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  • Facebook’s Yahoo! dodge: The best move in tech history?

    By on 7 May, 2012

    When Facebook's IPO goes into full swing next week, the company is expected to be valued at around US$100-billion. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg meanwhile is set to walk away with a valuation of around US$25-billion. That's a large number, but it could've been a lot smaller if Facebook hadn't made what may turn out to be one of the best dodge's in tech history. Back in 2006, Yahoo! tried to buy the company for US$1-billion. Today Yahoo! is valued at around US$18.5-billion. Yup that's right, in a week's time Zuckerberg will be worth more than Yahoo!. When Facebook's...

  • MPesa: What does Kenya’s mobile darling look like five years on?

    By on 7 May, 2012

    When MPesa launched five years ago, only the most optimistic would’ve thought that it would turn into the economic force of nature it is today. Today the mobile money service has around 15-million users and about a third of the Kenyan GDP passes through it. Some think that MPesa has disrupted entire economies and others that it is the only real economic disruptor of the 21st-Century. The numbers bear that kind of thought out too. People can deposit money into MPesa accounts from 70 countries around the globe, 25 banks are connected to the service and KSH 1.8-billion (US$22-million) is...

  • They’re watching you: Non-members of social networks are still products

    By on 7 May, 2012

    A few people I know have removed their Facebook profiles, in the interest of gaining back some sense of privacy. In fact, I even know a couple of people who have never signed up to a social network in the first place. Sometimes I envy these people, just because they are taking a stand against a growing phenomenon that is rapidly turning personal data into a commercial product. Still, I have often wondered how much of a difference it makes if you choose not to belong to something as ubiquitous as Facebook or Google+. Now, a group of boffins...

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  • Five minutes with 22seven founder ahead of Net Prophet talk

    By on 7 May, 2012

    Online money management system 22seven blew into our collective consciousness at the beginning of this year under a controversial storm. Most of that controversy centered around the fact that the service allowed third-party applications to access users' banking details. The innovative startup is the brainchild of 20Twenty founder Christo Davel, and is billed as an "intelligent money-saving tool" that plugs directly and securely into users' personal bank accounts and then delivers analysis on spending habits. It’s one of the sexiest startups to launch on the African continent, with funds from multiple unnamed investors. Davel is a serial entrepreneur with a wealth...

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  • Does Google Auto-Translate spell trouble for your email campaign?

    By on 7 May, 2012

    Last week Google launched its auto-translate feature for Gmail, in theory making email a lot simpler for people who don't speak the same language. The automatic message translation (AMT) tool, which started as an experiment in Gmail Labs during 2009, has finally graduated to full inbox operating status. AMT works by providing you with an automatically prompted translate button for any message that Google recognises to be in your non-default language. So, if your default is set to Russian, Gmail will assume that's what you want everything to be translated to. However, you can still switch it to any other...

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  • Logitech Tablet Keyboard [Review]

    By on 7 May, 2012

    Was typing ever an issue on the iPad? For some, yeah it's a pain in the ass. The lack of tactile feedback leads to spelling errors, frustrations and eye rollings as you scream at the gods saying, "Why Apple, why?". So let's say that you fall into one of these camps. In this instance you need the Logitech Tablet Keyboard, an incredibly fancy piece of tech which connects via Bluetooth to an iPad, or an iPhone if you're mad enough. var 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");

  • Rocket Internet to launch price-comparison clone across SE Asia

    By on 7 May, 2012

    Rocket Internet is set to launch a price comparison site in South East Asia called PricePanda. The German-headquartered startup incubator has made something of a global empire for itself from cloning successful ecommerce business models. In fact, a recent article from GigaOm pegged the number of companies owned by Rocket Internet at around 38, operating in 58 countries. As is the case with most competing sites, PricePanda will allow people to see the prices of products across a number of ecommerce sites. The actual buying happens away from the site. According to The Next Web, the...

