -- that “prices remain a significant barrier to internet access, especially for users of prepaid services," in the country.Recently, however, South African consumers have seen a dramatic shift when it comes to the price of broadband offerings.The opening salvo8ta, Telkom’s new mobile operator, slashed mobile broadband prices, firing the opening ...

Recognition of the internet’s part in the Arab Spring -- the uprisings for democracy in the Middle East this year -- has cemented the role of the internet as a tool for freedom and protest.The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), comprised of 56 nations from across the developed and developing world, has now formally recognised this fact.In a report published last week, the transnational body recognised that "access to the internet should be seen as a fundamental ...

Promoting your startup effectively is a critical step towards ensuring that your business makes it from being a big idea to a well known and self-sustaining concern.In a previous article, on Digital Marketing and what startups need to get right from the start, I mentioned that building a new business is like caring for a baby. Now it’s time to teach your baby to walk!Once you have completed the initial steps in marketing your business online, it is time ...

Twitter announced on Monday that the number of applications registered at the popular microblogging service has topped a million.Word of the milestone was released as the San Francisco-based startup launched a new website at dev.twitter.com for software developers interested in tailoring fun, hip or functional programs for Twitter.The aim of the new developer portal, built using the open-source Drupal CMS, is to create a more centralised platform for third-party developers. Twitter hopes that the new systems will provide "more flexibility, ...

Google has added extra imagery to its 13 established Street View countries in its "biggest update yet". The countries include Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Romania, Taiwan, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.Users can now enjoy everything from the landscapes of Tuscany to popular California landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge or the Getty Museum. Wine lovers can zoom across to Europe and see Italy’s famous Chianti region and other beautiful areas ...