Twitter co-founder Evan Williams has announced on the company's official blog that he is to step down in favour of the company's COO, Dick Costolo.Williams will now "completely focus on product strategy". Costolo is the co-founder and former CEO of Feedburner, which was acquired by Google in 2007.Writes Williams in a post entitled #newtwitterceo: "The challenges of growing an organization so quickly are numerous. Growing big is not success, in itself. Success to us means meeting our potential as a ...

PoweredbyVC is a venture capital fund based in Cape Town, initially established in 2010 by members of emerging market investment group Here Be Dragons (HBD) -- the company created by famous internet entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. PoweredbyVC now runs HBD's portfolio, and is always on the lookout for businesses to invest in.Keet Van Zyl, executive director at PoweredbyVC spoke to Memeburn about what he looks out for in a startup, discusses the investment environment right now and delivers some sound ...

I recently attended a London roadshow event held by Mobile Squared, a mobile research agency that provides insight into mobile advertising, content and services. The event was a global gathering focussed on mobile advertising. Here are seven critical insights from the conference:Simplicity works: A factor that was constantly highlighted was that an iPhone and Android-exclusive focus will not reach a broad audience. Simpler devices have more market share, and mobile friendly sites are possibly the primary way to reach a ...

So the Loeries weekend has come and gone – apart from the hangovers being nursed across Cape Town and Joburg this morning. And the Digital Awards, handed out on Sunday night, have also now officially been released on the Loeries Website.As one of the judges this year, I was privy to the inner workings of how the winners were chosen, and it seems only appropriate that I share some of my views and insights on "the whole shebang".Firstly, it's important ...

I recently attended a media roundtable in San Francisco with top executives from BitTorrent, which invented the popular file sharing technology that now has as much as 80-million monthly users.Here are some key points about how BitTorrent sees itself as a company, and where it wants to go:BitTorrent has been working on a live streaming technology for two years and now it is almost ready to be rolled out. The company expects to launch it by the end of ...

ThinkUp, a free software project founded by Gina Trapani of Lifehacker fame, helps you harvest insights from the conversations you have on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. One of ThinkUp's most compelling features is its ability to collect and organise replies to the questions you pose to your friends and followers on your social networks.The free, installable web-application is still in beta testing but has received a lot of positive acclaim already.With ThinkUp, you are able to store ...

With a global reach of 140-million service users worldwide, Nokia today announced that more than 200 000 people are signing up daily to Ovi and that the Ovi Store is delivering 2.3-million downloads per day. Available in 190 countries, Ovi is predominantly discovered through Maps, Music, Messaging, Apps Store and Ovi Lifetools.Earlier this year, Nokia South Africa introduced operator billing for consumers purchasing applications from Ovi Store in South Africa, making it possible for more consumers to purchase ...

The Social Network, a brand new feature film directed by David Fincher, is due to be released in South African cinemas on the fifth of November and promises to be a dramatic, semi-fictionalised look at the genesis of Facebook and the motivations of its founder Mark Zuckerberg.The film has received online acclaim on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and promises to be a must-see for all social media enthusiasts.The movie was adapted by famed writer Aaron Sorkin from the compelling 2009 ...

Apple’s recently launched iPhone4 has received greater internet search interest than Justin Bieber, despite the fact that the teen pop sensation was actually in South Africa at the time. This revelation comes from Google Zeitgeist-- a tool that provides insight into internet search trends.SA’s fascination with the latest gadgets is clearly evident, with the iPhone 4 topping the list of fastest rising searches from the last seven days, while Bieber only claims the number five spot. The YouTube star got ...

Ever wondered why Nigeria gets so little media coverage and why places like Japan enjoy so much more attention from the world’s press? That’s a question that concerned internet intellectual Ethan Zuckerman while he was doing research work at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.“Japan and Nigeria both have a population of about 130 million people. But if you look at a major newspaper outside of the African continent, you are about eight times as likely to see a ...