  • Evernote to build data centre, expand Chinese presence

    By on 7 May, 2012

    Evernote wants to expand its Chinese presence in a bid to crack what chief executive Phil Libin calls "the hardest" market. The company behind the note-taking and archiving software says it is preparing to build a data centre in China. The move will improve the company's service in the country but will also make its more than 1.1-million users in the country more vulnerable to government censorship. Indeed, the company may need to self-censor information on the service. Even Chinese giants such as Sina Weibo have faced stern warnings from the government for failing to stop its users from...

  • Win Star Wars: Kinect with Gearburn!

    By on 7 May, 2012

    Let's give away a copy of Star Wars: Kinect! Entry details are below. How to enter: Tweet @gearburn your favourite Star Wars quote. That's it! The most memorable one wins a copy of Star Wars: Kinect for Xbox 360. Please include the hashtag #gearburngiveaway. Tweet OR Leave your answer in the comments below. The competition will run from 7-14 May 2012. var 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");

  • Adobe CS6 ships today, Creative Cloud later this week

    By on 7 May, 2012

    Digital creatives delight. Adobe has announced that Creative Suite 6 is available as of today, with Creative Cloud to follow later this week. The release comes just two weeks after the announcement of CS6 and was confirmed in an official press release. In the release Adobe senior vice president David Wadhwani said: "We announced Creative Cloud and CS6 two weeks ago and these releases have caught the imagination of creatives everywhere. Today we're shipping CS6 and look forward to the beginning of an exciting new era as we introduce Creative Cloud later this week.” Creative Cloud is subscription-based offering...

  • Live your brand at IMC Cape Town

    By on 7 May, 2012

    These days everyone’s a marketer. We’re all trying to sell something, even if it’s only ourselves. Very few us have traditional training in the field, so it pays to get all the help we can get. That’s where events like the Integrated Marketing Communications Conference (IMC) come in. The conference which is set to take place of 5 and 6 June in Cape Town, claims that it will “cover all aspects of marketing, media, online and much more”. Conference organisers say they have selected speakers from a number of select fields, “representing various communication channels”. Each speaker will reportedly...

  • The Next Web’s IE9 partnership: the future of advertising or a load of crock?

    By on 4 May, 2012

    Websites, especially ones that only provide content, have to constantly find new and interesting ways of ensuring that users click on their display advertising. This is the only way that they can stay in business. But where do you draw the line between objectivity and "advertorial"? The Next Web is a four-year-old online publication that is focused on spreading the latest news about internet technology, business and culture. Boasting an average monthly audience of around 5.1-million (absolute, not unique) and around 7-million monthly page views, the site is certainly seen as a relevant and objective content provider. As part of...

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  • Building social communities: the NOT campaign opportunity

    By on 4 May, 2012

    The quiet moments between a company’s hyped marketing and communication campaigns are overlooked and under-valued marketing opportunities. Before the rise of social media it was acceptable to ignore these moments, but we now have the tools and the techniques to convert this ”downtime” into an opportunity to build loyal communities. Companies plan out their annual marketing campaigns with the focus of their budget spend on creating big spikes in interest and awareness. The size of the budget determines how many spikes there will be and how high they are, but regardless of the spend, there will always be quiet periods...

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  • Virgin Galactic: Space is much closer than you think

    By on 4 May, 2012

    Space: the final frontier, one small step and whatever other clichéd expression you might care to think of. Little by little though, it’s becoming something that could be within the reach of ordinary people. You’ve probably heard of Virgin Galactic. After all, it’s been kicking around for a few years now. Hell, you might have forgotten about it, or dismissed it as one of company founder Richard Branson’s pipe dreams, never to be realised. Thing is it’s closer to making its first space than you might think and it’s looking for passengers in emerging markets. The latest country to get...

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  • How do you measure social media ROI?

    By on 4 May, 2012

    Most of the time, return on investment (ROI) on a digital campaign can be measured through factors that are fairly quantifiable and direct. When it comes to the measurement of social media marketing and ROI, though, many businesses find it very difficult to connect returns with their social media investment. Social media marketing requires planning, scheduling, time, and organising of resources. Whatever you share online with your social media campaign needs to be organised and produced behind the scenes in an ongoing effort to keep the content relevant, unique, and fresh to consumers. The investment in social media is often...

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