The South African blogosphere has in the past copped its share of criticism for being rather male, and rather pale. In recent years, there has been a surge of black South African bloggers writing on matters ranging from fashion to music, politics and the economy. Here is a list of black bloggers who are carving out mini-publishing empires -- and who provide a compelling snapshot of life, culture and business in South Africa right now.Khaya Dlanga - Thought Leader, YouTube, ...

"Jumping off the gw bridge sorry." These were the last words of Tyler Clementi, posted on his Facebook profile a few minutes before he leaped to his death off the George Washington Bridge outside New York City.The 18-year old student was outed as being gay after Dharun Ravi, his roommate at Rutgers University in New Jersey, along with another friend, Molly Wei, who had a room on the same corridor, secretly filmed Clementi using a webcam set up in his ...

There’s a new service coming out from Google, tentatively called “Baraza”, which is the term used for meeting place in Swahili. It’s a service focused on creating ways for Africans to interact and share knowledge by asking and answering questions, many of them hyper local, or of regional interest only.Google Baraza is accepting alpha testers right now, you can sign up to try out the new service at this link.Q&A websites like Baraza aren’t new, perhaps the best known one ...

Google's most important launch this year was its recent debut of Google Instant search which cuts user search time down by as much as 40%. Google users are, collectively, saving 11 hours every second, which translates into 11 hours less being spent using Google.Google is betting that if its users spend less time on search then it will make more money.This is a far different strategy to that of Facebook, which wants to be the stickiest place on the internet.The ...

Zambia's communications authority reversed its decision to shut down five main internet service providers on Wednesday, saying they would be allowed another chance to renew their licences.The Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority has "withdrawn its earlier statement indicating that five internet service providers should cease operations effective October 8," spokesman Lotty Kakubo said in a statement.24 hours earlier, the firms had been ordered to shut down by the end of the week, after regulators said the five providers had ...

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on Thursday ruled that Cell C's new 4Gs campaign is "dishonest" and "misleading" and must be withdrawn with "immediate effect".Cell C, a mobile operator in South Africa, recently launched what is now seen to be the fastest and cheapest mobile broadband in the country, a step up from current 3G offerings by competitors MTN and Vodacom.However it is not technically 4G, but a souped-up form of 3G, offering "speeds of up to 4G".Corne Koch of ...

American Internet entrepreneur and blogger Jason Calacanis used to be a good friend and business partner with Techcrunch founder, Mike Arrington. Together they launched a conference series but fell out and took different paths.Jemima Kiss at Guardian Unlimited reports: Jason Calacanis: Revenge is a new editorial project to rival TechCrunch"Calacanis claims Arrington froze him out of his chunk of the TechCrunch 50 event, but rather than wage full-on warfare, Calacanis is retaliating by aiming to beat TechCrunch at its own ...

Facebook on Wednesday began letting users form cozy cliques as part of a move to give people more control of their information at the world's most popular online social network.A Groups feature that lets Facebook members set up private online havens for clusters of co-workers, family, teammates, or others was unveiled at a press event at the firm's headquarters in the California city of Palo Alto."We think that what we have out of the box, version one, blows away everything ...

Die Antwoord, the faux-trailer trash South African hip-hop group, has just released the full version of their latest new music video on their Facebook page with the post "Evil Boy Music Video is here!"The group became an overnight, world-wide sensation when their first video single, "Enter the Ninja" appeared on popular blog Boing Boing, and then went viral on YouTube with millions of views at the beginning of this year. The band relied heavily on promoting their songs via Facebook, ...

Is it a book? Is it a film? Is it a game? Or all three? Publishers and authors at the world's biggest book fair are battling to entice a new generation of readers with the latest multimedia products.That the electronic book reader has turned the book industry on its head is well known. Younger readers are no longer content to thumb through a printed book. The 21st century iPad generation wants interaction and variety.But talk of the "ebook" that has ...